Trump Trainwreck - Ongoing diary of betrayal and evil

[pbrower2a]

(02-14-2017, 07:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-09-2017, 01:00 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(02-06-2017, 04:09 PM)Galen Wrote:

(02-06-2017, 03:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Some people here have suggested that the Democrats and progressives must "pick their battles." I say no. The Democrats are going to need to block virtually everything, every day. They can't "pick their battles."

If Reid hadn't of eliminated the filibuster for most presidential appointments then the (Democrats -- insulting smear redacted) wouldn't be in this situation.  McConnell would leave the filibuster intact but knowing that his opponents will eliminate the filibuster when an nominee they favor comes up provide him with the incentive to go nuclear at this point.  The only reason they haven't now is because they are waiting to see if the Dims are going to be even remotely sane.

"Remotely sane" in your expression means that Democrats accept that their role in American political life is to acquiesce in whatever our would-be dictator Trump wants. America has never worked that way; I would prefer that the United States of America splinter into its fifty states even if some become fascist dictatorships than that the United States become one unitary Evil Empire as repressive as the Soviet Union at least in the Brezhnev era on non-economic matters. If you wonder what a society as repressive as the USSR under Brezhnev but with the freedom of economic indulgence for economic elites and near-serfdom for the poor looks like, then think of Chile under Pinochet.

Commie-style 'democratic centralism', which is anything but democratic, is fine with you so long as it serves your plutocratic dream. C'est vrai, n'est-ce pas?

(I really must practice my French in case I must move to Canada).

I've met people from Pinochet's Chile during the dictatorship.  They made very clear to me that I didn't want to visit such a political nightmare even if it has spectacular scenery, a rich culture, and (in its most populous areas) climates analogous to those off coastal California. Should I have to flee America for my political beliefs, Chile would be near the top of my list of countries in which I would want refuge -- because I would rather be where people appreciate political freedom enough to stay clear of demagogues.

Quote:I don't think the (Democrats -- insulting smear again redacted) are even remotely in a position to block everything.

We Democrats are operating with 48% representation in a political system in which the 52% now operate on the principle "We won and you are done -- forever!" which is utterly novel, and contrary to 220+ years of Constitutional government. But it is compatible with dictatorship, as in China, where the nominal opposition gets to have an ineffective presence with but 30%  representation. To be sure, the political culture has changed, at least with the Right becoming more rapacious and intolerant, something that this Crisis Era either corrects with a revival of freedom or endorses with the descent into tyranny.

Face it, Galen: you are no libertarian. You believe in a pure dominion of economic elites in political and economic life with the rest of Humanity obliged to suffer to the extent necessary for the maximal indulgence of those elites.

Who opened the door for 51% being able to call the shots (insult redacted)? What's your feelings, the Democrat could do it with Obama but the Republicans can't do it with Trump. Here's the deal, the population of wayward blue brats/emotional blue twits/clueless blue idiots and the party of who represent them better wake up to the fact that half of America is sick and tired of the blues. What's going to happen with America down the road, I don't know and don't much care to be honest. We want the flag, we want the Constitution, we want our army, we want our monuments and all the occupied land land that isn't blue on the map. What state do the blues want? Sacrificing a star or two to give Americans some internal peace and quiet isn't a big deal to me? If this boils down to the haves vs the have nots, blues are going to freak over how many haves there are in America. According to the last election, there are 62,000,000 for sure who voted for Trump and several million more who voted Libertarian.

1. We have Constitutional protections of the majority. 51% of the people do not have the right to use their power achieved in an election to exterminate, enslave, dispossess, exile, or disenfranchise the rest. Know well; even a lynch mob invariably makes its decisions on a majority vote.

2. Brats? Idiots? This time we Democrats got the smarter voters as measured in formal education. Although people can be intelligent and lack a quality education or even get a college degree (if they have an appropriate personality) while being an intellectual mediocrity, it is safe to recognize that Donald Trump made an appeal to contempt for formal learning. Donald Trump shows very infantile behavior as President.

3. A flag is just a piece of cloth. You can buy one at many stores. In America you can buy such offensive flags as those of Nazi Germany, the Confederacy, the Soviet Union, Ba'athist Iraq, Apartheid-era South Africa ... if you are into Star Trek, maybe the flags of the Klingon and Romulan Empires. Show a Nazi flag in Austria or Germany and you will be busted.

4. We liberal Democrats intend to stick around. The more that Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress and state legislatures act in crass contempt of big parts of America, the more likely it is that we will do well in the next election. Given the choice between people who act with a moral compass and people who have no moral compass, people will vote for those who show integrity. It is far safer.

5. It is not up to you to decide what the Constitution mean. We have appellate courts up to the Supreme Court to decide what due process is and to protect human rights from capricious decisions of state and federal legislation.

6. Haves versus have-nots? Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians with above-average incomes tend to vote very differently from white people in similar economic circumstances. I do not see ethnicity as a badge of honor. In any event, one might be able to divide people (not very neatly) into various economic classes - the destitute, the struggling, the people who have a little, and those who have on a big personal scale. Advantages in almost everything in life in so stratified a class society as America (and it is a class society) can be so severe that they keep people from developing their talents to the fullest.

Having decisions made for one because one comes from social disadvantage is not freedom. It is subjection. Poverty is real in America , and it stands to get even more intense as people who believe that no human suffering in the service of economic elites is excessive so long as it enhances the indulgence of economic elites can use the political process to squeeze everyone else.

A class society is a travesty of the idea of incentives to do good. I have every incentive to be born into a rich family. I did not get that choice as an infant.

7. Some of the 'haves' recognize that such goodies as they have are contingent upon the rest of America accepting their class privilege. But some have a conscience and are willing to share the wealth and economic opportunity out of either conscience or the cautionary view that angry masses pose the risk of a proletarian revolution.

8. Need I remind you of Presidential elections of 2008 and 2012, when President Obama won unambiguous majorities of the vote? Need I remind you that Donald Trump got a share of the total vote just slightly more than Dukakis won in 1988 or McCain got in 2008? That John Kerry and Mitt Romney both got bigger shares of the vote in 2004 and 2012 than did Trump in 2016?

Donald Trump acts as if he got an overwhelming majority and does nothing to earn the support of those who did not vote for him. Sure, Barack Obama tried and was ineffective, but at least he showed some respect for the other side, expecting them to hone his legislative proposals. President Trump sees disagreement as gross disloyalty to America.

We are in uncharted waters with the wrong map. The Captain is navigating the 'Screaming Sixties' (the zone of nearly-unbroken waters in teh latitudes between 50 and 60 South Latitudes with very strong winds) with a map of the comparatively-gentle Mediterranean Sea. He's trying to govern as a dictator in a country with no heritage of dictatorial rule.

We Democrats did not vote for a right-wing dictatorship that treats our principled opposition with contempt. We are trying to take America back as we can. We stand for the rights of people that the President has vilified. We are the adults.