Transmodiar wrote:Slider_Quinn21 wrote:I don't want one party to control everything.
One party does control everything. Just because it has two names doesn't mean it's not one entity, out to screw us all.
I respect this point of view. It's not something I would say and it's not how I see the world -- but I understand why someone would think this, I would agree with many of the positions that come from this foundation, and it's a rational assessment even if it isn't mine.
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I feel that Democrats are in an extremely weak position and Republicans are in a weaker position. I am shocked and astonished that Democrats won the Georgia runoffs which I had a terrible feeling were lost to the GOP. But Democrats won and the Biden administration will go from having about as much power as the Queen of England to, under current congressional rules, potentially having about as much power as the Queen of England if Biden's ever short by one senator's vote. This is a considerable improvement from how it looked in November when Democrats looked like they'd have a presidency but only the House.
Now that Biden's won, I have to say -- I am not looking forward to his presidency although it's preferable to four more years of Trump, a diseased and deranged lunatic. Biden didn't support Medicare for All, isn't in favour of cancelling all student debt, has filled his cabinet with the Obama-era staffers who oversaw the rise of Trumpism, isn't the progressive figure of defunding the police I wanted and far from being Elizabeth Warren or Andrew Yang or Bernie Sanders and I am disappointed that it's President Biden.
Biden struck me as volatile, incoherent, vapid and entitled, easily provoked into screeching at people. As the presidential campaign began in earnest after his nomination was secured, however, he disappeared into his basement for months. Then he re-emerged and was suddenly polished -- having been privately coached into altering his conduct from "senatorial" to "presidential," as coached by Obama. Biden suddenly received most insults with cool, warmth, understanding and patience.
He had slipups, saying black people weren't black if they were Trump voters, snarling at a reporter asking him if he'd had a cognitive test. Then he got himself under control again. A man standing atop a truck screaming Trump slogans at him was met with a cool call of, "Don't jump!" A black college kid calling him out for his remarks about black identity before asking him what he could do for people entering the workforce received a detailed, kind answer about government investment in black-startup businesses -- without a single response to the (deserved) insult. A president speaks in a respectful, idealistic fashion with vocabulary to encourage discourse and is open to new information, dissent, alternate reasoning and perspective.
I can tell that Biden has anger management problems. His stutter is a source of frustration; he often gets blocked on a word and will replace it with a substitution that is incorrect. He's afraid to admit that he's been overly handsy with women. He is deeply hurt by some of the things his son has done and said to him. He rambles and is so fixated on good relationships that he drives bad bargains.
I can also tell that he's not really that keen to lead the country. Instead, he wants to preside over it, set the general goals and the tone, encourage and suggest and be a good spokesperson -- but only engage in executive action and rulership during emergencies. And because he would rather preside than lead, the policies he will put forward will be what you'd expect of a mediocre centrist, a Republican in blue. He's like my grandfather. I loved my grandfather. My grandfather was a hardworking, decent man who cared about people and took advice from experts. I would not have wanted Grandpa to be president because Grandpa would have been little more than a maintainer of the status quo with a few nods to progressivism.
But who would you be more likely to see some results from for student debt forgiveness, immigration, vaccine distribution, virus response, PPE distribution, American manufacturing and economic relief -- America's grandfather or America's deranged abusive father?
Transmodiar would say neither and he could be right about it. His accuracy rate for predictions has been about the same as mine which would indicate that neither of us are born prognosticators, but we occasionally hit the mark.
I have hope that the decency, gentleness, warmth, empathy and love that Biden has shown on the campaign trail, that he performs on TV and that I confess reminds me of my grandfather and occasionally moves me to tears -- I pray that it's real. I don't know if that's who he really is. But I hope it. I don't live in America. But if America goes down, we all go down.
I didn't want Biden to be president. But Trump has to go.
Mitch McConnell wrote:We are debating a step that has never been taken in American history: whether Congress should overrule voters and overturn a presidential election. I have served 36 years in the Senate. This will be the most important vote I have ever cast.
President Trump claims this election was stolen. The assertions range from specific local allegations to constitutional arguments to sweeping conspiracy theories. I supported the President’s right to use the legal system. Dozens of lawsuits received hearings in courtrooms across the country. But over and over, the courts rejected these claims — including all-star judges whom the President himself nominated.
Every election features some illegality and irregularity and it’s unacceptable. I support strong state-led voting reforms. Last year’s bizarre pandemic procedures must not become the new norm. But nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale that would have tipped this entire election. Nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break when that doubt was incited without evidence. The Constitution gives Congress a limited role. We cannot simply declare ourselves a national Board of Elections on steroids.
The voters, the courts, and the states have all spoken. If we overrule them all, it would damage our republic forever. This election was not unusually close. Just in recent history, 1976, 2000, and 2004 were all closer. This Electoral College margin is almost identical to 2016. If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral. We’d never see the whole nation accept an election again. Every four years would bring a scramble for power at any cost.
The Electoral College would soon cease to exist, leaving the citizens of entire states with no real say in choosing presidents. The effects would go even beyond elections themselves. Self-government requires a shared commitment to truth and shared respect for the ground rules of our system. We cannot keep drifting apart into two separate tribes; with separate facts, and separate realities; with nothing in common except hostility toward each another and mistrust for the few national institutions that we still share.
Every time in the last 30 years that Democrats have lost a presidential race, they’ve tried a challenge like this one — after 2000, 2004, and 2016. After 2004, a Senator joined and forced this same debate. Democrats like Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, and Hillary Clinton praised and applauded the stunt. Republicans condemned those baseless efforts. And we just spent four years condemning Democrats’ shameful attacks on the validity of President Trump’s own election.
There can be no double standard. The media that is outraged today spent four years aiding and abetting Democrats’ attacks on institutions after they lost. But we must not imitate and escalate what we repudiate. Our duty is to govern for the public good. The United States Senate has a higher calling than an endless spiral of partisan vengeance.
Congress will either overrule the voters, the states, and the courts for the first time ever or honor the people’s decision. We will either guarantee Democrats’ delegitimizing efforts after 2016 become a permanent new routine for both sides… or declare that our nation deserves better. We will either hasten down a poisonous path where only the winners of elections accept them… or show we can still muster the patriotic courage that our forebears showed, both in victory and in defeat.
The framers built the Senate to stop short-term passions from boiling over and melting the foundations of our Republic. I believe protecting our constitutional order requires respecting limits on our own power. It would be unfair and wrong to disenfranchise American voters and overrule the courts and the states on this thin basis. And I will not pretend such a vote would be a harmless protest gesture while relying on others to do the right thing.
I will vote to respect the people’s decision and defend our system of government as we know it.
