So what's your solution?


Oh, I know!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ESHo_bsXYAMhO7s.jpg

That's a lot of pessimism, Batlord, and a lot of certainty. I'm not sure that politics is as predetermined as you suggest.

For instance, things like incompetence/abandonment of the working class can change. Perhaps they have been true in the past; but perhaps the Dems will also notice that and take measures to correct both failings. Perhaps the working class will realise that they are not best served by the Kushners/Trumps, McConnells, etc, and shift their allegiance back to the Dems.
As for American democracy, it's just taken an unpredecented pummelling, during Trump's time in office and post-election too. After something has been demonstrated to be vulnerable, that's typically the time when people decide to repair and strengthen it; perhaps American democracy will be patched up better than before.

Not saying all those things are going to happen, just saying that I don't share your conviction that they won't.

Imagine what it would take to redistribute the wealth. There’s two horrible scenarios:

1) Not redistributing the wealth

2) Redistributing the wealth

I'm sorry but that's dumb ****ing **** garbage optimism for the sake of optimism and I think anyone who believes it should be punched in the face.

This implies that the American betrayal of the working class is recent and caused by the Republicans. Both parties have abandoned the working class going back half a century at least and have entrenched ideologies going back decades based on keeping the working class in a perpetual state of crisis so that they are always both convinced that their particular party are the only thing keeping them from financial ruin but also convinced that they have no power and might as well not even vote. Donald Trump is honestly the first time any amount have felt any kind of hope for representation since maybe before I was born, which is kind of the point of all this since we're so desperate for a voice that so many turned to an obvious grifter and latched on to him like an abusive husband.

Shifting their allegiance back to the Dems with a candidate like Biden is simply going back to old hopelessness, leaving the population just as vulnerable to another populist grifter as we were before Trump.

Is it? Maybe if American democracy was in any way flexible and capable of enacting reforms that could be agreed upon I could buy this but our legislature is too paralyzed from partisanship to agree on anything besides rubber stamping defense bills. Our legislature is a corpse. This is why Supreme Court picks are crises now. The biggest issues our legislature acknowledge are all Court issues that our representatives concentrate on so that they don't have to deal with actual legislature but simply pass that responsibility onto the Courts so that Congress people only have to campaign on making sure that the other side doesn't get to choose judges. This is not how a democracy should function. This will end up being taught in schools outside of America as one of the signs of impending governmental collapse before some horrific consequence associated with the next Hitler.

And I think you are tragically naive.

Just want to chime in here that this is so true! Cool, fair-minded, and well-meaning describes her perfectly. Marie is such a great person and mod.

And by coincidence, you're all those things too, Lisna. Except you're not a mod. : )

@Batty: I see you concentrated on tearing Lisna's argument for hope for the future down and conveniently ignored my simple question, so I'll ask it again, so you can ignore it again:

what's your solution?

It's easy to rip everything apart; the skill is in being able to put it back together again, and the REAL skill is in doing so in such a way that the whole is better than it was originally. Ideas? Or just moans, complaints and criticism?

Well electing Bernie would have been a step in the right direction. Medicare 4 all and increased taxes on the wealthy should have been a no brainer for non-stupid people.

Church

Of course I look at US politics from a rather ill-informed distance; I haven't experienced its consequences on a daily basis my entire life. So Batlord is entitled to some passion on the subject, though I was surprised at how vociferously he attacked an idea that I didn't think was particularly controversial: that the future is as yet unwritten, and could bring with it change for the better. Not "will bring", which would be over-optimistic, but "could bring", allowing for a possibility that Batlord seems determined to deny in advance.

There may be many terrible things in store for the US; evictions, unemployment, hunger are all set to rise. But I will stand by what I said: when the going gets tough, that can often be a catalyst for change for the better. To my mind, the recent election result could be read as an example of that, with its unprecedented voter turnout, an unprecedented popular-vote majority for Dems, first female black VP, etc.

As for Batlord's analysis of the legislature, I felt myself out of my depth on that, though I can see that if the GOP retains the Senate, there's going to be a lot of unproductive deadlock. But again, those Georgia run-offs haven't been decided yet. Depending on the results on Jan 5, either Batlord should prepare for a tsunami of unrestrained optimism from me, or I will steel myself for a corrosive "told you so" post from him. But that is also one of my points; that the future could go either way.

Yes but Bernie didn't make it through. So I guess blame the Dems Caucuses (isn't that a mountain range?) on that. Can't blame the Great Unwashed for not voting for BS (hah!) when he weren't on the ticket!
:laughing:
I will always choose optimism before pessimism. Doesn't mean I see everything through rose-tinted glasses (Rose! Stay away from my glasses with your tints! I've warned you about this before!) but if you go the other way you end up like, oh I don't know, OccultHawk and Batty?

Oh to be an Aushwitz survivor. Then no one would dare wag a finger at me for cynicism

At least they got free tattoos

I was surprised to see what I write deemed as "code" like it's some secret cloak & dagger secret message. Just to clarify something I refereed to Hands as "president select" cause he was hand selected by the global elites, and in small measure with support from the legacy media and the Four Horsemen. My advice to you elp is: learn to code.

Who’d you vote for, nea?

You should listen to Cum Town sometime. They have quite a few observations about ((((((them))))))).

I voted in a booth for reasons of anonymity.

This Jill Biden "Dr." drama is some of the dumbest sh*t I've seen so far. 3,000 people are dying a day and all of a sudden Republicans care about the sanctity of medical doctors. It's obviously not a big deal but the tone deaf nature of it all really bothers me for some reason.

Was it Trump?

She has a doctorate. One of the first things you learn in college is how to address your professors. All my professors had doctorates. I don’t know if this is universal protocol but at my university non-tenured professors were addressed as Dr. and tenured professors were addressed as Professor. I’ve never in my life heard it argued before this that it’s inappropriate to use the APPROPRIATE honorific.

It's just grade school bully sh*t. It all came from a sh*t WSJ article with such a condescending tone.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-ther...-d-11607727380

Absolute garbage. This f*cking moron thinks being a doctor is exclusive only to those in the medical field. As if M.D. or "medical doctor" doesn't exist as a distinguishing factor of what kind of doctor somebody is. It's maddening schoolhouse bullsh*t as thousands die every day because people didn't take medical doctors seriously. Now they say it's important to keep the term, which existed as an academic title to begin with, exclusive to the medical field.

Get absolutely f*cked.

I hadn’t seen that article. I’m surprised the WSJ even ran that ****.

It’s been the customary honorific since the onset of the degree. It’s not even remotely controversial. Talk about reaching for straws! I understand your objections as well, exo. I agree with your points. I’m just adding that it’s completely groundless as well. It’s not in accordance with the proper use of American English.

Edit: actually after re-reading your post you also made the same point I’m making as well.

This is by the same author 50 years ago in Harpers

"Homo/Hetero: The Struggle for Sexual Identity" by Joseph Epstein from Harper’s Magazine, September 1970

Read the whole thing for context if interested. It’s an interesting record of homophobia. Also, he writes in circles to give himself argumentative escapes. He was a better writer back then, if equally hateful. You can tell he’s going for that old school William F. Buckley kind of conservative condescension in that WSJ editorial but as usual today’s conservative “intellectuals” are just simple bitch ass trolls.

With a fedora.

I'm looking forward to kowtowing to our neoliberal overlords once more. A toast to eight years of hairy legs that turn blonde in the sun!

"kowtowing to overlords" is an odd way of describing things isn't it? Have Americans, I wonder, been "kowtowing to Republican overlords" these last 4 years?

For myself, I'm looking forward to seeing a President who is capable of acknowledging the disasters occurring on his watch:-

1. A massive security hack from Russia: "The attack unfortunately represents a broad and successful espionage-based assault on both the confidential information of the U.S. Government and the tech tools used by firms to protect them," : No comment from Trump.
2. A 9/11 size death toll from covid every day for over a week now: No comment from Trump.
3. Federal Government is cutting next week's vaccine roll-out by 30%, although Pfizer "have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse... but we have not received any shipping instructions.": No comment from Trump.

Also looking forward to a genuine "draining of the swamp" when Trump's dubious gang is replaced. Number of Indictments, I suppose, is one way to measure a swamp; here are the number of politicians indicted in recent admins, listed according to the presidents they were affiliated to:
Nixon - 28 : Reagan - 33 : Trump - 8 ( 9 if we were to add in that famous "unindicted co-conspirator")
Carter - 0 : Clinton - 2 ; Obama - 0

Sources: https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...trump-reagan-/ and https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN25G1YU

Nah. Trump was a reaction to eight years of Obama's clinton-esque neoliberalism but without the dotcom boom to smooth over things conservatives didn't like. And what Biden's win actually shows us is that any Democrat who was on the stage last year could have gotten the nomination and likely won the presidency this time because of the sheer levels of turnout. Which means that if people were smarter overall, we'd have President Sanders instead. So now things are going back to the status quo that led us to Trump in the first place. Kanye 2024 yasssssss. :clap:

1. Ok? Russia and China are always hacking us or trying to undermine the U.S. in some form or fashion. Just because the news isn't always talking about it doesn't mean it hasn't been happening for a long time. I'm frankly surprised it was reported at all, seeing as there's zero benefit for that kind of information to become public.

2. Why would you expect Trump to be commenting on the deaths when it doesn't solve anything one way or the other? That's not how he thinks: any acknowledgement of weakness is just more ammo for his detractors. There's zero merit in him commenting on it when Americans basically do whatever the hell they want regardless of what the government says. Whether they want to go and protest or eat out at fancy restaurants...we're all our own worst enemy.

3. It appears that you don't have the correct story or perhaps your information is outdated. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcar...hipment-delays


So you have some grifters who are bad at hiding their dirty laundry and others that do a better job at minimizing scrutiny because they're better at lying to us? Got it, thanks.

Church

Thoughts on this OH?

Yahoo News - White House aides reportedly stepped in to keep Trump from calling for $2,000 stimulus checks, fearing it could torpedo relief negotiations

Agreed.

It’s pretty ****ing sad when Trump is the best dude in the room.

None of that ****ing aid to small businesses and the states and local communities **** is going to help me.

Idgaf that they’re not sending money to the states. Like the state of Florida gives a **** if I live or die. The entire bailout means nothing to me except the direct check. That last one was the only good thing the government has ever done for me my entire life.

Trump is a nazi **** but the real far left, not neoliberal identity politics leftists but real deep economic Marxist / Anarchist leftist who understand it’s all money and nothing but money and money and that’s it the rest is bull**** - the real anarcho-left missed a great opportunity to turn Trump into a Mao. You can get anything from a narcissist by massaging their egos. Trump has no political allegiance. He was putty in our hands. The greatest weapon we ever had and we blew it.

it could help you indirectly

Like if the state has more to invest in fighting Covid it could help the numbers. The problem is when states like Florida get the resources but then just mismanage them anyway.

And the small business thing could slow down the economic impact. The worse the economy gets the more us bottom dwellers suffer. The rich just find ways to make money off the crash.

That makes sense. I’d rather the federal government control the purse strings than the state of Florida. To be honest, I’d rather Florida get chocked out even if I go down with it. I love seeing the businesses with closed doors. There’s a lot of hate in my politics. It’s not necessarily rational. I have a bitter sense of vindictiveness. You know how I am.

I also think there’s a relative thing. Like the worst is if I suffer while others thrive so hoping everyone suffers is just playing it safe emotionally. That way it isn’t just me and my failures and my loserdom and my fault. I don’t want to face that. If the whole place burns I have my excuse to be on fire.

I totally see that in you and I understand why.

I'm more in the camp of trying to not be the one on fire and so far failing at it. It's easier for me to face failure than to accept this as the best life has to offer me. I'll make it to financial freedom or die trying. It's the only thing that keeps me motivated to punch a clock.

The Republicans rely more on tricks and games like gerrymandering and voter suppression because they are an outmoded party that pursues an antiquated ideology that fewer and fewer people support as the years go on. They also have baked in institutional leverage via the electoral college and the federalist structure of American government.

The Democrats are extremely corrupt internally or at least have been: see 2016. But in terms of national politics they have more popular support and thus a natural advantage. They also do **** like gerrymandering but not as much as the GOP.

Democracy is right wing bull****.

I'm not saying he would've won but iirc there was defintely corruption against him and for Hillary in the DNC. If you remember that election, nobody else of note dared to run against her. She was the anointed one. Like it was owed to her after she lost in 08 and served 8 years under Obama. It didn't matter that he wouldn't win. The fact that he was standing up to her meant he was a thorn in the anointed one's side. I believe she still resents him to this day.

I don’t know if he could’ve won the general either. Nobody knows. I wish we had tried though.

ok well whatever I am then

I’m some kind of leftist anarchist and I don’t give a **** if you say I’m not

I’m anti private property and I hate rich people more than anyone alive