U.S. Politics

And I should add, the biggest fear is that the list is going to expose a weak link. People like Trump and Clinton are obviously just going to weather it and say 'whatever' and make their excuses - whatever those rotating excuses may be. But find one person that feels it is in their best interest to TALK after being outed by such a list? Oh no. Now all of the equivocating and pretending nothing happened becomes a lot harder when someone can definitively say 'I was there, with such and such people, and this is what we were doing.' Can you fucking IMAGINE how that would play out? And if such a person were discovered and ALSO mysteriously died? There's a stink to all of this that is only going to get stronger and harder to shake.
 
RicksNerdLife said:
Man. Some of you are being super depressing, I am genuinely sorry to point it out. I understand you're feeling like you're just being realistic, and that's your reality. That's just not me, not how I'm wired. I always try to see a better future.

Hell, he is covering obvious IV bruising on his hands, he has been spotted with the outline of a foley catheter in his pants, and just the other day, it was pointed out that he has serious edema (swelling) of his calves and ankles, which is a sign of heart failure. He could keel over tomorrow and all this worry and negative thinking was all for naught. That's not to mention the obvious serious mental decline.

He is human. He is old and unwell. His time is coming sooner rather than later. He will perish. And there is no one of that party that can have the stranglehold on policy and the people like him, and it WILL end.
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Except that all of that is about Trump: the symptom of a problem, not the cause of any problems. Anyone that thinks the world is going to get better when Trump is gone is kidding themselves. We were on this path long before he decided to start screaming about Obama's birth certificate. Hell, one could argue we were on this exact path long before Trump was even born. It's not going to magically get better without him here.
Just wait to the orange pile of garbage dies. You think we've got conspiracy theories and unhinged loons -now?- Wait until everyone gets behind some new Republican you haven't even heard of yet, with the same fanatical devotion, all because of the conspiracy theory that actually Trump is still the one in charge or some shit.

It's not getting better. It's gotten progressively worse for 100 years.

But if you can hold on to the hope that things are going to get better, I'm sincerely happy for you and I hope that you're right and I'm wrong. With my entire soul I hope that.
 
Trunks3540 said:
We're in for a rough everything season.
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Damien said:
Wait until everyone gets behind some new Republican you haven't even heard of yet, with the same fanatical devotion, all because of the conspiracy theory that actually Trump is still the one in charge or some shit.
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I'm skeptical because before Trump, the Republican Party hadn't had a figure like that since Reagan. Forty-five years between demagogues.
 
TheSameIdiot said:
I'm skeptical because before Trump, the Republican Party hadn't had a figure like that since Reagan. Forty-five years between demagogues.
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There's no pattern, though. It's not like we can count on the idea that it will always be forty-five years between them. Also, so much damage has been done over the last 30 years that we're in totally unprecedented times. We don't NEED a Trump to have misery and division anymore. Look at the Supreme Court - lifetime appointments for some of the world's worst human beings.

And here's a terrifying rumour: Alito and Thomas are already privately under a lot of pressure that, if the mid-terms go poorly for Republicans, they should resign while Trump is still in power so he can install two far younger, far more right-leaning conservative judges. If this happens, the ONLY chance for us to have a functional court system in our lifetimes is an expansion of the court and consecutive terms of a Democratic president with a backbone. Not exactly odds I'd put money on.

What do people actually expect to happen if Trump were to keel over dead tomorrow; everything goes back to the Obama days overnight? Things won't even go back to the Bush Jr. days. As I've said many times over - Trump is a symptom of a disease, not the disease itself.
 
Damien said:
There's no pattern, though. It's not like we can count on the idea that it will always be forty-five years between them. Also, so much damage has been done over the last 30 years that we're in totally unprecedented times. We don't NEED a Trump to have misery and division anymore. Look at the Supreme Court - lifetime appointments for some of the world's worst human beings.

And here's a terrifying rumour: Alito and Thomas are already privately under a lot of pressure that, if the mid-terms go poorly for Republicans, they should resign while Trump is still in power so he can install two far younger, far more right-leaning conservative judges. If this happens, the ONLY chance for us to have a functional court system in our lifetimes is an expansion of the court and consecutive terms of a Democratic president with a backbone. Not exactly odds I'd put money on.

What do people actually expect to happen if Trump were to keel over dead tomorrow; everything goes back to the Obama days overnight? Things won't even go back to the Bush Jr. days. As I've said many times over - Trump is a symptom of a disease, not the disease itself.
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Things might not change much outside of my liver from all of the celebratory drinking I will be doing the weekend after. In all honesty I think much of his base will be disillusioned and depressed and just stop participating in politics for a while.
 
There will also be a HUGE power struggle in the Republican party where everyone will be going for each other's throats to try and be the heir to Donnie's cult and that in itself might be their undoing for a while.
 
Ru1977 said:
Right, I think I called it Stupid Alexander.
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To be fair, Alexander was Stupid Alexander. Haha.


Justice said:
In all honesty I think much of his base will be disillusioned and depressed and just stop participating in politics for a while.
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I don't think so. Donnie has given them a taste of the kind of power they can have if the mobilize for NO other reason than to 'own the libs.' For a lot of them, it's become the only reason they get up in the morning. It's inaccurate to call it politics, because most of them clearly don't actually care about politics. They just want power over some group of people - someone to hate and blame. I don't think it will be difficult for the Republicans to hold onto that post-Trump. After all, the pre-Trump Republicans are the ones that created these people. This has been the plan for generations now.
 
Damien said:
Alito and Thomas are already privately under a lot of pressure that, if the mid-terms go poorly for Republicans, they should resign while Trump is still in power so he can install two far younger, far more right-leaning conservative judges. If this happens, the ONLY chance for us to have a functional court system in our lifetimes is an expansion of the court and consecutive terms of a Democratic president with a backbone.
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Alito and Thomas will retire. I was panicked about it when Trump won in November, but I no longer think it matters. Packing or neutering the court is the only way to get our country back. There's a pretty strong case that judicial review is unconstitutional.

You can't allow some lunatic judge in Florida or Texas to govern the country by judicial fiat. That's literally what psychopaths like Aileen Cannon and Matthew Kacsmaryk have been doing. Don't be surprised if those are the names that replace Thomas and Alito, either.

The billionaire-owned and run Federalist Society (hi, Leonard Leo!) saw a weakness in our constitutional system decades ago and has been working to ensure permanent minority rule. We've already seen it with Biden. Democrats controlled the trifecta in 2021, but Biden wasn't allowed to govern. That right is reserved for Republicans. Democratic rule, according to them, is illegitimate. Biden wanted to forgive student loan debt. Nope, the courts won't let him. Trump wants to close entire federal agencies without congressional approval? No problem.

As I see it, we have three paths forward, and all of them require a Democratic trifecta and bold, brave leadership in 2029. I'm not optimistic.

1) Pack the court. We need 80 judges on the Supreme Court.
2) Remove all of Trump's judges. Trump is an insurrectionist and a traitor to our country. Every decision he's made is illegitimate. That's 235 judges, including one-third of the Supreme Court, and likely five of nine by 2029.
3) End judicial review.

Those are extreme solutions, but it's either that or live under oligarch-approved Christofascism for the foreseeable. Ideally, you'd implement all three solutions at once.
 
@TheSameIdiot You nailed it. To even have a chance at saving the country, we ("progressives") need 'our' politicians to have enough power and backbone, and the will, to make massive changes.
We'd also need ranked choice voting nationwide AND an end to the electoral college and jerrymandering.

Good luck with that.
 
Damien said:
@TheSameIdiot You nailed it. To even have a chance at saving the country, we ("progressives") need 'our' politicians to have enough power and backbone, and the will, to make massive changes.
We'd also need ranked choice voting nationwide AND an end to the electoral college and jerrymandering.

Good luck with that.
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For as many faults as he may have, Gavin Newsom has really been showing them how it's done.

The days of Chuck Schumer's limpdicked "strongly worded letters" is of the past.

The fact that finally someone on the Democratic/Progressive side has said "Okay, well...if there are no rules, then there are NO rules" is refreshing. Informing Texas that if they plan on following through with gerrymandering Texas, that they'll gerrymander California to pick up even more seats is genius and frankly, surprising it even took this long.

They want to fight dirty, we need to fight dirty back. Too many people have held on to the bullshit Michelle Obama "When they go low, we go high", and that doesn't get shit done when there is no basement for them. They cannot be shamed. So fuck 'em. We will cheat, too.
 
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