US Election 2020

[Tero]

Pennsylvania Democrats likely to vote in person:

THE 2020 CAMPAIGN
Philadelphia Democrats will soon begin going door-to-door to encourage people to vote in person. The shift reflects concerns that Pennsylvania may reject many mail ballots.
Gov. Greg Abbott limited each Texas county to one drop-off location for completed mail ballots. The move would force Harris County, which is larger than Rhode Island, to abandon 11 locations. Abbott cited election security; Democrats said he was trying to reduce voter turnout.
Michigan’s attorney general charged two right-wing political operatives with making thousands of robocalls intended to intimidate minority voters from casting mail-in ballots.

NYT

[Joe]

On the lighter side, have you seen who is on the Popularae ticket?

[L'Emmerdeur]

Worse than socialists! The Optimates won't stand for it--things could get nasty.

[Svartalf]

On the lighter side, have you seen who is on the Popularae ticket?

those two, they won't end well

[Brian Peacock]

[Joe]

On the lighter side, have you seen who is on the Popularae ticket?

those two, they won't end well

Yep,

[Seabass]

Policy platforms of two main parties:

Republicans: more and harder capitalism.
Democrats: more and better capitalism.

Try to imagine how German Jews circa 1920s-1930s must have felt hearing white people tell them that the Nazis and the Social Democrats were the same. Imagine how infuriated and bewildered and heartbroken they must have felt seeing what was developing in front of them, and then hearing bothsidesing even from people who were ostensibly on their side.

Here's the thing, Brian. The Republicans give fuck all about capitalism. If they did, they wouldn't have chosen Trump. Trump the "tarif man". Trump the picker of "winners and losers". They love him because they want a fucking white, Christian theocracy. They want to ban abortion, ffs. They want to ban Muslims and get rid of Mexicans. An actual, vicious white supremacist is running our immigration policy, and 90% of Republicans are loving it. The capitalism fundamentalism is just an excuse they've developed over recent decades to patina over the real motivator, which is racism.

Lee Atwater:

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 [...] and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster...

Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

Atwater: Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

The modern Republican party is just the old Dixiecrat party dressed up in nicer clothes. The history of America is in large part centuries of white people owning black people followed by centuries of white people refusing the share with black and brown people. Refusing to share their neighborhoods, their wealth and popularity from stolen music, refusing to share bathrooms, restaurants, the economy, schools, etc, basically the whole damn country.

The devotion to capitalism is just window dressing. The real desire is a stratified society with white Christians at the top. Because in their minds, what makes a developed country developed isn't smart economic and social policies, quality education and all that evil liberal stuff, but whiteness and Christianness.

And what of the Democrats? How about Bernie Sanders? Does he want "more and better capitalism"? How about Pramila Jayapal? Does she want "more and better capitalism"? Do you know who she is? How about Mark Pocan? Does he want more and better capitalism? Do you know who he is? How about Barbara Lee? Ro Khanna? Katie Porter? Ilhan Omar? Adam Schiff? Jay Inslee? Ed Markey? Sheldon Whitehouse? Do you know who many of these people are? Do they want more and better capitalism? Do they want to turn the US into a white ethnostate? Do they want to turn the US into a Christian theocracy? Sure, there are shitty Democrats, but there are plenty of good ones too, and even the shitty ones aren't as bad the Republicans.

Reducing the two parties down to harder capitalism vs better capitalism is ridiculous because this has never really been about capitalism.

You're always riding my ass regarding my unhelpful rhetoric regarding Trump supporters, but how does refusing to take sides help? How does lumping Ilhan Omar in with Louie Gohmert help? How is that productive? Who are you going to convert/convince/win over with that approach?

Here's what I think, Brian. I think you have sort of a typical British/European shallow and grossly oversimplified view of US politics, and this makes it easy to stick to your bothsides dogma. But it's lazy, isn't. Not only that, it's also craven and destructive. When one side gets THIS bad—as bad as the modern Republican party, or the fascists of Germany and Italy—bothsidesing only helps the assholes. This is one of the biggest if not THE biggest problem with the mainstream media in the US—they're all about the horse race and the conflict—they'll have some climate denying right-wing jackass on to "debate" with an actually scientist, and present both sides as if they have equal merit. It's fucked up. It ruins the discourse, it makes people stupid, and it puts people off politics. How is your bothsidesing any better than the media's?

Not all Americans are as bad as Republicans, just as not all Germans were as bad as Nazis. Now, if you want to do anti-Americanism on the internet and write us all off as stupid and greedy lump all of us in with Louie Gohmert and Devin Nunes, fine, but at least have to courtesy to know your shit. Let's have some specifics. If you have a problem with Pramila Jayapal or Barbara Lee, let's hear it.

[Seabass]

Thanks. I see two senators per state, so does this mean that the Republicans will hold the Senate even if Trump loses?

Yeah, two Senators per state. The House is based on population. Each state is divided into House districts, each district has one Representative, residents of each district vote ONLY in their district. Senators, conversely, represent the entire state, so everyone votes for the senators. Senators serve for 6 years, so 1/3 of the Senate is up for grabs every two years, but only ever one Senator from any given state at a time, you'll never get both senators standing for election at the same time. Representatives serve only 2 years, so every two years 100% of House seats are contested. So it could go either way. I've no idea what's going to happen, this is a total crap shoot. Either party could take complete control of the Presidency, Senate, and House.

Originally Senators weren't elected, they were appointed by state Legislatures. The idea was the Senate represented the States, while the House represented the citizens of each state.

It looks complicated, but the structure is designed, specifically, to avoid the "tyranny of the majority" by insuring that all states, large and small, are equal in the Senate, but their relative strength varies in the House. I think this is a good thing (along with the Electoral College), but a lot of people disagree. It's going to be VERY hard to change it (either the senate or the college) because it requires Constitutional amendment(s) to do so, and it only takes 13 states to block an amendment. There are plenty enough smaller states who generally support both the senate and electoral college to prevent it.

Pray tell, how is tyranny of the minority any better than tyranny of the majority? And why should Wyomingans have more of a say over our government than I do? What makes them so special?

[Tero]

There are in fact 2 senate races going on now
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/ ... bd29731f6c

and one other
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democra ... d=73175753

I could not figure out when either winner would be seated in these "special" elections.

[JimC]

Policy platforms of two main parties:

Republicans: more and harder capitalism.
Democrats: more and better capitalism.

Try to imagine how German Jews circa 1920s-1930s must have felt hearing white people tell them that the Nazis and the Social Democrats were the same. Imagine how infuriated and bewildered and heartbroken they must have felt seeing what was developing in front of them, and then hearing bothsidesing even from people who were ostensibly on their side.

Here's the thing, Brian. The Republicans give fuck all about capitalism. If they did, they wouldn't have chosen Trump. Trump the "tarif man". Trump the picker of "winners and losers". They love him because they want a fucking white, Christian theocracy. They want to ban abortion, ffs. They want to ban Muslims and get rid of Mexicans. An actual, vicious white supremacist is running our immigration policy, and 90% of Republicans are loving it. The capitalism fundamentalism is just an excuse they've developed over recent decades to patina over the real motivator, which is racism.

Lee Atwater:

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 [...] and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster...

Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

Atwater: Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

The modern Republican party is just the old Dixiecrat party dressed up in nicer clothes. The history of America is in large part centuries of white people owning black people followed by centuries of white people refusing the share with black and brown people. Refusing to share their neighborhoods, their wealth and popularity from stolen music, refusing to share bathrooms, restaurants, the economy, schools, etc, basically the whole damn country.

The devotion to capitalism is just window dressing. The real desire is a stratified society with white Christians at the top. Because in their minds, what makes a developed country developed isn't smart economic and social policies, quality education and all that evil liberal stuff, but whiteness and Christianness.

And what of the Democrats? How about Bernie Sanders? Does he want "more and better capitalism"? How about Pramila Jayapal? Does she want "more and better capitalism"? Do you know who she is? How about Mark Pocan? Does he want more and better capitalism? Do you know who he is? How about Barbara Lee? Ro Khanna? Katie Porter? Ilhan Omar? Adam Schiff? Jay Inslee? Ed Markey? Sheldon Whitehouse? Do you know who many of these people are? Do they want more and better capitalism? Do they want to turn the US into a white ethnostate? Do they want to turn the US into a Christian theocracy? Sure, there are shitty Democrats, but there are plenty of good ones too, and even the shitty ones aren't as bad the Republicans.

Reducing the two parties down to harder capitalism vs better capitalism is ridiculous because this has never really been about capitalism.

You're always riding my ass regarding my unhelpful rhetoric regarding Trump supporters, but how does refusing to take sides help? How does lumping Ilhan Omar in with Louie Gohmert help? How is that productive? Who are you going to convert/convince/win over with that approach?

Here's what I think, Brian. I think you have sort of a typical British/European shallow and grossly oversimplified view of US politics, and this makes it easy to stick to your bothsides dogma. But it's lazy, isn't. Not only that, it's also craven and destructive. When one side gets THIS bad—as bad as the modern Republican party, or the fascists of Germany and Italy—bothsidesing only helps the assholes. This is one of the biggest if not THE biggest problem with the mainstream media in the US—they're all about the horse race and the conflict—they'll have some climate denying right-wing jackass on to "debate" with an actually scientist, and present both sides as if they have equal merit. It's fucked up. It ruins the discourse, it makes people stupid, and it puts people off politics. How is your bothsidesing any better than the media's?

Not all Americans are as bad as Republicans, just as not all Germans were as bad as Nazis. Now, if you want to do anti-Americanism on the internet and write us all off as stupid and greedy lump all of us in with Louie Gohmert and Devin Nunes, fine, but at least have to courtesy to know your shit. Let's have some specifics. If you have a problem with Pramila Jayapal or Barbara Lee, let's hear it.

I think you have missed the main point Brian was trying to make, that neither party wants to alter the fundamental feature of US society and economy, its total domination by capitalism. Democrats, particularly their progressive wing, would like the US government to have tighter reins on some aspects of capitalism, and have a much more European-style welfare state. I suspect Brian would see this as only patching bandaids over the fundamental driver of social inequality, capitalism itself.
I part company with Brian to some extent, in that the cure (removing capitalism) has been shown by history to be a very dangerous process, one that can only be achieved by violence and the assumption of power by dangerous people. I suspect that pragmatically, progressive reforms, however imperfect, is the best we can do without tearing society to shreds.
Also, I doubt that Brian will disagree that the Republican party seems deeply infected with both racism, and right-wing Christian fundamentalism, and that opposing it (which in practice means voting for Democrat candidates) is a no brainer...

[Tyrannical]

Trump just won.

Or did he just fake having Corona so he could recover

[laklak]

Pray tell, how is tyranny of the minority any better than tyranny of the majority? And why should Wyomingans have more of a say over our government than I do? What makes them so special?

Nothing, it's just part of the compromises made to form the union. Exactly the same problems and issues would exist now, if we tried to frame a constitution and establish a Republic. The smaller states would not have ratified the Constitution, nor would the slave states, had those compromises not been made, and there would be no United States today. Whether that is a good thing or bad is moot, because it surely does exist, and it is governed by the Constitution. If you want a different form of government then you are free to try to amend the Constitution, but you are not allowed to ignore it. Another option is to pack the Federal judiciary and attempt legislation from the bench. But until one or the other happens we'll have a Senate and an EC.

[Seabass]

Policy platforms of two main parties:

Republicans: more and harder capitalism.
Democrats: more and better capitalism.

Try to imagine how German Jews circa 1920s-1930s must have felt hearing white people tell them that the Nazis and the Social Democrats were the same. Imagine how infuriated and bewildered and heartbroken they must have felt seeing what was developing in front of them, and then hearing bothsidesing even from people who were ostensibly on their side.

Here's the thing, Brian. The Republicans give fuck all about capitalism. If they did, they wouldn't have chosen Trump. Trump the "tarif man". Trump the picker of "winners and losers". They love him because they want a fucking white, Christian theocracy. They want to ban abortion, ffs. They want to ban Muslims and get rid of Mexicans. An actual, vicious white supremacist is running our immigration policy, and 90% of Republicans are loving it. The capitalism fundamentalism is just an excuse they've developed over recent decades to patina over the real motivator, which is racism.

Lee Atwater:

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 [...] and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster...

Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

Atwater: Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

The modern Republican party is just the old Dixiecrat party dressed up in nicer clothes. The history of America is in large part centuries of white people owning black people followed by centuries of white people refusing the share with black and brown people. Refusing to share their neighborhoods, their wealth and popularity from stolen music, refusing to share bathrooms, restaurants, the economy, schools, etc, basically the whole damn country.

The devotion to capitalism is just window dressing. The real desire is a stratified society with white Christians at the top. Because in their minds, what makes a developed country developed isn't smart economic and social policies, quality education and all that evil liberal stuff, but whiteness and Christianness.

And what of the Democrats? How about Bernie Sanders? Does he want "more and better capitalism"? How about Pramila Jayapal? Does she want "more and better capitalism"? Do you know who she is? How about Mark Pocan? Does he want more and better capitalism? Do you know who he is? How about Barbara Lee? Ro Khanna? Katie Porter? Ilhan Omar? Adam Schiff? Jay Inslee? Ed Markey? Sheldon Whitehouse? Do you know who many of these people are? Do they want more and better capitalism? Do they want to turn the US into a white ethnostate? Do they want to turn the US into a Christian theocracy? Sure, there are shitty Democrats, but there are plenty of good ones too, and even the shitty ones aren't as bad the Republicans.

Reducing the two parties down to harder capitalism vs better capitalism is ridiculous because this has never really been about capitalism.

You're always riding my ass regarding my unhelpful rhetoric regarding Trump supporters, but how does refusing to take sides help? How does lumping Ilhan Omar in with Louie Gohmert help? How is that productive? Who are you going to convert/convince/win over with that approach?

Here's what I think, Brian. I think you have sort of a typical British/European shallow and grossly oversimplified view of US politics, and this makes it easy to stick to your bothsides dogma. But it's lazy, isn't. Not only that, it's also craven and destructive. When one side gets THIS bad—as bad as the modern Republican party, or the fascists of Germany and Italy—bothsidesing only helps the assholes. This is one of the biggest if not THE biggest problem with the mainstream media in the US—they're all about the horse race and the conflict—they'll have some climate denying right-wing jackass on to "debate" with an actually scientist, and present both sides as if they have equal merit. It's fucked up. It ruins the discourse, it makes people stupid, and it puts people off politics. How is your bothsidesing any better than the media's?

Not all Americans are as bad as Republicans, just as not all Germans were as bad as Nazis. Now, if you want to do anti-Americanism on the internet and write us all off as stupid and greedy lump all of us in with Louie Gohmert and Devin Nunes, fine, but at least have to courtesy to know your shit. Let's have some specifics. If you have a problem with Pramila Jayapal or Barbara Lee, let's hear it.

I think you have missed the main point Brian was trying to make, that neither party wants to alter the fundamental feature of US society and economy, its total domination by capitalism. Democrats, particularly their progressive wing, would like the US government to have tighter reins on some aspects of capitalism, and have a much more European-style welfare state. I suspect Brian would see this as only patching bandaids over the fundamental driver of social inequality, capitalism itself.
I part company with Brian to some extent, in that the cure (removing capitalism) has been shown by history to be a very dangerous process, one that can only be achieved by violence and the assumption of power by dangerous people. I suspect that pragmatically, progressive reforms, however imperfect, is the best we can do without tearing society to shreds.
Also, I doubt that Brian will disagree that the Republican party seems deeply infected with both racism, and right-wing Christian fundamentalism, and that opposing it (which in practice means voting for Democrat candidates) is a no brainer...

No, I get his point. My point is that the instant you agree to let the right frame US politics as having anything to do with capitalism, you've already lost the fight. You've agreed to play the game by Lee Atwater rules. You're unwittingly agreeing to ignore 99% of US history and culture. Part of the American mythology, at least in conservative circles, is that black and brown people are innately feckless, dumb "moochers" and "welfare queens" who want only to suckle at at the government teat while the industrious white man forks over his hard-earned pay to the tyrannical government. It would be hilarious if white America hadn't literally treated black people like machines for centuries.

"Capitalist" is just a mask that the conservatives wear. It's nonsense. Poll after poll after poll shows that a majority of Americans support single payer healthcare, shifting from fossil to clean energy, etc, and yet most whites keep voting Republican. That's because none of this has anything to do with capitalism. It's a ruse.

[Seabass]

Pray tell, how is tyranny of the minority any better than tyranny of the majority? And why should Wyomingans have more of a say over our government than I do? What makes them so special?

Nothing, it's just part of the compromises made to form the union. Exactly the same problems and issues would exist now, if we tried to frame a constitution and establish a Republic. The smaller states would not have ratified the Constitution, nor would the slave states, had those compromises not been made, and there would be no United States today. Whether that is a good thing or bad is moot, because it surely does exist, and it is governed by the Constitution. If you want a different form of government then you are free to try to amend the Constitution, but you are not allowed to ignore it. Another option is to pack the Federal judiciary and attempt legislation from the bench. But until one or the other happens we'll have a Senate and an EC.

Yes, we both agree that the EC and Senate exist. That wasn't the question.

[laklak]

You're asking me what makes one better than the other. Nothing, it is what it is.