view the rest of the comments
politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
Trump already won in 2016 and the world didn't end back then. It's not going to be better than Biden but it sure as hell isn't going to be as bad as people here make it out to be.
It almost did. There was a mob of people just a couple doors away from murdering most of congress and making Trump a dictator.
The only reason Trump failed to end democracy is because he and the rest of the Republican party were just trying things without a real plan.
They have a plan now. If they get a chance to use it, they will be successful.
The Democrats sure waited a long time to prosececute Trump with that. Now the result of that trial will be after the election. Thank Democrats for saving Trump from jail.
What're you talking about? Democrats were sharply criticizing Garland for not bringing charges sooner, and still are. The Justice Department is independent, not an arm of the presidency.
And, it took Garland time to bring a case because you can't put together a case against the previous president of the US in a day. You only have one shot at a prosecution like that, and it needs to be flawless. It's like the phrase "when you swing at the King, you better not miss". It takes time to build the necessary case.
Blame the supreme court instead for being lazy and in Trump's pocket.
I hope you’re right. It went about how I thought it would go last time. That insurrection thing threw me though. And all the court cases coming after trump, as well as that project 2025 thing, this time seems different to me.
If the Dems were serious about prosecuting him he wouldn't get bailed out at the last second every time.
Also Dems purposely delayed the inserruction case now the verdict won't be until after the election. Real convenient now nothing can stop Trump except voting for Biden.
I have been really annoyed with the protest vote arguments because our system is horseshit and we still have to play within it, but there is no disagreeing with this. I’ll be voting a lot of these useless assholes back in this time as a last-ditch effort, but a purge of the bad actors is long in order. I lost faith in our institutions with Trump in charge, but when it’s come down to punishing that hunk of offal, nothing the dems have done has brought that faith back.
To be honest though, even if things in that situation were going better, I’d still be unconvinced. Outside said institutions, I truly believe that we are not participating in a society, we haven’t been for decades, and that’s got nothing to do with the government.
If that’s actually their game plan, then that’s the most idiotic game plan I’ve ever seen and it is definitely going to put trump back in the White House.
They can’t seriously be that stupid though. Can they?
I think it could be possible that this is the game plan they’re going with because it’s lazy and won’t piss off any donors, which doing things actual leftists want would definitely do.
I mean, this is the party of the pied piper strategy.
They're not stupid. They're pro-corporatists. They can't prosecute Trump without harming some other rich fucks in the process. When Trump said he'd have to have a fire sale to make the bond amount that wasn't a complaint it was a threat. Commercial real estate is already being propped up by fake numbers. If Trumps properties went up for sale it would blow that whole thing up. That's why he's being protected.
Pro-corporatism has no way of addressing fascism. And the Democrats are a pro-corporate party.
What an evil stupid system. People wonder why there’s voter apathy among leftists. This is why.
The DNC screwed over Bernie in 2016 to make sure a real progressives wouldn't win. They shoved in Hillary which was (and is) so bad she lost to Trump 1.
The Clintons actually suggested Trump to run thinking he'd be such a pathetic opponent that it would land them an easy victory.
Make no mistake, the Democrats prefer having Trump win over someone that could actually impose change.
Trump is their perfect enemy because they can keep running trash candidates and having them win solely on "not Trump".
Democrat voters screwed over Bernie, not the DNC. Bernie was on every single ballot. All people would have had to do is actually get off of their pampered asses and go vote for him. They didn't. She won. We got Trump as a result.
Yeah, if I recall correctly it was the 2020 primary where Bernie got most supremely ratfucked.
A huge propaganda campaign from the elites that control the DNC does wonders.
The American fascist party was born prematurely. They've spent the last eight years incubating within the Republican party and are ready to go mask-off now.
Bush was way worse than Trump.
Aside from saying some real dumb shit Trumps presidency was a lot milder than expected.
I would agree with you, except for COVID. That shit was nuts. Trump would have easily won re-election if he just let scientists make decisions.
Edit: Thinking about it more, you’re right. War and occupation directly and indirectly claimed the lives of about a half-million Iraqis from 2003 to 2011
There also wasn’t any hurricane katrina style fiascos under Trump, as well as Trump deciding not to invade Venezuela, which was a surprise. The Syria shit wasn’t great, but it was NOTHING like Iraq.
God the bar is set so fucking low it’s embarrassing.
He pulled out of Afghanistan which was amazing.
Trump's biggest fail was when he drone striked Iranian general Suleimani at the request of Israel. But luckily Iran didn't decide to escalate it so we didn't get a big war back then.
Biden pulled out of Afghanistan, not Trump.
Trump started it actually. Biden just did it a bit poorly but better than an extended fight.
Yeah. I feel like Biden did that because he knew he could divert all the military funding directly into the Ukraine situation and not piss off his Raytheon people.
Trump's influence on the Supreme Court has been utterly disastrous for the US and leftist causes
You can thank the Democratic judge for refusing to step down under Obama so he could have appointed a new one.
Nobody thought Trump was going to win until too late. RBG thought the next president would also be a Democrat.
But she was also naive and thought that she should do her job as long as possible, and that Republicans could be reasoned with. The court really needs a max age.
Regardless, this is a bit moot, since Trump had 3 total SCOTUS picks. RBG's seat was just one.
And once again, we can thank the DNC for sabotaging Bernie to make Hillary the candidate.
Even better if we just go back to Obama who had all power and was asked to codify abortion rights, and then didn't. Because it's a great tool to keep people voting Democrat.
The President does not have the power to codify abortion rights. That power lies with Congress. And I believe I've previously explained why Democrats were unable to do that. They had a 60 vote majority for all of a few months, and you had Democrats more conservative than Manchin in those days.
It's kind of funny in a sense. The two parties were much more similar in the 2000s. Clinton's third way in the 90s allowed Democrats to win, but at the cost of becoming more conservative. They've since diverged significantly. Abortion didn't used to be nearly as partisan.
I think people really underestimate how badly Reagan fucked up the country. His era led to conservative dominance in US society, that's only recently started to be torn away. Society has moved much more to the left since 2010. Another way to look at this -- Sanders wouldn't have gotten the support he did in the 2000s or earlier. His message has only recently resonated with American society.
What a charmed life you must lead. I wasn’t really affected by his policies either but have you noticed the way things have been turning for the people his goons have been targeting since the chuds became empowered?
It is imperative that we bury the GOP first. Then, we absolutely can and should go knives out on Team Blue™️. I don’t disagree that Biden needs to go, and that most of the Democrats are obstacles at best to truly repairing our long-dead society. Hell, don’t just vote, actually fucking run for office, start somewhere where you aren’t so completely outgunned by the moneyed interests but you also actually make a difference. But for now, we need to take down the more immediate threat.
Throw rocks at me for saying it, but the Dems’ fecklessness is our fault too, to an extent. The problem is complacency when the pendulum appears to have swung in our direction, like “yeah we got the job done!* Let’s have pizza and congratulate ourselves and go back home!” Fortunately, it may finally no longer be the case. But for christ’s sake, can we not throw the baby out with the bathwater? The upcoming, inevitable fight will be less harrowing if we can keep from actively making the battlefield more hazardous, which absolutely will happen with a Trump win.
*christ, I remember when Obama was elected and there was a false prospect of healthcare reform, Newsweek published a rather insulting cover saying, “we are all socialists now”, simultaneously feeding the right’s paranoia and patronizing the left in such an insulting way
You're not going to bury the GOP by voting Democrat. You will just worsen the situation.
Biden is continuing to build the wall, jailed twice as many immigrants as Trump, is committing Genocide, and so much more. Biden is just a GOP candidate with D in front of his name. He is one of the biggest establishment democrats who has built his career on empowering the elites.
Fine. Trump ‘24 then. Whatever, he’ll fix it.
Probably not. But maybe the moderate and liberal voters will finally wake the fuck up and realize they need to compromise with leftists or progressives if they want to win elections.
Doubt. They'll just bury in sand and go even farther/faster right
Then we're fucked anyway. Let's get it overwith.
Ehh, I think it’s more that we have to be a better electorate and put better people in office in the first place, even (and especially) when there is a dem majority. Like I said, we have had the tendency to get complacent when that’s the case. It also doesn’t help that, for a long time, we didn’t have a cohesive message—when Occupy was happening, everyone’s demands were all over the damn place and just came off as diffuse and disorganized. But like I also said, it sounds like we’re getting better about it, though I don’t know whether that’s because this place really does lean heavily left, not reflecting the population at large. That may not be such a bad thing though, this place could be a good place for planning action.
I don’t disagree that the democrats are, at best, milquetoast, feckless do-nothings, but fighting everyone at once seems like it’s going to be an abject disaster with any victories being pyrrhic, if existent at all. I hope I’m wrong. I just don’t want my daughter, anyone’s daughter, to become a brood mare for the dominionist state.
Who's "we"? I know exactly which race and generation is to blame for all this pro-corporate trash that keeps making it's way through the Democratic primaries. And even people who say "Well more of you show up to the primaries!" argue that liberal and moderate voters won't vote for progressive or leftist candidates or even a liberal or moderate candidate who dares materially compromise with progressive or leftist policy. So we'll win the primary only to lose the general.
“We”, in a much larger sense than this community here. There is so much preaching to the choir here that one would think there’s a much larger movement than there really is, but what proportion of the electorate at large is properly informed even about Palestine, let alone everything else, beyond the processed shit they’re allowed to consume by the mainstream media [christ I’m so sick of that term] and social media? The public at large is ignorant as hell because they’re being lied to, progressive policy is popular and yet so many don’t even fucking know it.
This needs to go beyond voting, there needs to be actual outreach instead of this endless internet posturing, and it needs to be more than sanctimonious finger wagging, on both sides (not in the blue vs red sense, but referring to our own infighting). We need to dial back on both the “paving the way for the fascists to win” and the “you support genocide” rhetoric. I cannot seriously believe that anyone who argues in good faith wants any of this to happen, but ~~we’re~~ I, for one, am goddamned terrified and know full well that no matter who wins, we lose. It’s just that one route to fascism is the autobahn and the other is a backroad with a slightly reduced speed limit, by which nobody abides anyway.
Again, maybe I’m wrong. I hope to high hell that I’m wrong, both that everyone outside the terminally online is as distracted and ignorant as I think they are, and that the redhat ghouls will be less incompetent and succeed in turning this into an authoritarian dictatorship. My wife, who has been on the left but fairly hands-off as it relates to activism, is charged up as hell over this disaster, as are the vanishingly few people with whom we still actually socialize. The craven overreach on women’s rights is bringing more people into the fold, has actually made a small difference, and could continue to do so so long as everyone avoids becoming complacent. I desperately want to be wrong but I am a terminal pessimist and my hope was murdered a long, long time ago, as was my faith not only in our institutions but also in society as a whole. Nothing fucking matters anymore.
Mostly unrelated and entirely tangential, we could learn a few things from that fucking scumbag Trump, in that we (again, the larger population “we” and our useless nonrepresentative representatives) aren’t loud enough, we’re not nearly vicious enough, and we don’t brag about our victories enough. Enough of this “when they go low we go high”, Patagonia vest-wearing, tepid granola-in-oatmilk horseshit. I don’t believe that sewage golem has the charisma everyone says he does but [a] his fucking rubes are certainly in his thrall and [b] I’m a terrible judge of charisma anyway because I have absolutely none of it myself, otherwise I’d be running for something here. But we need someone like that, except not a murderous tinpot.