Senate The US Politics discussion

He went off today again on Twitter. Its just a full on campaign to discredit anything against him. He's setting himself up as a dictator.

 

So, what are your thoughts on his comments, @Ava G. ?

 

I don't necessarily judge him for developing those urges toward his daughter. But instead of visiting a therapist to figure out what went wrong (he could afford the best!), he's loud and proud of it.

Everything he has said about Ivanka's body. Comparing women he has the hots for to her. He has no shame, because he has no ethics.

She's a remarkably attractive woman, and I think he views her as a trophy to his own brilliance. When in reality she is, to him, an extension of his own narcissistic ego.

 

A friend of mine on Facebook detailed (with sources) a lot of the horror around the recent news about the nearly 1500 migrant children that the US government lost. It's a nuanced yet sobering read:

 

Here is a recent Frontline on what happened to some of the kids.

 

She's clearly a product of his high quality tremendous sperm, which makes all of her positive attributes a reaffirmation of his own awesome genes.

I'm just joking. He once defended Don Jr. on Twitter by referring to him as a "high quality person", and Trevor Noah subsequently joked about what an unusual compliment "high quality person" is, and that knowing Trump, it wouldn't be out of character if he meant that he was of high genetic quality. Being a product of Trump's sperm comes with its own genetic seal of approval, after all. And I've been amused by this idea since then, because he's right: it wouldn't be out of character.

 

Heheheh

Hmm. Does Sharper Image sell frozen vials?

 

I hear a lot of people accuse critics of Trump of criticizing things that they wouldn't otherwise criticize just because they hate him. That's not true. If Barack Obama had said the things about his daughters that Trump has said about Ivanka, I'd be just as disgusted and repulsed by it. And, by the way, if Obama had said it, so would every Trump supporter.

 

This. If I can't give Hulk Hogan a pass for creepy things he's said/done about his daughter in the past, then I'm sure as hell not going to give Donald Trump a pass!

 

actually Trump went on inside edition back in the 90s when the other daughter was born , and sitting there with marla maples gestured to his chest and said he didn't know if the baby would have big boobs.

 

Here's a bunch of policy positions I've seen thrown around (personally I don't support all of them).

But which policies would be better politics for the Democrat in 2020 to run on, in order to win enough Trump voters over while also increasing their own base turnout to win the general election?

1. Single-payer healthcare
   
2. Tuition-free for state colleges/universities
3. Minimum wage of at least $15/hour
   
4. Job guarantee
   
5. Paid leave (sick time, new parenthood, vacation)
6. Free childcare, and universal pre-school, nationwide
   
7. Citizenship Pathway for illegal immigrants
   
8. Infrastructure (electric grid, water, schools, digital, transport, housing, etc.)
   
9. Ending LGBT+ discrimination (such as the Equality Act which would add LGBT to anti-discrimination protection in employment/housing/medicine/adoption/education/public-accommodations/etc. at the national level)
   
10. Labor Union empowering legislation
    
11. Carbon Tax & clean energy investment
12. Tax Raises for Rich, Corporations (especially Big Banks, Big Oil, subsidies for unhealthy food, companies that ship jobs overseas)
13. Criminal Justice reform (end for-profit prisons, low-level offenders not having mandatory minimums, nonviolent offenders offered treatment not jail, encourage police body cameras, requiring transparent databases where police have to report all violent incidents involving them or deaths/injuries while in police custody to the public, funds for police training on alternative approaches to de-escalate tense situations, investing in community policing so they're already there and building trust before trouble arises, end implicit and explicit quotas for arrests/stops or governments relying on fines/fees as steady income, end job discrimination against felons who have paid their debt to society, etc.)
14. Voting/Election/CampaignFinance reform (Universal voter registration/updating, repairing the Voting Rights Act, making Election Day a federal holiday, encouraging early voting in all states, nonpartisan House redistricting, limiting or ending private campaign donations for public campaign funding, reforming/ending the Electoral College, etc.)
    
15. lifting the cap for Social Security funding (perhaps expand it into UBI)
    
16. Equal Pay for Women legislation
17. Marijuana legalization
    
18. Break-up the Big Banks
    
19. Affordable Housing legislation
    
20. Gun Control measures (ex: universal background checks)
    
21. Outlawing coal, fracking, oil drilling
    
22. Cut Military Spending
    
23. Support NATO, tough on Russia
    
24. Support Palestine, tougher on Israel
    
25. Withdrawing from Afghanistan, Middle East, Somalia, etc.
    
26. support improving relations with Iran, Cuba
27. supporting more Muslim Refugees
    
28. being Pro-Choice

Also, on whichever issues you find to be the best for the Democrat to run on... out of the 5 major speculated candidates that poll high already (Sanders, Biden, Harris, Warren, Gillibrand), which seems to align best with the policies you think are key to winning?

 

@Ghost

The list is too big. Campaign on three things:

Medicare for all
Make the middle class tax cuts permanent
End the trading of oil and gas futures contracts on the commodity exchange (causes prices to rise quickly and fall slowly)

I would start with that foundation and go from there. All the other issues will fall into place as time goes on. I would also run local campaigns, ie talk about the economy in the heartland and not Russia, but Russia and social issues in places like the Philadelphia surburbs where a lot of moderate Republicans are ready to switch sides.

 

Is it really that hard? Focus on Trump and how he lies and lies and lies and lies. Focus on what sick person it takes to call his opponent "Crooked Hillary" and to yell "Drain the swamp!" only to go on to make that swamp twenty times worse. Focus on his insane foreign policy that will get countless people killed. Sure, throw in the Medicare for all as a bonus, and make sure people know that's part of the agenda...but I fall asleep just reading that. People didn't turn out to vote because of Obamacare, and Medicare for all isn't any sexier of an issue. The primary mission of this election and many subsequent ones should be to bury the GOP. Donald Trump and his party are the absolute antithesis of what this country should be, and Democrats need to spell this out in plain English.

 

Normally I would say infrastructure would be a good wide-spectrum unifying topic. The problem is Trump's base is riled up on racist and white nationalist fervor, and as long as Trump keeps insulting the minorities and immigrants (illegal or not) they're happy and don't care about the rest really.

So maybe it might be better to try to get the liberal and independent bases riled up as well. I hate to say fight fire with fire, but Trump ran his campaign on insulting and belittling other people (he's still blaming the Democrats for the awful things his administration does, but not like facts matter much to his base). Run as anti-Trump and anti-Russian, but then I'm not sure if Democratic voters will have higher standards than Republican voters, if simply being against something would be enough. I know that sounds awful, but considering Fox News' ratings, I'm not sure that's inaccurate either. Of course that also depends on how the country looks at the moment. Right now things look stable, which benefits Trump. I wouldn't be surprised if we experienced another Republican financial crisis, which will have to be cleaned up by the next Democratic president (again).

Maybe campaign on cheaper gas prices? Aside from the nuclear missile thing (which is a big thing), sure would be nice to be able to pressure the oil-producing countries. Of course it'd be better if we could wean ourselves off fossil fuels more, but that's science and that's too complicated for America.

Off-hand, I'd say raise the minimum wage and fix social security, and later on come up with ways to pay for it. I'm sure the Republicans will attack that as a waste of money, but they'll attack anything that doesn't benefit the rich (especially at the expense of the poor).

 

Pretty much the opposite of this. A party needs to stand for something more substantial than "we are not Trump".

 

If Democrats seriously want to win, they have to focus on winning back white voters while not alienating people of color. Most of the things on that list will not do that. Here's what I think will work, though.

1. Focus on income inequality and real solutions to close the gap.
a. Talk about hollowed out towns due to automation and poor labor policies. (Use this as an opportunity to point out that Trump made promises here that he didn't keep).
b. Talk about connecting those towns to the rest of America to create access for businesses to invest.
c. Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. Have a detailed, bold infrastructure plan.
2. Labor Union empowerment.
3. Making middle class tax cuts permanent and sunsetting the upper class tax cuts. Call those upper class tax cuts the "Trump Tax Cuts for himself."
4. Criminal Justice Reform. Although it's fair to frame this as a racial issue (it is), you can win black and white voters if we frame this as a policy initiative to save

 

I've been reading more about authoritarianism in recent times, and what I've read lays out clearly just how daunting the challenges are. David Frum put it best last year when he said that many Republicans will abandon democracy when faced with a choice between democracy and a loss of power.

I've already written about how fear-based authoritarianism is, but I think I underestimated just how deeply it has worked and why continues to do so. It's critical to understand how important Fox News and other fear-based outlets have been in keeping the Republican base in a constant state of fears about things both real and imagined. This article lays it out well:

https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/...&httpsredir=1&article=1204&context=respublica

I think it's just by an undergraduate student, but he cites a number of authoritarian experts in his essay. What he wrote about loss aversion makes a lot of sense. More than anything else though, it's this that stands out:

Fox News has been poking and prodding people's fear for more than a generation now. It has kept people who may otherwise have not seen their fears activated in a state of near-constant anxiety about perceived threats. Now all of that is supercharged by Trump and many of his supporters.

There is nothing comparable for Democrats. Having said that, if Democrats are united behind a good candidate, they can overcome this, because there just aren't enough authoritarian-type voters to beat a strong Democratic candidate. Widespread anger toward Trump in particular and Republicans in general could be enough to carry Democrats in 2018, though it doesn't work the way authoritarianism does. It's the best we've got, though.

 

It's an excellent pair of ideas but it requires active government in a country where the belief government is the problem is practically deemed holy writ! Is there a US politician with the sheer skill to successfully advocate for this?

 

I wonder if it's ever been or could ever be scientifically established that running on not being your opponent gets you bad results?
And didn't Trump beat everyone by not being them?

 

Treated like animals. Just like Donnie said. Animals.

https://www.azcentral.com/picture-g...igrant-children-at-holding-facility/10808687/

 

Trying to coddle the enemy will not work. Most Trump supporters would gladly send their opponents to the gas chamber if he gave the word. They hate us totally and completely. It's not a matter of political bickering. It's about survival. Look at what they've done to American citizens in Puerto Rico. Look at what they are doing to children at the border. 20 kids murdered at Sandy Hook and they chose NRA money over improving public safety.

If the Democrats continue to coddle these Nazis, they will fail. To hell with them.

 

Trump talked about this. His entire platform was and is big government. The truth is that Americans love big government as long as they think big government is for them.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

 

Or as long as they don't have to pay for it.

I clearly remember the calls for federal assistance after Hurricane Katrina, mere months after Republicans leaders gave speeches in Congress about "starving the beast."

As a species, we seem to have very selective memories.

 

Well I'd say one of Trump's 'trumps' was that he was different to all the others , on both sides the candidates were basically the same , they will spout the same safe style p.c. rhetoric , while Trump was notorious for speaking without filter , I think a lot of the public rather liked that .