Who do you tip to win the US presidential election

[Jon Miller]

I don't understand why you are more concerned about non-state terrorism then state terrorism. I don't understand why you don't see the difference between the state making things worse and the state trying to make things better.

There were issues in the last two decades during the Bush and Obama years, but things have been a lot worse during the Trump years. This is because he needs to push those clouds (and to separate them). Biden, in particular, is preaching reconciliation. Maybe he can't do it; maybe his bandaid won't work (like Obama's didn't really work). But we need a break from the State pushing division and harming people or we will get Civil War or a Fascist State.

You are concerned that Biden might be hijacked by people who might act as bad as Trump but for the other side, but the alternative to Biden is Trump!

JM

[Dinner]

No, I'm concerned about something more like (just one possible path):

1. Biden wins, and both houses of congress go blue
2. It's hammering time, and everybody's in a "end of Return of the Jedi" type mood, so somebody takes Defund the Police seriously and starts moving to aggressively demilitarize the police
3. This entails firing a lot of cops, nationwide, at once
4. This dumps a lot of unemployed cops on the market at a time when the economy as a whole isn't doing so hot
5. Cops have few job skills relevant for being not-cops, have a militaristic mindset, and are used to making a decent amount of pay for modestly-educated men. Also, most of them have guns, are feeling pissed and embattled already, and Trump just lost.
6. Gigantic upsurge in domestic terrorism
7. Everything unravels from there.
8. Composition of courts becomes largely irrelevant.

Again, just one possible path. As I say: Trump is incredibly crappy but also impotent, and represents a more or less stable equilibrium; he is unlikely to do anything decisive because he's a bloated posturing pissant without an ounce of courage in his body, and he's so good as a lightning rod that he occupies the opposition just by blithering. If he is removed from the picture, the toxic atmosphere that produced him is free to produce something worse. We'll have to let go of the tiger's tail eventually, but I don't want that to happen now. And yes, if not now, when, etc. But I do wish you'd abandon this notion that getting rid of Trump will solve the problem. I really don't think it will.

(The DiAngelo crowd are most worrisome to me in that they're a further destabilizing/escalating element in America's ongoing battle between opposing camps of internet lunatics shouting over the sane people. I don't think they're going to become a Red Guard, or anything of that nature. I was attempting to clarify what I thought Dinner was getting at. Sorry for not making that clear.)

You said it much better than I did. Thank you.

[Jon Miller]

Kasich is going to speak at the DNC in August at the invitation of Biden. He was a 2016 Republican candidate and began compassionate conservatism (which many Americans, including I, found attractive and was partially responsible for the election of Bush in 2000).

I think it is clear to say that the Democratic tent in 2020 is very large. That isn't to say that there are not various currents and that there will not be division (and probably a smaller tent) in the next decade (maybe even by 2024). But right now, as long as you are not a white supremacist or right-wing fascist, the part of Biden embraces you.

JM

[Dinner]

I don't think that getting rid of Trump will solve the problem.

However, I think it is a necessary step to solving the problem.

Both houses may go blue, but Biden will win before the Senate goes blue. If the Senate goes blue, there will still be conservative Democrats on it (this is something that I have had to repeatedly point out to some people in RL who are independents who lean R/L. Just because Republicans that appear respectable like Sasse have mostly supported Trump doesn't mean that Democrats will be the same and there have been some Republicans who have stayed respectable (McCain/Romney). Additionally, there have been far more moderate/conservatve Democrats then moderate Republicans because the Democrats didn't have the tea party/etc to 'purify' their ranks for a decade. Maybe the Democrats will start their 'purifying' process now, but it will take a decade for them to get as bad as the Republicans are now and we can take steps to keep that from happening.

JM

Actually Dems have been losing primaries to far left challengers so there Party is getting pushed more towards the radical wing. That is why a lot of people who are generally center left are getting uncomfortable with them. Hell, in my state the Dems are trying to repeal the state’s equality amendment because they want to enact laws biased against whites and Asians. I can’t support that.

If they want to help poor people then help all poor people without regard for race. But don’t say we will only help poor people if they are a certain race which tends to support our party politically. That is just racism.

[Jon Miller]

But not to the extant of Republicans.

Look at 2018 score

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/report-cards/2018/senate/ideology

(my post on this is waiting approval for some reason)

Yes, may of the Democrats are out due to having the election of 2018 taken by Republicans. But many are still in. And for Democrats to take the Senate they will have to win elections in conservative states and so the Democrats elected will be moderate (like Doug) or conservative (like Joe). Not liberal (or radical liberal).

JM

[Kidlicious]

At one time there were conservative Democrats in the Senate. Me thinks JM is living in the past. I mean they are almost all to the left of what Obama was as president.

[Jon Miller]

Joe, Jon, Angus, Doug, Mark and Gary? Joe is a conservative and even votes with Trump sometimes https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...e-manchin-iii/ .

JM

[ZEE]

I want to thank Jon Miller for providing us with citations, and I encourage other members of this wonderful forum to poast citations as well!

[Kidlicious]

But not to the extant of Republicans.

Look at 2018 score

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/report-cards/2018/senate/ideology

(my post on this is waiting approval for some reason)

Yes, may of the Democrats are out due to having the election of 2018 taken by Republicans. But many are still in. And for Democrats to take the Senate they will have to win elections in conservative states and so the Democrats elected will be moderate (like Doug) or conservative (like Joe). Not liberal (or radical liberal).

JM

Donnelly and Heitkamp are gone so that leaves Manchin

[Kidlicious]

Joe, Jon, Angus, Doug, Mark and Gary? Joe is a conservative and even votes with Trump sometimes https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...e-manchin-iii/ .

JM

Jon Tester is ranked 53 according to your link.

[Jon Miller]

He is a democrat (only Susan is ranked more liberal than him among Republicans). But he is moderate (score of 40-60) instead of liberal.

In 2016-2018 there was 3 conservative Democrats and no liberal Republicans. Additionally, there were 2 Republicans who were moderates (Lisa and Susan) and 9 Democrats who were moderates.

JM

[Elok]

I don't understand why you are more concerned about non-state terrorism then state terrorism. I don't understand why you don't see the difference between the state making things worse and the state trying to make things better.

There were issues in the last two decades during the Bush and Obama years, but things have been a lot worse during the Trump years. This is because he needs to push those clouds (and to separate them). Biden, in particular, is preaching reconciliation. Maybe he can't do it; maybe his bandaid won't work (like Obama's didn't really work). But we need a break from the State pushing division and harming people or we will get Civil War or a Fascist State.

You are concerned that Biden might be hijacked by people who might act as bad as Trump but for the other side, but the alternative to Biden is Trump!

JM

Trump is a lump. If he wanted to be a fascist, he's been given the absolute perfect opportunity, a horrible epidemic (from China, of all places) to justify any number of power grabs. Instead he acted like a man myopically obsessed with winning elections--oh no, it'll hurt the economy!--and, uh ... he had a different, ineffectual travel ban, then he made an invalid medical recommendation, he feuded with his own experts, he did something horrible to some protesters so he could do a really unconvincing photo-op, and now he's trying to be heavy-handed on a larger scale but still for optics purposes and honestly he's facing sufficient pushback that I expect him to lose hard on that too. Realistically, he's going to lose in November, barring a remarkable turn of events, and the only question is what that means.

Also, again, no, I don't worry that "the other side" will act as bad as Trump. Trump is a remarkable, singular phenomenon. In the example given, they did a single really stupid thing and it all unwound from there. I can see other ways of unwinding, but in general they don't involve a dictatorial Left. The American Left is and would be, contra Kid, really quite bad at true authoritarianism, because it doesn't cohere for anything and has an aggressively anti-military culture. It's very good at soft power, and a lot of leftists I know seem to fail to appreciate the limits of soft power, and to take legitimacy for granted, in much the same way that idiot generals assume mere firepower can win wars. In the unlikely event that they're mad enough to start a fight for real, the Right will finish it. Both the process and the aftermath will be ugly, and the country will be much weaker and poorer when it ends.

Biden will not conciliate anybody. He was only selected over an extremist because defeating Trump was seen as an absolute priority. He has nothing remotely resembling Obama's charisma. He will preside over continuing decay, and we will wait and see what the GOP (EDIT: and the country) looks like in 2024.

[Kidlicious]

He is a democrat (only Susan is ranked more liberal than him among Republicans). But he is moderate (score of 40-60) instead of liberal.

In 2016-2018 there was 3 conservative Democrats and no liberal Republicans. Additionally, there were 2 Republicans who were moderates (Lisa and Susan) and 9 Democrats who were moderates.

JM

Ok but he's the second most conservative D and he's ranked in the bottom half.

[Kidlicious]

Defunding the police is a local issue btw. The question is would Biden use federal police like Trump is doing.

[Elok]

Nothing is a local issue anymore.

[Kidlicious]

We're safe at the moment in OK

[Elok]

I should add that, while I'm temperamentally predisposed to pessimism, there's a certain amount of opportunity baked into this crisis. Trump finally dealt a deathblow to Reaganism. That's a good thing, because Reaganism was an abomination and doomed anyway, but now his attempted replacement has pretty well failed and it's hard to say what will replace it. It could be something actually interesting that has something to offer America. Parties have realigned radically before. I don't know how long it will take for the GOP to reinvent itself, or what could encourage it to develop into something healthy. It's going to be something rural, and it can't hope to win on just Trump's base over the long term. Anyway, there is hope in the gloom.

[Kidlicious]

Can you name one time in history when a left wing extremist movement like this was stopped? In Europe maybe. But this isn't Europe. This is more like Maoist China.

[Ted Striker]

спаси́бо from the GRU Kidiciuos