US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2309

On May 14 2020 02:12 Uldridge wrote:
So, farvacola, how are you going to stop letting people bicker over the same 3 topics in this thread, then?
If we truly want constructive discourse which leads to actual change, there needs to be a huge change in how we approach discourse itself.
We're at page 2309 right now. And the other one was at 10093 pages. I still read it and I barely reply because I don't feel like I'm good enough at distilling things / know enough about the political landscape and culture (especially American one) - at least that's what I've learned over the years. But this thread hasn't changed one bit. This thread is mostly people bickering about semantics and attacking each others ideologies when instead it could be the ground zero for establishing common grounds and then synthesizing something to actually work towards, where everyone from the political spectrum can contribute.

I'm a big fan of cooperation, it's how big stuff gets built. Right now we're stuck with big stuff and no one seems to agree how we get bigger or better stuff. Everyone wants better or bigger stuff, so why can't we figure out a way to get there?
Have politically ideological opposites finally reached fundamental differences to the point they can't get along on a very basic level anymore?

Have politically ideological opposites finally reached fundamental differences to the point they can't get along on a very basic level anymore?

On May 14 2020 01:52 PhoenixVoid wrote:
There were two special elections for House seats yesterday and one went Republican and the other is showing the Republican candidate in a strong lead. The Wisconsin one was fairly expected because it went hard for Trump in 2016, but it was a long-time Democrat stronghold before that. The California one previously held by Katie Hill is a mixed bag that was a traditional Republican stronghold, went to Clinton by a solid margin and got turned blue in the 2018 midterms, but is looking like it's going back red for now. I read on 538 that if these two seats went for the Democrats it would be a sign for a blue wave incoming in 2020, but with one already gone and the other looking very unlikely, I think we can cross that out. (to be more precise, that specific sign, not the entire idea of a blue wave in 2020)

One could say it's an omen for how close or poorly the presidential election will go for the Democrats in November because things like Trump's pandemic response and the economy loomed over the ballots, but then again, they will be going up for re-election again this fall, so it might just be a dress rehearsal and neither party took the special elections particularly seriously.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-california/republican-leads-in-california-vote-to-replace-u-s-house-member-who-quit-after-scandal-idUSKBN22O1DY


It's shaping up to be an interesting campaign season. I wouldn't take yesterday's results as a solid bellwether for 2020, but it does preview some elements I expect to show up more in November like a reliance on remote campaigning as you said,, mail-in ballots and tailoring a message that is appropriate to the time.

On May 14 2020 02:29 farvacola wrote:

Oh to be clear, I don't have the answers, I'm merely adding my 2 cents on how to frame problems in ways that are conducive to progress. It just so happens that tussles over cultural/national identities, a frequent point of discussion here, are a relatively good place to look for examples on that point.

As one could guess based on my disagreements with GH, I'm also much more a practicality-focused incrementalist in the sense that I find that most revolutionary projects suffer from cart-before-horse problems, a dynamic very easily observed among the various schools of Marxists that fundamentally disagree on how to give effect to their programs. The Trotsky/Lenin divide, which is the most popular/accessible dispute, is only one among many. That's all to say that I don't think progress occurs all at once or in tiny steps, but in an irregular rhythm that slows and speeds based on the material and social circumstances of the moment.

On this point,

I don't think it's possible to answer that question in sufficiently rigorous terms, ideological opposites come to fundamental disagreements regularly in all sorts of ways and have throughout history. Sifting through all of that to figure out whether society is truly at loggerheads *now* is more trouble than its worth imo, and I'd rather push on specific issues that show signs of giving way. Right now, for example, the socio-political signals regarding access to healthcare, to a living wage, to a job worth working, and the role of the individual as a citizen engaged in civics seem less noisy than is oftentimes the case, so those are the places where I think staking claims makes sense.

On May 14 2020 02:45 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:

To you last point, I agree (I agree with all but I want to focus my response to the last paragraph). In this thread there are a lot of us who agree on all of the signals that you mentioned and more or less agree with the steps necessary to gain access to those. It seems there are a few who just want to burn the cart and the horse, which creates that divide that we end up back on the same 3 topics as Uldridge brings up. A lot of the quiet can be observed when the thread goes silent when those same 3 topics dominate the discussion. I think we've reached saturation on those and most are tired of engaging those topics/people.
Like you, I would like to get to solutions and how we can attach the cart to the horse and then install the V6 engine to it. Agreeing on terms commonly used would be the best way forward, followed by as specific as possible solutions that we can suss out and discuss. We as a forum/thread aren't going to affect massive change out in the real world, but I think giving us a way to engage each other on an intellectual level with good faith and appropriate responses would better arm us to engage those outside of this arena.

Thoughts?

On May 14 2020 06:48 Erasme wrote:
Trump's refusal to wear a mask in public is infuriating. How do you expect people to do it if the leader clearly thinks its useless.