If there was any sign that most voters on the other side could be convinced, sure. You think no one’s ever thought to do that? So tell me, how much of a conversation can a gay person have with someone convinced he’s a being of moral corruption, and that there needs to be laws restricting his rights so innocent children aren’t raped and corrupted? How much of a conversation can you have with someone when you disagree on what basic facts even are, and when neither side, for different reasons, can accept the sources the other consumes and believes in? When one side can’t even articulate their position except that the other side is worse, and whatever upsets that side is okay by them, no matter what the real world effects?
I don’t think these positions are any more exaggerated than anything I see on Fox News.
Which we all agree is harmful to constructive dialog, yes?
During his first term, President Obama went to great lengths to try to work with the GOP and was met with resistance at every turn. In the middle of an economic crisis that threatened the global economy, the GOP still stonewalled him relentlessly.
Fox News, Mr. Allnut, is what we are here to rise above.
As an example, I tend to disagree with the “fight for $15” - its intentions are good but I think it’s an arbitrary figure and it will only fuel the demand for automation, which in turn will result in job losses.
I’m also not on board with this massive wave of state-level legalization of marijuana. I absolutely think the war on drugs and mass incarceration have been epic policy failures but I’d rather see marijuana controlled at the federal level first and then at the state level (like alcohol and tobacco). I’m encouraged that both drug policy and mass incarceration seem to be two of the few areas where there might be some bipartisan agreement.
Although I agree on the goal of universal healthcare access, I am still not sure I entirely agree with many progressives (ie. Sanders) on the best way to achieve that.
I’m not averse to calling out the Democrats or their independent allies when I think they’ve blundered. I think Barack Obama, for instance, was a misguided foreign policy president who couldn’t decide how to straddle being an anti-war CiC (which is partly what got him elected) and at the same time responsibly manage the multiple conflicts he inherited. Granted, he inherited a major mess, but he also made some errors (or got talked into making blunders by HRC) that tainted his legacy as well. And I agree with neoconservative columnist for the WSJ & NYT Bret Stephens that Obama’s foreign policy did actually engage in the expansion of conflict in some situations (Libya, for instance), he was an indecisive president who kept dithering over what to do next in other situations (Syria, North Korea, Russia to name a few).
I’m sure I disagree with progressives on other issues as well.
But the fact remains that today’s conservatives seem more intransigent and impossible to reason with than in the past. I mentioned Bret Stephens - he happens to be a member of the #neverTrump contingent. He’s an intellectual republican who, despite my obvious disagreements, at least tries to make cogent arguments that are worth listening to. Unfortunately, that trait is the anathema to today’s republican party and conservative movement. If I mention the names of Bret Stephens, George Will, or even Mitt Romney (I liked governor Romney better than presidential candidate Romney), all you hear is the reflexive “RINO” snark.
It’s not just the fact that conservatives are ignorant and make bad arguments – that can be corrected. But the problem is worse than that, much worse. The problem is that conservatives actually attempt to avoid facts altogether and increasingly have a tendency to make up their own truth. Google how James O’Keefe doctored the infamous videos about the ACORN organization in an attempt to have it de-funded. Google how Breitbart smeared Shirley Sherrod. Google how right wing extremists secretly recorded and doctored videos in an attempt to deliberately slander and de-fund Planned Parenthood. I really hope you’ll investigate these examples (and countless others) because then you’ll realize the disgust with conservatives goes beyond just the fact that 'My side is right and theirs is wrong. It’s the fact that an organized right wing is engaging in increasingly sophisticated methods of propaganda and information warfare in an attempt to get the “democracy” that they want, regardless of what is good for everyone else.
I would actually gladly welcome the resurrection of a strong Republican party that can challenge the Democratic party intellectually. In fact, I think one side effect of the decline of the Republican party is that it’s beginning to drag the Democratic party down with it. Populism reflects emotion but it rarely produces good policy. I would no more rather see a 21st Century Huey Long on the Left than I would another term of Donald Trump or someone else on the Right. But it’s going to be up to ordinary voters to see through the weeds, and right now, I don’t see that happening unfortunately.
Sure. And while we’re at it, if we all vote for the Senate’s health care bill, Trump won’t nuke Chicago. And if we give the republicans everything they want, they won’t force a default on the debt limit. Because this is how good governance works - take crucially important issues that everyone really should be on the same page about, and use them cynically as bargaining chips to get what you want. Right? And encouraging that behavior is a great idea! Right?
You know, I kinda am at a loss for words here. On one hand, you say we should offer a more convincing argument. On the other hand, after all the shit that’s happened in the past half a year, after the frankly astonishing mismanagement on Trump’s part, after the complete fucking shitshow that is this administration’s first half year, you’d still vote for him over a well-qualified, well-informed, and sane candidate.
And you still don’t see the problem here.
It’s at moments like these that I am so glad that I live outside the US. Because at times like this, I look at the guy who shot Steve Scalise and I get it.
You’re not going to be convinced. If what you’ve seen so far hasn’t convinced you, I do not think it is humanly possible to convince you. It’s like trying to convince someone that the area is flooding while he sits in knee-high water in his attic.
Does capitulating to less informed views make for good policy?
Thank-you, Ms. Sayer! 
But, as the CiC of the military, isn’t it the president’s prerogative to determine how wars are waged? Congress gets to say yeah or nay to the war, but the president decides troop deployments, tactics and strategy. No?
The president is not, however, CiC of the economy, which is what the Paris Accord dealt with.
So you consider that joining all the other nations on this planet in a common agreement supported by incontrovertible scientific evidence is a “whim”? Who do you think is exercising legitimate leadership and who do you think is exercising a whim, the president who act on facts and scientific advice like the rest of the world, or the one who tries to appeal to his uninformed base by making the US the one solitary rogue nation to pull out of the deal?
Facts and physical reality will always win over politics, as King Canute reputedly found out when the rising tide refused to obey his commands. But if you want to make this a political argument, consider what the word “leadership” means and ask yourself which decision is most closely aligned with the facts, and which president has been the most uninformed and deceptive about it. And if you want to consider “the larger body politic”, consider this: Americans overall opposed the withdrawal from the Paris accord by a margin of 2 to 1.
If you can’t support this idiotic decision on facts, and you can’t support it on public opinion, tell us again why you think it was such a terrific thing to do?
The problem with Fox News isn’t their use of expressive language or creative hyperbole to make a point. The problem is their blatant deception, their relentless mission to instill in their gullible viewers stupid opinions based on falsehoods.
No, the Paris climate accord dealt with climate, hence its name. Any link to the economy, positive or negative, is nebulous and debatable and also largely irrelevant in view of the inevitable necessity of climate action, and the fact that the agreement gives countries lots of wiggle room to adjust their strategies. Furthermore, the poll that I linked above showing that far more Americans oppose the withdrawal than support it also shows that more respondents – by a margin of 42 to 32 – believe the withdrawal will have an overall negative impact on the economy, as well as undermining US global leadership.
And the Patriot Act is about Patriotism. Hence its name.
The Climate Agreement’s action are directed at economic activity. But if you like, I’ll agree that the president can do whatever he wants as long as it to command the climate to change, but not industry.
Seriously, though, I just don’t think the analogy works when the agreement we’re talking about is a tactic in the waging of a war. Whether the Paris Accord is good or bad is a completely separate issue.
double post
You have a very colorful writing style. It’s not very persuasive. I think you’re taking this opportunity to vent more than trying to put together a logical argument or coherent point, and that’s ok, or at least it’s a whole lot better than you mimicking James Hodgkinson’s actions and ending up dead in a baseball diamond, with most decent people thinking you’re insane.
PROTIP: if you want to shut yourself off from people that disagree with you, the SDMB is probably not the best place to do it.
No, I think the method Obama used to try to join all the other nations on this planet in a common agreement, calling it an executive agreement instead of a treaty precisely so that he could avoid the usual course of submitting major international agreements to the Senate for ratification was what made it “on a whim”. And because of that methodology, it can be undone “on a whim” too. Them’s the breaks. Next time your side wants to commit the US to some major international agreement, I’d recommend trying a more … enduring … approach.
But this is the fossil fuel industry we are dealing about, IIUC it was supposed to be bad for conservatives to have government “choose winners and losers”, and clearly this is an issue were even if we forget for a moment about the huuuuge costs we will get to by ignoring science there is even more denial here in the form of a peculiar industry being pushed forward by men of industry that would make Mr. Burns look like a saint.
In short, as John Oliver explains with well researched humor (that is done under the threat of asshole lawsuits from one of the coal producers) many coal workers already realized that these guys really do not care about being fair. (As several insulted one of the coal mine owner for their insulting bonuses when telling the workers about increasing their quotas by in effect reducing safety)
But as we know, getting a good pay check can make the few remaining coal workers to dump their long range interests whereas is health or economical wellbeing. And while they were given reasons to give their votes to Trump, the reality is that almost all of those promises were based on lies. And those come even by ignoring the big issue of climate change.
Add that to what John Oliver points out about how many jobs (And a damming clip that shows how the new FDA chief has lied about how many we will get) this push for coal will give us, even when using the optimistic numbers, those jobs are fading when compared with other industries. And the big lie from the industry executives is that Obama was a reason for that fading when it was cheaper natural gas and green energy that is also getting cheaper and automation.
Another reality is that programs designed to really help the displaced coal workers will be underfunded or eliminated under Trump, just because he and many others assume a simple solution (that is in reality inadequate) will solve that too.
Interesting to also find out that Trump was advising in the 90’s to coal workers to “get it” to not be dumb, that they should had left the place they lived all their lives because they the jobs would be in other places in the USA, better and emerging jobs.
It is really less persuasive when one sees conservatives ignoring the evidence presented.
And it is clear that that whim from Trump was based on misleading information and his general ignorance.
It is also clear to me that Trump just likes to love and only understand other CEOs that do not care about giving a raw deal to their workers or their underlings.