General US Politics Discussion

[Bartleby]

Tulsi has her own problems. Chief among them for me is her insistence that the Mueller report concluded that President Trump did not collude with a foreign power and/or was found not guilty of it, neither of which is an accurate description of what the report says (there was insufficient evidence to meet the legal definition of conspiracy, and he was specifically not exonerated).

 

Additionally, through her silence on the issue of obstruction of justice (which more than 1,000 former federal prosecutors agree Trump absolutely did commit multiple times in the course of the investigation), she seems more interested in "moving past this divisive issue" rather than ensuring justice is upheld. I get that her strategy is to appear as being above partisan politics, but color me very skeptical indeed.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Bartleby

[Creed Bratton]

There's nothing authentic about Tulsi and I don't know how people can't see that. I'd even argue that she's not running in good faith and that her entire political presence serves only to siphon the votes from the DNC candidate. Essentially, she's the next Jill Stein.

[Creed Bratton]

Republicans prove once again, that they are in fact just an organized crime syndicate masquerading as a political party: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/467092-republicans-storm-into-house-hearing-to-break-up-trump-impeachment-testimony

 

What these idiots did is a federal crime, btw.

[TheGodDamnMaster]

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/tulsi-gabbard-hillary-clinton-wall-street.amp

 

Okay, officially done with Tulsi. I'm back on the Bernie train. Still, props to her for torching Hillary.

[TheGodDamnMaster]

So this was eye-opening:

 

 

[rtie]

Trump has his second term in the bag. That "he" can lay claim to Baghdadi and other high profile raids, no one else can do.

[Raavi]

I think you are overestimating how much the average American cares about al big daddy. He never was close to being as much a household name baddie as Bin Laden.

[rtie]

I agree with Baghdadi being relatively in the dark (I think the guy only showed up on video twice) and not having the same cultural impact Bin Laden left on the US, but most of that terror stained and Baghdadi's link with ISIS will serve as worthy American dopamine.
I remember ISIS being particularly pervasive online, in 2013 you couldn't scroll your Facebook timeline without seeing at least 2 nasheed themed execution vids. Seeing "CEO of ISIS dead" will resonate enough along with the huge information factory Trump has to distort, obfuscate truths to the President's advantage, he can mythologise to get on Bush's level.

[Tchuck]

12 hours ago, rtie said:

Baghdadi's link with ISIS will serve as worthy American dopamine.

Thing is, isn't ISIS pretty far away from the collective American mind by now? With all the trade war talk, China, border issues, metoo etc. ISIS hasn't been actually relevant in quite a while. I mean, apart from when America betrayed the Kurds which caused ISIS prisoners to escape. 

 

I don't think the average American has cared about ISIS in quite a while.

[Creed Bratton]

7 hours ago, Tchuck said:

I don't think the average American has cared about ISIS in quite a while.

Or foreign policy in general.

[Caffeination]

4 hours ago, DareYokel said:

Or foreign policy in general.

Their equally passionate support for Hong Kong and detestation of Chile, Palestine, and Catalonia says otherwise.

[Creed Bratton]

1 hour ago, Caffeination said:

Their equally passionate support for Hong Kong and detestation of Chile, Palestine, and Catalonia says otherwise.

You're overestimating a very loud vocal minority. The vast majority of people don't know and they don't care.

[Tchuck]

3 hours ago, Caffeination said:

Their equally passionate support for Hong Kong and detestation of Chile, Palestine, and Catalonia says otherwise.

Nah man, you have a bunch of gamers passionate about sh*tting on Blizzard because of them making mobile Diablo, and disguising it as outrage for what's happening in Hong Kong. If you ask them to explain what's going on in Hong Kong, they'll just give some "hur dur China bad" answer, without really going into the specifics of the issue over there. Then you also have corporations pretending to care so they can get more money and score points on social media. The average American cares zero about these issues.

[Caffeination]

4 hours ago, Tchuck said:

The average American cares zero about these issues.

Nah, the media journalists and outlets that regularly attempt to brainwash the American populace keep calling the Hong Kong protests legitimate, but won’t say the same about the Chileans, Catalonians, and Palestinians.

 

https://fair.org/home/whitewashing-neoliberal-repression-in-chile-and-ecuador/

 

 

I’ve had arguments with westerners, some of whom were liberals and others were closet fascists, that claim the Hong Kongers are freedom fighters while Chileans are ungrateful *insert a plural form of an ethnic slur here* who don’t appreciate “Western Democracy”, aka parasitic neoliberal policies forcibly instilled by an illegal coup backed by the United States.
 

They also keep calling Catalonia and Palestine illegitimate states, and have a favorite pastime of coming up with new derogatory ways of describing the Palestinians as “uncultured savages”. There’s also that one kid in NBA who waved a Free HK shirt on live feed, receiving massive support from liberals and closet fash*ts alike, but then say that Greta Thunberg is just a kid who doesn’t know how the world works and shouldn’t be given a platform, all in the same breath.

 

It’s not just gamers who are being massively hypocritical, self-centered pieces of human garbage. 

Edited October 31, 2019 by Caffeination

[Svip]

Thank you for your anecdotes.  The American electorate at large still don't really care either way, nor does it swing their votes.  Not that the Trump Administration is doing much on any of those subjects (except maybe preventing Palestine from becoming a recognised state).

[Tchuck]

2 hours ago, Caffeination said:

Nah, the media journalists and outlets that regularly attempt to brainwash the American populace keep calling the Hong Kong protests legitimate, but won’t say the same about the Chileans, Catalonians, and Palestinians.

I mean yeah, America has a very specific interest in Hong Kong being in turmoil/independent. They don't give a sh*t about Latin American countries, specially if they are protesting against US-aligned governments.

 

Still doesn't matter, because again, the average American doesn't care about foreign policy. Only when it affects them.

[Caffeination]

The American comprehension of socialism will never stop being embarrassing.

 

[Clem Fandango]

Socialism is when you have you live in a barrack and play gay chicken all day, then have your entire mind and body destroyed while looting the third world, getting a partial rebate for the cost of your prosthetic limbs.

[Zello]

Bloomberg announces he's running. Like why the dems are f*cked again.

[trip]

Just in case anyone missed this fantastic moment:

 

Joe Biden nibbled on his wife's finger in a bizarre campaign stop moment

 

I love Uncle Joe.  Not sure if he'll get the primary nod.  Still love him.

Edited December 2, 2019 by trip

[Raavi]

 

It's actually a pretty cute moment tbh. 

 

[TheGodDamnMaster]

Kamala Harris has dropped out of the 2020 Democratic primary.

[Tchuck]

So does that mean there's a spot for another woman? Say... a former first lady? The rightful winner of the 2016 election?!

[Bartleby]

Please no. Unless you really want four more years of "winning".

[TheGodDamnMaster]

I hope Hillary does run again. It would be quite amusing to see her nominated and fail once again.

[trip]

Yeah the Democrats can't put Hillary up.  At this point they need to look unified and strong.   If they start shuffling the deck and moving chips they will appear unorganized.

 

All the dems and all of their talking heads need weekly(maybe daily) conference calls to settle on "talking point".  Take a page from the Republicans.  The repubs and their talking heads have takin the art of repeat, repeat, repeat to amazing coordinated levels.   They all hit the weekend cable shows and repeat their same unified talking point.  If everyone is saying it...it must be true.

 

Why wont the dems do that?

[TheGodDamnMaster]

14 minutes ago, trip said:

Yeah the Democrats can't put Hillary up.  At this point they need to look unified and strong.   If they start shuffling the deck and moving chips they will appear unorganized.

 

All the dems and all of their talking heads need weekly(maybe daily) conference calls to settle on "talking point".  Take a page from the Republicans.  The repubs and their talking heads have takin the art of repeat, repeat, repeat to amazing coordinated levels.   They all hit the weekend cable shows and repeat their same unified talking point.  If everyone is saying it...it must be true.

 

Why wont the dems do that?

 

Because the party is divided right now. You have the more centrist Biden/Buttigieg/Booker wing and the more progressive Sanders/Warren/Gabbard wing. Some of these people see the party as corrupt and want to reform it from the ground up and the others want to maintain the status quo. These progressives couldn't give a damn about party unity or loyalty, they want to shake things up.

 

I personally side with the progressive wing. I'm not interested in party unity or this "vote blue no matter who" line of thinking. My state is deep blue anyway that will never go to Trump. I feel like if a candidate wants me to leave my house on election day to go out and give them my time and vote they need to earn that by offering me policies I personally endorse. I will not vote for a candidate like Biden or Buttigieg.

Edited December 4, 2019 by TheSpectre

[trip]

11 minutes ago, TheSpectre said:

I personally side with the progressive wing. I'm not interested in party unity or this "vote blue no matter who" line of thinking. My state is deep blue anyway that will never go to Trump. I feel like if a candidate wants me to leave my house on election day to go out and give them my time and vote they need to earn that by offering me policies I personally endorse. I will not vote for a candidate like Biden or Buttigieg.

This is where I have concerns about 2020.  Similar thing happened in 17.   Bernie people were so butt hurt that they stayed home.  To protest by not voting is a vote for trump.  Plus it is a useless protest to begin with since staying home because your candidate isn't up is in no way actively trying to change something.

 

So if Biden or Buttigieg were the Democrats candidate you would stay home...thus adding one more vote for Trump?

 

I think all of us non Republicans need to sign a pact that we will vote whoever is up.  Show up in numbers and try to restore some dignity to the office of the Prez.

 

 

 

I used to be super far left.  I got older and slid towards center left.  

 

My concern about a drastic swing too far left (and I'd feel the same if the drastic swing was the other way) is that I'm not sure the institutions, and citizens can evolve that fast.  Evolution takes longer than 4 years, longer than 8 years.  We need a slow drip approach otherwise we will keep deviding the population on ideologies.  Creating more anger.

[TheGodDamnMaster]

5 minutes ago, trip said:

This is where I have concerns about 2020.  Similar thing happened in 17.   Bernie people were so butt hurt that they stayed home.  To protest by not voting is a vote for trump.  Plus it is a useless protest to begin with since staying home because your candidate isn't up is in no way actively trying to change something.

 

So if Biden or Buttigieg were the Democrats candidate you would stay home...thus adding one more vote for Trump?

Me refusing to vote is not a vote for Trump, in my case at least. My state might as well be California. It's not going to go to Trump. It just isn't. If our elections were decided by popular vote you would absolutely have a point.

 

Also, Biden literally admitted that "nothing would fundamentally change" if he were elected. 

 

My biggest issue this election cycle is healthcare, as the healthcare system as it is now does not afford me quality healthcare. I won't get into details, but I have family members who do have medical debt as well. I am a firm believer in Medicare-for-All. I will vote for candidates that support it.

Edited December 4, 2019 by TheSpectre

[trip]

2 minutes ago, TheSpectre said:

Me refusing to vote is not a vote for Trump, in my case at least. My state might as well be California. It's not going to go to Trump. It just isn't. If our elections were decided by popular vote you would absolutely have a point.

Go out and vote.  Do your part.  Take no risk.  Take it from a former blue state that trump changed. 

 

e:not to mention local elections are far more important then the general.

Edited December 4, 2019 by trip