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

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#283076: Jun 20th 2019 at 8:35:06 AM

Just because wartime bumps have happened doesn't mean they always happen. Generally, you need a casus belli that's convincing enough to inspire people. And I don't see any evidence that the Trump administration has that.

Not to mention that who the president is also matters, I don't see how historically unpopular and incompetent Trump is going to be able to sell a war to the American people.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jun 20th 2019 at 8:35:19 AM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
GoldenKaos Captain of the Dead City from Cirith Ungol Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
Captain of the Dead City
#283077: Jun 20th 2019 at 8:48:41 AM

Did anyone get a wartime bump from Vietnam? Something tells me that one of the reasons Kennedy escalated matters was because they didn't think his Presidency would survive not taking a strong stance against communism somewhere...

"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
Gilphon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#283078: Jun 20th 2019 at 9:02:40 AM

That's of course, the other big caveat: Losing a war has never made anybody more popular.

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#283079: Jun 20th 2019 at 9:07:14 AM

[up]It made Nixon more popular, ironically. "Peace with honor," which translates to "communists take over all of Indochina."

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#283080: Jun 20th 2019 at 9:16:29 AM

Nixon didn't start Vietnam though.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
FergardStratoavis A Fluff Ringer from Bellveins (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: A gay little love melody
A Fluff Ringer
#283081: Jun 20th 2019 at 9:42:15 AM

"It can't be Warren, and it can't be Sanders" - a voice from Wall Street executives

"It can't be Warren and it can't be Sanders," the CEO of a "giant bank" anonymously told Politico, which reported on Monday that Wall Street executives are "getting panicked" about the presidential prospects of the Senate's two fiercest financial sector critics.

Warren launched an exploratory committee for president last month, vowing to take on the "corruption" that is "poisoning our democracy." Sanders, for his part, has yet to publicly announce a bid for the White House—but Yahoo News reported on Friday that the Vermont senator plans to launch his campaign "imminently."

"The result is a kind of nervous paralysis of executives pining for a centrist nominee like Michael Bloomberg," Politico noted, referring to the billionaire former New York City mayor, who is reportedly considering a self-funded presidential bid.

According to Politico, Wall Street executives who want Trump out of the White House mentioned "a consistent roster of appealing nominees" they would find acceptable outside of Bloomberg, who the outlet describes as Wall Street's "platonic ideal."

This "roster" reportedly included Democratic Sens. Cory Booker (N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), and Kamala Harris (Calif.); former Vice President Joe Biden; and former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas).

Not sure about the credibility of the source, so make of that what you will.

Eschaton Since: Jul, 2010
#283082: Jun 20th 2019 at 9:42:30 AM

I could see Trump avoiding a war with Iran, knowing how deeply unpopular the Iraq War became, only to launch a war with Iran moments before Biden assumes office in order to dump it on him instead, knowing how unpopular the Iraq War became.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#283083: Jun 20th 2019 at 10:16:36 AM

Trump's isolationism is a major element of his actual (he has like 3) beliefs. I don't think he plans on starting a war with Iran and is annoyed that his hirees expected him too.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#283084: Jun 20th 2019 at 10:16:37 AM

Thank God congress would never permit him to pull something like that,an out going president attempting to pull a fast one would be met with "Yes mr president of course,let me get a pen *makes rude hand gestures as he's leaving the whitehouse*

[up][up]

Edited by Ultimatum on Jun 20th 2019 at 5:17:02 PM

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Eschaton Since: Jul, 2010
#283085: Jun 20th 2019 at 10:21:56 AM

How much say would Congress have if, on January 19, the Commander in Chief told military staff "we need to take immediate action right now"?

Edited by Eschaton on Jun 20th 2019 at 10:23:41 AM

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#283086: Jun 20th 2019 at 10:26:04 AM

Only Congress can declare war, period.

Oh really when?
Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#283087: Jun 20th 2019 at 10:28:36 AM

I believe the House voted to revoke the 2001 AUMF thing. Not sure if it passed Senate yet (if at all).

"Yup. That tasted purple."
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#283088: Jun 20th 2019 at 10:31:59 AM

It’s possible that in such a situation the military would either delay and demand orders in triplicate or the cabinet would invoke the 25th.

I would expect military bureaucracy to stop Trump starting a war on his way out.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#283089: Jun 20th 2019 at 10:35:28 AM

They'll drill their troops and probably conduct a few exercises and look busy until he's out of earshot,but yeah they got all these forms to fill out that just appeared from nowhere..and they all need signing too

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Mio Since: Jan, 2001
#283090: Jun 20th 2019 at 10:36:31 AM

[up][up][up]I don’t think it ever made it to a full house vote.

[up][up]I wouldn’t be so sure of that. The military in general is very supportive of Trump and I’m sure he could find enough willing officers to do such a thing, especially if the new President is considered anti-military.

Edited by Mio on Jun 20th 2019 at 1:37:08 PM

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#283091: Jun 20th 2019 at 10:39:17 AM

What you're describing is a coup at that point or significant portions of the military going rouge.

By far and away, nobody in the government hates Trump more than the military leadership.

Edited by LeGarcon on Jun 20th 2019 at 1:40:05 PM

Oh really when?
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#283092: Jun 20th 2019 at 10:41:13 AM

I doubt that. The EPA and Do J employees who signed up because they want to help the environment and serve justice probably hate him more.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#283093: Jun 20th 2019 at 11:27:30 AM

Regardless he’s not well liked by the officers and generals, it’s the lower ranks that like Trump, not the upper ones.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Grafite Since: Apr, 2016 Relationship Status: Less than three
#283094: Jun 20th 2019 at 11:36:49 AM

Regardless, no one is at the point of no return. Both Trump and Rouhani have publicly declared they do not wish to see war. Only each country's more bellicose factions, the Boltons and Revolutionary Guard, want it to happen.

Life is unfair...
Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#283095: Jun 20th 2019 at 11:37:53 AM

I'm seriously scared at the moment, as I have family over in Iran.

None that I know very well, to be fair, but still....

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#283096: Jun 20th 2019 at 11:41:30 AM

Well, of course Wall Street won't like Warren or Sanders.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#283097: Jun 20th 2019 at 11:44:54 AM

But Sanders said Warren was supposed to be the pawn of Corporate Democrats.

"Yup. That tasted purple."
TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#283098: Jun 20th 2019 at 11:59:24 AM

Remarkably enough, war remains unpopular in the US, and there's a quite vocal section of Trump's base which is very isolationist and anti-war, to the extent that Breitbart was flooded with comments bemoaning how "Trump is selling out to the war establishment" when he launched a few missiles at Syria. The question is whether Bolton, Pompeo, and the other Iran hawks can bend his ear and either convince him to go to war, or convince him to take steps to escalate until some stupid or catastrophic incident demands war, and Trump will look weak if he doesn't. (It's really, really, hard to overstate how much Bolton despises and wants to invade Iran. This is a guy who gave a speech in 2016 to the MEK, [an anti-Iran group that used to be listed as a terrorist group until 2012 or '14] where he had lines about overthrowing the Iranian regime before the 40th anniversary of the revolution [which would be this year, BTW] and how they would be celebrating in Tehran by 2019. See here)

If they frame it in terms of Trump looking weak after some kind of provocation or after Americans get killed or attacked somehwere, despite his instincts towards isolationism, I'm willing Trump will be looking for a war in not time.

How much say would Congress have if, on January 19, the Commander in Chief told military staff "we need to take immediate action right now"?

Only Congress can declare war, period.

Only Congress can declare war, but IIRC the president as Commander in Chief still has the ability to make war for up to 90 days without Congressional approval, as per the Constitution. Also, there is the AUMF thing, as last week the admin was trying to argue that it would allow them to attack Iran, trying to build a link between Al-Queda and Iran. Having declared the IRGC a terrorist organization earlier in the year is probably also a step along this road.

Link

For months, President Donald Trump and some of his top officials have claimed Iran and al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that launched the 9/11 terror attacks, are closely linked. That’s been a common refrain despite evidence showing their ties aren’t strong at all. In fact, even al-Qaeda’s own documents detail the weak connection between the two.

But insisting there’s a nefarious, continual relationship matters greatly. In 2001, Congress passed an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), allowing the president “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.”

Which means that if the Trump administration truly believes Iran and al-Qaeda have been in cahoots before or after 9/11, then it could claim war with Tehran already is authorized by law.

That chilling possibility was raised during a House Armed Services Committee session early Thursday morning by an unlikely pair: Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a top Trump ally, and Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a Pentagon official in the Obama administration.

“The notion that the administration has never maintained that there are elements of the 2001 AUMF that would authorize their hostilities toward Iran is not consistent with my understanding of what they said to us,” said Gaetz. “We were absolutely presented with a formal presentation on how the AUMF might authorize war on Iran,” added Slotkin right after, although she noted no one said they would use it to greenlight a fight.

It doesn’t help that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an anti-Iran hardliner, told lawmakers behind closed doors in May that he felt Americans would support a war with Tehran if the US or its allies were attacked, congressional sources familiar with that conversation told me.

The Trump administration already blames Iran for multiple attacks on oil tankers in a strategic Middle Eastern waterway, including two Thursday on Japanese- and Norwegian-owned vessels.

None of this means the US and Iran are going to war anytime soon, or even at all. But it does mean the administration may feel it has the legal basis to do so if it wanted to.

On the surface, al-Qaeda and Iran make an odd pairing. Iran is a Shia Muslim state, and al-Qaeda is a radical Sunni terrorist organization, so it stands to reason that they would have no business interacting with each other.

But it turns out they have worked together before.

Here’s a section from the 9/11 Commission report, the most authoritative account of how the attacks happened and the backstory behind al-Qaeda’s rise:

In late 1991 or 1992, discussions in Sudan between al Qaeda and Iranian operatives led to an informal agreement to cooperate in providing support — even if only training — for actions carried out primarily against Israel and the United States. Not long afterward, senior al Qaeda operatives and trainers traveled to Iran to receive training in explosives. In the fall of 1993, another such delegation went to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon for further training in explosives as well as in intelligence and security. Bin Ladin reportedly showed particular interest in learning how to use truck bombs such as the one that killed 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983. The relationship between al Qaeda and Iran demonstrated that Sunni-Shia divisions did not necessarily pose an insurmountable barrier to cooperation in terrorist operations.

Iran’s proxy group in Lebanon, Hezbollah, also helped train al-Qaeda operatives ahead of its 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In 2003, al-Qaeda killed more than 30 people in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, and the plotters fled to Iran. Eight years later, the Obama administration said there was a “secret deal” between Iran and al-Qaeda “to funnel funds and operatives through its territory.”

The US government maintains that Iran and al-Qaeda remain linked in that way. Take this, from a 2012 State Department report: Iran “allowed AQ [al-Qaeda] members to operate a core facilitation pipeline through Iranian territory, enabling AQ to carry funds and move facilitators and operatives to South Asia and elsewhere.” A nearly identical passage exists in the latest version of the annual report from 2018, although that one specifically mentions “Syria” as a destination for the “facilitators and operatives.”

Those kinds of statements have led some experts to say the AUMF can be invoked to approve a war with Tehran. “If the facts show Iran or any other nation is harboring al Qaeda, that’s a circumstance which would make the argument for the applicability of the 2001 AUMF quite strong,” retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap Jr., now at Duke University, told the Washington Times in February.

As for the state of AUMF:

[up][up][up]I don’t think it ever made it to a full house vote.

It did pass the House in a vote, according to all the news I can find. Prospects in the Senate are pretty horrific, however.

Edited by TheWanderer on Jun 20th 2019 at 3:03:33 PM

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#283099: Jun 20th 2019 at 12:18:32 PM

[up]

Especially with McConnell stonewalling pretty much all House legislation. And for no good reason, either, as evidenced from March 9th when asked why he was bringing the Green New Deal to a vote, but not election reform - "Because I decide what we get to vote on."

I wish I was making that up.

They did pass a joint resolution blocking the sale of arms to Saudia Arabia and UAE today, though, so... yay. But to the larger point, according to 538's records, there have been 15 bills passed by the Senate so far in 2019, two of which only happened today.

Edited by ironballs16 on Jun 20th 2019 at 3:32:20 PM

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#283100: Jun 20th 2019 at 12:33:25 PM

[up] Of course there's a reason, "DEMOCRATS BAD!!!!!" is as good a reason as any, from the GOP's perspective.


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