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Much of the reason for the relative "sanity" of the GWB years was that the Democrats were not the party that was as far out in the wilderness as they are now. They had control of the House of Representatives and were an effective counter. Now they are a minority in both houses, and Trump is about to appoint his tie breaker to the Supreme Court. Unlike GWB, Trump has a unified party in control of Congress and he'll likely be rubberstamping a lot of bills they're going to be passing his way.
The House, Senate, and Supreme Court were all under GOP control from 2003 thru 2007... during GWB's presidency.
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Get used to it. The Democrats have reduced themselves to fighting off rearguard actions. You're a minority party in a country whose political system is based on winner take all. You're going to be spending the next generation not advancing, but cutting your losses.Democrats currently have a minority of elected offices under their control. However, given that they are supported by more voters and more citizens in general, calling them a 'minority party' is just plain wrong.
Support is irrelevant, what counts is what offices they hold, and it's the fewest they've had in decades. The Democrats are especially hurting on the local level with only 6 Governorships to their name and the vast majority of state legislatures in solid Republican control. And that control has given them a huge advantage in gerrymandering themselves into solid reliable seats in Washington.
And more to the point, the Democrats didn't have the popular support they assumed they did.. That's why the famous Blue Wall of the industrial MidWest came down like a house of cards. The Democrats lost a lot of the votes that Obama received to either Trump or voter apathy.
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I'm saying that the Russian ipads use murder and intimidation to silence dissentJesus, I had no idea the App Store had such ruthless apps available over there.
this is why I'm android.
I am still...hopeful? that the Trump presidency will be a stress test on our democracy, and is ultimately not broken by it.
naturally. As my wife pointed out, we have a multi tiered government. While it is unlikely, the president could be ignored or simply fought by other levels of government, as we have already seen. I don't think he's a stress test, I think he is a jog around the block for cardiovascular health.
naturally. As my wife pointed out, we have a multi tiered government. While it is unlikely, the president could be ignored or simply fought by other levels of government, as we have already seen. I don't think he's a stress test, I think he is a jog around the block for cardiovascular health.I am still...hopeful? that the Trump presidency will be a stress test on our democracy, and is ultimately not broken by it.
Trump is democracy in action. Sometimes however the car drives itself into bad neighborhoods.
Much of the reason for the relative "sanity" of the GWB years was that the Democrats were not the party that was as far out in the wilderness as they are now. They had control of the House of Representatives and were an effective counter. Now they are a minority in both houses, and Trump is about to appoint his tie breaker to the Supreme Court. Unlike GWB, Trump has a unified party in control of Congress and he'll likely be rubberstamping a lot of bills they're going to be passing his way.The House, Senate, and Supreme Court were all under GOP control from 2003 thru 2007... during GWB's presidency.
Adding to CBD's point, Kennedy is still the tie-breaker on SCOTUS. Trump is just putting the court back in the state it was in before Scalia died. The court is effectively a toss up even after the new appointment.
If (Desna help us) RBG dies in the next 3.5 years (or 7.5 ) then we will have a serious problem.
But really I like your version much better, I would love to see 50ft people duking it out, while on top of skyscrapers.
Attack on Titan already did that bit, and it was boring to be honest. Devaluing currency as an aggressive strategy has a much more Tom Clancy feel to it, which I like.
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If (Desna help us) RBG dies in the next 3.5 years (or 7.5 ) then we will have a serious problem.
Unless, of course, the Democrats retake control of the Senate before that.
Then they could 'piously' declaim how improper it would be to allow a president to appoint a new justice in the last year of their term rather than leaving it for the voters to decide. No doubt the Republicans would universally agree given their own, recently displayed, strong feelings on this issue.
Make Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Honorable Schoolboy and Smiley's People required reading so people know enough to elect Smiley instead, I guess.
I don't know if that will work, Dicey. My favorite part of reading Le Carre is rooting for the bad guy.
Probably doesn't help that Kim Philby, the real life inspiration for Haydon, has been a hero of mine since I was sixteen.
All honor to the Cambridge Five!
I can see the argument that the media should be paying less attention to every random Trump tweet and other bit of trivial distraction, but that's different than ignoring him completely.Right more focus on policy and less on bathrobes. I called this before the election said it would be like jessie ventura, and while the stage is much grander, the situation is quite similar.
The problem is that we don't have a media culture that can differentiate between policy and bathrobes. Trump is using that fact to simply drown out any meaningful discussion with chaff, the same way you hear Electronic Counter Measures called out in jet fighter movies.
Get used to it. The Democrats have reduced themselves to fighting off rearguard actions. You're a minority party in a country whose political system is based on winner take all. You're going to be spending the next generation not advancing, but cutting your losses.Democrats currently have a minority of elected offices under their control. However, given that they are supported by more voters and more citizens in general, calling them a 'minority party' is just plain wrong.
That support is increasingly regional. Having more voters doesn't mean dick if they're concentrated in like eight states. Running up the margins in california washington and new york isn't enough to be much of a political presence. Especially when you're sucking wind at the state level like everywhere else.
And regaining lost ground but not all of it is functionally no different than losing somewhat slower. Its just putting a positive spin on the fact that the political center of gravity has now, likely permanently been shifted to the right in that state.
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Anyone here remember Zel Miller? If someone like him ran, I could see a lot of middle of the road voters go his way. Lieberman, a good candidate, would pretty much have to hush up other Jews that are Pro-Israel, to get the nod into the primaries.
The angry progressive types...I'm happy as hell to be opposed to those types, but then again, I went door-to-door for Ted Cruz.
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Anyone here remember Zel Miller? If someone like him ran, I could see a lot of middle of the road voters go his way. Lieberman, a good candidate, would pretty much have to hush up other Jews that are Pro-Israel, to get the nod into the primaries.
The angry progressive types...I'm happy as hell to be opposed to those types, but then again, I went door-to-door for Ted Cruz.
So the angry bigoted type you had no problem with, then.
Not really sure of your angle, Moonrunner. My commentary is not meant to flame, it is meant to ask about, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"
Bernie can't and won't be a future savior. So are you going to go more moderate in your pursuits and try to win back? Or are you going to be more Alinskyish and alienate and poliarize?
Don't worry, Citizen Beercifer. They are going to moderate.
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That support is increasingly regional.
It really isn't.
Democrats have a lock on the West coast and most of the Northeast. Republicans similarly have a lock on the Southeast (except Florida) and Northwest other than the coast.
Things have swung back and forth in Florida and the states just outside the Northeast bloc (e.g. PA, OH, VA, WV, IN, MI, IA). Your 'increasingly' is likely based on most of those going for the GOP in the last election, but really that's a single data point and the whole region has been in flux for a long time. There is no consistent trend over time... and thus it is just as likely to swing back to the Democrats as to become more GOP leaning.
Meanwhile, Democratic support in the SW is growing. They've already flipped Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado... and Arizona is getting close. Even Texas is potentially in play within a few election cycles if recent trends continue.
Or, if we stop looking at regions and focus on demographics... the GOP wins with older people, whites, males, Christians, and those without a college degree. Each of which represents a shrinking share of the electorate. The Democrats win with virtually every other group... including all of the fastest growing demographics.
The local elections are always more important to my interests. While most of South Texas is solid red, San Antonio and the border counties of the state are so soaked in blue, it makes the state very purple. Couple the influx of Californians which seem to think that stacking traffic in Austin is a good idea, you have a state which is politically confused.
San Marcos, the home of the LBJ democrats, makes for a good thermometer of what to listen for. The democrat party that is local has a horrible tendency to telegraph their punches worse than the Bernie Sanders people.
The saving grace is that the local people don't appreciate my guy, so much anymore. Ted Cruz still has the monkier of "Lyin' Ted" from his days against Trump, who did a masterful job of painting Cruz quite opposite of how it really was. Keep in mind, it took the Cruz team to push Ted against TPP--a chink in the armor which could endanger him this next senate election.
As I see Constitutionalists like him as patriots of the highest order, it is funny to be accused of being a bigot, holding on to the founding documents of the nation as a blueprint for success. Between that and the joke sticker on my car, "MATTIS 2016," I get glares when I drive around downtown areas.
Have a good day, guys. I have some plotting to do for my campaign...going to sink some clues into tonight's game that will herald some changes.
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Its not so much "lyin" Ted as it is "spinnin" Ted. That guy will throw anybody under the bus to get ahead. Which is why he doesn't, because nobody wants to be near him because they know him. Though I suppose he can tuck his hand under his coat over his heart more proudly than anyone with his constitutional purity.
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The best story that was Anti-Ted was of him in college. Another student ran against him on the platform, "I'm not Ted Cruz." It was Cruz's first defeat in the arena.
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As I see Constitutionalists like him as patriots of the highest order, it is funny to be accused of being a bigot, holding on to the founding documents of the nation as a blueprint for success.
You know when a founding document counts human beings as 3/5ths of a person MAYBE there's room for some improvement.
Or at least have some consistency.
“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”-jefferson.
The best story that was Anti-Ted was of him in college. Another student ran against him on the platform, "I'm not Ted Cruz." It was Cruz's first defeat in the arena.
It's true, the man may be a top notch constitutional lawyer and bastion of conservative ideals, but he is incredibly unlikable. I mean the guy congratulated a woman on having MS the other night; He is awkward as hell.
Jill's coming up on Monday for a meeting at the library, but I work evenings now. Should send someone to thank her for coming to our Philando Castile/Alton Stirling march over the summer, though.
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Unfortunately, that's the Presidential race. The regional thing is probably more based on state/local elections.
Sure... but the demographic breakdowns are essentially the same at all levels.
For example, Republicans were struggling with women before Trump was elected. The percentage of the GOP congressional delegation which is female has actually been shrinking while the Democratic delegation is trending towards a 50-50 split before much longer.
Meanwhile, the percentage of voters that are female keeps growing.
Similar patterns can be seen with various minority groups... and NOT just in presidential elections.
The GOP has become the party of older white male Christians without a college degree... a demographic penumbra which has long dominated the country, but which is now shrinking in every dimension.
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As I see Constitutionalists like him as patriots of the highest order, it is funny to be accused of being a bigot, holding on to the founding documents of the nation as a blueprint for success.You know when a founding document counts human beings as 3/5ths of a person MAYBE there's room for some improvement.
Or at least have some consistency.
“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”-jefferson.
We need to resist the temptation to cannonise the Founding Fathers, There were some deep rifts in philosophy between them. One of them, the one between Hamilton and Jefferson, found it's ultimate flower in the Civil War.
"Saul Alinsky's tactics were often unorthodox. In Rules for Radicals he wrote:
[t]he job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a 'dangerous enemy.' [According to Alinsky], the hysterical instant reaction of the establishment [will] not only validate [the organizer's] credentials of competency but also ensure automatic popular invitation.[14]
As an example, after organizing FIGHT (an acronym for Freedom, Independence [subsequently Integration], God, Honor, Today) in Rochester, New York,[15] Alinsky once threatened to stage a "fart in" to disrupt the sensibilities of the city's establishment at a Rochester Philharmonic concert. FIGHT members were to consume large quantities of baked beans after which, according to author Nicholas von Hoffman, "FIGHT's increasingly gaseous music-loving members would tie themselves to the concert hall where they would sit expelling gaseous vapors with such noisy velocity as to compete with the woodwinds".[16] Satisfied with his threat yielding action, Alinsky later threatened a "piss in" at Chicago O'Hare Airport. Alinsky planned to arrange for large numbers of well-dressed African Americans to occupy the urinals and toilets at O'Hare for as long as it took to bring the city to the bargaining table. According to Alinsky, once again the threat alone was sufficient to produce results.[16] In Rules for Radicals, he notes that this tactic fell under two of his rules: Rule #3: Wherever possible, go outside the experience of the enemy; and Rule #4: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
Alinsky described his plans for 1972 to begin to organize the white middle-class across the United States, and the necessity of that project. He believed that many Americans were living in frustration and despair, worried about their future, and ripe for a turn to radical social change, to become politically active citizens. He feared the middle class could be driven to a right-wing viewpoint, "making them ripe for the plucking by some guy on horseback promising a return to the vanished verities of yesterday""
Bold added by Fergie. Quote from Wikipedia.
That Saul Alinsky sounds like a great guy!
EDIT: Like Anklebiter mentioned, the democratic party is not going to embrace anything progressive anytime soon. They are going to do exactly what guys like Haim Saban pay them to do. Which is to say, I think there is a good chance a younger version of Lieberman could be running for the Democrats in 2020.
EDIT2: Interesting WAPO article about perceptions of Israel and Russia among Democrats and Republicans. Taking a radical pro-Israel stance is just what the democrats need to do to really get rid of those younger and more progressive voters!
I was distressed, recently, to discover on the internet that Saul's legendary fart-in that I remembered from reading Rules for Radicals as a teenager never, in fact, actually happened.
:(
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Not yet it hasn't...
Moonrunner, I love reading the stories about the debate going on during the Philadelphia Convention. We were ONE VOTE away from speaking German!
We need to resist the temptation to cannonise the Founding Fathers, There were some deep rifts in philosophy between them. One of them, the one between Hamilton and Jefferson, found it's ultimate flower in the Civil War.As I see Constitutionalists like him as patriots of the highest order, it is funny to be accused of being a bigot, holding on to the founding documents of the nation as a blueprint for success.You know when a founding document counts human beings as 3/5ths of a person MAYBE there's room for some improvement.
Or at least have some consistency.
“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”-jefferson.
Slavery wasn't really one of their deep rifts. Hamilton wasn't an ardent abolitionist and Jefferson wasn't a staunch defender of slavery. I'm not actually aware of an instance of them debating the issue. I'm sure one exists, but it's not one commonly referenced.
Any supposedly non-slavery issue that people make a case for causing the Civil War can always be associated with slavery.
One can make a credible argument that Hamilton's federalist nationalism versus Jefferson's states rights parochialism found its ultimate flower in the Civil War.
States rights was about slavery.
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Yeah, the right for states to determine whether or not they were going to have slavery. This isn't controversial.
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Which reminds me (Civil War talk, not special elections in Connecticut), one of the more disturbing things I learned from the featured speakers at the In Honor of Ona Judge Black History Month event I organized was that New Hampshire never actually passed a law abolishing slavery. There was one that was interpreted as abolishing it (in 1857), but it didn't actually say that and, technically, slavery wasn't legally abolished until the 13th Amendment eight years later.
In practice, there were no slaves counted in the state for the 1810 and 1820 censuses, three listed in the 1830 census, and one listed in the 1840 census.
So much for Live Free or Die.
:(
And a lengthy article from the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association that I started to read but should probably go to bed.
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Yeah, the right for states to determine whether or not they were going to have slavery. This isn't controversial.
Correct. It is not controversial. Rather, it is false.
The Confederate constitution specifically REQUIRED all states to allow slavery. It was, in fact, an ANTI 'states rights' position.
“In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.”
Thus, a case could be made that the South started the civil because they were opposed to 'states rights'... but the oft repeated narrative that they did so to defend states rights is demonstrably false.
States rights was about slavery.
indeed, it was an ugly catch 22.
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States rights was about slavery.indeed, it was an ugly catch 22.
It is revisionist fiction.
Not a single southern state cited 'states rights' in their decisions to secede. Indeed, they were all actively opposed to the 'states rights' position on slavery... furious that more and more new states were being added to the union and choosing to outlaw slavery... thus tipping the balance of power in Congress. This led to open conflict in Kansas with slavery supporters sneaking in to vote for the state to allow slavery and then launching a campaign to kill off slavery opponents. The final spark to the wider war was the election of Abraham Lincoln and a congress controlled by non-slave states.
The South was actively opposed to 'states rights' on the slavery issue. They wanted slavery to be upheld by federal mandate (e.g. making it a crime for Northerners to not return escaped slaves), and when they lost the power to force that they declared war.
The North only shifted from a 'states rights' position to using federal power to outlaw slavery AFTER the war started. Indeed, one of the motivations for such was that ending slavery would cripple the South and make the war easier to win. The North had never pressed to end slavery because they knew the South would revolt over it... but once the South revolted anyway (over not having majority control of the country) there was no longer any reason not to.
I shall fight my already-evidenced natural instinct to contraianly double down and accept and agree with criticism of my comments, take this as a warning against imprecise posting at one in the morning, and attempt to revise my original statement:
We need to resist the temptation to cannonise the Founding Fathers, There were some deep rifts in philosophy between them. One of them, the one between Hamilton and Jefferson, found it's ultimate flower in the Civil War.Slavery wasn't really one of their deep rifts. Hamilton wasn't an ardent abolitionist and Jefferson wasn't a staunch defender of slavery. I'm not actually aware of an instance of them debating the issue. I'm sure one exists, but it's not one commonly referenced.
Any supposedly non-slavery issue that people make a case for causing the Civil War can always be associated with slavery.
As a Marxist, I find credible the argument that the train of thought embodied by Hamilton passed down through Clay and inherited by Lincoln reflected material interests, whose conflict with other material interests, which found their reflection in the train of thought embodied by Jefferson passed down through Calhoun and inherited by the scumbags who led the Confederacy, and that this conflict, even in the early years of the republic before the issue of slavery was consciously addressed, found its full flower in the Civil War.
Which, to be honest, isn't a very sexy statement, and I probably never would have bothered with writing it.
Maybe something like,
"Any supposedly non-slavery issue that people make a case for causing the Civil War can always be associated with slavery."
I think one can make a credible argument that one can take this further and even extend it backwards to the unspoken roots of the philosophical differences between Hamilton and Jefferson.
CBDunkerson: I don't think you caught the goblins point. States rights only mattered in so much as states rights supported slavery, so yes it really was about slavery.
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CBDunkerson: I don't think you caught the goblins point. States rights only mattered in so much as states rights supported slavery, so yes it really was about slavery.
No one (in this thread) has disputed that it was about slavery.
However, the South did not secede because they wanted 'states rights'.
The Southern states were opposed to states rights on the slavery issue. They wanted federal mandates for slavery to over ride the right of states to outlaw slavery.
Ergo, if Jeffersonian ideals led to the Confederacy, as 'the goblin' argues, then it was some set of ideals other than his belief in states rights. The Confederacy was founded in direct opposition to states rights.
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*observer stepping in*
Y'all are quibbling over semantics and wording (where hilariously someone already noted they didn't word things well). Though all peeople do it, in the circles I've run in I've noticed is an especially favorite thing to do on what we may broadly call the "left" (not necessarily the Democratic Party, though some inappropriately make the equivocation).
This is why people worry about the future of the "left" and the party the "left" is most frequently associated with (along with smaller, less monied parties). Because we bicker over who's best at using the most correct words (I don't mean political correctness, I mean in general). Instead of, oh, I don't know, solve real problems, we hold (proverbial) dick measuring contests over who's best at "well actually"ing each other over what in the end, from a broad point of view, are relatively unimportant distinctions (not to mention vehemently insisting that the molehills are indeed mountains all the way through).
(*I should note that the anatomy in question here is metaphorical and one does not have to physically possess it to engage in the contest.)
Based on my reading, I think everyone posting so far agrees here that, for example, that the Civil War was largely about Slavery, but people gotta fight about who worded that idea the most cleverly or referenced history and the states' rights smokescreen in the best way. Some might even be deliberately misinterpreting fairly simple statements to get off on a bit of self-satisfying "well actually"ing.
If you wanna show off who is best at words or history or whatever, by all means, carry on. If proving you're right and others are wrong and you're the best and smartest at politics and no one else is, by all means, carry on. Have fun! No skin off my back, no dog in this race.
But if you wanna find common ground so that members of the "Left" can get together and find common solutions to dealing with what might be (in my personal opinion) the most terrifying presidential administration in all of United States history, then put the ruler down, put it back in your pants, and start trying to figure out what you share rather than what divides you.
Or ya, know, start nitpicking and semantics bashing what I just said instead if that makes you feel better. Whatever works for you.
Peace out.
