Not at all. I was implying that, in your summation of my previous points, you had very much misrepresented what I was saying. Or, at least, taken the wrong parts to heart. Agreed. Negative. Never once have I said that. Also, I think that pushing "Unity" right now is a terrible idea. The only thing worse than pushing unity is lip service that you're pushing unity while they charge through the Dem agenda. Also, I don't care so much about the faction of the party that feels disenfranchised. If you gave your money and attention to the crazies, well, stupid games get stupid prizes. The point I've been trying to make is that adopting the "Fuck those assholes, they have to fix themselves and until they do, we'll run it our way!" mentality is a huge mistake. It will further deepen the divide, and set you up for more violence and discord. 100% agreed. The people who stormed the capital and those higher up that incited it and ensured there would be opportunity should be hunted out like Al Queda. Find them, drag them to a cell, let them sit there for some extended length of time and then try them for treason, if such a charge is legally warranted. Part of me thinks it's an abysmal failure of the GOP leadership not to stand up and say this unequivocally. The other part of me thinks that, if they did, they would be tarred and feathered by their own constituents. It's a big question right now: is the party so fractured and corrupt because of the leadership, or is the leadership really just reflecting the base? No. Again, you are reading my statements wrong. I'm saying that if you ignore those 74 million people - just charge ahead and not care for their input or how they'd like to see the country run - the sample size is way too large. They will revolt, and what is the plan then? What do you do when roughly 1/6 of the country also decides, "Fuck these assholes, we'll do it our way"? Absolutely, completely, totally agree with this statement. It's the heart of the issue. The error that's happening right now, as I see it (as an outsider) is that democrats - who are fed up of the bullshit - are saying, "Fix your shit. Until you do we aren't talking." But the GOP has no intention of fixing their shit. A portion of the party is merely right-leaning, and I'm sure thinks the lunatics have escaped the asylum. The other portion of the party truly believes the election was stolen, and that the current government is a banana dictatorship. THAT should be the focus. THAT is the problem. Signing executive orders and chirping about unity is bullshit. The United States is in the throws of a violent radicalization. For Christ's sake, they stormed the capital and could have killed any number of legislators including the #2 and #3 in the whole country. Scoffing at Republicans, ignoring (or not caring) that 74M people chose that orange gorilla, pushing through left-leaning legislation that will have significant economic impacts...those are bad ways to handle this. I don't know how you un-radicalize a group of people, particularly when part of the radicalization involved polluting how those people understand truth and facts, so any augment to what they believe becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. But I know that a better response from Biden should have been to ease up on the public undoing of the Trump era and first try to solve how the fuck we got here. You assume that the radicalized portion of the party will continue to play by any rule. If it isn't fixed, what if the next time a group storms the capital they are, in fact, well-organized and well-funded? If I had to guess who has more guns and more former military members, I'd wager it's the GOP over the Dems. This notion that "those people" should fix their problem is vastly unwise, IMO.
Also, a point to add - if the Republican party fractures into two (or however many) other parties, it would also be disastrous. It would ensure that the Dems won every election going forward, because they'd always have the majority, and it would further disenfranchise the lunatic fringe. I keep mulling over, "If I was elected emperor, how would I fix this?" I don't have any silver bullet solutions, I'm afraid.
If you were an emperor it would be far less difficult. China would take those 74 million people, put them in a concentration camp and give them two choices: correct your thinking or die, either way you’re not leaving until one of those things happens. What many of them aren’t doing, and should be doing is considering themselves to be very fucking lucky that they AREN’T on a watch list yet. Anybody who supports QAnon should be. These people brokered the first non-peaceful power transfer since the Civil War. They owe the country an apology, they need to improve as humans, and if they still feel that somehow Trump was right well, they were never programmed or “brainwashed”. There is no legit excuse for them. They just were stupid and selfish and like him, simply refused to believe they were on the wrong side. As grown and free adults, that’s their problem. Just because they didn’t physically set foot on the Capitol doesn’t mean they’re just as stupid and pathetic as the ones who did— they are, there is no excuse for it anymore. They had their “One Tin Soldier” moment and it failed spectacularly with unneeded bloodshed, just like the fucking song warned.
So...you'd be okay with mass genocide of 74 million people based on their political affiliation? I appreciate that part of this is hyperbole, but come the fuck on. If you think that Republicans are so shitty they should be euthanized, then you must appreciate that Republicans would be within their rights to eradicate the Dems? Let's have some sense here. I do definitely agree that the QAnon people should be on a watch list. But I also can't answer the censorship/privacy/right to not incriminate yourself. The censorship that's being advocated for right now is shocking. Why would you trust the government - or anyone - to do that? Yet at the same time it's required, because we have people who think Jewish Space Lasers are controlling things and therefore turn around and storm the Senate. So I don't know, man. Maybe unplug all the computers everywhere and see if that helps.
So when the Republicans win they get to set the legislative agenda, and when the Democrats win... the Republicans still get to set the legislative agenda? If your argument is that we should coddle Republicans because they're more violent, the logical conclusion of that is that the Democrats should become more violent so they get the same consideration. It's a terrible plan.
No. I don’t fucking think that. I said that’s what China would do to them, and that is a fact. I said they should consider themselves very lucky they’re not Chinese, and instead have a bunch of spineless pussies the like DNC overseeing the justice inflicted on them. You know, the repulsive, ACTUALLY deplorable Trump cult of traitorous shitheels. Never said they should be killed. Okay?
Jesus, I have never once said coddle them or allow them to set the agenda. In a "normal" political climate, where one party definitively won, I would say simply, "Get on with governing, and if the other side doesn't like it that's TFB. Wait till the next election and they can step up their game." This isn't a normal political climate. I think the entire government - both sides - should have gone inward to fight the cancer as a united front. What happened that allowed +74M people to think TRUMP was the best choice, particularly given his first term, and immediately fix the radicalized portion of the Republicans. That should have taken precedent over lip service executive orders undoing everything that Trump enacted. I think the failure to address these two items will come home to roost, and badly. I hope not, but I don't have much faith.
"How would I fix this if I was emperor?" "Easy. Look at China. Put them in an internment camp and if they die, they die." "So...genocide?" "THAT'S NOT WHAT I SAID." Sorry for the misunderstanding, I guess?
You said yourself that the reason this isn't a normal political climate is because of how violent the Republican base is. The way to deal with it is to not reward it. Govern in the best interest of the country, not the conspiracy-addled mob, and if the mob wants a fight, crush them. But I don't think they have the stomach for a real fight. Otherwise give them healthcare and decent wages and let their screams of tyranny and communism vanish into a wind of prosperity and sane governance.
Treating the dangerous side as dangerous doesn't mean coddle them. Either tone is lost horribly over the written word or comprehension is going out the window. My entire argument is that ignoring them and putting the burden on the Republicans to sort themselves out - like a child sitting in the corner - is a bad idea. If they were capable of sorting this out, they probably would have. They have a portion of their party that is violent and radicalized. You don't coddle that, but you don't ignore it, either. This is probably how it's going to be handled. I HOPE it works, and that the crazy side of the GOP dwindles as more people try to come to the table on their own and act as if both sides are responsible for governing again. My worry is that it will continue to polarize. If that happens, I don't know what candidate runs in 2024, but my guess is it will be an exquisitely bad choice.
I would argue that you could actually see the opposite as a result of cracking the republican party into 2 or more pieces. Without a larger republican party there is no need for the democrats to cater to the fringes of their own party to actually get enough votes to legislate anything. I think you see a gradual shift back towards center if that happens and we would likely hear much less from the lunatic fringes on both sides since they would no longer be kingmakers.
I have a question for anyone that might be able to provide insight? There’s a push from the more progressive side of the Dems to cancel all student debt. Sounds great! Lord knows it would help me a ton. But I feel like it’s a bandaid on the college financing/student loan issue in the first place. Warren and others want Biden to just do it, but what happens to all the people currently in college taking on new debt? And what about all the kids about to start school that need some way to pay for it? I guess my question is, what comes after wiping the slate clean? I haven’t seen a plan beyond “cancel student debt”.
Canceling student debt has a lot of cache among the very-online young-white-educated set, but basically no support among blue collar Democrats or older Democrats. We'll probably see a reform package at some point to try to keep college costs down and loan burdens under control, but the "forgive my debt, and fuck everyone who came before or after me" idea is a non starter I think.
Does anyone know if student debt is rolled up into other financial structures, a la the mortgage crisis? What would the ramifications be if the debt was wiped to the economy? Broad strokes, obviously. Would it be akin to wiping away $7B in mortgages, and collapse a bunch of funds and banks? Or would it just zero the totals on the creditors balance sheets? A less bombastic approach may be to remove the ridiculous clause that exempts federal student debt from bankruptcy. Let the people who can pay continue to do so, and let anyone underwater file for Chapter X (whatever one applies).
If you look at the historical lobbying by universities and credit card companies to remove the ability to discharge those debts in bankruptcy, you'll see that they highly correlate with an insane increase in college/university costs. As soon as they knew that they were practically guaranteed payback over someone's lifetime, they extended insane amounts of credit. I think there needs to be some sort of control over that, such as remove the protection of the lenders to make their offerings more reasonable. In the short term, I think the "get rid of student loans" was a short-term effort to get people out to vote.
My brother went back to grad school, and while he could easily pay out of pocket he took out a loan just in case loan forgiveness came through. If not, he'll just pay off the loan in full once the interest period starts and be no worse off. Any policy that can be gamed that easily is a bad policy imo.
That still doesn't solve the issue of schools charging outrageous fees for tuition and boarding. They would have no incentive to do so if the loans were covered by the government. As far as how they are structured, it's a bit different. There is no assets to repossess if you default on a school loan after you graduate, you just fuck up your credit. Plus, good luck getting the public to accept a tax increase to fund loan forgiveness. Higher education is a choice, not a right. This idea that everyone deserves a college a degree is stupid. The entire system needs to be reformed, not just throwing money at it and hoping the people you throw the money at vote for you in the next election.