2020 Presidential Election

Hey remember Trump said he knew it was serious and worse than the flu but that he liked downplaying it.

Hey remember how long it took us to start testing?

Hey remember that S. Korea had their first case on the same day we did. Yet, their approach greatly flattened their curve unlike Trump's.

Let's look at the what the differences were.

 

Who dares to deny this man isn't stirring up hate and racial division? This is not the man anyone should be voting into a second term. He doesn't want to unite. He wants to divide people and stir up racial hate.

If I didn't know any better I would swear he is speaking as a guest at a KKK rally.

 

China travel ban?

There is documented evidence of community spread in the UK in December.

Did Trump impose a travel ban from the UK even before Wuhan?

But if he hadn't cut the CDC department that was hands on, on the ground in China the US would have known about a new virus long before the CCP decided to come clean.
And THAT would have saved lives.

 

I really hate when that is used to describe actions as being pushed by a majority of democrats or even a large amount.

These are random ideas being floated by people on twitter and forums or people looking to raise their profiles.

I know you meant no malice nook but its telling that you also used that term when talking about ideas that people have.

The right wing media has won "The Democrats" are now a monolith.

 

Biden himself has said he is against packing the court.

ALso as I stated in the RBG has died thread. People are acting as though it's going to be easy to increase the number of seats. First Democrats have to win the Senate and even then it's not certain the whole Democratic caucus will go along with that.

 

Sadly anti-immigrant and refugees sentiment is very in much of Minnesota..

 

While not every democrat wants to expand the court (and I didn't mean to say that), there are prominent democrats calling for it.

Pete Buttigieg and Beto O’Rourke both have wanted to pack the court. Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts has said it needs to happen.

Rep. Joe Kennedy also has called for court packing, Jerry Nadler also supports court packing.

Sens. Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren believe it needs to be strongly considered.

Chuck Schumer even has said that it is possible.

 

Imagine if scientists based their science off of anecdotes instead of analysis of data. I don't think we would be in this situation were you can instantly transmit your brain farts hundreds of miles away in seconds today.

People improved their status during the Great Depression. No matter the era there will always be a combination of people who do better or worse. It's the trends of the population we care about to see the direction of a nation.

 

The amount of money private companies spend on subsidizing employees' healthcare is more than the tax increases they deserve.

 

I will say this.

If the democrats win the Senate it is likely going to be 50-50 or maybe 51-49. The democrats will also have the House and (if they win the senate) the White House. With that thin a majority in the Senate, I am not sure they can get legislation passed to increase the number of Justices. If that is something that they are going to do, they need to start laying the ground work for controlling the narrative on why it is beneficial. Also, if it comes to pass, and they do increase the court size, I will not have any sympathy for the Republicans based on how they have handled the last two appointments.

Personally I think the democrats would be better off pushing to kill the filibuster and increasing the size of the appellate courts. They were increased not that long ago, and they have a sound basis for increasing them. That will make a big difference. Also, the push for DC to have statehood is something that is possible.

The democrats need to be aggressive if they have control of all three branches of government.

 

These are Democrats in safe seats (California, Massachusetts, New York) who seem to be learning from McConnell's playbook. McConnell knows that he can walk back his 2016 rationale and statements from the unprecedented move of blocking a Supreme Court nominee from receiving a hearing because he will face no electoral consequence. Kentucky isn't electing Amy McGrath this year. He knows that most GOP voters do not care that he pulled off a coup and is about to pull off another one. They like it! Norms only work when people agree to them and rank-and-file GOP voters have shown over the last four years that they care first and foremost about power. Everything else is window dressing that can be tossed aside when it's convenient.

Democrats on the other hand are stuck in a position of forced moderation: demographics are changing in the Midwest that make once-safe "Blue Wall" states riskier propositions in high-profile elections. Demographics are simultaneously putting places like Arizona, North Carolina and even Texas in play. But, statewide candidates in sunbelt states cannot voice support for the ideas of more radical senators in safe states. That's one of the chief reasons I didn't support Bernie; I thought he would've sunk any hopes of reclaiming the Senate by forcing candidates in purple states to run alongside or away from him.

Tl;dr Mitch can demolish norms and decorum from within because GOP voters do not care about those means to various ends. Democratic candidates have to continue to say they respect those things and play by a set of rules that the opposing party could not care less about.

 

I agree that if they really want to change the size of the court it needs to be more than just to dilute the conservative majority. SamFisher brought up in the other thread the idea that the courts are too small to handle the current workload. That is a compelling argument but one that few are making.

I'm still opposed to doing away with the filibuster in general. We saw when the Democrats did away with the filibuster on appointments that greatly weakened them while benefiting the GOP Caucus. I'm very certain doing away with the filibuster in general will come back to haunt the Democrats relatively quickly.

I'm for DC and Puerto Rican statehood. It's long past time that they got a say in their governance.

 

While there is a lot of truth to this, McConnell also deserves a lot of credit. McConnell gets the Republicans to fall in line even when it hurts them electorally in places that are more moderate like Colorado, Arizona, Nevada etc. The Democrats need to push that issue as well for the right cause.

I recently heard Graham say that if the Democrats expand the Court that it would be all out war and the Republicans would respond in kind. The thing is, the Republicans will respond in kind regardless. They know that their demographics are changing and not in a good way, they will play the game at all costs to save their power.

The other issue the Democrats should look at is Gerrymandering. They can really weaken the Republican party by attacking Gerrymandering.

 

I don't know that the Democrats can pull it off, but if they get DC and PR statehood, attack gerrymandering and address the amount of appellate court judges there are....... they are likely to have a long term hold (long term in political time) on the government. At that point, it is only a matter of time before the Supreme Court balance is restored.

Gerrymandering is a real issue.

 

Yeah i realize that and this was really not directed at you per say, I just get tired with that "The Democrats" as if every idea that's floated speaks for the whole.

I actually agree that this could backfire as overreach and I am not a proponent but lets see if it gets more traction before claiming this is what the democrats want.

Right now I think it's more of a threat and pandering.

 

This is something that Democrats are activley fighting against its the one thing Obama has a hand in.

Don't know how effective they are.

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/19/democrats-cash-state-redistricting-fight-087889

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...tive-take-partisan-gerrymandering/2127235001/

 

All out war? That ship has sailed. Graham is saying "Hey, Democrats you better play nice or ... or ... who the **** I am kidding ... Republicans don't nice and have no plans to".

The McConnell Doctrine is now in full force. No matter how bad an idea is long term, if you you have the votes, go for it.

 

Things can get very nasty.

You have the majority of Americans feeling alienated by federal leadership. Two of the last three presidents did not get the majority of the votes and only won because of the electoral college. You have the senate which isn't representative of the majority of Americans where states like Maine and Kansas has as much clout as California and New York.\

We have a President that has questioned the legitimacy of the very government he is the head of, a President that questioned the legitimacy of voting before he was even President. A man that is surrounded by criminals and purposely attempts to rule through division and chaos.

We have a level of political correctness that is so harsh and uncompromising that it ends up defeating it's initial purpose. We have protests in the city being taken over by the young middle class that is tired of the rules of the older generation and the current economic condition.

We have a pandemic and a large part of the country refused to wear a mask to prevent the spread of the virus. We have a President and some media that openly supports or at a minimum does not discredit conspiracy theories.

We have a political party openly gutting the checks and balances and safeguards built into our government system. We have another party threatening to do the same.

There is a storm coming.......... you cannot fail to listen to the majority and put the country second or third and expect there not to be consequences. Some people are really not going to be happy in 18 months or so.

 

I read some op/ed that this feels post-apocalyptic, and I guess the closest parallel would be the civil rights era where you had political assassinations, threat of thermonuclear war with another superpower, and Great Lakes/rivers burning from our own chemical filth.

Stakes have never been higher. The money and global system is fixin for a reset, and rona is pushing things hard. Whoever's holding the ball will be at the helm for deciding how to address the growing wealth gap caused by automation, the internet, and rising nations around the world.

I think fixing global financial system also happened around the 70s too, but closer parallels are being made to 1930 with the Fed's massive double down on the dollar as the reserve currency...

 

Yes, and mix into all of this that for the first time in the history of the USA, the white majority ruling class is in the process of becoming the minority.... it is a dangerous mix.......... the only thing that has prevented this from being full panic mode is that we are not fighting a long protracted war that we can lose.

I spoke to an elder attorney and college history professor last week and essentially asked him if he has ever seen anything this bad. He said everyone looks back fondly on the 1960's but it was a complete **** show....... he also made a good point..... Imagine being born in the 1880's - 1890's....... you grow up in the era of the fall of monarchies and all the associated blood shed, then in your 20's you live through WWI and the genocide associated with it.... then there is the Great Depression when you start to be of the age to work...... then you live through fascism, anarchists, totalitarianism.... then WWII when you are in your 50-60's and then the Cold War and Vietnam around the time you die........... imagine being black on top of that... or a Jew.

I guess we don't have it that bad.... yet.