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

nova92 Since: Apr, 2020
#344051: Dec 18th 2020 at 6:34:03 PM

On the importance of picking Haaland for Interior, from Business Insider:

Haaland, a first-term congresswoman representing New Mexico's 1st Congressional District, is a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo tribe in New Mexico and, along with Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas, was one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress in 2018.

If confirmed, Haaland would the first-ever Native American to serve at the Cabinet level in a presidential administration. In addition to the historic and symbolic nature of her selection, Haaland would directly oversee the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Indian Education, and the bureau charged with managing financial assets Native Americans hold with the federal government.

That role would give her the power to play a key role in restoring trust and repairing the historically fraught and painful relationship between the federal government and the 574 federally-recognized Native American tribes, Native activists told Insider.


"The Department of the Interior is the agency really charged with holding that federal trust responsibility that the US government has with tribal nations here in the United States. And it's been a horrible relationship. It's been an abusive relationship. It's one that has been wrought with fraud and corruption...with mismanagement of tribal funds and just very paternalistic, very unhealthy," Crystal Echo Hawk, the executive director of nonprofit IllumiNative and a citizen of the Pawnee Nation, told Insider in early December.

Haaland recently told Insider's Kayla Epstein that one of her top priorities as Interior Secretary would to be to improve the tribal consultation process, the procedure by which the federal governments seeks input from Native tribes on a wide array of environmental and other issues that directly impact them.

Haaland said the Trump administration has tossed that process "out the window" in pursuing development and resource extraction on public lands.

"We all get very excited just thinking about the opportunity to really finally start to reset that relationship that the federal government has with tribes, and having a Native person and a Native woman at the helm of that," Echo Hawk said. "And it's not going to happen overnight, but I think that, as a marker to reset that relationship, it's fundamentally important."

Haaland has won praise from Native advocacy organizations and environmental groups alike for her focus in Congress on maintaining public lands and protecting the environment that Native tribes rely on. Haaland is a member of the National Resources Committee and chairs the National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands subcommittee.

"Representative Haaland is a public lands champion with experience protecting and managing America's most majestic landmarks," Phil Francis, Chair of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, said in a Thursday statement. "She has been at the forefront crafting thoughtful solutions to combating the climate crisis that continues to impact our national parks."

As Interior Secretary, she would manage the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, and US Fish and Wild Service. Those three departments are crucial to protecting the US' natural resources from climate change and what Haaland and many other groups view as harmful oil drilling and fracking activities on public lands.

"To me, it just makes sense that that role as Secretary of the Interior, overseeing our public lands, will belong to a Native person given how we honor Mother Earth," Allie Young, a Dine activist, Navajo Nation citizen, and co-founder of Protect the Sacred, told Insider. "I know we would be in good hands with her, especially as a Native woman, because of that special relationship in our matrilineal societies and seeing our Earth as Mother."

Edited by nova92 on Dec 18th 2020 at 6:35:21 AM

Mio Since: Jan, 2001
#344052: Dec 18th 2020 at 6:36:02 PM

Haaland has been pretty involved on issues related to the Department of the Interior for years, so she her qualifications speak for themselves though sometimes I think there is an over emphasis on qualifications in a lot of these pick evaluations.

@Silasaw: I admit that I often forget the he was very much for the $15.00 minimum wage, but outside of the and his "Green New Deal" what else in his platform makes it the most progressive really? Especially when much of it was forced on him.

And again, he ran to the right of most of the Presidential candidates in the primary (and I would argue even to the right of Hillary Clinton) and hasn't really come down from that rhetorically speaking particularly recently.

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#344053: Dec 18th 2020 at 6:48:20 PM

I like this idea:

Being around the voters who want Medicare for All but don't want "socialist" candidates, I strongly encourage the reframing of the issue to a national security perspective. Opposition nations have seen how a virus disrupts our country

The Defense Medical Act will pass before Medicare for All

Honestly, both healthcare and education should be framed as national security issues.

Edited by megaeliz on Dec 18th 2020 at 9:52:05 AM

LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#344054: Dec 18th 2020 at 7:01:37 PM

Judge skewers GOP over suit targeting newly registered voters in Georgia

The Georgia Republican Party, NRSC and the campaigns of Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue filed a suit Thursday arguing that data on new registrations indicate they include hundreds of voters who already cast ballots in other states with Senate races this year.

However, following a hearing that stretched to more than two hours Friday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood denied the Republicans' request for an emergency order setting aside all ballots cast by tens of thousands of voters registered since the Nov. 3 election.

Georgia sets new voting record for runoffs

The first-day early in-person turnout broke a record previously set in October when early in-person voting began for the 2020 general election.

Since then, the numbers have only continued to rise. As of Friday morning, more than 1.1 million people had voted in the Jan. 5 Georgia runoff elections, according to numbers collated by Georgia Votes, a website that tracks early voting data.

That lags only slightly behind the roughly 1.2 million that had voted at this point in the 2020 general election.

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
#344055: Dec 18th 2020 at 7:02:46 PM

As a non-American I’ll admit that I didn’t actually read Biden’s platform, I can’t vote in your elections so I didn’t feel compelled to spend the time.

However the platform was celebrated across the Democratic Party as being the most progressive Democratic platform ever, so I’m willing to make a leap of faith on that unless someone wants to read it and argue otherwise.

As for Biden having things forced on him, that’s both incorrect (he gave Bernie extra votes for determining the platform when he didn’t have to) and feels like a preemptive statement before goalposts move. It feels like the argument is basically “The platform isn’t that progressive, and even if you prove it is that progressive it’s not because of Biden”. Biden is either responsible for the platform or he’s not, he can’t be responsible for the bad bits but not the good bits when he controlled the platform’s creation.

Biden didn’t take a lot of ideological stances in the primary, he’s opposed to instant Medicare for All, he’s opposed to defunding the police, he’s for reducing student debt, he’s for decriminalising weed, he’s for a higher minimum wage, he’s for criminal justice reform.

I wouldn’t say Biden ran to the right on anything but healthcare, by and large he ran to the white more than the right.

[up][up] You can do it super easily with green energy. Something like the “American Energy Independence Act” requiring a certain percentage of electricity to be generated from non-imported fuel and cars to run on non-imported fuel.

Edited by Silasw on Dec 18th 2020 at 3:04:50 PM

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
clemont107 Mega Togekiss?! from Land of Missed Opportunities (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
Mega Togekiss?!
#344056: Dec 18th 2020 at 8:00:42 PM

[up][up]I sincerely hope most of these early votes are for Ossof and Warnock. Something worries me that a large proportion of them will be for Perdue and Meat Loeff.

"Wow, no Mega Togekiss in Legends Z-A. Or any non-Froslass new Sinnoh Mega Evolutions. Round of applause, everybody." - Dawn
BearyScary Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: You spin me right round, baby
#344057: Dec 18th 2020 at 8:09:13 PM

Meat Loeff? That's good [lol]

Do not obey in advance.
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#344058: Dec 19th 2020 at 1:51:35 AM

Not to be a party pooper, Imca, but the graph you presented on the previous page is about supporting democracy not about the left-right axis - notice how all Swiss parties including the right-wing SVP are in the lower left quadrant despite SVP being nowhere close to the Greens politically speaking.

Also the absence of the GOP on that list makes me wonder if they just fall off the upper right quadrants. Which would imply that the US median is in the right half of the graph ... and thus more authoritarian than the mean of Europe (1/2 of all European parties are in the lower left quadrant)

Mind you, I have argued previously that the idea that Democrats are right wing by European standards is a tall tale. That graph however is not the correct kind of data to support this argument.

Edited by SeptimusHeap on Dec 19th 2020 at 10:56:49 AM

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
nova92 Since: Apr, 2020
#344059: Dec 19th 2020 at 2:03:00 AM

[up] I think this contains the graph of where political parties fall on a left-right scale for economic and social views, by the same place that did the graph on the last page.

Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#344060: Dec 19th 2020 at 3:20:40 AM

Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue filed a suit Thursday arguing that data on new registrations indicate they include hundreds of voters who already cast ballots in other states with Senate races this year.

Weren't there lots of GOP voters doing this?

"Yup. That tasted purple."
Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#344061: Dec 19th 2020 at 3:23:59 AM

Yeah, I'm with Silas, I'm a little confused that people are denying Biden ran on a super-progressive platform, after telling me in this very thread that he is, in fact, the most progressive candidate in history.

So which is it, people? Did he have a progressive platform or not?

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#344062: Dec 19th 2020 at 3:25:45 AM

[up]It's two people, one of them a newcomer to the thread, saying that.

And the other one has also admitted to not actually knowing Biden's platform.

Biden didn’t take a lot of ideological stances in the primary, he’s opposed to instant Medicare for All, he’s opposed to defunding the police, he’s for reducing student debt, he’s for decriminalising weed, he’s for a higher minimum wage, he’s for criminal justice reform.

He's also against the death penalty, and has been for a long time.

Edited by M84 on Dec 19th 2020 at 7:27:30 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#344063: Dec 19th 2020 at 3:27:02 AM

It's a progressive platform, just not a Progressive platform.

If that makes sense.

"Yup. That tasted purple."
Makir Since: Feb, 2017
#344064: Dec 19th 2020 at 3:27:35 AM

A 15$ federal minimum wage is not even REMOTELY close to "empowering the working class".

What about empowering unions? Heavier taxes on corporations? A more progressive tax system? A public healthcare system that doesn't rely on insurance? Debt clearing for universities and colleges?

I'm not even American but all American leftists and progressives I know and have seen all want these things, and the closest thing I saw that Biden wants to do is reversing the tax cut that Trump did, which is good but...isn't exactly moving forward, and this 'bidencare' plan that just feels like Obamacare 2.0 that I'm not even sure they're going to actually push for.

Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#344065: Dec 19th 2020 at 3:27:38 AM

Well, I saw no one refuting it the last two times they said so, so thanks for clearing it up.

From what I understand, Biden ran with a progressive platform, but he himself does not seem that progressive. Like stated above, he seems to oppose or be ambivalent about a lot of things progressives care about.

Edited by Redmess on Dec 19th 2020 at 12:29:19 PM

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
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
#344066: Dec 19th 2020 at 4:14:56 AM

What about empowering unions? Heavier taxes on corporations? A more progressive tax system? A public healthcare system that doesn't rely on insurance? Debt clearing for universities and colleges?

Well here’s his Union position[1]. Well make to wait and see what gets implemented, but he’s certainly talking about what you’re asking for.

  • Check the abuse of corporate power over labor and hold corporate executives personally accountable for violations of labor laws;

  • Encourage and incentivize unionization and collective bargaining;

  • Ensure that workers are treated with dignity and receive the pay, benefits, and workplace protections they deserve.

He’d pledged to get rid of Trump’s regressive tax cuts, yes he’s not made other announcements, because in case you hadn’t noticed tax rises are unpopular, even when they’re only on the 1%. With healthcare he’s pledged to provide a public option, which is if nothing else the only thing he’s got any chance of actually passing. He has pledged to do student debt forgiveness, I believe there’s currently haggling over how much debt to forgive, but the basic plan is there.

Here’s the thing, your list, it’s a list in a vaccine. You’re not asking for Joe Biden to pass the most progressive and leftist policies that he can and thus enhance the lives of the working class, you asking for Joe Biden to stake out specific leftist political positions regardless of the political reality he exists in.

You’re not asking for a plan to generally enhance the lives of the working-class, you’re asking for a plan that will hit specific checkpoints that you (probably correctly) have identified as markers of a better system.

As a non-ideologue Biden doesn’t seem to be thinking in those terms, for him it’s about if we get a Public Option, Medicare for All or Nationalised Healthcare, it’s about if we get a system that is better and cares for more people and results in less pain.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Mio Since: Jan, 2001
#344067: Dec 19th 2020 at 5:11:26 AM

[up]Assuming Biden is none ideological is probably my biggest staking point with this analysis. Biden does have an ideological position, and it is firmly on the right-wing of the party and in opposition to figures and positions on the parties left-wing and even now he has set himself up in opposition to the party's left.

That's why I and others are skeptical about whether his "progressive" platform will hold, especially in the face of bipartisanship.

PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#344068: Dec 19th 2020 at 5:26:26 AM

I think you're confusing Joe Biden with Joe Manchin. Biden is nowhere close to the party's right-wing. Any claim to the contrary is that obnoxious "centrists are basically conservatives" mindset you see in some leftist factions.

i'm tired, my friend
smokeycut Since: Mar, 2013
#344069: Dec 19th 2020 at 5:44:55 AM

Tulsi Gabbard is the party’s right wing. Biden is very much in the middle of the party, I’d say. He’s more than willing to enact progressive legislation, while people like Gabbard are trying to segregate sports.

CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#344070: Dec 19th 2020 at 5:52:06 AM

Tulsi Gabbard will soon be out of government. Seeing her disgraced is one of 2020’s most underrated pleasures.

"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."
smokeycut Since: Mar, 2013
#344071: Dec 19th 2020 at 5:54:37 AM

Just gotta hope that last bill she’s pushing gets shot down.

CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#344072: Dec 19th 2020 at 5:56:50 AM

Unlikely to pass since it’s explicitly transphobic and Gabbard herself is a pariah.

"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."
Mio Since: Jan, 2001
#344073: Dec 19th 2020 at 6:04:40 AM

[up][up][up][up][up]Just because Joe Manchin is even further to the right does not mean that Joe Biden does not lie in the party's relative right-wing, particularly with his opposition to some of the party's left-wing.

By the way I don't mean right-wing as in "he is basically a Republican" (though I might say that for Joe Manchin) sense, I'm only speaking relatively within the Democratic Party itself.

[up][up][up][up]I honestly have no idea where Gabbard falls relative to everyone else. Her idiosyncratic views honestly read kind of fashy (in the right-wing but populist sense) to me.

Edited by Mio on Dec 19th 2020 at 9:07:07 AM

PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#344074: Dec 19th 2020 at 6:31:56 AM

By the way I don't mean right-wing as in "he is basically a Republican" (though I might say that for Joe Manchin) sense, I'm only speaking relatively within the Democratic Party itself.

This doesn't actually diminish my point, as I never specified Republican. You're still essentially calling him a Conservative Democrat seemingly solely on the basis that he's not on the party's left. Which is still wrong.

i'm tired, my friend
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#344075: Dec 19th 2020 at 6:38:01 AM

[up][up] That is self-evidently untrue. If Biden did not represent the majority viewpoint of the Democratic Party, then he would not have been nominated for President. The hard-left faction of the Democrats is louder, but don't mistake that for commanding more support.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Total posts: 417,856
Top