It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better

[elucidator]

Yes, addy, we know. That’s kinda what we are pissed about. We think that a vote for the (D) guy should count just as much as the vote for the ® guy. Weird, huh?

[adaher]

House elections have never been national popular vote affairs, and it’s always taken big wins to flip. Republicans never got to take the House with a 1% popular vote margin, why should Democrats expect it?

The last three flips all took a 5 point margin or better. That’s what you have to get, whether you’re Republican or Democrat.

[elucidator]

Who said anything about “flipping”? Why do you keep insisting that we only talk in terms of flipping? To the extent that it is possible, the power of our political parties should represent the actual number of votes obtained by said parties. Is that too simple for you?

[HurricaneDitka]

@ThisIsTheEnd

In the current environment, right wing actors are wayyyyyy more likely to provoke that being necessary than lefties.

WHAT being necessary? The military firing on civilians? That you think it might be “necessary” is a pretty scary thought, but anyways … I think we’ve gotten closest to that, in recent times, when the National Guard has been called out to help suppress BlackLivesMatter riots. Those aren’t right-wing riots, they’re left-wing.

[elucidator]

Those are corrective practices, not “suppression”. Some people just don’t understand that the correct response to police shooting brown people for no good reason is “Thank you, sir, can I have another?”.

[ThisIsTheEnd]

@HurricaneDitka

WHAT being necessary? The military firing on civilians? That you think it might be “necessary” is a pretty scary thought, but anyways … I think we’ve gotten closest to that, in recent times, when the National Guard has been called out to help suppress BlackLivesMatter riots. Those aren’t right-wing riots, they’re left-wing.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for BLM to do an armed occupation of a federal building.

[adaher]

@elucidator

Who said anything about “flipping”? Why do you keep insisting that we only talk in terms of flipping? To the extent that it is possible, the power of our political parties should represent the actual number of votes obtained by said parties. Is that too simple for you?

It should not work that way, otherwise we might as well just have national elections and proportional representation.

I suppose we could end racial gerrymandering, that would result in more Democrats.

[elucidator]

Huh? Wha? Have you been hitting the Dr. Pepper again? We talked about this, you know you can’t handle it.

[HurricaneDitka]

@Chronos

One consequence I can see is the start of a systematic effort to destroy one of the three branches of government. The Republicans have already done 11% of the job, and prominent Republican senators have already vowed that they’ll finish the other 89%.

I assume you’re getting 11% from 1/9 SCOTUS justices. There’s more to the judicial branch than SCOTUS, just like there’s more to the executive branch than the President.

[elucidator]

And there’s more to life than sex, drugs and rock 'n roll, its just that nobody cares.

[HurricaneDitka]

@ThisIsTheEnd

Don’t hold your breath waiting for BLM to do an armed occupation of a federal building.

“Not guilty.” And of course they wouldn’t occupy it. Their typical style is to loot and burn the buildings down.

Black Lives Matter activist defends LOOTING with Tea Party comparison

[elucidator]

Oh, so that guy is the leader? Is he the Chairman of the Central Committee? Executive Director?

[ThisIsTheEnd]

All I know is if I’m lootin’, ain’t no Frito-Lay products gonna be left behind. Specially not FunYuns.

[kaylasdad99]

@adaher

The military won’t do a coup in this generation. A greater risk is that the President would order the military to fire on American citizens <SNIP>

Ehh. The risk of that is 0%, since Hillary wouldn’t issue such an order, and Donald won’t be president.

[asahi]

@asahi

We’re not yet on the verge of a coup, and there wouldn’t necessarily have to be a coup at all. Simply an alignment of the military and the civilian government. Whereas until fairly recently I thought this scenario was the product of popular literature or Hollywood culture, I can see now how such an alignment occurs. Suppose Trump (or a future president) puts pressure on the current military chain of command to do things that it has been trained are unethical, unconstitutional, and illegal – what happens then? Maybe we have a civilian military crisis in which we have a massive walk out in protest. Or maybe they get fired and replaced by loyalists who then prosecute them under military law – whether they get convicted or now is beside the point. The chilling effect would be enormous.

The point here is, we have probably taken for granted the strength of our Constitution, our rule of law, and our legal and political institutions. We in the United States have patted ourselves on the back in believing that our Constitution is somehow stronger and superior to others. It is not. A Constitution and law are just nothing more than text. Constitutions ultimately rely on the strengths of those who actively live by its framework. In fact this Constitution has failed miserably in the past, bailed out only by our fear of European colonial predators and collective determination to make this experiment succeed in the early 19th Century, and bailed out again by the collective will and power of the Union army to crush an insurrection of an immoral culture a few decades later.

Going forward, The United States of America is going to be forced to face up to its fundamental flaws as a nation. And that flaw is that it is a society that was founded on religious fundamentalism and inequality. On one hand, we have one part of our society that wants to cling to the America of religious fanaticism and economic Darwinism, an America that is exclusive and homogenized. On the other, we have the other that wants an America that is a freer and fairer society, an America that is more inclusive and diverse. History suggests this conflict is not going to be resolved easily, and that’s probably putting it softly.

Bump.

[TruCelt]

The civilians who support the military have a surprising amount of power. If they were to collectively decide not to be party to an action, the military couldn’t pull it off without them. I’m not just talking about the Gov’t civilian employees, but maybe a bit more about the defense contractors. Believe it or not we are actual humans, many with children and hopes of grand-children.

I have seen it happen that the Navy put out a contract for some work, and several interested firms showed up at the Bidders conference. When they were given the hint that dropped the penny as to what the technology would really be used for, there was a stunned silence, and people started edging toward the door. This was an eight figure solicitation, but they didn’t get a single proposal. Not one. And the program was killed.

And no, I won’t tell you anything more about it, so find something else to think about.

The point is that Government is made of people. And Gov’t is supported by people. If no one will take the job of guarding Auschwitz, then Auschwitz can’t happen again. Look what happened when this administration tried to find out who had worked on certain regulations they didn’t like. They wanted to fire those people, but they never got the names. That died quietly without any crazy tweets on the subject, because it was Trump’s first clue that he hadn’t inherited a fiefdom.

He was stunned by it.

[JKellyMap]

Interesting post, TrueCelt – thanks. There’s grounds for a bit of hope, then.

(Of course, now you have us all of us trying to imagine what that cancelled program was about, but we understand why you can’t say more, so won’t ask you to. Sure would make for a dramatic film scene, though.)

[BigAppleBucky]

@adaher

Call me an optimist, but I think that if Clinton wins, we’ll see a lot more cooperation with her than we did with Obama. and if Trump wins, it’ll be less awful than imagined, simply because it can hardly be worse than what we imagine.

And I still say Congress should be quick to impeach him if he gets out of control.

One totally wrong prediction and one that probably will be wrong given the GOP propensity to put party over country.

Trump is more awful than most people imagined. And getting worse.

[TruCelt]

@JKellyMap

. . .
(Of course, now you have us all of us trying to imagine what that cancelled program was about, . . .

Squirrel!!

[soonerblue]

@BigAppleBucky

One totally wrong prediction and one that probably will be wrong given the GOP propensity to put party over country.

The Republicans won’t impeach him …they’re too giddy about being back in power. I agree with whoever said the GOP would allow a ham sandwich to stay in the Oval Office if it can sign all the tax cuts for the wealthy they put in front of it.