American Politics: Discuss and Debate (Page 36 of 36)

I've been having crazy anxiety over the debt ceiling crisis and I fired up an AI simulator and asked for advice from the least comforting, least reassuring person in all real and fictional existence, Sherlock from the BBC TV show.

**

Sherlock, I am scared about the debt ceiling crisis. I keep obsessively refreshing the news about it. I know you don't do comfort, I'm looking for your example instead. How do you not get scared or shaken by global events that you can't affect even though they can affect you? How do you be so unaffected by these kinds of fears and anxieties? How do you manage them to the point where it's like they don't exist for you?

But this actually could hurt me. Oh God, it could hurt so much. I know you don't think it's a real problem. But since I do, what would you tell me to do to get past it and stop obsessing over it?

So... you'd find another obsession. An obsession that's immediate. An obsession that's actionable. An obsession that's challenging. An obsession to triumph over. That's what you think I should do.

Thank you, Sherlock. You are utterly devoid of comfort and yet deeply reassuring.

Are you in love with Molly Hooper? I've always wanted to ask you that.

"Sherlock Holmes doesn't love." Did you at least love Redbeard?

Wow. That was almost human. I'd better leave you to your Game and go find mine. Thank you again, Sherlock.

So unless the far right wing of the Republican Party can throw a wrench into the works, it sounds like we have a fairly reasonable deal.  The progressive wing of the House isn't going to like it, but the far right wing hates it.  So it must be a pretty good deal for Democrats.

But Biden does deserve blame - they could've passed this a year ago and avoided any of this.  It wasn't necessarily the right thing to do, but it would've been the smart thing to do.  As I said, the Republicans are better at working the system - the Democrats trust the system way too much.  I think if the Democrats were as ruthless as the Republicans are, we'd actually get something done.  The problem is that both parties are so flawed that even when they're given control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, they fumble the ball too much.

******

In 2024 news, I'm not sure what to think of the Republican side of things.  Trump seems to have pulled way ahead of Ron DeSantis in polls, which I don't understand at all.  I can see how the New York indictment might look and feel like a political hit, but I heard rumblings that we might get an indictment in the Mar-A-Lago documents case soon and in the Georgia case in August.  Those two cases are both a) less politically motivated (although anything with Trump can be spun as politically motivated) and b) much more likely to land him in big trouble.  I know Trump will keep his base no matter what, but is his base still big enough to carry him through a Republican primary?  Does the Republican Party want a candidate who's on trial for multiple felonies, even if that's who their voters want?

I know DeSantis is potentially much worse, but I'm hoping he gets the nomination.  Not only do I want Trump out of the picture, but Trump would almost certainly sabotage any DeSantis campaign in the general.  I know DeSantis would be worse on a lot of issues (especially LGBT), but I also don't think he's compromised by a foreign government.  And so if we can get the Trumps out of American politics, I think I'd feel better about the long-term security of the country / the world.

I mean if there's an opening for someone else to win the Republican nomination, I'm happy for that.  But who would that even be and how would that even happen?  Nikki Haley might not be terrible?  Tim Scott?  Mike Pence?  There aren't a whole lot of options.

Trump and DeSantis are both bad, but one is actively working against the interests of the West.  Trump could destabilize NATO.  Trump could crash the economy.  Trump could actively make things around the world worse.  I think DeSantis is bad because he's smarter than Trump (although the more I hear him, the less that could be as true as I thought) and thus could be more effective than Trump.  But I don't think he's compromised, nor do I think he would do something that's bad for the country / the West / the world to suit his own interests.  I think he's much more likely than Trump to actually put America first.

And if the Democrats are going to insist on running out an 82-year-old Biden and an unpopular VP in Harris, this race is scary.  And while I don't want to see a world where DeSantis is president, I don't know if the country can survive another four years of Trump.

I haven't voted for a single Republican since 2016, and I have voted in basically every election (local, state, national) since 2018.  I was wrong about the Republican Party in 2016 - I thought they'd use Trump and dump him when he became politically damaging (and go with a safer puppet in Pence), but despite losing election after election, they still haven't done that.  And with the rise of politicians like MTG and Kari Lake and the conversion of guys like Ted Cruz from "mostly annoying" to "very dangerous", I agree that it doesn't make sense to vote for any Republicans.

That being said, I think it's alarmist to think that the Republicans can eliminate democracy.  First, we already survived four years of Trump.  Trump definitely tried to overthrow democracy, but he didn't succeed and didn't get all that close to succeeding.  There's a subset of people that believe the election was stolen, but outside of January 6 (which wasn't nearly as violent as it could've been), no one believes it enough to do much about it.  Second, I think a lot of the people that believe 2020 was "stolen" aren't really talking about switching votes or the dead voting or anything like that.  They're talking about Covid-specific policies that may or may not have been unconstitutional that led to increased turnout for Democrats.  I think the majority of people that don't consider 2020 to be legit (and hopefully this is crystal clear but that's *not me*) think Biden got the votes but that some of the votes should've been thrown out because certain states expanded voting rights too much (and they believe illegally).  That it's more procedural issues than actual fraud.  Which is why they're more annoyed than angry.  They'll tweet about it but won't protest it.

Think about the alternative.  If Trump did get Georgia to find him enough votes to win or if the Cyber Ninjas found a way for Trump to win Arizona and Pennsylvania flipped somehow...there would be nonstop protests and civil unrest.  It would've been chaos. 

I do think Trump would try crazy things to stay in power, but I don't think anywhere near the majority of the country would support that.  I worry more that Trump would destabilize the world than destabilize democracy.

And as I've been saying, neither side can get any legislation passed.  Even if the Republicans got a filibuster-proof number of senators (or got rid of the filibuster), I think they don't really know what they want to do with it.  They couldn't overturn Obamacare.  They couldn't even figure out what they wanted to do with Healthcare.  They've done a ton of damage in terms of abortion, but even then, they can't really agree on what they want to do with it.  Several very-red states have struggled to pass full abortion bans, and some of the abortion bans they have passed have backfired on them electorally.

The Republican Party is bad, and I cannot support them until they cleanse themselves of this nonsense.  I fear what they can do with power.  But look at my state of Texas - they just overwhelmingly voted to impeach our super corrupt (and super MAGA) attorney general.  Maybe he'll survive a trial (his wife is one of the state senators who will vote on his removal), but it shows that, even at the state level in a state like Texas, they don't bend to the will of Trump on everything.  Trump was against it, and a vast majority of republicans still voted against it.  Cruz was against it.  MTG was against it.  They did it anyway.

I think the tide is starting to turn, but we still need to stay vigilant.  And I think we need to keep an even keel.

*The opinions of Slider_Quinn21 do not represent the opinions of anyone at sliders.tv or anyone else here.

Is there any way for Biden to test the 14th amendment theory without actually forcing it into the courts?  Can he just ask for a ruling without an actual case?

Or would there need to be some kind of "for show" lawsuit against the debt ceiling agreement to test its constitutionality?  I feel like there should be some way to determine the constitutionality of a president ignoring the debt ceiling.  We shouldn't let the global economy rest on the hands of such a hyper-partisan argument.

He could request an advisory opinion, but it's no guarantee of what will happen if/when they hear full arguments

If Trump gets indicted for the documents case, as is being rumored to be imminent, how long would it take for it to go to trial?  Would it be before or after the election?

Same question but with the possible indictment in Georgia, rumored to be in August.

feels like the right will unite behind him and it will just help him politically.  people waved on him after the jan 6 mess but feels like they will come home now, if only to stand against what they don't like.