Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Cygnia]

Republicans Are About To Become Desperate

Quote

Trump is temperamentally incapable of responding to the prospect of defeat by broadening his appeal, and Republicans are structurally incapable of deposing Trump as a chastened peace offering to the country. They will see only one option, and it will be to intimidate and demoralize the anti-Trump movement all over again. Mission critical for Trump and his allies now will be to resow the defeatism and fatigue that has marked liberal politics for well over a year now. They also have a ton at stake, but in their case it’s not the high ideals of democracy, freedom, and human decency.

For Trump, the only freedom that matters in this election is his personal freedom. He’s conducted himself throughout the campaign under an assumption that he’d win. Imagine how destructive he’ll become if he starts to believe that he’s headed for defeat, followed by criminal trials, bankruptcy, and imprisonment.

As for the rest of the GOP, winning or stealing the election is the only way to stave off the recriminations that will follow if, after remaking themselves in Trump’s image, Trump is defeated once and for all. The suddenly leaderless party will be overrun by thousands of minions who mimic Trump’s cruelty and aggression but lack his celebrity and charisma. The only people left to stand in their way will be the remnants of the old guard that allowed them to take over in the first place. How’s that likely to go?

Republicans obviously brought this on themselves. They could have spent the last four years rebuilding a bench of leaders who correctly understood Trump to be an anomaly and a bad all-in bet for the party. Instead there isn’t much left for the party to rebuild around other than MAGA creeps, plus a few Glenn Youngkin-like posers who will never be able to live down their affiliation with Trump.

What would a decadent party in a bind like this do to stave off destruction? What wouldn’t they do? GOP judges will likely step in where they can to help Republicans tilt the playing field of the election. Their propaganda apparatus will run hotter than ever to divide the opposition. Their rabid supporters will become yet more receptive to calls for political violence.

The newly energized Democratic base should steel itself for political battle with a GOP that has everything to lose, and resolve not to let up in the slightest. What’s happening to Trump right now bears hallmarks of the fall of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, who ruled oppressively through coup attempts and rebellions, until one day, in the midst of yet another megalomaniacal speech deriding the “fascist” plots against him, people began to jeer and mock and laugh at him—and just like that his reign of terror ended.

If the next 100 days look anything like the last seven, Democrats will win the election, possibly by a wide margin. And we might look back on July as the moment when the aura of invincibility Trump spent so many years cultivating suddenly dissolved.

 

[unclevlad]

5 hours ago, death tribble said:

I'm putting this in the politics thread to be on the safe side. It was disquieting watching some of the artists at Glastonbury supporting Palestine. I have no problem with artists asking/calling for peace in the Middle East as they were also asking for support for Ukraine. 

 

The problem is that both sides are in the wrong, and both sides are the injured parties.  Which side do you consider LESS wrong?

[Doc Democracy]

I think the problem is that people look at this as a two-sided kind of thing.  It is, at its simplest, a four-sided thing.  There are two states (governments) which are throwing munitions at each other, and two populaces who get impacted when things go wrong.

 

Of those four, who do you support, which of them is most wronged?  I, personally, think it is the Palestinian people.  They are being oppressed and killed on a massive scale by the Israeli government and their own Government is actively making it worse by their actions.

 

You might blame those people for, a long time ago, voting in an authoritarian government but they were radicalised then and there is little they can do about it now.

 

(Didn't think I would be circling round to the potential danger of a Trump presidency in this post, but there you go).

[Lord Liaden]

There are the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, and then there are their governments, or those who amount to their governments. Those governments are not popular with their peoples, which is a major motivation for the current conflict. Hamas launched that vicious and inexcusable attack on Israel in the hope of provoking exactly what they got, an overreaction by Israel's government, in order to cause sufficient suffering to radicalize another generation of young Palestinians that they can recruit from to continue their fight. On the other side, the current legal leader of Israel has a vested interest in continuing a crisis situation to deflect his serious domestic legal issues and maintain his hold on power.

 

What makes the situation even more complicated are the overarching motivations of the parties involved. The current Israeli government is dominated by ethno-religious nationalists who see all the land currently held by Israel as theirs by right, and have no interest in the "two-state solution," or other equal-partner accommodation with the Palestinians. While Hamas, Hezbollah and, to a lesser extent, the Palestinian Authority, remain ideologically and emotionally committed to the destruction of Israel as a state. These governments may not represent the sentiments of the majority of their peoples, but their actions have inflamed the long-standing distrust and resentment of the other side that already existed among their peoples. And those peoples are after all culpable in their current leaders being in power.

 

If I had to pick someone to support in this conflict, the ordinary Palestinians are suffering the most. But that's looking at them separately from the groups dominating them -- support to the former doesn't necessarily demand support for the latter. Yet there aren't any pure good guys in the mix, which is a big reason why finding peace has been such an intransigent problem. It's just a big complicated mess that can't seem to stop causing pain.

[tkdguy]

 

[Lord Liaden]

These absolutely won't be accomplished this year. But by announcing them now Biden is signaling that he expects them in the foreseeable future. He's letting Americans know what he would have done if given a second term, and that the Democrats have a plan for reforming the dysfunctional SCOTUS. That will probably help Harris in the election.

[Hugh Neilson]

19 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

I'm certainly not going to defend the Alberta Conservative government's mistakes and shortsightedness in fire preparedness; but a great deal of blame also has to be leveled at the federal Liberal government. Jasper National Park is federally owned and administered land. The wave of invasive pine beetles in the park over the past decade left hundreds of dead, rotting and dried-out trees amounting to a mountain of kindling. Forestry experts have warned the government of the fire risk for years, but no action was taken. No dead tree cutting, no controlled burns, no fire break around the resort town of Jasper, zip.

 

This is how Mother Nature has always handled dead wood.  It was easily predictable, especially after the wave of fires last year. The challenge is dealing with the huge areas of land on which dead wood might be located.  We've seen wildfires across the country in the past few years.

 

Pine beetles didn't give our eco-terrorist Minister of the Environment a reason to slam the natural resources sector, so why would they get any attention?

[Lord Liaden]

Not all the heat here is coming from the fires. It might be prudent not to fuel it.

[unclevlad]

On Biden's SC reform proposals:

 

6 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

These absolutely won't be accomplished this year. But by announcing them now Biden is signaling that he expects them in the foreseeable future. He's letting Americans know what he would have done if given a second term, and that the Democrats have a plan for reforming the dysfunctional SCOTUS. That will probably help Harris in the election.

 

I disagree somewhat.  He's using the power of the bully pulpit combined with the freedom of NOT being a candidate for any office, ever again.  He can be the voice of frustration with regard to the blatantly awful decisions handed down.

 

I don't think he's signaling anything that will be done, so much as expressly stating the anti-democracy agenda of the Republicans in Congress.

 

This was in NYT:

 

Quote

The proposal would require congressional approval and has little hope of gaining traction in a Republican-controlled House and a divided Senate. In a social media post, Speaker Mike Johnson called the plan “dead on arrival” in the House. (Mr. Biden later said onstage that Mr. Johnson’s “thinking is dead on arrival.”)

 

You go, Joe!  You ROCK!!!!

EDIT:  another thought, right after I hit Send.

Biden's telling the Democrats to stop their in-fighting on too many things.  Because that, in part, is how the mess got this bad.  The choice is really, truly that dire:  a Trump win will have one of three outcomes:

a)  deadlock (Dems win House and Senate)...but one where Trump'll have massive executive authority and you KNOW he'll use it.

b)  mostly stalemate to deadlock, if the Dems win the Senate.

c)  disaster, if the Dems lose the Senate;  if they grab the House, it's not quite a total disaster but it'll be far worse.  Losing both Houses is the utter nightmare scenario, but the Senate alone?  Reworking the judiciary will proceed with no brakes whatsoever.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

I concur with your assessment of the consequences of a Trump victory, and that Biden's announcement would have the salutary effects you raise. But Democrats now have a credible chance of winning the Oval Office and both houses of Congress, while SCOTUS reform has broad majority support with the American public according to polls. Under those circumstances, if the Dems start that process it will be very difficult for Republicans to stop.

[wcw43921]

William Calley Dead At Age 80

[DShomshak]

In the latter half of the 19th century, Horatio Alger was well known for his series of formulaic YA novels in which a young man of impoverished background achieves a comfortable, middle class (or better) life through hard work and moral character. J. D. Vance likes to present himself that way.

 

However, Alger's portfolio of stock characters always includes a wealthy benefactor who helps the poor young man because of some act of courage or honesty. Alger characters don't claw their way up purely through their own efforts. In Alger's world, escape from poverty must be mediated by a "fairy godmother" type.

 

And that's the real story for J. D. Vance: I don't know how he managed to get into Yale, but as Rachel Maddow documented in the video clip a few pages back, Vance's venture capital career and senatorship are entirely the gifts of Peter Thiel. Though the goals of Mr Thiel and Mr Vance seem far more malign than those seen in Mr Alger's stories -- unless, perhaps from Mr Alger's villains, who often include arrogant, greedy and malicious "wealthy squire" types.

 

It is perhaps worth noting that Mr Alger's work has not well stood the test of time; though as his Wikipedia page shows, a few scholars still consider him worth their study. I grant you, titles such as Ragged Dick probably don't help in this day and age.

 

Dean Shomshak

[unclevlad]

The head of Project 2025 steps down after Trump disavows chunks of their document.

 

Trump shows his loyalty yet again.

[Ternaugh]

3 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

The head of Project 2025 steps down after Trump disavows chunks of their document.

 

Trump shows his loyalty yet again.

 

To be fair, they've got to know what he's like by now, after working with him for so long. One minute, you're on the bus, the next, you're thrown under it.

[DShomshak]

I usually ignore the political op-eds that turn up in my front-page feed, but this intrigued me and I found it interesting. Potentially useful for Democrats, too.

 

Column: With a single word — 'weird' — Democrats may have found Republicans' kryptonite (msn.com)

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

Which I find ironic, in that the Republican strategy has turned out to be trying to cast Kamala Harris as "weird," even if they haven't used that word, hyping everything from her laugh to her syntax (using context-devoid examples). It's all they have without going full racist or misogynist.

[Pattern Ghost]

So far, the Harris campaign is utterly crushing Trump at his own game of social media shade throwing. They're the ones making the labels, the nick names and the memes that are sticking, and he can't keep up. I'll admit to a certain level of childish glee watching it unfold.

[Ternaugh]

Another example of not keeping up, I've just received the third mailer from the RNC/DJT campaign, and it's almost identical to the first one. Everything's still aimed at "Crooked Joe", no mention of Harris, and wanting a personal pledge to support Trump. And no mention of his running mate, who was JD Vance, the last I checked.

[Lord Liaden]

 

[Old Man]

The Rolling Stone article she alludes to is here.

[dmjalund]

doesn;t matter what Trump says. They will put the papers in front of hin and he will sign them. Just like they told him which judges to appoint.

[unclevlad]

On one hand, my take of "I don't need your vote, I have all the votes I need" ties back to  "the only way we lost is deceit, we had the votes, everyone knows we had the votes" from 2020, and Trump's statements are just scrambled, as his speeches so often are.

 

On the other, tho...the threat of election officials refusing to certify has been present for some time.  It is something to take seriously.  I actually don't think Trump's statements amplify the threat;  it was implicit in the choice to believe the election lies.  Or, well, ok, Trump's statements now can be read as him hearing that yes, there will be election officials willing to refuse to certify.

 

I think several of us have said it before...if Harris wins, without winning *overwhelmingly*...election night will only mark a transition on where and how the battle will be waged.  The post-2024 vote challenges will absolutely dwarf what he tried in 2020...in any and every form, no matter how illegal, unauthorized, or unjustified.  I *hope* that a few of em will be heard quickly, then dismissed as frivolous...set the pattern, have all of these tossed.  Officials that refuse to certify?  Dismissed for cause, for failure to perform the duties of their office.  Or state Supreme Courts step in and force certification, somehow.

 

But it's going to be completely nauseating to go through.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

Perhaps a cautionary example: Fresh protests in Venezuela as anger grows at disputed election result

[Iuz the Evil]

Israel has been taking out Hamas and Hezbollah leadership in a very targeted and limited response to the recent strike on a northern Israeli playground. Surprisingly limited and temperate, but I’m sure it will be framed as escalating tensions. 

[assault]

Technically, the Golan Heights isn't "northern Israel", but an occupied part of Syria. Only about 20% of the population (Druze) have taken out Israeli citizenship, despite the practical advantages of doing so. 

There was no reason for Hezbollah (or their allies) to strike the area. If they fired the missile, they missed their intended target. It's also possible that the missile was a stray Israeli Iron Dome weapon. It's unlikely we will reliably know which was the case, since Israel obviously would blame Hezbollah regardless.

Edited July 31 by assault