851–860 of 871 posts
"In every case, I have carried out my duties without political fear or favor, focused solely on our mandate of price stability and maximum employment." I take any claims of absolute neutrality with a huge grain of salt. Besides, he's an unelected bureaucrat. He can only pretend to represent the interests of the people.
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There are as many answers to that are there are Trump supporters I know. These aren't stupid or evil people, and I don't think its as nefarious the things you are suggesting, at least in most cases. On the other hand, as I sit here and try to answer your question, I can't come up with anything that paints anyone in a very good light and I just end up with more questions. Ultimately I think there is a common personali…
I agree with your sentimen. I'll use a favorite quote of mine as well Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal. Robert A. Heinlein, Assignment in Eternity Whether they know the evil or not, they will go out of their way to to find a way to justify it. That's why those scare news on networks works so well. It gives them "permission" to accept something they wanted to believe,and now they have "proof"…
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> There's basically nothing the American people can do short term. If there are ICE agents in your area follow and film them. Create evidence of their jackboot tactics. Most folks do not like force/violence, and the more people see the jackboot policies and actions of one side, the more folks will lean towards the side(s) that are against those policies.
58% of Americans were okay with goverment shooting at protesting students at Kent State shooting.
* https://xcancel.com/YouGovAmerica/status/2010853750618063016
In a different poll 53% say Trump is doing "too much" to deport illegal immigrants (up from 44% in March):
* https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/12/15/growing-s...
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When it comes to harm on this scale, always expect the worst, because the harm will be generational. More importantly, Trump doesn't give a flying fuck about anything outside of the executive branch and below the federal level, because the federal level executive has control of the instruments of war. And he has already proven that nobody manning those instruments of war will disobey him. The Marines got recalled, bu…
As I always tell people, if you're right there's no point in arguing about it, so the only thing I would say is that you owe it to yourself to check your predictions. Set a reminder for January 25 to confirm whether Trump has ordered the military and security agencies to invade any state capitols. I did this a few times last year, and immigration policy is really the only topic where the "expect the worst" heuristic…
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I'm imagining a candidate saying something like, "I want to help America with x y z [blue team related] issues. I want to bridge the aisle with Republicans and voters. To that end, I vow to not support any measures for the expansion of abortion. I believe that right now it's more important to help Americans in other ways. This is a contentious issue, but if we can set it aside for the moment, I believe D and R can co…
> This is a contentious issue, but if we can set it aside for the moment, I believe D and R can come together to solve x y and z I'm curious: Where does your line of thought actually end? Do you agree that they should perhaps meet Republicans in the center around vaccine issues and dismantle vaccine requirements? What about issues of climate change? Corruption?
It might sound unsavory to say that they should drop , like climate change, but if that were genuinely the reason they're losing then of course they should drop it. The alternative is you just have a party of ideologues with no power. They can still do good things without doing .
I just don't think any issue is as contentious as abortion, or having as much of an effect, because you can hold your nose about a lot of things, but not about 'murdering babies'. Again, this is a moral hard line that a lot of people have. They seriously think that Democrats are ontologically evil because of this; it's far beyond the political. I don't think they need to drop those things you listed from the platform because I don't think it would help them win.
From talking with Republican or centrist or ex-democrat peers and family, some of them would vote Democrat "if they stop killing babies", and others would "if they stopped the racial shit". I've never heard anyone say such a thing about anything you listed.
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> This is a contentious issue, but if we can set it aside for the moment, I believe D and R can come together to solve x y and z I'm curious: Where does your line of thought actually end? Do you agree that they should perhaps meet Republicans in the center around vaccine issues and dismantle vaccine requirements? What about issues of climate change? Corruption?
It ends when they can win powerful majorities in elections again. What I said is only controversial because the topic is relatively well supported. But if you look at it as a party supporting a topic that is preventing them from winning elections, it doesn't really matter what that topic is, they need to rethink their platform until they can win elections again. It might sound unsavory to say that they should drop ,…
The notion that they should compromise with people whose ideals align with literally killing people or taking away rights is a notion I reject. I will never, ever vote for a democrat that compromises in the way you suggest so they can choose which side they want to try and get votes from.
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He's clearly alluding the fact that the Biden admin did far worse. The great sin of Trump's FCC was a single ill-advised tweet by FCC chair Brendan Carr... in which he threatened to enforce the law as written. For comparison, the Biden admin's FBI actively engaged in purely political media manipulation in service of the sitting president's campaign, such as when they lied to Facebook (and presumably others) to "prebu…
You're joking right? People got arrested and jailed for posting a Kirk meme https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/17/politics/retired-cop-jail... Let's not even talk about all the other rhetoric of arresting and even killing people who voiced different opinions coming from the current regime.
How are the actions of the Perry County Police Department relevant to this conversation?
> Let's not even talk about all the other rhetoric of arresting and even killing people who voiced different opinions coming from the current regime.
Hysterical nonsense.
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> He wrote that the FCC wasn't a government agency. Hard to argue that is correct You're harping on a detail that hardly matters in order to avoid the broader point, which is rather silly. The FCC is a government agency. Brendan Carr made an ill-advised tweet, which doesn't hold a candle to Biden's use of the FBI to spread misinformation and induce censorship for political purposes. > or that their political pursuit…
>Ah, I see that I'm wasting my time here. When you're ignoring the comment talking about people arrested for criticizing a political pundit to argue about minutae and claiming "both sides are bad", yes.
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It ends when they can win powerful majorities in elections again. What I said is only controversial because the topic is relatively well supported. But if you look at it as a party supporting a topic that is preventing them from winning elections, it doesn't really matter what that topic is, they need to rethink their platform until they can win elections again. It might sound unsavory to say that they should drop ,…
I asked you , specifically, where your line was at. If the dems were losing because they thought people getting shot in the street by government agents were bad, should they instead say 'actually, a little murder is alright'? What about gay marriage? First amendment rights? The notion that they should compromise with people whose ideals align with literally killing people or taking away rights is a notion I reject. I…
In such a world, the Dems have no power, because they get 30% of the vote at most. They should stop fighting ICE so that they can at least do something on their agenda. The choice is between passing some good legislation unrelated to ICE, or never being able to pass any legislation. Obviously the former is better.
At the end of the day it's a democracy. The people vote for what they want, and then get it. The people originate the ideas that are available to be implemented. The notion of a democratic representative refusing to do what is needed to get votes is meaningless. It's the notion of a political idea that is refusing to be believed in, so must become irrelevant.
Anyway, your whole train of thought presupposes correctness and righteousness and that change to certain things is not on the table. If somehow the Democrats shrunk to the size of the Libertarian party because they held onto all that, you could keep voting for them, but real politics continues without you. I am suggesting they change before that shrinkage occurs, not after or never.
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The lesson is that making your sole priority driving youth turnout is a losing strategy, for reasons that are not that confusing. The Bernie lamenters would do well to learn lessons from his failures, rather than blaming everyone else.
Sure, but what does this mean? Like ok we know not to solely cater to the youth vote, great. That wouldn't imply to me then that the correct thing to do instead is alienate or anger that same vote, right? Shouldn't we see nominees that cater to all of them, or a lot of them at least? Or, what's wrong with wanting that? We do not need to start from the point of view that each given interest or group is totally opposed…
So it's better to treat them as a totally unreliable voting bloc that is nice to have, but in no way should be treated special. They are fickle, impossible to corral, and make particularly awful coalition partners.
Bernie, for one, would have done well to use their energy to launch, as he did, but then switch to broadening his coalition, rather than doubling down on catering to their every whim and attempted browbeating. That rigidity and tunnel vision is what sunk him, and is what would have led to total electoral collapse if he had somehow made it to the nomination.