(03-07-2023, 11:55 AM)Wyche Wrote: Which would be outstanding....but I don't see anyone from the two corrupt parties signing up for that, which puts us back at square one. They don't want to derail the gravy train.
I don't think it puts us at square one. Maybe square two.
Two-A.
Yes, I used a real bald eagle and not the red-tailed hawk, you heathens.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
(03-01-2023, 07:56 PM)hollodero Wrote: I won't share all my reasons to say so right now. But to tackle a few points in advance. It is a system that creates division and tribalism. As evidenced, it allows extremism to become mainstream and get a guaranteed election win over time. It allowed for the creation of two party molochs fighting for power. Two molochs that can do whatever they want and they can never ever be replaced. Together they got all the money, all the influence, all the media connections, they would destroy every other viable movement with ease. And they both by design share around 50% of the power over time, and if they were demons from hell it would be so. The opposition party always wins at some point, see: midterms.
Yow Hollo! I'm offline for a week and come back to find you, again, wreaking havoc on our political system.
The last time we went over this ground, I reminded you that over the last 20 years, the liberal democracies which went authoritarian were not two party systems. Given this evidence, why can't one properly infer that multiparty systems pose at least an equal, if not greater, threat than two party? Why can't some 3rd or 4th party become that nasty core which draws authoritarians in numbers and concentrates their power, and augments or even doubles it by aligning with the nearest right wing party?
You describe these two U.S. parties as mirror images of each other, sharing power in cycles by equally bad means. You admit that one side is worse, but don't seem to see any essential differences between the party easily turned from democracy by a grifting dear leader, and the one which won't countenance that.
This seems to me an excessively "structural" description, which maintains its validity by staying away from history and from the issues of substance which animate voters on each side. In short, idealist, not materialist. And as a result, the structures just seem to be driving themselves, turning in cycles to arrive at the same point, regardless of the myriad forces at work on nation, state and voters at any given moment. Were that the case, we'd still have slavery and women would not be able to vote, nor gays to marry.
So my primary objection is that the two-party hypothesis, as you have framed it, misses the real causes of current division, rendering them insoluble.
(03-01-2023, 07:56 PM)hollodero Wrote: In the end, money is the main power and pretty much all influential politicians are either big money themselves or officially bribed. It's tough to call that system a democracy really. It's rather depressing. If you do not align with one of the two parties, you might as well not care at all. Unless there's a smaller evil to be chosen, so that democrats can celebrate a big win and see proof that their ideas and slogans are popular because Biden narrowly beat Trump and they lost less votes in the midterms than usual. Great stuff.
Money is the "main power" everywhere--be the system liberal democratic, theocratic, or Stalinist. I disagree that all influential politicians are "either big money themselves or officially bribed." E.g., I don't think Warren or Sanders were, and I might extend that to some serving Republicans as well, had they not been voted out of office for standing on principle against oligarchic grift. At the moment, liberal democracies seem to be the best way of containing that money power. When they break down, that is more on the education system than any other sector. Democracies do require a critical mass of citizens who honor the concept of public good and the checking and balancing of power, and understand something of the social contract which defines their relationship/responsibility to each other (and before any government is set, if we are following the 17th century precedents). And in the 21st century, students also need a generous dose of critical media literacy and a historically based narrative about how democracies succumb to authoritarian politics, along with learning "there are three branches of government" etc. Developing more viable parties and ranked voting (both of which would be great) will not save us if enough citizens remain uniformed and susceptible to propaganda.
(03-01-2023, 07:56 PM)hollodero Wrote: One last point, giving one option in an election sure would be autocracy, China style. You have two options, very democratic, but it's quite a logical development that especially when the division seekers gain power, there will be the idea to end this back and forth with this domestic enemy and reduce the available choices by one. Better have emperor Trump than demonrats in the house, after all. And the constitutional safeguards against that appear severely flawed. Eg. when Trump says that as president he can do whatever he wants, it seems to me as though he is right. But even if not, it would take a president and his moloch only to conspire with five not so independent people to make it so anyway. Or some corrupted state secretaries or electors. A VP with less integrity than Pence. Or maybe a mob.
Once you dive into the factual record, you cannot help but describe how ONE SIDE of the two party mirror image is quite cracked. That this may be REFLECTED in the other side by some harsh rhetoric does not mean both sides are broken, still less that a two party system caused this division. Biden and the Demonrats, not Trump, are in power precisely because a majority of voters did not want to live in an autocracy.
You are right that our constitutional safeguards are flawed, but this is a problem with every democracy. And with us it is more an education problem than anything else. A growing mass of citizens genuinely do not understand the concept of "safeguards," how they evolved, or why anyone should want them in place when their own side is in power.
(03-05-2023, 11:26 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I think one of the things that needs to be considered in this discussion, though, is that our parties do not operate the same way European countries do. In Europe, a politician's positions are much more in step with their party. The way it has been here for the 20th century the political party's sole purpose was to win elections. That's it. In the 19th century it was more about single-issue topics. Parties coalesced over one issue and they were very ad-hoc. In the 20th they became these behemoths that just bankrolled candidates who were not at all beholden to the platform of their party. It evolved into a system where the platform doesn't matter at all, it's all about gaining power. This is evidenced by the GOP not even adopting a platform in 2020 at their meeting and McConnell saying as much: they only care about winning. Then, when they are in office, the lobbyists are writing the legislation.
Couple notes for the Bels too--
First bolded--good point and support.
Second--not with you there. All parties are always about gaining power. They can accomplish nothing if they don't. And without
a platform, there can be no party-wide desire for power, though individual McCarthy types (Joe and Kevin) may go after power
regardless of principle/platform. So I don't think any party in a democracy where parties compete for votes for power can
really be just all about power.
It is essential to note though that they don't all do it in the same way or to the same degree--
because platforms do matter. Always did, always will--at least to most voters. The separation you speak of though, effected by
lobbyists, etc., may be less a problem now than it was in 1890 or 1925. I don't see some systemic evolution here, but
a concerted effort by the right regain power lost in the '60s and '70s; if there are wobbly cycles here which aren't quite repetitions of
the same, then what's happening now has disturbing affinities with reconstruction and the '30s, when the U.S. right coalesced to
oppose then dominant liberal politics. They won the former, and might have won the latter had not WWII forced the U.S. to come
down on the anti-fascist side.
As with Hollo, your primary evidence seems restricted to the behavior of one side. A GOP without a platform is not evidence this is
a problem for "both sides."
(03-05-2023, 11:26 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: There has been a brain drain in Washington. 40-50 years ago, the halls of Congress were filled with staffers that were subject matter experts working on legislation for elected officials. They knew their topics and would hammer out details, advising their bosses on the issues. However, we have seen a continual decline of staffers of DC and officials sending more staffers to their district and state offices to work on constituent services. This sounds great, right!? They are listening to their people more, right!? Nope. What is happening is that the lack of subject matter experts on staff created a vacuum filled by lobbyists for special interests. Industries are writing the legislation intended to be oversight for their own industry. CRS reports go unread or misunderstood.
Tl;dr: Our system is broken and there are a lot of things beyond just the two-party system that needs fixing.
I thought this insightful. Though I would argue that, at least with respect to China, Biden has drawn real subject matter experts into his circle of advisors--best in the Anglophone world, I'd say. I hope he listens to them.
The sad trend you describe is not clearly a consequence of the two-party system, that I can see (that point aimed at the author of this thread!).
(03-06-2023, 03:55 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: You know I will never ever EVER vote for Trump, but I will always find it funny in a "huh, how the hell did that happen" sorta way that our unhinged orange President was likely our least war-initiating President since probably Jimmy Carter (1977-1981).
That seems somewhat fair, though I would say that as of now, it also might be Biden. Obama imho also did not exactly initiate wars, he inherited some conflicts and kept fighting them, but so did Trump. He threw the mother of all bombs, kept troops in Afghanistan, got scumbag Suleimani killed. That does not make him a war mongerer, of course. I still rather perceive Trump as unpredictable than predictably a peace-loving white bird though. If his vanity is not reigned in by somewhat wanting to stay electable, I don't know what he could initiate. He does do the talk of fire and fury at times, or calling Kim short and fat and having a smaller button, or he suggests to attack Russia with planes under a false Chinese flag, something he probably meant quite seriously. Who knows what other brilliant ideas come to him and if he can be stopped from actually going through. I do not trust him.
(03-07-2023, 09:08 PM)Dill Wrote: The last time we went over this ground, I reminded you that over the last 20 years, the liberal democracies which went authoritarian were not two party systems. Given this evidence, why can't one properly infer that multiparty systems pose at least an equal, if not greater, threat than two party?
Well, for one I would say there isn't nearly enough sample size to reach any conclusion on that. The countries you refer to were young democracies, a generation old, and were never stable to begin with. I have no convincing reason to believe that had they only implemented a two-party system, that development could have been avoided in these countries like Hungary. I rather think CPAC hero Orban would just have pulled the same stunts. Last hungarian election, the other parties formed a coalition and ran as some kind of singular opposition party and still lost.
The other issue is that I don't really know of any other country than the US that employs such a strict, irreplacable two-party system. The closest might be GB, and while not authoritarian they are not exactly on a great path. But the main point to me is this, if one would name the western democracy with the most evident authoritarian tendencies, it would have to be the US and it's not close. When there are election deniers and capitol stormers around, I find it a tough position to claim the two-party system suppresses that exact tendencies. It most clearly did not recently.
(03-07-2023, 09:08 PM)Dill Wrote: Why can't some 3rd or 4th party become that nasty core which draws authoritarians in numbers and concentrates their power, and augments or even doubles it by aligning with the nearest right wing party?
Well, that sure is possible. I would argue it's somewhat more unlikely, for the nearest conservative party might just not want to align with them, and even if they do and try to tame the tiger, they are not tied to them and could always back out. Unlike in the US, where maybe 20% of devout backers brought Trump the presidency, aided by the conservatives that could not vote any other way. These loyalties that make it unthinkable that any of the US parties could ever fall under 45% total support, no matter what, is imho a strong evidence that the two-party system does not exactly reign in authoritarian - or any other unwanted - tendencies. It's the US that elected a person like Trump, something that could hardly be imagined in Germany or any other western democracy. Where a Trump party would be stuck at 20% and be ostracized like most extreme right-wing parties are.
(03-07-2023, 09:08 PM)Dill Wrote: You describe these two U.S. parties as mirror images of each other, sharing power in cycles by equally bad means. You admit that one side is worse, but don't seem to see any essential differences between the party easily turned from democracy by a grifting dear leader, and the one which won't countenance that.
Yeah well, I did not solely focus on the fact that the republican party is worse, that much is true. I don't think that is the most important issue in this debate. The republican party, the way I see it, is a product of the system, the more extreme product for sure, but there are systematic "bad means" issues that affect both parties and turn both into molochs. Like taking in money from big donors and being beholden to them, the partisan role most media organizations find themselves in, and so on and so forth. I know you see that differently and usually seem to imply that pointing to the republican party and identifying them as the main culprits is the apparent conclusion (and else you denounce "bothsidesism" or something like that), but I feel that is a too partisan viewpoint.
(03-07-2023, 09:08 PM)Dill Wrote: This seems to me an excessively "structural" description, which maintains its validity by staying away from history and from the issues of substance which animate voters on each side. In short, idealist, not materialist. And as a result, the structures just seem to be driving themselves, turning in cycles to arrive at the same point, regardless of the myriad forces at work on nation, state and voters at any given moment. Were that the case, we'd still have slavery and women would not be able to vote, nor gays to marry.
Sure, I see the status quo. I did not claim that a two-party system makes progress impossible.
(03-07-2023, 09:08 PM)Dill Wrote: So my primary objection is that the two-party hypothesis, as you have framed it, misses the real causes of current division, rendering them insoluble.
Nope, not going there. I'm not willing to claim it's just republicans that are the real cause.
(03-07-2023, 09:08 PM)Dill Wrote: Money is the "main power" everywhere--be the system liberal democratic, theocratic, or Stalinist.
Sure. I did not demand to get money completely out of politics, or the media or whatever, for of course in a capitalist society that would be an illusion and I am not advocating a revolution. But there's still varying degrees of money taking influence, and it could be reigned in. The US system does precious little to reign it in and imho it's just gotten out of hand.
(03-07-2023, 09:08 PM)Dill Wrote: I disagree that all influential politicians are "either big money themselves or officially bribed." E.g., I don't think Warren or Sanders were, and I might extend that to some serving Republicans as well, had they not been voted out of office for standing on principle against oligarchic grift.
Bernie is the one and only exception, and he's quite an outsider that does not fit neatly into the party moloch system. But there is no one else. Warren, the quickest of google searches show that she takes plenty of billionaire money. I'm not scolding her, I blame the game and not the player. But it is what it is, and what it is is a system where the most important talent of a politician is raising money from big donors and relentlessly making phone calls to that end, and possibly barring Sanders they all do it. Which, again, is something no politicians in other countries have to do to such an exorbitant extent.
(03-07-2023, 09:08 PM)Dill Wrote: Once you dive into the factual record, you cannot help but describe how ONE SIDE of the two party mirror image is quite cracked. That this may be REFLECTED in the other side by some harsh rhetoric does not mean both sides are broken, still less that a two party system caused this division.
Sure, from a partisan lens one could always just leave it at that. Eg. Gerrymandering, yet another symptom of a sick system, can of course always be blamed solely on the bad republicans, they do it more often after all. And if democrats do it too, it's just because they have to and it's still the republican's fault. But I think that is just too convenient. The main issue for me would be that gerrymandering is possible in the first place, not so much which party does it more.
(03-07-2023, 09:08 PM)Dill Wrote: Biden and the Demonrats, not Trump, are in power precisely because a majority of voters did not want to live in an autocracy.
Yeah well, the results of your last presidential elections were real close both times. 44.000 votes in relevant swing states decided the last one for Biden - while Trump increased his vote total - not exactly what I would consider a resounding refusal of authoritarianism. And if Trump is the candidate again in 2024 after four years of a democratic presidency, it will probably be yet another coin flip. And if he wins, which again imho is far from impossible, then where does your argument go.
(03-07-2023, 10:36 PM)Dill Wrote: I thought this insightful. Though I would argue that, at least with respect to China, Biden has drawn real subject matter experts into his circle of advisors--best in the Anglophone world, I'd say. I hope he listens to them.
The sad trend you describe is not clearly a consequence of the two-party system, that I can see (that point aimed at the author of this thread!).
This is true, but keep in mind that I was focusing on Congressional staffers. The trend isn't the same in the executive branch because POTUS doesn't have district offices. A lot of my reform ideas focus on Congress because there are more issues there, in my opinion, than in the White House, especially with how much authority has been abdicated by the branch.
That being said, a national popular election requiring a majority rather than a plurality using something like RCV would be a major improvement on the executive branch. We will just need to see viable third parties and independents in Congress before they will ever make a consistent showing in the presidential elections.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
(03-08-2023, 04:34 AM)hollodero Wrote: That seems somewhat fair, though I would say that as of now, it also might be Biden. Obama imho also did not exactly initiate wars, he inherited some conflicts and kept fighting them, but so did Trump. He threw the mother of all bombs, kept troops in Afghanistan, got scumbag Suleimani killed. That does not make him a war mongerer, of course. I still rather perceive Trump as unpredictable than predictably a peace-loving white bird though. If his vanity is not reigned in by somewhat wanting to stay electable, I don't know what he could initiate. He does do the talk of fire and fury at times, or calling Kim short and fat and having a smaller button, or he suggests to attack Russia with planes under a false Chinese flag, something he probably meant quite seriously. Who knows what other brilliant ideas come to him and if he can be stopped from actually going through. I do not trust him.
Obama sent us into (at least)...
Lybia
Mali
Yemen
Somalia
Syria
He also had a large scale bombing/missile campaign, vastly expanded our drone strike program, and also opened up drone strikes to being used to kill US Citizens. He had US airstrike campaigns going on in about twice as many countries as Bush, and nobody is going to mistake Bush for Gandhi.
That mother of all bombs? First used in combat by... you guessed it, the Obama administration, 14 years after they were made.
- - - - - -
As I said, I would never and will never vote for Trump, and I sure would love it if he could just be absolutely destroyed in the primaries so he can slink off into obscurity for the rest of his life (he's 76, it can't be THAT long, right? RIGHT? Lol) and let the rest of US politics move on from him and his people. I will give him credit for this one very specific topic, though, regardless of if he intended for it or stumbled into it. Rhetoric aside and looking at results, he was our least warring President in 40 years.
The US withdrawal from Afghanistan was both negotiated and initiated by the Trump administration. When Biden was sworn in, we were already down to 2,500 troops there with a deadline already made for full withdrawal.
This reminds me of the Phillip Roth book The Plot Against America where the GOP turns to a famous figure who is anti war, yet also campaigns on growing suspicions of fellow americans.
(03-08-2023, 10:29 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Obama sent us into (at least)...
Lybia
Mali
Yemen
Somalia
Syria
He also had a large scale bombing/missile campaign, vastly expanded our drone strike program, and also opened up drone strikes to being used to kill US Citizens. He had US airstrike campaigns going on in about twice as many countries as Bush, and nobody is going to mistake Bush for Gandhi.
That mother of all bombs? First used in combat by... you guessed it, the Obama administration, 14 years after they were made.
Oh, em, but ehm, nobel prize, stuff... ah well, I guess I take the L on that one.
I will now put all my chips on Biden being equally peaceful.
(03-08-2023, 09:41 PM)hollodero Wrote: I will now put all my chips on Biden being equally peaceful.
I sure hope so and would appreciate that, but.... *Looks over at Russia/Iran in Ukraine, China building up near Taiwan, North Korea shooting missiles over Japan as Japan builds up it's military.* ....not sure he'll have the luxury to choose if we'll be peaceful or not.
(03-08-2023, 01:17 PM)Nately120 Wrote: This reminds me of the Phillip Roth book The Plot Against America where the GOP turns to a famous figure who is anti war, yet also campaigns on growing suspicions of fellow americans.
This was a true story where the GOP made Charles Lindbergh their figurehead and they were isolationists. This was during the pre-WWII area when members of the GOP worked with Nazi Germany to promote anti-war propaganda to keep us out of WWII. Many members of the GOP in congress were arrested and charged with Sedition, but then Pearl Harbor happened and this was mainly forgotten about. You can google Nazi Germany rallies at Madison Square Garden and you'll see pictures of many members of the GOP in attendance as well as Lindbergh as the key note speaker.
HBO had this as a mini-series and if you're into Podcasts look up ULTRA by Rachael Maddow and she'll tell you this largely forgotten story the GOP wants swept under the rug.
(03-09-2023, 05:36 PM)BIGDADDYFROMCINCINNATI Wrote: This was a true story where the GOP made Charles Lindbergh their figurehead and they were isolationists. This was during the pre-WWII area when members of the GOP worked with Nazi Germany to promote anti-war propaganda to keep us out of WWII. Many members of the GOP in congress were arrested and charged with Sedition, but then Pearl Harbor happened and this was mainly forgotten about. You can google Nazi Germany rallies at Madison Square Garden and you'll see pictures of many members of the GOP in attendance as well as Lindbergh as the key note speaker.
HBO had this as a mini-series and if you're into Podcasts look up ULTRA by Rachael Maddow and she'll tell you this largely forgotten story the GOP wants swept under the rug.
(03-09-2023, 05:48 PM)Nately120 Wrote: No kidding. Go figure, the Phillip Roth book I got more into was the one where the dude had sex with the piece of liver in the fridge.
If you can get HBO on demand look up "The Plot against America," so this isn't the first time the GOP has tried to end American democracy it happened in late 1939. This group of GOP extremist operated under the "America First Committee." Sound familiar?
Rachel's Ultra podcast is more accurate b/c it explains how GOP Senator Earnst Lundeen from Minnesota was working hand and hand with the Nazis in Berlin and using US taxpayers $$$ to mail out Nazi anti-War propaganda using the "Franking privilege," which it means that a member of the Senate or a member of the House can send out, free of charge, infinite numbers of copies of anything that was set on the Senate floor or the House floor or put in the Congressional record. You can mail it out for free. Germany's ambassador Viereck realized that and used that congressional privilege to effectively charge the American taxpayers for the privilege of Hitler's government propaganda being sent out under the name of various GOP senators and congressmen by the millions of pieces into American homes cost-free to the Germans and paid for by the U.S. taxpayer, arranged by a Nazi agent. https://www.npr.org/2022/12/15/1143078657/rachel-maddow-uncovers-a-wwii-era-plot-against-america-in-ultra
Google Republican Senator Earnst Lundeen-MN and George Sylvester Viereck; that'll get you started.
(03-09-2023, 05:36 PM)BIGDADDYFROMCINCINNATI Wrote: This was a true story where the GOP made Charles Lindbergh their figurehead and they were isolationists. This was during the pre-WWII area when members of the GOP worked with Nazi Germany to promote anti-war propaganda to keep us out of WWII. Many members of the GOP in congress were arrested and charged with Sedition, but then Pearl Harbor happened and this was mainly forgotten about. You can google Nazi Germany rallies at Madison Square Garden and you'll see pictures of many members of the GOP in attendance as well as Lindbergh as the key note speaker.
HBO had this as a mini-series and if you're into Podcasts look up ULTRA by Rachael Maddow and she'll tell you this largely forgotten story the GOP wants swept under the rug.
They were indicted, but aquitted and their stolen guns returned, when the sympatheitc jury judged them not guilty.
In the U.S., taking down violent right wing organizations has been difficult. Required a civil war once, and they still won
the peace.
(lol Bigdaddy beat me to it--jusst saw after I posted this.)
The judge allowed all the defendants to be tried together and they made a circus of the trial, so the jury was so confused and worn down. They were deadlocked and most charges were dismissed against the insurrectionists.
They were indicted, but aquitted and their stolen guns returned, when the sympatheitc jury judged them not guilty.
In the U.S., taking down violent right wing organizations has been difficult. Required a civil war once, and they still won
the peace.
(lol Bigdaddy beat me to it--jusst saw after I posted this.)
(03-09-2023, 07:02 PM)BIGDADDYFROMCINCINNATI Wrote: The judge allowed all the defendants to be tried together and they made a circus of the trial, so the jury was so confused and worn down. They were deadlocked and most charges were dismissed against the insurrectionists.
After reading the first post I came to say I think we may soon see the toppling of the two party system, because the GOP may fragment with the trumpets going one way and desanitized going another. But now I see this history and I guess nevermind.
(03-10-2023, 04:22 AM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: After reading the first post I came to say I think we may soon see the toppling of the two party system, because the GOP may fragment with the trumpets going one way and desanitized going another. But now I see this history and I guess nevermind.
Yes, in 1940 the Right was stronger, in control of most major news outlets, in a nation much more openly white supremacist. Then there was radio, where Christian nationalist Father Coughlin regaled 10s of millions of listeners with his warnings about the domination of Jewish bankers in the New Deal and affirmation of CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM. It was warmonger JEWS who wanted us to go to war in Europe against another Christian nationalist nation, and to mongrelize "our" race and replace it with non-white immigration and political influence. It wasn't explicitly "racism" the U.S. was fighting against in WWII, when we interned Japanese (but not Italians and Germans) and sent a segregated army to war, though hard to get that from my school history books.
But the war decided a lot of things for most Americans, including much of its industrial/banking elite as well as the middle and working classes.
The increasingly successful legal challenges to white supremacy might not have gone forward, or at least so quickly, had not we lost 400,000 dead
to fascism. Then the threat of another world war--this time against "worldwide communism! --kept our bases overseas, as plenty of right wingers were ok with fighting Commies anywhere, anytime, any way, including non-white developing countries no one had ever heard of and non-signatories to the Geneva Conventions.
Now we are again in a period with some parallels to the interwar years, when the Right targeted "war mongering internationalists" who linked us to communism and "international Jewish domination" via civil rights and union activism. Democracies were falling in Europe and fascist governments in Japan and Italy were sending mechanized industrial armies into developing countries to create new empires, linking up with similar illiberal governments via treaties and alliances. Leave "warmongers" but replace "internationalist" with "globalist" and "communist" with "socialist," and some rhetorical similarities with the present appear. The style of Hannity and Levin is very much like Coughlin's. Tucker continues the "replacement" concern--though all this is very "soft" compared to right-wing ideologues of the 30s, who feared no "canceling" from woke warriors and loudly proclaim themselves anti-racist (the "real" racists now being those who continue the civil rights struggle in their pushback against, e.g., voting restrictions).
Our current right is somewhat split, as there is still a neo-con presence among establishment and traditional Republicans, and an ant-Soviet hostility easily conflated the with now tending fascist Russia for them--though this is proportionally very small (no greater than 15%, if you trust Pew polling) and almost 100% anti-Trump.
Which all brings me to one of my current concerns--the growing international illiberalism, the loss of so many established liberal democracies as autocrats recognize their common interests and now link up to contest a liberal international system. Domestically, the MAGA portion of our right seems uniquely susceptible to Russian/Putin propaganda against "globalists" etc.
And that appears to be Fox's new direction--loudly undermining support for war against a Christian nationalist nation whose domestic "cultural war" priorities are so close to those of our own right. Even if we don't send billions in support of Ukraine to defend an international system predicated on rule of law, money so saved is NOT going to be suddenly re-directed to East Palestine if the Republicans can help. That's just asking rural Americans to embrace government help and--gasp!--socialism. But for now its ok for flyover American to imagine it is Biden and globalists preventing that with "handouts" to a very CORRUPT Ukrainianin government which (the mainstream news won't tell you) is riddled with fascist elements!
(03-09-2023, 07:02 PM)BIGDADDYFROMCINCINNATI Wrote: The judge allowed all the defendants to be tried together and they made a circus of the trial, so the jury was so confused and worn down. They were deadlocked and most charges were dismissed against the insurrectionists.
LOL and wasn't the lead juror the cousin of the coup leader? There was some blood relation in there.
I think ALL charges were dismissed, weren't they?
And the court had to return their "property," the STOLEN automatic weapons.
So hard for the jury to figure out whether THEY were the threat or the FBI with its raid on private homes.
All this is less puzzling when you remember how hard it was to convict white people of racial
crimes like lynching during this period. Juries often just let them go.
Also, despite the voluminous FBI files on the case, it was largely forgotten by FBI and historians
as the threat of COMMUNISM loomed so large after '48.
(03-08-2023, 10:29 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Obama sent us into (at least)...
Lybia
Mali
Yemen
Somalia
Syria
He also had a large scale bombing/missile campaign, vastly expanded our drone strike program, and also opened up drone strikes to being used to kill US Citizens. He had US airstrike campaigns going on in about twice as many countries as Bush, and nobody is going to mistake Bush for Gandhi.
That mother of all bombs? First used in combat by... you guessed it, the Obama administration, 14 years after they were made.
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Hmm. I did not "guess" the Obama administration was the first to use the MOAB. Not that who used it first could decide the question of which president was more likely to get us into an unnecessary war; and it is still far short of effect when compared to carpet bombing. But I am just curious about your source. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-drops-mother-of-all-bombs-in-afghanistan-marking-weapons-first-use/
The U.S. has been supporting the Saudi war in Yemen since 2002 at least. I am not aware that Obama "sent us into Yemen," though he authorized technicians and advisors to control technology transfers from Saudi soil. Obama went into Syria to get ISIS. That's ok, right? Fighting an enemy which had found a way to kill Americans on U.S. soil, in part via the broadcasts of the American citizen he killed with a drone strike. This is not "leftist" foreign policy for sure, but still not an especially good support for a claim that Obama was as or more likely to "initiate" wars than Trump, or put the country at a similar level of war risk. E.g., leading a coalition of European and GCC countries to protect against a civilian massacre in Libya doesn't move the needle in Obama's direction much either.
Also there is a question of the standards by which one judges "initiation" of war and actual WAR MONGERING. I don't say Trump initiated a war in Syria or did something evil and war mongery by following up the Obama campaign against ISIS (though his announcement of Al Baghdadi's death was clumsy and tasteless).
What bothers me are Trump's wholly unnecessary risks and provocations--like reneging on the Iran Deal and sending carrier fleets to the gulf to brush against Iranian air space and coastal waters and killing an Iranian government official. Iran just doesn't realize that it's ok for the U.S. to have military bases in the country right next door to it.
Where Obama's efforts were to defend and maintain an international system (ostensibly) based on rule of law, Trump's policies continually put that system at risk, along with the alliances required to maintain it, while giving cover to autocrats like Putin and MBS, among others. The "other side" in the current global contest over what kind of international system we are to have going forward.
Hollo is quite right to call attention to Trump's "unpredictability." Some right wingers have claimed that is an advantage because bad actors don't really know what Trump will do, so it is a "strength." That strength so backfired when Milley had to call his Chinese counterpart to assure him Trump was not planning a strike in the South China Sea during an election year. The "unpredictability" argument just signals lack of foreign policy knowledge, and especially the kind of consistency with our allies as well as adversaries that implementation requires. People saying that don't see the tertiary effects of pulling out of the Iran Deal or the TPP or elevating Kim from his international pariah status, or the hits to our credibility as a negotiating partner. Iran is now weeks away from break out, 6 East asian countries were left weakened before China's Belt and Road pressure, and Kim is visiting foreign capitals regularly now and showcasing his style at international events like the Asian games. Saudis know if Trump is back in office, they'll have friend regardless of human rights violations. That much IS predictable.
(03-08-2023, 10:29 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: - - - - - -
As I said, I would never and will never vote for Trump, and I sure would love it if he could just be absolutely destroyed in the primaries so he can slink off into obscurity for the rest of his life (he's 76, it can't be THAT long, right? RIGHT? Lol) and let the rest of US politics move on from him and his people. I will give him credit for this one very specific topic, though, regardless of if he intended for it or stumbled into it. Rhetoric aside and looking at results, he was our least warring President in 40 years.
The US withdrawal from Afghanistan was both negotiated and initiated by the Trump administration. When Biden was sworn in, we were already down to 2,500 troops there with a deadline already made for full withdrawal.
With you right up to the bolded, Len. But I'd say TRUMP was certainly the president of the last 40 years MOST LIKELY to get us into war. We came so close to it in the Gulf at least twice that I can think of. That we didn't get into a terrible war with Iran says more about Iran's restraint than Trump's. And if re-elected, he will be choosing military advisors more like Flynn than Mattis and Kelly, who constantly challenged his impulse to provoke Iran and China, while he defended MSB and Putin.
Sure Trump wanted to pull out from Afghanistan--so badly he "negotiated with terrorists" and excluded our ally, the A-stan gov.; let 5,000 out of prison; and fixed an impossible deadline to safely meet. No special reason to believe this establishes anything but Trump's animus toward "globalism" and sense that allies are just freeriding on U.S. protection. Not a desire for peaceful internationalism.
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![[Image: 221024_ultra_ep4_lundeen-dinner_replace.png]](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/newscms/2022_43/3577562/221024_ultra_ep4_lundeen-dinner_replace.png)
--kept our bases overseas, as plenty of right wingers were ok with fighting Commies anywhere, anytime, any way, including non-white developing countries no one had ever heard of and non-signatories to the Geneva Conventions.