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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
If we write ourselves off as a nation and a species, what does that accomplish? We still have to exist as humans in this country. That's just self-defeating.
My point is that if we want to win elections, we need to do things. And we need our voters to see us doing things. It's not enough to try, fail, and shrug our shoulders and go, "That's the system. I don't know what more you want from me."
When Republicans cheat and we let them cheat because we don't want to dirty our hands, that does not encourage people to vote for us. When Republicans get to put three Supreme Court Justices on the bench because Obama wasn't willing to be pushy about Merrick Garland and Mithc shamed him into staying silent about Trump's Russian connections, that does not encourage people to vote for us.
Voters turned out for Obama because they wanted the change he promised. And don't get me wrong, Obama tried. He made what progress he could. But whenever he hit the brick wall of Republican obstruction, he was unwilling to grab a drill. And that cost us. Badly.
We can't just count on voters still hating Trump in 2022 and 2024. If we want to excite leftists into turning out, Biden needs to be ready to play hard ball against the Republicans.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 13th 2020 at 11:33:01 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Couldn't Biden have any offending justices arrested for treason? I don't think that would actually require the Senate's approval.
"Wow, no Mega Togekiss in Legends Z-A. Or any non-Froslass new Sinnoh Mega Evolutions. Round of applause, everybody." - DawnSupreme Court justices are literally immune from that. It's not happening.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Trump was an authoritarian throughout his entire 4-year term. Personally I wouldn't mind Biden doing everything he could do to reverse what the Republicans did, even if the action seems dirty, because it would be less worse than what Trump did.
"Wow, no Mega Togekiss in Legends Z-A. Or any non-Froslass new Sinnoh Mega Evolutions. Round of applause, everybody." - DawnIf I recall correctly, the 'stages of grief' model isn't as reliable or as founded as it's commonly stated. I could be wrong about that, though.
Regarding treason: No, it's impossible to commit treason by its legal definition currently. It's a crime that can only be committed during a declared war against a nation state. Wars don't work that way anymore, so nobody can be charged with treason.
Edited by Protagonist506 on Nov 13th 2020 at 11:45:15 AM
Leviticus 19:34We walk a tightrope here. It is important for the short term that we fix the damage Trump did, but it is critical for the long term that we restore a sense of legitimacy to U.S. democracy, and that is only done by adhering to norms, not continuing to violate them. Otherwise it'll be a constant oscillation between a right-wing authoritarian and a left-wing authoritarian.
Edited by Fighteer on Nov 13th 2020 at 2:45:38 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Exactly. This is the kind of "They go low, we go high" people are always talking about. It doesn't mean being defenseless in the face of evil. It does however mean NOT stooping down to their level. We cannot fight "bad" authoritarianism with "good" authoritarianism, it doesn't work that way.
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% ScandinavianAnd the idea that sail way with trump I have to remind that biden, the moderate centrist was chosen and not sanders, we have to understand that in a sense, biden was chose in part to return to normancy and why that much is imposible to get back, people does want a good process to be held.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"The president can’t have people arrested, that fact is the only reason Biden is a free man, because Trump very much would have had him thrown in jail if it was possible.
And as people have pointed out treason wouldn’t be the viable charge even if the justice department did investigate Republicans, the only way it could become a viable charge would be if Republicans colluded with another nation that was a declared enemy, that probably means someone the US had declared war against, at a stretch you could try and extend it to a nation that’s having the “Trading with the Enemy” act applied to it.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranThe problem is this is already the norm the republicans play by and they aren't going to stop when they see it's working.
So basically, this creates two really bad potential scenarios.
The first is the democrats playing business as usual despite the republican party acting in bad faith. The Senate is difficult for democrats to gain a majority in, and ridiculously implausible for democrats to gain a 60 seat majority in. This means that at best in a short and medium-term, democratic presidents (if they win election) will have to rule by executive order which can be easily undone by a republican if they win office, therefore putting the country in a deadlock and making international relations unstable as foreign leaders won't know whether the US will have a sane person in control of the presidency every 4 years.
And this is before you take into account how republicans are constantly undermining democratic norms anyway, trying to cast doubt on the process and giving every advantage possible to themselves in bad faith so they can enforce minority rule. So unfortunately, the US sliding into authoritarianism is already looking disturbingly plausible.
The second potential scenario is the democrats taking a more aggressive stance to fight back against the GOP, potentially risking a backlash from moderates and energizing the republican base even more than usual (I don't know how much this would matter honestly, they already hate the left so much at this point regardless and vote consistently), and making the GOP strike back even harder if they win an election. The question then becomes, how far should they go and what would the public find fair?
In my opinion, killing the filibuster offers very little downside both from a moral and practical perspective. Republicans don't really seem to need it to get everything they want even when they don't have 60 seats, and if it ever becomes inconvenient for them they would get rid of it instantly. But getting rid of it allows the democrats to actually do stuff without needing to care about Mitch's bad faith demands. Obama of all people has already said they should get rid of it, citing its use in the Jim Crow era to block civil rights legislation, and Obama is far from being a radical, so that says a lot right there.
Adding DC and Puerto Rico as states is morally correct and also in the case of the latter isn't even guaranteed to benefit democrats anyway, more realistically they would need to fight hard to make Puerto ricans trust them and win their votes.
I think the realm of court packing and anything more than that is where things start to get more dicey from a PR perspective.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Nov 13th 2020 at 5:53:27 PM
"Couldn't Biden have any offending justices arrested for treason? I don't think that would actually require the Senate's approval."
I'm sorry, what? On what grounds? This is insane; it's unconstitutional and a waste of public good will.
There isn't a quick fix to dealing with the GOP and there never was. The Democrats need to grind it out every day for the next four years establishing the fundamentals of a party infrastructure, not hope for bizarre scenarios to rescue them. Like, there's an overwhelming focus on election-adjacent government within the American left, and it's either because of a sense of defeatism in the process or a disinterest in it, and it's damned annoying.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."What's with these unforced errors? Even if that's all true, it's really bad optics.
Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.Honestly, there's some decent RICO precedents for the Republican leadership.
If we arrest the entire Republican leadership there would be blood in the streets, and I'm not talking about domestic terrorism. I mean, insurrection if not outright civil war.
Even if such a move was dejure permitted it would be defacto extremely dangerous.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Nov 13th 2020 at 1:17:28 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangAnd where do we draw the line between stepping around Republican obstruction and "'good' authoritarianism"? Because guess what; if you give 200 Democrats a stick and tell them to draw that line, you're gonna get 40 different lines.
i'm tired, my friendEdited by ScubaWolf on Nov 13th 2020 at 4:31:03 AM
"In a move surprising absolutely no one"The Sanders people seriously need to STFU. Biden won. There is no definite evidence that "more progressive" policies would have fared better.
Edit: Not that you're
saying that, just throwing it out there.
The United States got where it is in the world by establishing stable institutions and continuity of governance. We should treat the Trump era as an aberration, not seek to emulate it.
Edited by Fighteer on Nov 13th 2020 at 4:32:50 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Well to be honest, in terms of people going up for election...it seems that every person who was for M 4 A won at the polls in the democratic party. Those who were not for it, ended up losing. Not to say that correlation equals causation, just pointing out a trend.
On the case of the Republicans, it's out of our hands. We're basically praying for justice from the karma of the universe at this point, because we can't do anything about the Republican majority in the Senate, we can only make it an equal split (which is marginally better).
Edited by ScubaWolf on Nov 13th 2020 at 4:34:34 AM
"In a move surprising absolutely no one"That's a correlation, but was that because the more progressive Democrats were more popular generally or because they were running in safer districts? You can afford to take more principled positions if you're 70-30 blue than if you're 51-49 blue.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

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Which is why Biden can work on removing him from the court for being partial. As an added bonus, if Injustice Karen shows similar hostility to nonpartisanship, Biden can remove her as well.
"Wow, no Mega Togekiss in Legends Z-A. Or any non-Froslass new Sinnoh Mega Evolutions. Round of applause, everybody." - Dawn