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On February 01 2017 01:13 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2017 01:07 LegalLord wrote:On February 01 2017 01:05 Logo wrote:On February 01 2017 00:42 LegalLord wrote:On February 01 2017 00:27 Logo wrote:On February 01 2017 00:18 LegalLord wrote:
Where is this supposed leftist unity I've been hearing about? All I see is a frantic and confused opposition to a president they didn't want, with no strategy for dealing with him nor any willingness to reconcile between parties warring amongst themselves.
They all don't like Trump, we get that. But they don't seem to have figured out how they want to oppose him. That's a bit of a simplification right? The grassroots left (i.e every day people) have never been as united as now, or at least haven't been for a long time, but I don't really know that its trickled up to the lefts (or center-left/neoliberal or whatever term you want to use) that actually have power in the same way. Like there's way more people willing to listen to issues, organize, and pitch in now than there have been for a long time. Instead of a small amount of organizers/activists and a bunch of people who only show up to vote you now have a lot of people being active in the system. But yeah, it's a coalition rather than a singular group, and there's always going to be a lot of bickering over implementation and details. It's a big part of why the right is able to stand so strongly against the left I think? The right seems to be far more united around causes and implementations while the left is more content to dissent or argue amongst itself. You have people willing to protest, more so than before. That should be rather obvious; we elected the least popular candidate in history so I'd be surprised if that weren't the case. But it's not clear what they want and how they intend to get there, and it never was. If they had had a means to get there then they would have won. There is a disconnect between these "grassroots" movements and the politicians in opposition to Trump and that's not unity, much less "united like never before." That's just a frantic struggle to come to terms with someone they don't like. There are a lot of clear issues, but they're mostly in the negative (no wall, no muslim ban, no rollback of reproductive rights, no denial of climate change) which makes it harder to have a real concrete plan of action. It's not like protesting *for* something positive to happen where you can point to specific legislation as the thing you are rallying behind and focus their entire energy on that. I really don't see how it is any different than the tea party movement which may not have directly caused anything, but has certainly altered and shaped the republican party. I pretty much expect the same from the anti-Trump movement, the end result is probably going to be mostly in the building of a stronger and 'more left' left. The Tea Party movement definitely had a vision of what they wanted - and a means by which they would achieve it. Say what you want, but on an organizational level right-wing protesters have always kicked the left's ass. And a "more left" left could just look like Europe - multiple fragmented and confused ideologues up against a somewhat small (but not fringe) yet extremely unified far-right, and a fairly beefy regular right. In fact it's starting to look like that here as well. Tea Party didn't really have a vision of what they wanted at inception (heck, they predated Obama winning and were built on Ron Paul, who has nothing to do with their current agenda). The current crystallization was only supplied once they were bankrolled by the Koch brothers a year after their inception. Show nested quote +On February 01 2017 01:07 xDaunt wrote:On February 01 2017 00:18 LegalLord wrote:
Where is this supposed leftist unity I've been hearing about? All I see is a frantic and confused opposition to a president they didn't want, with no strategy for dealing with him nor any willingness to reconcile between parties warring amongst themselves.
They all don't like Trump, we get that. But they don't seem to have figured out how they want to oppose him. The problem with the left is that they haven't figured out that their traditional strategy of simply making a lot of incoherent noise doesn't work anymore. They've spent all of their rhetorical bullets. You can only throw around the terms "Nazi" and "racist" so many times before the punch is lost. Trump's election signaled the crossing of that line. Nevertheless, I expect the left to keep tripling down on their current hysterical course of action for the time being. I am not sure I can see the difference between Trump's primary strategy and making a lot of incoherent noise. General, maybe not as much. But it certainly worked in primary debates.
Even if they did have a focused concrete agenda the public/outsider perception was that they didn't and in general that seemed to be the public perception other than a loose sense of "small government" ideals. Which still seems perfectly fine as an analogy to the current left protests which since the election have been technically focused on issues (like the Women's March or the recent protests over the immigration Executive Order) even if the participants may be showing up for reasons outside of the intended purpose.
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On February 01 2017 01:05 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2017 00:42 LegalLord wrote:On February 01 2017 00:27 Logo wrote:On February 01 2017 00:18 LegalLord wrote:
Where is this supposed leftist unity I've been hearing about? All I see is a frantic and confused opposition to a president they didn't want, with no strategy for dealing with him nor any willingness to reconcile between parties warring amongst themselves.
They all don't like Trump, we get that. But they don't seem to have figured out how they want to oppose him. That's a bit of a simplification right? The grassroots left (i.e every day people) have never been as united as now, or at least haven't been for a long time, but I don't really know that its trickled up to the lefts (or center-left/neoliberal or whatever term you want to use) that actually have power in the same way. Like there's way more people willing to listen to issues, organize, and pitch in now than there have been for a long time. Instead of a small amount of organizers/activists and a bunch of people who only show up to vote you now have a lot of people being active in the system. But yeah, it's a coalition rather than a singular group, and there's always going to be a lot of bickering over implementation and details. It's a big part of why the right is able to stand so strongly against the left I think? The right seems to be far more united around causes and implementations while the left is more content to dissent or argue amongst itself. You have people willing to protest, more so than before. That should be rather obvious; we elected the least popular candidate in history so I'd be surprised if that weren't the case. But it's not clear what they want and how they intend to get there, and it never was. If they had had a means to get there then they would have won. There is a disconnect between these "grassroots" movements and the politicians in opposition to Trump and that's not unity, much less "united like never before." That's just a frantic struggle to come to terms with someone they don't like. There are a lot of clear issues, but they're mostly in the negative (no wall, no muslim ban, no rollback of reproductive rights, no denial of climate change) which makes it harder to have a real concrete plan of action. It's not like protesting *for* something positive to happen where you can point to specific legislation as the thing you are rallying behind and focus their entire energy on that.
Everything can be negative if you start using double negative like "no denial of climate change" or "no rollback of reproductive rights".
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On February 01 2017 01:13 TheTenthDoc wrote:
I am not sure I can see the difference between Trump's primary strategy and making a lot of incoherent noise. General, maybe not as much. But it certainly worked in primary debates, where "security" and "strength" and "make Mexico pay for it" were just as vacuous as "Nazi" and "racist." And "untrustworthy" and "corrupt" and "worst Secretary of State ever" are ultimately just as vacuous, and they worked to a T since the left churned the first two out for a while too.
Trump is definitely matching the rhetorical noise of the left as part of his strategy (see that blog that I cited earlier). However, there is also substance to what he is saying. Trump is actually pursuing the policies that loudly campaigned on.
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What the left should do: work with trump (just compliment the guy, it's really easy). Certain things you will not get your way like immigration and trade deals, but healthcare, infrastructure, are all areas where trump would listen to both sides.
What the left will do: Boycott, stroke the flames of hysteria around facism with paid protests because they have realized they have 0 power to rebel from inside the capitol. They can however make it seem like the world is ending from the outside especially given the ability to easily cause a protest and control the narrative for a few days.
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On February 01 2017 01:25 nojok wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2017 01:05 Logo wrote:On February 01 2017 00:42 LegalLord wrote:On February 01 2017 00:27 Logo wrote:On February 01 2017 00:18 LegalLord wrote:
Where is this supposed leftist unity I've been hearing about? All I see is a frantic and confused opposition to a president they didn't want, with no strategy for dealing with him nor any willingness to reconcile between parties warring amongst themselves.
They all don't like Trump, we get that. But they don't seem to have figured out how they want to oppose him. That's a bit of a simplification right? The grassroots left (i.e every day people) have never been as united as now, or at least haven't been for a long time, but I don't really know that its trickled up to the lefts (or center-left/neoliberal or whatever term you want to use) that actually have power in the same way. Like there's way more people willing to listen to issues, organize, and pitch in now than there have been for a long time. Instead of a small amount of organizers/activists and a bunch of people who only show up to vote you now have a lot of people being active in the system. But yeah, it's a coalition rather than a singular group, and there's always going to be a lot of bickering over implementation and details. It's a big part of why the right is able to stand so strongly against the left I think? The right seems to be far more united around causes and implementations while the left is more content to dissent or argue amongst itself. You have people willing to protest, more so than before. That should be rather obvious; we elected the least popular candidate in history so I'd be surprised if that weren't the case. But it's not clear what they want and how they intend to get there, and it never was. If they had had a means to get there then they would have won. There is a disconnect between these "grassroots" movements and the politicians in opposition to Trump and that's not unity, much less "united like never before." That's just a frantic struggle to come to terms with someone they don't like. There are a lot of clear issues, but they're mostly in the negative (no wall, no muslim ban, no rollback of reproductive rights, no denial of climate change) which makes it harder to have a real concrete plan of action. It's not like protesting *for* something positive to happen where you can point to specific legislation as the thing you are rallying behind and focus their entire energy on that. Everything can be negative if you start using double negative like "no denial of climate change" or "no rollback of reproductive rights".
But it's accurate in this case? People are more afraid of existing rights being stripped away and existing progress on climate research/change being stopped & rolled back. I don't think people are optimistic enough to expect positive change in these areas so they're out protesting just to keep things as they are.
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BREAKING: Senate Dems to Boycott Trump Picks Alleging Nominees ‘Lied’
With confirmation votes set to take place for a number of President Donald Trump‘s cabinet picks, Democrats in the U.S. Senate are reportedly preparing to boycott the proceedings for at least a couple of nominees. According to MSNBC, Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee plan to refuse to vote on Steven Mnuchin, the pick for Secretary of the Treasury, and Tom Price the current Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee.
The reason for holding off on the vote is reportedly that Senators believe that Mnuchin and Price have not been completely truthful during their hearings, and they want to get more information by speaking to them again, and performing further investigation. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio said that Mnuchin and Price should each go back before the committee, “clarify what they lied about,” apologize for it, and give the truth.
According to MSNBC’s Kelly O’Donnell, while Democrats don’t have the numbers to necessarily vote down these nominees, they do have enough to prevent the committee from having a quorum, which is required to conduct a vote.
http://lawnewz.com/uncategorized/breaking-senate-dems-to-prevent-vote-on-trump-treasury-health-secretary-picks/
Beware: auto play video.
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It is important for commentators to recognize that the political landscape of any country, prominent idiosyncrasies of the United States notwithstanding, is an incredibly complex network of actors acting beneath a perpetually shifting banner of both symbolic and praxis-oriented signifiers, all of which end up being channeled to some extent through the edifice of our government and political process .The magnitude of this complexity has increased dramatically during the past 150 years or so, and in terms of specific nations, I think the United States (and India to a lesser extent) is likely the most elaborate given our federalistic emphasis on dual sovereignty (though if we were to count the EU, then it'd definitely be at the top  ). In other words, there's good reason to think that nearly all political pundits are routinely wrong not because they're doing anything intrinsically incorrect, but rather because they are functionally incapable of effectively discussing the thing they claim to be talking about.
It is with that in mind that we have to be honest about what political sentiments really are, particularly within the contemporary framework of how these ideas are expressed among the population at large. A statement regarding the identity of those who profess a particular political ideology is not, contrary to its form, an objective expression so much as it is a willful sentiment that speaks on a particular snapshot of what politics looks like in the mind of the speaker. The confusion that results from failing to make that distinction can be characterized as one of, if not the, chief characteristics of our postmodern condition, and the mainstream news media, with all its feigned certitude and the veneer of popcorn respectability, plays into its procession moreso than perhaps any other actor in the common space.
The long and short of it is that we have literally every reason in the world to discard the words, phrases, and sentiments of the political pundit class, and yet here we are, rifling back and forth between assigning blame to amorphous groups, making hand-wavey gestures at vague dynamics that will no doubt change tomorrow, and attempting to predict the unpredictable as though the clock enjoys the fact that it knows when 5 'o clock is coming. So long as we discount what is being said accordingly, I guess that's ok 
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On February 01 2017 01:30 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2017 01:25 nojok wrote:On February 01 2017 01:05 Logo wrote:On February 01 2017 00:42 LegalLord wrote:On February 01 2017 00:27 Logo wrote:On February 01 2017 00:18 LegalLord wrote:
Where is this supposed leftist unity I've been hearing about? All I see is a frantic and confused opposition to a president they didn't want, with no strategy for dealing with him nor any willingness to reconcile between parties warring amongst themselves.
They all don't like Trump, we get that. But they don't seem to have figured out how they want to oppose him. That's a bit of a simplification right? The grassroots left (i.e every day people) have never been as united as now, or at least haven't been for a long time, but I don't really know that its trickled up to the lefts (or center-left/neoliberal or whatever term you want to use) that actually have power in the same way. Like there's way more people willing to listen to issues, organize, and pitch in now than there have been for a long time. Instead of a small amount of organizers/activists and a bunch of people who only show up to vote you now have a lot of people being active in the system. But yeah, it's a coalition rather than a singular group, and there's always going to be a lot of bickering over implementation and details. It's a big part of why the right is able to stand so strongly against the left I think? The right seems to be far more united around causes and implementations while the left is more content to dissent or argue amongst itself. You have people willing to protest, more so than before. That should be rather obvious; we elected the least popular candidate in history so I'd be surprised if that weren't the case. But it's not clear what they want and how they intend to get there, and it never was. If they had had a means to get there then they would have won. There is a disconnect between these "grassroots" movements and the politicians in opposition to Trump and that's not unity, much less "united like never before." That's just a frantic struggle to come to terms with someone they don't like. There are a lot of clear issues, but they're mostly in the negative (no wall, no muslim ban, no rollback of reproductive rights, no denial of climate change) which makes it harder to have a real concrete plan of action. It's not like protesting *for* something positive to happen where you can point to specific legislation as the thing you are rallying behind and focus their entire energy on that. Everything can be negative if you start using double negative like "no denial of climate change" or "no rollback of reproductive rights". But it's accurate in this case? People are more afraid of existing rights being stripped away and existing progress on climate research/change being stopped & rolled back. I don't think people are optimistic enough to expect positive change in these areas so they're out protesting just to keep things as they are.
Saying they're negative concerning birth rights is very subjective, I will give you that. Saying it's negative to be against climate change denial is plainfully wrong, climate change from human origin is a fact now.
It's hard to not see this as a cheap way to take a moral highground after years of blocade by a Republican dominated congress. Both parties are acting in the same way in that regard.
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Liberals are also struggling to place their social issues in a compelling federally actionable framework (though it's clear Trump also struggles to understand federally actionable frameworks ) since before the election they got nationwide gay marriage and ended Don't Ask/Don't Tell. Most of the politically actionable things (fighting HB-1, dealing with aggressive reproductive rights restriction, etc.) are at the state level.
Keeping rights is a much less powerful emotional driver than reclaiming them.
The rest of the battle on a lot of social issues has to be fought on some vague societal mindscape in which even people who agree can spend ages arguing minutiae.
This could change if Pence gets Trump's ear enough to make him back out of what he's said about gay marriage. And when Trump appoints judges overturning Roe v. Wade it will definitively change, as there are several states with direct trigger laws for that happening.
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On February 01 2017 01:29 biology]major wrote:
What the left should do: work with trump (just compliment the guy, it's really easy). Certain things you will not get your way like immigration and trade deals, but healthcare, infrastructure, are all areas where trump would listen to both sides.
What the left will do: Boycott, stroke the flames of hysteria around facism with paid protests because they have realized they have 0 power to rebel from inside the capitol. They can however make it seem like the world is ending from the outside especially given the ability to easily cause a protest and control the narrative for a few days.
I think it's a bit naive to think that Trump would work with the left for whatever reason. He won, he doesn't have to cooperate with the other side (unless he wants to do something so stupid that republicans won't support him but then probably the left also wouldn't help him). If he wants to listen to the left he can just turn on his tv but I don't believe he would invite them to do some serious work with him. Maybe he will implement some of their propositions but I bet he will call them his own, genius ideas.
Another reason why the left shouldn't work with Trump is that they would lose the support of their more radical supporters. I mean those who think he's "literally Hitler".
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So is Booker still the manufactured Obama in the making for the Democrats or did they give up on him yet?
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On February 01 2017 02:17 Sent. wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2017 01:29 biology]major wrote:
What the left should do: work with trump (just compliment the guy, it's really easy). Certain things you will not get your way like immigration and trade deals, but healthcare, infrastructure, are all areas where trump would listen to both sides.
What the left will do: Boycott, stroke the flames of hysteria around facism with paid protests because they have realized they have 0 power to rebel from inside the capitol. They can however make it seem like the world is ending from the outside especially given the ability to easily cause a protest and control the narrative for a few days. I think it's a bit naive to think that Trump would work with the left for whatever reason. He won, he doesn't have to cooperate with the other side (unless he wants to do something so stupid that republicans won't support him but then probably the left also wouldn't help them). If he wants to listen to the left he can just turn on his tv but I don't believe he would invite them to do some serious work with him. Maybe he will implement some of their propositions but I bet he will call them his own, genius ideas. Another reason why the left shouldn't work with Trump is that they would lose the support of their more radical supporters. I mean those who think he's "literally Hitler".
The guy is not even a republican, he has his own ideas/vision and some of them line up with the dem's ideas. He's not a politician who cares about ideology, but rather just getting shit done. His whole pro-life lip service is just evidence that he knows that is a starting point to even negotiate with the republicans. The election is over, and the dems are going to lose out on a lot of policy they want, especially to someone like Trump who is going to work at an incredible pace. That being said there are areas where they can join the ride and influence his policy, or just fall to the wayside.
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On February 01 2017 02:03 nojok wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2017 01:30 Logo wrote:On February 01 2017 01:25 nojok wrote:On February 01 2017 01:05 Logo wrote:On February 01 2017 00:42 LegalLord wrote:On February 01 2017 00:27 Logo wrote:On February 01 2017 00:18 LegalLord wrote:
Where is this supposed leftist unity I've been hearing about? All I see is a frantic and confused opposition to a president they didn't want, with no strategy for dealing with him nor any willingness to reconcile between parties warring amongst themselves.
They all don't like Trump, we get that. But they don't seem to have figured out how they want to oppose him. That's a bit of a simplification right? The grassroots left (i.e every day people) have never been as united as now, or at least haven't been for a long time, but I don't really know that its trickled up to the lefts (or center-left/neoliberal or whatever term you want to use) that actually have power in the same way. Like there's way more people willing to listen to issues, organize, and pitch in now than there have been for a long time. Instead of a small amount of organizers/activists and a bunch of people who only show up to vote you now have a lot of people being active in the system. But yeah, it's a coalition rather than a singular group, and there's always going to be a lot of bickering over implementation and details. It's a big part of why the right is able to stand so strongly against the left I think? The right seems to be far more united around causes and implementations while the left is more content to dissent or argue amongst itself. You have people willing to protest, more so than before. That should be rather obvious; we elected the least popular candidate in history so I'd be surprised if that weren't the case. But it's not clear what they want and how they intend to get there, and it never was. If they had had a means to get there then they would have won. There is a disconnect between these "grassroots" movements and the politicians in opposition to Trump and that's not unity, much less "united like never before." That's just a frantic struggle to come to terms with someone they don't like. There are a lot of clear issues, but they're mostly in the negative (no wall, no muslim ban, no rollback of reproductive rights, no denial of climate change) which makes it harder to have a real concrete plan of action. It's not like protesting *for* something positive to happen where you can point to specific legislation as the thing you are rallying behind and focus their entire energy on that. Everything can be negative if you start using double negative like "no denial of climate change" or "no rollback of reproductive rights". But it's accurate in this case? People are more afraid of existing rights being stripped away and existing progress on climate research/change being stopped & rolled back. I don't think people are optimistic enough to expect positive change in these areas so they're out protesting just to keep things as they are. Saying they're negative concerning birth rights is very subjective, I will give you that. Saying it's negative to be against climate change denial is plainfully wrong, climate change from human origin is a fact now. It's hard to not see this as a cheap way to take a moral highground after years of blocade by a Republican dominated congress. Both parties are acting in the same way in that regard.
I'm sorry I can't really parse this in relation to what I am saying?
I'm saying that a lot of the climate change political action right now is rooted in negatively framed actions (though there is also push for new measures/restrictions). Basically people don't want Trump to clamp down on research, they don't want him to make an administration that denies climate change, and they don't want him to rollback initiatives and political agreements designed to combat climate change.
That's what I mean by saying it's being framed in the negative: people are fighting just to keep the course rather than push ahead and that is a lot messier in terms of political messaging than standing up for a particular bill.
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For a time I thought the Democrats were actually interested in a better Congress that wouldn't be a bunch of absurd obstructionists. Turns out they would have been fine being Republican-style obstructionists, as long as it was for their own cause.
They should instead be begging for some scraps from their new president because that's all they're going to get for the next two years.
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On February 01 2017 02:36 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2017 02:03 nojok wrote:On February 01 2017 01:30 Logo wrote:On February 01 2017 01:25 nojok wrote:On February 01 2017 01:05 Logo wrote:On February 01 2017 00:42 LegalLord wrote:On February 01 2017 00:27 Logo wrote:On February 01 2017 00:18 LegalLord wrote:
Where is this supposed leftist unity I've been hearing about? All I see is a frantic and confused opposition to a president they didn't want, with no strategy for dealing with him nor any willingness to reconcile between parties warring amongst themselves.
They all don't like Trump, we get that. But they don't seem to have figured out how they want to oppose him. That's a bit of a simplification right? The grassroots left (i.e every day people) have never been as united as now, or at least haven't been for a long time, but I don't really know that its trickled up to the lefts (or center-left/neoliberal or whatever term you want to use) that actually have power in the same way. Like there's way more people willing to listen to issues, organize, and pitch in now than there have been for a long time. Instead of a small amount of organizers/activists and a bunch of people who only show up to vote you now have a lot of people being active in the system. But yeah, it's a coalition rather than a singular group, and there's always going to be a lot of bickering over implementation and details. It's a big part of why the right is able to stand so strongly against the left I think? The right seems to be far more united around causes and implementations while the left is more content to dissent or argue amongst itself. You have people willing to protest, more so than before. That should be rather obvious; we elected the least popular candidate in history so I'd be surprised if that weren't the case. But it's not clear what they want and how they intend to get there, and it never was. If they had had a means to get there then they would have won. There is a disconnect between these "grassroots" movements and the politicians in opposition to Trump and that's not unity, much less "united like never before." That's just a frantic struggle to come to terms with someone they don't like. There are a lot of clear issues, but they're mostly in the negative (no wall, no muslim ban, no rollback of reproductive rights, no denial of climate change) which makes it harder to have a real concrete plan of action. It's not like protesting *for* something positive to happen where you can point to specific legislation as the thing you are rallying behind and focus their entire energy on that. Everything can be negative if you start using double negative like "no denial of climate change" or "no rollback of reproductive rights". But it's accurate in this case? People are more afraid of existing rights being stripped away and existing progress on climate research/change being stopped & rolled back. I don't think people are optimistic enough to expect positive change in these areas so they're out protesting just to keep things as they are. Saying they're negative concerning birth rights is very subjective, I will give you that. Saying it's negative to be against climate change denial is plainfully wrong, climate change from human origin is a fact now. It's hard to not see this as a cheap way to take a moral highground after years of blocade by a Republican dominated congress. Both parties are acting in the same way in that regard. I'm sorry I can't really parse this in relation to what I am saying? I'm saying that a lot of the climate change political action right now is rooted in negatively framed actions (though there is also push for new measures/restrictions). Basically people don't want Trump to clamp down on research, they don't want him to make an administration that denies climate change, and they don't want him to rollback initiatives and political agreements designed to combat climate change. That's what I mean by saying it's being framed in the negative: people are fighting just to keep the course rather than push ahead and that is a lot messier in terms of political messaging than standing up for a particular bill.
I understand your point better. It's also that Trump questionned the climate change so people are put on the defensive instead of going forwards. IIRC he also said he was open to discussion on the subject, maybe there will be some room for discussion later.
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On February 01 2017 02:43 LegalLord wrote:
For a time I thought the Democrats were actually interested in a better Congress that wouldn't be a bunch of absurd obstructionists. Turns out they would have been fine being Republican-style obstructionists, as long as it was for their own cause.
They should instead be begging for some scraps from their new president because that's all they're going to get for the next two years.
Obstruction is optimal play when not in power in american politics, that should be clear to everyone at this point.
They aren't going to get shit from Trump whether they beg or not, better to set themselves up as Not Trump so in 4 years they can ride his disapproval rates and a vaguely likeable candidate into the white house.
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On February 01 2017 02:43 LegalLord wrote:
For a time I thought the Democrats were actually interested in a better Congress that wouldn't be a bunch of absurd obstructionists. Turns out they would have been fine being Republican-style obstructionists, as long as it was for their own cause.
They should instead be begging for some scraps from their new president because that's all they're going to get for the next two years.
It's a bit of an odd duck right?
The republicans got away with being incredibly obstructionist on say the Supreme Court pick and now dems are being held to higher pressure from their base which puts them in a tough spot to do something.
Tit-for-Tat is not a good solution, but dems caving and giving a payout to republican obstructionism also isn't a good solution.
The correct thing was to avoid this situation in the first place, but it's clearly too late for that.
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On February 01 2017 02:17 Sent. wrote:
Another reason why the left shouldn't work with Trump is that they would lose the support of their more radical supporters. I mean those who think he's "literally Hitler".
All the fascism and Hitler comments in reference to Trump himself seem really silly to me. Trump can’t even unite the Republicans much less the nation under some fascist regime. He has never given me the impression of being some diplomatic mastermind. He’s just a moron with no values or decency who says the first thing that pops into his head. He’s a dog chasing cars. This is a guy who can’t even distinguish between fact and fiction so long as the facts are in conflict with his ego. He sits around in the White House watching TV, tweeting out stupid shit about the things he sees on TV. This is not a complex man with a master plan. His actions and rhetoric can certainly be malevolent and dangerous in one way or another, but he’s not trying to be an authoritarian. He’s just being his usual petty, thin-skinned, asshole self.
Overall I would say ChristianS has him pegged well
Trump is angry, vindictive, hateful, hypocritical, and completely without anything resembling a conscience. He has no respect for rule of law, or democracy, or free speech, or any of the Enlightenment values on which our democracy was founded, because he appears to have no values at all, at least not moral ones. His only real constants seem to be self-interest, survival of the fittest, and glorying in his foes' demise. There is no greater hypocrisy in my mind than the religious right so enthusiastically backing the least Christ-like man to run for the office in the last century.
Pence is a hardliner Christian and will likely want to see legislation passed that will match his ideals. This could be done by giving religion a bigger place and more rights in schools/government, restricting abortion wherever possible, and perhaps eroding some discrimination protections against LGBT’s. He is a magnified version of other republicans, but he’s not dangerous. When faced with extremism, Pence shook his head and shot it down.
Steve Bannon on the other hand, is the guy who I see would be egging that revolutionist on. He is the intelligent extremist that people who are worried about this administration need to watch out for. He seems to be grasping up whatever power he can around the White House currently, and Trump’s inner circle workings are only making it easier for him. I have little doubt that it was his plan to turn Trump’s diatribe against the media into the “opposition party” and “enemy” that it has become. Promoting that kind of vitriol and hated against your own populace can almost certainly lead to violence in today’s political climate.
Being on the NSC will allow him input on making military decisions to align with political goals of the administration, which should be quite alarming. He is also beyond political jurisdiction since he was never elected or voted in to begin with. Was his anti-Semite, alt-right bullshit responsible for the recent white house holocaust statement as well? I would not be surprised.
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On February 01 2017 02:54 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2017 02:43 LegalLord wrote:
For a time I thought the Democrats were actually interested in a better Congress that wouldn't be a bunch of absurd obstructionists. Turns out they would have been fine being Republican-style obstructionists, as long as it was for their own cause.
They should instead be begging for some scraps from their new president because that's all they're going to get for the next two years. It's a bit of an odd duck right? The republicans got away with being incredibly obstructionist on say the Supreme Court pick and now dems are being held to higher pressure from their base which puts them in a tough spot to do something. Tit-for-Tat is not a good solution, but dems caving and giving a payout to republican obstructionism also isn't a good solution. The correct thing was to avoid this situation in the first place, but it's clearly too late for that.
Not only that, but democrats have a minority in both houses, so nobody really gives a crap what they do, right? They have power in some committees, and I guess they could stop things with filibusters, but other than that? The republicans rule DC atm.
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EPT
