The 2024 Us Presidential Election Thread

[wonko the sane?]

We wanted the star trek "ending". We wanted the outcome where the problems were actually addressed, solved, and done so to everyones benefit. We wanted a society that saw the individual value of human beings AS human beings, and not what they contributed to someone elses bottom line or how many zeros were in their bank account.

And I say: we got the star trek ending. We're the mirror universe empire. It's the only explanation.

 

[Shadewing]

We wanted the star trek "ending". We wanted the outcome where the problems were actually addressed, solved, and done so to everyones benefit. We wanted a society that saw the individual value of human beings AS human beings, and not what they contributed to someone elses bottom line or how many zeros were in their bank account.

And I say: we got the star trek ending. We're the mirror universe empire. It's the only explanation.

Remember before then, are thing like the Bell Riots and WW3,and the worlds basically nuked back to the stone age. We can still have the Star Trek ending.

 

[Ungnome]

Yup, and despite some of the events being different, we are closer to WWIII than at any time since the cold war *sigh*

 

[CoffeeHorse]

We'll be fine. Trump just wants to build an Iron Dome now, for some reason. And massively expand our nuclear arsenal, for some reason. And he keeps describing things as a new Manhattan project, for some reason...

 

[Ungnome]

What would a new Manhattan project be, anyway, Antimatter weapons? Artificial singularities? Guy is friggin animated Cobra Commander.

 

[Pocket]

Remember before then, are thing like the Bell Riots and WW3,and the worlds basically nuked back to the stone age. We can still have the Star Trek ending.

Even Roddenberry knew the path to utopia isn't through peace.

 

[Thylacine 2000]

Can we PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop referring to ******* mid center politicians like Sanders, Warren, and AOC as “far-left”?

They want a living wage and affordable Healthcare. Stuff almost every other country on the planet makes great strides towards providing.

They don’t want to seize the means of production. They don’t want to outlaw Capitalism. They don’t want to bomb animal testing sites.

Just because we *do* have a far right with almost total Government control that wants to build camps and brutalize minorities doesn’t mean we have a “far left” of equal power and influence.

On abortion, immigration, and LGBT rights, the Democrats are probably the farthest left national governing party in the world.

Countries acting like they are more progressive than America for the most part are just scooting by on being so ethno-religiously homogenous and so low in population that nobody minds having a strong social safety net for other people who are just like them.

 

[MrBlud]

That is actually disturbingly plausible.

 

[Axaday]

Monday : NBC Calls: 205 Blue, 213 Red
My Calls: 3 Blue, 7 Red ----> 208 - 220, GOP in control
7 Seats still too close to call lean 5 Blue, 2 Red -----------> My best guess is 213 - 222, a net gain of 1 seat for the Republicans

NBC Calls: 207 Blue, 216 Red
My Calls: 2 Blue, 6 Red ----> 209 - 222, GOP in control
4 Seats still too close to call lean 3 Blue, 1 Red -----------> My best guess is 212 - 223, a net gain of 2 seats for the Republicans

 

[Axaday]

On abortion, immigration, and LGBT rights, the Democrats are probably the farthest left national governing party in the world.

Countries acting like they are more progressive than America for the most part are just scooting by on being so ethno-religiously homogenous and so low in population that nobody minds having a strong social safety net for other people who are just like them.

Oh.

 

[Axaday]

Can we PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop referring to ******* mid center politicians like Sanders, Warren, and AOC as “far-left”?

They want a living wage and affordable Healthcare. Stuff almost every other country on the planet makes great strides towards providing.

They don’t want to seize the means of production. They don’t want to outlaw Capitalism. They don’t want to bomb animal testing sites.

Just because we *do* have a far right with almost total Government control that wants to build camps and brutalize minorities doesn’t mean we have a “far left” of equal power and influence.

When defining "far-left" you do not have to get out a poster board and speculate the most extreme positions possible on every issue you can think of. You also don't have to compere to Norway. The rule of thumb should be that the common speech is correct, not the mathematical possibilities. In an open democracy, you will not NOT have far left and far right, because each of those will be defined as the politicians with the most positions on that side or the the most extreme positions on that side on issues that have more spectrum. The existence of other countries that are very socialist doesn't make Democrats centrists any more than the existence of counties with actually open autocracies and religious oppression make MTG centrist. Americans do not vote for the Ayatollah in Iran or the Prime Minister of Norway. AOC is definitely far left in America.

 

[Anonymous X]

Looked up a brief description of what AOC believes in on Wikipedia (which, yes, I realise is itself a flawed resource):

So, worker cooperatives, something that America has anyway, and isn’t incompatible with free-market capitalism. (We have a dedicated political party in parliament advocating those, FWIW.) Universal healthcare, which all other industrialised nations have away, and works well from my experience. Free higher education, well, other countries have that, including mine until the late 1990s. Jobs guarantee, well, that clashes with the post-1979 global economic consensus and is more like New Deal style Keynesian economics, but is hardly Marxist-Leninism. Abolishing ICE, have no idea about that personally, but I’m sure lots of government departments need reforming and replacing. I don’t see an extremist here. (Maybe that’s because I’m a British person who votes centre-left, but there we go.)

edit: and Green New Deal, if that means taking climate change seriously while using the transition to create new industries and jobs and preserve the market economy, that is hardly something unreasonable.

 

[Dekafox]

When defining "far-left" you do not have to get out a poster board and speculate the most extreme positions possible on every issue you can think of. You also don't have to compere to Norway. The rule of thumb should be that the common speech is correct, not the mathematical possibilities. In an open democracy, you will not NOT have far left and far right, because each of those will be defined as the politicians with the most positions on that side or the the most extreme positions on that side on issues that have more spectrum. The existence of other countries that are very socialist doesn't make Democrats centrists any more than the existence of counties with actually open autocracies and religious oppression make MTG centrist. Americans do not vote for the Ayatollah in Iran or the Prime Minister of Norway. AOC is definitely far left in America.

It would have been faster to say "they're far left in relation to the current Overton WIndow in the US". That's been getting dragged to the right arguably since FDR in a lot of ways, and most people would agree since Reagan, I think? I could see an argument for AOC or Sanders using that parameer, but I would still say Warren is not "far left" compared to the pre-election Overton window, just left at worst. Post-election, we'll have to see how far the current Republican party drags it in the next two to four years and if the Dems even try to start pushing it back left at all after that.

 

[Ultra Magnus13]

It would have been faster to say "they're far left in relation to the current Overton WIndow in the US". That's been getting dragged to the right arguably since FDR in a lot of ways, and most people would agree since Reagan, I think? I could see an argument for AOC or Sanders using that parameer, but I would still say Warren is not "far left" compared to the pre-election Overton window, just left at worst. Post-election, we'll have to see how far the current Republican party drags it in the next two to four years and if the Dems even try to start pushing it back left at all after that.

From my casual observations, it seems to me both sides are pushing out.

The left is further left than its ever been in my lifetime, the right is further right than its ever been in my lifetime.

I think that around the time of the first Clinton presidency the center was too crowded, so you saw both sides pushing outwards, trying to claim easy votes by being the only one in that area of the field, instead of being the best candidate, with only nuanced differences from your opponent.

I think Obama's first term saw the right WAY out right with the Tea Party stuff. I'm not sure what started driving the left further left, but it seemed to happen towards the end of Obama's first term-beginning of his second. Instead of the bulk of Dems taking over the less crowded middle of the field, they shifted a bunch of the team to the left. Currently the middle is wide open, and while the Republicans didn't move there team in, they flexed into it more than the Dems did this round.

 

[Axaday]

Looked up a brief description of what AOC believes in on Wikipedia (which, yes, I realise is itself a flawed resource):
View attachment 24279
So, worker cooperatives, something that America has anyway, and isn’t incompatible with free-market capitalism. (We have a dedicated political party in parliament advocating those, FWIW.) Universal healthcare, which all other industrialised nations have away, and works well from my experience. Free higher education, well, other countries have that, including mine until the late 1990s. Jobs guarantee, well, that clashed with the post-1979 global economic consensus and more like New Deal style Keynesian economics, but is hardly Marxist-Leninism. Abolishing ICE, have no idea about that personally, but I’m sure lots of government departments need reforming and replacing. I don’t see an extremist here. (Maybe that’s because I’m a British person who votes centre-left, but there we go.)

I used the word "extreme" and you picked up the word "extremist" and they don't mean the same thing to me. When I said extreme, I mean the greatest difference from the median view. If I had said extremist, I would have meant a position that is untenably distant from the norm. To your average American free college sounds like a pipedream. Jobs guarentee, I don't even know what that means, but to your average Joe it sounds like something from a movie. The average American does not know what the Green New Deal is. Just that it is was a crazy idea pushed by a small amount of Democrats that Biden disavowed. That marks it out as a more "extreme" position on energy or something. I am not calling AOC an extremist, but her positions on issues set her at the far left among recognized American political leaders and it isn't inaccurate to call her "far left" just because other countries or theoreticians have policies or ideas that are even further. To throw out the term because the USA is a less progressive country just makes it more difficult to communicate and delineate positions.

It would be just as simple for someone to ask why people act like the Freedom Caucas are "far right" when China has a President for Life. North Korea has a President for Life who got the job when his dad died. Iran and Afghanistan have a religious sect actually in charge. The UAE is rules by hereditary Emirs. Various other Arab states also. Many Arab countries have very severe restrictions on women. There are countries in the world where voting has never happened. Now, I get it that people are very suspicious that all of these things are things the Freedom Caucus and Trump would like, but if they would, they haven't taken the position publicly. Marjorie Taylor-Greene doesn't want women to have to cover their faces in public. She doesn't want women not to be able to vote either. Someone posted a YouTube of a guy who said publicly that women shouldn't vote, but you aren't going to hear it debated on the Senate floor. Freedom Caucus will give an undue influence to Christianity, but they are not going to let the President of the Southern Baptist Convention veto legislation. There is ALL KINDS of further right stuff around the world, but it doesn't make the Freedom Caucus not "The Far Right" when we are talking about American politics.

 

[G.B.Blackrock]

Hillary Clinton didn't seem to have a mandate.

Did I really have to add "and won the election" to that?

The point is that "mandate" is not a well-defined term. It's a thing that pundits like to talk about, but there's no clear definition.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Hey blackrock, I was gonna chide you for your statement with a link to dictionary.com...

But yeah: even the extant dictionary definitions are powerfully vague. So... well done mate. I learned something.

 

[G.B.Blackrock]

What a surprise, what the people actually want as an alternative to right-wing populism is left-wing populism. Now if we can only find more than two or three politicians who actually support such policies and are capable of winning an election. And, so long as I'm wishful thinking, it'd be nice if they didn't also openly associate with people who support genocide...

Honestly, my takeaway from this is less that people want "populism" (of either ideological stripe) and more that they want "radicalism." Folks are upset with how things are, and are apparently willing to take drastic measures just to make sure things are different (this also means that, when the left is in power, "far left" isn't the option people will gravitate to).

It's foolish in the extreme, and I'm not ready to listen to those who keep telling me to stop saying so because people won't vote my way if I do. It's still the truth.

 

[Pocket]

There was a poll last year showing somewhere between 60 and 70% of Americans wanting universal healthcare. Meanwhile only a minority of Democrats in Congress (and obviously 0% of Republicans) said they would vote for it. If that's not a clear sign of what's wrong with the Democratic Party and why they're not getting the support they believe they deserve, I don't know what is.

 

[Thylacine 2000]

There was a poll last year showing somewhere between 60 and 70% of Americans wanting universal healthcare. Meanwhile only a minority of Democrats in Congress (and obviously 0% of Republicans) said they would vote for it. If that's not a clear sign of what's wrong with the Democratic Party and why they're not getting the support they believe they deserve, I don't know what is.

What is "universal healthcare"? How is it paid for and who gets it? What were the reasons why so many Congressmen were against it, and do the Americans being polled know those reasons?

Bear in mind that most people are stupid, and most summaries of political issues are both stupid and dishonest. Somebody could want to "save the environment" but be against George W. Bush's "Healthy Forests Initiative."