All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Revolutionary_Jack]

This is true, despite his vile campaign rhetoric, he conned enough people in the country (and a few 4 star generals) into thinking he would govern somewhat moderately in 2016, but it didn't take long for the real Trump to come out...

calling Michigan militia men fine people, defending a far right shooter in Wisconsin, and calling a bunch of yahoos in Texas, who almost ran a women of the road patriots...

is not appealing to the popular vote during an election season, it's appealing to the far right, and thankfully that is still a losing proposition.

At the end of the day, if you look around the world in the last 20 years, America is the only major democracy that has kept the right wing in check where the liberals and leftists have managed to credibly push back and hold the right at bay. You look at England where Tony Blair poisoned the Labour party irreparably, leaving a negative legacy that has left the party in pieces. In France, the left-wing and liberals are polarized and now the French nation is divided between a neoliberal shill like Macron and a fascist like LePen. Italian politics had Berlusconi and okay they got rid of him and now you have neo-fascists and neoliberals again. In India, you have a right-wing theocratic government. Germany lucked out with a genuine tiny-c conservative like Merkel but even there, even in Germany, really right-wing parties like AfD have made gains over social democrat opposition.

American democracy right now, and the Democrat Party even under Biden is the only major force for liberal and left-wing politics globally at least in major democracies. I am not saying that because I am blind to Biden's flaws. I am saying that because it happens to be true. Barack Obama is the only successful left-wing major politician of the last 20 years. And Biden is his successor and inheritor.

I am amazed at how many people are taking to the streets over a presidential result. This is the greatest thing ever! Did this happen with Obama? I wasnt really paying attention to politics at that point so I dont remember.

The Obama era optimism was a lot like this. It's just that it was different because whatever his numerous flaws, W. was not a fascist. He was just a typical garden variety American imperialist and warmonger, and an incompetent...i.e. a kind of politician who can be harmful without being actively malicious. And for all his flaws, W. genuinely believed that he was doing the right thing and acting in America's best interests rather than a nihilist like Trump. In the case of Trump, this is like a collective victory for 4 years of unrelenting degradation.

Relevant interview with Noam Chomsky:

Voting Is Not the End of Our Work. It’s Only the Beginning.

He is right that voting against Trump is just the beginning. Americans will have to form a grassroots movement that effectively puts pressure on Biden to enact change, otherwise an even worse Trump will come 2024.

The media likes to quote him only when he says to vote for a Corporate Democrat. Will they bother to quote him on this?

I don't think Chomsky is saying anything that mainstream pundits haven't said. Van Jones said on Tuesday at CNN that the greater than expected Trump turnout and the lack of an immediate landslide was concerning and disappointing. And yeah it was. But again for months we have seen anti-mask and anti-lockdown protests in red states. I mean these people didn't follow mask guidelines and attacked science for 8 months, now suddenly on Election Day people expected a repudiation?

Look right now, as I said above, the Democrat Party is the only left-wing party in the world right now that has had success keeping the right at bay in a major first-world democracy*. Whether that says something about the state of international politics and so on, I leave that to you. If meaningful action has to be taken against climate change, it will be the Democrat Party who does that. I mean do you expect England's Labour Party, aka the real gang that couldn't shoot straight in global politics, to be the one who saves the day?

I absolutely want to see progressive politics work and so on, but at the end of the day no left-wing party is worth its salt so long as it doesn't do the first job of a left-wing party...protect people from right-wingers. The Democrats have kept their eyes on the prize.


* FYI major first world democracy means a democratic state with a population of roughly a quarter of USA. So don't bring up New Zealand or Taiwan with his wonderful social-democratic leaders.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

A major casualty of 2020 -- Bellwether Counties and States.

https://mustreadalaska.com/how-could...t-it-so-wrong/

Bellwether counties are those counties whose winners have consistently won the electoral vote for many decades. All of them went for Trump in 2020, and all of them came up snake eyes.

Ohio and Florida, the emblematic swing states, candidates who won either or both have won the Presidency consistently in the modern era...both came up snake eyes.

Trump won these bellwethers and lost popularly and electorally by a significant margin.

I think the answer is again Pandemic turnout. A normal US election turnout would maybe have seen the usual patterns. But a Pandemic turnout pattern changed it all.

[Kirby101]

Popular vote, no, California is too big, that alone prevents it. For the EC, I see him take Fl, AZ, NC, Ga and Pa along with either MI or WI. Maybe both.

Or not. You were 2 for 7.

[JackDaw]

Somehow, I doubt the additional 800k people that Stacey Abrams got registered in Georgia would have voted for Trump. Same with the surge of African-American voters in Detroit and Milwaukee, COVID-19 or not.

I also really doubt that majority of the 65 million people that voted for Clinton in 2016 would somehow flip for Trump in 2020. Turnout was higher for Trump this year but the overall turnout was much higher and Biden got more votes than any other President in history (a record previously held by his ticket with Obama).

My stance on this isn’t new. When there’s a massive turnout of voters in modern Presidential elections, it generally leans left. It’s been like that since 1988 (2004 being the obiouvs exception because of the war in Iraq) and in the last 4 elections.

But a centre right politician (Joe Biden was to the right of most of the Democrats he defeated to win the nomination) defeated a far right politician.

And the far right guy got 48% of the vote, and might well have defeated a more Centre Left Democratic opponent.

I’m not sure how that can be interpreted as conclusive evidence that America is centre left!

[Revolutionary_Jack]

But a centre right politician (Joe Biden was to the right of most of the Democrats he defeated to win the nomination) defeated a far right politician.

1) Michael Bloomberg and Pete Buttigieg were the furthest to the right of most of the Democrats in the primaries, not Biden.

2) Joe Biden is not a center right in American politics. On a variety of economic issues, Biden was on the left of Pete Buttigieg who was the most right of the Democrat candidates economically speaking.

We need to get some things a little clear. Joseph Biden was never a "Reagan Democrat". He was a vocal critic of Ronald Reagan and many of his policies, taking him to task for his support of apartheid among others. Biden joined the US Senate in the 70s, and obviously for political survival he has had to move center with the rest of the party as time passed but he's not inherently a moderate or centrist. Nor a real ideologue. Biden of course passed moderate-right policies on the crime bill in the '90s which was supported by the Congressional Black Caucus, and also by...Bernie Sanders (dan dan dan!!!!).

Biden is left of center liberal. He's not a Social Democrat like Bernie Sanders of course, and probably not as liberal as Obama himself, but he's not a second Bill Clinton either.

I’m not sure how that can be interpreted as conclusive evidence that America is centre left!

1) Winner Take All versus Ranked Voting.

2) Biden as a candidate ran on the most progressive platform in US pols. history.

[Username taken]

But a centre right politician (Joe Biden was to the right of most of the Democrats he defeated to win the nomination) defeated a far right politician.

I’m not sure how that can be interpreted as conclusive evidence that America is centre left!

Biden isn't center right.

[Blind Wedjat]

[PwrdOn]

1) Michael Bloomberg and Pete Buttigieg were the furthest to the right of most of the Democrats in the primaries, not Biden.

2) Joe Biden is not a center right in American politics. On a variety of economic issues, Biden was on the left of Pete Buttigieg who was the most right of the Democrat candidates

We need to get some things a little clear. Joseph Biden was never a "Reagan Democrat". He was a vocal critic of Ronald Reagan and many of his policies, taking him to task for his support of apartheid among others. Biden joined the US Senate in the 70s, and obviously for political survival he has had to move center with the rest of the party as time passed but he's not inherently a moderate or centrist. Nor a real ideologue. Biden of course passed moderate-right policies on the crime bill in the '90s which was supported by the Congressional Black Caucus, and also by...Bernie Sanders (dan dan dan!!!!).

Biden is left of center liberal. He's not a Social Democrat like Bernie Sanders of course, and probably not as liberal as Obama himself, but he's not going to be a second Bill Clinton either, or at least it doesn't look like he will be.



1) Winner Take All versus Ranked Voting.

2) Biden as a candidate ran on the most progressive platform in US pols. history.

Well now is the time for him to show that. Unity and healing should ONLY involve conservatives getting behind progressive policies, that will likely help them anyway, and NO concessions of any kind to the GOP whatsoever, particularly if the Democrats can grab those two Senate seats in Georgia.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The White Cap of Surrender. Did they actually make that just for this.

Sad Trump is actually the first time you see actual softness in his face.

[Username taken]

1) Michael Bloomberg and Pete Buttigieg were the furthest to the right of most of the Democrats in the primaries, not Biden.

2) Joe Biden is not a center right in American politics. On a variety of economic issues, Biden was on the left of Pete Buttigieg who was the most right of the Democrat candidates economically speaking.

We need to get some things a little clear. Joseph Biden was never a "Reagan Democrat". He was a vocal critic of Ronald Reagan and many of his policies, taking him to task for his support of apartheid among others. Biden joined the US Senate in the 70s, and obviously for political survival he has had to move center with the rest of the party as time passed but he's not inherently a moderate or centrist. Nor a real ideologue. Biden of course passed moderate-right policies on the crime bill in the '90s which was supported by the Congressional Black Caucus, and also by...Bernie Sanders (dan dan dan!!!!).

Biden is left of center liberal. He's not a Social Democrat like Bernie Sanders of course, and probably not as liberal as Obama himself, but he's not going to be a second Bill Clinton either, or at least it doesn't look like he will be.



1) Winner Take All versus Ranked Voting.

2) Biden as a candidate ran on the most progressive platform in US pols. history.

Quoted for truth.

[Hellion]

Screenshot (366).jpg

I don't know how many, if any, deprogrammed Trumpists will becoming out of this election, but I don't know how to console them without also sounding condescending. Sharing this for the laughs.

EDIT: Jaysus, can't make the image/font bigger. It says: "You're all emerging from the cellar, pleased that the beatings have stopped, scared of what the future may hold, but, long-term, I think we're all going to be okay."

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Well now is the time for him to show that. Unity and healing should ONLY involve conservatives getting behind progressive policies, that will likely help them anyway, and NO concessions of any kind to the GOP whatsoever, particularly if the Democrats can grab those two Senate seats in Georgia.

Ultimately Biden will be how he governs. As a candidate and a senator he doesn't have a history of being a right-wing Democrat. He's not Joe Manchin, he's not a DINO, and he's not a Reagan democrat. In the primaries, Pete Buttigieg had a far more conservative economic policy than him.

But again there's no point in discussing that right now. It'll be interesting when we learn the cabinet picks and so on.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

I don't think Chomsky is saying anything that mainstream pundits haven't said. Van Jones said on Tuesday at CNN that the greater than expected Trump turnout and the lack of an immediate landslide was concerning and disappointing. And yeah it was. But again for months we have seen anti-mask and anti-lockdown protests in red states. I mean these people didn't follow mask guidelines and attacked science for 8 months, now suddenly on Election Day people expected a repudiation?

The point Chomsky made isn't common to find in the mainstream media. There is at least one pundit on every major news network that will flirt with it from time to time, but this is just so that these networks can establish credibility (even if it's very minimal and/or superficial). That way when people like us accuse them of not being fair and balanced, they can turn around, point at their one semi-decent pundit and go "Eh, what do you mean? We have Van Jones/Chris Wallace/[insert semi-decent reporter] who says that all the time!"

Outside of those exceptions, the media has alternated between vehemently supporting Trump (Fox) and (in the case of CNN and MSNBC) treating him as threat to the status quo instead of being a by-product of the status quo. Even then, a lot of the talk about a "return to civility" is superficial - as in "return to a president that does the same policies but doesn't use naughty language on Twitter". This is also why Democrats and the media whitewashed Bush-era neocons just because they spoke out against Trump.

Look right now, as I said above, the Democrat Party is the only left-wing party in the world right now that has had success keeping the right at bay in a major first-world democracy*. Whether that says something about the state of international politics and so on, I leave that to you. If meaningful action has to be taken against climate change, it will be the Democrat Party who does that. I mean do you expect England's Labour Party, aka the real gang that couldn't shoot straight in global politics, to be the one who saves the day?

I absolutely want to see progressive politics work and so on, but at the end of the day no left-wing party is worth its salt so long as it doesn't do the first job of a left-wing party...protect people from right-wingers. The Democrats have kept their eyes on the prize.


* FYI major first world democracy means a democratic state with a population of roughly a quarter of USA. So don't bring up New Zealand or Taiwan with his wonderful social-democratic leaders.

What I wrote wasn't directed at the party, but at the voters. The voters will have to be the ones who put pressure on the Democrats to enact progressive policies. There is no one else who can do it. Democrats can't be convinced through sweet talk because 1) most of them don't agree with those policies and 2) even if they did they are corporate owned. The voters will have to put pressure on them the same way popular movements put pressure on the Democratic Party throughout the 20th century.

[worstblogever]

I saw a prediction that Mitch McConnell was going to have the GOP Senate block all Cabinet nominees just to be a spiteful d***wad (like he is), but someone came up with an idea Biden could use to counter it...

Nominate the people who make Republicans who s*** their pants to be "acting" Cabinet members to force McConnell's hand. Oh, you don't like Susan Rice for Secretary of State, eh?

WELL THEN, ACTING SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON.

And then watch them all scramble.

Oh, you don't like our AG nominee, Sally Yates?

HERE'S ACTING AG ERIC HOLDER.

Oh, you have a problem with our Sec. of Treasury nominee?

ACTING TREASURY SECRETARY ELIZABETH WARREN.


And the thought of them panicking and conceding to someone just to be rid of the "worse" acting nominee? *chef's kiss*

[JackDaw]

Well now is the time for him to show that. Unity and healing should ONLY involve conservatives getting behind progressive policies, that will likely help them anyway, and NO concessions of any kind to the GOP whatsoever, particularly if the Democrats can grab those two Senate seats in Georgia.

I’d be interested in what most people regard as the acid test for Joe establishing himself as a genuine progressive. The two I’d place most emphasis on would be:-

1/ Making the route to citizenship for immigrants who have been in US sometime faster and fairer.

2/ Making college education appreciably less expensive.