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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#155776: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:23:23 AM

[up][up][up][up] I thought the worst was over when he was elected. But with each passing day Trump and his cohorts are giving me new reasons to panic.

This is not normal. Nothing about this nightmare has been normal.

edited 16th Nov '16 10:23:47 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#155777: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:24:22 AM

[up][up][up] I'm furious about the US putting dictatorships in place where there was once democracy, and have not seen much to suggest that efforts to install democracies abroad have panned out all that much. Escalating tensions with Russia, a nuclear weapons state which we have no real prospect of forcing democracy upon (even if the practicality of that approach wasn't extremely dubious to begin with) serves no purposes other than the increase the risk of a terminal (nuclear) war occurring.

edited 16th Nov '16 10:25:26 AM by CaptainCapsase

blkwhtrbbt The Dragon of the Eastern Sea from Doesn't take orders from Vladimir Putin Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
The Dragon of the Eastern Sea
#155778: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:25:55 AM

[up][awesome]

Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#155779: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:26:32 AM

Here's a list of businesses that carry Trump products or have vocally and/or financially supported his campaign. Try to spread this around as much as possible, for those who have a decent social media footprint (mine is minuscule).

"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."
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#155780: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:27:04 AM

I don't want a softening of terms with Russia either unless they do it on conciliatory terms. They have been repeatedly stepping over lines that should not be left to slide and whenever they say they'll stop they're back at it again in a week or so (See: Syria.)

edited 16th Nov '16 10:28:33 AM by Elle

CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#155781: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:28:34 AM

I'd be fine with a rapprochement with Russia, but not like this, by reshaping our own cuntry in their image and capitulating to them.

"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."
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#155782: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:29:40 AM

[up][up] Foreign relations are a two way street, and the US crossed numerous "lines in the sand" drawn shortly after the end of the cold war before things got to this point.

MonsieurThenardier Searching from Murika Since: Nov, 2016 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
Searching
#155783: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:31:59 AM

Antagonizing them over Syria would be one thing (I disagree with it, but you can at least make a case). Antagonizing them over Ukraine is pure unjustified foolishness.

"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#155784: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:32:27 AM

Unfortunately, these things are hardly mutually exclusive - historical fascist regimes had loads of corruption and embezzlement and still had plenty of time for brutal oppression.

So this is from a few pages back, but judging from the experience of how the pseudo-fascist dictatorship worked in my own country this is rather accurate.

It was extremely inefficient and corrupt. Military personnel regularly aided contraband, several projects were built and never finished like a big interstate highway in the north of the country, our nuclear program barely got off the ground due to pressure from the US, an extremely messy and chaotic process of urbanization, etc. It was about as much of a shitshow as you could expect.

However, it was an extremely brutal and repressive regime where if you so much as breathed incorrectly or looked at someone funny, you were tortured and possibly killed by the police.

So yes, it's quite possible that the comical inefficiency of the Trump regime will be offset by the awful things they DO manage to pass through. I expect police brutality to only get worse, just for one.

CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#155785: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:34:11 AM

"So this is from a few pages back, but judging from the experience of how the pseudo-fascist dictatorship worked in my own country this is rather accurate."

Just for reference, and out of curiosity, where are you from?

"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."
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#155786: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:35:08 AM

Give us some reason to trust them, that they have any real desire to be reconciled with us beyond forcing us to roll over and let Putin have his way and maybe I'd consider it. I was fine with bringing Iran to the negotiating table because they expressed sincere desire to make amends. I see no such thing out of the Kremlin and I see no reason they would want to concede anything right now. They won this battle of the infowar.

edited 16th Nov '16 10:36:21 AM by Elle

MonsieurThenardier Searching from Murika Since: Nov, 2016 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
Searching
#155787: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:38:29 AM

Reconcile for what? Make amends for what? Putin's government has been pretty ridiculously pro-American by his country's standards- facilitating trade, aiding the NATO invasion of Afghanistan after being the first world leader to call Bush after 9/11, approving of the NATO "no-fly zone" in Libya that we kinda totally lied about- to the point where his own internal opposition characterizes him as an American puppet selling out the country to Westerners and Muslims. We wouldn't even cut Russia slack for the 2008 Georgia war, which was a pretty transparent case of self-defense and probably more restrained than what the USA would do in that situation.

edited 16th Nov '16 10:41:02 AM by MonsieurThenardier

"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#155788: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:39:31 AM

[up][up][up] Brazil. We've had multiple coups and dictatorships in the past, but I was specifically talking about the one that existed between the middle of the 60's to the beginning of the 80's when the military, backed by the CIA, took control of the country.

I've made multiple references to that regime in the last week or so, in no small part because the facist populism Trump is riding on is pretty familiar to me and is making the rounds in my country again. We might end up electing someone who's basically a horrible fusion of Trump and Pence as president in 2018, although I really hope that won't be the case.

edited 16th Nov '16 10:40:50 AM by Draghinazzo

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#155789: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:40:37 AM

[up][up] Ehhh, I wouldn't go that far, but I will concede that the US has it's own part in escalating Russo-American tensions, particularly in regards to how we acted immediately after the cold war.

MonsieurThenardier Searching from Murika Since: Nov, 2016 Relationship Status: Getting away with murder
Searching
#155790: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:45:05 AM

[up]Not to say that Russia played no part in escalating tensions, it has, I'm just saying that it's understandable that the "right" in Russia (quotations because I'm not sure they have the same divides we do) would see this as all-take and no-give so far, and thus characterize the USA as the antagonist. I mean last election we had major candidates openly advocating getting into a proxy war against Russia by arming Neo-Nazi militias...

edited 16th Nov '16 10:47:27 AM by MonsieurThenardier

"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#155791: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:46:19 AM

@Thernaider: If you've been under a rock for the last six months, they freaking engaged in information warfare and cybercrime to influence our election. They're using propaganda and paid internet trolls to discredit democracies around the world and promote Putin's agendas. They've been fighting a proxy war with us in Syria and keep breaking cease fires to conduct bombing raids in a city that is already one massive humanitarian crisis. They want the sanctions we imposed on them for invading Ukraine to defend dissident they paid off.

But really, it's the election affair that pushed me over the edge in my opinion of Russia. I don't want war but I don't want them to get off scott free for it.

edited 16th Nov '16 10:49:03 AM by Elle

Balmung Since: Oct, 2011
#155792: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:47:21 AM

@Draghinazzo: I was actually thinking all the way back to the more famous fascist regimes in Italy and Germany, but I'm hardly surprised that it repeated elsewhere.

Fascist, but Inefficient is the norm for such regimes and it's never stopped them from being brutally oppressive.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#155793: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:47:55 AM

[up][up] And they're more or less living in a Soviet-era nightmare scenario where Russia is almost completely encircled by NATO, has lost the edge in terms of military preparedness, and is at risk of seeing it's primary source of revenue cut should the war in Syria go the US's way.

Russia isn't in the right here, but the US absolutely has a major part in how things reached this point, and considering the respective positions of the two powers, the US is in a far better position to take a chance and be magnanimous here. Obviously any reasonable detente with Russia will include a promise to stop its state sponsored hacking program, presumably in exchange for recognition of the reality that Crimea is now part of Russia, taking further NATO expansion off the table, and finding a compromise on the issue of the Syrian pipeline, hopefully along with a mutual agreement to a "No first use" policy and further downsizing of the respective nuclear arsenals.

edited 16th Nov '16 10:52:06 AM by CaptainCapsase

Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#155794: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:51:55 AM

So? I'm pretty sure we'd be fine with leaving them to their own devices if they didn't offer provoction. NATO could just as easily be Russia's ally.

At best, if we're going to be disposed to be magnanimous toward them, I would want some pretty serious stipulations attached to it and serious consequences for violating them.

edited 16th Nov '16 10:53:38 AM by Elle

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#155795: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:53:30 AM

[up] Acting as if the US hadn't been provoking Russia for well over a decade before the pushback started severely understates the complexity of the current international crisis. That's not to excuse Russia's extremely violent reaction, but I must reiterate: geopolitical tensions are almost always a two way street.

edited 16th Nov '16 10:54:44 AM by CaptainCapsase

TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#155796: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:53:50 AM

[up]x6

The military build-up to the Georgian War was far more complicated than "self-defense" (the Russians had been amassing troops for a long time, doing reconnaissance flights etc.). Nobody expected the Georgians to fuck up that badly though, which is why they take most of the blame.

edited 16th Nov '16 10:54:45 AM by TerminusEst

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#155797: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:56:42 AM

And acting as if Trump will create a reconciliation with Russia on terms that would be remotely acceptable is naive. He got elected, in part, because of Russian hacking. You think he's going to tell them to knock it off?

Wanting a better relationship with Russia is one thing. Wanting the better relationship that Trump will go for is something else entirely.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#155798: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:58:34 AM

[up] We don't want to become Russia's puppet at the very least.

Disgusted, but not surprised
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#155799: Nov 16th 2016 at 10:59:09 AM

[up][up] I seriously doubt Trump will succeed, but it never hurts to be hopeful, and considering foreign policy is one of the areas where the executive branch has the most leeway, there's not that much we can do to stop him from trying.

edited 16th Nov '16 10:59:15 AM by CaptainCapsase

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#155800: Nov 16th 2016 at 11:01:00 AM

Yeah, the problem here is that Trump wants to be Putin's best buddy. He may well succeed at that and that would be disastrous.


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