Author Topic: Politics  (Read 511015 times)

Bondo

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Re: Politics
« Reply #6300 on: December 13, 2019, 05:55:29 PM »
If Trump gets re-elected, I'm not sure the Court really matters. After that I'm not sure the US gets anywhere close to a democracy (we already aren't that) in a way that keeps the current Court intact.

valmz

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Re: Politics
« Reply #6301 on: December 19, 2019, 06:41:02 PM »
Trump is not a threat to Democracy. Trump is not an autocrat. When Trump leaves office (whether by election or by death) American politics will be essentially the same as it would have been if Hillary or Cruz were elected instead: in the clutches of oligarchs and needlessly divisive due to a corrosive media environment made awful by 24 hour news networks and evil by the substitution of opinion and lies in place of news.

Trump has done little to make either of these things worse, and it is impossible that either would have changed since 2016 with a Republican held Senate.

Trump is far too vain and far too stupid to truly corrupt democracy. He’s certainly made some very, very small minded moves at self-enrichment (the Doral scandal most embarrassingly small-minded of all), but he is also far too easily swayed by public backlash and far, far more interested in being cheered at rallies than in actually using the levers of power for any dangerous purpose. He’s a clown, and an idiot, and his danger lies only in that a smarter corrupt fraudster or autocrat would have been far more successful in diminishing the power of Congress and corrupting the government as a whole.

Trump has not weakened Congress. The Senate could convict him and remove him and he would be powerless to stop it. There might be violence, but his most adamant supporters are gullible and small-minded in the image of their idol. The reason the Senate will not convict him is because he is weak, not because he is strong. Is it bad that such a weak fraudster is going to lead to the Senate debasing itself and setting a precedent for Presidential immunity from conviction? Sure, but that stage has already been set more strongly by the oligarchs’ intrusion into elections and by the media’s echo chambers than Trump himself.

Trump should be convicted and removed for violating the Constitution. The threats to American Democracy lie elsewhere, though. To credit Trump with anything of that gravity would be to confuse him for something other than the useful idiot he has proven to be.

Bondo

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Re: Politics
« Reply #6302 on: December 19, 2019, 07:13:37 PM »
But my logic isn’t that the real problem is Trump. The real problem is if he is re-elected, it confirms that neither Congress, nor the public, is any check on lawlessness. And with that established, what is to stop a lame duck Trump, or any future President, from anything? Plus another four years of Republican power probably locks in such an anti-democratic set of policies that we will never have a truly fair election again.

valmz

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Re: Politics
« Reply #6303 on: December 19, 2019, 08:05:06 PM »
I don’t think any autocrat is looking at Trump and thinking that they can follow his example and get away with the same things. Trump’s most vocal defender in the Senate defended his behavior in Ukraine by saying that his administration was too incompetent to have a coherent foreign policy. He’s a useful idiot, and future autocrats will know that they will not be treated the same as a useful idiot.

A future Senate will likely treat an autocrat like an autocrat, not like a useful idiot. The Congress was never a good check on lawlessness. That’s not their job, and they’re partisan. I do agree that the public used to be better at standing up to lawlessness and Trump is Teflon like none before, but I still see no reason why Trump’s re-election matters one way or another to anything. You imply his election impacts the Court, but I don’t see it.

As for America not being a democracy... America has never been much of a democracy. Read the Constitution and you’ll see a document written for white land owning men, not democracy. Until we’re that bad off, I think it’s a bit silly to argue that we’re not trending upwards in our history. There are current threats, to be sure, but I don’t know how your first post relates to it at all. I just don’t understand your initial post at all, I guess.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2019, 08:06:45 PM by valmz »

philip918

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Re: Politics
« Reply #6304 on: December 19, 2019, 09:24:07 PM »
You imply his election impacts the Court, but I don’t see it.

He's added 187 hyper Conservative Federal Judges to the benches. Nine of them rated "Not Qualified" by the ABA. If he's reelected he replaces at least two more Supreme Court Justices...

FLYmeatwad

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Re: Politics
« Reply #6305 on: December 19, 2019, 09:59:36 PM »
Only saw part of the debate after Star War, so it was the first I've missed, which was a bummer since the field was smaller and it seemed at least okay.

I'm not really sure how this ends up as anything but a brokered convention that ultimately ends up with the powers that be pushing Biden. Have a personal conspiracy theory that Pelosi waited to give the signal that it was okay to impeach until the most opportune time for Biden by pulling away Sanders and Warren from Iowa and potentially Super Tuesday states.

valmz

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Re: Politics
« Reply #6306 on: December 19, 2019, 10:46:28 PM »
You imply his election impacts the Court, but I don’t see it.

He's added 187 hyper Conservative Federal Judges to the benches. Nine of them rated "Not Qualified" by the ABA. If he's reelected he replaces at least two more Supreme Court Justices...
Bondo specifically says that it doesn’t matter that Trump would add 2 more Supreme Court Justices because the Court won’t matter. I don’t understand why. That’s the point of my post.

Bondo

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Re: Politics
« Reply #6307 on: December 19, 2019, 10:57:37 PM »
Trump getting extremely conservative judges only matters if Democrats win power back in the future and then have things stopped by the Courts. My argument is if Trump wins re-election, Democrats may never win back power in our current system, because we will never have free and fair elections again. I'd actually argue we haven't particularly had free and fair elections looking backwards either, but they are getting worse. I think a Trump re-election means permanent minority rule until a popular, violent revolution replaces the Constitution with an actual democratic document.

On the negative side, the military and cops trend conservative, as do gun owners. On the positive side, most conservatives are old and not the most intimidating presence in their Rascal scooters come a civil war.

valmz

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Re: Politics
« Reply #6308 on: December 20, 2019, 12:24:59 AM »
Violent coups don’t have a strong track record in the last 50 years. I wouldn’t get your hopes up for that being the solution.

I see you make a statement that we won’t have free and fair elections, but I don’t see an argument.

Russia’s influence in the elections was far less pernicious than either FOX News or Comey’s idiotic announcement. States have passed independent redistricting via ballot measures in key states to make state elections more fair. Nonviolent felons have been given voting rights in Florida and Kentucky, of all places. Trump’s administration is literally laughably incompetent. A re-election seems to endanger local cities’ budgets far more than states’ abilities to hold free and fair elections because Trump is far more capable of avoiding paying debts to cities where he holds rallies than he is in voter suppression. His plot to have Ukraine meddle in the election was so small-minded and so poorly carried out that they didn’t even bother to attempt to pretend that they were interested in fighting corruption and put it in writing in easily subpoenaed text messages. I don’t see a single piece of evidence suggesting that the woefully understaffed Trump administration could accomplish any sort of wide-ranging voter suppression. And, of course, if he did then most of the US Intelligence agencies would find a way to leak it to the Press or to Congress because Trump insults them on a continual basis.

Trump is only a danger to his supporters’ integrity and intelligence. Any election that doesn’t suppress 50% of the country’s vote cannot in any way be considered less free and fair than previous periods in our history. You’re going to need to be a bit more precise as to the nature and scope of voter suppression to make me think we have regressed, because America’s true pastime has always been voter suppression first and foremost. The idea that we currently have more voter suppression than prior to the civil rights movement or women’s suffrage is one that should not be made without a lot of justification which you clearly have not provided.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2019, 12:32:26 AM by valmz »

colonel_mexico

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Re: Politics
« Reply #6309 on: December 20, 2019, 08:20:20 AM »
You imply his election impacts the Court, but I don’t see it.

He's added 187 hyper Conservative Federal Judges to the benches. Nine of them rated "Not Qualified" by the ABA. If he's reelected he replaces at least two more Supreme Court Justices...

I do not believe that to be completely true-"hyper Conservative"- I've gotten to know one of those 187 Article 3 judges and who was actually a Democrat before flipping over to Republican and is in reality far from being political at all.  Being associated with a party is supposed to be a formality (as with the big court it is often not) and the judge I've had the pleasure of knowing professionally and a little bit personally is definitely NOT hyper-or even really that strongly Conservative.  And he certainly is obedient to the law and the few rulings I've seen are not based on his backing the law into a political decision. While it is true in the profession, especially the judiciary, there are conservatives who do (and some who do not) support Trump.  Most of the federal judges I've gotten to know (in fact we will be honoring a number of them in an upcoming event) recognize and are faithful to following the law, not politics.  Don McGahn, Trump's former White House counsel, who spoke at our law journal banquet last year, mentioned several times that he had to remind the President of his duty to the Constitution (a statement that is pretty frightening, and McGahn does have his own issues). 

I say all that to just point out "hyper Conservative" is not accurate, not to support in any way Trump, because even as a Republican I DO NOT support him and never will.
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