TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

The General US Politics Thread

Go To

Nov 2023 Mod notice:


There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.

If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines before posting here.

Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.

If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules when posting here.


In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.

Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

TheWildWestPyro from Seattle, WA Since: Sep, 2012 Relationship Status: Healthy, deeply-felt respect for this here Shotgun
#282801: Jun 16th 2019 at 7:06:36 PM

Now, normally I avoid this place like the plague, but I've come to ask a question, not being American-born and all.

There have been many comments by Americans on the recent Hong Kong protests suggesting that something similar be done to protest against Trump.

They've been throwing around a lot of reasons towards why it hasn't been achieved, but the joke in HK is that American riot police would open fire with live ammo if the protesters got the slightest bit violent, ie. setting up barricades and hurling bricks.

I would like to ask if the riot police would so if such a protest was done in America.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#282802: Jun 16th 2019 at 7:20:26 PM

Generally, protests get tear gassed in America and beaten with batons versus outright shot these days.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#282803: Jun 16th 2019 at 7:22:17 PM

Most likely not on a mass scale, given the infamy of what happened with the Kent State protest. Nevertheless individual cops could probably get away with it and have their cases dismissed as "reasonable" self-defense since such laws are heavily biased in favor of people shooting at the slightest provocation, even if it turns out the person shot was not actually a threat and didn't have a weapon on them. Or worse, was a literal child.

Edited by AlleyOop on Jun 16th 2019 at 10:22:56 AM

TheAirman Brightness from The vicinity of an area adjacent to a location Since: Feb, 2011 Relationship Status: Historians will say we were good friends.
Brightness
#282804: Jun 16th 2019 at 8:12:17 PM

Given the increased militarization of police, and the current administration, I wouldn't at all be surprised if bullets started getting fired at a protest on the scale of what HK has right now. But yeah, tear gas first. I don't expect it, but I wouldn't be surprised. But if more than a stray cop or two were to start shooting, especially in that situation, I imagine all hell would break loose.

In other news, I just learned that Biden voted to restore citizenship to Jefferson Davis. Yes, that Jefferson Davis. What the actual fuck, man?!

PSN ID: FateSeraph | Switch friendcode: SW-0145-8835-0610 Congratulations! She/They
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#282805: Jun 16th 2019 at 8:19:51 PM

Policy issues to mull over while we're waiting for the debate. Note: I just googled each candidate's name and "Policy" and looked for the latest news, so make of that what you will.

Joe Biden - Climate Policy: Biden calls for a Clean Energy Revolution and cites the Green New deal as "a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face." Specifics include:

  • Net zero emissions by 2050 via executive order.
  • Invest in infrastructure to withstand climate crisis.
  • Return to the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
  • Go after big polluter companies.
  • Reinvest in coal and Rust Belt communities to transfer them off pollutant energy.

Bernie Sanders - 21st Century Bill of Rights: Bernie declares his socialism is the continuation of the New Deal. This isn't actually a policy platform, but it did clarify his outlook so I thought it was worth including.

  • We've been in this situation before. Nationalism, authoritarianism, and bigotry rose in the wake of the Great Depression. But the US chose the New Deal over fascism, and were saved from the dictatorships that destroyed Europe.
  • Democratic socialism - read: anything that helps everyone - is just the New Deal carrying on. Proof? Republicans from Hoover to Reagan to Gingrich to Trump have called every single program Democrats have championed totalitarian socialism, which not only has always been proven false, but the programs have always helped the people.
  • Republicans love socialism when it helps banks, fossil fuels, and pharmaceuticals, and other big businesses. While CEO's get richer, everyone else is struggling even in a strong economy.
  • People aren't truly free if their financial situations are so dire, they can't afford homes, school, retirement, or getting sick.

Elizabeth Warren - People of Color Small Business Policy: Warren points out that minority entrepreneurs typically start off with only a third of the investment capital that white business starters do, which drives down their profits and employment opportunities. To solve this:

  • Establishment of a Department of Economic Development
  • A $7 billion fund for qualified entrepreneurs who have less then $100,000 in household wealth.
  • Diversify investment managers to include more minorities and women.
  • Expand on the Minority Business Development Agency — an organization dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs of color with access to funding networks and business advice.

Pete Buttigieg - Foreign Policy: Buttigieg championed his foreign policy as more pragmatic and concrete that previous Democratic administrations, that they couldn't go back to the 90's or 00's any more than the Republicans could go back to the 50's. His plans are:

  • Repeal and replace the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Act which gives the president incredibly broad authority to engage in military action.
  • Go back to the Iran Deal.
  • Cut off funding to Israel if they annex the West Bank.
  • Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement.

That took longer than I thought. Well, they're the first four. More to come!

Gilphon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#282806: Jun 16th 2019 at 8:22:09 PM

[up][up]I mean, personally, I'm not inclined to get all that mad about a purely symbolic vote that happened 40 years ago, which is being brought up purely to prove a point about how things have changed since the 70s.

Edited by Gilphon on Jun 16th 2019 at 11:23:23 AM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#282807: Jun 16th 2019 at 8:22:22 PM

Here's a Time article from a couple years back on this topic

I also couldn't help but notice that most of the news articles about Biden's vote are all heavily rightwing ones.

Washington Examiner? WND? Daily Caller?

Yeesh. I'm all for hearing news about how Biden is a garbage candidate, but maybe we shouldn't be linking to rightwing or far-right rags?

[up][up]Pretty much what I expected. I see Warren's trying the "court minority votes" strategy. 538 did suggest that this was a route she should take.

And it seems like Buttigieg has realized that the stuff he said in the past about Israel might have been a tad controversial.

Edited by M84 on Jun 16th 2019 at 11:28:38 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
TheAirman Brightness from The vicinity of an area adjacent to a location Since: Feb, 2011 Relationship Status: Historians will say we were good friends.
Brightness
#282808: Jun 16th 2019 at 8:35:52 PM

That was just the article linked to me on the topic, I didn't realize the source was far-right drivel, wasn't all that familiar with it, my apologies.

Frankly, its because it was a purely symbolic vote that it pisses me off more than if it was him voting for some bullshit super neoliberal or republican bill, those could at least theoretically be given a bullshit lesser-of-two-evils excuse. I guess he could say he did it out of spite against Davis' desire to not repent or seek a pardon. Yes, times have changed, and I am glad they have - I don't want to have lived in the 70s (aside from the price of college, anyways).

Edited by TheAirman on Jun 16th 2019 at 10:37:41 AM

PSN ID: FateSeraph | Switch friendcode: SW-0145-8835-0610 Congratulations! She/They
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#282809: Jun 16th 2019 at 8:37:03 PM

Diversify investment managers to include more minorities and women.

I'm glad Warren is doing a lot to tackle economic disparity when it comes to minorities, and I'm not one to push for aggressive adoption of socialist/communist economics, but that does seem a bit like their talking point about changing the guards at prison, given that investor culture is a major reason for the problems with big business. Diversifying them, while it would probably help reducing the concordance of classism with racism, wouldn't exactly do much to fix that culture and its obsession with unsustainable growth and negligence towards workers.

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#282810: Jun 16th 2019 at 8:38:17 PM

I'm also not a Biden supporter right now, but I share Gilphon's sentiments. The article even points out that Jimmy Carter was the one who signed the bill. I can't really get worked up over symbolic votes that happened when my mom was a toddler and that Biden probably wouldn't do today.

Pretty much what I expected. I see Warren's trying the "court minority votes" strategy. 538 did suggest that this was a route she should take.

My favorite part of this insane world we live in is that this plan would undoubtedly greatly help my family but they're too far down the Fox News hole to see it as anything other that racist communist fascism.

wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#282811: Jun 16th 2019 at 8:54:39 PM

Warren has a million other plans for completely restructuring our f***ed up economy/markets/jobs, and all of them include addressing racial justice and systemic inequality; helping increase minority and white women businesses isn’t just rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship, it’s part of a much larger whole.

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#282812: Jun 16th 2019 at 9:17:10 PM

Well, it's more that as long as our economic system consists of businesses being owned almost completely by the shareholders and not the workers (which is the definition of the socialist/communist system, and in its hybrid form where the workers own a more substantial share, social democratic systems) it's going to be difficult to shake off that mindset without some form of legal action to completely disincentivize their emphasis on growth. That more of those shareholders would no longer be white men wouldn't necessarily bring an end to that mindset, as the rest of the world shows that plenty of nonwhite and nonmale shareholders can be just as greedy and moneygrubbing as the rest of them.

Although as has been pointed out before by other tropers, that mindset represents a relatively recent shift in shareholder philosophy, which I believe was said to be tied to the fact that corporate and income taxes used to be much, much higher and more heavily regulated. So perhaps there is a way to put this malevolent genie back in the bottle with proper legislation as opposed to complete overthrow.

Edited by AlleyOop on Jun 16th 2019 at 12:19:58 PM

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#282813: Jun 16th 2019 at 9:23:59 PM

Gordon Gecko, of all fictional characters, actually addressed the issue very early in the original Wallstreet that the people involved in making the decisions for the company are not necessarily the people who are working for the shareholders, workers, or even each other. Shareholders benefit most from temporarily inflating the price of businesses then selling them versus actually sticking in as part owners. However, the executives are very often inclined to play fast and loose with information to benefit themselves first.

Enron also shows that the dangers of "worker owned companies" aren't nearly as big a defense as you might think because the company's stock was primarily owned by its employees with a strong emphasis on them making their investment portfolios around an Enron-based plan. That didn't prevent the executives from screwing the share holders (employees) of as much as they could before leaving them holding the bag. The executives just cashed out before the destruction of the share's value.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jun 16th 2019 at 9:25:24 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#282814: Jun 16th 2019 at 9:24:33 PM

One of Warren’s plans involves increased employee ownership and employees on the boards for large corporations IIRC

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#282815: Jun 16th 2019 at 9:26:40 PM

I'm just saying that's not necessarily a benefit because all of the executives at Enron were employees as well. They just brought in the upper management into their circle.

I think a larger issue is, ironically, transparency as government law actually prevents it in order to prevent "cheating" in trading.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#282816: Jun 16th 2019 at 9:52:14 PM

Trump Wants to Neutralize Democrats on Health Care. Republicans Say Let It Go. – If the president follows through on issuing a plan, it could help shape a presidential race that Democrats would like to focus largely on health care.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/16/us/politics/trump-health-care-democrats-2020.html

As President Trump prepares to kick off his bid for a second term this week, he is anxiously searching for a way to counter Democrats on health care, one of their central issues, even though many of his wary Republican allies would prefer he let it go for now.

Since he announced his previous run four years ago, Mr. Trump has promised to replace President Barack Obama’s health care law with “something terrific” that costs less and covers more without ever actually producing such a plan.

Now he is vowing to issue the plan within a month or two, reviving a campaign promise with broad consequences for next year’s contest. If he follows through, it could help shape a presidential race that Democrats would like to focus largely on health care.

While the president has acknowledged that no plan would be voted on in Congress until 2021, when he hopes to be in a second term with Republicans back in charge of the House, he is gambling that putting out a plan to be debated on the campaign trail will negate some of the advantage Democrats have on the issue.

But nervous Republicans worry that putting out a concrete plan with no chance of passage would only give the Democrats a target to pick apart over the next year. The hard economic reality of fashioning a plan that lives up to the promises Mr. Trump has made would invariably involve trade-offs unpopular with many voters.


California goes even bigger on Obamacare – The state is advancing a sweeping health care package that could shape Democrats' debate over universal coverage.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/16/california-obamacare-health-care-1530461

Edited by sgamer82 on Jun 16th 2019 at 10:54:09 AM

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#282817: Jun 16th 2019 at 9:55:33 PM

Though the risk of it somehow getting passed anyway is greater than zero, I hope Trump continues to waste his and the Republicans' time on legislation that will likely go nowhere and which the Democrats can continue to use to turn fencesitters against them.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#282818: Jun 17th 2019 at 6:36:01 AM

I hope he actually gets a plan together, only for McConnell to have to publicly shut it down and refuse to hold a vote.

That kind of spectacle may actually turn Trumpists against Republicans in a way that can only benefit Democrats going into 2020.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#282819: Jun 17th 2019 at 9:11:27 AM

Dems probing Trump have a new tactic to break his blockade
House Democrats are prepping a new oversight strategy to circumvent Trump's stonewalling.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/17/lewandowski-christie-manafort-witnesses-obstruction-investigation-1365814

Democrats investigating Donald Trump for obstruction of justice are eyeing a new strategy to break the president’s all-out oversight blockade: calling witnesses who never worked in the White House.

Key lawmakers tell POLITICO they hope to make an end run around Trump’s executive privilege assertions by expanding their circle of testimony targets to people outside government who nonetheless had starring roles in Robert Mueller’s final report. That includes presidential confidants like former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Other Russia-related figures who never served in Trump’s administration and would make for prime congressional witnesses include Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, the former top campaign officials who both pleaded guilty and faced extensive questioning by federal prosecutors working on the Mueller probe, as well as a former attorney for Michael Flynn who is cited in the special counsel’s report in an episode involving a dangled presidential pardon.

“These people could be called without any reasonable shred of a claim of executive privilege,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a pro-impeachment member of the Judiciary panel that’s leading the obstruction probe.

The new line of thinking comes amid Democrats’ mounting frustration at the White House’s ability to slow their investigations to a crawl by blocking witnesses and documents. Such a move might circumvent the president’s resistance and show much-needed momentum for the party.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#282820: Jun 17th 2019 at 9:13:31 AM

I still don't see why contempt motions and arrests aren't on the table for more of this. Are House Dems desperate to prove to future administrations that their oversight role has no teeth?

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#282821: Jun 17th 2019 at 10:45:01 AM

My understanding of it is basically that Nancy Pelosi doesn't want to rock the boat. Democrats are doing well in polls and she'd rather coast into the 2020 election on that than risk upsetting the status quo by doing something dramatic in the meantime.

It's not a terrible plan. Not very viscerally satisfying (who doesn't want to see Trump impeached and thrown out of office?), but not bad political strategy. If your goal is simply to get Trump out of office, then voting him out in 2020 is much more likely to succeed than impeaching him, where it would go to Mitch McConnell's Senate for the verdict.

The counterargument, of course, is that impeachment hearings are likely to boost the Democrat's chances of beating Trump in 2020, as they would put Trump's crimes front and center in a way that would be difficult for the right wing to ignore. But there's a risk of backfire, where the right plugs their ears and covers their eyes and declares that it's all a Democratic deep state witch hunt etc etc, and the hearings just fire up the Republican base. And if we get unlucky and Trump is reelected in 2020, well, it's possible that we'll end up with a Democratic majority in the Senate in 2021 and we can always impeach Trump then.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#282822: Jun 17th 2019 at 10:47:17 AM

Supreme Court upholds lower court decision to strike down racially gerrymandered districts in Virginia.

Curiously, it was decided on a technicality. The case was being brought up by Republican controlled House, rather than the entire legislature. "One House of its bicameral legislature cannot alone continue the litigation against the will of its partners in the legislative process." said Ginsburg, so they threw the case out.

Interestingly the vote to uphold the ruling was Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan, and conservatives Thomas and Gorsuch.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#282823: Jun 17th 2019 at 11:17:47 AM

So, they said the plaintiffs don't have standing to bring the case? Interesting.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#282824: Jun 17th 2019 at 11:58:13 AM

I presume they don't want to make a broader ruling. Cold feet syndrome and if any of the original plaintiffs subscribe to Streitbare Demokratie it might not end up well for the health of the conservative judges.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#282825: Jun 17th 2019 at 12:00:35 PM

Actually this... isn’t super radical from a legal perspective. There is no case without standing. I can’t sue over my brother being punched; I’m not the one who was harmed. Likewise, a state house of reps can’t sue over a law that the state attorney general won’t defend- that’s not their prerogative.


Total posts: 417,856
Top