United States Politics Thread 46

[Linguoboy]

I understand the rationale of lesser evil voting, i've been doing it for years... but eventually, sometimes, a lesser evil is evil enough that it's not very meaningfully different from a greater evil, except in like controversial-but-not-very-transcendent issues.

And, honestly, I don't think we're anywhere near that point yet.

Biden's heel turn on the railways strike is disappointing to say the least, but it's willful blindness to focus on that and ignore everything else his administration has done to support labour. The NLRB under Trump was terrible. At the end of his term, it had no Democrats at all and released a string of anti-labour decisions. No sooner has Biden been sworn in, however, but the General Counsel--who was actually involved in breaking the air traffic controllers' strike--was fired and replaced. In the past year, more illegally-terminated workers have been reinstated than during Trump's entire term of office. According to the legal team for our local, a big reason why the University didn't put up more of a fight against our unionisation effort last fall is that they knew the NRLB was looking over their shoulders and wasn't going to indulge their shenanigans. It's overturned some of the anti-labour rulings of the past several years and is actively reexamining the question of who is and who isn't an independent contractor, with an eye to expanding the definition of who is an "employee" (and, therefore, eligible to unionise). Needless to say, that would be a huge gain for some of the most exploited workers in the country.

So, yeah, I'm still generally not happy with Democratic politicians' mimsy approach to making people's lives better, but I'm not going to write their efforts off as nugatory anytime soon.

[Travis B.]

I understand the rationale of lesser evil voting, i've been doing it for years... but eventually, sometimes, a lesser evil is evil enough that it's not very meaningfully different from a greater evil, except in like controversial-but-not-very-transcendent issues.

And, honestly, I don't think we're anywhere near that point yet.

Biden's heel turn on the railways strike is disappointing to say the least, but it's willful blindness to focus on that and ignore everything else his administration has done to support labour. The NLRB under Trump was terrible. At the end of his term, it had no Democrats at all and released a string of anti-labour decisions. No sooner has Biden been sworn in, however, but the General Counsel--who was actually involved in breaking the air traffic controllers' strike--was fired and replaced. In the past year, more illegally-terminated workers have been reinstated than during Trump's entire term of office. According to the legal team for our local, a big reason why the University didn't put up more of a fight against our unionisation effort last fall is that they knew the NRLB was looking over their shoulders and wasn't going to indulge their shenanigans. It's overturned some of the anti-labour rulings of the past several years and is actively reexamining the question of who is and who isn't an independent contractor, with an eye to expanding the definition of who is an "employee" (and, therefore, eligible to unionise). Needless to say, that would be a huge gain for some of the most exploited workers in the country.

So, yeah, I'm still generally not happy with Democratic politicians' mimsy approach to making people's lives better, but I'm not going to write their efforts off as nugatory anytime soon.

I am completely with you here. I could complain about how Biden and the Democrats are not working to bring about the end of capitalism and then conclude that "the Democrats and Republicans are roughly the same", but in the end this would only make things worse, not better, for the working class and the people in general.

[Linguoboy]

Oh, earlier today Biden just announced a bailout of the Teamsters' pension fund to the tune of $36 billion dollars. Now, I have some issues with this--it represents a huge transfer of wealth from public coffers toward a population that is overwhelmingly elderly and white and arguably not the most deserving of such largess and smacks of bit of political calculation. But things were so bad that we were looking at cuts to annual benefits of up to 60% for over half a million households, which would have meant a sizable boost in the number of indigent seniors in some already troubled areas. (The pensioners are all over the map, but concentrated in the Rust Belt.)

I think my biggest issue with Democratic social plans is their obsession with merit. They've completely assimilated Republican notions of the "deserving poor", so there's the will to fund union pension plans (because their members "earned it") but not the commitment to use an equity lens to consider who is covered by these plans and why and whether it would be better (ethically and economically) to commit the funds to more generally-beneficial schemes like UBI.

[Linguoboy]

Hey, are we ready to discard the stereotype of the GOP having more party discipline than the Democrats yet?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Might not be unreasonable.

[zompist]

I think the idea of GOP discipline was kinda shattered when they couldn't repeal Obamacare under Trump.

It's fun to see GOPers fighting each other, but it's hard to see anything good coming out of it. To paraphrase Marvin the Android, McCarthy is the worst, and if they pick someone else, that guy will also be the worst.

[Moose-tache]

The difference in party squabbling is: the Democrats are a bunch of people who should obviously be allies but act like enemies, while the Republicans are a bunch of people who should obviously be enemies. It's a miracle that a party full of hungry tigers and large hunks of meat doesn't have more in-fighting than it does.

[Raphael]

The difference in party squabbling is: the Democrats are a bunch of people who should obviously be allies but act like enemies, while the Republicans are a bunch of people who should obviously be enemies. It's a miracle that a party full of hungry tigers and large hunks of meat doesn't have more in-fighting than it does.

No disagreement about the hungry tigers, but who in the Republican Party reminds you of large hunks of meat?

[Moose-tache]

The difference in party squabbling is: the Democrats are a bunch of people who should obviously be allies but act like enemies, while the Republicans are a bunch of people who should obviously be enemies. It's a miracle that a party full of hungry tigers and large hunks of meat doesn't have more in-fighting than it does.

No disagreement about the hungry tigers, but who in the Republican Party reminds you of large hunks of meat?

Republicans routinely get about half of non-college educated voters, with that figure rising to two thirds in some of the historically most preyed-upon parts of the country, like Appalachia. Basically, the people who would have been beat up by the Pinkertons and the people who would have hired the Pinkertons are friends now and are trying to agree on economic policy. And shockingly, they agree most of the time, at least when there's a convenient boogy man. I was going to try to make a German hypothetical parallel, but then I remembered your country routinely has coallitions that are, like, half matter half anti-matter, so I gave up. Just trust me it's not supposed to be working this well.

[masako]

It's fun to see GOPers fighting each other, but it's hard to see anything good coming out of it.

I was talking to a family friend and trying to explain that while this stuff seems adolescent and silly, it will have legitimate consequences on the functioning of the federal government. While the light given off by the Shaudenfruede rivals the power of ten suns, it makes Congress look even worse (however impossible that seems) and further erodes any respect we may have been slowly eking back from the 2016-2020 era.

[Travis B.]

The difference in party squabbling is: the Democrats are a bunch of people who should obviously be allies but act like enemies, while the Republicans are a bunch of people who should obviously be enemies. It's a miracle that a party full of hungry tigers and large hunks of meat doesn't have more in-fighting than it does.

No disagreement about the hungry tigers, but who in the Republican Party reminds you of large hunks of meat?

Republicans routinely get about half of non-college educated voters, with that figure rising to two thirds in some of the historically most preyed-upon parts of the country, like Appalachia. Basically, the people who would have been beat up by the Pinkertons and the people who would have hired the Pinkertons are friends now and are trying to agree on economic policy. And shockingly, they agree most of the time, at least when there's a convenient boogy man. I was going to try to make a German hypothetical parallel, but then I remembered your country routinely has coallitions that are, like, half matter half anti-matter, so I gave up. Just trust me it's not supposed to be working this well.

This is commonly the case when it comes to right-wing populism - people who obviously should be left-wing, people whose self-interest is best served by left-wing policies, are instead pulled in by right-wing populists, who turn different groups of working-class and lower-class people against one another and proceed to exploit this. The right is composed of enemies, people who are against the actual interests of the people, and of fools, people who have been deluded into following the former despite their policies actually being against their own self-interest, as I like to say.

[Linguoboy]

It's fun to see GOPers fighting each other, but it's hard to see anything good coming out of it.

I was talking to a family friend and trying to explain that while this stuff seems adolescent and silly, it will have legitimate consequences on the functioning of the federal government. While the light given off by the Shaudenfruede rivals the power of ten suns, it makes Congress look even worse (however impossible that seems) and further erodes any respect we may have been slowly eking back from the 2016-2020 era.

Yeah, it's hard to take delight in something which--while obviously terrible for Republicans ("Hey, you know how our extremism got us pasted in the mid-terms? How about we double down on it before the next Presidential election!")--is also nearly as bad for the country as a whole. There is once again a real chance that the "party of fiscal responsibility" could fail to raise the debt ceiling--something absolutely unthinkable for most of my lifetime--in addition to causing another government shutdown.

In a parliamentary system, we could fix the fact that the only functioning national party doesn't have a governing majority with a snap election, but here we're just stuck. The best we can hope for is that enough of the 22 GOP representatives from districts that Biden carried in 2020 have more sense of self-preservation than party loyalty to outweigh the most loony of the 54-member Freedom Caucus. I don't like those odds.

[Raphael]

Moose-tache: Ah, now I get what you mean! Of course you're right on that.

people who obviously should be left-wing, people whose self-interest is best served by left-wing policies,

[...]

and of fools, people who have been deluded into following the former despite their policies actually being against their own self-interest, as I like to say.

By "self-interest", in this context, you seem to mean mainly economic self-interest. Now, how on Earth do you get the idea that people care the slightest bit about their economic self-interest? Ok, sometimes they do. But often, people care first and foremost about their social status. Even when people want to get a lot of money, often, the reason why they want to get a lot of money is that they think having a lot of money will give them a high social status.

And this is where right-wing propaganda enters the picture. For a long time, right-wingers have successfully convinced parts of the working class that the Right sees them as having a high social status, while those evil left-wing academics supposedly try to relegate them to a low social status.

Of course there's also the racial aspect. For working class white people, the Right can offer them a social status at the top of the "racial hierarchy", which is something the Left can't really do.

[masako]

I don't like those odds.

Nor I.

The striking thing to me is that more than a few of the EsTabLiShMeNt GOP are apparently well-educated lawyer-types. They know full well (or at the very least have some inkling) that these self-inflicted political cuts will get infected and cause gangrene sooner rather than later, which only lends to the notion that they're in DC for personal gain, and not to actually govern...pushing the citizenry even further down Discontentment Mt.

I do wonder how fervent the elected Trump supporters really are though, and I'd wager they'll gladly throw him away in favor of a more popular trump-esque candidate *cough DeSantis* because while they claim loyalty, they also - as you point out - claim to know how to handle a budget.

[Raphael]

The best we can hope for is that enough of the 22 GOP representatives from districts that Biden carried in 2020 have more sense of self-preservation than party loyalty to outweigh the most loony of the 54-member Freedom Caucus. I don't like those odds.

Given that the GOP leadership gets to decide what proposals ever get voted on in the first place, I'm not even sure that the "best case scenario" you lay out would be enough.

[Linguoboy]

The best we can hope for is that enough of the 22 GOP representatives from districts that Biden carried in 2020 have more sense of self-preservation than party loyalty to outweigh the most loony of the 54-member Freedom Caucus. I don't like those odds.

Given that the GOP leadership gets to decide what proposals ever get voted on in the first place, I'm not even sure that the "best case scenario" you lay out would be enough.

The leadership (such as it is) does actually show some understanding of what's at stake (they have investments to protect, after all) and, while they're too craven to publicly confront the extremists in their midst for fear of alienating their supporters, they are also possess a lot more savvy than grandstanding first-termers like Josh Hawley or MTG.

[zompist]

Sixth vote already, omigod.

CNN says that some (non-leadership) Republicans have started talking to Democrats about lowering the vote threshhold. The Dems could demand something in return, like raising the debt limit on time. This is a reasonable solution, which mean it won't happen.

More likely is that McCarthy gives up at some point and the GOP magically discovers the unifying power of another random conservative.

(Technically there is no House GOP leadership right now— there's no Speaker and if I'm not mistaken, none of the other leadership positions are filled till there is one.)

[masako]

(Technically there is no House GOP leadership right now— there's no Speaker and if I'm not mistaken, none of the other leadership positions are filled till there is one.)

No one is technically "in office" until sworn in, and they can't be sworn in until there is a speaker.

There are Middle School student councils that are more effective than this.

[Vardelm]

(Technically there is no House GOP leadership right now— there's no Speaker and if I'm not mistaken, none of the other leadership positions are filled till there is one.)

No one is technically "in office" until sworn in, and they can't be sworn in until there is a speaker.

There are Middle School student councils that are more effective than this.

Exactly. Even if they were sworn in right now, I wouldn't say there's any leadership present.

[alynnidalar]

CNN says that some (non-leadership) Republicans have started talking to Democrats about lowering the vote threshhold. The Dems could demand something in return, like raising the debt limit on time. This is a reasonable solution, which mean it won't happen.

Isn't the main problem with this solution that Hakeem Jeffries has the plurality, with 212 votes to McCarthy's (current) 201? If the Democrats could actually manage to get the Speakership, I'd say they should accept that gift as-is...

Incidentally, did you guys know that in 1855 it took them two months and 133 rounds of voting to settle on a Speaker, and even then it was only because they agreed to switch it to a plurality instead of a majority? Less funny when you realize the reason no one could agree for that long was because it was during the run-up to the Civil War and everything was awful.