Current Affairs The 2020 United States Presidential Election
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? That's a weird series of words.
BirkenheadBlue
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NOT FOR LONG, DIP****
Sassy Colombian
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TN Toffee
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The fact that they’ve just installed a woman who claims to be an originalist is laughably ironic. Is she going to step aside when someone gets a suit before the court claiming women don’t have the right to hold that office? Also, just looking at that Electoral Map, Republicans are going to have a tough go of it once we have to give the Louisiana Purchase back to France thanks to Thomas Jefferson overstepping presidential power in acquiring it.
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I'll take down dat coal powered MG, I tel u Hwat
You can’t have your cake and eat it sassy either pick my side or SDK!!!
Sassy Colombian
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Hahaha you would know why if you ve ever been to a Muslim majority country
Forgot to say why I find it unconvincing...
"No, they [Democrats] wanted to lead a moral revolution, to transform the country — not only enacting a long list of new policies, but making a series of institutional changes that would entrench their power far into the future. Pack the Supreme Court. Add left-leaning states. Break up others to give the left huge margins in the Senate. Get rid of the Electoral College. Abolish the police. Rewrite the nation's history, with white supremacy and racism placed "at the very center." Ensure "equity" not just in opportunity but in outcomes. Hell, maybe they'd even establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to teach everyone who voted for or supported the 45th president just how evil they really are." [and later in the article] "But this wasn't just a function of the fallacy of composition, where one loony activist says something off the wall and the GOP amplifies it far beyond reason in order to tar the opposition unfairly. These were prominent Democrats — progressive politicians, activists, and scholars and prize-winning journalists at leading cultural institutions — talking this way."
It seems odd to lump "activists" and "scholars" and "prize-winning journalists" along with "progressive politicians." This is the fallacy of association: "activists, and scholars and prize-winning journalists at leading cultural institutions" are not politicians and the former are as free as any other citizen to make as many wild-seeming claims that they want. That this author disagrees with those claims is not an argument against them. Here is another fallacy of association that I just made up: "These were Republican politicians along with far-right white nationalists, q-anon supporters, and other prominent conspiracy-infused internet personalities with huge followings in the media." So yeah, weak stuff on the author's part.
Let's take "Add left-leaning states" DC statehood is a sensible and democratically fair proposal that gives government representation to citizens who 1) live in the USA, and 2) pay taxes to the federal government. That DC happens to vote Democratic is beside the point, and DC statehood is supported by the Republican party in DC. As to Puerto Rican statehood that might be a more complicated topic, but again Puerto Ricans are 1) US Citizens and 2) Pay Federal taxes.
Let's take "Break up others [presumably states] to give the left huge margins..." Yet another Republican scare-tactic, which is to 1) make a wildly improbable statement, and 2) dubiously attribute this to Democrats. There is no current Democrat politician who would realistically propose breaking up a US state. The author conveniently forgets that many efforts to break up California are led by Republicans.
Let's take, "Get rid of the electoral college." This is a popular theme as of late for Republicans because it suits their desires. Who cares. As any wikipedia search will show, support to abolish the electoral college ebbs and flows among Republicans and Democrats over time. The more pertinent question is why are Republicans opposed to eliminating it? Afterall, the author is talking-up Trump's increase in popular vote from 2016; why not support a popular-vote initiative? And the popular vote usually tracks the winner of the presidency; it didn't in 2016, but that's more of an anomaly than a rule. This is just filler-text.
Let's take "Abolish the Police." Biden opposes defunding the police and certainly is against abolishing them, so this is a non-issue. These are more exaggerated claims from the right. Such claims likely do emanate from fringe-activists and not from "prominent Democrats." And of course there is a substantive difference between "abolish" and "dismantle and rebuild," the latter being what was proposed by the Minneapolis City Council.
Let's take "Rewrite the nation's history, with white supremacy and racism placed "at the very center." This author laughably links to another article that he wrote on the 1619 project initiated by the New York Times. First of all, a newspaper can choose to write about what it wants (the whole 1st amendment thing), and second, even if the goals of the 1619 project are to [from NYT] "reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the national narrative" the author needs to show how and why this is a bad idea with detrimental consequences for our democracy. He doesn't. It's just more dumb scare-tactics that rile up the racists. And frankly I don't think this project will have as much of an impact as the rightwing fear-mongers claim it will since the content of textbooks for public schools are set by states and local school districts, not by the New York Times.
I could go on, but it find these last two paragraphs oddly juxtaposed and difficult to reconcile:
"Donald Trump has proven himself a corrupt, mendacious ignoramus utterly unfit for the position he holds. He's led the nation through a pandemic that has left nearly a quarter million dead, is currently surging unchecked across the country, and has devastated the economy. And yet, the current tally shows him beating his showing from 2016 by 3.7 million votes..."
"So please, Democrats, look in the mirror and show a little humility. You're not nearly as self-evidently wonderful or widely loved as you'd like to believe. You are not destined to prevail anywhere. You share a country with a large group of people who hate your guts, and who aren't going to submit to your rule or go along with your giddy plans to remake the nation in your image. It's time to start acting like you understand this implacable fact and all it implies about the limits of your power and the parameters of the possible."
Apart from the hyperbolic rhetoric about "submit to your rule" or "giddy plans to remake the nation" (such authoritarian ascriptions are more from the Trump-Barr playbook than from Democrats), what emotion are Democrats supposed to feel when just over half the electorate votes for Biden and slightly less of it votes for"a corrupt, mendacious ignoramus utterly unfit for the position he holds"? I'm not humbled by this, I'm saddened. Call me smug for saying that. I don't care.
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Death
I'll take down dat coal powered MG, I tel u Hwat
Kenshin
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It's just what it was , so to speak.
They had to back him for another term for the sake of their own party. Minute they turn on their president it's political suicide I imagine , even if he is hated by a lot of people.
In a way it's the best case scenario for them. This way a democrat takes office that is largely dictated by the republicans still (as I'm led to believe) and can only run one term. They get rid of trump and then hand pick their next runner with 4 years prep.
Whereas a second trump term , if similar to the first In terms of public relations would be lose lose come 4 years time, even for their own supporters. They would lose trust from split voters who then want a change from them.
Now they can have their own man in there again and they already know they arent up against Biden so gives them a much better chance.
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