Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[kenberg]

About DeSantis and Trump:

 

If 2024 is Biden vs Trump I think Biden wins. If it is Biden vs DeSantis I am less confident of a Biden win.

 

One way of looking at this: Dems need to give some serious thought to how to win against DeSantis. That could be a good thing.

 

We had a scaled-down version of that in the Maryland race for governor. Cox, the R candidate, was an election denier, a Qanon fan and just generally hopeless. He lost. There was a more reasonable person, Kelly Schulz, running in the R primary. She was endorsed by our two-term R governor Larry Hogan and, at least perhaps, she would have won the general election. The ultimate winner, our next governor, was Wes Moore.I think Moore is quite a good guy, I am fine with him as governor, but he probably leans further leftward than I do. Running against Cox, that wasn't a problem, running against Kelly, it might have been a problem.

 

The point is this: With Cox as the R candidate, the Ds could have successfully run a canary against him. Against Kelly, more care would be needed. The same could be true in 2024 at the presidential level. Joe Biden has his good points and his bad points but all in all I think he needs to say "I beat Trump in 2020, job well done, I will now retire". And then the Ds need to pick someone who can beat DeSantis and can beat other possible R candidates. There are voters out there, maybe quite a few, who would choose Biden over Trump on the basis that of course we cannot have a return to Trump, but would need some convincing to go with Biden rather than DeSantis. In my "Best of all possible worlds" scenario: The Ds decide they need Biden to retire and that they will put up someone who can beat DeSantis. Then the Rs decide "OMG, the D's are going to put up a really good candidate, maybe we should re-think going with DeSantis". And then we get a first-rate D running against a first-rate R.

 

Naive? Yep. More than I can realistically hope for? Yep. But it is the direction I can hope we are headed in. Something about long journeys and first steps comes to mind.

[Winstonm]

About DeSantis and Trump:

 

If 2024 is Biden vs Trump I think Biden wins. If it is Biden vs DeSantis I am less confident of a Biden win.

 

One way of looking at this: Dems need to give some serious thought to how to win against DeSantis. That could be a good thing.

 

We had a scaled-down version of that in the Maryland race for governor. Cox, the R candidate, was an election denier, a Qanon fan and just generally hopeless. He lost. There was a more reasonable person, Kelly Schulz, running in the R primary. She was endorsed by our two-term R governor Larry Hogan and, at least perhaps, she would have won the general election. The ultimate winner, our next governor, was Wes Moore.I think Moore is quite a good guy, I am fine with him as governor, but he probably leans further leftward than I do. Running against Cox, that wasn't a problem, running against Kelly, it might have been a problem.

 

The point is this: With Cox as the R candidate, the Ds could have successfully run a canary against him. Against Kelly, more care would be needed. The same could be true in 2024 at the presidential level. Joe Biden has his good points and his bad points but all in all I think he needs to say "I beat Trump in 2020, job well done, I will now retire". And then the Ds need to pick someone who can beat DeSantis and can beat other possible R candidates. There are voters out there, maybe quite a few, who would choose Biden over Trump on the basis that of course we cannot have a return to Trump, but would need some convincing to go with Biden rather than DeSantis. In my "Best of all possible worlds" scenario: The Ds decide they need Biden to retire and that they will put up someone who can beat DeSantis. Then the Rs decide "OMG, the D's are going to put up a really good candidate, maybe we should re-think going with DeSantis". And then we get a first-rate D running against a first-rate R.

 

Naive? Yep. More than I can realistically hope for? Yep. But it is the direction I can hope we are headed in. Something about long journeys and first steps comes to mind.

This can never happen until the wealthy withdraw monetary support for the crazoids.

[Chas_P1]

Trump is the "devil you know"

I agree. And I'm completely off his bandwagon.

[pilowsky]

A senate majority - who would have thought?

[kenberg]

A senate majority - who would have thought?

 

Explanations will be interesting, no doubt there will be many. A thought: It was not that long ago that Republicans were being told that they had to believe the 2020 election was stolen, or else they were a RINO. At some point people get really tired of being told that they must believe something that is obviously false. It brings to mind the 1950s when people asked themselves if they really believed that a neighbor or friend who voted for Stevenson was a commie. Here a commie, there a commie, everywhere a commie commie. People finally said "Wait, I am being played". Back to the present, the 2020 election is over, long over, Biden won, and people are tired of pretending otherwise. It's tough to discuss geography if we are told we must begin by asserting that the world is flat, or else we are a GINO.

 

There will be deeper and more rational explanations, no doubt with merit, but emotional explanations should not be overlooked. This thought has many applications in life, in politics, and so on.

[Winstonm]

Let’s put Trump into the Big House not the White House

[pilowsky]

Let's put Trump into the Big House not the White House

 

The fact that Trump exists in a "democracy" governed by the "rule of law" suggests a fundamental flaw in the experiment.

If you design an experiment to determine if 1+1=2 and the answer keeps coming out "I'm going to appeal to a higher court", surely the experiment isn't intelligently designed - so to speak.

[pilowsky]

Here we go again...

[Winstonm]

Trump’s biggest booster is the media.

[jillybean]

Trump’s biggest booster is the media.

That's what the mute button is for.

[Winstonm]

That's what the mute button is for.

 

I agree. If everyone switched off their television, Trump would disappear into irrelevance.

[thepossum]

I agree. If everyone switched off their television, Trump would disappear into irrelevance.

 

He's just been reinstated onto Twitter

[pilowsky]

He's just been reinstated onto Twitter

 

At this rate he'll be the only one there.

[thepossum]

At this rate he'll be the only one there.

 

Who knows or ranting into the ether all by himself. There are block and mute functions

[Winstonm]

He's just been reinstated onto Twitter

Twitter may vanish.

[barmar]

Twitter may vanish.

Maybe Musk will sell it to Trump. That will guarantee that it goes bankrupt.

[GeoBurdell]

Maybe Musk will sell it to Trump. That will guarantee that it goes bankrupt.

Maybe not a bad idea.

[Winstonm]

Maybe Musk will sell it to Trump.

Only if he wants to get stiffed.

[pilowsky]

Amazing -

!

[pilowsky]

Warnock wins.

[Winstonm]

That almost 1.5 million voted for Walker, Trump’s football hero pick, does not bode well for the future.

 

What is really needed is for justices Alito and Thomas to die in the next two years.

[kenberg]

That almost 1.5 million voted for Walker, Trump's football hero pick, does not bode well for the future.

 

What is really needed is for justices Alito and Thomas to die in the next two years.

 

I try for realism but I sometimes I lapse into optimism.

 

Dan Cox (from the insane wing) lost in the Maryland race for governor but got way more votes than he should have. Wes Moore won but possibly would have lost to a more reasonable R candidate. Perhaps the same is true in Ga. I know I have said this before but just maybe a significant number of Republicans, including some with major influence, will say "Hey, I think we actually could have won those races if we had put up a candidate who was not an embarrassment to everyone".

 

Last night on the PBS Newshour they interviewed a young Black Republican who had just won a seat in the House of Representatives. I don't recall where he was from and I of course don't know the details of the race but based on what I saw it appears that many voters, the sane ones, will be very happy with their choice. It's way past time to tell the nutjobs to get off the stage.

[pilowsky]

Jack Lang a former Premier of the state in which I live (NSW) once said "In the race of life, always back self-interest; at least you know it's trying."

 

Sometimes it can be a matter of self-interest to help others.

This idea of helping others because it will benefit yourself is at the heart of what is known as the social contract.

Biologically, the concept of benefiting yourself by helping others expresses itself as altruism, empathy, sympathy, humour and other highly synthesised emotions.

People that lack highly synthesised emotions appear to have no clue at all why helping anyone else is worthwhile.

Sometimes they take it a step further and work to destroy anyone preventing them having what they want at any particular moment.

Sound familiar?

Here's a list of "signs of psychopathy":

• behavior that conflicts with social norms.
• disregarding or violating the rights of others.
• inability to distinguish between right and wrong.
• difficulty with showing remorse or empathy.
• tendency to lie often.
• manipulating and hurting others.
• recurring problems with the law.

At present, the closest DSM-V diagnosis to psychopathy is a youth diagnosis of conduct disorder with the addition of so-called "callous unemotional" (CU) traits, which manifest as a lack of guilt and remorse, a callous lack of empathy, a lack of concern about one's performance on important activities, and a general lack of emotional expression, said Louisiana State University psychologist Paul Frick, PhD, a member of the DSM-V work group that developed those criteria. In the DSM-V, this diagnosis is known as "conduct disorder with a 'limited prosocial emotion' specifier."

Ref.

[Winstonm]

Mod: I think even with lack of posts this thread should stay open until the special counsel has completed its investigation.

[pilowsky]

It's remarkable that a country that prides itself on its commitment to 'rule of law' and 'democracy' produced such a lacklustre response to a coup attempt.

Only now, two years later, has an actual criminal investigation been started where as one commentator stated "they're working on determining Trump's 'state of mind at the time'" (of the coup attempt).

FFS, his 'state of mind'?

Don't a person's actions mean anything?

 

Two years! It only took a year to make a novel vaccine.