American Politics: Discuss and Debate (Page 19 of 44)

Over in the world of TV, showrunners for SUPERNATURAL and the Arrowverse are assuring fans that they will finish filming the current seasons of their shows when it's safe to do so, implying that in a few weeks or months, all will be back to normal. It is unwise to affix an end date to a crisis when the factors are so unclear. Lockdowns and social distancing work; I saw family members in China commit to a course of isolation and gradually, the infection rates peaked and fell. But the numbers go up every day because tests are reporting infections that happened before the isolation measures began. In addition, the implementation of quarantine measures has been scattershot and inconsistent across the globe.

The pandemic will end, but people who declare it'll be over within two weeks or four weeks or two months are only setting themselves up for disappointment. We need to believe that it will end while accepting that we don't know when that end is coming. It won't take a year. But it also won't be over by next week.

Ugh, all this doom and gloom.  I don't know why, but the left is really prone to hyperbole. 

Democracy isn't dead.  And if it is going to die, it won't be because conservatives won.  It will be because, without a major shift in ideology, it will be virtually impossible for a conservative to win an election.

I don't consider myself Democrat or Republican.  I'm disappointed in both parties.  The Republicans have sold their soul in a desperate attempt to hold on to whatever time they have left, and the Democrats have shown themselves to be woefully impotent.  I don't know why the Republicans got in line behind Trump, many of whom seemed to hate him a couple of years ago.  Lindsay Graham said that Trump would be the end of the Republican party, and now he supports him.  I understand why they want to consolidate their efforts and be one cohesive unit, but they had a chance to dump him and get behind a true conservative (Pence) and they didn't take it.  Maybe they thought insurrection was more deadly than lies.  I don't know.

But I don't think everyone was pied pipered.  I don't think people like Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham changed their tunes.  I think, as always, they're playing politics.  And I think when this is all said and done, a lot of people are going to have massive regrets.  But we've given our politicians so much power and so much wealth, and they're doing everything they can to hold on to it.

Both parties have made massive mistakes.  The Republicans have refused to change.  They only appeal to middle class+ white people.  For a long time, that was enough.  Help the middle class and upper class whites stay on top.  But demographics are changing.  I'm not kidding when I say that Texas will go blue and very soon.  And when the Democrats have California, Texas, and New York, it's over.  There's no path to victory for any Republican.  And as demographics continue to shift, I think it's realistic to say that Republicans will get fewer than 100 electoral votes in every election without a major shift in ideology.

The Democrats mistake was thinking that the shift already happened.  We saw it in 2016 https://www.newsweek.com/will-republica … ain-483751 - this was a real thing.  And I think that's why the Democrats didn't take 2016 seriously.  It's why they just got in line behind Hillary and didn't do anything to 1) stop her or 2) help her.  Hillary was determined to get the presidency and no one got in her way.  But who cares?  The Republicans couldn't win.  So let Hillary have her day and they could move on in 2024.  The shift was done, and there wasn't anything anyone could do about it.  That's why they didn't even campaign in certain states that flipped.  Why go for the safe victory when they could humiliate Trump instead?  Why campaign when you can just throw lavish parties and hang out with Jay-Z?

If the Democrats want to win in 2020, they can.  They just need to get their head out of their ass.  Stop infighting.  Vote for the candidate that wins the primary.  And the Newsweek article will just become a fact.  And once that happens, the Republican Party is going to have to do some soul searching and realize that their ideology sucks and needs to be re-examined.  There's nothing wrong with conservatism, and unchecked liberalism isn't what this country needs.  But it can't just be a white party and have any hope of winning.

Hillary was a terrible candidate who ran a terrible campaign.  And she won by 3 million votes.  It's virtually impossible for the Democrats to lose the popular vote, and soon enough, it will be impossible for them to lose the electoral college.  So stop feeling sorry for yourself, stop looking for crooks and cheaters, and just do the work.

What happened in Wisconsin today was a prelude to November.  Tons of even blue states cannot handle an all-mail in ballot election in November.  Republicans have stacked the courts.  They will prevent changes to election laws to combat this virus and allow people to vote safely.  You can't even protest because they'll fine you for not social distancing.

So people will go vote.  They'll wear masks and gloves.  They'll wash their hands and won't touch their face.  By November, we'll have eight months of social distancing figured out - especially in blue states that are taking this more seriously than red ones.  If mail in doesn't work, early voting doesn't.  If early voting doesn't work, people will risk it.  It's too important to just let Trump win.

But if you want to just let Trump win, I'm sure he'd appreciate it.

Exactly.  People that can will know they need to plan ahead and early vote.  People that can will know they need to get their mail-in ballots way ahead of time.  People that struggle with getting off work to early vote can try to make some sort of arrangement to get out early.  People that can't do any of that will need to plan ahead.

I cosign this.  Trump can absolutely win, but he's absolutely beatable.  When I say "there's no path to victory", I'm absolutely leaving open the possibility that the Democrats (or something else) can create one for him.  Maybe Trump's hydroxychloroquine bet pays off and it actually cures coronavirus and this is all finished by November.  That kind of gambit could actually get the country behind him and solidify his support.  I don't think that will happen, but I can't 100% dismiss it.

What I'm saying is that if the Democrats do what they can, I just don't see it for Trump.  Is it going to be hard?  Yes.  Trump and the Republicans are going to do their best to snuff out the vote because it's their best chance.  They can't win the election fairly, and they know it.  Russia is going to do what they can to get Trump re-elected.  The media will play their part.  And the virus isn't going to help.

But the math is on the Democratic side.  For every person who can't vote because of the virus or who gets cheated out of their right to vote, someone else is going to have to step up that didn't vote in 2016 for whatever reason.  People that can't hold their nose for Biden are going to have to be replaced by people who couldn't hold their nose and vote for Hillary.  The people are there.  I believe the country leans Democratic (if not necessarily liberal), and that Democratic non-voters outweigh Republican non-voters.

And let's be honest.  A lot of Biden votes aren't going to be scared off by the virus.  They are out working right now.  They're risking their health every day at work, and they're not going to think twice about going to the polls.  Trump votes both sway older and sway white collar.  They're both more at risk and more likely to have avoided the virus completely.  They come from states that are more lax on social distancing and restrictions.

That's why I say Democrats have to go to work.  There's work to be done.  If this is as important to Democratic voters as I think it is, they'll come through.  And if they do, there's not a damn thing Trump can do about it.

Biden's speechwriters wrote a respectful and beautiful message from Biden to Sanders: https://medium.com/@JoeBiden/statement- … e128a935ac

As someone who ghostwrites lots of stuff for people, I know that we should all be mature adults and recognize that oratory and rhetoric is carefully crafted by a team of specialists and calculated down to the last comma, but I still really admire the artistry there and the intent even if Biden is a dim dinosaur and a Republican in a Democrat's suit.

But I suppose this is what must be done when you seek to be a majoritarian political party that has some hope of acquiring power as opposed to being an ideological cult of symbolic and empty gestures.

Yeah.  I agree with Bernie on a lot.  I've actually been (mostly) converted to believing in Medicare for All.  I think young Americans need help with student loans.  I like a lot of the Green New Deal.  But I think asking for all of that is too much right now.  Let's CTRL-ALT-DELETE on the government, get a fresh start with four years of Biden, and then we can try and do better on some social issues.  I think Biden can stop the bleeding on some key areas (including some social stuff and climate change), but I think it's just a little greedy to try and get a facelift while the doctors are trying to save your life.

I think Bernie walked so that someone like AOC could run.  But it was just the wrong time.  Bernie had almost 80 years to do a revolution.  He waited too long and, like Grizzlor said, didn't compromise enough.

You can't even get close to passing 1/1,000th of Bernie's gift list without control of Congress.  The GOP is against every single thing Bernie stands for, and with him on the top of the ticket, the Democrats lose Congress.  That is what freaked the party rank and file out the most.  Republicans spent a decade plus winning state elections, that gave them favorable gerrymandered districts, and locked in the House majority.  You have to win before you can try to push an agenda.

My guess is that Biden's campaign will simply give The Donald more than "enough rope to string himself up with."  Look, Trump cannot wait to take a victory lap.  He truly does not care who dies in the interim, not one bit.  He wants his victory lap, which will of course consist of flying around the country to rallies, and the GOP convention in Charlotte, where he will do his shtick.  The comparisons (mainly in ads) will be clear.  Trump is a crook, he is a liar, he's wreckless, and he's a poor leader.  This pandemic has illustrated the lack of leadership.  Every other day it's something else.  Arguing with reporters, the Navy Captain being relieved, insulting Governors, crowing about unproven miracle drugs, and dismissing the virus for 6 weeks.  And that's not even counting Charlottesville, Michael Cohen, Wikileaks, celebrity pardons, firing Comey, Ukraine, Giuliani, Hurricane Maria, callousness following mass shootings, betraying NATO, secret Russian meetings, and North Korea coddling.  Not to mention his attempt to start a war with Iran, that was only interrupted by the coronavirus.  There's more ammunition than you get in an session on Call of Duty.  His administration has gutted the federal government, making a response to this pandemic 50 times more difficult.  The departments are littered with acting this or that, many seasoned officials have quit or been fired.  He literally shot 300 holes in the boat, and now we're all sinking. 

The one advantage Biden has over the rest of the Dem field (including Bernie) was that he's so well known to voters he almost doesn't need to say anything.  This is what I've been saying for months.  Team Trump were most fearful of Biden's familiarity, particularly with blue collar workers, and even moreso, the Obama factor.  Barack and Michelle remain enormously popular, and people liked what they did for the country, with Joe along for the ride.  Trump, as we know, despises the first African-American family probably more than any other politicians alive. 

https://twitter.com/Sky_Lee_1/status/12 … 6075365387

Here's a great vid/GIF I saw, in which it summed up how many times Trump tweeted about his political enemies, FOX News, and himself, rather than doctors, nurses, PPE, ventilators, etc through March 13 (i.e. the period of time he should have been urging the nation to be prepared).  The man has zero empathy.  Contrast him to the magnanimous speech by Queen Elizabeth II, it's almost comical how awful he is at leading.

In many ways, I picture this being Gargamel vs. Papa Smurf.  Biden will have the best speech writers around feeding him while Trump will continue to babble from the hip.  Biden needs to massively fix his online presence and youth outreach.  He will swing to the left on most of the Bernie platform, save Medicare for All which is simply too big.  Green New Deal, free college, debt forgiving, etc, etc, he's already in on from back in the Obama administration.  His team should be hiring Bernie's team members quickly.

I am not concerned about Team Trump spewing lies and other nonsense against Biden, who's career is an open and largely moldy book at this point.  My primary concern remains the execution of the election in November.  The Republican refusal to expand Vote by Mail is my big one.  Which is hilarious considering most of their constituency is old and WANTS to vote by mail and not go to crowded polling places!

OTOH, Hunter Biden was almost certainly up to something shady in Ukraine and Joe was instrumental in him getting involved.

If Biden makes his whole campaign about Trump, like Clinton did, he's headed for disaster.

Joe Biden has a podcast. Yes, that's right, Grandpa is staggering into the audio medium.

It's been two 20 minute episodes and it's ghastly but... I mean, it's like BATWOMAN. I admire the intent but the execution is clumsy and it's using freakin' Zoom. Come on! Record the voices independently and stitch it together or you'll have audio dropout and time lag, Gramps!

But to be fair, I'm as out of touch as Biden, that's why I run all my thoughts through my niece (an angry college student) before I admit to having any.

Other constructive criticisms here: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04 … etter.html

I don't disagree with Transmodiar, but I don't wholly agree with him either. Let's say I'm adjacent. Biden's not great. Biden is an artifact of a previous era when politicians, to get anything done, had to work with people they disliked. Biden has worked to benefit South Africans against despotic regimes; he's not a racist, but he had to work with his share much in the same way Cleavant Derricks had to maintain a working relationship with David Peckinpah even after Peckinpah drove all his friends off the show and sexually harassed a treasured coworker.

Biden has been harrassing with women, but what we've seen captured on camera in video and still is not the behaviour of an assault perpetrator but instead a man of a previous generation whose attitude to women was to view them as objects -- treasured, valuable ones, but objects nonetheless.

Biden's accuser for rape has gone from the extreme of praising Biden on Twitter unbidden and with no relationship to normalize; she declared when Biden spoke on sexual harassment, "My old boss speaks the truth. Listen to him" and other lavish compliments -- until she developed a peculiar fixation on Vladimir Putin and wrote open love letters to him at which point she accused Biden of raping her and nonsensically claimed her besotted writings to Putin were "research." I would be extremely cautious about taking this person's word for anything given the extremity with which she's commited to completely contradictory views.

Biden is not a revolution. This is absolutely true, but the claim that Biden would preserve the status quo is untrue when the status quo has over 20,000 dead from a pandemic warned of in January and which the current president ignored until mid-March. This status quo has the US president seizing medical equipment from hospitals to redistribute to states with governors that have spoken well of him in the press while refusing to create any national, federally-led plan of addressing the outbreak. This president dismantled the organizations and offices designed to address a pandemic and has refused to use his office to create the supplies and equipment needed to repel it while urging that people resume rampantly spreading it in order to briefly raise his economy before another massive death toll. Trump's removal from office would change all of this immediately.

Andrew Yang was preferable. Andrew Yang is no longer running. That opportunity has passed. What is before America now is a chance to remove a dangerously incompetent man from office and replace him with an average man who will defer to medical and supply chain experts to lead efforts to treat the sick and rebuild the country. The choice is the deranged, delusional grandfather who embraces racists and quacks or the dim, Democratic-in-name-only grandfather who will accept the knowledge and experience of others. It is not a revolution. But a Biden presidency could create the ground on which Sanders, Yang and others like them could build. Another four years of Trump will see more Americans ensickened by completely preventable equipment shortages.

Supporting Biden does not refute progressivism. Supporting Biden is simply to remove Trump. One can vote for Biden and then receive the stability needed to resume advocating for Medicare For All, universal basic income, transgender rights, reproductive rights and everything else.

But regardless of our differences, I support Transmodiar voting for Yang and intending to write in Yang on his ballot and I wouldn't want anyone other than Transmodiar writing Quinn Mallory's political opinions for me.

Well, I will always welcome an opinion that is stated honestly and openly and presented as the specific view of a specific person.

Whatever points of disagreement Transmodiar and I may have, he never presents his opinion as the universal default.

He doesn't makes claims that are based in stark denial of audio recordings and photographs in order to bolster his personal dogma. He doesn't link to deceptively edited videos and insist they're to be taken as absolute truth. He doesn't demand that Nazis never be identified as such. He doesn't rail against people marching for women's rights and call them unlawful anarchists while insisting that anti-abortion marchers are above criticism.

He doesn't find excuses for why every cop who shoots a black man is a hero to find a semi-socially acceptable way to express racism. He doesn't misrepresent a Muslim ban as a safety measure to justify Islamophobia. He doesn't call women-only screenings of WONDER WOMAN stupid in order to couch his contempt for women.

He doesn't argue that anyone who disagrees with him is mentally ill or lying. He doesn't declare that his views are the consensus just because no one is inclined to engage in a discussion with him should that ever be the case. And he doesn't see disagreement and difference as an impediment to helping a troubled soul assemble a foolhardy twentieth anniversary special to a cult TV series to craft an ending long after everyone had stopped asking for one.

I suppose Transmodiar's view is that Biden would be incompetent in other ways, perhaps not as overtly as Trump, but inept nonetheless. But the president's job is to mount a federal response to national crisis and Trump has proven completely incapable and the death count is rising. I'm in favour of getting Biden into the White House as much as getting Trump out of it and, to me, it's more important to put out the house fire than to renovate the house. You can renovate after the flames are extinguished. I respect Transmodiar seeing it differently. I will never want anyone to cast a vote that they don't believe in.

I would argue, however, that we have to step back from thinking that voting for someone means endorsing everything they've ever or done or will ever do; sometimes, we vote against something rather than for someone.

I cannot stress enough in the name of Quinn's gray coat, Wade's purple suit, Rembrandt's bronze suit and the Professor's waistcoat that the views of ireactions do not represent the consensus of Sliders.TV.

Funny you mentioned Packwood, because he's been a highly successful lobbyist for 30 years since then!  Some punishment.

Anyways, on the election front, we still remain a joke in terms of testing, with Trump and other GOP'ers wishing to open, open, open.  This is highly troubling, as the nation's food supply remains in jeopardy.  Food processors, distributors, and supermarkets have seemingly been non-stop shutting down for days or weeks due to the virus spread.  Warehouses for all goods have been affected, but you don't hear much because it's corporations trying to keep it hush, hush. 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/12/business … index.html

I think this election (should it happen) goes beyond politics, and who you may have desired to be a candidate.  As I've said multiple times, the public have the rest of the spring and then the summer, to make a final determination on granting four more years to the worst President in modern history.  "The first rule of hole digging is when you find yourself in one, stop digging."

Here's the problem with any sort of issue with Biden's mental capacity - if Biden is mentally incapable, there's a way to fix that problem (25th amendment).  The Republicans will *never* use it for Trump.  I think Biden would surround himself with people who would.  So if you say "Trump and Biden are the same person" - then at least let's go with the guy who has an out clause.  And even if they don't go that route and Biden stays for four years as a walking vegetable....again, Biden will fill the cabinet and the White House with responsible people.

I'm sure a number of those people will be progressives.  Some of the people we'd prefer be president would be in cabinet positions or advisory roles.  Want Andrew Yang in the White House?  He's only getting inside the doors if Trump is out.  If Yang or Mayor Pete has a high-level government position for four/eight/twelve years, then the "inexperience" argument that you saw against both those candidates goes away.

Our problem isn't all Donald Trump.  Trump put his frickin' son in law in charge of this pandemic.  He's considering firing the only expert we have left because he said something mean.  Biden would at least have doctors at the forefront.  He would at least have competent people working on this.  His cabinet would be full of people know, at least, have an idea of what they're doing.

Trump is bad.  And everyone he surrounded himself with is bad.  That's the difference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12u9CLeqsXY

Joe and Bernie had a live stream today, announced 6 working task force groups that their people will work on economy, education, criminal justice, immigration, climate change, and the economy (Biden said it twice, LOL).  Basically agreed on most things.  Bernie went full-on flame over Trump.

In other news, Andrew Cuomo has formed an I-95 corridor Governor group (PA, NJ, NY, CT, RI) to determine economic/social distance efforts in what seems like opposition to Trump's, which features his economic team, the Jared/Ivanka, and NO public health officials.

And north of the border...

Here in Canada and in my province, we have a premier (your equivalent of a state governor). Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario, was widely seen as the Canadian equivalent of Donald Trump. Ford rode into office due to widespread frustration with the Liberal Party that had been in power so long that they'd accumulated enough disappointments to piss anyone and everyone off at one point or another. Ford was, like Donald Trump, a loudmouth twit whose deceased brother Rob had been Mayor of Toronto until he inexplicably allowed himself to be filmed smoking crack cocaine in a video that was released on the internet. The only difference between Rob Ford and Doug Ford is that Doug Ford swore a little less.

Ford was an absurd, antagonistic premier from the start, saying that a tax on fossil fuels would cause a recession and ordering that gas stations have stickers claiming dire consequences would result from paying a few extra cents per fill-up and threatening to fine gas stations that didn't. He nonsensically gave out his cell phone number and urged anyone among the 13 million citizens of the province to call him with complaints and eventually had to change his number after he slashed legal aid programs, children's aid programs, rolled back a minimum wage increase, removed legislation granting all workers 10 paid sick days, cancelled a universal basic income pilot project he'd pledged to leave untouched, and, in a vindictive act on behalf of his former mayor brother, he slashed Toronto city council in half shortly before an election to create chaos.

Ford's later mandated a new vehicle license plate design for Ontario cars and his chosen design proved unreadable in the dark making it impossible for law enforcement to identify vehicles, for which Ford was mocked severely. At a basketball game, Ford attended and when his presence was announced the venue was filled with the sound of the audience loudly booing him. Ford was a national punchline and nationally, the Liberal Party was racked with scandal but managed to form a minority federal government by spending their entire campaign pointing out that Doug Ford embodied all the values of conservatism: austerity and antagonism -- and that if the Conservatives were voted into power federally, it'd be Ontario's troubles country-wide.

At the start of March, as fears of COVID-19 rose, Ford went on the radio and said that the infection rates were low and that people should stay calm and go on March Break vacations and enjoy themselves. Then people started getting sick and dying.

Something suddenly changed. Ford began doing daily press conferences and reversed his previous position, declaring he'd been mistaken, the viral threat was real and people needed to stay in their homes. Despite having been the Liberals' punching bag, he began coordinating the provincial response with the federal government and declared that the Liberal deputy prime minister was "a firecracker" and a treasured ally.

He began to address the province every day in a gentle, somber, frank tone without the obnoxious bombast of his past appearances. He asked gas stations to leave their restrooms open for truckers delivering their food. He said he could not sleep at night, he was struggling to secure protective equipment for doctors and nurses and at one point revealed that the provincial supply had a week left. He drove his truck out to a dental office to personally pick up a small donation of masks. He thanked the press that had been mocking him the previous week for getting the word out on social distancing measures.

At one point, the Prime Minister of Canada refused to release estimates for the coming deaths across the country. He feared a panic. Ford released his models for the province, saying that he couldn't go against his prime minister, but he needed his province to know the worst possible outcome so that they could commit to reducing it by staying home. A week later, the federal government followed Ford's lead and the population began adhering even more closely to the advice to stay apart and stay home.

Some constituents were furious with Ford for his recommendation to go on a March Break holiday, and the former premier whom Ford had defeated, Kathleen Wynne, spoke out -- and in his defence. "It was a mistake, but he did that out of the kindness of his heart; I could hear it in his voice," said the ousted former premier who undoubtedly despised Ford but was nevertheless recognizing his newfound decency. "He was trying to calm the waters."

And the money. The once tight-fisted Ford began to spend like no tomorrow, maxing out provincial investments in health care, in payouts to senior homes and public services and lending his support to what is effectively a universal basic income plan for unemployed or furloughed workers. Ford devised a list of non-essential businesses that were to close for the duration of the pandemic to induce social distancing and began urgent efforts to secure masks, gowns, ventilators and other medical equipment. At a daily briefing, Ford was asked if he had anything to say about the soon-to-be implemented carbon tax and if he had anything to say to the prime minister who spent his re-election campaign smearing him.

Ford replied that it was a conversation to have, a conversation he would welcome, but right now, he was grateful for the teamwork and support he'd been shown from the federal team and that they were in constant contact and working together closely to save lives and protect their citizens and that they were all on the same team. The country's team. The Liberal deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, was asked what it was like to work with the former Liberal boogeyman. She replied, "He is my therapist," describing the mutual support over late night, fretful phone calls.

When Trump banned mask exports from the US to Canada, the prime minister struck a diplomatic tone, saying he hoped the issue could be resolved. Ford, a once fervent Trump supporter, went on camera and expressed grief and heartbreak.

Ford later unveiled a plan to mobilize industry to produce all the medical equipment that had proven difficult to secure; to manufacture it in the province to supply the entire country. It would not only save lives but create new jobs that would also end Canada's dependency on other countries for life-saving equipment, particularly when the US had been seizing medical supplies on their way to Canada. So long as he was premier, he vowed, those manufacturing lines would never be closed.

In all this, Doug Ford went from being the laughingstock of Canadian politics to a man now being praised by friends and former enemies alike.

If he continues on this path through the pandemic and for the rebuilding that will be needed, his scandals will be a footnote in his legacy and he will be remembered as the hero that my people needed in the moment that we needed him; we'll remember how he rose to the challenge and became a leader driven and guided by the data and advice of medical experts and whose every action and decision has been to protect his constituents and guide them through adversity and into the future.

And I very much wish that this were Donald Trump's story because I am so worried about all of you right now.

Unlike all previous presidents, Trump has no history of service.  No public service or national service or anything where he's had to do things to benefit others.  He's never needed to care about anyone but himself, so he doesn't.  He has no earthly idea how to not be self-serving.

Democrats win in Wisconsin despite -- or because? -- of voter suppression.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 … court.html

Did Republican voter suppression tactics inadvertently suppress more Republicans than Democrats?

That's what's interesting - does the virus hurt or help Republicans?  The assumption has always been that any voter suppression helps Republicans (because Republicans vote and there are more Democrats in general).  But as I've said before, I don't know if it necessarily helps in this case:

1. Lower-income Americans tend to vote Democrat.  They're the ones who have "essential" jobs that force them to go out.  So a) going out is their norm and b) they're more likely to get the virus before November.  Those people will be more likely to vote in November - they're used to going out or would be immune.

2. There's been a lot of talk about Trump killing the post office to limit mail-in voting.  But that hurts rural America more than it hurts urban America.  Rural America tends to vote Republican.  Add in the fact that older Americans also tend to vote American, and since they're less likely to go out (because they're more likely to die), eliminating mail-in voting could take away their votes.

3. Republicans do tend to vote, but these are special times.  Will voters be excited to rush out to the polls to vote for Donald Trump after he's allowed the economy to tank and tens of thousands to die?  Some, yes.  But all the people Trump needs?  There's no Hillary boogeyman.  Biden is centrist enough that people can tell their Republican friends that the went out and voted for Trump.  But in the middle of a 2nd/3rd/4th corona wave, will older/wealthier Americans want to risk getting sick to vote for Donald Trump?  I don't know.

You hit about 20 nails on the head at once!  The virus is now spreading quite badly in rural America, which is older, and has limited healthcase access and bad hospitals.  Limiting mail in voting will likely hurt Trump's chances, oh well.

First, Trump already CAVED to the Northeast Governors and was forced to admit they call the shots.  Second, Biden's refusal to take any sort of position that would weigh him down is exactly what's propelled him to this point.  That said, he's come right out in support of several liberal policies from Warren and Sanders, which in the face of a 2nd Great Depression, will be quite advantageous.

Lastly, Trump is running out of organizations to blame.  Now it's the WHO, who he has halted money to, despite the prospect of 2nd and 3rd virus waves being more likely without worldwide action.  This is what he said about that group in late February....

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/sta … 7740174339

I'm going to say something controversial. Temporal Flux should never have focused on SLIDERS. He should have been a journalist of the world. And also -- while I think of Transmodiar as the perfect American, I have always thought of TF as the perfect Canadian.

I personally feel that arrests for failing to socially distance are too far. Canada is not arresting people except when they tested positive for COVID-19 or returned from overseas travel but refused to self-quarantine for 14 days. Outside of those obvious health threats to all, Canada is issuing fines for people assembling in large groups. Arresting people crosses the line into actively repressing civil liberties by physical force. Canada is merely making it unaffordable to assemble for the duration of the state of emergency. The prime minister and my premier have contemplated making it arrestable -- but they ultimately decided against force in favour of strong persuasion.

Social distancing is vital right now. No one has the right to spread an incredibly communicable disease that currently has no antiviral and no vaccine. But TF is right to observe that if the pandemic becomes justification for taking the power to arrest people for assembling, that power could remain in place even after the pandemic is past. Even now, there are reports that the NYPD is using enforcement of social distancing as an excuse to accost, harass and assail low-income individuals and people of colour.

https://theintercept.com/2020/04/15/nyp … istancing/

And we've seen it presidentially as well. When Obama was in office, I personally applauded his use of executive power to provide counterterrorism, stimulus, health care and recovery to his nation when congressional gridlock would not permit him to act. But I see now that I was mistaken. Under Obama's stewardship, the executive branch of the president has gained the power to wage war without congressional approval, engage in drone attacks, assassinate globally and secretly, rewrite domestic policy at will -- and that power has remained a part of his office under Trump.

On every level, we need to consider what happens when power, even when in passable hands, could go to someone inclined to use it ineptly and foolishly if not disastrously. The opinions in this post do not represent the views of Sliders.TV, I cannot stress this enough in the name of blah blah blah it's late.

I've been watching some Biden videos to get a good idea of who this guy is.  I watched the Bernie endorsement video, and I saw what everyone was talking about.  Biden looked slow and tired.  He looked a bit lost at times.  Bernie is older but was much more lively and seemed to be leading the discussion.

Then I watched a town hall that Biden did yesterday with some essential frontline workers.  He seemed much sharper.  Much wiser.  A couple times it seemed like he might be struggling, but he seemed on his game.

I guess that's sorta what we're going to get from Biden.  He's going to be slow some days and sharp some days.  He's going to look weak and old sometimes, and he'll look experienced and decisive at others.  And, you know what, I think that's okay.  Despite what Trump thinks, I don't think the president needs to have total authority.  Having a president who needs to rely on his cabinet on certain days might not be the worst thing (and is the direct opposite of the current president who doesn't seem to listen to anyone not related to him).

I also watched Obama's endorsement of Biden, and it made me sad that none of the candidates resembled Obama at all.  I happened to watch a video on youtube of Obama and Trudeau from a few years ago.  It was inspiring and made me hopeful.  It'd be nice to have a guy like that to vote for.

A lot of my friends aren't too happy with me when politics come up. Most of the people I know in Real Life are women who are extremely left of center. (Did I say most? I meant all.)

They are not happy that I have spoken well of the premier of my province as he has historically been conservative and a Trump supporter and his good handling of a health crisis has won no favour with them after all of his bad and malicious budget cuts.

They are not happy with me for not believing Tara Reade's accusations towards Joe Biden. They are not happy that I think Biden might be okay as they feel he is not a revolutionary and not sufficiently progressive and they find his warm grandfather persona to be phony and fake and they are disgusted by his handsy past and believe Tara Reade's story.

They are not happy that I favour Governor Gretchen Whitmer as Biden's VP (I adore that lady, she is SUCH a go-getter) and my friends would rather see Stacy Abrams (whom I feel is an excellent human being but inexperienced), Elizabeth Warren (I'm worried she'll alienate Bernie's supporters) or Kamala Harris (whom I feel isn't progressive enough to balance Biden out).

We have a former friend who had arrogance to declare that his opinions represented all of us in consensus. I know what he would say if he and I were on the same side politically. He would say that women will always believe another woman even if what's being said contradicts history and doesn't explain past behaviour. He'd say that of course they'd favour someone with the woke label or someone of colour over someone of skill because wokeness is an act and any concern for people of colour is just pandering to specific demographics. He'd say that anyone who disagrees with me/us are just acting out their biases and trauma and insecurities whereas we, as clear, right-thinking individuals, are unencumbered by prejudice of any kind.

*shudders*

My response to my friends is: I prefer their disagreement. My opinions are MY opinions and I'd prefer it if you would get your own. No one should live in an echo chamber and no one should claim that a difference of opinion is due to one side being deceitful or mentally ill. In fact, if Slider_Quinn21 agrees with me on anything after this, I'm going to make a special effort to find something to argue over with him. :-D

Yeah, I'm worried that the Conservative premier of my province, Doug Ford, is winning so much acclaim right now that he will sail into re-election and then resume his platform of austerity and political savagery. But no one should worry about that right now; the focus has to be on saving lives.

The Prime Minister of Canada is a very sweet but deeply amateur leader. He's great at gestures: after he won the office, he spent the next morning in a subway station randomly greeting commuters and thanking them, he achieved gender-parity in his cabinet, he wears STAR WARS socks, he expressed a self-confessed layman's enthusiasm for quantum computing.

He also bought an oil pipeline despite his stated intentions to reduce pollution, attempted to force a sweetheart deal for a company prosecuted for bribery and accepted a free vacation on a private island, both of which the ethics commissioner of Canada found a breach of the public trust and cost him badly. He came out of re-election with a government that had gone from a majority to a minority and significantly short on the popular vote.

Most recently, Prime Minister Trudeau had been in self-isolation after his wife tested positive for COVID-19; after she recovered and tested negative, she took the children to the family cottage outside the capital city and in a different province (think state). During Easter, Trudeau and many premiers (think governors) urged people not to go to their out-of-city cottages and secondary residences: they would put unbearable weight on those health care systems and food supplies. Police checkpoints were set up to keep residents from traveling between provinces. After that message, Trudeau crossed the Ontario provincial border into Quebec to join his wife and children at the cottage for Easter. The optics are terrible on this.

That said, the prime minister is an essential worker and permitted to cross borders; he has a private staff and physician and would not have strained Quebec's resources or food supply; he remained within the quarantine group of his wife and children and the personal staff with whom he'd lived during his wife's self-isolation. But very simply, Trudeau told people not to cross provincial lines or go to their secondary residences and promptly did both. God damn it.

This sort of thing happens. Trudeau's done some good stuff, essentially bringing about a universal basic income for the unemployed or underemployed for the duration of this emergency. It is going to cost trillions, but Trudeau effectively declared he would worry about the economy LATER; right now, he wanted everyone to have a monthly paycheque. Yes, he screwed up on the cottage front; it hardly seems to matter. I've seen the deranged village idiot running the show down south; I'd rather have the occasionally inept but fundamentally decent father figure.

In the States, the light of my life, Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, has been taking heavy fire for an updated ban on businesses selling anything other than food and medicine, barring people from buying gardening supplies and paint to try to induce them to stay indoors and apart in retail shops. It's a well-intentioned measure and my province did something similar. But they didn't ban sales of these items; they instead ordered that all non-food and medicine retailers switch to online orders and curbside pickup which is the online reason I'm online right now; my router blew and I needed a new one. Curbside pickup is how I got one.

Whitmer's error may have cost her a place on Biden's VP shortlist which is a shame, but my niece grumbles that I always go for hyperactively peppy white women who get stuff done and swear like sailors and that just because I like someone personally doesn't mean they should be in the White House. She is correct.

These people are going to get sick. They are all Trump supporters, but I don't want that.

I'm also not sure it's sound political strategy for a president to encourage his supporters to get themselves infected with COVID-19 and die.