American Politics Thread V: We're Just Biden Our Time ...

[San Lumen]

So when did this last happen above and beyond the level of state legislatures?

There was that guy running for the House that bodyslammed a reporter.

Hes now the Governor of Montana.

There was that guy running for the House that bodyslammed a reporter.

there was that one senator who nearly beat another senator to death on the senate floor that one time.

No that was Preston Brooks a congressman on May 22, 1856. The man he beat with the cane was Charles Sumner. He was a senator.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Because a lot of right-wingers don’t like it being pointed out that systemic racism exists.

Most Americans don't like CRT according to Washington Resistance Army. It's not just a position amongst right-wingers.

The issue with CRT is it relies on narratives more than facts. CRT is the type of stuff where someone will say "you don't have a right to question my tale of racism cause you're white."

[The Reformed American Republic]

Most Americans don't like CRT according to Washington Resistance Army. It's not just a position amongst right-wingers.

The issue with CRT is it relies on narratives more than facts. CRT is the type of stuff where someone will say "you don't have a right to question my tale of racism cause you're white."

Exactly. I'm thankful there are those on the left that see that.

[Postauthoritarian America]

Critical race theory uncovers inconvenient facts about, among other things, US history. Republicans hollering about it is a form of trolling designed to obscure those facts.

...despite what Fox News is telling them, critical race theory — the actual academic framework that was developed in law schools to understand the historical reasons our legal system perpetuates racial inequalities — is not, in fact, being taught to 3rd graders or even 11th graders. Claims otherwise are a complete lie, ginned up by right-wing propagandists who are desperate to keep the GOP base whipped into a racist frenzy...the real issue at hand is that conservatives don't want white kids to learn even the most basic truths about American history.

...Schoolchildren aren't really being taught critical race theory, but critical race theory — the actual framework, not the right-wing scare term — is a legitimate academic pursuit that has turned up important facts that white supremacists of yore have covered up. And it's those facts — things like the practice of redlining, the truth about what the Confederacy stood for, what Martin Luther King Jr. really believed, and the history of lynching and events like the Tulsa race massacre — that conservatives want to silence. That is why, for instance, they are so afraid of schools teaching the 1619 Project by the New York Times. Not because, as they falsely claim, it's inaccurate. No, the real objection underlying all the noise is that the 1619 Project is true. Conservatives want facts, the thing that all people claim they want children to learn, to be replaced with flat-out lies about American history.

...Indeed, the idea that "critical race theory" was just the kind of phrase that would easily scare conservatives can be traced back to the time that Andrew Breitbart was still alive. He and the other editors at Breitbart understood that "critical," "race," and "theory" are three words their readers don't really understand well — but do fear — and smashed together, could be leveraged as a Voltron of racist paranoia. Salon reporter Alex Seitz-Wald found, in 2012, that a search for "critical race theory" on Breitbart "returns an astonishing 871 results, over 680 from the past month alone." Rarely, if ever, was the term used accurately.

...Moving away from the debate about what is or isn't "critical race theory" and instead focusing on what lawmakers are actually trying to do — replace factual information with fake history — helps recenter the debate on what's really going on. After all, the only reason Republicans and right-wing pundits lie about what is and isn't in the public school curriculum is because they know they can't win the debate by being honest. The truth terrifies them, which is why they go to such lengths to conceal it both in public debate and in our public schools.

[Kowani]

Give me a bit
I have a…second CRT effortpost on the way

[Alcala-Cordel]

CRT is so vague it's almost meaningless IMO

[Major-Tom]

Give me a bit
I have a…second CRT effortpost on the way

Sounds good, the rest of us will shitpost in anticipation.

CRT is so vague it's almost meaningless IMO

This too. In theory, it sounds...pretty good, like I'd agree that yes, race does in fact intersect with law, with policies past and present, with housing, etc etc. But I think some people tend to take it to a point where they see everything as racial. That's when CRT gets vague and, frankly, really quite odd and redundant.

[Uiiop]

CRT is so vague it's almost meaningless IMO

It's a label that people push anything that isn't "MLK ended racism " ideology into it so of course it's meaningless.

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

Because a lot of right-wingers don’t like it being pointed out that systemic racism exists.

Most Americans don't like CRT according to Washington Resistance Army. It's not just a position amongst right-wingers.

Because a lot of right-wingers don’t like it being pointed out that systemic racism exists.

It’s not just right wingers. Nearly 60% of the nation has a problem with it.

And most of them probably don’t even know what it is so I don’t particularly care that they have a problem with it. .

[Zurkerx]

Why The Two-Party System Is Wrecking American Democracy. Other democracies are polarized, but the U.S. is unique.

Other Western Democracies are experiencing partisanship as well but the US is unique for several reasons:

First, the animosity that people feel toward opposing parties relative to their own (what’s known as affective polarization in political science) has grown considerably over the last four decades. According to a June 2020 paper from economists Levi Boxell, Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, the increase in affective polarization in the U.S. is the greatest compared to that of eight other OECD countries over the same time period.

Second, the change in how Americans feel about their party and other parties has been driven by a dramatic decrease in positive feelings toward the opposing party. In most (though not all) of the nine democracies, voters have become a little less enthusiastic about their own parties. But only in the U.S. have partisans turned decidedly against the other party.

Third, more so than in other countries, Americans report feeling isolated from their own party. When asked to identify both themselves and their favored party on an 11-point scale in a 2012 survey, Americans identified themselves as, on average, 1.3 units away from the party that comes closest to espousing their beliefs, according to an analysis from political scientist Jonathan Rodden. This gap is the highest difference Rodden found among respondents in comparable democracies. This isolation matters, too, because it means that parties can’t count on enthusiasm from their own voters — instead, they must demonize the political opposition in order to mobilize voters.

Fourth, and perhaps most significant, in the U.S., one party has become a major illiberal outlier: The Republican Party. Scholars at the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden have been monitoring and evaluating political parties around the world. And one big area of study for them is liberalism and illiberalism, or a party’s commitment (or lack thereof) to democratic norms prior to elections. And as the chart below shows, of conservative, right-leaning parties across the globe, the Republican Party has more in common with the dangerously authoritarian parties in Hungary and Turkey than it does with conservative parties in the U.K. or Germany.

That said, places with majoritarian(ish) democracies, or two very dominant parties dominating its politics have experienced similar issues- places like Australia, Britain, and Canada- all English Speaking Nations (well Canada is also French too!). Thus, the animosity towards political opponents, as well as trying to gain power in the short-term in order to destroy Democracy are some big reasons. It's just not Trump and the GOP: it's also our system, one that needs to change to something similar to our European Counterparts (IE, Germany is a good one).

[The Reformed American Republic]

Most Americans don't like CRT according to Washington Resistance Army. It's not just a position amongst right-wingers.

It’s not just right wingers. Nearly 60% of the nation has a problem with it.

And most of them probably don’t even know what it is so I don’t particularly care that they have a problem with it. .

Basically, you're going to jam it down American's throats whether they like it or not.

[Shrillland]

And most of them probably don’t even know what it is so I don’t particularly care that they have a problem with it. .

Basically, you're going to jam it down American's throats whether they like it or not.

Well, we jammed integration down a lot of Americans' throats and they didn't like it. So why not jam a modified CRT based more on facts concerning what systemic racism is rather than narratives? In time, it can be modified.

[Uiiop]

And most of them probably don’t even know what it is so I don’t particularly care that they have a problem with it. .

Basically, you're going to jam it down American's throats whether they like it or not.

There's a whole gap of actions between doing nothing and "Shoving it down" even when something is unpopular.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

I'm not gonna say this is my opinion on CRT since I can't tell where CRT ends and other shit begins, but there is such a thing as going too far left on racial issues. Yes there are cultural beauty standards but to keep it real, sometimes the reason people say you look like shit is just cause you look like shit, not because they're racist. It's like that time people said Trump was a racist for calling LeBron James stupid. #1 saying calling black people stupid is a stereotype is vague as hell and #2 trump calls people of many different ethnicities stupid. I don't think race factored into him calling LeBron stupid, I think he said it cause LeBron doesn't like him. You can overplay the racism issue. It's amazing tbh that you can cause it isnt like there isn't isn't actual racism out there, but when you tell a white person that "hard work is a white construct," you make people think you're a low intelligence moron, and it isnt because of whatever race you are, but indeed because you're hopelessly stupid. Not everything is a white construct, not everything is racism.

[Shrillland]

I'm not gonna say this is my opinion on CRT since I can't tell where CRT ends and other shit begins, but there is such a thing as going too far left on racial issues. Yes there are cultural beauty standards but to keep it real, sometimes the reason people say you look like shit is just cause you look like shit, not because they're racist. It's like that time people said Trump was a racist for calling LeBron James stupid. #1 saying calling black people stupid is a stereotype is vague as hell and #2 trump calls people of many different ethnicities stupid. I don't think race factored into him calling LeBron stupid, I think he said it cause LeBron doesn't like him. You can overplay the racism issue. It's amazing tbh that you can cause it isnt like there isn't isn't actual racism out there, but when you tell a white person that "hard work is a white construct," you make people think you're a low intelligence moron, and it isnt because of whatever race you are, but indeed because you're hopelessly stupid. Not everything is a white construct, not everything is racism.

Oh, absolutely. It's like the "decolonise math" folks, unaware that math is meant to have specific answers.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

I'm not gonna say this is my opinion on CRT since I can't tell where CRT ends and other shit begins, but there is such a thing as going too far left on racial issues. Yes there are cultural beauty standards but to keep it real, sometimes the reason people say you look like shit is just cause you look like shit, not because they're racist. It's like that time people said Trump was a racist for calling LeBron James stupid. #1 saying calling black people stupid is a stereotype is vague as hell and #2 trump calls people of many different ethnicities stupid. I don't think race factored into him calling LeBron stupid, I think he said it cause LeBron doesn't like him. You can overplay the racism issue. It's amazing tbh that you can cause it isnt like there isn't isn't actual racism out there, but when you tell a white person that "hard work is a white construct," you make people think you're a low intelligence moron, and it isnt because of whatever race you are, but indeed because you're hopelessly stupid. Not everything is a white construct, not everything is racism.

Oh, absolutely. It's like the "decolonise math" folks, unaware that math is meant to have specific answers.

Decolonize math folks trying to point out math on a map like:

[Kowani]

Give me a bit
I have a…second CRT effortpost on the way

my fucking internet died aghhhhhhhhhhhh

okay
uh
it'll be up tomorrow i guess


in the meantime, have some outrage
Andrew Yang: "Yes, mentally ill people have rights, but you know who else has rights? We do!" "The people and families of the city, we have the right to walk the streets and not fear for our safety because a mentally ill person is going to lash out

[Borderlands of Rojava]

So apparently Andrew Yang thinks mentally ill people make new York suck and thinks the rights of mentally healthy people are more important.

I hate this man so very much. He should leave New York and never return.

[Bombadil]

That said, places with majoritarian(ish) democracies, or two very dominant parties dominating its politics have experienced similar issues- places like Australia, Britain, and Canada- all English Speaking Nations (well Canada is also French too!). Thus, the animosity towards political opponents, as well as trying to gain power in the short-term in order to destroy Democracy are some big reasons. It's just not Trump and the GOP: it's also our system, one that needs to change to something similar to our European Counterparts (IE, Germany is a good one).

I don't know if it's merely two party systems, perhaps it's exacerbated in such systems, but overall there seems a leaning towards authoritarianism across the board. I don't know if it's this sense of 'I'm not the problem, everyone else is..', in part inflated by the scrubbed version of ourselves we present online, and the way we can all glom on to judging someone who's done something deemed 'not right' per society norms.

This makes 'other people', the 'criminal', 'the uneducated', the 'irreligious'.. pick your poison.. the problem that needs controlling with proper law and order.. or less law and order and simply crushing them by any means necessary.

In addition, in politics, the end now justifies the means. At one end it justifies serious oppression and law breaking, and at the other it justifies just lying without any seeming accountability for it. At one end it's Duterte saying police can just shoot people they think are criminals and on the other it's McConnell just making up the rules when it comes to the Supreme Court, or Boris Johnson just farting out any thought that enters his head oblivious of any need for truth.

And all the while we lay blame for climate change while ramping up the air conditioning and driving 10m to the nearest store, we blame welfare scroungers while letting millionaires avoid tax, we focus on a small amount of looters while avoiding the basic issues of protest, for every problem it's someone else's fault, and that someone is rarely, really, the main issue.

It's been noted that the pandemic itself has accelerated the increase in global authoritarianism..

Link

“As COVID-19 has swept through one country after another, leaving death, despair, and economic devastation in its path, it has given rise, in many states, to the increased assertion of authority by political executives—an assertion that, however understandable, given the magnitude of the human, social, and economic impact of the pandemic, nevertheless has, in some states, resulted in an erosion and weakening of democratic norms and practices while, in others, it has reinforced and strengthened their reliance on authoritarian politics,” said David R. Cameron, director of the MacMillan Center’s Program in European Union Studies, and moderator for the panel. “Bringing together scholars with expertise in Latin American, European, Middle Eastern, and Chinese politics, this panel discusses the extent to which and ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has eroded democratic practices in some states and contributed to a more overtly authoritarian form of politics in other states.”

So I don't think it's a product of a two party system per se or alone.

[Caurus]

-Snip-

I wholly agree (although, I'd argue that the Swiss system of semi-direct democracy is better ), for a Representative Democracy, the US sure doesn't feel very representative or democratic, especially with how radical and polarized the the current discourse is. It feels like it's gotten to a point where the only views being represented anymore come from echo chambers. If the Democrats go left, the Republicans have to go further right. If the Republicans go right, the Democrats have to go further left. A race to the bottom, I say. It's like people see politics as a means of vengeance. Good governance is a relationship. A good relationship, according to John Hopkins University, is built on communication, boundaries, and consent. We lack good governance because we lack a good relationship. Our first reactions to the other side are to paint them as obstructive or dangerous. We cannot allow for politics to be a tool for human vindictiveness. We cannot go about legislating acts of revenge and mocking the other side as we do it. How are we serving the common weal when we write off one side as "Demonrats" and the other as "Re-thug-licans"? I think that we have it in our minds that politics is something naturally competitive. We must have sides. We must have winners and losers. Politics isn't something as trivial as my team versus your team. Politics effects us all. The ultimate goal of politics should be to provide for the common weal to the satisfaction of all involved. It must be of a contractual nature, one of negotiation. There must be clear boundaries and expectations, and above all, a standard of mutual respect. It feels as though we have spent far too long viewing politics through the lens of recreation. We view our parties as our preferred teams, squaring off in some arena for our enjoyment. Worse than that, we have come expect this exchange to be a blood sport. We demand the suffering of the other. We must undo everything the other side has accomplished. We must attack that which they hold dear. Reprisal and retribution rule the day. Related to this issue of party loyalty is the inability of a great many of us to view politics and our own sides from the second and third persons. We are all too willing to accept our own radicalization and decry the values of others. Related to this issue of party loyalty is the inability of a great many of us to view politics and our own sides from the second and third persons. We are all too willing to accept our own radicalization and decry the values of others. If we cannot put ourselves in the shoes of the other side and of outside observers, how can we serve each other to the best of our abilities? With all this political reprisal, name calling, and mud slinging, is it any wonder that it seems to get worse and worse? It's a cycle we have to break, and I think abandoning the two party system is an important step in doing that.

[Caurus]

-snip-

For sure, there is a lot of deflection and the like in modern politics. I think some of it is coming from an honest place, trying to treat the symptoms and not the disease, while others are acting in bad faith. People either can't see the forest for the trees or deliberately misdirect. As for the "ends justify the means" nature of politics, it's really quite depressing. This "vae victis!" attitude does nothing to inspire faith or confidence in the government. Regarding Covid, this trend towards authoritarianism is deeply concerning. I think that way too many governments got a taste for "ye old emergency powers" and used them way too liberally. It seems to happen any time there is something catastrophic. Take the PATRIOT act as a prime example. It feels like, Covid or not, there has been a marked decline in liberalism over the last 20 or so years.

[Neanderthaland]

So you remember how when the power grid failed in Texas last winter, the GOP was like, "It's not a failure of our privatization scheme! It's just that the Texas grid is designed for high temperatures, not cold."

Well turns out that was a fucking lie.

[Fauzjhia]

So you remember how when the power grid failed in Texas last winter, the GOP was like, "It's not a failure of our privatization scheme! It's just that the Texas grid is designed for high temperatures, not cold."

Well turns out that was a fucking lie.

well. its nothing surprising. if someone has a problem they will do what they know.
say you have a energy problem, and ask hydro-Quebec for help. what you think HQ will do. they will build a DAMN somewhere, because that what they know.

The conservative know how to attack and shift the blame on others, so don't be surprised to see them blaming others and attacking when they have problem, its what they know. you got a problem, blame someone, the democrat, the mayor, the president, the foreigners, blame someone.

but it really do not solve the problems at all.

[Shrillland]

DOJ threatens action against Missouri for implementing a law that effectively nullifies federal gun restrictions

[Kowani]

You have proof of that claim?

Americans reject critical race theory 58% to 38%

Not quite.
The YouGov poll doesn't actually show 58% of Americans are unfavourable to CRT. It's a filtered question: only asked to those who say they know what CRT is. (Who do we think those people are?)

If you calculate among all respondents, you get different numbers-roughly 15% favourable, 23% unfavourable-and 62% who don't have an opinion because they don't claim to know what it is.