United States Politics Thread 46

[Travis B.]

When you kill someone, you absorb their life force.

By that count, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao ought to have gained immortality or close to.

[Torco]

When you kill someone, you absorb their life force.

By that count, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao ought to have gained immortality or close to.

maybe it doesn't work unless you kill them personally?

[Travis B.]

When you kill someone, you absorb their life force.

By that count, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao ought to have gained immortality or close to.

maybe it doesn't work unless you kill them personally?

Maybe you have to do it with a claymore.

[Travis B.]

Oh that's a relief - the Supreme Court had enough sense to shoot down the utterly insane "independent state legislature" theory (even if they did imply the legitimacy of Bush v. Gore...).

[Raphael]

Any comments on this?

https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2023/ ... nless.html

[Hominid]

Any comments on this?

https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2023/ ... nless.html

Seven of the 13 voters said that they'd ditch Biden in favor of "a generic, middle-aged, white, male, Republican governor with mainstream conservative views," when asked about that hypothetical matchup by the moderator.

1. "Mainstream conservative views" as a phrase might poll well in theory, but the actual views that that entails are not popular on a lot of issues.
2. Third party candidates have done consistently terribly for the past twenty years or so, because most people have an understanding that they are counterproductive in the US political system. Major party candidates have ignored them, and this has worked. They only manage to spoil elections that are already extremely close.
3. As an aside, if we're really at the point that "Mentioning gay people is dangerous to children" is a mainstream centrist view, that's terrifying. I don't think it actually is in practice though.

So, it's possible that a No Labels candidate could cause a Republican victory, but it's unlikely, and throwing everything at it will just draw more attention to it.

[Travis B.]

My mother is still quite bitter about Ralph Nader. Third party candidates here in the US only help the right.

[Hominid]

My mother is still quite bitter about Ralph Nader. Third party candidates here in the US only help the right.

That's not totally true: there are right-wing third parties that help Democrats as well. But yes, voting for third parties rarely benefits the apparent ideological goals of those candidates.

[Travis B.]

My mother is still quite bitter about Ralph Nader. Third party candidates here in the US only help the right.

That's not totally true: there are right-wing third parties that help Democrats as well. But yes, voting for third parties rarely benefits the apparent ideological goals of those candidates.

Okay, tis true, there have been times where teh Libertarian party has helped out the Democrats inadvertently.

[Moose-tache]

Generic candidates always poll better than named candidates. It doesn't actually mean that a random Republican would win. There was a time in the 2004 Democratic primary in which "A Democrat" was beating Bush in opinion polls, but we all saw how that turned out.

[hwhatting]

This actually has me worried: Sobering material for anyone who hopes that a second Trump administration would stumble over its own feet as much as the first.

[masako]

This actually has me worried: Sobering material for anyone who hopes that a second Trump administration would stumble over its own feet as much as the first.

"Here is a look at odds to win US President in 2024. Election odds 2024 have Joe Biden at +150. Donald Trump is +275 and Ron DeSantis is +450. View Election betting odds for those candidates and more below."

From here.

Trump also just received a Target Letter re the January 6th probe. So, the legal chasm has widened, perhaps beyond escape.

[hwhatting]

@masako: Well, yes, good if Trump doesn't win. The question is what would happen if he's prevented from running - are we sure that this wouldn't create a Republican backlash and voter surge, and is any of the candidates that would have a chance of getting the nomination if Trump were out of the race actually much of an improvement?
The cleanest and best outcome would be if Trump would run again, and lose.

[Raphael]

The question is what would happen if he's prevented from running

Not sure if that would be possible. In the 1920 election, the Socialist Party candidate Eugene Dobbs was on the ballot although he was actually in prison at the time.

[masako]

The question is what would happen if he's prevented from running

Not sure if that would be possible. In the 1920 election, the Socialist Party candidate Eugene Dobbs was on the ballot although he was actually in prison at the time.

Exactly. There is no law or regulation barring anyone from running, and in fact no provision preventing a prison inmate from actively serving as president, save for possibly the 25th amendment, section 4. That's been debated by legal scholars.

[hwhatting]

Exactly. There is no law or regulation barring anyone from running, and in fact no provision preventing a prison inmate from actively serving as president, save for possibly the 25th amendment, section 4. That's been debated by legal scholars.

Would be fitting, the orange man governing in an orange suit...

[Raphael]

Responding to something zompist posted in the Chilean election thread because my response seems more topical here:

on unrelated news, does anyone have a good explanation for the rise in fascism we're going through? certainly this isn't a chilean thing.

Sure! I got three:

1. Historical memory is approximately two generations, ~ 70 years. That is, when all the people who remember a problem die off, it recurs. So, Grandpa remembers the Nazis, but he's dead or no longer matters.

Then again, while Fox News and talk radio seem to be mostly Boomer things now, didn't they start out mostly targeting the World War 2 and Silent generations back when there were still a lot of them around?

Also, your point is a bit weird in the context of a thread about Chile. I'm pretty sure that there are a lot more people in Chile alive today who remember the Pinochet years than people in the West who remember World War 2.

[zompist]

Responding to something zompist posted in the Chilean election thread because my response seems more topical here:

on unrelated news, does anyone have a good explanation for the rise in fascism we're going through? certainly this isn't a chilean thing.

Sure! I got three:

1. Historical memory is approximately two generations, ~ 70 years. That is, when all the people who remember a problem die off, it recurs. So, Grandpa remembers the Nazis, but he's dead or no longer matters.

Then again, while Fox News and talk radio seem to be mostly Boomer things now, didn't they start out mostly targeting the World War 2 and Silent generations back when there were still a lot of them around?

I'm not using "fascist" lightly-- conservatives before Trump were not that off the rails, though they seemed pretty horrible at the time.

Also, your point is a bit weird in the context of a thread about Chile. I'm pretty sure that there are a lot more people in Chile alive today who remember the Pinochet years than people in the West who remember World War 2.

Er, look at Torco's question: "certainly this isn't a chilean thing." I took him as asking about the rise of fascism worldwide: Trump, Orbán, Erdoğan, Modi, Duterte, Bolsonaro, Putin, Xi, the Bolivian coupsters, etc.

[Raphael]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, zompist.




Another gem from Mastodon, presented here without comment:

https://federate.social/@mattblaze/110764696754498478

[rotting bones]

Vivek Ramaswamy's vapid, right-wing culture war talking points made me take a late night (early dawn) look into US immigration demographics. The results look ridiculously out of keeping with the internet's "common sense" racism.

If this Wikipedia page is to be believed, Turkish Americans have a higher median household income than German Americans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_e ... d_ancestry Filipino Americans earn more than Chinese Americans, who in turn earn more than Japanese Americans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_e ... _Americans Korean Americans have lower income than Indonesian Americans, and comparable to Hmong Americans. I have seen Hmong Americans being cited as one of the poorest immigrant groups in America. They don't even have a nation state that sets them up to succeed. At least it makes sense that Korean Americans are the most staunch Democrats of the East Asian groups, maybe? Indian and Pakistani Americans are famously among the richest groups, but Bangladeshi Americans are among the poorest. Only Burmese Americans are poorer among Asian immigrants. But these groups are still richer than African Americans.

The top 6 groups by median income seem to be: Indian, Taiwanese, Filipino, Pakistani, Sri Lankan and Iranian. Iranian Americans have higher median household income than any (edit: major) East Asian group, but Afghans are poorer than any Arab group. The greatest predictor of income is, of course, the level of education. The class biases in Asian immigration seems to vary with the political situation in the old country, but I can't see the nature of the relationship just from this data.