I think Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are about as good as you can expect from a GOP Senate.
I also think that people willing to write off the great danger of having Trump sit in the Oval Office in order to get judicial picks they like are, in the most charitable case, blinding themselves to the great danger posed by having an incompetent authoritarian occupy that office.
How many hundreds of additional deaths happened in Puerto Rico as a result of incompetent federal leadership? How many is worth Gorsuch?
Democrats can
[ul]
[li]attempt to win over voters who think like **octopus **and Starving Artist[/li][li]convince the non-voters to come out and vote against Trump[/li][li]freeze out anybody named Clinton[/li][/ul]
Black voters came out in droves to keep Roy Moore from becoming the newest senator from Alabama. I’d say concentrate on the last two bullets.*
*bullets as in list bullets, not assassination, you reactionary fearmongers.
I believe Trump was elected because a chunk of what had been, and should naturally be, the base of the Democratic Party voted for him instead of Hillary Clinton. I speak of unionized labor in “old economy” industries in WI, MI, OH. They voted for him because they believe their way of life is under threat, and will not be available to their kids. Way of life specifically meaning being able to stay in the middle class by holding “a good job” which does not require college, and where the main requirement is just showing up. They believed, and still do, that Trump is a better choice for halting or even slowing that decline. Either because he will keep immigrants from “taking their jobs” or because he will enact trade policy that will be “fair” enough to keep other countries from taking their jobs. While some are no doubt racists for intrinsic reasons, for many their fear/hatred of immigrants and international trade comes from their belief that these threaten their way of life. Unless/until some alternative to Trump’s “solutions” are offered to them which seem believable and workable, they’re not switching back. Scandals and nuttiness be damned.
Nothing yet has happened to shake my belief that Trump has essentially no considered ideology of his own. He’s an authoritarian purely by personality - it suits his narcissism and he has always had the money to project and indulge it. Calling him a fascist is almost giving him too much credit. A minor change in circumstances and I have no problem believing Trump as a rather authoritarian Democrat.
Without disagreeing with your post in general, I’ll just note that that last line is a bit insulting. I know plenty of people that worked on auto lines. It is not a walk in the park. Those people fully earned their money.
Hey, SA I’ve got a video for you to watch that might help explain where we’re coming from. Its even all American and produced pre-1960’s so it should be safe. All you have to do is change Catholics to Muslims, Negros to Mexicans, and Masons to Democrats and you’re good to go.
You’ve lost me here. Fed up with insults, hatred and divisiveness and yet support Trump, the king of insults, hatred and divisiveness?
Drugs and crime? Those things will always be with us, but seem about as under control as anytime in my 56 years.
Sometimes that’s the role of judges, right? If the good people of DC passed an unconstitutional gun control law is that the “will of the people?” Or is striking it down legislating from the bench? How about those “conservatives” on the Supreme Court who invalidated parts of the Voting Rights Act because they didn’t like what the elected representatives of the people decided to do?
Other than abortion, I don’t see any meaningful examples of judges pissing off the deplorables.
I agree, yet I fail to understand. What have we “done to this country” that would upset any fair minded person?
And Obama WAS tarred and feathered, nightly, with two hour panel shows with the likes of Jeanine and Tucker and then followed up with Hannity. Incompetent, treasonous, traitor, and even some would say Obama WANTED to ruin our country. This was just standard fare on Fox. They are a ruthless drumbeat. They had something like 2100 segments about Benghazi, all negative. When after eight investigations (the last two almost entirely Republican lead) nothing sinister was found, they had only 27 segments conveying that. Did they apologize? Did they say they got it all wrong. Of course not, they still toss it around (see: Hannity on convention night).
I’m not a huge fan of the two party system. I think it’s dumb and overly coarse. But I think a one party system is even worse. That said, political parties in the US, at least for the big two are coalition parties. So each half is actually relatively diverse.
But that’s a digression. I think everyone has the opportunity to make their choice known by voting, speaking, writing, joining groups etc. We all have the chance to participate in self governance. However, we aren’t entitled to a particular outcome.
And yes, pushing for our judicial overlords to settle social matters before a majority was ready, i.e. accomplishing things via the legislative branches, did result in at least two unintended consequences. One, was pushback. Two, was the targeting of the judiciary as the highest political prize.
In politics actions aren’t occurring on inert lumps. Regardless of how you feel about Trump and his supporters. Political actions result in reactions and evolving counter-strategies.
Anyways, the question was how do I define success. And now it’s getting a bit off topic. But I think as long as things stay peaceful and we mostly follow the law I’ll consider that a success in self governance.
That’s funny. But in discussions with my kids we talk about voting. I have told my kids how I expect them to vote when they come of age. I told them research the issues. Know what’s important to you. Then go cast an informed vote for who you believe will advance what you consider most important to you.
I also told them to not act like many internet loons do and make everything about your own interpretation of the world. So, if they have friends or relatives who disagree? Well, that’s just life and what their friends and relatives value may be different or weighted differently. I wonder if you have kids and if you are indoctrinating them or educating them.
Yep. I’ve said the same thing quite a few times here. Trump seems to be motivated by fame and fortune, nothing else. And the former probably because it leads to more of the latter.
I actually agree with you. I think Donald Trump is an accidental fascist, which sadly, makes the second option more likely the truth. I think there is a significant number of fascist voters off which he is feeding. There are a number of American voters who would accept fascism (so long as it is never called that of course) so long as they get their agenda through. It isn’t surprising since SA points out that the progressive agenda has been making a lot of gains, and fascism is a reactionary movement on the right to counter (among other things) liberalism. What is a bit shocking, and worrisome, is that it isn’t generally being called out and rebuked, but applauded and supported. Much as has happened in other countries throughout history, the fascist are finding willing allies in other right-wing camps. People are willing to accept a little fascism to get their <fill in the blank>. If Trump were competent, then he could maybe (but unlikely, I don’t think democracy in America will unravel so fast) make himself dictator. Thankfully he doesn’t seem to understand that a good authoritarian needs a strong inner circle of allies to help control all of the levers of power, and Trump just isn’t good at making friends. Even out of political necessity.
A combination of that and that in his general ignorance of politics and government he genuinely believes that everyone else does it that same way too. So to his mind he’s thinking “Eric Holder protected Obama, why can’t Sessions similarly protect me?”, and so on.
The thing is that there’s actually a basis in truth for that way of thinking, in that almost no one in politics is truly apolitical and above that type of bias. But there are degrees and Trump is several degrees out of bounds for what’s considered acceptable and par-for-the-course. But that’s much more obvious to people who are experienced with politics than it is to an ignorant and self-absorbed neophyte like Trump, and when you combine that with his tycoon-based mindset and the factors you mention that’s what you get.
That op-ed and other things we hear about Trump’s thin-skinned nature make me think perhaps the best act of opposition would be laughing at him. An organized campaign of people literally pointing and laughing at him - in person, in videos, photos on social media.
I can easily find the right mental space to transform any anger or disgust I feel at what’s happening right now and turn it into laughing at this pitiful man who’s out of his depth and in over his head. You just have to stop short of feeling sorry for him, which you’d do for many people, but not a leader in his position.
We should all point and laugh at Trump. I can’t think of anything that would bother him more.
I just want to point out to all of our resident traitor/treason-definition nitpickers that our president has just accused the anonymous writer of that bullshit op-ed piece of treason. He tweeted: “Treason?” <-- note lack of misspelling! Amazing!
That anonymous writer can go fuck him or herself. Fucking coward. If you really loved this country, you and your co-conspirators would bring your concerns to Congress or invoke the 25th Amendment. Just ignoring the president’s idiotic and dangerous impulses to continue in the White House while trying to work around him is dangerous and un-American.
Look, you’ve got your fucking tax break, you’ve blown up the Paris agreement, the TPP, and the Iran agreement. You’ve made life miserable for undocumented immigrants and separated parents from their children, sometimes then deporting the parents. You’ll get your second Supreme Court justice. Isn’t that enough? Can you fucking man up and, with your buddies, resign, spill the beans under oath to Congress and get us past this nightmare of a presidency?