Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[AlabamAlum]

[iam416]

[hack]

Like this, folks. Just like this. The forum would be so much better if more of you were so able to accurately describe your thoughts and reasoning...

[Jeff Buchanan]

New York Times

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/brett-kavanaugh-aftermath/

Hannity

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/hillary-clinton-civility-can-start-again-when-democrats-take-congress/

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/dianne-feinstein-brett-kavanaugh-accusation-confirmation-hearings/

[iam416]

Williamson's article was excellent.

[hack]

Right. ``How dare you stand in our way whilst we remove your reproductive rights" is an easy one to argue though. I'd like to see him take one something with a harder degree of difficulty, such as ``People who share our ideology can also be corrupt AF".

I certainly do hope that BK is forever tarred by his own past and actions. There's little doubt that a fraction of the investigative energy applied to Hillary Clinton will be enough to prove the extent to which he'll be a stain on the court's legacy. He's a gift to Democratic campaigns everywhere. I also feel there's little doubt that the Ds will squander this new tool.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Maybe more than party, the split has become an urban/rural one, the most extreme since maybe the late 1800's when you had a bunch of oddball third political parties formed around populism or reform causes. See the Greenback Party or the Populist Party.

[hack]

Maybe more than party, the split has become an urban/rural one, the most extreme since maybe the late 1800's when you had a bunch of oddball third political parties formed around populism or reform causes. See the Greenback Party or the Populist Party.

i wish it wasn't an us-or-them proposition, but feels like that ship has sailed, so, IMO, this split is to be encouraged. Heavy repetition of concepts like 67% of senators representing 33% of population, or whatever the actual ratio is. Four SCOTUS justices appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. Etc, etc. I'd also be campaigning in cities with the reverse strategy most national candidates use. Once you're through the primries, spend your time in the urban and suburban areas of swing states talking about how all candidates do is visit state fairs when the REAL sale of the earth in this country are the people that squeeze into shitbox apartments and commute to crappy service jobs. Not the ones that sit out in the country, isolated, ignorant, and unique in human history for their insistence that work should come to them and not the other way around. They can stay out there and rot away, or bootstrap their way to where the jobs are, IMO.

There's great stuff on the table to exploit here, and all of it's true and verifiable.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Also, I would add the acrimony is far from unparalleled and it can be argued that the previous era was in fact the aberration in American history. A "liberal consensus" in America was built by FDR's coalition and it took decades for conservative, anti-government forces to really mount a comeback (Eisenhower and Nixon would be considered liberals today). That's especially true on foreign policy where neither party had serious differences of opinion on fighting the Cold War until the later Vietnam years.

Or to put it another way, centrists controlled both parties from Pearl Harbor up until probably Jimmy Carter. By that time the old Post-WWII order was increasingly viewed as a failure and extremists in both parties turned on the centrists.

[iam416]

I dunno, DSL. Where is the majority of the population in Texas? Urban, right? What about Ohio? Or Georgia? or Alabama? There's no question there is an urban/rural split, but the urban areas aren't at all alike. The Ds are locked into their bullshit identity politics and intersectionality asshattery along with a healthy dose of $40 trillion in benefits "not socialism". That's not going to change. That's only going to get more pronounced.

We talke awhile about the future of the "Big Ten" states. I think there's a real danger the "blue wall" is going to crumble. permanently. They'll retain Minnesota, but Michigan and Wisconsin are teetering.

I'm always astounded by how tone deaf those coastal urban #GentryProgs are.

[hack]

Is that the Jill Lepore argument? I heard her talking about it in NPR a few weeks back.

[Kapture1]

how about it fellas?

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[iam416]

Also, I would add the acrimony is far from unparalleled and it can be argued that the previous era was in fact the aberration in American history. A "liberal consensus" in America was built by FDR's coalition and it took decades for conservative, anti-government forces to really mount a comeback (Eisenhower and Nixon would be considered liberals today). That's especially true on foreign policy where neither party had serious differences of opinion on fighting the Cold War until the later Vietnam years.

Or to put it another way, centrists controlled both parties from Pearl Harbor up until probably Jimmy Carter. By that time the old Post-WWII order was increasingly viewed as a failure and extremists in both parties turned on the centrists.

Yeah, I was just going to post that the current primary system is a real problem in so far as it pushes up the edges. I'd also agree this isn't anything too odd in terms of acrimony. The Rs hated, I mean hated FDR and even made gains on him by the late 1930s. Truman was hated. LBJ was hated. Nixon was hated. Carter was hated. My god did my family hate Reagan. And so on. The difference, maybe, is that, as you said, there isn't a governable center in either party. So, the Rs can't manage the tea party folks and the Ds won't be able to manage to Socialists or, alternatively, the Socialists won't be able to manage the traditional Ds.

[hack]

I'm always astounded by how tone deaf those coastal urban #GentryProgs are.

You should read Larry Summers in today's FT. The very definition of.

I don't think you know what socialism actually is. But I do agree with your point about identity politics, and I too wish it would stop. Voters, too, need to follow the money. Financial security solves a whole lot of social issues.

[Jeff Buchanan]

........ The difference, maybe, is that, as you said, there isn't a governable center in either party. So, the Rs can't manage the tea party folks and the Ds won't be able to manage to Socialists or, alternatively, the Socialists won't be able to manage the traditional Ds.

This ..... it's central to the political state of affairs. The slant you take though is a bit different than mine and mine is that government can't govern given the circumstance you describe. There is simply a huge gap between what the Rs and D's want. They both want power to define the course of the nation and neither side is willing to find middle ground.

I think that characterizes this political age more than that of FDR or Reagan at the opposites. Both of these President's whether you agree with their politics or not, governed and had a Congress that facilitated governance. What we have today is terribly far from that ideal.