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

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#103651: Oct 19th 2015 at 12:39:48 PM

On a different yet somewhat related note, if I had a dollar for every time I heard that Ben Franklin quote about liberty and security I'd be able to fund a Super PAC.

So much agreement. So much.

<.< Every time I hear that quote broken out, I just hear Shaun from Assassin's Creed patronizingly sniping, "Look mum, a dead man agreed with me."

edited 19th Oct '15 12:40:47 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#103652: Oct 19th 2015 at 1:39:00 PM

If nothing else, you can give credit to Franklin for being versatile for having a quote that could be used for 14 years, 200 years after the man died.

DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#103653: Oct 19th 2015 at 1:40:11 PM

[up] At least he doesn't seem to be misquoted as often as Voltaire.

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#103654: Oct 19th 2015 at 1:55:40 PM

To be frank, they shouldn't mess with the Frank who hangs with B. Frank!

In actual, if kinda weird, news: Conservative TV hosts speak out against Captain America for fighting against anti-immigration extremists.

“Instead of going against Hydra and the typical Captain America villains, he’s going up against conservatives.That’s his new enemy.”

I like how they are perfectly fine with associating conservatives with violent militias.

edited 19th Oct '15 1:57:18 PM by Parable

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#103655: Oct 19th 2015 at 2:00:55 PM

Cap's usually portrayed as a liberal though. Heck, there was an entire storyline where he fights against a secret Illuminati style organization only to discover it's run by the president.

Canid117 Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#103656: Oct 19th 2015 at 2:06:43 PM

Cap when well written should be someone who tries to remain as apolitical as possible.

"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#103657: Oct 19th 2015 at 2:08:30 PM

Captain America was born as WWII propaganda. He's been swimming in politics since the day he punched out Hitler.

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#103658: Oct 19th 2015 at 2:08:34 PM

The dude was literally invented to be political propaganda.

That being said, I think it speaks more for American culture that taking non bigoted positions and disliking vigilante murderers on the border is considered being too liberal.

Man this has really fucked us up, hasn't it?

edited 19th Oct '15 2:09:09 PM by LeGarcon

Oh really when?
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#103659: Oct 19th 2015 at 2:21:33 PM

72% of Americans are against deporting illegal immigrants, so the comic is more in line with mainstream United States than Fox is.

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#103660: Oct 19th 2015 at 2:24:50 PM

Frankly if Cap acted like a stereotypical conservative most of the readers would probably hate him. Just look at the reaction to Ultimate Cap.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#103661: Oct 19th 2015 at 2:26:47 PM

Cap stands for America as it should be, not necessarily America as it is. He's the American Dream incarnate.

As such, many people have opinions about what type of villains Cap should fight and what sort of behaviors he should engage in, and every one of those opinions is a Rorschach test about that person's personal politics. You can tell a lot about a person by how they would characterize "America as it should be."

edited 19th Oct '15 2:27:47 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Canid117 Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#103662: Oct 19th 2015 at 2:28:26 PM

He should fight the Red Skull and try to be the finest human being he can possibly be.

"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#103663: Oct 19th 2015 at 2:29:35 PM

He can't fight Red Skull all the time though. He's fight other nobodies in between big A List baddie fights.

Oh really when?
Canid117 Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#103664: Oct 19th 2015 at 2:32:53 PM

The claret Skull?

"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#103665: Oct 19th 2015 at 3:17:32 PM

It's my understanding that before the movies if you wanted a more conservative hero to go fight communists and shit that hero was Iron Man. What with his riches, technical know-how, and successful multi-billion dollar business and basically bankrolling the Avengers since they were founded. He is the techno-libertarian wet dream!

Basically Captain America is meant to represent what we consider the American ideal, not the American government or even politics. It's just that a lot of what we consider ideal, or at least what the writers often consider ideal, seem to skew a particular way. And quite frankly, if you can't use someone named Captain America to explore political ideologies of all kinds and how they affect us in this country, you can't fucking use anybody. Saying he shouldn't have a political slant is dumb, because that makes him kind of useless as a character.

Aprilla Since: Aug, 2010
#103666: Oct 19th 2015 at 7:56:20 PM

Cap when well written should be someone who tries to remain as apolitical as possible.

I disagree.

Note that my disagreement shouldn't be taken to mean "he must be either liberal or conservative". Similar to what Le Garcon, Ace and Tobias said, his very existence makes him a political entity. Fiction is always going to be political on some level, but not necessarily in the strict, literal, bipartisan sense of the word "political".

He is the techno-libertarian wet dream!

Yeah, most of the big-name Marvel and DC characters fit this description.

edited 19th Oct '15 8:11:04 PM by Aprilla

TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#103667: Oct 19th 2015 at 8:09:15 PM

Cap has never been apolitical. From his birth as war propraganda to being disillusioned over 'Nam and Nixon, to Millar turning him into a Limbaughesque conservative he's always being political. And you don't think being the best person he could be is apolitical? If that being the best person involves helping the poor, comforting the sick, teaching the young, fighting the corrupt and abusers of power, or helping victims of bias, then by default these days it's a political statement in America. Otherwise what's left, if it's not going to involve the real world? A bland drivel that no one can relate to, no one gets passionate about, and is safe and sanitized?

And here I thought it was liberals that were supposed to push for that, if you listen to conservative whiners.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
SKJAM Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Baby don't hurt me!
#103668: Oct 19th 2015 at 8:39:30 PM

In slightly more real world politics, Jim Webb is talking an independent run for President. http://tinyurl.com/pdk5n6d

Given the "blip in the polls" status mentioned in the story, it's unlikely he'll get elected, but if the Republicans run a particularly good candidate, Webb might reduce the Democratic victory margin uncomfortably.

TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#103669: Oct 19th 2015 at 8:48:56 PM

Pardon the expression, but Webb is a bit of a man without a country in this political fight. Both he and Chafee are shooting for the middle in a way that would be relevant back in around '92, but is non-existant today. I doubt that either could peel away many voters from the Democrats.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#103670: Oct 19th 2015 at 9:04:59 PM

An article arguing why the Democratic Party is in trouble precisely because of the current GOP infighting. And I'm not sure they're wrong. It's a long article, with some good graphs and pictures, so have some excerpts with emphasis mine.

The Democratic Party is in much greater peril than its leaders or supporters recognize, and it has no plan to save itself.

Yes, Barack Obama is taking a victory lap in his seventh year in office. Yes, Republicans can't find a credible candidate to so much as run for speaker of the House. Yes, the GOP presidential field is led by a megalomaniacal reality TV star. All this is true — but rather than lay the foundation for enduring Democratic success, all it's done is breed a wrongheaded atmosphere of complacence.

The presidency is extremely important, of course. But there are also thousands of critically important offices all the way down the ballot. And the vast majority — 70 percent of state legislatures, more than 60 percent of governors, 55 percent of attorneys general and secretaries of state — are in Republicans hands. And, of course, Republicans control both chambers of Congress. Indeed, even the House infighting reflects, in some ways, the health of the GOP coalition. Republicans are confident they won't lose power in the House and are hungry for a vigorous argument about how best to use the power they have.

<snip>

Elections for state legislature rarely make the national news, but they are the fundamental building blocks of American politics. Since they run the redistricting process for the US House of Representatives and for themselves, they are where the greatest level of electoral entrenchment is possible.

And in the wake of the 2014 midterms, Republicans have overwhelming dominance of America's state legislatures.

In what Democrats should take as a further bleak sign, four of the 11 states where they control both houses of the state legislature — Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois — have a Republican governor. This leaves just seven states under unified Democratic Party control.

<snip>

Essentially every state on the map contains overlapping circles of rich people who don't want to pay taxes and business owners who don't want to comply with labor, public health, and environmental regulations. In states like Texas or South Carolina, where this agenda nicely complements a robust social conservatism, the GOP offers that up and wins with it. But in a Maryland or a New Jersey, the party of business manages to throw up candidates who either lack hard-edged socially conservative views or else successfully downplay them as irrelevant in the context of blue-state governance.

Democrats, of course, are conceptually aware of the possibility of nominating unusually conservative candidates to run in unusually conservative states. But there is a fundamental mismatch. No US state is so left-wing as to have created an environment in which business interests are economically or politically irrelevant. Vermont is not North Korea, in other words.

But there are many states in which labor unions are neither large nor powerful and non-labor national progressive donor networks are inherently populated by relatively affluent people who tend to be emotionally driven by progressive commitments on social or environmental issues. This is why an impassioned defense of the legality of late-term abortions could make Wendy Davis a viral sensation, a national media star, and someone capable of activating the kind of donor and volunteer networks needed to mount a statewide campaign. Unfortunately for Democrats, however, this is precisely the wrong issue profile to try to win statewide elections in conservative states.

<snip>

One striking fact about this is that the presumption of continued GOP control is so solid that you don't even get pushback from House Democratic leaders when you write it down. Privately, some backbench Democrats express frustration that the leadership has no plan to try to recapture the majority. In their defense, it's not like anyone outside the leadership has a great plan either.

But this isn't just a parochial issue for the House Democratic caucus. It means that the party's legislative agenda is entirely dead on arrival at the federal level. And it's particularly striking that this stronghold of conservatism comes from the exact institution that so frequently generates embarrassing headlines for the GOP. House Republicans act extreme in part because they know they can get away with it.

<snip>

Winning a presidential election would give Republicans the overwhelming preponderance of political power in the United States — a level of dominance not achieved since the Democrats during the Great Depression, but with a much more ideologically coherent coalition. Nothing lasts forever in American politics, but a hyper-empowered conservative movement would have a significant ability to entrench its position by passing a national right-to-work law and further altering campaign finance rules beyond the Citizens United status quo.

<snip>

But the much more significant question facing the party isn't about the White House — it's about all the other offices in the land. The problem is that control of the presidency seems to have blinded progressive activists to the possibility of even having an argument about what to do about all of them. That will change if and when the GOP seizes the White House, too, and Democrats bottom out. But the truly striking thing is how close to bottom the party is already and how blind it seems to be to that fact.

I honestly didn't know that Republican control at the state level was that lopsided.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#103671: Oct 19th 2015 at 9:10:36 PM

Yeah, it's going to be tough for Democrats to gain any legislative headway even as they hold onto the White House. The good news is that demographics are on their side in the long run. The bad news is that, in the long run, we are all dead.

In sort-of-close-to-the-U.S. politics news, it seems that our northern friend, Stephen Harper, is projected to lose to Liberal Justin Trudeau. And there was much rejoicing. At least that's one conservative nut down.

edited 19th Oct '15 9:11:06 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#103672: Oct 19th 2015 at 9:13:21 PM

Don't the liberals up there hold the majority of seats in their parliament or whatever now?

Oh really when?
nightwyrm_zero Since: Apr, 2010
#103673: Oct 19th 2015 at 9:16:57 PM

[up]Yeah, the Liberals have a majority government.

shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#103674: Oct 19th 2015 at 9:54:08 PM

On Captain America and the Sons of the Serpent:

Ok, comicbook backstory here.

  • The Sons of the Serpent and their leader first originated in 1966 as a counterpart to the KKK. They are, and have always been an organization of racists who focus on making the US for whites only.
  • They are, and have always been a terrorist organization who in the controversial comic repetitively react violently to unarmed people.
  • They are a classic part of the Avengers and Captain America's Rouge Gallery and have been since again, 1966.

On a black Captain America:

  • Canonically, Steve Rogers was not the only Captain America. After his freezing, the serum was recreated by Project Rebirth and a black man named Isaiah Bradley became Captain America in the 1942 according to the Marvel Universe timeline. So Falcon is not the first black Captain America.
  • Also, Falcon was probably Cap's closest ally for decades and was handpicked by Steve as his successor. Bucky is out for a lot of reasons (mostly the Winter Soldier stuff), but also because he's taken the mantle before and doesn't want it.

On Steve Rogers:

  • Steve was the son of immigrant parents who were Irish Catholic, the time period equivalent of Mexican immigrants. They were facing much the same backlash at the time.
  • He was all of that an grew up in New York in the 1930's which meant he was likely very much a new deal Democrat.
  • He went to college as a fine arts major at a college that is notoriously antifascist, and mostly Jewish.
  • In the 1940's, Cap's biggest enemy, second to Hitler, was tax evaders.

Honestly, Steve would have canonically done the exact same thing.

edited 19th Oct '15 10:14:41 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#103675: Oct 19th 2015 at 10:30:31 PM

... I was gonna Grammar Nazi you, but then I remembered it's led by the Red Skull.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

Total posts: 417,856
Top