Elephants and Jackasses...

The thing I don't like about her is that she's acting as if Republicans play by the same political rules as Democrats do. They don't. For example, her attempt at censuring the president instead of impeaching him might actually be effective if the president gave a shit about what people outside his base wanted. He doesn't, so it won't. Democrats shouldn't be putting the onus on themselves to play nice with Republicans. Especially considering that Republicans have done everything in their power to tantrum their way into running the country, despite their numerically inferior numbers at the ballot box.

 

She's not so much a centrist as she is just weirdly positioned on things. Some of her positions are pretty far from the center, but others (like this impeachment stunt) just scream being disingenuous and contrarian for the sake of it. Like imagine if her presidential position on healthcare was "I believe healthcare is a human right, but the legislative process is too partisan so I'm going to pocket veto any healthcare legislation." That's not leadership, that's just being too woke (90's definition) for your own good.

 

The fact that I've asked this half a dozen times and nobody even tries to answer it and instead just says a politician who recognizes it is "garbage" and "inconsistent" (irony overload btw) says everything about the state of the democrat mentality to me. Nobody cares about Trump did. Like, at all. This whole thing is a joke.

 

I agree with you on Trump, JJ. He just coasts through on bravura...impeachment, censure, I don't think any of it will much affect him.

The only benefit of a censure would have been the huge saving of our money. In my opinion, there is absolutely no chance that the Senate will not kill the impeachment. I would have loved to see that other $39 million go towards hungry people, vet issues, anything really. I acknowledge that $40 million is a very small sum in our GNP, but waste is waste.

I do not think that we agree on the behavior of the parties. It is my opinion that BOTH sides do some awful shit. As much as I like you on a personal level JJ, I just don't agree that the democrats have behaved well. I see a lot of "protect my money" from reps and senators from ALL sides. The new ones must go along or get steamrolled, weeding out those that get into our Congress with high ideals. Our system is not functioning as intended.

Now. Notice NO ANGER in my post. I rarely post in this thread, because I do not appreciate how angry the people I like get at one another. I implore everyone to converse, be open to ideas. Interact with one another mindfully. If it gets to be too much, do as I have for years.....avoid the thread! Ha!

 

Gabbard as a white nationalist icon is pretty much the most awesome thing ever. Even in this day and age some things can still be shocking. The brown hindi woman white nationalist. Who would have thought?

 

"Why is it ok now" is an irrelevant question re: Gabbard because she's not arguing that. She has stated that she thinks Trump is 100% guilty, but won't vote for impeachment anyway.

 

I didn’t say she was a white nationalist. I said white nationalists like her and her policies.

 

I know these are strange times, but if they like the idea of a brown woman being their leader maybe they aren't that serious about the white nationalism thing. What is the fear even supposed to be? She's going to go after other minority women... or what? I really don't get this. It just seems like another 'call em racists' default smear campaign or 'claim Russia likes them'.

Not that it really matters, I guess. Her odds of winning at this point are something like 0.0001%.

 

That's a possibility. I think it's more likely that she'll use it to let the fact that Trump was impeached breathe and percolate into the public consciousness without the immediate "exonerated in the Senate" followup, and to pressure McConnell into conceding procedural issues about the trial (which he may or may not do). In theory she could hang Trump out as "impeached but not exonerated" all the way to election day, although I'm not sure how that would play out in terms of public perception.

 

I'm well aware that both political parties are shit. The difference is that none of the planks of the Republican platform exist to do anything for anybody but for straight, white, rich people. American conservatives aim to give the rich more money at the expense of the middle class. They want to dictate to women what they can and cannot do with their health. They continually put the rights of gun owners above the safety of children. They support separating children from their parents and putting them in cages under the guise of following the law, yet they refuse to hold the president accountable to the law. They want to take away healthcare coverage for millions of people because, as rich people, they pay for most of it.

Just from a moral standpoint, supporting the Republican party is an exercise in mental gymnastics that I am not flexible enough to do.

 

Speaking of the candidates, I think I'm done with Buttigeig. Anyone else see him straight up tell reporters he wasn't going to explain why he held private fundraisers for corporations? Can't link as I'm on my phone, but this is pretty close to verbatim.

Reporter: "Are you going to open up your fundraising events to the press?"
Buttigeig: "I don't know. I have a lot of considerations."
Reporter: "Could you give an example of one of those considerations?"
Buttigeig: "No."

Lmao.

 

I’ve thought he was a lizard from the start. He almost seems to be the polar opposite of what he says he stands for. Who exactly is his support base, gays who don’t like black people?

People ask him to come clean about secrets, he tells them to go fuck themselves. He fired people who try to expose him. He’s fucking up a city, don’t give him keys to the entire yard.

 

This type of thinking will prevent anything from ever getting better.
Apply that same type of thinking to any major progress that has been made from the past and everyone would still own slaves, women wouldn't be able to vote, insert any number of examples of progress where people finally stood up and said this is wrong and we should change it now.

The real answer is that it was a problem last year and it is still a problem this year and if every year that goes by you just look back and say "we didn't do anything about this last year so we can't do anything about it now because we have to maintain consistency" then nothing will ever change.

The reality is if you really do disagree with what trump did you should be strongly voicing that opinion and you should support him being punished for it. Carry that forward to the next democratic administration and people should be holding them to account the same way. The situation currently is you have allowed the parties to divide you so thoroughly into Team R vs Team D that you spend all your time fighting for your team with no regard for any thing other than which team your guy plays for.

TL;DR if you never draw a line in the sand and say from here on out we aren't going to accept this type of corruption and abuse of power regardless of which team they are on then you are never going to get away from that type of corruption and abuse of power. Learn to love the corruption and embrace it from both parties or speak the fuck up now and start making a change. You can't change what happened in the past, you can try and change what is happening right now or you can sit on your hands an wait for the right team to be in office for you to get upset about.

 

Zach, I agree, action almost always beats inaction. I like your first two paragraphs for sure.


Edit to say: I paused at the Trump paragraph because I have not done the research to speak with authority on what happened and who did what to whom how many times etc etc. As a business person, I am used to the idea that you don't get big big stacks of money for no value or service rendered, but I really have not done the work to have a defensible opinion on that whole sordid sounding affair. It certainly appears that the Senate will kill impeachment, so perhaps it is moot.

 

I very much agree, and that was the point I was trying to make. They're both using the oldest playbook in politics: obsessively focus on how evil the bad guys are so your constituents don't notice how much you suck. When Obama won the democrats had everything. Did we get a robust public option? Nope, we got one that appeased the insurance companies. Did we get drastic action on climate change? No, we got marginal incrementalism. Did we get major tax increases on the rich? Fuck no. How about a cut back in military spending? Fuck that, it went up. Wall street held accountable? Nope, they got a bail out. How about ending mass surveillance? Again no, that got expanded. Having the superior platform is great and all, but it's kind of important that they, you know, actually act like they give a fuck about putting it forward.

I'm not saying a democrat administration isn't preferable to a republican one. It is, but it's like getting served a sandwich with a little less shit dripping off it.

As far as punishing Trump... for one, the election isn't that far off at this point. The whole thing is just politics, and was never designed to be anything else. The goal was never to remove Trump from office, just to kick up a storm to carry into election season. That should be clear to anyone. Moreover, I don't really care so much about scrambling to go back with new standards and arbitrarily decide who gets punishment and who doesn't. I care about fixing shit moving forward, and upholding that standard from here on out.

In short, I would just like to see voters have a standard that is more than "isn't a republican." For the time being I won't hold my breathe.

Somewhat unrelated, it blows my mind that the democrats may well nominate the one person who really could lose to Trump precisely because they think he is the one person who can beat Trump. I really wonder what goes through the typical voters' heads sometimes...

 

So does anybody actually think Biden is innocent?

I find it odd people who proclaim to care so much about corruption don't seem to actually care about corruption. Like, how the fuck do you want Trump impeached so badly (because he's corrupt!) and then turn around and vote for Biden?

I know no one here wants Biden, but this seems to be a fairly common sentiment.

 

Yes. There isn't even a coherent accusation against him.

 

Depends on what you're talking about. Is he guilty of looking and generally acting like every family's favorite drunk uncle? Absolutely. I mean honestly, does that man look like someone who'd be innocent of occasionally fantasizing about his wife in a slightly revealing sundress?