United States Politics Thread 47

[malloc]

it is, yeah. I've heard this idea but if you dig a bit more, you'll find that it's a universally agreed upon principle, i think, that it is unfair if we both steal a car and you get three days in jail whereas i get three years, so yeah, everyone does this afaik, though to different degrees. the law students in my uni did check precedents all the time though.

then again, for the us, it seems less relevant, since i hear a large majority of cases end up in agreements between the prosecution and the defense.

I see then. It still stinks that the supreme court can just destroy an important piece of legislation and give the Republicans an even greater advantage with remarkably little oversight. Whether fairly or not, the antics of this court have definitely tarnished my impression of common law.

[WeepingElf]

Most interesting article I've read all week:

Cory Doctorow: Will Trump hormuz us into the full Gretacene?

Fascinating, and I fully support the name "Gretacene" for the new era. If he's right, it'll cause a fundamental change in the global economy, which gets me wondering: what will the decline of late-stage plutocratic capitalism look like in practice? Obviously not the proletariat taking to the streets and overthrowing the bourgeoisie to bring about the socialist utopia, romantic as that may sound; will we see the billionaires retreating to their hideaways and the rest of the world shrugging their shoulders and getting on with things?

Hmm, that's a big question. As Doctorow points out, the fossil fuel industry is a matter of permanent and increasingly harmful extraction, plus a heavy dose of centralization, and giving power to bad people. Renewables are infrastructure and thus only have to be done once, and can be controlled locally.

Yes, and their local availability in small concentrations makes them hard to centralize, they will therefore perhaps help usher in a transition to a "prosumer economy" and economic democracy - i. e., an economy where the means of production are owned by the people who work with them, either individually or collectively. Note that this is a very different thing than state socialism, where "the people" who nominally own the means of production is actually the state, as in the Soviet Bloc, and the workers own as little as in a capitalist economy.

So that would be a huge shock to plutocracy, but might not be a fatal one. E.g. an all-electric economy wouldn't destroy the AI bros and might even encourage them. At the same time... what happens once companies realize that they don't have to buy Claude, they can run their own AI at 1/10 the cost?

Humanity being what it is, you generally need a huge failure before people abandon a system, like a depression or a war. But the plutocrats and right-wingers seem eager to create one disaster after another, and it's likely to create a tipping point.

Looks like that. The League of Nations and the United Nations were created only after world wars, and the CFC ban was only enacted after scientists had found evidence that the ozone layer was about to collapse, etc. Likewise, it requires a climate crisis and the inflation caused by a war in the Persian Gulf to get away from fossil fuels.

An irony about the whole affair is another thing Trump doesn't understand: what keeps the oil bottled up, and what keeps the oil companies from grabbing oil with gusto, is not the Iranians or the Democrats; it's hard-headed American businesses— insurance companies and banks. Ships won't move without insurance, and banks won't loan money for huge new oil facilities in the current ping-ponging business environment.

And when the banks and insurances realize that they are investing in a Ponzi scheme, they will pull out, and the oil giants tumble. In fact, large insurance companies like Munich Re have been warning about the climate crisis for long - because they have realized that it will become very expensive.

Of course Trump will do his best to immiserate the US and make sure it loses the technology race to China.

Inasmuch as it's possible to provide rational explanations for any of Trump's actions, is it safe to attribute this to stupidity rather than incompetence, or perhaps both?

Let's call it learned stupidity. If you've read Orwell you're familiar with his discussion of the topic re the 1930s British leadership. Or review Mencken's dictum: "It's hard to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it."

A lot of modern conservatism is simply irritated annoyance at liberalism. Liberals go on and on about climate change, racism, sexism, better health care, etc.; the conservative hates all that talk, so convinces himself that it's all wrong. You're not gonna make a million bucks as a conservative influencer by taking the liberal side on these things.

Trump doesn't personally care about all that, but the third-tier people he surrounds himself with do.

Trump is not particularly smart; in fact, he is a buffoon. Also, he is a coward, as his quick withdrawal from the Iran War shows. He likes to rattle the saber, but when it becomes costly and painful, he pulls back. It is his cowardice which keeps us quite safe from WWIII.

[alice]

Something which, of course, only occurred to me when I switched my computer off: we depend on oil for a lot more things than just petrol; where would we get our plastics from, for example? And I hear a lot about how much essential fertilizer comes from the Middle East; would this trigger a change in the way we handle our sewage?

[WeepingElf]

Something which, of course, only occurred to me when I switched my computer off: we depend on oil for a lot more things than just petrol; where would we get our plastics from, for example? And I hear a lot about how much essential fertilizer comes from the Middle East; would this trigger a change in the way we handle our sewage?

Plastics and other petrochemical products could be replaced by biotechnology, which also has the advantage that the new stuffs are likely to be less damaging to the environment; and fertilizers, well, you say it - use our sewage.

[Lērisama]

Something which, of course, only occurred to me when I switched my computer off: we depend on oil for a lot more things than just petrol; where would we get our plastics from, for example? And I hear a lot about how much essential fertilizer comes from the Middle East; would this trigger a change in the way we handle our sewage?

Plastics and other petrochemical products could be replaced by biotechnology, which also has the advantage that the new stuffs are likely to be less damaging to the environment; and fertilizers, well, you say it - use our sewage.

I'd take almost any sewage treatment option that stops us from constantly leaking it into rivers¹ at this point, but using for good things would be excellent.

¹ Seriously, this is a massive issue over here. Don't let anyone privatise your water system, people.

[malloc]

Virginia Supreme Court throws out redistricting referendum results. It's hard to imagine the Democrats winning the midterms at this point.

[zompist]

Virginia Supreme Court throws out redistricting referendum results. It's hard to imagine the Democrats winning the midterms at this point.

Say, I think it's about time to check on your last rapturous prediction about the God-Emperor.

Holy shit, someone just tried to assassinate Trump again at the White House conference dinner. The shooter was killed while still in the lobby and Trump was evacuated unharmed. Nonetheless this is still pretty terrible news and will undoubtedly give Trump a considerable boost.

Trump approval rating April 6: 39.8%
Trump approval rating May 8: 38.8%

[malloc]

Say, I think it's about time to check on your last rapturous prediction about the God-Emperor.

It's perfectly possible to acknowledge the strengths and successes of someone without endorsing their agenda. Presumably you would agree that Nietzsche was an important philosopher with genuine insights while also repudiating his aristocratic political agenda. Quite honestly, Trump and other reactionaries would hardly qualify as enemies worth resisting if they weren't also genuinely talented at propaganda and political machinations. They would simply be nuisances in that case.

Right now the GOP has an overwhelming advantage in gerrymandered seats, at least a dozen and more on the way with all their mid-decade redistricting. That is not doomerism or venerating Trump but simply an unvarnished statement of the facts. I have no idea how we plan to overcome such an extreme disadvantage or if any solutions are even conceivable at this point. One thing I can say is that refusing to acknowledge the problem will not help us win the midterms.

[bradrn]

Right now the GOP has an overwhelming advantage in gerrymandered seats, at least a dozen and more on the way with all their mid-decade redistricting. That is not doomerism or venerating Trump but simply an unvarnished statement of the facts.

And yet, in the past, your ‘unvarnished statements of the facts’ have repeatedly and consistently failed to come true. Perhaps you should learn to have a little less confidence in this pessimistic view of the world.

[zompist]

Right now the GOP has an overwhelming advantage in gerrymandered seats, at least a dozen and more on the way with all their mid-decade redistricting. That is not doomerism or venerating Trump but simply an unvarnished statement of the facts.

No, "an overwhelming advantage" is not "unvarnished". It's varnished as hell. You keep spewing Republican propaganda, and your "facts" have a way of turning into the opposite of facts, as I showed above.

Stop building up your God-Emperor. Your constant praise of the unstoppable God-Emperor helps build up the Republican propaganda machine and discourages resistance. The fascists want us to give up before we even think of fighting, and you're playing along like a chump.

[malloc]

Stop building up your God-Emperor. Your constant praise of the unstoppable God-Emperor helps build up the Republican propaganda machine and discourages resistance. The fascists want us to give up before we even think of fighting, and you're playing along like a chump.

Ok then, what is your proposed solution to this problem? How do you believe Democrats can overcome such an extreme gerrymander? I would be thrilled to learn that they have an ace up their sleeve that would nullify a twenty seat disadvantage. Sorry if that sounds flippant or pro-Trump but you must admit that the mathematics of the situation are incredibly dismal.

[Travis B.]

Stop building up your God-Emperor. Your constant praise of the unstoppable God-Emperor helps build up the Republican propaganda machine and discourages resistance. The fascists want us to give up before we even think of fighting, and you're playing along like a chump.

Ok then, what is your proposed solution to this problem? How do you believe Democrats can overcome such an extreme gerrymander? I would be thrilled to learn that they have an ace up their sleeve that would nullify a twenty seat disadvantage. Sorry if that sounds flippant or pro-Trump but you must admit that the mathematics of the situation are incredibly dismal.

Have you seen what has been happening in the special elections so far as Trump has been in office a second time? I.e. the Dems have either won, or in elections where the Dems did not have even a chance of winning in the first place, the Dems have only lost by a relatively slim margin.

[malloc]

Have you seen what has been happening in the special elections so far as Trump has been in office a second time? I.e. the Dems have either won, or in elections where the Dems did not have even a chance of winning in the first place, the Dems have only lost by a relatively slim margin.

That would still require the Democrats to outperform previous elections in dozens of districts across the country, which seems quite unlikely. Indeed they would have to maintain that level of popularity until they find some way to solve the gerrymandering problem, which itself does not have an easy solution. You can call that doomerism but that is simply what the mathematics of the current situation indicate. Your quarrel is with the proverbial cold equations, not me.

Even assuming the Democrats can win the next few elections, they still need a plan to counter all this gerrymandering so they don't need to rely on electoral overperformance for the foreseeable future. Thus far I have not seen anything like that proposed and indeed there are many obstacles for any such bill, from the filibuster to the tradition that states manage elections to the supreme court finding some excuse to nullify the law. So yes, I will grant that defeating the MAGAs is still possible, but it will require both genuine miracles and brilliant strategy.

[zompist]

That would still require the Democrats to outperform previous elections in dozens of districts across the country, which seems quite unlikely.

Stop pretending to be a pundit.

Here's a quote from an actual news article:

“A more realistic net gain for Republicans from redistricting alone is five to seven seats, which is unlikely to be enough to stop significant Democratic gains in November,” Dann added. “Democrats remain the favorites in November, just no longer overwhelmingly so.”

You do not know better than actual journalists, analysts, and officials. You're just pimping the God-Emperor for no reason.

[malloc]

Here's a quote from an actual news article:

“A more realistic net gain for Republicans from redistricting alone is five to seven seats, which is unlikely to be enough to stop significant Democratic gains in November,” Dann added. “Democrats remain the favorites in November, just no longer overwhelmingly so.”

You do not know better than actual journalists, analysts, and officials. You're just pimping the God-Emperor for no reason.

Sure but wouldn't you agree that a permanent seven-seat disadvantage (never mind that other reports soundly contradict that optimistic estimate) is a huge obstacle for Democrats for the foreseeable future? Even if the US avoids sliding into dictatorship, it sounds like I should forget about liberals achieving anything substantive within my lifetime.

[Torco]

that's kind of the demopublican/republicrat strategy

[Travis B.]

that's kind of the demopublican/republicrat strategy

I see that you're one of those people who intends that the Republicans have indefinite control by splitting the center-left vote because "but but but aren't the Democrats just like the Republicans!!!!1"

[Torco]

that's kind of the demopublican/republicrat strategy

I see that you're one of those people who intends that the Republicans have indefinite control by splitting the center-left vote because "but but but aren't the Democrats just like the Republicans!!!!1"

no, i just think there's a definite bipartisan agenda: support for the palestinian genocide, military expansion and adventurism, increasing funding for ICE and CBP, private prisons and other things are part of said common agenda, not to mention of course maintaining the two party system. they're not the exact same, but they sure do look like they have a joint strategy, share donors, etcetera.

this isn't even unusual. duopolies happen from time to time: spain used to have one, as did chile and the uk. i understand australia still has one, though it is kind of breaking down.

plus, the ratchet effect is not something made up by crazy tankies.

[zompist]

no, i just think there's a definite bipartisan agenda: support for the palestinian genocide,

Latest polls, last month: Democrats support Palestinians over Israelis, 67% to 17%.

military expansion and adventurism,

Can you name the last war started by a Democrat?

Here's US military spending over the last 75 years. I guess it's constantly going up if you hold the chart upside down.

increasing funding for ICE and CBP,

The Republicans have to resort to a Rep-only reconciliation bill in order to do this. Also, thanks for insulting the people and government of Minnesota who have been putting their lives on the line for months to protest ICE. You guys in Chile are all Pinochetistas, right?

plus, the ratchet effect is not something made up by crazy tankies.

The best examples I can think of work the other way— e.g. the creation of Medicare.

[Travis B.]

military expansion and adventurism,

Can you name the last war started by a Democrat?

I bet Torco is going to say something about 'Serbia', as if the Dems started the Yugoslav wars rather than were bombing Serbia because of what Serbian nationalist extremists were trying to do to other ethnicities that had comprised Yugoslavia.