111–120 of 257 posts
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And so this Easter day a new oxymoron is born: the coalition of the unwilling. Do with that, in terms of foreign policy, what you will.
Why is that oxymoron? You can, in fact, have a coalition focused on not doing something.
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Well let me be the first to thank you for the extra dollar a litre on my fuel, the extra hundred or so dollars a month on my mortgage and the impending recession that your choice has imposed upon me here in Australia. Thanks so much for voting in Trump and his enablers.
Rather than blame this voter, why don't we put some blame onto the democrats. In San Francisco, progressive democrats have wasted billions on homeless and crime but with little to show for. Sometimes democrats do push too far left. Far left is not that much different than far right.
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My hope is that this will show weaknesses in our supposed "checks and balances" that can be patched later. If that means it takes an act of congress to even fire a single military weapon, so be it. That's just one example, but basically "they" need to backtrack and find every "hack" trump used and plug it so this never happens again.
Checks and balances mean nothing when the same party controls house, senate, president, and supreme court.
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Well let me be the first to thank you for the extra dollar a litre on my fuel, the extra hundred or so dollars a month on my mortgage and the impending recession that your choice has imposed upon me here in Australia. Thanks so much for voting in Trump and his enablers.
Rather than blame this voter, why don't we put some blame onto the democrats. In San Francisco, progressive democrats have wasted billions on homeless and crime but with little to show for. Sometimes democrats do push too far left. Far left is not that much different than far right.
I don’t really give a rats ass who runs the internals of your country, and what goes on in San Francisco seems like a you problem. Due to voters like this, Trump is now my problem many thousands of miles away.
Don’t underestimate just how much ill will he is generating around the world, especially in allied nations, by insulting leaders and pushing up all of our energy prices.
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I learned recently that there's actually a name for this concept. Murc's law states that in American politics, only Democrats are assumed to have agency. Presumably democratic reforms could help change the dynamic if they changed the incentives. Right now, it's a politically viable strategy to just obstruct the other party when out of power, and politically unviable strategy for Congress to oppose a president from th…
That is just progressive vs conservative, ie changing things vs conserving things, humans are biased to conserve things unless the set of changes are overwhelmingly better. So conservatives win when progressives push for too many changes, not changing things is the default. So saying that the democrats lost the election by pushing too fast is not weird, that is just how humans works.
I'd argue that the asymmetry has less to do with change vs. no change and more to do with the Republican party currently being an "anti government" party (pivoting to that post New Deal). So less is expected of them in terms of functional governance.
With respect to change: I've heard a lot of commentary that the Republican party today is more of an instigator of change than the Democratic party (being seen as a defender of the status quo), despite the traditional alignment of Republican/conservative/no change. Democrats are seen as pro-institution and Republicans anti-institution.
In case it matters, I personally don't identify with a political party. I just want functional government and politics and I see a lot of dysfunction. I'm an engineer so naturally I gravitate towards systemic solutions to systemic problems.
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We are 1 Year and 3 months into this current administration, 2 years and 9 months remain. Despite the short period in office, so much damage and chaos has being caused by one individual and the sycophants who surround him. It is a fact that the reputation of the USA has being damaged, perhaps not repairable for decades or more. This will have consequences. Perhaps, I hope, Americans will take action to save the democ…
Worst case there will be another Republican president from the same tribe. We could be in for the same exact chaos and damage for another four years. This could go on for a long time. Remember, Republicans get out and vote. They would rather suffer and destroy America just so the democrats don’t win.
This is true.
Which raises the question: could Democrats use this reality (whatever they touch is poisoned, in eyes of the other side) to steer the result a bit?
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I think we're beyond the point of "you can't criticize them. That's mean and motivates them." At what point is the line drawn? Should it be in bad taste to criticize Orban supporters because it makes them support him more? What about Erdogan? Putin? Kim Jong Un? And why is it one sided that they can't be criticized, but it's all fair and good for their own leaders to demonize everyone? It's a silly double standard an…
If you want to win elections, yes. You never convince voters by telling them that they are evil people. Its fine to say Trump is evil, its not fine to say Trump voters are evil because those voters will now be much less likely to vote for you. They can't take back their votes, they already voted for Trump before, so they will just not vote for you when you attack them like that.
I get that there are real asymmetries here, but I really don't think there are substantial blocs of swing voters who use "who has insulted them less" as a real factor. If that were the case, Trump would not have made the gains he did in 2024.
The important thing is to make people feel welcome in your coalition. It is clearly possible to do that either with or without being nice. It's just a different skillset.
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If you want to win elections, yes. You never convince voters by telling them that they are evil people. Its fine to say Trump is evil, its not fine to say Trump voters are evil because those voters will now be much less likely to vote for you. They can't take back their votes, they already voted for Trump before, so they will just not vote for you when you attack them like that.
Dems have tried the strategy of pandering to republicans for decades. That strategy in 2024 backfired and made Dems not care about the election. The whole time republicans ran a campaign saying that blue haired democrats are harming kids and they're burning down cities and someone needs to lock them up all up. Republicans had a great election year. Again, one sided. People are tired of it. More importantly, people ar…
Are you saying democrats didn't vote for Kamala since Kamala didn't call Trump voters evil? What are you on about? I see no reason why you should call Trump voters evil.
As I said its fine to call Trump evil, but why call the voters evil? What purpose does that serve?
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Interesting question. Do you believe that waiting is fine because the election will be fair in November?
Yes? I've been a poll worker for every election since 2018, I have no reason to believe they won't be this time around. Do you have reason to believe that Trump isn't just full of hot air, bluster and bullshit like usual (TACO)?
> US President Donald Trump, on Friday, February 13, threatened to try to bypass Congress and force new voting laws ahead of the November midterm elections, where his Republican Party fears losing control of the legislature. Trump said he would soon issue an executive order attempting to impose the rules if Congress does not pass a law requiring photo identification to vote and other nationwide reforms.
> "There will be Voter ID for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. "If we can't get it through Congress, there are Legal reasons why this SCAM is not permitted. I will be presenting them shortly, in the form of an Executive Order," he wrote.
Just about a week ago, Trump was joking about Pearl Harbor on TV while the Japanese PM was sitting right next to him. What's more, she's a nationalist.