What do you like best about a Democratic President?

[wufwugy]

I would like to more fully understand what you think a Democratic President would do better / fix / etc. such that you think voting for him/her is the best move to better the country.

[MadMojoMonkey]

What a loaded question.
Which Democratic President?
Jimmy Carter's pretty admirable and humbling as far as humans go, let alone presidents, let alone Democratic Presidents of the United States.


As for speculating what some unnamed person may do..?
I'd say, it's not about whatever group of popular liars they affiliate with, it's about whether or not they have vision for America.

[oskar]

What MMM said. The framing of that question shows that we have a monumentally different mindset. I don't care about the party affiliation of a president.

Some overarching issues are:

- Get money out of politics.
Doesn't take corporate donations. Takes on lobbying. Wants to overturn Citizens United.

- Stop for-profit wars.
Someone who understands the MIC and is capable of taking on its influence on Washington.

- No for-profit prisons.
Decriminalizing crimes that were made up in the past 60 years to feed the prison complex.

On all of the above Trump and Biden are virtually equal. Both have shown to be useless laissez-faire parents to the MIC.
One wrote the Crime Bill, the other one has done nothing but virtue signalling with pardons, but without offering structural change.
Both have put their policies up for sale.

[oskar]

I could even see a soft party shift happening this primary. Trump sees how popular M4A is and Biden has worked himself in a corner on the issue. Trump won't make M4A happen, that would be too smart, but he could just lie and say he's behind it.
He could also push for some form of UBI. Call it Trump Bucks. $1000 a month Trump Bucks for every citizen... and cruise to a landslide victory. There are many ways the Trump GOP can actually move to the left of Biden and pick up protest votes.

Not that any of that will last. I think 2nd Term Trump will overcharge authoritarianism and there won't be a beautiful way out of it... but he can run on progressive issues. He has already shown that he can turn on a dime and his followers will stay with him.

[MadMojoMonkey]

If Trump spent the time between now and election reforming the prison system, he'd get my vote.
He wont do that.
Typical numbskull Rep voter's are shit-their-pants scared about any whiff of affront to public safety, and are willing to cede any amount of personal freedom in the name of their cowardice.

Compare to the typical numbskull Dem voter who thinks money falls from the roof of gov't buildings and can be infinitely allotted to give their privileged asses more shit for free.

[CoccoBill]

You guys need a 3rd party.

[MadMojoMonkey]

The voting system is designed to disallow 3rd parties.

Whatever 3rd party has to compete monetarily with the big 2 for ads and campaign funding. Already a crippling disadvantage.

Then, unless that 3rd party is exactly equally pulling votes from the big 2, it just ends up undercutting it's next best thing.

E.g. if a 3rd party ran and was mostly equally divided, but slightly closer to Dem than Rep...
It's still not big enough to win. So what's the result?
It siphons more votes from the party R or D that was closest to it, and the other side wins.


To the voter Dem who is considering voting for the 3rd party it's literally risking it all on a slim chance to make big change when the outcome is almost certainly that your 3rd choice wins. The safest bet is to vote for your #2 choice so that you don't lose by getting neither candidate you want.

[oskar]

The green party has offered Bernie the nomination... for the second time. But he won't take it.

It's a massive setback. I have extreme doubts that Biden will pick a progressive VP, and that's the only way I think he has any chance to beat Trump... but if Comsky can find a silver lining, maybe it's not all bad:
https://twitter.com/WoobieTuesday/st...120316418?s=20

[Poopadoop]

"A vote for Biden is a vote for his VP."

On the main topic, America is an oligarchy pretending to be a democracy. Both parties are run with the interests of big business in mind, which is why even the Dems are to the right of centre of most every party that exists in every other Western country. There is no chance of real change happening under the current system afaict.

[MadMojoMonkey]

We're a bit ass-backwards right now in terms of what we say we are vs what we are.
We say we're the land of the free, but we have more of our own citizens in prisons than any other country we know of. Great. MAYBE we're not as bad as North Korea per capita. Maybe.
We say we're about family values, but love to get all frothy at the mouth blaming poor families for their state and denying them public aid or adequate schools.

Not that that's a new position for America to be in. Japanese interment camps during WWII, e.g.


We're kinda just like this. It's a matter of how long until another 1970's style period of public unrest and what the goals of that unrest are, I'd guess. Maybe whether we can figure that out before China decides it's time to buy us out.

[oskar]

[wufwugy]

Some overarching issues are:

- Get money out of politics.
Doesn't take corporate donations. Takes on lobbying. Wants to overturn Citizens United.

- Stop for-profit wars.
Someone who understands the MIC and is capable of taking on its influence on Washington.

- No for-profit prisons.
Decriminalizing crimes that were made up in the past 60 years to feed the prison complex.

These are good items. Thank you.

[wufwugy]

What a loaded question.

Like a baked potato.

I ask -- in part -- because I think that if I asked on this board if the generic Democratic President option would be better than Trump, the majority response would include "yes".

I'm looking for concrete reasons why that is.

Me personally? I wish that Trump was not running for reelection, and I wish that the Democratic Party's economic policies weren't as harmful as they are.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I haven't heard anyone here saying much about Biden. Except me critising his lack of vision.

I don't think we're as partisan as you imagine, here.

I think we believe in broadly humanist viewpoints, and that tends to align more with Dem arguments, but none of us are really pro democrat.


We're just starved for an intelligent viewpoint from a Rep perspective.

[CoccoBill]

I'd also like to point out most people here aren't even 'murican and could care more about either party.

[boost]

Generically, a POTUS Democrat means a chance at unstacking the court.

It doesn't matter what your politics are, one of the branches of government being severely unrepresentative leads to instability.

I'll put this out there in the hopes that someone can argue the other side: the mechanism by which supreme court justices are appointed is inherently broken. Because they serve for life, a few bad rolls of the dice (one party is afforded fewer chances to appoint), coupled with the ability of the Senate, which is by design unrepresentative, to stonewall any nomination, means given enough time we're guaranteed to have a stacked court.

[wufwugy]

I'll put this out there in the hopes that someone can argue the other side: the mechanism by which supreme court justices are appointed is inherently broken. Because they serve for life, a few bad rolls of the dice (one party is afforded fewer chances to appoint), coupled with the ability of the Senate, which is by design unrepresentative, to stonewall any nomination, means given enough time we're guaranteed to have a stacked court.

The policy is certainly broken for the reasons you list.

What I'm less sure about is how poor the effects caused by this broken system are. What I'm getting at is that the court -- at least on big ticket items -- doesn't overrule the popular direction.

The reason is because the court has no literal power to enforce anything. It can only review. If the court rules too strongly against the sentiments of those with power (the executive branch and legislative branch), those with power can flat out ignore the ruling.

As you can tell, this would create a total nightmare of a mess, in part because it would cause the supreme court to lose its legitimacy.

To a big degree, this means that whose on the court doesn't matter as much as people think, because to maintain legitimacy sometimes one of the jurists has to swing to the other side. We've seen this effect in real time with John Roberts, who was a staunch conservative when appointed. Yet this staunch conservative became a regular swing voter, and he was the swing vote to uphold Obamacare.

That was NEVER supposed to happen according to GOP politicians and voters. Roberts is viewed as a traitor now. And if we went back to 2005 and told conservatives that Roberts would uphold the most anti-conservative big ticket law in modern history, we'd get laughed out of the building.

Roberts had no choice but to uphold the law. If he voted with the conservatives to strike down the law, the Obama administration (and voters) would have balked, and then the judiciary would be FUCKED.

[wufwugy]

^^ Note that this is only for big ticket items. The court has final say because executive, legislative (and the people) let it have that final say. If we stopped letting the court have final say, the court couldn't do anything about it.

On small ticket items, there's not much visibility, so the leanings of those on the court really matters since they wouldn't lose legitimacy nearly as easily regardless of how they rule.

[wufwugy]

Speaking of the court, if RBG steps down during Trump's second term (very likely), it'll be the biggest political event of our lifetime.

The Shitshow Sham of painting Kavanaugh as a serial rapist will be pennies in comparison to the galactic circus of when Trump replaces Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I don't recall hearing anything about "serial" rapist. Just one accusation, not a pattern of facts.


***
The notion that SCOTUS should be "balanced" in terms of 2 parties is nonsense. That was never its design intent.

The notion that a political minority deserves equal representation as the majority doesn't sound too American, to me.

[boost]

I don't recall hearing anything about "serial" rapist. Just one accusation, not a pattern of facts.


***
The notion that SCOTUS should be "balanced" in terms of 2 parties is nonsense. That was never its design intent.

The notion that a political minority deserves equal representation as the majority doesn't sound too American, to me.

Did I use the term "balanced"? My key point was that the supreme court, if it is not ideologically out of step with the public at this point, it certainly will be with another Federalist Society appointee replacing a swing or left learning justice. Either way, design intent and real world function are two different things. The founders didn't intend to design a two party system, yet here we are, two parties appears to be the only stable state of the system.

As for your second sentiment, I'm not sure how it relates to the first.

[boost]

Speaking of the court, if RBG steps down during Trump's second term (very likely), it'll be the biggest political event of our lifetime.

The Shitshow Sham of painting Kavanaugh as a serial rapist will be pennies in comparison to the galactic circus of when Trump replaces Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Desperate times...

I may be reading too much into it, but I feel like I can hear the glee in your voice at the idea-- true for you or not, here's the thing, you should be worried about a stacked court too. The Federalists Society is a response to John Roberts. The list is an ideological purity litmus. Maybe we (not lefties, but all of us) will luck out and get a Roberts out of Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, but I think it's naive to take it as a given.

As for a political shitshow, the much more interesting hypothetical for popcorn munching would be how the McConnell justifies voting on RBG's replacement if she resigns or dies before the election. Possibly even more interesting would be if Trump loses in November, she dies/resigns, and as a lame duck he nominates a candidate.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Did I use the term "balanced"? My key point was that the supreme court, if it is not ideologically out of step with the public at this point, it certainly will be with another Federalist Society appointee replacing a swing or left learning justice. Either way, design intent and real world function are two different things. The founders didn't intend to design a two party system, yet here we are, two parties appears to be the only stable state of the system.

As for your second sentiment, I'm not sure how it relates to the first.

I am skeptical that out of step with what you and I believe is out of step with the majority of Americans. It seems more likely to me that you and I are out of step with the majority.

I'm thought the founders did set up the Constitution for a 2 party system. I'm willing to be corrected, but too lazy to do the work myself.

My 2nd statement was just saying that if you and I are the ones that are out of step with the majority, then we have no reason to expect SCOTUS to be making rulings in favor of our perspectives.

[boost]

I am skeptical that out of step with what you and I believe is out of step with the majority of Americans. It seems more likely to me that you and I are out of step with the majority.

I'm curious what leads you to believe this is more likely. Here's what informs my opinion: A significant voting block, but not the totality of the party which has consistently received a minority of votes in the last several presidential elections has been animated by the promise of judges that align with them. To maintain the vote of this demographic, this party has elected to only nominate justices that have passed a stringent ideological litmus test. By luck of the draw and by gaming the system (blocking the nominations of the other party) this party has been able to appoint more justices than an even distribution would allow. These justices have been selected by a subset of the minority party.

I'm thought the founders did set up the Constitution for a 2 party system. I'm willing to be corrected, but too lazy to do the work myself.

No. Washington explicitly was against factions, what we know call parties. They were seen as antithetical to the American experiment, as they would result in partisan squabbling at the cost of better governance. The elected should serve their constituencies-- having loyalties to a faction or party creates a clear conflict.

My 2nd statement was just saying that if you and I are the ones that are out of step with the majority, then we have no reason to expect SCOTUS to be making rulings in favor of our perspectives.

I don't grant your premise that the majority of the population is happy with the conservative weighted supreme court, but at the same time I also don't find your appeal to unchecked democracy convincing.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I'm curious what leads you to believe this is more likely. Here's what informs my opinion: A significant voting block, but not the totality of the party which has consistently received a minority of votes in the last several presidential elections has been animated by the promise of judges that align with them. To maintain the vote of this demographic, this party has elected to only nominate justices that have passed a stringent ideological litmus test. By luck of the draw and by gaming the system (blocking the nominations of the other party) this party has been able to appoint more justices than an even distribution would allow. These justices have been selected by a subset of the minority party.

I mean... you make excellent points, but you seem really invested in the R vs D thing as the right-and-good place to draw the line of who vs. who.
I really don't think there's that much difference between R's and D's at the top levels of government. The words they use are different, but their actions are the same.

I'm talking about having a generally humanist view on the world vs. whatever exclusionism, broadly, for lack of a better word, gets both R's and D's in the same level of fervor.

[MadMojoMonkey]

No. Washington explicitly was against factions, what we know call parties. They were seen as antithetical to the American experiment, as they would result in partisan squabbling at the cost of better governance. The elected should serve their constituencies-- having loyalties to a faction or party creates a clear conflict.

OK.

Kinda hard to see it go any other way, given the system they put in place, though.
They were only people, after all. Times have changed.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I don't grant your premise that the majority of the population is happy with the conservative weighted supreme court, but at the same time I also don't find your appeal to unchecked democracy convincing.

I'm not really in line with your acceptance of the political narrative as presented in the media.
C'mon.
Biden is the Dem candidate.

Just.
SMH.

The American Dems have picked Biden.


And you think they're your team in this? You think those people's pick for SCOTUS has you in mind?

[wufwugy]

The court has become so politicized.

It's not about the Constitution anymore.