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CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#137826: Sep 9th 2016 at 11:26:35 AM

[up][up][up] I must have missed your post then, because I got the impression you found such an alignment implausible.

What I'd fear is this hypothetical socially left/economically right party (probably the democrats) also inheriting the GOP's jingoism. I'd find it extremely difficult to vote for either party were that the case.

[up] Beyond the emails (an infraction which her predecessors were also guilty of) it's mostly standard political character assassinations that her typical response (ignoring it) tends to exasperate. There's also a fairly well established trend of a modern sort of quid pro pro (lobbyists and the like paying for access and occasionally appointments to government positions) that goes on via campaign donations and or the Clinton foundation, though that's something that's almost universal in today's political environment, unfortunately.

edited 9th Sep '16 11:31:34 AM by CaptainCapsase

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#137827: Sep 9th 2016 at 11:47:12 AM

The Clinton scandals are 95% examples of the Big Lie in action. The remaining 5% is just politics as usual.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Discar Since: Jun, 2009
#137828: Sep 9th 2016 at 11:48:38 AM

Everything she did was legal, and everyone else does it anyway. Every investigation has exonerated her.

Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#137829: Sep 9th 2016 at 11:51:42 AM

She and her husband did not murder anybody; the Clinton Foundation has a stellar integrity rating; nobody "bought access" to any greater degree than the usual exchange of political favors among the elite; the email scandal is completely toothless; there was no malfeasance with Benghazi; giving speeches for money is a standard exercise among politicians; etc., etc.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#137830: Sep 9th 2016 at 11:54:29 AM

[up]There may have been negligence at play during the Benghazi attack. The GOP controlled Congress voted to cut the State Department's security budget.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#137831: Sep 9th 2016 at 11:56:05 AM

I don't mind that she gave the speeches for money, but I still wanna see the content of the speeches.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#137832: Sep 9th 2016 at 11:57:14 AM

[up] Even if they're unexciting and full of empty corporate platitudes?

Keep Rolling On
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#137833: Sep 9th 2016 at 11:57:48 AM

[up][up] Why? Some inherent distrust founded on what, exactly? The secret fear that she's some kind of mole for Big Money? Get over it.

Specifically, forcing politicians to accede to these kinds of demands gives legitimacy to the conspiracy theories that give birth to them. Much like the birther controversy, it's a tactic designed to tie people up in knots disproving wild accusations instead of governing or discussing policy.

"Prove you didn't murder your wife." "She died of cancer." "See? You won't give us proof, therefore you must be guilty."

edited 9th Sep '16 12:01:19 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#137834: Sep 9th 2016 at 11:58:17 AM

@Jovian: The anti-globalist left calls themselves such so I would do so also. What you're describing is nativeisim, which can be a reason for anti-globalization. (And in some cases they're actually presenting themselves as allies of people in areas that are nativist.

@Cap: The Clinton Foundation stuff is even more of a mountain out a molehill than the email, IMO, given how weak the examples given were (many of the people who donated and asked for something got turned down, or those that didn't had other legitimate and more obvious reasons for having the State Department's attention).

edited 9th Sep '16 11:59:24 AM by Elle

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#137835: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:00:27 PM

Wikipedia page.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#137836: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:05:07 PM

How exactly did all these "scandals" becomes scandals anyway? I mean, mud-dragging and all that but why these specific speeches? I at least get the Benghazi thing even if it's still stupid.

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#137837: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:07:17 PM

Have you ever asked some of the people who have the concern?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#137838: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:08:41 PM

I don't know anyone who cares. I mean, I'd image talking to your audience would just go without saying.

edited 9th Sep '16 12:09:05 PM by LSBK

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#137839: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:08:59 PM

Even if they're unexciting and full of empty corporate platitudes?

Especially if they're an empty boring collection of buzzwords. That would be a point in her favour; in my view, she would be scamming them.

@Fighteer: Again, you seem to be under the impression that I'm an idiot with no intellectual integrity. I can't speak for others, but I for one don't intend to move the goalposts from that. Show me the speeches, and I won't treat the absence of foul play as proof of any foul play, because that would be idiotic.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#137840: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:11:16 PM

What exactly happened with Benghazi?

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#137841: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:11:26 PM

In a nutshell, there is a conspiracy at play here, but it's so simple and obvious that our usual ideas of what constitutes a conspiracy sort of gloss over it.

From the time that the Clintons first appeared on the national stage, certain powerful interests on the right (including one very specific, wealthy gentleman whose name escapes me but who was recently featured by Rachel Maddow in her "how we got here" segments) have devoted immense resources to discrediting and smearing them. The basic tactic of this group is to throw such an immense volume of phony dirt into the air that it contaminates them in the public's eyes regardless of whether anything actually sticks.

This group was behind Whitewater, the Gennifer Flowers thing, the Lewinski scandal, you name it. In fact, it's not entirely inaccurate to say that part of the early success of Fox News was its willingness to feed and feed on the phony Clinton scandals.

Part of the motivation is a pure, ideological hatred of liberalism and those who would dare bring it to the White House, and part of it is a deliberate, planned attempt to make the country ungovernable by Democrats.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#137842: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:12:57 PM

Here's a thing about the speeches...does any other politician get this sort of scrutiny to private speeches they give? Is there any hint they have an effect on what hr actual policy is?

There's a pretty realistic chance they're just generic, boilerplate motivational stuff. But stuff that could easily be whipped out of context. I think, if nothing else, some can agree that Clinton has damn good reason not to trust the media.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#137843: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:15:32 PM

[up] That Clinton continues to not speak badly of the media is a mark in her favor, of a sort, but no politician who survives long ever really trusts them.

@Handle: I would only accede to the idea that Clinton should release her speeches if that same standard were applied to every politician running for the Presidency, sort of like the tax return thing. "Disclose everything you've ever done for money," would be the idea. But again, why? To feed your paranoia?

edited 9th Sep '16 12:16:13 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#137844: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:15:41 PM

I keep hearing people talk about illegal and/or shady things that Hillary Clinton has done. Can someone give me a rundown of these, because I can't really think of anything beyond the email thing, which I'll admit to not really understanding in the first place.
General Republican talking points regarding "crooked Hillary", in no particular order:

Email thing. Clinton ran a private (ie, not government-controlled) email server while Secretary of State and used it for non-classified government business. The accusation is that this was a bad thing because it's an attempt to do an end-run around security procedures (necessary to protect classified information) and/or public records laws (to make sure government officials are accountable). Ultimately, the accusations are bullshit because 1) no material that was actually classified at the time it was sent actually passed through the server in question note , 2) Clinton actually made a point of keeping the emails around rather than getting rid of them, in deference to public records laws, and 3) other Secretaries of State had private email accounts of their own (though none of them ran their own server — they used public services instead) and done a less-thorough job of following department guidelines with them.note  There was an FBI investigation into the whole thing, and they came to the conclusion that while using a private server wasn't a good thing, no laws were broken, either in terms of public records or classified information handling. That hasn't stopped Republicans at rallies from chanting "lock her up" in reference to the whole ordeal.

There's also the Clinton Foundation thing. The Clinton Foundation is a charity set up by Bill and Hillary Clinton, and there's been suggestions that major donors to the Foundation were given preferential treatment by the Clintons, suggesting that they were essentially accepting bribes in exchange for favors. No one has actually been able to point to any of these supposed incidents, and journalists investigating the foundation looking for them have come up basically dry, but that doesn't stop people from saying "they accepted all that money from all those people! Of COURSE they must have given stuff back in return! Wake up, sheeple!" Not to mention that donations to the Clinton Foundation go to the charity and not the Clintons personally, so they couldn't use that money for themselves anyway. The Clinton Foundation also has generally good ratings from independent charity watchdogs.

Along a similar vein, there's Hillary's speeches to various Wall Street corporations. Basically, after she left her position as Secretary of State, she accepted some paid speaking engagements at events put on by some large Wall Street companies. This is nothing particularly heinous — famous people accept money to talk at events at all the time. But during the primary, Bernie Sanders tried to use it to paint Clinton as a corporate shill. Same deal as the Foundation stuff — basically "she accepted money from them, she must be in their pocket!" without any actual evidence of her giving them any preferential treatment. Sanders tried to get Clinton to release transcripts of the speeches she made, but she refused (likely knowing that any such release would be quote mined to hell and back to paint her in the worst possible light). The Republicans don't hit this one too hard, but it's a common refrain among Bernie supporters who refuse to support Clinton.

Before that was the Benghazi thing. A few years ago, an American embassy in Benghazi, Libya was attacked by militants and several US diplomatic personnel were killed. Much effort was spent trying to blame this on her, such as suggesting that she personally rejected requests by the embassy for additional security (such a request was made and was rejected, but at a far lower level in the State Department than Clinton — she never saw the request) or that she was slow to respond to the situation as it unfolded (this has been thoroughly debunked — she was informed of the attack as it happened and remained abreast of events as they unfolded).

You can keep going back farther if you want — the GOP has been trying to smear Clinton for literally decades. Probably the oldest thing that people still remember is the Whitewater thing, supposedly a real estate development business that the Clintons were involved with. The conspiracy theories go deep on this one — all the way to accusations that the Clintons had people murdered to cover their tracks. This goes all the way back to the 70s and 80s. It occasionally resurfaces at random points — the Clintons were recently accused by some of the more fringe elements of murdering supposed witnesses again, when someone (can't remember who, sorry) was supposedly killed when he was about to testify against them. (In reality, it was a suicide, and I can't even recall the connection to the Clintons.)

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#137845: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:16:48 PM

She could always publish them on her website, on her own terms, and with her own spin. Assume direct control of the narrative.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#137846: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:19:56 PM

But there isn't direct control of the narrative. Someone will spin them into a big deal. I guarantee you...she calls people at Goldman-Sachs 'hard workers' and all of a sudden, it'll be corporate sellout, tool of the banks, etc etc.

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#137847: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:22:19 PM

Isn't there a question about whether or not she actually has the right to do that? Something about her not holding the rights to said speech for some reason?

In any case, I very much doubt doing that would actually sway anyone either way at this point.

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#137848: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:27:16 PM

Isn't there a question about whether or not she actually has the right to do that? Something about her not holding the rights to said speech for some reason?
Since it was a paid speaking engagement, the argument could be made that any speech she made on their behalf is their property. After all, they paid her to write and deliver the speech, the speech is essentially a product they bought from her. This is backed up by copyright law (it would be a "for-hire" work — since they paid for it, they own it, even though she wrote it), but it's a pretty transparent dodge on her part. It's highly unlikely that she would be sued for publishing the speeches without permission, and as far as I know she didn't even ask for permission in the first place. And I say that as someone who thinks demanding to see the transcripts of the speeches is ludicrous to begin with.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
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
#137849: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:35:36 PM

Didn't Sanders dismiss the email thing during one of the debates, I'm pretty sure it was a Republican invention and not something he came up with.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#137850: Sep 9th 2016 at 12:43:25 PM

[up]He most certainly did

That was basically the first moment of the two that won me.

I don't know about others, but I'm not demanding anything. I'm making a request.

edited 9th Sep '16 12:44:12 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

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