politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
mid terms are a pretty common swing point for an unpopular candidate. Between the late term push for legislation to increase the chances of re-election, and the initial push after getting into office to appease the voter base, the midterms are the biggest impact in a governmental term. Plus further down ballot votes can harm the institution as well.
regardless, even ignoring this, if you don't think this is going to help. It's going to be a net positive over somebody like trump winning, so it's basically what you're left with here if this problem is so important to you.
no this is "you have to give them your vote, and only vote, in the hopes that you can push them later down the lines, to be more useful to your ideals. And considering that the other option is going to be worse, might as well try for this one"
protests over what? I haven't heard about any, but i guess i also haven't been paying much attention. Unless you mean the vote protest, in which case nobody cares. It's not going to be a significant percent of the voter base anyway.
Oh, ok. So when mid terms come around, and Kamala's done nothing I want, then you'll be fine with me withholding my vote, right? Or are you going to be telling me the exact same thing you're telling me now? If you're genuinely alright with me withholding my vote during the midterms, what's the difference between then and now?
How? What method do you expect me to use to push her? And why should I have any confidence in that method working when it's not working during an election year, when she most needs people's votes and support?
There was a major wave of campus protests this year over the genocide in Gaza, all over the country.
Again, you just want me to give them everything they want while asking nothing in return and you're trying to pretend otherwise without offering any sort of coherent strategy. If that's not what's happening, walk me through what you expect me to do and when.
yeah no fucking go for it. Do whatever the fuck you want, you can even do it now if you feel like it. Especially if you're protest voting for that specific issue, i think that would be a warranted mid term activity to partake it. I mean i might make fun of you for grenading the ability of the government to solve problems, but that's something we're both going to do anyway lmao. That parts free real estate.
The difference between then and now, is that voting now has the substantial potential to prevent trump from being elected which is obviously going to have very negative consequences in this case. Whereas not voting in the midterms, or even changing your vote in the mid terms is going to have a much less significant effect as it's only really going to slow/lessen the ability for the federal government to create and push legislation, although probably specifically with the IP thing. Depends on how that goes.
the same way you're doing it now, just then, signal discontent over certain policy. There's no reason to have any confidence in anything, but in this case it's just basic strategic leverage. If kamala losses, and trump wins, it wasn't your fault, and you didn't have anything to do with it. If kamala wins, and you don't get the IP thing you wanted, then you at least didn't get trump, and you had your part in that. And if kamala wins, and you do get the thing you want, then obviously you're going to get most of everything that you wanted.
As opposed to the current line of thinking where you're more likely to put trump into office, or if kamala wins, do nothing midterms because you've stopped caring by that point. Or maybe you would, but that would be up to chance more than anything.
We take the wins we can get, and we line ourselves up to get the best shots that we can, that's the name of the game.
i know there have been a large number throughout the year, i'm curious about the last 3 or so specifically. Or have those pretty much died down. I know they were all over the place for a few months a while back though.
i mean you can view it like that, i guess, but ultimately that's not really how it works, politics is mostly a take game for the civilian. We don't really give them much, aside from tax dollars, but they give us legislation and policies that reflect our ideals. If your ideals don't match at all you've either got a failure of ideals, or a failure of government, which one probably depends on which one is at a larger scale.
as for the last bit, see previous.
That analysis makes no sense on multiple levels. First of all, since I don't live in a swing state, my downballot/midterm votes are far more important than my vote for president. Second, if my vote for president was so important, that would be all the more reason for me to use it as leverage. Third, the fundamental dynamics are the same for downballot races as the race for president, there is nothing unique about the presidential race that would mean I should treat it differently. If withholding a vote is an effective strategy downballot, then it is an effective strategy in the presidential race. And if the risk of Trump getting elected is too great to employ that strategy in the presidential race, then the risk of another Republican getting elected downballot should be a deterrent too. Lastly, there is virtually no chance that Kamala could be pressured to change her position during the midterms when she herself is not up for reelection.
The only way I can make any sense of your logic is if Trump is uniquely horrible compared to other Republicans, and I don't really consider that to be the case.
Well, let's see. For the past 20 years, my entire adult life, my ideals have been saying that we should stop slaughtering people in the middle east. In that time, the democrats ran Kerry, a hawk, Obama, a hawk, Clinton, a hawk, Biden, a hawk, and now Harris, a hawk. The result of that was nearly a million people dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, some more in other countries like Yemen, and now more and at a faster rate than ever in Palestine. And what exactly do they have to show for any of it in terms of making people's lives better? I think it's pretty clear which side the failure is on.
ok well in this case it just makes complaining moot, because for some reason, you're admitting that you're going to hold a worthless protest vote that means nothing. So that's cool.
only in the case of third party candidacy voter drain, or a pretty confident election advantage, assuming you have like 5% of all voters or something silly. Otherwise it's more than likely going to mean nothing, or almost nothing. And again this doesn't assuage the previously mentioned problems with the alternate candidate.
in terms of how elections work, i suppose so, in terms of how power works, not really. Down ballots are much more ambiguous and nebulous than primary candidacy, by the virtue of there being like 500 congress members. as opposed to one president.
also, i didn't realize that both trump and kamala were running for downballot positions.
generally... Yes, however only generally, i've already laid out the primary uses and technicalities for this, so i'm not going to repeat myself because you can't read. It's not that complicated of an idea.
do you unironically think that in a vacuum, if you were to elect kamala harris, and one republican congressman for example. That it would functionally equivalent to you not voting at all? And then trump having the potential to win, and you still having no options down ballot. This is an objectively worse position to put yourself in. You simply have less leverage there.
i don't believe the 22nd prevents VPs from running for presidency for a term. That would be weird. Unless you're implying as a russian bot would do, that kamala is literally only a one term pony. Which would be odd.
You do know that politicians generally push for legislation throughout their entire term right? It's not just, the beginning, and only the beginning. Generally you see early legislative policy, some through the mid terms, and then some late in the cycle nearing the end.
??? I mean if you specifically only care about israel palestine maybe but trump literally tried to overthrow democracy. How is that not markedly worse than literally any other republican, who has not yet tried to do that.
curious how you only list 20 years of foreign military policy, and not republican policies. Or domestic policy at all.
Seems to me like you only care about foreign military policy. And don't get me wrong, it's a problem, but the war on terror is over, we've pulled out of afghan. This shit's literally done right now. The war on drugs might be another thing, paired with more democracy war, however unpopular that may be, it's the only realistic way to solve the immigration crisis, the one that republicans constantly make shit up about.
regardless, i'll leave you a link to a wikipedia article, only the most reputable of sources for my internet squabbles.
some "bed side reading" as i like to refer to it.
This is even more incoherent than ever, but whatever, I guess I'll try.
Isn't it your job to show that voting for Harris would be meaningful? If my vote is meaningless, then you should have no problem with me voting however I personally prefer.
How does there being more congress members change anything about the dynamics we're discussing?
I genuinely cannot even begin to follow your logic. Walk me through how you got from point A to point B here.
The fact that Harris isn't running downballot is even more reason why your argument is completely nonsensical. Why should I withhold my vote from a different candidate, who might even be pro-Palestine, instead of withholding it from the person I'm actually criticizing? This is, again, a point in my favor.
No, I think that would be worse than not voting at all, because my vote in down ballot races is more important than the presidential race.
I don't know what this is even saying.
Again, I am extremely confused by your logic here and cannot even begin to fathom how you got from point A to point B.
The only thing I can think of is if you're using "midterms" to refer to the next presidential election in 2028, as opposed to the, you know midterm elections that happen every two years, the next being in 2026. Kamala will not be up for reelection in the 2026 midterms, because, and this is true, presidents serve four year terms. Do you think presidents having four year terms is Russian misinformation?
I'm not invested in protecting the capitalist, imperialist state. It doesn't represent me at all and frequently makes my life worse, I have zero loyalty towards it.
George W. Bush started two major wars that got nearly a million people killed, he instituted unprecedented and illegal mass surveillance programs that removed any semblance of civil liberties that once existed in this country, he used indefinite detention without trial - and he did everything with the full support of the Democrats, who have happily continued his policies without any challenge at all (despite the fact that they were allegedly meant as "emergency powers"). Trump is bad but his presidency was nowhere near as bad as that of Bush.
Yes, I was discussing Democratic foreign military policy because that is the topic that we're discussing. I don't mind discussing domestic policy, but those issues are not unrelated. The only way we'd have the funds to do the kinds of things that need to happen domestically is by cutting the unbelievably massive military budget, which is higher than the next 9 countries combined.
But even if we could, I am opposed to imperialism even if the spoils of that imperialism were distributed to the people. So bad foreign policy but good domestic policy would not be satisfactory. But even that isn't on the table, the profits of all this killing go straight to the top.
And no, it's not over. The war in Afghanistan is (now replaced with sanctions to impose starvation), but we're still involved in other places like Gaza and Yemen. We may not have boots on the ground, but my priority is not on whether American soldiers are being placed in danger, it's with stopping the violence towards the people living there.
What on earth are you even talking about? Going to war with Mexico or something?
Not a single one of these applies to me but your lazy condescension is noted.
i have previously stated why kamala is a good pick in the first post. I laid out why your reasoning was faulty, you were the one originally claiming that your vote had a meaning behind it, since you were going to bother protest voting, otherwise you admit you've been sitting here and screaming at a wall for like a year.
Ultimately what defines a vote as meaningful or meaningless is up to the individual voter, you could do math and statistics to figure out how much it matters, but that's extremely complicated, and not completely accurate (as polling demonstrates) it's simply more effective to shift broad public opinion on things like policy and issues, rather than a specific candidate vote.
by dilution, this is the reason the house has so many members, technically its for population representation, and that is true. But you're still fighting against an n/500 or so people, as opposed to like n/2 people. It's harder to influence the president, but the president is also more wholly encompassing of power, whereas it's easier to put a congressman in power, but they have a lot less power.
that was a shitpost, because your statement about downballots made no sense lol.
ok so let me get this one straight, you think electing kamala voting republican downballot is worse than not voting at all, but you also think voting down ballot is simultaneously more important because? I don't understand your comprehension of the voting system at all, it makes no sense. Why would voting down ballot be more important than voting for presidential? Do you not want there to be a president at all?
i listed your available options, the first one being pulling the most optimal strategy to minimize impact as much as possible, vs thinking voting is useless unless the result is exactly equivalent to what you want, which would mean you wouldn't care about voting for downballot, because very few people in downballot are going to agree with your positions, and even less of their positions will matter in the government. Simply due to the dilution of power.
again, shitpost because i didn't understand what you were saying, but it appears you were talking about kamala harris not running for mid terms, without mentioning that, (unless i missed it) who is currently running for president. I thought you were implying kamala couldn't have a second presidential term, because yknow, she's running for president. Which would be really weird.
trump is literally akin to a fascist, his actions are matched to that of a literal dictator, the only difference is that he's so stupid it didn't work. People like hitler, the current president of Venezuela, Haiti i think is currently run by a gang. You would probably also consider netanyahu a dictator, which is probably a reason for you to dislike him.
also, democracy != capitalism?? democracy is just a mechanism for voting, whereas capitalism is a mechanism for moving goods through an economy in the most effective manner.
trump, you mean the guy who thinks haitian immigrants are eating dogs? The guy who literally tried to overthrow democracy, i cannot overstate this enough, this is objectively worse than what bush did. The guy who hired and fired people at will, because they disagreed with him? You mean the guy who fired his AAG (because he couldn't get a real AG who agreed with him) for 3 hours, until his entire fucking DOJ threatened to resign because a guy who deals with oil spills was the current and acting AG?
You mean the guy whose personal attorney said to the public, that chris krebs should be "taken out at dawn and shot" The guy that fired the same guy previously mentioned, chris krebs for saying the election was "the most secure election in history" The same guy that literally told his DOJ to commit a federal crime and lie to the states saying there "was actual voter fraud" when there wasn't. Fun fact, trump suggested multiple times, while in office, that we "use nuclear weapons" as you can imagine, this went nowhere, very fucking quickly, because this is fucking insane.
like obviously the war on terror was bad, and it had implications for security and privacy violations, as well as some rights violations, but i'm not sure those would've even applied considering that was likely within a military context, and we have a separate court for those problems. Also, none of these issues are new. Literally just look back through history, every military everywhere has done this stuff at least once.
But you think that this was worse than what trump tried to do? Which was just straight up ending democracy. Presumably so he could ravage the rest of the global world.
i would like to know what percentage of GDP that the US military budget is. As of the last ten years or so.
spoiler
here's a little hint, it's 4% roughly, of GDP. It's roughly 20% of the federal governments budget, as far as per GDP spending goes, we're doing pretty good. The only country rivaling us currently is china, most likely due to their massive economic power.but would you consider overthrowing dictatorships in other countries to also be imperialism? Unrelated, but this is something i've been thinking about lately, with the talk about the border crisis among republicans. There are two things we can do that will ultimately solve it. 1 is to get rid of the cartels, 2 is to improve the living standards of the countries these people are fleeing from.
allowing immigration is good, but the cartel abuses it quite excessively, blocking it helps, but again, doesn't solve the problem. There's not really a great solution here.
anyway getting back to the topic on hand here, even if you don't like imperialism, how do we effectively combat the imperialism of other countries like china? The most effective ironically, seems to be more imperialism. Imperialism in some capacity, whatever definition you have of it, because the classical one doesn't really fit, seems to be a constant throughout human history.
sure, but sanctions aren't a war. Also, as far as sanctions go, they aren't meant to be a good thing, they're meant to be bad, that's the whole fucking idea. If they weren't bad nobody would be using them. And even if it is imposing starvation on afghani people, it's only because of the whims of the taliban. Also due to governmental failure as well, but that's more complicated, especially since this has been a multi decade problem. (the pull out can be blamed on trump btw, just an indication of his foreign policy)
you realize american soldiers literally volunteer to be placed in dangerous situations right? It's not like these people are getting drafted like in vietnam.
the cartels, the mexican government is actively trying to combat it, but it's not going super well, and we have a very clear and definite benefit in assisting the mexican government with that goal as well (trade and illict smuggling of drugs) also the people of mexico as well, they would probably appreciate not being extorted and killed by the cartels.
again, mostly a shitpost to the IP shit especially, for some reason IP people are issues voters, and i don't understand why. They're going nowhere pretty quickly with that one.
Yeah I'm done here.
oops