US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4581

On November 10 2024 06:01 Falling wrote:

I think they were hoping there was still a substantial number of constitutional conservatives left in the Republican party instead of Trump loyalists. They were wrong.

It's depressing watching people like Shapiro, who I once thought had interesting things to say, tie himself into knots trying to support Trump with 'he's bad, but he's incompetent so it doesn't matter and I want the federal government incompetent anyways so that's good." Shapiro, Walsh, heck, even chalkboard-Glenn Beck all saw what a danger Trump posed to their party and wrote articles loudly proclaiming they would never vote for Trump. Every one of them bent the knee and defend and sanewash him to this day.

It's sadly funny in the wake of Jan 6, you briefly saw Shapiro think he could separate himself as Trump looked like he was gone from politics. Shapiro flatly called Jan 6 an insurrection and the worst day in American history since 9/11... he has since walked it back once it was clear Trump would return to politics. It's Trump before everything else and so it turned out it did not matter how many former Cabinet members (that Trump himself selected) that came out against him saying he should never lead the country again. Lifelong Republicans, every one of them were secretly Democrats the whole time, the so-called "Uni-party". Trump above all. Stop the steal! They are going to take away your country! (Only not this time???) It's maddening, but so yes, in retrospect there was no point. Trump loyalism has subsumed too much.


Having said that, Dick Cheney was never going to help and ought to have been fended off with a very long pole. Something like that "we are grateful for every vote, but we still remember the Iraq war". Or else a more forceful condemnation of the Cheney era of Middle East adventurism. Dick Cheney will always be an anchor to any side he attaches himself. To a lesser degree, so is W Bush. Even if he was supportive of Harris to get rid of Trump "Well, that was some weird s--", I think he was wise to stick with his policy of peacing out of the whole political world and just paint.

On November 10 2024 06:01 Falling wrote:

I think they were hoping there was still a substantial number of constitutional conservatives left in the Republican party instead of Trump loyalists. They were wrong.

It's depressing watching people like Shapiro, who I once thought had interesting things to say, tie himself into knots trying to support Trump with 'he's bad, but he's incompetent so it doesn't matter and I want the federal government incompetent anyways so that's good." Shapiro, Walsh, heck, even chalkboard-Glenn Beck all saw what a danger Trump posed to their party and wrote articles loudly proclaiming they would never vote for Trump. Every one of them bent the knee and defend and sanewash him to this day.

It's sadly funny in the wake of Jan 6, you briefly saw Shapiro think he could separate himself as Trump looked like he was gone from politics. Shapiro flatly called Jan 6 an insurrection and the worst day in American history since 9/11... he has since walked it back once it was clear Trump would return to politics. It's Trump before everything else and so it turned out it did not matter how many former Cabinet members (that Trump himself selected) that came out against him saying he should never lead the country again. Lifelong Republicans, every one of them were secretly Democrats the whole time, the so-called "Uni-party". Trump above all. Stop the steal! They are going to take away your country! (Only not this time???) It's maddening, but so yes, in retrospect there was no point. Trump loyalism has subsumed too much.


Having said that, Dick Cheney was never going to help and ought to have been fended off with a very long pole. Something like that "we are grateful for every vote, but we still remember the Iraq war". Or else a more forceful condemnation of the Cheney era of Middle East adventurism. Dick Cheney will always be an anchor to any side he attaches himself. To a lesser degree, so is W Bush. Even if he was supportive of Harris to get rid of Trump "Well, that was some weird s--", I think he was wise to stick with his policy of peacing out of the whole political world and just paint.

On November 10 2024 03:39 Zambrah wrote:


I don’t know why this is hard to understand.

It’s like Democrats are living the Principle Skinner meme. “Am I out of touch? No, it’s all the people who don’t vote for me who are out of touch!”

Trying to swing Republicans (who else are you trying to swing by parading around with Dick Cheney?) is just the dumbest strategy and they keep doing it, it keeps not being good, and they keep defending it.

That’s who their “moderates” and “swing voters” are, Republicans. They can keep pretending there’s a vast well of people who will totally vote for Republican-liteness if they slide just a little more towards Republicans, but I will mock anyone who thinks it’s the right thing to do relentlessly because it’s the kind of delusion that can only be compared to a hardcore Trumper at this point. Moderates and swing voters do not and will not win you elections, appealing to them is at the expense of people who will win you elections.

Also people have to feel their change, they can’t simply read about it, and they have to actually trust people in power will make an effort to enact change they will feel. Democrats just fail at these things and have eroded a lot of trust which is why their voters are so damn prone to demotivation

The idea of making Election Day a national holiday has a large bipartisan support, with 72% of U.S. adults surveyed by the Pew Research Center favoring the decision.

On November 10 2024 07:06 Introvert wrote:



Hm there's a lot there. First, Cheney was a lap dog for Pelosi on her silly Jan 6 committee. If I recall Pelosi rejected anyone else McCarthy tried to add. She was a willing fool for an enterprise that was not aimed at truth, even if it happened to find some (it was just too obviously partisan to be of any use).

Next, Trump won a lot of conservatives over by governing more to the right than they were expecting. I certainly was pleasantly surprised by the Trump presidency for the most part. I haven't listened to Shapiro in ages but my impression was that he was a DeSantis guy before Trump won the nom. A lot of conservatives came around when he's the only game in town.

Which brings me to my other point. I have in this thread tried many, many times to point out that Democrats were not giving Republicans, much less conservatives, ANYTHING at all to bring them on board. The Biden admin went all in on things like student loan bailouts, an unconstitutional spending of federal money that dwarfed the amount Trump tried to appropriate for the wall. He was derelict in his duty to protect the nation by allowing an unprecedented crisis at the southern border, with border security and immigration being an issue the right has cared about for two decades now. He and his state level allies threw the book at Trump with all these court cases, only some of which were even plausibly legitimate, even after we found out Biden himself was keeping documents he shouldn't have had. Democrat's advantage on "Democracy" slowly shrunk as all this went on and I think I saw one exit poll where voters trusted Trump more on that!

Harris meanwhile gave no olive branch to conservatives on a single thing. Nothing on abortion, nothing on the border, nothing on social or economic issues at all. When she did "moderate" it wasn't believable (e.g. fracking). As I've said so many times, if Democrats really believed that Trump was the next Hitler you would think they would have offered skeptical Republicans something, instead they tried to say "Trump is bad so you MUST vote for us and swallow our entire agenda or else you are a bad person." This is not a winning message and it indicates that most of the rhetoric isn't sincere.

There is one final part of this. Trump can only be president for one more term. People are less worried because I don't think any serious person actually believes that he's going to try and steal an election for a third term. Meanwhile, while his election shenanigans are bad, people really don't like Biden or Harris. They remember times as being better under Trump before COVID. All the hair-on-fire antics from Dems in retrospect look silly, as half the crap they said about him turned out to be just noise. Meanwhile his attempt to take 2020 failed. Call it survivorship bias, but that I think is the way it's viewed by many people.

TLDR is that Dems didn't even pretend that they had to earn Republican votes, they expected to just get them because of Trump. Harris didn't give Cheney anything, and she didn't have to because Cheney already hated Trump. Not the same for normie Republicans or conservatives. Ultimately the calculus of who was worse was pretty clear for most conservatives.


+ Show Spoiler +

On November 10 2024 06:38 WombaT wrote:
Ironic given how many of them viewed Kapernick’s protest considering how they too also largely all took the knee themselves

On November 10 2024 08:37 JimmyJRaynor wrote:

Had Kap did what Moon did I'd respect his moves. Same with the parade of falsely accused NFLers and NBAers. Dwayne Casey coached women's basketball in Japan. That Bills kicker woulda done wonders for his public image if he played American Tackle Football in another league. Ali became a hero in Canada and Germany.

Guys who work their way into the big leagues earn the respect of the average fan. Guys who just whine and cry victim for years...lol... They're a joke.

Warren Moon has 5 ... Count'em 5 Championships playing in the coldest city in NA in November in an ERA where the CFL was stacked with NFL level talent due to racism South of the border. Kap just whined for 5 years.

Kap is a whiner... Moon is a bad ass mofo.

On November 10 2024 07:39 GreenHorizons wrote:

It's unbelievable. As in literally it's not believable that they don't know better. DPB specifically has seen the data, knows what Biden had to do, and knows he didn't even try those obvious things.

Would have been popular too:

Also [a majority] of Americans -- 60%... -- favor automatic voter registration

Monday should be Democrats coming out with a report that gives them some rapid response data on why people didn't vote for them this cycle and announcing a taskforce to dive deep into each bucket of voters that didn't vote for them. Those that voted for Biden but not Harris, those that reached voting age after Biden won, and those self-identified democrats/independents that already agree with Democrats shitty policy but just don't/rarely vote. As well as how they are going to get their votes next time. Should also come with a PR rollout for automatic voter registration and making election day a holiday.

That's not socialist or even progressive analysis, none of that even requires them to change their policies (even though I obviously prefer they would). That's just what they obviously need to do within the paradigm of their own politics to win/succeed and they petulantly refuse to even recognize that. For what? For who? Why!?

On November 10 2024 08:11 WombaT wrote:

Ok some earnest questions.

What concessions could Harris reasonably give to Conservatives that don’t piss off her base? You are one person and not an avatar of course, can you think of any? I struggle. It’s a little more of a ‘wider left’ thing than a Harris thing, as well, I feel. No matter what x political does will be dwarfed in a load of culture war stories, but that caveat aside.

What threshold does Trump have to exceed to lose seemingly even moderate conservatives?

Lose need not mean flipping, just not supporting or defending the man. It could even take the form of having misgivings with the Democrats and believing they’re indulging in politically expedient prosecutions. At the same time as considering Trump had transgressed.

Jan 6th wasn’t sufficient? What actually would be?

It’s difficult to envisage much compromise on all of much, while still relatively centrist by European standards, within the US what would be a gap between two centre right parties, or a centre right and a far right one, or a centre right and centre-left elsewhere and one of policy disagreements becomes a chasm. And a growing one.

Secondly, I’m sure I’m not alone, and indeed I’m sure this charge will be levied in the opposite. It’s not that I don’t believe what others believe, it’s that I no longer believe what those others believe what they say they believe either.

I’m talking broadly here on a purely individual level this isn’t the case, but as a political grouping

If I make some compromise with someone who stresses they’re a (insert political belief system here), sometimes you gotta do these things. If however, said individual does something that contradicts the rationale for previous compromises because it benefits them, I’d be foolish to do another compromise on the same basis as the first.

Rightly or wrongly I think there’s also a big perception that Republicans are full of shit.

I mean I could bring up Merrick Garland for the 18 millionth time, but that 1-2 punch was just breathtakingly disingenuous stuff.

On November 10 2024 09:08 micronesia wrote:
The biggest problem about the democratic voters is that they have standards. It makes competing with the GOP difficult.

On November 10 2024 09:21 Introvert wrote:


While I do try to understand people with different views than myself I don't know that I could answer the question of what the left should have put on the table. I could answer maybe what just enough people on the right might have accepted...those things would be in line with what I outlined. I've already mentioned abortion recently, but it's clear that Dems actually viewed that issue as a way to win so they felt no need to slow down. Establishment-y writers like Matt Yglesias point out how Biden allowed more energy development than anyone thought (although he scuttled a bunch and Trump would/will allow more) but Biden barely talked about it. Or they could have acknowledged that the border was in crisis and moved to fix it (like the Trump admin did in the second half of his term). Could have forsworn paying off the student loans of people who Republicans think don't need it and don't particularly like. Maybe it is impossible now, but remember Bill Clinton got wrecked in the 1994 midterms and did an about face (the era of big government is over!). but perhaps dems can't do that anymore.

Listen, in this country there's just no way a dem is going to get a large number of GOP votes (and vice versa) but on the margins who knows? They didn't even try, so I don't know how much theory crafting to do. And I'm not shocked, the progressive worldview involves seeing people who disagree with them as bad people that can't have legitimate points or concerns. Perhaps in the age of Trump this is more true on both sides, but I think the overwhelming dominance of the progressives in our societal institutions makes them very loath to consider compromise.

That being said, the diversity of Trump coalition gives hope. There are plenty of former Democrat voters who are willing to give the GOP a chance, and that will have an effect on both parties, even if I don't like all the policies that will come from that. (so maybe what I said at the top of the last paragraph is not entirely true).

All this is just a way of saying that I don't know if I could build a platform for Harris to do such a thing. But I do think that if everyone on her side really believed Trump was Hitler 2, she would have had a LOT of leeway from the left to make concessions. Maybe that shows that many on the left don't believe what they say either

I will say, and this applies to what Sadist wrote as well, we are talking about appealing to GOP voters-- not politicians. I view the situation with Congress differently as you can imagine. But the idea is not to appeal to some legislator for a deal and then have them stab you in the back, what I'm talking about is being open-minded enough to give Republican voters something, or at least cause them to feel like they can stay home and not vote for Trump. It would be hard, the overbearing cultural dominance of the left creates a siege mindset among many on the right and as I said above, seems to encourage those on the left to press forward.

R.e. Jan 6, I think of a lot of people on the right don't hold Trump responsible for that, and I'm leaning in that direction. At least I don't hold him directly responsible, his failure was not doing something about it (it's still true that DC leadership turned down an offer for more police that day beforehand). In my mind at least the stolen election gambit and Jan 6 are related but not identical things. It was a riot, not a coup.

On November 10 2024 09:51 Zambrah wrote:


I think they make it more difficult than it needs to be, like its so clear they dont actually believe in anything. They'll try to create a homunculus of what they imagine people want them to believe, but its hollow because they themselves dont actually believe in anything.

Theres just not much to genuinely connect to from Democrats. You get these nice moments from people like Bernie or Walz and you get glimpses of people who could draw a lot of people's attention, people who appear to have real actual beliefs, who don't appear like simulacra formulated by consultants and pollsters, but the Bernies and Walzes aren't the party elite and the party elite believes in nothing and so can only recognize things by the metrics that strip things humans can meaningfully connect to out of the equation.

On November 10 2024 09:55 WombaT wrote:

What about Trump continuing to question the legitimacy of the election subsequently? I think the ‘it was a riot not a coup’ has some plausibility, but the man continued to rabble rouse on this to this day.

I think the left (or indeed the centre) could build bridges on immigration certainly. That’s probably the area. It’s certainly an area they’ve been crushed on in many a recent election, my UK included.

I think it’s a stupid horse to hitch yourself to, depending on how you do the messaging and what policies you advocate for.

It’s also a topic you can somewhat message differently for the same policy, to different groups.

It’s an asymmetric phenomenon as well. It’s generally poor areas that become the landing point for heavy (relatively) unskilled migration. They may not be proficient in the language. The middle class and up tend to deal with more highly skilled economic migrants. Those aren’t the same thing.

I remember reading a piece the Guardian did on this quite vividly. Notable right wing rag. There was the father who lived in one of the poorest areas of London. Couldn’t stress enough he had no issues with race, or people immigrating. But for him specifically well his daughter was at school with a bunch of newly arrived migrant children who didn’t speak the language. Teachers tried their best but it’s a tricky scenario.

Middle class folks don’t ever really have to deal with that kind of issue.

While I feel the right too frequently involve xenophobic sentiment equally it’s been a long, long bugbear that the left ignore any kind of issue whatsoever.

So maybe that’s the area where you could find some kind of common ground if you mediated for the more extreme impulses of either pole.

On November 10 2024 11:48 Magic Powers wrote:


Border security was part of Harris' campaign.

On November 10 2024 11:48 Magic Powers wrote:


Border security was part of Harris' campaign.