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

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#156101: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:03:29 AM

Wow, the turnover rate in the Trump House is already insane, you can't run an executive branch like that.

And it looks like Trump is handling discussions with world leaders like he handled the debates, go in unprepared against people who are pretty good at their jobs (or at least listen to their goddamn staffers) and get your ass handed to you. Only now its his country that's suffering.

Putin nothing, the US's allies are going to run circles around Trump if they feel the need to.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#156102: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:06:42 AM

Putin nothing, the US's allies are going to run circles around Trump if they feel the need to.

Running circles around him in this case would mean...?

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#156103: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:07:08 AM

We voted in the jerkass class clown because we thought the straight-A's chess club champion was unlikable.

FFS.

Disgusted, but not surprised
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#156104: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:07:11 AM

[up][up][up] Trump's going to fill the executive branch, the courts, and really any position he can get his hands on with sycophants and yes men. It's going to be a long four years.

edited 17th Nov '16 8:07:29 AM by CaptainCapsase

TheWanderer Student of Story from Somewhere in New England (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
Student of Story
#156105: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:07:53 AM

[up][up][up]Out negotiating, manipulating, etc.

edited 17th Nov '16 8:08:27 AM by TheWanderer

| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#156106: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:08:12 AM

[up][up] And that's assuming America will even be recognizable after four years.

edited 17th Nov '16 8:08:27 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#156107: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:09:04 AM

I have to wonder how much of this will actually get back to his supporters. Will they even care if it does?

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#156108: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:09:53 AM

I have to wonder how much of this will actually get back to his supporters. Will they even care if it does?

Depends which faction.

The more mild ones not SUPER motivated by racism? Maybe.

The alt-right and white supremacists? Haha fuck no, this is what they wanted.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#156109: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:10:22 AM

We free-spirited Americans want to watch football, wave our guns around, drink beer, and talk down about women and minorities. We don't like being told we need to be responsible for our lives or the future of our country. Economics, the environment, foreign policy — it's all boring nerdy stuff. Who's going to prop up our egos so we can ignore the persistent gnawings of guilt and depression?

edited 17th Nov '16 8:11:43 AM by Fighteer

"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
#156110: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:10:40 AM

Probably not, the hardcore guys would follow Trump anywhere. The Rust belt swing voters who gave him the election will learn how badly they fucked up when the economy doesn't recover (especially locally) and/or gets worse.

Trump hasn't built up a winning coalition or a base, he won a few key states by a razor thin margin. And his name is attached to a bunch of promises that he can't keep. And unless he pulls off a miracle his support base will be limited to the high 40% range, lower if his economic platform doesn't deliver.

edited 17th Nov '16 8:12:16 AM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#156111: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:12:20 AM

[up] Considering the Rust Belt voters basically handed Trump the keys to the kingdom on a platter...

<cue world's smallest violin>

edited 17th Nov '16 8:12:35 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#156112: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:13:25 AM

The fact that a large amount of Trump supporters voted for him because they were tired of being called racist indicates that as stupid and counterproductive as what they did is, they do see racism as wrong on some level. As opposed to the people who support him because they see racism or "race realism" as a virtue.

edited 17th Nov '16 8:14:33 AM by AlleyOop

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#156113: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:13:38 AM

[up][up][up] That's a big if regarding the economy. Trump might very well pursue a Bread and Circuses economic policy, and the GOP, perfectly happy to explode the deficit if the democrats are the ones left holding the bill and the economic elites get their tax breaks, may very well go along with it.

[up][up] Blaming voters doesn't really accomplish anything other than stroking your own ego. If you can't suffer their ignorance, educate them. If you can't (or won't) educate them, learn to live with the consequences.

edited 17th Nov '16 8:15:15 AM by CaptainCapsase

BonsaiForest Since: Jan, 2001
#156114: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:14:28 AM

One thing that really pisses me off is how the conspiracy sites are reacting to Trump's win and Trump's behavior.

They love his win, and are okay with his behavior!

Back around the time of the Sept 11 attacks, my thirst for information about wtf happened led me to a conspiracy site called What Really Happened. It was very anti-Bush, and it said that the US government's screwing around in Islamic countries led them to finally fight back and attack us, and that our media didn't want to talk about that, nor did our corrupt officials.

I eventually grew out of conspiracy sites, as more and more, they turned out to be wrong about many things, or they made predictions that turned out not to be true. Their mixture of obscure truths and total bullshit got me trusting them and believing the bullshit. (Fun irony: What Really Happened claimed that people who try to bury obscure truths do the exact stunt - mix bullshit with the truth they want to bury. Well, it works the other way, is the conclusion I came to!)

So I checked the site a few days ago to see what it was saying. And it's basically pro-Trump propaganda. George Soros is secretly funding anti-Trump riots, and the bad things you hear about Trump aren't true, etc.

For a so-called "truth seeker", the founder of What Really Happened sure is a huge fucking tool. He apparently thinks government is inherently corrupt until we get a total moron who's totally corrupt in charge, and then suddenly this man is our hero. It's pathetic.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#156115: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:16:04 AM

No amount of stimulus spending is going to make those old midwestern industries competitive again. And Congress is already talking about taking measures that are going to suck for basically everyone who isn't upper-middle class or better off.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#156116: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:17:35 AM

[up] Nothing sustainable, but you can create the appearance of a good, or at least improving economy for a time if you don't give a shit about the next generation.

Then there's the Russian option, creating crises abroad in order to distract from internal issues.

edited 17th Nov '16 8:20:55 AM by CaptainCapsase

HallowHawk Since: Feb, 2013
#156117: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:19:25 AM

Even without Trump's approval, would Pence and every other Republican running the legislative branches still get away with what they want?

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#156118: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:20:39 AM

Facebook fake news writer: "I think Donald Trump is in the White House Because of Me"

This guy was interviewed by the WaPo because he's in the community of fake-news writers that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are cracking down on due to their role in swinging the election. Now, he's not one of the bad ones, necessarily; he says that he hates Trump and was deliberately writing blatantly false and/or satirical pieces in the hopes that Trump's folks would pick them up and then be embarrassed when they turned out to be bullshit.

Well, the first part happened but the second didn't. And that, folks, is what's destroying our national discourse. There is no penalty whatsoever for lying, and the idea of fact checking is basically dead in the national media. We live in a world of Poe's Law.

edited 17th Nov '16 8:22:53 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#156119: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:21:53 AM

The irresponsibility of the media definitely had a role to play in this election, yes.

nightwyrm_zero Since: Apr, 2010
#156120: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:25:41 AM

This is what happens when you live in a post-fact world. Feels > Reals.

[up]The media definitely takes a huge blame for this, For two decades, the cult of centralism is everything. Fact-checking and calling out someone as a liar is partisanship. Constantly selling the "both sides are the same, equal and valid" narrative. When poison and wine is presented as the same, who cares what you drink.

edited 17th Nov '16 8:31:12 AM by nightwyrm_zero

FluffyMcChicken My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare from where the floating lights gleam Since: Jun, 2014 Relationship Status: In another castle
My Hair Provides Affordable Healthcare
#156121: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:28:45 AM

[up] I don't know. The phrase "post-fact" strikes me as simply a term coined by modern generations who have experienced emotion-driven politics for the first time. Otherwise, appealing to the citizens' base instincts and desire has always been the go-to method of getting popular support since antiquity. Julius Caesar was popular because of his public reputation as a philanthropist for example.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#156122: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:28:50 AM

“Believe in our country, fight for our values and never, ever give up.”

Clinton's words at her first public speech since the election.

Reading that article made me tear up a little. She was well within her rights to ragequit politics after the clusterf*ck of an election this was, but I'm so glad she's not. Neither Obama nor Clinton will be leaving us to the wolves and that feels like a weight off my shoulders.

We're going to need both Best President and Rightful President if we're to get through this.

[tup]cool

Keep in mind that by all rights, the GOP shouldn't have been able to maintain the senate majority this time. Taking the senate in 2018 is a daunting prospect, but they'd only need to gain 2 seats.

Problem is we're on defense. Only 8 Republican seats are being contested in 2018 versus 23 of ours, and two of those opportunities are Texas and Utah.

We have a better chance of losing seats in 2018 than gaining them.

Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook:

Yep. There is no such thing as a clean slate. Everyone has something that can be drudged up against them. Sanders would undoubtedly have fared far worse than Clinton did in the election. Based on just the samples of opposition research we saw there, he would be painted as an environmental racist and societal parasite who condones sex crimes against women and children while near-treasonously despising America and plotting to sell us out to Communist states.

No minority vote. No female vote. And even worse false equivalency than Clinton had. All while undermining the blue economical strategy for years to come by becoming the face of accusations that Welfare programs are for the lazy. "Sanders supports welfare. Sanders lived on it until his mid-thirties. Sanders is everything wrong with welfare programs. How do you feel about paying your hard-earned money so people like Sanders don't have to work? Vote red."

I still maintain that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have steamrolled Trump, however. On his own, Sanders would have lost pretty hard, but true to Hillary's campaign slogan, the two would have been Stronger Together than either were apart.

We should make it a policy going forward that if a primary ends in anything but a landslide victory, the runner-up should be selected as running mate in order to combine their voters rather than pit them against each other. Despite his support in her campaign, the decision to snub him from running-mate and consequentially alienate his voter-base ultimately cost us the election.

Choosing Clinton was not a mistake, but choosing Tim Kaine was. Nothing against the guy, he's a cool dude, but the campaign really needed to put its money where its mouth was with its demands for unity. Nothing says "Unify the party" like combining the two most popular candidates onto a single ticket.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#156123: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:35:07 AM

@Bonsai: There is actually a kernel of truth in there. Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan were the way they were in 2001 because of the meddling we did over there in the 70s and 80s in the name of fighting Communisim. We put Sadam in power. We backed the Shah of Iran who was corrupt and brutal to the point where the iranians revolted and established the theocracy. We funneled money to the Taliban in the 80s in a bit to oppose the communist government in Afghanistan. All those are pretty well documented.

nightwyrm_zero Since: Apr, 2010
#156124: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:39:10 AM

[up][up][up]I'm not even thinking specifically about just this election. When the opinion of a single or small number of laypersons is considered to have the same weight and given the same amount of air time as the opinion of almost all of the world's experts, that's the post-fact world. "All opinions about the state of the world are equal and valid" is to deny there is an actual objective reality out there.

edited 17th Nov '16 8:39:18 AM by nightwyrm_zero

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#156125: Nov 17th 2016 at 8:40:06 AM

This is also why it's important for the Dems to have a good, charismatic public speaker with an appealing economic policy.

In an ideal world people would sit down for like half an hour and pay attention to the candidates' policies, to make an informed decision.

That's not the world we live in though.

People care more about feelings and "inspiration" than making a pragmatic or intelligent decision. So the democrats have to work within that, as depressing as it is. We can't risk another Hillary situation.

We need catchy soundbites, good slogans, and hope that enough bad things happen to turn SOME of the public opinion against Trump but not enough that things become apocalyptic.

edited 17th Nov '16 8:42:18 AM by Draghinazzo


Total posts: 417,856
Top