US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1382

On April 25 2019 04:53 Plansix wrote:
Although I agree that Clinton would not have been great and we would not see the political involvement we see now if she was elected. Many of the problems we currently have would be left unaddressed or ingored. But I find the argument that Trump is better to be far from compelling. Like over 10K transgender members of the military are likely going to be discharged without much recourse. And that is just one of many groups that are being negatively impacted by this administration. So I have a hard time justifying the harm being done to people as in the long term.

On April 25 2019 05:25 Plansix wrote:
It is difficult to talk about this because this presupposes that Trump hasn’t put into place long standing roadblocks to the to the left’s agenda through stacking the court. The amount of effort it will take to limit the amount of money flowing into elections, for instance, it far greater than ever before. Before the conservative court, we may have been able to do it through new laws. Now, it is unlikely that anything short of an amendment to the constitution will get the job done.

And I agree with you that the hero worship of the military is bad. But it is also fact. The military are considered role models by the vast majority of the country. They are given preferential treatment and more opportunities in many ways. And who is considered “fit to serve” sets a standard for the rest of the country, even if we do not like it.

The government is effectively saying it is ok for them to discriminate against transgender service members. They are not longer fit to serve. And it was the ability to serve that gave many of the arguments around civil rights in the past footing. It is why bad people fought so hard to keep Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in place. So I think you may be under estimating how badly the transgender ban will impact people.

On April 25 2019 05:54 Kyadytim wrote:
The problem I have with the argument that Trump works out for the left because he energized the left and that's better than the status quo under Clinton is that to get anything done, the left is going to need to address the fact that Trump has filled one Supreme Court seat and something like 100 lower court seats that were all left open because Republicans blocked Obama's appointments in one fashion or another, and many are lifetime seats filled by Heritage Foundation candidates in their 40s or early 50s, all of whom can probably be expected to live for at least 40 years.

tl;dr Trump winning following the Republican blockade of Obama court nominees has had an impact on the federal court system that is going to last until around 2060.

On April 25 2019 05:40 Wombat_NI wrote:
Assuming that Trump era precipitated a more sustained dissatisfaction and pulled people towards actually left wing policies, vs Clinton being some kind of moderate sluice valve that dissipated it to some degree, I’d take that trade. Assuming that is actually the case.

And yes the transgender ban is pretty transparent in some of its motivation, it’s small fry in the wider scheme of things and will surely be reversed by any Dem come 2020 if they win the Presidency.

I’m no real fan of the military myself, luckily I’m not eligible for it I suppose.

I don’t like the blanket nature of this ban and the rhetoric around it at all, not all discrimination is entirely unreasonable

On April 25 2019 06:09 Gahlo wrote:

It's easier to come off to the American public on wanting meaningful systemic change when things are more "even" or weighted towards you than when they're slanted heavily against. Otherwise you're just opening yourself to being branded as doing it for entirely partisan reason and people who don't pay too much attention to politics will be dumb enough to believe it.

On April 25 2019 06:03 GreenHorizons wrote:


My counter to that is: In order to do what we need to do we were going to need to change the supreme court and justice system at-large significantly anyway. Clinton wouldn't even entertain the dialogue and would be advocating for relatively useless centrist judges anyway.

On April 25 2019 06:18 GreenHorizons wrote:
Both of you seem to not appreciate the situation we're in regarding climate change and how middling reform is as good as a death sentence for humanity according to the current science.

On April 25 2019 06:04 Plansix wrote:

I’m not fan of the military either. But service in the military has always been a vector for margilized people to advocate for better treatment. This has been true across all societies and periods of history when we have had organized militaries. It isn’t great, but it is a fact of the world we live in.

On April 25 2019 06:19 KwarK wrote:

Change the system by ceding control over the system? You need a revolution at that point, and you’re not going to get one.

On April 25 2019 06:19 KwarK wrote:

Change the system by ceding control over the system? You need a revolution at that point, and you’re not going to get one.

On April 25 2019 06:18 GreenHorizons wrote:
Both of you seem to not appreciate the situation we're in regarding climate change and how middling reform is as good as a death sentence for humanity according to the current science.

On April 25 2019 07:26 IgnE wrote:


How do you imagine the impending climate apocalypse?

On April 25 2019 06:41 GreenHorizons wrote:


I think you're misinterpreting my point?

The mistake was supporting Clinton in the first place, there's the alternative of recognizing the problematic nature of the DNC real time and rallying to Bernie in 2016 instead of 2020.

But since people did go with Clinton effectively ceding power to Trump I don't disagree with the necessity of revolution. The comedy of being assured by a Brit of the futility of revolution is also not lost on me.