EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 3094
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Stratos_speAr
United States6959 Posts
They're comparable in the same way that I can look at a man that is 6'5" tall and a woman that is 6'3" tall and go, "they are both very tall." Its like youre going, "apples to oranges!" but you can totally compare apples to oranges. They are both fruit, for example. They contain red in both RGB/RBY color spaces, they both have seeds, they're both edible, they're both able to be made into fruit. Comparisons do not need to be 1:1 perfect comparisons. This would be like comparing someone that is 6'2'' (the pandemic) to someone that is 7'2'' (the Great Depression) and saying that they are both tall. Are they both tall? Yes. Are they tall in any comparable way? Nope. We've hashed over the other part of your post several times. I just think that your desires for what Biden should be doing are completely unrealistic. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25497 Posts
On February 20 2021 10:57 JimmiC wrote: Aot of what you have said is simply not factual. The great depression lasted 10 years, this depression did not last one year, as of October is was over and we hit the recession phase. People in the great depression were often malnourished and did not have enough to eat, those levels have not really changed and currently the biggest health concern is obesity. Millions of investors went broke and half the banks collapsed 1000's, this one millions of investors are making crazy money and banks are making record profits. Farmers couldn't afford to harvest their crops, this one farmers doing well. FDR had to pass along immediately because they were having the 4th! Bank failing and people were scared to lose what little they had yet, the governemnt didn't even have enough money to pay their employees. Not being able to pay a 400 emergency is bad, but it was worse then because even people who had saved money before lost it because the banks couldn't give them their own money! Yes there was articles about how this was the worst since the great depression and so on, but things improved WAY faster. You need to do some research on this claim because you keep making it and it taints many of the great points you make. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/topics/great-depression/great-depression-history https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/10/03/upshot/pandemic-economy-recession.amp.html The inserection was awful, but it is more to my point then yours, that happened and is still supported because Biden does not have the overwhelming support FDR has. I dont disagree with you that the US needs big changes, what I'm saying is 70% of people don't agree with you like they did with FDR. Things take less time when people agree especially when you need over half to agree to get anything done. You can not in one paragraph talk about how bad it is that Trump and his mob did not respect democracy and then be mad at Biden for not just over ruling the rules of democracy to get what you want faster. Your opinion on Biden is supported anecdotely but not by the numbers. If you look back at the primary and you add up the progressive vote and the moderate vote it is not close. Moderates also polled better with independents than progressives. https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/new-poll-suggests-key-voters-skeptical-on-bernie-sanders-love-bloomberg/amp I get you don't like him, he is not your preferred candidate, but when you make these over the top claims like he is no different than Trump or not doing anything or so on your point is lost in the hyperbole. It’s not so much him not doing x that’s dispiriting at times, I think that’s a reasonable thing to not go the EO route and cramming things through. It’s the lack of laying the rhetorical groundwork and building the enthusiasm and converting the skeptical that I’d be worried about. An FDR doesn’t just appear and do things, or a Bevan set up our cherished NHS to an entirely enthusiastic populace, albeit conditions then probably helped people be more receptive to that message. I’ve undoubtedly missed some sound bites, and Biden has done things that are significant improvements over Trump already, but not a huge amount that would inspire confidence in me if I was a poor American that my lot would significantly improve in the next 4 years | ||
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ChristianS
United States3188 Posts
I mean, Obama came into office with once-in-a-lifetime levels of political capital. He was replacing a laughably incompetent president, the nation was increasingly exhausted with being at war, the Republicans had *just* crashed the economy, and he was the First Black President. He ran a great campaign, but a confluence of historical tides carried him into office with as tall a stack of chips as you can reasonably imagine. After all that, he got a few reforms I think most people on this forum would call watered down and inadequate, and while there’s probably good arguments he could have gotten a bit more done playing his hand differently, it’s unfathomable to me that he could have enacted, say, radical green policies no matter what he did, and certainly not a radical green policy that wouldn’t get reversed 4 or 8 years later. There’s just too much internal friction in the engine to ever get it up to a very high speed. Even if you win huge majorities, you almost certainly did so by running moderate candidates in purple districts, aided by a friendly partisan environment. Those same moderate candidates are going to drag their feet as soon as you try to do something especially radical, either because their politics are genuinely centrist or because they want to keep their seat. And because the partisan environment tends to revert to the mean, they’re still probably going to lose their seats even if they do vote moderately and undercut your reforms. I realize none of this is very useful analysis, in that it gives no answer for what to do next or how to fix things. I have no proposal for an alternative government system that will work better; dictators usually take power by promising to wipe out all that friction and Get Things Done, but it rarely ends well. One tentative thought is that maybe the only solution is one not based in government action. Mutual aid, for instance, is a popular idea in the far left for a better way to meet society’s needs. I have... reservations about the effectiveness of such a system in practice, but it feels like a richer vein than most political proposals I’ve seen (not that creating mutual aid systems wouldn’t involve quite a lot of politics). | ||
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Zambrah
United States7312 Posts
On February 20 2021 10:57 JimmiC wrote: Aot of what you have said is simply not factual. The great depression lasted 10 years, this depression did not last one year, as of October is was over and we hit the recession phase. People in the great depression were often malnourished and did not have enough to eat, those levels have not really changed and currently the biggest health concern is obesity. Millions of investors went broke and half the banks collapsed 1000's, this one millions of investors are making crazy money and banks are making record profits. Farmers couldn't afford to harvest their crops, this one farmers doing well. FDR had to pass along immediately because they were having the 4th! Bank failing and people were scared to lose what little they had yet, the governemnt didn't even have enough money to pay their employees. Not being able to pay a 400 emergency is bad, but it was worse then because even people who had saved money before lost it because the banks couldn't give them their own money! Yes there was articles about how this was the worst since the great depression and so on, but things improved WAY faster. You need to do some research on this claim because you keep making it and it taints many of the great points you make. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.history.com/.amp/topics/great-depression/great-depression-history https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/10/03/upshot/pandemic-economy-recession.amp.html The inserection was awful, but it is more to my point then yours, that happened and is still supported because Biden does not have the overwhelming support FDR has. I dont disagree with you that the US needs big changes, what I'm saying is 70% of people don't agree with you like they did with FDR. Things take less time when people agree especially when you need over half to agree to get anything done. You can not in one paragraph talk about how bad it is that Trump and his mob did not respect democracy and then be mad at Biden for not just over ruling the rules of democracy to get what you want faster. Your opinion on Biden is supported anecdotely but not by the numbers. If you look back at the primary and you add up the progressive vote and the moderate vote it is not close. Moderates also polled better with independents than progressives. https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/new-poll-suggests-key-voters-skeptical-on-bernie-sanders-love-bloomberg/amp I get you don't like him, he is not your preferred candidate, but when you make these over the top claims like he is no different than Trump or not doing anything or so on your point is lost in the hyperbole. Aot of what you have said is simply not factual. The great depression lasted 10 years, this depression did not last one year, as of October is was over and we hit the recession phase. People in the great depression were often malnourished and did not have enough to eat, those levels have not really changed and currently the biggest health concern is obesity. Millions of investors went broke and half the banks collapsed 1000's, this one millions of investors are making crazy money and banks are making record profits. Farmers couldn't afford to harvest their crops, this one farmers doing well. FDR had to pass along immediately because they were having the 4th! Bank failing and people were scared to lose what little they had yet, the governemnt didn't even have enough money to pay their employees. Not being able to pay a 400 emergency is bad, but it was worse then because even people who had saved money before lost it because the banks couldn't give them their own money! Yes there was articles about how this was the worst since the great depression and so on, but things improved WAY faster. You need to do some research on this claim because you keep making it and it taints many of the great points you make. + Show Spoiler + https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/15/us/dallas-texas-food-bank-coronavirus/index.html Texas had massive food lines during the pandemic, food insecurity isnt as bad as it was then but its definitely still a factor too (not to mention a colossal shame on a supposed first world country).I should also mention that during the Great Depression life expectancy in the US actually increased. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/great-depression-had-little-effect-on-death-rates-46713514/ So factually speaking, this current moment in history is more lethal to Americans. The Great Depression was obviously more economically devastating, but malnourishment doesn't hold as much weight (ACCIDENTAL PUN!) when people aren't dying from it. Investors and banks making record profits by siphoning wealth from the lowest class of society is definitely not a good thing, thats definitely one of the really bad parts of the economic fallout from the pandemic. The upwards redistribution of wealth thats occurred during the pandemic is super nuts and its being comparatively overlooked (fairly so, hundreds of thousands dead is one hell of a compelling thing.) I'm not trying to minimize the Great Depression, but we're literally in process of halting people being allowed to be evicted and doing nothing for their financial situation, when people are allowed to be evicted again we're going to see a massive homelessness crisis because people cannot afford to pay their bills because they can't save because America's baseline economic situation is in the gutter. These people don't even have money to lose, and the government is disgustingly cagey (including Joe Biden's support for lowering stimulus payments during the last Trump one) about making sure people have what they need to pay their bills. I know that the Great Depression isn't a clean 1:1 map onto our current situation, but in terms of sheer importance I firmly believe its of a similar scale. Hundreds of thousands of people dead and more still dying (brief Googling indicates America has surpassed half a million dead of Covid), an insurrection that breached the Capitol and desecrated the supposed sacredness of the seat of US Democracy indicating the rise of fascism. These are the kinds of times that will make the history books in a major way, in the future we're going to look back at this and think, "we mismanaged a pandemic so bad and let hundreds of thousands of people die. We also stared deep into the eyes of fascism and [realized the glory of Our Dear Leader/understood that our country had to change] y'know, depending on how the future ends up, lol. I urge you to consider that we're still living through these events, we're not done with the pandemic yet, we haven't seen the end of fascist upwelling in the US, we're literally only seeing the tip of this iceberg. The coronavirus' long term effects arent well understood, it continues to mutate, and people still die every day. We're currently living through history. We can look back on the Great Depression and get the full scope because itd been nearly a hundred years, but everything happening today is fresh and ongoing, we only know the current scope and even then not in depth. But even the current scope is enough to say that whats happening in the US is a very big deal. We're like a morbidly obese diabetic who just had a massive heart attack and immediately after being discharged from the hospital we hit up the drive thru and get three Big Macs and a shake as a post surgery "Surgery well surgeried!" treat. Your opinion on Biden is supported anecdotely but not by the numbers. If you look back at the primary and you add up the progressive vote and the moderate vote it is not close. Moderates also polled better with independents than progressives. + Show Spoiler + https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/there-is-only-one-question-for-democratic-primary-voters-who-can-win/2020/02/10/c05d5026-4c47-11ea-bf44-f5043eb3918a_story.html https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-issues-should-the-2020-democratic-candidates-be-talking-about/ https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/05/politics/biden-trump-poll-policies/index.html Polling indicates that people's number one concern during the Democratic primary was beating Trump. It wasnt even really close. Most of the coverage during the primary focused around, "can they beat Trump?" Nothing really indicates people loved Biden's milquetoast policy, the primary was all about Donald Trump. Its pretty safe to say that its basically impossible to call anything about this primary that isnt about Donald Trump because of how big a deal the threat of his reelection was to people. I dont disagree with you that the US needs big changes, what I'm saying is 70% of people don't agree with you like they did with FDR. Things take less time when people agree especially when you need over half to agree to get anything done. You can not in one paragraph talk about how bad it is that Trump and his mob did not respect democracy and then be mad at Biden for not just over ruling the rules of democracy to get what you want faster. + Show Spoiler + I know that we mostly agree on the overarching aspects of what we'd like to see out of the US and that it involves major change, if we didnt have some foundational alignment I wouldn't engage since it would wind up being a Danglars "Conversation" probably, lol.  Politicians don't really align well with what people actually want, Universal Healthcare is a good example of that, https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/494602-poll-69-percent-of-voters-support-medicare-for-all https://www.kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/kff-health-tracking-poll-january-2020/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/29/increasing-share-of-americans-favor-a-single-government-program-to-provide-health-care-coverage/ If we translate the 60%+ numbers of public support for universal healthcare we should be able to say that our politicians should be in favor of doing it. But they're not. Thats part of the core of my politics-aren't-immutable point, its that we aren't holding our politicians accountable when it comes to executing the will of the people. Over half of people agree on some form of universal healthcare, but politicians won't do it. We have the people agreeing, what we dont have is politicians respecting the will of the public and we don't have the public doing whats necessary to make sure those politicians eat shit over it. People agree and things are still slow because American politics are fucked, not because its the nature of democracy. I can and will continue to rake Biden over the coals for his and the Democrats failure to address popular concerns because they're popular. American electoral institutions already don't respect the will of the people. Also I can talk about the insurrection and still want Biden to whip his colleagues to do popular things because they're popular. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/30/two-thirds-of-americans-favor-raising-federal-minimum-wage-to-15-an-hour/ When Im angry that Manchin wants to hold up something a supermajority of Americans want its not me disrespecting democracy, its democracy failing and me being confounded that the populace can find things overwhelmingly popular and politicians can go, "lol no" and people feel fine about it. I get you don't like him, he is not your preferred candidate, but when you make these over the top claims like he is no different than Trump or not doing anything or so on your point is lost in the hyperbole. + Show Spoiler + My claims are that Biden isn't doing and will not do nearly enough, hes not doing NOTHING, hes just doing so much less than is necessary to prevent Smarter Fascist™ from taking power in the future. Hes plenty different from Trump, but he is basically a Republican who favors austerity politics and has a long history of racist-adjacency. I have said he's Blue Trump though, which I stand by, especially given what I've seen of his weird nonsensical rant where he yelled at Civil Rights leaders saying, "Ive done enough!" and this weird thing where he keeps bringing up biracial couples in commercials as some sort of proof that racism isnt so much a thing? Hes a bumbling old racist jackass conservative, these are the reasons I consider him the closest thing Democrats have to their own version of Donald Trump. Christ I have editing issues, hopefully this is broken up into... mildly digestible chunks lol.  One day I'll learn not to be a windbag. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Zambrah
United States7312 Posts
On February 20 2021 11:34 ChristianS wrote: The somewhat pessimistic interpretation of present politics that seems most likely to me is that the reason the system is slow to make changes isn’t really about our current politicians, it’s fundamental to the system itself. That works well enough when the status quo is good or at least tolerable; but if people want meaningful change the system is essentially incapable of it. I mean, Obama came into office with once-in-a-lifetime levels of political capital. He was replacing a laughably incompetent president, the nation was increasingly exhausted with being at war, the Republicans had *just* crashed the economy, and he was the First Black President. He ran a great campaign, but a confluence of historical tides carried him into office with as tall a stack of chips as you can reasonably imagine. After all that, he got a few reforms I think most people on this forum would call watered down and inadequate, and while there’s probably good arguments he could have gotten a bit more done playing his hand differently, it’s unfathomable to me that he could have enacted, say, radical green policies no matter what he did, and certainly not a radical green policy that wouldn’t get reversed 4 or 8 years later. There’s just too much internal friction in the engine to ever get it up to a very high speed. Even if you win huge majorities, you almost certainly did so by running moderate candidates in purple districts, aided by a friendly partisan environment. Those same moderate candidates are going to drag their feet as soon as you try to do something especially radical, either because their politics are genuinely centrist or because they want to keep their seat. And because the partisan environment tends to revert to the mean, they’re still probably going to lose their seats even if they do vote moderately and undercut your reforms. I realize none of this is very useful analysis, in that it gives no answer for what to do next or how to fix things. I have no proposal for an alternative government system that will work better; dictators usually take power by promising to wipe out all that friction and Get Things Done, but it rarely ends well. One tentative thought is that maybe the only solution is one not based in government action. Mutual aid, for instance, is a popular idea in the far left for a better way to meet society’s needs. I have... reservations about the effectiveness of such a system in practice, but it feels like a richer vein than most political proposals I’ve seen (not that creating mutual aid systems wouldn’t involve quite a lot of politics). This view is something that I completely understand, but I also disagree with it. You mention Obama, but Obama is a modern politician, FDR is an example of a politician who took our system in Obama's situation and make change quickly and decisively. Obama could have been an FDR if our political situation was as functional as it was during the early to mid 20th century, but we've neglected it so badly that its nearly impossible to see what our system used to look like. I would argue our engine given proper maintenance and care can absolutely function to make big important changes in times of crisis, but the type of politics we've devolved into since like, Reagan (seriously, fuck Reagan) has made it seem like politics is an inherently slow miserable gridlocked process. The big thing Im saying is that we shouldn't accept what we see nowadays as inherent to our system. Its been different in the past and it can be different now, but we need to understand that the dysfunction isn't inherent to democracy. We can do better, we must do better. Clean the gunk in the engine to reduce the friction. Hold the Mitch McConnells, the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, the Joe Manchines accountable when they do things that dont align with popular demands in the US, make sure they know they serve the public. If Obama was able to be as aggressive and really improve the lives of Americans in tangible ways that they popularly wanted we might not've seen Trump win, and we might see more faith in the US' crumbling institutions. While moderates are definitely the modern wisdom for elections, I think theres a fair argument to make that we should try running on popular policies and major reform in times of upheaval like this. Moderates are great in good times when we want a steady ship, but in times like these business-as-usual may not hit the same way, it may be better to be bold and prove that the government can rise the occasion when it needs to. Also I don't think this post is useless, I think expressing your views is incredibly useful to fostering an understanding of the way some people may think about a subject. I'd bet your views are very common in the US, that the US democracy is just inherently slow and clunky and full of friction, its useful to air those views and hear the views of others imo. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23250 Posts
One tentative thought is that maybe the only solution is one not based in government action. Mutual aid, for instance, is a popular idea in the far left for a better way to meet society’s needs. I'm starting to understand why me looking at 60+ years of literally no measurable improvement (in the racial wealth gap for example) despite steadfast and boisterous support for Democrats from generations of Black voters over decades (while the federal government, and police departments actively conspired to assassinate people like Fred Hampton) makes it easier for me to arrive at that conclusion and harder for those that benefit/ed from that dynamic not to. What I'm curious about after Trump's insurrection attempt is where will the people accepting of all this finally draw the line? Like if Trump runs in 2024 and wins a straight up (enough) race (he's the most popular/favorable Republican legally allowed to run still) are Democrats really going to just give the guy they tried to impeach for an insurrection the keys to the white house and control over the US nuclear arsenal again? I get a lot of people simply can't empathize/relate to the 60+ years without measurable improvement in the wealth gap thing so they need some other demonstration. Surely Trump strolling back into the white house to be president would be enough for a critical mass of the "vote blue no matter who" types right? | ||
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dp
United States234 Posts
On February 20 2021 09:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:I know that 18-year-olds aren't the ones defaulting on their loans, but they're the ones signing the contracts and then defaulting on their loans 20+ years later, because only after college and after becoming a real adult do they realize what they committed to doing. I understand that your take is about pushing them to be held responsible for their actions, but I also think that accountability has to be proportional... when you have all of society, including parents and role models, saying "go to college and work hard and you'll get a good-paying job" and then the kids trust the adults but the jobs just aren't there, I think that there's more blame to go around than just telling the graduates to suck it up. Besides the financial crisis and it's ensuing issues for graduates of that time, what specific reason do you believe going to college and getting a good paying job isn't exactly what happens for the vast majority of people? This again falls back into the assertion that this path is no longer worth it. Until someone can show some studies that address this, I don't understand why it is brought up. The normal persons working life extends from 18 to at least 65. Difficulties during a portion of that is expected. For the vast majority, getting shitty paying jobs happens at the exact same ages as college grads. There is a reason that defaults overall are not a larger percentage. People can eventually pay them off, and their investment is worth it. What people here seem to see as lack of empathy is literally comparing college vs non-college earning potential and noticing the trend that matches and then is wildly exceeded by retirement. As to your suggestion that it is those that were 18 at signing of loans that are defaulting, check the numbers. Majority is not. On February 20 2021 09:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:To your suggestion about limiting forgiveness to only those with less than $10K in loans, would that include graduates who had more loans but eventually paid off most of it, and then their final $10K would be erased? As an example, if I had $50K in student loan debt and this idea was put into effect tomorrow, I wouldn't be affected at all immediately, but after I eventually paid off $40K and was down to $10K, the final $10K (say, ten years from now) would be erased? Good question. And maybe better policy than my idea but I don't believe i landed at those numbers that way. It was a mishmash of debt values in data groups, specifically including a few different separate portions which seems to be why I keep having trouble finding all my sources. This Obama era pdf will point out the default rates by loan amounts owed. It is from 2016, which would be odd if I used back a few months when i last looked into this but assume the numbers in regards to defaults by loan amount are relatively steady since. You will see a similar trend in general though, where low loan amounts are those most problematic to pay back. It should be obvious, those that don't graduate are least likely to earn enough to pay back the loans. That is what skews data in regards to value of a college degree. That and time frame of earnings and what that really means. | ||
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Zambrah
United States7312 Posts
On February 20 2021 12:17 GreenHorizons wrote: I'm starting to understand why me looking at 60+ years of literally no measurable improvement (in the racial wealth gap for example) despite steadfast and boisterous support for Democrats from generations of Black voters over decades (while the federal government, and police departments actively conspired to assassinate people like Fred Hampton) makes it easier for me to arrive at that conclusion and harder for those that benefit/ed from that dynamic not to. What I'm curious about after Trump's insurrection attempt is where will the people accepting of all this finally draw the line? Like if Trump runs in 2024 and wins a straight up (enough) race (he's the most popular/favorable Republican legally allowed to run still) are Democrats really going to just give the guy they tried to impeach for an insurrection the keys to the white house and control over the US nuclear arsenal again? I get a lot of people simply can't empathize/relate to the 60+ years without measurable improvement in the wealth gap thing so they need some other demonstration. Surely Trump strolling back into the white house to be president would be enough for a critical mass of the "vote blue no matter who" types right? Given that we held none of the instigators of the insurrection accountable for their actions we would 100% hand the keys back over to Trump and we'd continue to not hold him accountable even if he filled the White House with a militia and turned it into an armed and reinforced barracks fifteen minutes into his term and declared that he was king. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23250 Posts
On February 20 2021 12:26 Zambrah wrote: Given that we held none of the instigators of the insurrection accountable for their actions we would 100% hand the keys back over to Trump and we'd continue to not hold him accountable even if he filled the White House with a militia and turned it into an armed and reinforced barracks fifteen minutes into his term and declared that he was king. Hard to argue with ya there lol | ||
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Zambrah
United States7312 Posts
On February 20 2021 12:29 JimmiC wrote: There are tons of issues with malnourishment that are not related to death especially for children. Yes lifespans went up, but that is only sort of a good thing I say this because work around then was a heck of lot more dangerous, not just because so many more people died at work but also the chemicals and conditions (think coal mining in the 20's or working in a clothing factory with chemicals) died. Yes 500k people have died from covid and that is terrible but that is a separate issue and helps to indicate another major difference. This was caused by a disease and purposeful measures that were meant to save lives at the cost of the economy. There was nothing planned within the great depression and there was no pandemic or anything forcing the down turn. I do get your point that it could get a lot worse, if it does then I'll be more on board but there is also many ways that what you are saying will happen wont. It is presumption at this point. Beating Trump is a big deal, without that happening your democracy may have ended and most certainly would have been damaged. Many of the changes Trump made that he reverted are a very big deal. Because that policy is not enough for you does not mean it is not anything. Sadly ( I say this because I think more drastic change is needed) that is just not what most Americans who vote in the primary think. I also agree with the politicians in some ways do not do a great job of meeting what the majority want. But it also goes with people agree they want universal healthcare, but what they don't agree on is how to make it happen. The idea of raising taxes to pay for a publicly funded system is not that popular. The idea of nationalizing all the hospitals is not that popular an idea. If the main driver for who people vote for is who will go for the lowest taxes then it won't happen. People have to want it more than they want low taxes, or want it more than they want private hospitals, private insurance and so on. I agree on the not accountable thing, though I do think the Dems do a better job then the Reps. (quick example would be Roy Moore compared to Fraken) I think this point is a direct counter to your people voted him in because he is not Trump point you were making earlier. He is not a progressive, and in Canada he would be a conservative. But Trump was not a conservative he was all over the map on the political spectrum depending on the issue. What makes Trump was the non stop lying, scapegoating, trying to break every rule to benefit him, so on and so forth. I can see where you would say he is not very progressive. But his voting record is pretty close to the middle for Dems, he is a centrist and a old school politician I agree with your "he got voted in for being the anti Trump" quite a bit. I completely disagree with the blue Trump or really any Trump comparison outside of them both being super old  I think your post is more readable then mine but I'm being called away, so my apologies for the formatting.  There are tons of issues with malnourishment that are not related to death especially for children. + Show Spoiler + Oh I entirely agree, malnourishment isn't not a big deal, any time people have to go hungry its a brutal thing, and its definitely a terrible part of the Great Depression Yes lifespans went up, but that is only sort of a good thing I say this because work around then was a heck of lot more dangerous, not just because so many more people died at work but also the chemicals and conditions (think coal mining in the 20's or working in a clothing factory with chemicals) died. + Show Spoiler + Yeah, but thats immaterial to the Great Depression. The 40s were definitely the time of cigarettes and asbestos and lead and such, so it was far from a healthy time, the only reason I bring it up is because when factoring in the magnitude of each moment of history I think the sheer loss of life is being underestimated. Economic damage is definitely awful and has tons of knock on effectives that mean its not a localized sort of damage, but at the same time what Americas been going through the last year has been terrible on different fronts than the Great Depression. More death, less economic impact, more political turmoil. Yes 500k people have died from covid and that is terrible but that is a separate issue and helps to indicate another major difference. This was caused by a disease and purposeful measures that were meant to save lives at the cost of the economy. There was nothing planned within the great depression and there was no pandemic or anything forcing the down turn + Show Spoiler + I mean, the pandemic wasn't planned either, I'm not referring to whats happening now as JUST the pandemic or anything, but as an amalgam of the upwelling of severe fascist sentiment, as well as the economic impact and death toll of the corona virus. All of these things combine to make this moment in history on par with the Great Depression in terms of magnitude of importance has been my point there. Its a Moment In History comparison, since this was originally brought up with regards to the validity of an FDR style policy approach. I do get your point that it could get a lot worse, if it does then I'll be more on board but there is also many ways that what you are saying will happen wont. It is presumption at this point. + Show Spoiler + I honestly dont even think it needs to get that much worse, I mean we've seen the foundation of our democracy rocked and weakened, hundreds of thousands of people dead, and a bunch of consequences of the economic turmoil during the pandemic being held off by stop gap measures that are going to have to expire or stop at some point. This is a crazy impactful time in US history. Beating Trump is a big deal, without that happening your democracy may have ended and most certainly would have been damaged. Many of the changes Trump made that he reverted are a very big deal. Because that policy is not enough for you does not mean it is not anything. Sadly ( I say this because I think more drastic change is needed) that is just not what most Americans who vote in the primary think. + Show Spoiler + Beating Trump is a big deal, that being said, Trump lost and our democracy was still damaged, and so far nothing has been done to repair it. Trump got away scot free, the QOP got away scot free, Democrats dont look interested in addressing the fundamental issues that let Trump and the QOP look so appealing to people. Our democracy is still very much in danger, Trump was not the issue, he was just the first festering pustule that appeared on America's ass. Reverting Trump changes isn't THAT big a deal because its not solving fundamental problems, its just reseting America back to the same spot we were in when people decided that American governance was so bad and out of touch that they sent a Donald Trump in as a big middle finger. If we don't address the fundamental problems facing America we're just going to keep seeing middle fingers sent and one day a middle finger is going to become a proper fascistic dictatorial type. I'll say again though, Americans didnt vote on whether or not they wanted drastic change in the primary, they voted on who they thought was going to be able to beat Trump. Biden didn't win the election, Trump lost it, people don't like Biden so much as they hate Trump. The polls at the time and the entire dialogue around the primary indicated that everyones biggest issue by a huge margin was "which one beats Trump in the election?" I also agree with the politicians in some ways do not do a great job of meeting what the majority want. But it also goes with people agree they want universal healthcare, but what they don't agree on is how to make it happen. The idea of raising taxes to pay for a publicly funded system is not that popular. The idea of nationalizing all the hospitals is not that popular an idea. + Show Spoiler + People shouldnt need to be the one making policy specifics though, thats what we have legislators for, all people should need to do is tell their politicians, "we want you to do ___" and then its the politicians job to make it reality. Its unreasonable to expect Americans to have the kind of knowledge necessary to be that high level when it comes to policy. Even like, a medical billing administrator with intricate knowledge of how Universal Healthcare should be structured is probably not going to be good at knowing about something outside of their field. We don't even need to raise taxes on most people, taxes on tippity toppest of society and stocks and such are generally popular and would fund a lot of popular policy that people want. I agree on the not accountable thing, though I do think the Dems do a better job then the Reps. (quick example would be Roy Moore compared to Fraken) + Show Spoiler + Democrats are better and accountability for like, sexual harassment-y stuff, but I'll be honest Im much more concerned with financial stuff. Democrats are just as bad as Republicans imo when it comes to taking money from special interests and letting that supercede what the will of their constituents is. Politics in the US are just utterly polluted by money. Stuff like Bloomberg's freudian slip when he accidentally said that he bought politicians, lol. I think this point is a direct counter to your people voted him in because he is not Trump point you were making earlier. He is not a progressive, and in Canada he would be a conservative. But Trump was not a conservative he was all over the map on the political spectrum depending on the issue. What makes Trump was the non stop lying, scapegoating, trying to break every rule to benefit him, so on and so forth. I can see where you would say he is not very progressive. But his voting record is pretty close to the middle for Dems, he is a centrist and a old school politician I agree with your "he got voted in for being the anti Trump" quite a bit. I completely disagree with the blue Trump or really any Trump comparison outside of them both being super old + Show Spoiler + Im of the opinion Trump didnt really believe in anything other than making himself money, I'm not even sure we could really plot much of his political beliefs given his craven narcissism, lol. Biden supported a lot of bad things, he was anti-choice, pro-Iraq War, pro-cutting Social Security, anti-busing (busing being an anti-segregationist policy, god the Civil Rights movement feels like ancient history but Biden was literally alive during it lol), Strom Thormund (colossal racist congressman) friending, anti-black-crime-billing Republican. Dudes got a lot of bad politics behind him. Think more on the Trump comparison though, they're both belligerent (remember Biden challenging normal people to fights during the primary, and insulting them, which is a pretty SAD! trait,) very old, white, say dumb racist things (Biden's "poor kids are just as smart as white kids!") I'm not saying they're the same, but if you have to pick any singular person from the Democrats to compare to Trump I believe hes as close as we could've gotten, lol. I look forward to picking this up or something else up at a later time this was/is a fun and fulfilling conversation imo. Good fortune with what you're being pulled away for! EDIT: WIIIIIINDBAAAAGGGG lol | ||
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Zambrah
United States7312 Posts
The winter storm that messed up Texas is leaving people with massive electricity bills because capitalism. Texas might want to seriously reconsider being so detached from the rest of the nation's power grid, and they're DEFINITELY going to have to do something about this. Seeing thousands of dollars in bills rack up because of a natural disaster caused a state's dogshit infrastructure to get wrecked is bullshit. This was a "take massive debt or potentially freeze to death" moment. I wonder what'll happen with this, because theres no way people will tolerate this kind of additional financial burden in the face of the pandemic. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/deep-freeze-subsides-texans-now-face-electricity-bills-10-000-n1258362?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15690 Posts
On February 20 2021 13:33 Zambrah wrote: And to move onto a different topic, The winter storm that messed up Texas is leaving people with massive electricity bills because capitalism. Texas might want to seriously reconsider being so detached from the rest of the nation's power grid, and they're DEFINITELY going to have to do something about this. Seeing thousands of dollars in bills rack up because of a natural disaster caused a state's dogshit infrastructure to get wrecked is bullshit. This was a "take massive debt or potentially freeze to death" moment. I wonder what'll happen with this, because theres no way people will tolerate this kind of additional financial burden in the face of the pandemic. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/deep-freeze-subsides-texans-now-face-electricity-bills-10-000-n1258362?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma The entire idea of privatized utilities is just so fucked up. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25497 Posts
On February 20 2021 12:17 GreenHorizons wrote: I'm starting to understand why me looking at 60+ years of literally no measurable improvement (in the racial wealth gap for example) despite steadfast and boisterous support for Democrats from generations of Black voters over decades (while the federal government, and police departments actively conspired to assassinate people like Fred Hampton) makes it easier for me to arrive at that conclusion and harder for those that benefit/ed from that dynamic not to. What I'm curious about after Trump's insurrection attempt is where will the people accepting of all this finally draw the line? Like if Trump runs in 2024 and wins a straight up (enough) race (he's the most popular/favorable Republican legally allowed to run still) are Democrats really going to just give the guy they tried to impeach for an insurrection the keys to the white house and control over the US nuclear arsenal again? I get a lot of people simply can't empathize/relate to the 60+ years without measurable improvement in the wealth gap thing so they need some other demonstration. Surely Trump strolling back into the white house to be president would be enough for a critical mass of the "vote blue no matter who" types right? Perhaps America truly is exceptional but in all the worst of ways. Hell free college would be nice, other countries in my continental vicinity have that. I can borderline afford to go currently, the pandemic certainly helps in terms of cutting my leisure spending, bit of a stretch but doable. In the States you’re talking what 5, 10, 20x the fees and saddling people with crippling debt? Ditto healthcare issues, I mean we live in the internet age and other systems aren’t perfect but it’s not as if people are living in ignorance of other, evidently better ways of doing things. To the point I mean I legitimately don’t understand the wider American psyche. Things are taking a turn for the worse here but the American populace seem borderline masochistic in the pursuit of some abstract notion of American pride in so many domains. It feels just saying ‘the system doesn’t function well’ which, while true is also a way to sidestep other painful home truths, decades of neglect for all sorts of grievances and sure, the system has flaws but 70 million folks voted for Donald Trump after witnessing his first term play out. | ||
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Zambrah
United States7312 Posts
On February 20 2021 13:36 Mohdoo wrote: The entire idea of privatized utilities is just so fucked up. Yeah this is a huge indictment of the concept of privatized utilities and the concept that businesses are somehow better at running things than the government, lol. Makes me almost wish we had some libertarian takes to defend whats happening in Texas. | ||
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dp
United States234 Posts
On February 20 2021 13:49 WombaT wrote: Perhaps America truly is exceptional but in all the worst of ways. Hell free college would be nice, other countries in my continental vicinity have that. I can borderline afford to go currently, the pandemic certainly helps in terms of cutting my leisure spending, bit of a stretch but doable. In the States you’re talking what 5, 10, 20x the fees and saddling people with crippling debt? Ditto healthcare issues, I mean we live in the internet age and other systems aren’t perfect but it’s not as if people are living in ignorance of other, evidently better ways of doing things. To the point I mean I legitimately don’t understand the wider American psyche. Things are taking a turn for the worse here but the American populace seem borderline masochistic in the pursuit of some abstract notion of American pride in so many domains. It feels just saying ‘the system doesn’t function well’ which, while true is also a way to sidestep other painful home truths, decades of neglect for all sorts of grievances and sure, the system has flaws but 70 million folks voted for Donald Trump after witnessing his first term play out. The problem starts in this mindset of listening to people that like to complain. For example, people that can't afford college are eligible for pell grants. My wife earned her associates at literally zero cost at a community college in our area because pell grants covered the tuition and books. She could have earned her bachelors through a partnership that community college had with in state colleges for what basically could amount to 10k in loans/out of pocket if she had chosen to do so. Perhaps things are much worse now than it was 12 years ago. Maybe people can chime in and point that out. But I don't believe anyone that says a bachelors would have been a bad investment at 10k. I personally don't believe it would be a bad investment at 33k (average cost), but I would at least consider the argument. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15690 Posts
On February 20 2021 14:02 Zambrah wrote: Yeah this is a huge indictment of the concept of privatized utilities and the concept that businesses are somehow better at running things than the government, lol. Makes me almost wish we had some libertarian takes to defend whats happening in Texas. Anyone who says private industry is more efficient than government hasn’t worked for a billion dollar company. | ||
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