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Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#109701: Jan 26th 2016 at 9:21:57 PM

What I can't figure out is what a "pro-immigrant" stance as folks like him seem to define it would look like in reality. It seems that people on the proponent side of that agenda want a borderless world with no nationalities whatsoever, and that simply ain't happening. The systemic economic inequalities between nations are too great, and there is no international political will to address them.

When someone says that we need to "protect American jobs" and someone else reads that as saying, "Kick out all the Mexicans", there isn't much communication to be done. Is Bernie Sanders, an American, to be reviled for wanting to promote the interests of Americans?

I'm sorry, but you won't ever convince me to sacrifice my middle-class standard of living so that folks elsewhere in the world can rise up to my level when there are such vast reserves of wealth sitting in the coffers of the top 1% of individuals and businesses that could do the job far more effectively.

edited 26th Jan '16 9:25:16 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
SolipsistOwl Since: Jan, 2016
#109702: Jan 26th 2016 at 9:24:09 PM

[up]Sanders seems to get attacked on his immigration and foreign policy platforms more-so from the left than establishment center or far-right.

Leftists and libertarians consider borders an infringement on natural rights, and anything short of their complete dismantling is somehow 'racist.'

TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#109703: Jan 26th 2016 at 9:24:48 PM

I could've sworn I'd read somewhere in the news that Rand Paul delivered a filibuster that helped to end the Patriot Act or something (I forget).

Paul did filibuster the renewal of the PATRIOT ACT, specifically how drones are used under its provisions. He spent hours and hours railing against drones... and then, of course, no more than a day or two later he tried to quietly walk it all back and by talking about how he was perfectly fine with drones shooting up the streets of an American city to kill a guy who stole $50 from a liquor store.

As for Kasich, he's actually unusually kind and humane on gay issues. While he opposes same-sex marriage he has said that there's nothing to do but accept the court's ruling, he had gone to a same-sex wedding just before the 1st debate, and in that same debate said that while he'd disagree with the lifestyle is one of his daughters came out to him, he'd still love and accept her. Naturally, this got the more hardcore, fringe, members of the party and right wing pundits grumbling that he was a Republican In Name Only, despite having run his state of Ohio overwhelmingly according to the Republican playbook. (With all the usual downsides to that, including low job gains, less tax for the wealthy, more tax for the poor, private prisons, schools in tatters, etc.)

A copy of Kasich's comments from that debate mentioned above:

Without hesitating, Kasich threw up his hands in a “aw shucks” gesture and managed to sound like he was speaking from the heart:

Well, look, I’m an old-fashioned person here, and I happen to believe in traditional marriage. But I’ve also said the court has ruled … and I said we’ll accept it. And guess what, I just went to the wedding of a friend of mine who happens to be gay. Because somebody doesn’t think the way I do doesn’t mean that I can’t care about them or I can’t love them. So, if one of my daughters happened to be that, of course I would love them, and I would accept them, because you know what, that’s what we’re taught when we have strong faith. Issues like that are planted to divide us. … We need to give everybody a chance, treat everybody with respect, and let them share in this great American dream that we have, Megyn, I’m going to love my daughters, I’m going to love them no matter what they do, because you know what? God gives me unconditional love, I’m going to give it to my family and my friends and the people around me.

And I'm very interested in seeing what happens from here with the Oregon situation, I'm going to be keeping an eye out for details as they become available.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#109704: Jan 26th 2016 at 9:25:33 PM

I've never met a single libertarian who wasn't fiercely isolationist and anti immigration.

But they are American libertarians.

Oh really when?
Nihlus1 Since: Jul, 2015
#109705: Jan 26th 2016 at 9:26:15 PM

[up] I doubt you need to convince Fighter of all people that Nihilus is being disingenuous.
I'm sorry, I simply cannot match the integrity and consistency of someone saying that Denmark's economic model ("Denmark’s international trade policy fundamentally aims at allowing more free trade on a global basis... Thereby, the WTO - the World Trade Organization - is the primary focus of Denmark’s and EU’s trade policy") is the same as Sanders' (a protectionist who voted against NAFTA and entering the WTO).sad

How is Clinton more 'pro-immigration' then Sanders,
She doesn't believe in the lump of labor fallacy.

It cannot be overstated how big of a deal that is.

when she was the one most vocally calling for the recent deportations?
Enforcement of current laws = / = anti-immigration, in a campaign that has promised a streamlined immigration process and gets the base of its support from Latino voters.

My point is that it's disingenuous for Nihlus1 to continually push a narrative of racism towards Sanders, while shilling for Clinton.
Sanders is not (necessarily) a racist. He's a nativist.

What I can't figure out is what a "pro-immigrant" stance as folks like him seem to define it would look like in reality. It seems that people on the proponent side of that agenda want a borderless world with no nationalities whatsoever, and that simply ain't happening. The systemic economic inequalities between nations are too great, and there is no international political will to address them.
I've already said that the current system is already pretty close to ideal, just make it easier to immigrate legally.

When someone says that we need to "protect American jobs" and someone else reads that as saying, "Kick out all the Mexicans", there isn't much communication to be done. Is Bernie Sanders, an American, to be reviled for wanting to promote the interests of Americans?
He's not protecting American jobs, unless you think Americans are lining up to sweep floors and pluck chickens. He's protecting the interests of his union supporters while screwing over some of the poorest people in North America to do it.

I'm sorry, but you won't ever convince me to sacrifice my middle-class standard of living so that folks elsewhere in the world can rise up to my level
Unless you are part of a specific segment of the middle class that can be retrained to do another job, outsourcing jobs to China is helping you by giving you cheaper products. That it is massively benefiting your fellow man by quintupling wages in the world's most populous country should be a bonus. Or are you worried about unskilled Mexicans taking your job because you're working a job that doesn't require a high school education and pays between $18,000 and $36,000 (after taxes) a year?

The logic here just doesn't make any sense to me. The average American is profiting off of lower prices and higher purchasing power. The average foreigner is profiting off of MUCH higher wages, as much as six times higher. The US economy is benefiting from the reinvestment and, in the case of outsourcing, cheaper labor. Literally the only people losing anything are a small subset of the middle class, and the hit they're taking is relatively tiny.

when there are such vast reserves of wealth sitting in the coffers of the top 1% of individuals and businesses that could do the job far more effectively.

Not to mention, are your net assets worth around $700,000? Do you have a yearly income of more than $34,000? Congratulations, you are part of the 1%.

BTW, the obvious solution to that separate issue is wealth redistribution via high taxes on the wealthy (though their wealth relative to everyone else's is highly exaggerated). This works for the Nordics, along with free trade. The "stop outsourcing", "stop free trade", and "prevent immigration" steps are completely unnecessary and just result in a shitload of suffering. I know it's a stretch to ask to think of Chinese people as... well, people, but please consider what going on about the evils of immigration/outsourcing/guest workers/etc. actually means. It means that you're screwing over all Americans (because everything will be more expensive), the US economy as a whole, and massively screwing over hundreds of millions of low income workers around the world... all for the sake of slightly improving the lot of one segment of the American middle class.

It would make just as much as sense to smash machines because they put manual laborers out of work. Or putting a special tax on people saying that they have to give 5% of their income to GM.

edited 27th Jan '16 1:31:18 AM by Nihlus1

LinkToTheFuture A real bad hombre from somewhere completely different Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
A real bad hombre
#109706: Jan 26th 2016 at 9:26:33 PM

[up][up][up]Yeah, I want to keep an eye on the Oregon stuff too. If the militia have a martyr than that could mean some potentially serious trouble.

edited 26th Jan '16 9:26:44 PM by LinkToTheFuture

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas Edison
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#109707: Jan 26th 2016 at 9:30:26 PM

[up][up] NAFTA arguably sucked ass for Mexico, so I can't really fault Sanders there. And we do have a ton of shit to clean up in our own economic court before we can be said to be a responsible participant in the global economy. I would accept that Sanders is offering a version of the Perfect Solution Fallacy whereby we can't fix other people's problems until we've fixed our own, but I will not accept a claim that he is in any way racist.

At the moment I'm leaning towards Clinton in the primary, if only because Sanders seems to have so many magic asterisks in his economic plans, calling for unspecified future cost savings to offset the enormous deficits that his numbers would suggest.

However, I do believe that large financial institutions need to be reined in and forcibly broken up if necessary. I do believe that we have to reinstate legal protection for unions and institute national minimum living wages and national health insurance, among other things. I do believe that we need an immigration policy that lets willing migrants work legally while not driving down wages for citizens. I do believe that we need to force large corporations and private individuals to pay their full share of taxes and not dodge them with offshored income and whatnot. Sanders has said that he would expand Medicare to cover all citizens; I think that's aiming too low and we should be seeking to expand Medicaid instead.

Yet I recognize the impossibility of doing these things in the current political environment, wherein we can expect a Republican House of Representatives for at least the next four years and probably longer. A Democratic White House would have to act within extreme constraints, and I think that Clinton would do a better job under those conditions.

edited 26th Jan '16 9:36:58 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#109708: Jan 26th 2016 at 9:35:08 PM

Yeah, I want to keep an eye on the Oregon stuff too. If the militia have a martyr than that could mean some potentially serious trouble.

I've been interested in it from day 1, because we had armed men taking over government lands/building, calling for other people to take up arms against their government, and flat out trying to provoke responses. It's pretty much textbook sedition, domestic terrorism, and if you really, really, want to reach, possibly even treason. I predicted from the start that the government would try to avoid giving the militia movement martyrs and such, but now that some members are under arrest, I want to see them be treated with full legal penalties. Because I certainly don't believe that the restraint which has been shown so far would have been shown for any number of other groups. If Black Lives Matter went about demanding change with rifles and demanding people to take up arms against the government and police, I have no doubt they would have been shut down hard within a day or two.

Now that these guys have had a month or so of parading around with their guns and being shrugged off, I want to see actual justice done.

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
Eschaton Since: Jul, 2010
#109709: Jan 26th 2016 at 9:43:47 PM

But they are American libertarians.
Is there such a thing as a non-American libertarian? I don't think I've heard that come up in other national politics.

Sanders is not (necessarily) a racist. He's a nativist.
But you can understand why some people aren't jumping on board with Sanders being anti-immigration, because obviously he's not campaigning like someone who is anti-immigration. Same thing applies to calling him a nativist. Like mentioned earlier, a American politician acting in the interests of Americans first isn't all that surprising, but how they do it is still important.

Now you can argue that his plans for helping Americans will not actually benefit Americans (or non-Americans), and I think that's all quite interesting and worthy of discussion, but careful with your rhetoric, because semantics are a bitch.

edited 26th Jan '16 10:01:59 PM by Eschaton

majoraoftime (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#109710: Jan 26th 2016 at 9:57:18 PM

I mean, nativist rhetoric doesn't necessarily have to include racism, but let's be honest it pretty much always does.

edited 26th Jan '16 9:57:44 PM by majoraoftime

SolipsistOwl Since: Jan, 2016
#109711: Jan 26th 2016 at 10:04:17 PM

Sanders is clearly supportive of fair and comprehensive immigration reform.

His rationale for opposing *poor* reform is to avoid making it easier for corporations to displace American jobs with workers treated like slaves.

It's not 'racist' or 'nativist' rhetoric to call out a complicated political situation that has been historically abused for profit.

According to a 2008 article:

While federal labor laws, including minimum wage standards have been implemented since 1960, some workers claim things haven't changed in the 40 years since "Harvest of Shame." In fact, some suggest slavery is alive and well in the fields of southern Florida.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont: "So it is terribly important that we understand that in the year 2008 slavery – slavery can exist in Immokalee and how workers can be treated as bad as they are."

A recent hearing on Capitol Hill is only the latest chapter in a series of accusations, protests, and apparent vindication. Charges of slavery and deplorable working conditions largely stem from the humid tomato fields of South Florida where thousands of laborers harvest millions of tomatoes each year.

[* * *]

Bernie Sanders, an Independent Senator from Vermont, called for a congressional audit of migrant worker wages and put one further shot across the bow of the Florida Growers Exchange.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont: "This is not the end. This is the beginning. Most of us on the committee believe it is deplorable and that these conditions should not exist in 2008 in the United States of America."

http://www.iptv.org/mtom/story.cfm/feature/5013/mtom_20080425_3334_feature

Sanders himself wrote an editorial on it in 2011:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/the-harvest-of-shame_b_96759.html

edited 26th Jan '16 10:14:47 PM by SolipsistOwl

vandro Shop Owner from The little shop that wasn't Since: Jul, 2009
Shop Owner
#109713: Jan 26th 2016 at 11:08:50 PM

...I dunno if it has been adressed but in fighteer's party megapost he said Rubio is non-caucasian, which isn't true. Cuban immigrants that fled before and during castro's revolution(Rubio's parents) are white hispanics but still white.

Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#109714: Jan 26th 2016 at 11:19:43 PM

[up]This probably goes into the (surprisingly complicated) discussion of definition of race, but how would you define that term?

Leviticus 19:34
vandro Shop Owner from The little shop that wasn't Since: Jul, 2009
Shop Owner
#109715: Jan 26th 2016 at 11:33:38 PM

Hispanic is a cultural/ethnic descriptor, not racial. Rubio and Cruz are White Hispanics.

thatguythere47 Since: Jul, 2010
#109716: Jan 27th 2016 at 1:02:50 AM

I mean the Irish weren't white until recently and there's some who argue that greeks aren't so really "white" is a useless word. Caucasian is generally a better term but still kinda odd.

So far no news as to what's going on at the refuge in Oregon. Far as I can dig up the FBI has setup a soft blockade 'round the place and there hasn't been any confrontations yet. The best part (if I understand your yank laws right) is that when they get convicted on these felonies they won't be able to own guns any longer [lol]

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?
Deadbeatloser22 from Disappeared by Space Magic (Great Old One) Relationship Status: Tsundere'ing
#109717: Jan 27th 2016 at 1:04:20 AM

BUT MUH SECUND AMEHNDMEHNT.

"Yup. That tasted purple."
FieldMarshalFry Field Marshal of Cracked from World Internet War 1 Since: Oct, 2015 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Field Marshal of Cracked
#109718: Jan 27th 2016 at 1:20:14 AM

awwww, are Y'all Qaeda gone? and they were such a good source of entertainment... guess we need to to start sending dildos to Trump

edited 27th Jan '16 1:20:35 AM by FieldMarshalFry

advancing the front into TV Tropes
Sixthhokage1 Since: Feb, 2013
#109719: Jan 27th 2016 at 1:31:16 AM

Ugh, the whole sending them dildos thing was absolutely fucking stupid. If people wanted to spend money to be spiteful to the Bundy militia, they could have just donated that money to the Malheur reserve.

FieldMarshalFry Field Marshal of Cracked from World Internet War 1 Since: Oct, 2015 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Field Marshal of Cracked
#109720: Jan 27th 2016 at 1:33:44 AM

but how else would we tell them to fuck themselves in the most appropriate way? they're all homophobic so it works even better!

advancing the front into TV Tropes
ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#109721: Jan 27th 2016 at 1:34:02 AM

[up]

I just hope we avoid another Waco situation - the one that died was the one that basically invoked it, iirc.

In lighter news, ESA Fund is running this attack ad on Bernie Sanders in Iowa. TL;DW - apparently they forgot that attack ads should include Scary Red Font and black-and-white to instill fear, along with a gravelly voice warning the populace against the threat. Instead, they opted for blue-and-yellow graphics, full color, and a soothing woman's voice while mentioning that Sanders wants to raise taxes on "Wall Street, big business, and the super-rich", which haven't exactly endeared themselves to the public as of late.

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
FieldMarshalFry Field Marshal of Cracked from World Internet War 1 Since: Oct, 2015 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Field Marshal of Cracked
#109722: Jan 27th 2016 at 1:36:27 AM

  • average person who has been screwed over by big banks watches the "attack" ad* I like this Sanders person

advancing the front into TV Tropes
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#109723: Jan 27th 2016 at 1:38:01 AM

Sure that it is an attack ad?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#109724: Jan 27th 2016 at 1:40:27 AM

[up] Maybe they're just that ignorant.

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
FieldMarshalFry Field Marshal of Cracked from World Internet War 1 Since: Oct, 2015 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Field Marshal of Cracked
#109725: Jan 27th 2016 at 1:44:17 AM

the Republican party has proven themselves to be rather stupid, I expect they meant it as an attack ad

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