Random Politics Thread

[The Cat]

 

[ceecee]

I laughed when I saw the maga shitheads going on about directive 5240. It reminded me of this. The level of conservative brain worm in both of these instances is amazing.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

On the final part, I agree, I tend to believe in consensus building of that sort and there is a lot which is appropriated as "left" or "right" or "other" (usually green or ecologist) thought that I'm not exactly sure should be that way, I dont think the left has the monopoly on conscience for instance, nor the right should have the monopoly on concerns about taxes or how far the public sphere can or should extend into private life (or even just taxes or free rider issues).

I'll be frank though, I dont hold out much hope for it off line when I see the trajectory online spaces generally chart, the "echo chamber and we like it that way" is most definitely a thing, the elements which portray or think of themselves as the most inclusive are the quickest to exercise the very opposite, to the point were everything grids to an utter halt and the amount of people visiting the forum is in single digits, what does that say of the offline public or political space?

I feel that this is not an echo chamber at present, not in the ways I care about. The ways I care about is freedom to express my weird political opinions. Some people I know place a lot of emphasis on loyalty to the Democratic party and it's hard to discuss things with such people, because they are quick to suspect you of planning to vote for Trump if you're not discussing things within the narrow frame you're supposed to.

I appreciate having an outlet where I can talk about my ideas and what actually matters to me. I can explain why things are personal for me or why they are important to me, and express them from my POV. I like that. I think I have unusual perspectives on things, and the should be ok to me. I loathe the fact that in this country I am are only allowed to pick from one of two opinions. What is free about that? Why should I be satisfied?

I think Trump winning re-election would be very bad for this country, but if he does, the idea that it's my fault because I was skeptical and wasn't loyal enough is bullshit. I will cast my vote, and I will be proud to do so, but I do not owe a transactional political institution my uncritical obedience. It is the task of a political party to satisfy me as a voter, rather than the other way around.

You can only attribute so much to demographic cycles, bots, dupes, inflation of traffic etc. (all of which I do think have their offline and mainstream media variants) before you got to face that something actually is of your own making, at which point it might slowly dawn that its easier to ruin a relatively good thing than it is to create it from scratch to begin with.

Forum drama was really toxic, and I got sucked into it, too, regrettably. I'm not even entirely sure why some people hated other people so much, but I know for certain is that it was bad for the forum. It cast a shadow over everything that loomed for years afterwards.

The Trump presidency inaugurated the self-segregation of political opinions. Before, people with different opinions would coexist in the same space and people would fight about them. When Trump got elected, there was a gradual shift towards people going somewhere else if they don't like the opinions being expressed here. This probably happened in other spaces.

I don't think the specific issue of the forum being too pro-LGBT is relevant beyond the above. Those things played a role on the forum when it was much more active.

 

[Virtual ghost]

8 days to election day.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Totenkindly]

It will be interesting after the fact to see what kind of impact Trump's MSG fiasco all caused.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/27/politics/bad-bunny-kamala-harris-puerto-rico/index.html

 

[ceecee]

It will be interesting after the fact to see what kind of impact Trump's MSG fiasco all caused.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/27/politics/bad-bunny-kamala-harris-puerto-rico/index.html

Apparently they are still under the delusion that conservatives are funny. Punching down is their entire act.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/27/politics/bad-bunny-kamala-harris-puerto-rico/index.html

“There’s a lot going on, like, I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” he said.

Wow.

 

[Totenkindly]

Wow.

I think it was the "comedian" who said it, plus some other awful crap. Trump didn't try to be funny, he just doubled down on the anti-immigrant hate.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Nebraska 2nd Congressional District: 2024 Presidential Election Polls


After a month they made a new poll for Nebraska 2nd district. Which is Harris +12 and that is 3 points better than the last one.
What is actually excellent news for the Dems because that means that the district isn't competitive. What means that the path through 3 rust belt states is open. That would be exactly 270 with the district but it would get the job done for Dems. In other words Sun belt in this combination is only bonus or back-up. What makes things a lot easier for the Dems in the bottom line.

 

[Virtual ghost]

2024 Gubernatorial Elections Map


The level of ballot that isn't discussed too much.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I think it was the "comedian" who said it, plus some other awful crap. Trump didn't try to be funny, he just doubled down on the anti-immigrant hate.

I skimmed the article and missed that it wasn't Trump who said it. Awful regardless.

 

[ygolo]

My wife and I turned in our ballots today. It's done.

 

[Lark]

I feel that this is not an echo chamber at present, not in the ways I care about. The ways I care about is freedom to express my weird political opinions. Some people I know place a lot of emphasis on loyalty to the Democratic party and it's hard to discuss things with such people, because they are quick to suspect you of planning to vote for Trump if you're not discussing things within the narrow frame you're supposed to.

I appreciate having an outlet where I can talk about my ideas and what actually matters to me. I can explain why things are personal for me or why they are important to me, and express them from my POV. I like that. I think I have unusual perspectives on things, and the should be ok to me. I loathe the fact that in this country I am are only allowed to pick from one of two opinions. What is free about that? Why should I be satisfied?

I think Trump winning re-election would be very bad for this country, but if he does, the idea that it's my fault because I was skeptical and wasn't loyal enough is bullshit. I will cast my vote, and I will be proud to do so, but I do not owe a transactional political institution my uncritical obedience. It is the task of a political party to satisfy me as a voter, rather than the other way around.


Forum drama was really toxic, and I got sucked into it, too, regrettably. I'm not even entirely sure why some people hated other people so much, but I know for certain is that it was bad for the forum. It cast a shadow over everything that loomed for years afterwards.

The Trump presidency inaugurated the self-segregation of political opinions. Before, people with different opinions would coexist in the same space and people would fight about them. When Trump got elected, there was a gradual shift towards people going somewhere else if they don't like the opinions being expressed here. This probably happened in other spaces.

I don't think the specific issue of the forum being too pro-LGBT is relevant beyond the above. Those things played a role on the forum when it was much more active.

I do think there is a difference between competing opinions or beliefs which none the less exist in an inclusive context, I think the idea of democracy that a lot of US presidents had, despite the franchise being restricted to a privilege few for so long (like anywhere else), was an inclusive one. Theodore Roosevelt was big on elections being a contest, with winner and losers, though he never could be mistaken for one of the Trump style "everyone else is a traitor", or worse, one party in power and the rest in prison, type thing.

Duopoly has become the norm for most electoral democracies and I definitely do think that is exploited by some politicians to realise dreams of a sort of managed democracy, without disruption or surprises, unfortunately the only challenger to that has been the sham populism of crooks like Trump.

I can understand people being sick of duopoly or suspicious that the consensus between politicians will be for a sham contention whole they rob the bank but no way tax cuts for billionaires or buying another politicians a yacht is going to be worth a faux challenge to the duopoly.

Duopolies could just be one of the "final working out" of a limited and limiting democracy, whether you call it electoralism, politics or any of the republican ideas of "managed democracy" or "libertarian democracy" or "republic vs democracy", though ultimately I think the right wing tendency is to dispense with it in favour of monopoly, even if succession planning is impossible to a regime like that ("after me the flood").

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

NALC and USPS Reach Tentative Agreement

The National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO and the United States Postal Service have reached tentative agreement on a new collective-bargaining agreement for city letter carriers

www.nalc.org

https://www.nalc.org/news/nalc-updates/body/Summary-of-2023-Tentative-Agreement.pdf

Had to share some Union news since I’m a proud union member now

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I voted early last week. I voted blue for President/VP, senate and house, and for a maga dude for city council, even though he was technically running as an unaffiliated independent

Hear me out on that last one before jumping on me. I met him in person and he wants to do more for the local homeless population. He also wants to get local chemical plants to be held to EPA standards (which hasn’t been happening), and wants pay raises for local firefighters and police, because our city has trouble retaining them and is painfully understaffed. His platform is surprisingly democratic. His opponent got donations from one of the local chemical plants, despite being the popular favorite among local Dems. I’ll always put policy before blindly following one political party across the entire ballot.

 

[The Cat]

(posted because the ol gal makes me chuckle and reminds me of passed away relatives.)​

 

[Coriolis]

I voted early last week. I voted blue for President/VP, senate and house, and for a maga dude for city council, even though he was technically running as an unaffiliated independent

Hear me out on that last one before jumping on me. I met him in person and he wants to do more for the local homeless population. He also wants to get local chemical plants to be held to EPA standards (which hasn’t been happening), and wants pay raises for local firefighters and police, because our city has trouble retaining them and is painfully understaffed. His platform is surprisingly democratic. His opponent got donations from one of the local chemical plants, despite being the popular favorite among local Dems. I’ll always put policy before blindly following one political party across the entire ballot.

I generally vote Democratic, but have voted for Republicans now and then for similar reasons. Years ago, when I still lived in Massachusetts, the Democratic candidate for governor was little more than a kinder, gentler Donald Trump, insulting every identifiable group he could mention. I voted for his Republican opponent, one of the many relatively reasonable Republicans who have served as governor of a historically progressive state.

 

[Red Herring]

Duopoly has become the norm for most electoral democracies and I definitely do think that is exploited by some politicians to realise dreams of a sort of managed democracy, without disruption or surprises, unfortunately the only challenger to that has been the sham populism of crooks like Trump.

I can understand people being sick of duopoly or suspicious that the consensus between politicians will be for a sham contention whole they rob the bank but no way tax cuts for billionaires or buying another politicians a yacht is going to be worth a faux challenge to the duopoly.

What do you meant by "duopoly"? The only liberal democratic countries that I can thinke of that basically have a two party system are the US and the UK. Not France, Germany, Spain, Italy or any other European country as far as I know. I obviously don't know the landscape of every single country but the statement strikes me as odd. Even Australia and Canada have a multiparty system, so it's not widespread thing in the English speaking world either.

I am asking what you meant by the term because some on the fringes if the political spectrum here in Germany would claim that all the other parties are basically the same and only they offer a true alternative to "the system".

 

[ceecee]

I generally vote Democratic, but have voted for Republicans now and then for similar reasons. Years ago, when I still lived in Massachusetts, the Democratic candidate for governor was little more than a kinder, gentler Donald Trump, insulting every identifiable group he could mention. I voted for his Republican opponent, one of the many relatively reasonable Republicans who have served as governor of a historically progressive state.

I mean, I would certainly vote for Dan Osbourn running for US Senate in Nebraska, although he is running as an independent. And I would consider and have voted for independents in the past.

In upended Senate race, Nebraska independent Dan Osborn seeks to ‘challenge the system’

Over the past few weeks, independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn has shaken up what many thought was a predictable race in Nebraska.

abcnews.go.com

It would take a lot to get me to vote R at this point. When one has a choice to run as an independent especially (although I understand the strategy of the place one is running - can't get elected unless you run as a Republican).