Politics/Slapfights - Ancient history to modern day!

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Yes indeed. Mutually assured destruction is a pretty strong guarantee of peace.

[TTTX]

Indeed. It has already been so long since both world ars that less and less people have any emotional connections or even any real stakes at those times. Most people these days just reads about them in history books, either at school or on their free time. This way newer generations starts to see those wars as just stories, like we see Napoleons's wars at early 1800s, not to mention of anything older than that. People might know it happened and read facts about them....but it just doesn't truly mean anything for them as they don't have any contact or stakes on them. And now the same is happening to both world wars.

Which is why I wouldn't be at all surprised, if the world is thrown in another large scale world war in next 20-50 years. After all, this had already started with right wing movements becoming popular in many countries, not to mention of rising nationalistic ideals and all of this "some people are better than others for one reason or another" ideology that many people seems to favor. All of these had preceded major armed conflicts in the history and could happen again.

Only silver lining here is the fact that whole world is so tied up to global markets, countertrade and "global life" that any sort of major war is bad for everyone. No one really wants to start major war as it it would end up being bad for them too.

We are just seeing the results of a lot of bad desions made mostly around the early to late 2000's.

Of course there are later desions that just adds fuel to the current crisis, like some left sided people keeping calling people sexist, racist, etc, for years now and people are getting tired of it like a lot.

[Vol]

Results are starting to trickle in. According to 538's last update, 50/50 on the House, 90% GOP in the Senate.

[Vol]

Fox is making an early call that the House goes to the Democrats.

Hope you boys like infinite investigations and breathless media thinkpieces on every of the hundreds of subpoenas.

[Vol]

Senate confirmed for retaining GOP control.

So what's going to happen is that our already nearly useless Congress is going to actually do nothing of note for the next 2 years, and the budget fights are going to be even more expensive.

However, the GOP won the governorship in Ohio and Florida, so in theory, they can gerrymand hard enough to all but assure they go red in 2020, which would help Trump's re-election bid.

Trump will probably be impeached by the House at some point, I would imagine at a "shank" moment, like if NK peace works out, and the media needs to talk about anything else. The Senate will, of course, refuse to go forward with it, but that's not the point. And beyond that, everyone who in any way helps or helped Trump will face investigations and committee hearings to feed headlines to the press, probably a couple will go to jail or be fined, and the Russia theory will extend to 2020.

So in practical terms, not much is going to change, but it's going to be mildly more annoying.

[Raga]

Yea as I was driving home last night I was listening to NPR and they were interviewing various Democratic high-ups. When asked what they would do when/if they got the House their response to a one was some variation of "We plan to launch 10,000 investigations on every Trump appointee or affiliate we can think of." Sometimes the reporter, to their credit, did their job and prodded them "Yea, but what are you going to *do,* you know, for people, for the people who voted for you?" Then they would usually mumble something indistinct about healthcare. One even said "make sure people with preexisting conditions are protected." There is literally *no* noteworthy Republican advocating for the removal of protections of preexisting conditions. That is something they always wanted to keep even when they were voting to overturn Obamacare every other week a few years ago.

So, congrats Democrats. You have successfully commandeered the Republican mantle. Now you can spend two years going on an on about Benghazi and Hillary's emails intermittently interspersed with using talking points about healthcare as a cudgel or casting some purely symbolic but useless vote on it. I was wrong. Not only did you succeed in adopting Tea Party strategies, it appears you've adopted them so well that you've become them. Well done.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Trump 2020 is gonna happen now. They made sure of it. They won't reform in time, they'll stick with obstruction even though it makes the obstructing party look terrible to voters.

[Raga]

Yea, front page of Mother Jones today: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... tigations/

[Raga]

The worst stupid fucking thing that happened for me was really local and it was this dumbass proposition which passed: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/arti ... of-prop-b/

Thanks, idiots, who don't fucking read and just go "Oh! Firefighters! I like firefighters! I'll vote yes!" When you are facing ludicrous backlogs in city services because of layoffs and your property taxes get hiked even though the services are degrading, don't complain about it.

This proposition was so awful even the Democratic mayor and the police officers union was against it.

[Alienmorph]

The reeeee-ing must be strong online right now.

Honestly I kind of expected to see most of the US turning against Trump, but I guess the extreme left has been so hateful and batshit insane it managed to make him look like the lesser evil to alot of americans. Well done... ?

No, really NOT well done.
But thei're reaping what they planted. As I said in the past, you can't fight fascists by also acting like them.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

The reeeee-ing must be strong online right now.

Honestly I kind of expected to see most of the US turning against Trump, but I guess the extreme left has been so hateful and batshit insane it managed to make him look like the lesser evil to alot of americans. Well done... ?

No, really NOT well done.
But thei're reaping what they planted. As I said in the past, you can't fight fascists by also acting like fascists.

It's actually worse than that. They're not even fighting fascists and they're still acting this insane.

Nobody wants identity politics. A strong majority of people don't like the open borders bullshit. That party has been going hard at 8% of the population. That is vehemently alienating at least 30ish% of the population and has been slowly souring the exhausted majority on them.

[TheodoricFriede]

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[Alienmorph]

Definately not straigh-up fascists, but Trump quite clearly is an ultra-conservator and an elitist. But yeah... you're not going to be a saint of a person by default for simply hating guts Trump and what he's trying to do. But fuck having a well thought-out opinion, and acting on it. That shit is for neeeerds.

[Raga]

God help us if Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies. If you think they lost it over Kavanaugh...

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

God help us if Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies. If you think they lost it over Kavanaugh...

It would be glorious.

[TheodoricFriede]

That woman will outlast us all.

[FrozenShadow]

So, Trump is having press conference and amongst his self-ego stroking, he is also making fool of himself, again.

Then again, that shouldn't surprise anyone.

[Raga]

God help us if Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies. If you think they lost it over Kavanaugh...

It would be glorious.

If you value political theatre over functioning government, sure.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

God help us if Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies. If you think they lost it over Kavanaugh...

It would be glorious.

If you value political theatre over functioning government, sure.

Our government has been a joke for a good long while now. At the very least it should provide entertainment. The economy continues to improve.

[TTTX]

Our government has been a joke for a good long while now. At the very least it should provide entertainment. The economy continues to improve.

it's more surprising that Mob isn't here to bitch about something.

[Vol]

Geez, I go down for a nap after work, wake up, Twitter is going apeshit.

Jeff Sessions is out, new acting AG wrote a think piece saying Mueller had overstepped his authority back in November. Keeping the Senate seems to have been Trump's pretense to move.

[FrozenShadow]

Geez, I go down for a nap after work, wake up, Twitter is going apeshit.

Jeff Sessions is out, new acting AG wrote a think piece saying Mueller had overstepped his authority back in November. Keeping the Senate seems to have been Trump's pretense to move.

Well, if that's the case, it won't take long before Trump fires Mueller then. After all, this is exactly like Trump did before firing Comey. Making up some bogus blames and then firing Comey, so that he couldn't continue Russia investigation. Now, it seems Trump is planning to do it again.

Can we now start talking about real obstruction of justice?

[Vol]

The reeeee-ing must be strong online right now.

Honestly I kind of expected to see most of the US turning against Trump, but I guess the extreme left has been so hateful and batshit insane it managed to make him look like the lesser evil to alot of americans. Well done... ?

No, really NOT well done.
But thei're reaping what they planted. As I said in the past, you can't fight fascists by also acting like them.

In broad strokes, our electorate is made of people who live/work in a city and everyone else. For obvious reasons, the beliefs and lifestyles of the city dwellers are entirely represented in the news and media. So it's good to keep in mind that Fox News, a center-right station, is the biggest one in the country, and also the only large one that represents about half the US population. Every other station (Barring OANN), most every paper, and any other political outlet of note swings the other way.

My point being, Americans as a whole are fairly moderate, Trump's approval among his base is rock solid, and when the revolution comes, the people who don't cram themselves into artificial islands are going to win in a week.

(Mostly joking)

Well, if that's the case, it won't take long before Trump fires Mueller then. After all, this is exactly like Trump did before firing Comey. Making up some bogus blames and then firing Comey, so that he couldn't continue Russia investigation. Now, it seems Trump is planning to do it again.

Can we now start talking about real obstruction of justice?

He doesn't need to fire Mueller, he can have his acting AG, or the new one, utterly defang him and leave him sitting there with his cock in his hands. Let the investigation for the full 8 years, but with no power to do anything. Much cleaner than firing him. But Trump seems the type to prefer the garrote to poison.

You can, but it's academic, as it's a political charge in this case, and the GOP is reinforced in the Senate.

[FrozenShadow]

Well, if that's the case, it won't take long before Trump fires Mueller then. After all, this is exactly like Trump did before firing Comey. Making up some bogus blames and then firing Comey, so that he couldn't continue Russia investigation. Now, it seems Trump is planning to do it again.

Can we now start talking about real obstruction of justice?

He doesn't need to fire Mueller, he can have his acting AG, or the new one, utterly defang him and leave him sitting there with his cock in his hands. Let the investigation for the full 8 years, but with no power to do anything. Much cleaner than firing him. But Trump seems the type to prefer the garrote to poison.

You can, but it's academic, as it's a political charge in this case, and the GOP is reinforced in the Senate.

Well, it has to new AG that tries to do something for Mueller investigation. Because Whitaker can't touch the case without making himself look bad and just adding fuel to the fire. He has openly criticized the investigation in the past, so he got conflicted interest and should recuse himself too. But I got didn't Whitaker got balls to do that, unlike Sessions.

Either, all of these actions clearly shows that Trump and/or very least his administration is guilty as hell. As matter of fact, if Trump would be wise, he would have stayed quiet and let the other people around him take the blame and fault. Then Trump could've played "shocked victim" card and make himself look like a innocent victim, which would've have guaranteed him another 4 year. But now, everything he does just make him look guilty and anything but his uneducated base will see this.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Nah. They've been flailing for a long time now and come up with nothing in regards to MUH Russia. this bullshit investigation has been going on for purely political reasons.

They know they've got nothing but know people like Mobius NEED OrangeManBad in their lives.

Anyone who seriously believes the MUH RUSSIA hysteria at this point badly needs a reality check.

[Augustei]

One thing I will say about this election, the never Trump republicans are pretty much gone, so the Republicans are firmly Trump's party now.
And anyone who thought the shitshow of political drama of the last 2 years was something are yet to see what is in store, it's going to get ugly. Some are even predicting a civil war among the democrats between the moderates and the more vehemently anti-trumpers who will do anything to hurt him even if it may hurt them in the long run. I'd hate to be holding the bag when the next government shutdown happens
I don't envy Pelosi right now.

[FrozenShadow]

Nah. They've been flailing for a long time now and come up with nothing in regards to MUH Russia. this bullshit investigation has been going on for purely political reasons.

They know they've got nothing but know people like Mobius NEED OrangeManBad in their lives.

Anyone who seriously believes the MUH RUSSIA hysteria at this point badly needs a reality check.

Well, I don't know in what reality you live in, as Russia investigation sure had been beneficial. Over 20 people had been indicted by now and some of them were "big fishes". Hell, several of them were in high governmental position, before they had to resign and then making deals with investigators to avoid the harshest punishments. And that's not even mentioning all the other evidence of multiple people openly and not so openly colluding with Russian parties.

So no, it's not in question of "was Russia involved or not". It's clear by now that Russian parties were involved in the process of getting Trump elected. Right now this investigation is just trying to determine how deep and how nefarious these connections and colluding from multiple parties were.

Did people in Trump's campaign stuff or inner circle people just receive information beneficial to Trump or did these people actually promise something in exchange of this information? If so, was it their personal promise to do something as individual or use the power of whatever position they held to give something back to Russian? Did the people in fault actually realized what they were doing or were they just coerced to do it? Why did some many people met in secret with Russian parties and then denied it and were caught in lie, if they were blameless? Multiple people in Trump's campaign staff and inner circle had business ties and dealings/close history/actual meetings with Russian parties before election...did those effected on people integrity and if so, how much? Was Trump himself involved or just people in his campaign staff/inner circle...and if it was the latter, did Trump know about it or not?

There sure are many other questions this investigation is trying to determine. It's just hard do investigation, when people like Trump are actively trying to prevent of investigators doing their jobs.

But most of all, you should ask yourself these following questions. If there is no Russia connection and colluding, then why Trump just won't stay quiet and let the investigation run it's course? Why actively going against it in every turn and just make himself look even more guilty in the process? Does innocent man act like Trump does?

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Because it's nonsense political theater and that argument has been used in support of every Witch Hunt in history.

Nobody outside of the far left cares about this bullshit anymore.

[Raga]

Speak of the devil. Keep it together, granny.

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/08/66559808 ... ing-3-ribs

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Well timed Ginsberg.

[Alienmorph]

Welp, one of the two parties currently ruling my Godforsaken country wants to institute a commission to decide what scientific-related content can or cannot air on national television. They're also the kind of guys who think we should not "blindly listen to mainstream scientist" and most of them are also anti-vaxxers. You can guess where this is likely going.

I swear... if I could I'd go live in Iceland or some place like that, and try to forget I was born in Italy. Fuck my country, and fuck the fucking idiots that live in it.

[TTTX]

Welp, one of the two parties ruling my Godforsaken country wants to institute a commission to decide what scientific-related content can or cannot air on national television.

I swear... if I could I'd go live in Iceland or some place like that, and try to forget I was born in Italy. Fuck my country, and fuck the fucking idiots that live in it.

I would suggest getting out of Italy and live somewhere else.

So start saving some money, you might need it in the future.

[Augustei]

Well timed Ginsberg.

Imagine the absolute shitshow if she passes away 8 months before the election. Imagine the reaction if Trump successfully appoints someone to replace her in 2020.

Welp, one of the two parties currently ruling my Godforsaken country wants to institute a commission to decide what scientific-related content can or cannot air on national television. They're also the kind of guys who think we should not "blindly listen to mainstream scientist" and most of them are also anti-vaxxers. You can guess where this is likely going.

I swear... if I could I'd go live in Iceland or some place like that, and try to forget I was born in Italy. Fuck my country, and fuck the fucking idiots that live in it.

Tbh I see right-wing populism (and in cases fascism/quasi-fascism) continuing to rise across Europe and indeed the globe for the foreseeable future. Don't see Italy changing back anytime soon though, but they definitely won't change back if all those opposed to the five star movement leaves

[Alienmorph]

Tbh I see right-wing populism (and in cases fascism/quasi-fascism) continuing to rise across Europe and indeed the globe for the foreseeable future. Don't see Italy changing back anytime soon though, but they definitely won't change back if all those opposed to the five star movement leaves

That's the problem indeed. The Five Star assholes spent the last half a decade demolishing the reputation of every other political force (not entirely without reasons, admidettly) and now we're basically stuck in a lose-lose situation. Either the current government holds and we get a government of ignorant idiots in charge for years, or we go to the elections again and their allies of the League, who are literally a collection of homophobes, neo-fascists and theocrats, crushes the Five Starts and everyone else, and the end up the sole governors of our country.

[TTTX]

Tbh I see right-wing populism (and in cases fascism/quasi-fascism) continuing to rise across Europe and indeed the globe for the foreseeable future. Don't see Italy changing back anytime soon though, but they definitely won't change back if all those opposed to the five star movement leaves

not really surprising considering the amount of mistakes the EU have made for well over a decade and along with the politicians not really want to see there is a problem to begin with.

[Mazder]

Jordan Peterson is on Question Time tonight.
I'm ready for him to rustle the jimmies of some old English toffs and get boo'd a lot.

[Vol]

Speak of the devil. Keep it together, granny.

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/08/66559808 ... ing-3-ribs

I heard about his on the radio this morning and my first thought was, "Raga did this." You jinxed her. She's survived pancreatic and colon cancer, had heart surgery, and is generally frail, and apparently on enough meds that she didn't notice a fall that resulted in 3 fractured ribs was serious until the next day.

Tough old bird, I'll give her that. But can you fucking imagine if she passes, or retires, and Amy Barrett is nominated? There might be actual, non-LARPing rioting.

not really surprising considering the amount of mistakes the EU have made for well over a decade and along with the politicians not really want to see there is a problem to begin with.

That's the sticking point. If the governed reject the EU and the governments that formed it, then on what basis does it deserve to exist? If people cannot vote for actions that are directly against the interest of the government, the economy, their country, their fellow man, or even themselves, then it's all a big charade of the aristocracy.

Related, but there's some fuckery going on in Florida. Ton of ballots being found, county in question never reported how many votes they had taken as per law to begin with, video of ballot boxes being transferred from private vehicles in a parking lot on election night, so on and so forth.

Then there's 47k absentee ballots that popped up in Milwaukee after midnight which went 38.6k to the Dem, 7.2k to the GOP, and the Dem eventually won the seat by 31k votes.

There's also other stories about "wet ballots" delaying counting and reporting in other places.

Here's the thing. This could all be completely legitimate and fair, simply incompetence and poor luck rather than malfeasance. But when you have such obviously shady looking events around an election, the credibility of the vote is inherently tarnished. How can anyone in Florida trust the election was fair when an unknown number of votes in a specific county can come in well after the vote and tally to change results? Even if it's honest and true, you can't trust that outcome! Incompetence around the voting system is poison.

[Sinekein]

Tbh I see right-wing populism (and in cases fascism/quasi-fascism) continuing to rise across Europe and indeed the globe for the foreseeable future. Don't see Italy changing back anytime soon though, but they definitely won't change back if all those opposed to the five star movement leaves

not really surprising considering the amount of mistakes the EU have made for well over a decade and along with the politicians not really want to see there is a problem to begin with.

Eh. Not really actually. Problem being that the higher the far-right gets, the more power it stats having, the more it gets to show how inane their policies are in the 21st century. Renzi is lucky because at the moment he has an entire party of useful idiots he's "allied" with that he can use as a scapegoat for everything going wrong. But if he gets in power with his natural allies, he won't get to hide behind M5S when he's exposed for the charlatan he is.

In Germany, since the refugee crisis stopped making the headlines, the AfD isn't the biggest winner in elections anymore - it's actually the Greens. In France, populists of both sides are so bad that they make Macron almost likable despite how insanely arrogant he is, and every time they open their mouth the country collectively facepalms. Marine Le Pen disqualified herself forever with her pitiful debate display during the elections, and there is no far-right without the Le Pen name. Wauquiez had a golden opportunity to bring the Republicans back to the center-right while surfing on Macron's impopularity, but decided to go towards the far-right instead while trying super hard to ensure moderates never vote for him. Mélenchon is currently doing his best impression of Nicolas Maduro. Spain recently ousted Rajoy who thought that sending the police to hit Catalans was a great idea, and replaced him with a social-democrat.

The "nice" thing about far-right populists is that once/if they get in power, and if the political system is solid enough, the only thing they can do is look pathetic while their ideas wreck themselves against that horrible thing called reality.

That's actually why I'm reasonably optimistic for the USA in the long run. Sure, at the moment they are the world's laughing stock for electing an orange turd, but Trump is well on his way to obliterating the GOP in the long run, and his presidency looks more and more like a great short-term idea, but a long-term disaster for the right. His speech after the election made it clear that the only solution Republicans had to win was to follow him, but the problem (for them, for the rest of the world it's a blessing) is that there is only one Trump (one charismatic and not-extramarital one at the very least), and that when he goes, in 2020 or 2024, the GOP landscape is going to make the Fallout world look like a flourishing world.

And I'd even say that it might be even worse for them, long-term wise, if he wins in 2020. If the global economy is nice enough, he might enjoy four more years in "power", which means reducing American influence in the world more and more and doing mostly nothing locally because he's so controversial Congress is locked, except creating scandal after scandal so that the media keeps talking about him. In all likelihood, it will give the House to the Democrats for 6 years, and lose the GOP a few more governor seats, which means giving more and more time to the Dems to untangle the gerrymandering the GOP has had 10 years to perfect - and with the shenanigans pulled by the GOP under Obama, I'm sure that they won't decide to take the moral high ground and play nice. Plus, as it happens demographics overall favor the democrats, as minorities have a higher growth rates than whites, and cities also grow faster than countrysides - which means that the Dems can strengthen their hand without even having to outright cheat. Not having control on redistricting for the GOP, while simultaneously being led by an insanely polarizing figure who is great at being worshipped, but also great at being hated, might come back to bite them in the ass for years.

Plus, it goes without saying, but despite what T_D thinks, Trump is not eternal, and once he is gone, the transition is going to be 100 times more brutal than the post-Obama era was for the Democrats. Because Obama was a moderate within his party, while Trump very much isn't.

So at the moment, it still looks a bit grim short-term for the Dems. They might hit a wall in 2020 if no one is charismatic enough to take over - sidenote, the primaries will also be better for them this time around because those will actually be open, instead of being a half-baked foregone conclusion like they did in 2016 which really hurt Clinton a lot -- and doublesidenote, whoever faces Trump in 2020, is likely to be someone new, so someone the right won't have had 8 years to prepare facing, unlike HRC. But they shouldn't forget that two years of Trump were enough for them to score 48% in Texas - Texas. In six more, he's able to turn the Midwest blue once he leaves.

As some analysts put it, Trump has ensured the GOP is Trumpian from now on, but Trumpism kiiiinda relies on Trump himself.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

It turns out The Last Jedi did one thing right. A single meme.

The Left is getting its shit kicked in in the US because they've been in outrage obstruction mode since they lost. They keep trying to appeal to the Progressive minority even though it consistently alienates a significant portion of the moderates.

They retook the house by a small margin. The least important section of the government, the Senate is more firmly Republican than it was before AND most of the Never Trumpers are gone. The Democrats are going to be saddled by that unlikable Hag Pelosi for the next two years and that is going to hurt them. Trump will be able to run against Obstruction and win. Just like Obama did when the Neocons obstructed him in 2010.

The "Progressive" movement pushed too hard too fast and got a paradigm shift for their trouble. I really do have to give them credit though. They've become JUST as censorious and cancerous as the Evangelicons were in the 80's and 90's. Wheel turns once again. Gonna be a fun generation.

[Sinekein]

They retook the house by a small margin. The least important section of the government, the Senate is more firmly Republican than it was before AND most of the Never Trumpers are gone.

The Senate was virtually unwinnable for the Democrats since most of the races were Democrat incumbents.

And the last time the Reps lost that many seats in the House in a single election was under Truman. The final result will be something like 230-205 which is quite comfy - that's almost what the Republicans had so far.

The GOP becoming Trumpian is going to devastate it in either 2 or 6 years.

Trump will be able to run against Obstruction and win. Just like Obama did when the Neocons obstructed him in 2010.

Trump has already used the obstruction card while in full control of the congress between 2016 and 2018. At this rate, his tax cuts will be the only thing he'll be able to boast in 2020. Problem being that such a measure doesn't have nearly the same electoral impact three years later - because instead of being a net gain, it's now business as usual for voters. And of course, no one knows how the US economy will look in 2020.

Edit: also, what stealthily might be one of the Dems' biggest victories in the evening - Florida restoring voting rights for its felons. Even though felons probably don't vote as much, they are likely in a large part African-American, and as such leaning democrats, in a state that's always a tossup - and that decision gives voting rights back to 1.4 million voters (De Santis is beating Gillum by about 40-50k right now).

[Raga]

But they shouldn't forget that two years of Trump were enough for them to score 48% in Texas - Texas.

Trump matters there, but you shouldn't underestimate the impact that the singular oily weaselly malfeasance of Cruz played in this either. He's just an arrogant greasy contentious little twat and even most Republicans don't like him.

[Vol]

https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Al ... ers/Salary

2-4 year degree, $45k a year, benefits, pensions, damn near unable to be fired, and this is what they bitch about as low compensation? What a damn joke. At least private schools can tout their teachers are particularly good at their job.

[TTTX]

Eh. Not really actually. Problem being that the higher the far-right gets, the more power it stats having, the more it gets to show how inane their policies are in the 21st century. Renzi is lucky because at the moment he has an entire party of useful idiots he's "allied" with that he can use as a scapegoat for everything going wrong. But if he gets in power with his natural allies, he won't get to hide behind M5S when he's exposed for the charlatan he is.

In Germany, since the refugee crisis stopped making the headlines, the AfD isn't the biggest winner in elections anymore - it's actually the Greens. In France, populists of both sides are so bad that they make Macron almost likable despite how insanely arrogant he is, and every time they open their mouth the country collectively facepalms. Marine Le Pen disqualified herself forever with her pitiful debate display during the elections, and there is no far-right without the Le Pen name. Wauquiez had a golden opportunity to bring the Republicans back to the center-right while surfing on Macron's impopularity, but decided to go towards the far-right instead while trying super hard to ensure moderates never vote for him. Mélenchon is currently doing his best impression of Nicolas Maduro. Spain recently ousted Rajoy who thought that sending the police to hit Catalans was a great idea, and replaced him with a social-democrat.

The "nice" thing about far-right populists is that once/if they get in power, and if the political system is solid enough, the only thing they can do is look pathetic while their ideas wreck themselves against that horrible thing called reality.

That's actually why I'm reasonably optimistic for the USA in the long run. Sure, at the moment they are the world's laughing stock for electing an orange turd, but Trump is well on his way to obliterating the GOP in the long run, and his presidency looks more and more like a great short-term idea, but a long-term disaster for the right. His speech after the election made it clear that the only solution Republicans had to win was to follow him, but the problem (for them, for the rest of the world it's a blessing) is that there is only one Trump (one charismatic and not-extramarital one at the very least), and that when he goes, in 2020 or 2024, the GOP landscape is going to make the Fallout world look like a flourishing world.

And I'd even say that it might be even worse for them, long-term wise, if he wins in 2020. If the global economy is nice enough, he might enjoy four more years in "power", which means reducing American influence in the world more and more and doing mostly nothing locally because he's so controversial Congress is locked, except creating scandal after scandal so that the media keeps talking about him. In all likelihood, it will give the House to the Democrats for 6 years, and lose the GOP a few more governor seats, which means giving more and more time to the Dems to untangle the gerrymandering the GOP has had 10 years to perfect - and with the shenanigans pulled by the GOP under Obama, I'm sure that they won't decide to take the moral high ground and play nice. Plus, as it happens demographics overall favor the democrats, as minorities have a higher growth rates than whites, and cities also grow faster than countrysides - which means that the Dems can strengthen their hand without even having to outright cheat. Not having control on redistricting for the GOP, while simultaneously being led by an insanely polarizing figure who is great at being worshipped, but also great at being hated, might come back to bite them in the ass for years.

Plus, it goes without saying, but despite what T_D thinks, Trump is not eternal, and once he is gone, the transition is going to be 100 times more brutal than the post-Obama era was for the Democrats. Because Obama was a moderate within his party, while Trump very much isn't.

So at the moment, it still looks a bit grim short-term for the Dems. They might hit a wall in 2020 if no one is charismatic enough to take over - sidenote, the primaries will also be better for them this time around because those will actually be open, instead of being a half-baked foregone conclusion like they did in 2016 which really hurt Clinton a lot -- and doublesidenote, whoever faces Trump in 2020, is likely to be someone new, so someone the right won't have had 8 years to prepare facing, unlike HRC. But they shouldn't forget that two years of Trump were enough for them to score 48% in Texas - Texas. In six more, he's able to turn the Midwest blue once he leaves.

As some analysts put it, Trump has ensured the GOP is Trumpian from now on, but Trumpism kiiiinda relies on Trump himself.

Far Right or Far Left both are terrible.

Anyway the EU needs to find a more permanent "refuge" crisis or else the Far Right problem will continue be there and sooner or later they might take power, because of the inability of the current politicians who can't seem to find or make a desion to solve the problem, because of various of reasons.

When it comes to Trump and Democrats I think they are both idiots and not one side can claim to be better then the other, it seems more just a choice between poisons where both will kill you just in different ways.

[Sinekein]

But they shouldn't forget that two years of Trump were enough for them to score 48% in Texas - Texas.

Trump matters there, but you shouldn't underestimate the impact that the singular oily weaselly malfeasance of Cruz played in this either. He's just an arrogant greasy contentious little twat and even most Republicans don't like him.

The blobfish probably didn't help, but the Democrats got 800k more voters between 2012 and 2018.

Also, Republican voters are waaaaaaay better at voting with a clothespin on than Dems are, especially right now where conservatives are more or less united and progressives are extremely split. I even read an article about a man saying that he was friends with O'Rourke since they were kids, who thought that Beto was a fantastic human being (something seldom said from Ted Cruz), but mentioned that he'd still vote Republican because it was his party and he favored an immigration hardliner.

[Raga]

The blobfish probably didn't help, but the Democrats got 800k more voters between 2012 and 2018.

Also, Republican voters are waaaaaaay better at voting with a clothespin on than Dems are, especially right now where conservatives are more or less united and progressives are extremely split. I even read an article about a man saying that he was friends with O'Rourke since they were kids, who thought that Beto was a fantastic human being (something seldom said from Ted Cruz), but mentioned that he'd still vote Republican because it was his party and he favored an immigration hardliner.

Sure, but for point of reference, Greg Abbot won the governorship by 55% to Lupe Valdez 42% (with 1% to the Libertarian). And Texas always skews at least a third Democrat anyway. So there's a combination of factors. Lots of latent Democrats showed up to vote who usually don't. This is probably the Trump effect and because Democrats actually bothered to campaign in any meaningful way here. They usually just leave Texas for lost. But as for the singular performance of Beto, I think a nontrivial part of that is up to the odiousness of Ted Cruz and the generally likability of Beto. There's an overall noteworthy trend in demographics and such, but I'd be extremely cautious about expecting that result to be replicated for now. And bear in mind, that even with a seemingly perfect storm of circumstances that should have favored Democrats, they still didn't win in a state wide race where gerrymandering can't give Republicans a huge advantage. They lost in a state that is *already* demographically the "minority majority" they are pinning their hopes on.

[Raga]

If you want evidence of some actually sort of shocking Democrat performance in Texas, I'd nominate this as the most noteworthy: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... et/575419/

I literally said "What?!" aloud driving home when I heard this on the radio.

*Extra thought* I used to work for the county so I had some mixed feelings about Ed Emmet. He's made some dumbass decisions about responses to inclement weather including one that basically required me to drive to work in an ice storm (and all the freeways here are elevated against flooding so they instantly freeze in cold weather coupled with us having no snow plows or other equipment to deal with heavy winter conditions). I spun out and nearly hit a concrete wall and it took me nearly 2 hours to get there. And I was hardly a first-responder. I worked in library administration for god's sake. It was ridiculous.

But he was the exact kind of bipartisan moderate who thinks mostly in terms of pragmatics and not politics that you want running your county.

[Vol]

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/05/66064253 ... deo-gamers

To borrow a quote from Osama bin Laden, "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they will naturally want to side with the strong horse. When people of the world look upon the confusion and atheism of the West, they see that Islam is the strong horse."

[Mobius_118]

I just find it funny that the local incel here adamantly denies being an anarchist, then wants the the US to collapse into political turmoil. GAC, you've already rendered yourself impotent, don't make it worse by continuing to be the slathering shitbag we all know you are. Glad to see Michigan went blue again. Hopefully now you'll pull yourselves out of the shithole the conservatives dragged you all in under the guise of "tax cuts".

I'm just happy to see trump is about to have some serious oversight, which will result in him stumbling closer to that 25th Amendment line he crossed the first week of his "presidency". His 2020 bid for reelection is...definitely not going to happen. He'll be lucky to make it to the end of his first term at this rate.

I also enjoy his pants shitting about voter fraud...when his party is committing the voter fraud. At least my state will remain the bastion of sanity in the Midwest.

Oh, and I could point out all the laws he broke in his little AG firing/hiring and lying about knowing Session's successor, but it's beating a dead horse at this point. Some of you will debate the laws, some will shit on the law because libertarian fuckknuckle.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

I'm not an anarchist Mobius.

I'm also not an Incel. Your characterizations are weak at best. Anyway you're still hilariously wrong about 2020 and it's going to be funny as fuck to watch your world collapse in on itself. Narrowly losing the house puts Pelosi back at the forefront and that's gonna bury your lefties.

[Alienmorph]

I'm still baffled to ear a grown man using the term "incel" unironically.