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

[Revolutionary_Jack]

https://www.vpr.org/post/howard-dean...unify#stream/0

Howard Dean gives a very good interview where he takes a nuanced look at the Dem. Party Knife Fight.

[PwrdOn]

The sole function of the police in our society is to protect private property, when it comes to saving actual human lives it'd be pretty hard to argue that they're a net positive. So by continuing to fund the police we are simply declaring that we value white property more than black lives, which has always been true throughout the history of this country, just nobody really wants to admit it. After all, it is pretty interesting that conservatives want to abolish every government program but all line up to support the police, who represent the single largest expense in most local administrations, and as is plain for everyone to see, represent a pretty terrible return on investment unless terrorizing black people is the intention.

[BeastieRunner]

https://twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/s...89666055299074

Laurie Garrett warns that Trump might try to steal the electoral voters.
Not sure but you might be vigilant, he might not be above bribing, intimidating or blackmailing individual voters. I'm sure a few shady officines might be at work.

Whoever wrote that needs to take another look at the law.

[Kevinroc]

The crisis isn’t too much polarization. It’s too little democracy.
If Republicans couldn’t win so much power while losing votes, the US wouldn’t be in the current crisis.

https://www.vox.com/21561011/2020-el...nate-democracy

Imagine that, four years ago, Donald Trump lost the presidential election by 2.9 million votes, but there was no Electoral College to weight the results in his favor. In January 2017, Hillary Clinton was inaugurated as president, and the Trumpist faction of the GOP was blamed for blowing an election Republicans could have won.

The GOP would have been locked out of presidential power for three straight terms, after winning the crucial popular vote only once since 1988. It might have lost the Supreme Court, too.

And so Republicans would likely have done what Democrats did in 1992, after they lost three straight presidential elections: reform their agenda and their messaging, and try to build a broader coalition, one capable of winning power by winning votes. This is the way democracy disciplines political parties: Parties want to win, and to do so, they need to listen to the public. But that’s only true for one of our political parties.

[mogwen]

Whoever wrote that needs to take another look at the law.

Taken from Wikipedia:
As of 2020, 33 states plus the District of Columbia have laws against faithless electors, though the laws in half of these jurisdictions have no enforcement mechanism.[8] Washington became the first state to fine faithless electors after the 2016 election in the wake of that state having 4 faithless elector votes. In lieu of penalizing a faithless elector, some states such as Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota specify a faithless elector's vote be voided.[9] Colorado was the first state to void an elector's attempted faithless vote during the 2016 electoral college vote. Minnesota also invoked this law for the first time in 2016 when an elector pledged to Hillary Clinton attempted to vote for Bernie Sanders instead.[10] Until 2008, Minnesota's electors cast secret ballots. Although the final count would reveal the occurrence of faithless votes (except in the unlikely case of two or more changes canceling out), it was impossible to determine which elector(s) were faithless. After an unknown elector was faithless in 2004, Minnesota amended its law to require public balloting of the electors' votes and invalidate any vote cast for someone other than the candidate to whom the elector was pledged.[11]

So no enforcement mechanics.

[Mister Mets]

Yeah, the clock is already ticking on the possibility of another wannabe strongman getting a foot in the door of the Oval Office. I'm no constitutional scholar, but I'm guessing a new amendment would be needed to stop the next Trump-like authoritarian from being elected. Problem is, any actions taken to prevent that madness from repeating itself is bound to be loudly and strongly opposed by the GOP who's made it clear they want to rule, not govern and will flat out kill any attempt to change the status quo. Make no mistake, even with Trump having been defeated, democracy in this country is still very much at risk as long as the Republican Party continues it's march towards total fascism.

What constitutional amendment could be used to stop a Trump from getting elected?

He's the new Joe Liebermann, the conservative Democrat who would be a Republican but who is an ally because that provides more power for their own agenda. Democrats need politicians like this fo crucial votes because they need as man votes as possible to pass things. There will aways be a Joe Lieberman, politicians like that are too useful for the for the Democrats to throw away.

There are some distinctions. Joe Manchin has been able to o can win in West Virginia, which is one of the most conservative states in the nation. Joe Lieberman wasn't as conservative, but he did also come from a state which was trending blue.

These aren't very good arguments at all, again if the end result is more people have an easier time voting what purpose does it serve to point out that the reasons for wanting to make that happen aren't pure? So you can oppose opening up the vote and not sound like you're doing it disenfranchise voters? It makes zero sense.

I'm a capitalist, so it usually doesn't matter why good things happen. If it's because greedy people are incentivized into doing the right thing, I agree with you that the right response is to ask "So what?"

However, people do often use morality as part of their rationale for getting support for a policy, so it's relevant to point out to less pure motives as a response to those questions.

There is also a question of whether it is a good thing to offer access selectively, especially if the goal is to get a particular outcome, like increasing the power of the establishment of the Democratic party. Whether making election day a national holiday helps reach that goal is a different question.

[Wildling]

I know there's priorities and stuff, but I can't help but hope Al Jourgensen has it in him for another GOP administration mocking album. From COVID to a potential Fox/Trumpworld civil war and everything in between, there's hardly a shortage of material.

[Amadeus Arkham]

No. Tucker Carlson is loathed WAY too much. How does someone who can't get a sponsor for his primetime TV show outside of the MyPillowGuy expect to get campaign donations?

Sure, but Trump was a failed businessman who had went bankrupt multiple times and was the butt of many jokes for awhile before he became President. So I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility. Carlson certainly has the name recognition and is quite popular in conservative circles.

[Wildling]

Sure, but Trump was a failed businessman who had went bankrupt multiple times and was the butt of many jokes for awhile before he became President. So I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility. Carlson certainly has the name recognition and is quite popular in conservative circles.

There's Suckers for Tucker but comparing him to Trump's "Obama piggybacker" brand still seems a stretch to me.

[Robotman]

Sure, but Trump was a failed businessman who had went bankrupt multiple times and was the butt of many jokes for awhile before he became President. So I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility. Carlson certainly has the name recognition and is quite popular in conservative circles.

Tucker has even less broad appeal than Trump. Twittler was able to win over suburban white woman in 2016 and increased his minority voting numbers in 2020. He also run as a political outsider who was “good at business”. Tucker wouldn’t appeal to anyone other than male republicans and hard core Trump cultists.

[Tami]

The damage Trump has done worldwide

Germany’s protests against coronavirus restrictions are becoming increasingly radical

The incidents come against the backdrop of a growing violent undercurrent at large-scale street demonstrations against coronavirus restrictions, including one attended by 20,000 people Saturday in Leipzig. The developments point to an increasingly radicalized movement of virus skeptics in Germany, embraced by the country’s far-right extremist groups and energized by global conspiracy theories, notably those put forth by the U.S.-born QAnon movement.

Far-right groups marched alongside the demonstrators this weekend, stoking concerns among security officials that they will gain recruits and draw more demonstrators to violence, with bomb- and weapon-making material already circulating in coronavirus-skeptic circles online.

But experts say that coronavirus skeptics have been particularly susceptible to more radical conspiracy theories, with overlap online between anti-lockdown channels on platforms such as *******m and groups supporting QAnon, which has ballooned in Germany in recent months.

German supporters of QAnon’s theories believe President Trump was set to save Germany from a global cabal of child abusers. There are around 77,000 unique users in QAnon-associated *******m chat groups in Germany, according to Miro Dittrich, a researcher at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation focused on tracking online extremist groups.

[Mister Mets]

The sole function of the police in our society is to protect private property, when it comes to saving actual human lives it'd be pretty hard to argue that they're a net positive. So by continuing to fund the police we are simply declaring that we value white property more than black lives, which has always been true throughout the history of this country, just nobody really wants to admit it. After all, it is pretty interesting that conservatives want to abolish every government program but all line up to support the police, who represent the single largest expense in most local administrations, and as is plain for everyone to see, represent a pretty terrible return on investment unless terrorizing black people is the intention.

This seems to assume that not only will more African American lives be saved by the sudden dissolution of every police department in the nation, but that this conclusion is obvious to everyone who advocates for any funding for the police expresses a preference for private property over human lives.

There's much with your statement that reasonable people will disagree with.

[Joker]

Ain’t nobody talking about the “sudden dissolution of every police department in the nation” though. And you know it.

[PwrdOn]

This seems to assume that not only will more African American lives be saved by the sudden dissolution of every police department in the nation, but that this conclusion is obvious to everyone who advocates for any funding for the police expresses a preference for private property over human lives.

There's much with your statement that reasonable people will disagree with.

Just the NYPD by itself has a budget of $6 billion which is larger than the military budgets of most countries. Spending even a fraction of that money toward poverty alleviation programs would go MUCH farther in reducing crime than continuing to fund a bloated, fascistic, and universally hated organization like the NYPD.

[Jack Dracula]

Tucker has even less broad appeal than Trump. Twittler was able to win over suburban white woman in 2016 and increased his minority voting numbers in 2020. He also run as a political outsider who was “good at business”. Tucker wouldn’t appeal to anyone other than male republicans and hard core Trump cultists.

I'm not sure Trump actually "won over" suburban white women in 2016 so much as managed to deeply sow the seeds of doubt as to Hillary Clinton's credibility.
Something I frankly have no explanation for.