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

PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#110476: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:29:33 PM

The economy was doing good, we had a fucking surplus for christ's sake.
Fighteer probably can explain better, but IIRC, a government surplus is actually a sign of the economy and government are essentially sick.

[up] It was not clear to me that his use of capitals in that context was intentional. If it was, I apologize.
They are. I tend to treat things like "Entitlement Reform" / "Grand Bargain" as worth capitalizing for emphasis to make sure my subject points stick out. Apologies if it activates grammar Nazi tendencies.

edited 1st Feb '16 5:31:27 PM by PotatoesRock

Ekuran Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
#110477: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:31:18 PM

Not necessarily, but the lack of sufficient welfare means that yes, it would have been better to have spent that surplus in the 90's.

edited 1st Feb '16 5:33:54 PM by Ekuran

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#110478: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:32:06 PM

[up][up]Eh, per the basic Keynesian model, government should run a surplus in boom times and a deficit in bust times. The surplus fuels your "rainy day" fund and makes it politically easier to run the deficits needed to recover from a slump. Clinton did fine. He could have done more to combat poverty and inequality, of course, but the country was looking up (at least superficially) when he left office. Bush screwed it all up by running pro-cyclical economic policy: deficits in a boom merely pumped up the investment bubble that burst and caused the 2008 crash.

Which is not to say that all was hunky-dory in the Clinton era, as I said previously, just that there was nothing blatantly wrong about him running a surplus.

Apologies if it activates grammar Nazi tendencies.
You also capitalized some verbs, which is a major pet peeve of mine. cool

edited 1st Feb '16 5:34:37 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#110479: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:33:41 PM

[up][up][up][up][up] Still better than the times we find ourselves in now.sad National moral at an all time low, racism at an all time high, defeat in Iraq and humiliation just about everywhere else, a declining economy. Honestly what we need to do is dig up one of the Roosevelt's, reanimate them, and reprogram their brains with modern social values, and elect them President.

Edit: Oh and inequality of the kind not seen since the guided age.

edited 1st Feb '16 5:34:39 PM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#110480: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:35:18 PM

Oh right. So much of the current news cycle has basically caused that to leak out of my ears, I've been poor at retaining econ stuff recently. Apologies.

defeat in Iraq and humiliation just about everywhere else,
We cannot wave a magic wand to stop asymmetrical warfare directed being fed due to a proxy war between Iran and the Sauds.

edited 1st Feb '16 5:36:38 PM by PotatoesRock

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#110481: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:36:06 PM

[up][up]The problem today can be distilled down largely to Republican pandering to the racist Southern Democrat bloc. Everything else derives from that, which itself derives from our nation's original sin of slavery.

Really we aren't in disaster mode; we still have a lot of advantages, it's just that the GOP insists on stonewalling all the solutions. If it helps you sleep worse at night, know that we have much farther to fall before we're really at the bottom and facing that revolution.

Regarding Iraq: As silly as it sounds, that war is virtually irrelevant to our national interests. Certainly it has less economic impact now than it might have been, as we are much closer to energy independence than we were in the 70s and 80s. We're fighting it mainly because we are concerned about the balance of power and letting Russia or China seize political control over the Middle-East.

edited 1st Feb '16 5:38:34 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#110482: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:38:30 PM

Honestly what we need to do is dig up one of the Roosevelt's, reanimate them
FDR pandered heavily to the racist Southern Democrat bloc. To get things done in this country, you pretty much need them, unfortunately. And their intolerance to social progress is causing them to screw us over on the econ fundamentals they would vote for otherwise.

JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#110483: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:41:21 PM

Not everything, the Dems are at least partially at fault in my opinion, for fueling the dam sense of cynicism that pervades our times (yes I know I'm to dam cynical, do you think it's fund being like this)tongue I miss the liberals of FDR's era. Who could point out how wrong things were, how dire the odds were, but still, to steal Donald Trump's catch phrase, make America great again. The current Left, with it's pseudo Marxism, hatred of all things American, and worship of all things European, stands as a less than stellar substitute.

[up] I said update them with Modern Social values before we reanimate them. Otherwise we have Zombie TR running around trying to conquer Cuba and the Philippines.[lol]

edited 1st Feb '16 5:42:36 PM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#110484: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:42:51 PM

FDR was psuedo Marxism to prevent the workers from coming to proverbially lynch the government and institute a communist coup.

If it helps you sleep worse at night, know that we have much farther to fall before we're really at the bottom and facing that revolution.
Actually, from what I remember reading like 1-2 years ago, if you want us to get a new New Deal/Great Society, you need up to the top 20~10% to get squeezed/fucked by an economic downturn. Basically the elites of the population need to feel they're threatened with economic collapse.

They didn't in 2007-2009, ergo our current political issues.

Otherwise we have Zombie TR running around trying to conquer Cuba and the Philippines.
Don't worry, Wall Street's getting right on conquering Cuba for us. tongue

edited 1st Feb '16 5:43:36 PM by PotatoesRock

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#110485: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:42:52 PM

[up][up]The current left is like that because the Republicans are being so fucking idiotic. If they'd stop trying to repeal the 21st century you'd probably see a lot more cheer.

edited 1st Feb '16 5:43:32 PM by Kostya

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#110486: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:43:52 PM

The current Left, with it's pseudo Marxism, hatred of all things American, and worship of all things European

Umm, [citation needed]. Like, a lot. The problem with the modern Left is that it's much too concerned, in many people's opinion, with not offending the centrist mythos that both sides are equally at fault for the political disunity of our country.

The Left sees an America whose future is one of racial equality, economic equality, clean energy, and fewer wars. Tell me how that's "hatred". Or "Marxist". Nobody but a few nutballs wants to tear down capitalism or make us all speak French, and emulating the successes of other nations is not "worship of things European".

Quite frankly, the problem of bullheaded resistance from the reactionary right is immense. Nothing progressive can be accomplished until their stranglehold on the primary nominating process of the Republican Party is broken.

edited 1st Feb '16 5:47:09 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
#110487: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:46:13 PM

Yeah, the current problem is that we've got a battle between the spineless and the evil.

Leftists in this nation need to get angrier and stop giving a fuck.

Oh really when?
JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#110488: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:46:45 PM

[up][up][up] Nah, I may not have been clear in my description, but the current left got this way in the 1960's.

[up][up] I said the actual left not the Democratstongue

edited 1st Feb '16 5:46:57 PM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#110489: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:49:55 PM

[up]So you're going to point to the time when real progress started to get made and say that's when things went south? Okay then. You do that.

JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#110490: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:51:37 PM

[up] Kennedy and Johnson were far from the type I'm talking about, and yet they passed reforms that would be unthinkable today, including the Civl Rights act.

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
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
#110491: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:53:04 PM

Well only an idiot would argue the US is great right now.

Greatest economy, greatest military, produced of much of the worlds greatest tech, leader of the worlds greatest military alliance, guarantor of peace and security in many places around the world, largest nuclear power, largest spender on space exploration.

You guys realy aren't doing so bad.

@Fighter I get that they don't think they hate America but look at their rhetoric, they do, they hate it and have no patriotism or national pride, don't play their games by acting like they do.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#110492: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:53:39 PM

[up][up]I'm saying that the type you're talking about exists because people have spent fifty years sabotaging reforms at every opportunity. The left appears that way because conservatives have spent half a century painting them as delusional fools and they got tired of it.

[up]Who hates it, the left? If the left really hated America they'd just let it sit and rot. The fact that they actually give enough of a damn to try and fix shit proves that they have far more love than the conservatives do.

edited 1st Feb '16 5:54:55 PM by Kostya

JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#110493: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:55:49 PM

[up][up] And all of those things will be gone very soon.

[up] Again, they "revolted" against a Democratic President who had passed some of the greatest reforms in US history, and in the process, ushered in a counter revolution that unbuilt everything. Oh and I think Silas means the Right.

This may sound like the Golden Means fallacy, but it seems to me that the left, the real left not Clinton and her types, want to turn America into France, or whatever country their onto idolizing now. And the Right wants to turn us into 1950's America, without the welfare or infrastructure spending of course.

edited 1st Feb '16 5:57:33 PM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#110494: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:56:29 PM

Why are they gonna be gone?

Oh really when?
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#110495: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:58:13 PM

The hippies did not unbuild everything. They tried to get people to pay attention to the issues in the country.

edited 1st Feb '16 6:00:17 PM by Kostya

vandro Shop Owner from The little shop that wasn't Since: Jul, 2009
Shop Owner
#110496: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:58:52 PM

They hate the future their opponents herald, the right, but they have not the will to leave for more racist pastures, I pity them.

JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#110497: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:59:12 PM

[up][up][up] Because our economy's gone to shit. Because our citizens, maybe rightly, don't believe int he country, because we've lost the will to be a global power, and because we fucking let our infrastructure rot. I could go one if you'd like.

edited 1st Feb '16 5:59:27 PM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
Ekuran Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
#110498: Feb 1st 2016 at 5:59:25 PM

Jack seems to have tied his ego with the US's supposed greatness and power and I get the feeling he feels inadequate in comparison to Europe and China.

JackOLantern1337 Shameful Display from The Most Miserable Province in the Russian Empir Since: Aug, 2014 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Shameful Display
#110499: Feb 1st 2016 at 6:00:10 PM

[up] No. I guess it's just how I was raised. I was always taught that the country was amazing, the greatest on Earth and all that BS. Finding out it isn't has been, disconcerting to say the least. Sorry if I've been a pain, I'll quite posting for a bit.

To shift things away from my Wangst The uncertain fates of early voting states.

edited 1st Feb '16 6:02:31 PM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
Artificius from about a foot and a half away from a monitor. Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Norwegian Wood
#110500: Feb 1st 2016 at 6:02:02 PM

Posting this here. I'm getting some popcorn and wings, anyone want in? tongue https://www.idpcaucuses.com/#/state

"I have no fear, for fear is the little death that kills me over and over. Without fear, I die but once."

Total posts: 417,856
Top