Random Politics Thread

[Stigmata]

What mystifies me is that people still don't see the extent to which there's no floor on the loyalty Trump expects, and he WILL throw someone under a bus the minute they aren't "loyal". His demands have already exceeded insane parameters. Do these people who want his support think it'll be clear sailing for the next two years? Just when it seems like his expectations for loyalty couldn't possibly get more blatantly traitorous or criminal, they do. A lot can happen in even one week. These people are signing on for two years. What the fuck is wrong with them?

You're right. No one is immune from his wrath in the event they do not display 100% unwavering, unquestioned loyalty, and even meeting the two prior requirements doesn't necessarily mean he still won't throw you under the bus to save his own hide (remember when he lashed out against Ron De Santis when he allowed Florida to remain open at the beginning of covid and the cases skyrocketed, reflecting poorly upon Trump for the lack of a clear federal level lockdown guideline).

I just can't understand why the party believes he is so valuable to them when ever since he has taken office they've continually lost congressional seats. The party seems fractured beyond repair and completely aimless on who or what comes next or what the party wants to be.

They had their "get out of jail free" card with the 2nd impeachment trail where they could've discarded him and moved on to rid the party of its radicalized sect that is turning away the suburban middle class voters, yet the decided to continue on down the path to crazy town and now will forever be remembered in history as the seditionist party.

I'm just curious as to what the hell the plan is, lol.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

They had their "get out of jail free" card with the 2nd impeachment trail where they could've discarded him and moved on to rid the party of its radicalized sect that is turning away the suburban middle class voters, yet the decided to continue on down the path to crazy town and now will forever be remembered in history as the seditionist party.

I'm just curious as to what the hell the plan is, lol.

You know, it kinda looks like Trump's got them believing their careers are over if they speak out against him *and* has them backed into corners like scared animals. Fear and scarcity of options can actually interfere with ability to make good decisions (executive function), and people kinda run with whatever desperate action pops into their head. (There are studies on poverty causing people to make decisions, creating a vicious cycle that keeps people in poverty). It really kinda looks like that's what's going on with these people - they stay in because they can't figure out how bad it's gotten, and the worse it gets the more they lose their ability to think about it.

For most of them that's precisely the sort of thing they look for in a leader though. They think its good leadership or good management.

*slides out of chair and lays on floor groaning at the crushing, inescapable banality of mankind*

 

[ceecee]

You know, it kinda looks like Trump's got them believing their careers are over if they speak out against him *and* has them backed into corners like scared animals. Fear and scarcity of options can actually interfere with ability to make good decisions (executive function), and people kinda run with whatever desperate action pops into their head. (There are studies on poverty causing people to make decisions, creating a vicious cycle that keeps people in poverty). It really kinda looks like that's what's going on with these people - they stay in because they can't figure out how bad it's gotten, and the worse it gets the more they lose their ability to think about it.



*slides out of chair and lays on floor groaning at the crushing, inescapable banality of mankind*

It's like how Trump embodies what they would be/do if they were a billionaire. The fact that Trump isn't a billionaire and his taste is absolutely ridiculous and a façade - matters absolutely not at all. Look at his fans here - I really waft between feeling incredibly sorry for most of them and hating the ignorance that they flaunt, gladly.

They need to walk around for the rest of their lives doing this...

 

[ceecee]

Really good piece on the years that led to the situation in Texas.

Texas Froze by Design by James K. Galbraith - Project Syndicate

 

[ceecee]

Conservative ‘America, Uncanceled’ event cancels speaker

There are many things I love about this story - especially that it's classified as entertainment.

Something called America, Uncancelled, canceled one of their guests in one day of the event announcement.

Conservatives are unable to do even the most rudimentary vetting - from CPAC to congressional candidates. Why is this? For the same reason they can't govern.

They want so badly to win the culture war, every move they make is basically slapping themselves in the face and someone screaming - why are you hitting yourself??

 

[Jaguar]

“Neera Tanden is a leading policy expert who brings critical qualifications to the table during this time of unprecedented crisis,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Twitter on Wednesday morning. “She has a broad spectrum of support, ranging from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to labor unions, and has a strong record of working with both parties that we expect to grow in President Biden’s cabinet as the first South Asian woman to lead OMB”

If I thought for one second someone wanted to do business with me because I'm half German I'd tell them to get psychological help, then get up and leave the room. Never to return. What you see as some sort of goal being accomplished, I see as cringeworthy discrimination.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that the White House is not considering replacements for embattled nominee Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget and asserted that a delay in committee votes should not be considered a setback.

Gotta get that "first South Asian", eh?

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Conservative 'America, Uncanceled' event cancels speaker

There are many things I love about this story - especially that it's classified as entertainment.

Something called America, Uncancelled, canceled one of their guests in one day of the event announcement.

Conservatives are unable to do even the most rudimentary vetting - from CPAC to congressional candidates. Why is this? For the same reason they can't govern.

They want so badly to win the culture war, every move they make is basically slapping themselves in the face and someone screaming - why are you hitting yourself??

I got a good laugh out of this when I read about it.

I mean: let's bombastically reject the notion that harmful behaviors should have unwanted consequences. What could go wrong?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Gotta get that "first South Asian", eh?

I would say the real reason probably has more to do with her long history at Democratic think tanks. Maybe she's long been groomed for the job, or maybe she's the only one who is enough of a party loyalist to take the job. She's been loyal to the Clintons and I suspect Biden wants her because she's not actually going to let a thing like progressive principles get in the way of her job, and she's shown that she would be more than enthusiastic about trying to cut Medicare and Social Security.

 

[Merced]

Warren keeps managing to justify the snake emojis, it's crazy.

 

[Lark]

Warren keeps managing to justify the snake emojis, it's crazy.

I am beginning to wonder if there is any conservatism besides the zany conspiracy theories any longer, I dont believe they could find support without it.

I think its important for politics, any sort, to be able to behave in a mundane or "peace time" way too. No teenage kicks, no drama, just a variety of "not a lot going on" business dealings. This is being lost, which is a pretty bad thing, any regime which has practiced "perpetual mobilization" has burnt out itself.

 

[Virtual ghost]

I never really understood why libertarians are generally seen as conservatives of some kind. While as the name suggests they as basically cousins of liberals, since in the bottom line they are extreme liberals (deregulate everything).

 

[Lark]

I never really understood why libertarians are generally seen as conservatives of some kind. While as the name suggests they as basically cousins of liberals, since in the bottom line they are extreme liberals (deregulate everything).

Most conservatives have some some kinship at least with liberals too, more by default than by design, it varies of course but conservatism is about tradition and privilege.

There are some who say it is about the fortune/misfortune of elites, and yes, elites are their constituency, but ideologically its because preserving the privileges of elites is supposedly the best/surest way to transmit traditions, which is the learning of one generation to the next, importing what's useful from the past into the future.

So far as any ideology serves that purpose conservatives will support, at least pragmatically or practically, this is why Bismarck was able to make an alliance with Laselle's social democratic party, at the time the biggest socialist mass movement or party in the world, without being considered a complete traitor to conservatism or traditionalism.

I've even read interesting ideas about conservatism being an anti-government social movement, it has an opposite view to other social movements about equality, privilege etc. but it believes in a spontaneous order, threatened by government, formal codes of law etc. The hostility to liberalism, if you believe that conservatism is anti-state society/social orientated, is because liberalism endorses individualism.

This whole thing has been eschewed by Thatcherism and her whole "no such thing as society", which was really about planning public spending, she said there is no such thing as society, only individuals and their families as, well, technically, that is something tangible, its the address you mail the benefits to. Thatcher's ideology was a cold warrior's ideology, about being the opposite of what they believed was happening in the USSR at every turn, and Hayek's neo-liberalism but its more individualistic than conservatism per se.

The legacies of ideologies like Thatcherism are pretty clear, they endure only as a niche preoccupation, seldom that well understood or popular. It serves mainly as a rationalization for politicians who think they should be paid very well, expected to "actively do nothing, absolutely nothing, for the good of all", behave as they choose, without account as they are not responsible for the economy, society, crime etc. anyway, its all down to others going about their business.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I never really understood why libertarians are generally seen as conservatives of some kind. While as the name suggests they as basically cousins of liberals, since in the bottom line they are extreme liberals (deregulate everything).

Libertarianism is as much a cousin of Socialism as it is of Classical Liberalism. Some would argue that socialism in its purest form would be indistinguishable from libertarianism in its purest. Americans usually misunderstand either and define them differently based on a prolonged and concerted obfuscation by authoritarian and capitalist statists who see either as a threat

 

[Virtual ghost]

Most conservatives have some some kinship at least with liberals too, more by default than by design, it varies of course but conservatism is about tradition and privilege.

There are some who say it is about the fortune/misfortune of elites, and yes, elites are their constituency, but ideologically its because preserving the privileges of elites is supposedly the best/surest way to transmit traditions, which is the learning of one generation to the next, importing what's useful from the past into the future.

So far as any ideology serves that purpose conservatives will support, at least pragmatically or practically, this is why Bismarck was able to make an alliance with Laselle's social democratic party, at the time the biggest socialist mass movement or party in the world, without being considered a complete traitor to conservatism or traditionalism.

I've even read interesting ideas about conservatism being an anti-government social movement, it has an opposite view to other social movements about equality, privilege etc. but it believes in a spontaneous order, threatened by government, formal codes of law etc. The hostility to liberalism, if you believe that conservatism is anti-state society/social orientated, is because liberalism endorses individualism.

This whole thing has been eschewed by Thatcherism and her whole "no such thing as society", which was really about planning public spending, she said there is no such thing as society, only individuals and their families as, well, technically, that is something tangible, its the address you mail the benefits to. Thatcher's ideology was a cold warrior's ideology, about being the opposite of what they believed was happening in the USSR at every turn, and Hayek's neo-liberalism but its more individualistic than conservatism per se.

The legacies of ideologies like Thatcherism are pretty clear, they endure only as a niche preoccupation, seldom that well understood or popular. It serves mainly as a rationalization for politicians who think they should be paid very well, expected to "actively do nothing, absolutely nothing, for the good of all", behave as they choose, without account as they are not responsible for the economy, society, crime etc. anyway, its all down to others going about their business.

Well, to me the term libertarian is foreign and I never quite got it. Especially since I never even heard of it before I came to this forum, since here the economic right doesn't exists. Center yes, but right no.
I have seen a number of times our diaspora in the US accusing our main conservative party that they are to the left of Bernie Sanders. What is accusation that is not unfounded at all, after all on political compass I have seen them placed in authoritarian left quadrant. Because ideas of economic right have no real history in this part of the world, but over the last decade of so through globalism they started to move in. What means that here conservative person will defend the stuff that existed here before the last decade or two. If you remember my post from yesterday about new cold war I should tell you that this is possible exactly since in this part of the world Russia represents much better what we consider conservative/traditional social model (which doesn't have too much to do with free market). Just today I have seen my far right in the parliament slam "free market mumbo jumbo" that is undermining the homeland. Since they value the state/country and their faith above any kind of market. They even organized some protests for saving the local environment and they want to make access to fresh water to be a part of constitutional right. Here the odds that we elect or re-elect someone like Thacher for PM are basically pure 0.



To me libertarian has just about nothing to do with with anything conservative and that is cultural. There is no cure for that.
My right dislikes the principles of your right, but that doesn't make any of these less right. Not everyone has same traditions.

 

[Jaguar]

Rand Paul and Rachel Levine.

 

[ceecee]

The Republican Party Is Now in Its End Stages - The Atlantic

Ironically, the GOP is indeed replicating another political party in another time, but not as the heroes they imagine themselves to be. The Republican Party has become, in form if not in content, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of the late 1970s.

I can already hear the howls about invidious comparisons. I do not mean that modern American Republicans are communists. Rather, I mean that the Republicans have entered their own kind of end-stage Bolshevism, as members of a party that is now exhausted by its failures, cynical about its own ideology, authoritarian by reflex, controlled as a personality cult by a failing old man, and looking for new adventures to rejuvenate its fortunes.

Now, I am no fan of Radio Free Tom Nichols or anything but - as a person who was alive during the end of the Soviet Union - yeah it's a good comparison. Authoritarian, reactionary, anti-intellectual, elitist plutocrat's that have pulled the working class (that they haaaaaate and wish would fucking die) into their cult of personality. And Trump looks a lot like Brezhnev, at least the eyebrows.

 

[Lark]

The Republican Party Is Now in Its End Stages - The Atlantic



Now, I am no fan of Radio Free Tom Nichols or anything but - as a person who was alive during the end of the Soviet Union - yeah it's a good comparison. Authoritarian, reactionary, anti-intellectual, elitist plutocrat's that have pulled the working class (that they haaaaaate and wish would fucking die) into their cult of personality. And Trump looks a lot like Brezhnev, at least the eyebrows.

Yup, I think its a better comparison than a lot of the nazi ones.

 

[Virtual ghost]

The Republican Party Is Now in Its End Stages - The Atlantic

Now, I am no fan of Radio Free Tom Nichols or anything but - as a person who was alive during the end of the Soviet Union - yeah it's a good comparison. Authoritarian, reactionary, anti-intellectual, elitist plutocrat's that have pulled the working class (that they haaaaaate and wish would fucking die) into their cult of personality. And Trump looks a lot like Brezhnev, at least the eyebrows.

True but the party with which they compare the republicans didn't implode. They had identity crisis in the 90s and then with Putin they found the part forwards. In other words rebranding in my book isn't really the end of a concept. GOP if it accepts various minority issues and quiets down the anarcho-capitalism talking points could very quickly bounce back. Since fundamentally US is socially conservative country.

 

[ceecee]

True but the party with which they compare the republicans didn't implode. They had identity crisis in the 90s and then with Putin they found the part forwards. In other words rebranding in my book isn't really the end of a concept. GOP if it accepts various minority issues and quiets down the anarcho-capitalism talking points could very quickly bounce back. Since fundamentally US is socially conservative country.

It could but if they continue to allow nominations of people like Madison Cawthorn, Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Green, they won't. They'll simply have a bunch of You Tubers and influencers do absolutely nothing for the people they represent, while scooping up as much money as they possibly can before they end up losing their elections and/or going to jail.

Conservatives might do the AOC whataboutis but last I checked she was doing a great deal for the people she represents and more. But a federal government employee that needs to raise money to help another state because the federal government and legislators in that state won't - is the much bigger deal. Glad she helped, but she shouldn't have to.

 

[Virtual ghost]

It could but if they continue to allow nominations of people like Madison Cawthorn, Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Green, they won't. They'll simply have a bunch of You Tubers and influencers do absolutely nothing for the people they represent, while scooping up as much money as they possibly can before they end up losing their elections and/or going to jail.

Conservatives might do the AOC whataboutis but last I checked she was doing a great deal for the people she represents and more. But a federal government employee that needs to raise money to help another state because the federal government and legislators in that state won't - is the much bigger deal. Glad she helped, but she shouldn't have to.

Yes, but that only indicates the crash of the party as we know it. what will probably happen. However the real question is what will rise out of the ashes, since this is just too many people that the whole thing will just disappear. Plus I really doubt that there will be literal one party system led by the Democrats (despite paranoia of some people).



Well, here it is kinda normal that parts of the country help one another, even without involving the central government. Especially since there is often such need and this is in a way part of our multiparty political system. Since through this you can establish yourself in region(s) where you don't really have a support for your new party.