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They should focus on keeping the worst of them out of the top positions (Such as Sessions, DeVos and Bannon), and go from there. Picking your battles is never the sexy option, but it is a sound strategy. When it comes to most legislative issues, they can pretty much block everything as it will be mostly out of the public eye/interest.
Do fuck off.
Practical considerations aside, however, it is possible for two things to be true at the same time: that Trump won "fair and square", and that his election does NOT reflect the will of the people. And that sucks.
Republicans systematically hundreds of appointments for years. There are what, like 150 empty judicial posts right now just waiting to back packed with 25 year old Heritage Foundation cranks. And the fact that The American People do not in fact care very much is why you can write that post today - you probably didn't even know this yourself. And you're a guy who hangs around talking about politics on the internet.
Or else you think nobody else knows.
What can Trump do about it if Democrats continue this behavior? He can bitch on Twitter. To the, what, 30-something% of Americans who still support him.
The point of dwelling on Trumps loss of the popular vote is to underline the fact that Trump is unpopular, the republicans are unpopular and their policies are unpopular.
I don't have a problem with the Democrats saying that they're looking for common ground, or attempting to work with the Republicans, as long as they're also fighting just as dirty as Dan demands against the tactics the Republicans have been employing.
I don't want the government to be some sort of partisan shit show, but until the Democrats show that they understand how to play the Prisoner's Dilemma, I don't see why the Republicans would drop a winning strategy.
But you can't just block cabinet positions and SCOTUS picks for four years, both because it quickly depletes all political capital, and looks really, really bad to voters. But you can use that capital to block the worst of them.
But hell, nothing about this election season and first 100 days has been par for the course, so maybe these days you can just block everyone. Who knows anymore?
@15: Does flagging comments even do anything here? I reported a comment weeks ago that was insanely anti-Semitic, and last week one that flat out was advocating (and asking people to commit) racially based murder, and both are still up.
Many of the people who voted in Trump did so because they want to "blow up the system."
So blow it up then.
That's what they want. Give it to them. It'll throw them into a poverty and hell they'll never get out of, but it's what they want.
@18 - This.
@21 - You couldn't flatten play-doh.
Too much trouble -- but your nation needs you.
I agree with you that Dems & "progressives" talk some BS.
But Rs are a whole lot worse -- BY A LONG SHOT -- and clearly you are smart-enough to understand that.
So get with the program.
The goal needs to be 2018 and stopping the GOP from achieving a super majority. Because once that happens, it is more or less game over. Wasting political capital to block one conservative justice for another conservative justice is not going to help that. We had to take that L as soon as Clinton lost. Trump is not going to sit on a super majority and accomplish nothing like Obama did.
@22: Ok.
I think you give him far too much credit...
I know that, but the dumbasses don't, and they'll continue to vote for self-destruction until they get it. They can't be bargained with, they can't be reasoned with. They want to destroy themselves and everyone with them. If the republicans can win by never compromising and the democrats cannot, then the needle will move ever more towards the conservative side.
So how do you deal with that?
Even I would rather destroy it all than eventually live in a real life version of The Handmaid's Tale.
You do realize that you'd be making exactly the opposite arguement today if Clinton were installed in office via the undemocratic (s)Electoral College after losing the popular vote, right?
No one is buying your specious bullshit.
You get laid, ComCom? You seem especially stimulated today. Just layin' down that hyper-punctuated jeering like an animal!
at the world
I write comments on SLOG
that read like
doggerel.
-Commenter Comltatus, SLOG Poet Laureate
Maybe it is because the GOP has always been better at branding and emotional appeals, and the left tends to be more about logical appeals and identity politics. But also the conservative mindset is that government is more of a hindrance, so blocking everything appeals to that, whereas progressive thinking requires progress, which an intransigent government can not deliver.
Blocking legislation and certain appointments is par for the course, but simply allowing no cabinet positions or SCOTUS vacancies to be filled for four years is quite unheard of, and would cause a real governmental/constitutional crisis. Even holding off on Garland's appointment until after the election was not strange (look up the Biden Rule) But perhaps we live in times that are strange enough.
But like I said earlier, 2015-2016 were years in which no one commenting on the political landscape was right about anything. Maybe Trump's rise to the presidency will finally show the left that they need to start FUCKING VOTING.
Obama accomplished nothing. Wow.
But that explains everything about you.
Sign it and post on FB. Over 500,000 have already signed.
I really don't think you are. And trying to communicate over all that is exhausting, like trying to reason with a schizophrenic, or calm down a child in the middle of a tantrum.
Please consider dropping the whole hostile, superior, know-it-all act. It's not funny, or cute, or worth doing for any reason - at least, it doesn't seem so to me. Furthermore, you seem to be fulfilling every current stereotype of the right-wing troll, which I can't imagine does "your side" any good.
Democrats did not lose because they were not fighting down there. We lost *BECAUSE* we were fighting down there, and that got us Hillary instead of Bernie.
We are not going to advance important causes by acting like Republicans. We'll just have the same shitty candidates they do and it'll be a toss-up. We will advance important causes by NOT acting like Republicans. And even now, Democrats are basically acting like Republicans. And it isn't working.
It is certainly relevant that Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. He has the presidency due to the system that is in place. What he does not have is any sort of mandate.
Its always been about you ComCom... You're such a mean daddy. I imagine you make love just like you post.
@46: Now you're getting it. I think we've all tried at some point, but he's not interested in behaving like a rational adult. It's easier to simply ignore him.
A couple weeks back, I went looking for his profile history for some reason and was met by a 404 error, so I had hoped that his profile had finally been nuked like SeattleBlues or one of the other resident deplorables. Sadly, it must have been a random database error.
But to your point... I personally can 'face reality', i.e., acknowledge that Trump's win was according to the rules, and he is a 'legitimate' president in that sense. Actually, I think a lot of us here can go that far.
But as to your optimism regarding his agenda... what can I say but time will tell?
One caveat, however: some things can come at too high a price. For just one example - if rolling back hundreds of environmental regulations causes an industrial boom that benefits the economy in the short run, that will seem like a net positive, but it will be illusory. When a couple of decades from now, the fishing industry dies, or drought causes permanent recession on the entire West Coast, or any number of plausible scenarios occurs... it will be apparent who was right after all. But then it will be too late.
@54 - I take your point. But I haven't given up hope entirely yet!
11 days in and we are already absolute pariahs in the international community and Trump is already well on his way to squandering tens of billions and tanking the economy with stupid pointless shit like his cartoon villain wall and random refugee bans. It's going to be tremendous! We're going to win and keep winning.Cuntinator Commingulus is going to finally be able to move out of his mother's basement!
But if I read words 1 through 11, then I also have to ask you to stop writing bullshit like you often do.
The Obama supermajority myth is a rightwing talking point, of course. And yes, it tells us once again everything we need to know about you.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-m…
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/…
https://www.quora.com/When-did-Democrats…
Which one? Gorath or the other one?
The Republicans are terribly dangerous and awful in every way and on every policy. But the Democratic party has no answers, and no plans for the problems that the failure of neoliberalism has left us with. Fundamentally the Democrats are losers (House, Senate, Presidency, Supreme Court, 2/3rds and growing of states). But that's only half the problem. If/when they win, they don't do anything to help. They trot out the same neoliberal policies that led us here in the first place.
This country, and the world, is in for a long, long ride down. It's not a happy thought, but there's nothing around that can stop it.
How's that for back on track?
And @55 - Yeah, CC will probably let me down. I'm just a sucker. :)
@16 Re morons: Certainly some combination of lax educational standards and national infatuation with shallow entertainment has contributed to this. I don't think people are naturally this stupid. Or, as they say in IT: GIGO.
@18 As long as this doesn't blow back to blame this shitshow on us. And you KNOW the GOP will try to sell that.
@24 He doesn't play well with others. It's only a matter of time before internal upheavals heat things up around him.
@40 Fine, but by itself it does nothing. Absent proof of treason or egregious corruption, it's impossible. Trump's drumbeat corroding trust in the press probably will inoculate him to even this.
@54 We just have to make sure that most of the blame lands at the GOP doorstep.
Why the fuck do we still have only TWO goddamn parties anyway?
I mean France, with only 60m people, has SEVEN.
USA, with 330m people, could use at least 7 parties.
Now, this isnt a very popular thing to do. Dan likes to call the Greens traitors. Well, what do you call this thing Pelosi just did? What do you call Obama's "peaceful transition" to Trump,p's fascism?
The Democrats are really the Capitulocrats. They love to capitulate. Al Gore just could wait to give up in 2000. He almost shit himself with glee as he sprang to the telephone o concede to George W Bush. When Barbara Lee tried to challenge the legitimacy of Bush's election, Gore shot her down.
Hillary conceded too. She showed up at Trump's inaugural. And instead of looking at all this giving up with disgust, Dan had to stifle a tear and comment on how appropriate Hillary's white pantsuit was.
Right. Look, these people are losers. They want to lose. They have zero fight in them. They're the ultimate political submissives in that SM dungeon we call DC. Full of bobcats on the campaign trail, but when it comes right down to it, meek and oh so willing to submit to Republican/Neo-Fascist rule.
Fuck em. The Greens and the Socialists may very well be nuts. But at least they show up when its time to fight.
As far as abortion goes, this has been a unifying force in a whole range of conservative Christian churches, who are leveraging that beyond this one issue. There's quite a pitch coming from those pulpits for a Christian Dominionist government. Ironic that those are the strongest alarmists against Sharia, when that's exactly what they're pitching under another label.
Also, @60, you are the only person here that seems to be obsessed with me, I doubt anyone else here thinks about me so regularly, or invokes my name apropos of nothing. You need something else in your life.
Of course, they had a huge amount of help from the alt-right and a bunch of conservative activist organizations and their own pet propagandist media.
We don't have our own media to spread outright propaganda. We've made due with mostly-objective, somewhat impartial media, which is most interested in bu$ine$$, not in social or political causes. Progressive media doesn't have much of an audience at present, and by its nature is not great at sensationalism, lying and hyperbole.
I don't know where we go from here, but if we don't get a clue soon, we're looking at a progressive-extinction-level event unfolding in front of us.
Only three months ago McCain, Cruz and Burr were all chattering on about how they would create some Senate cabal of like-minded obstructionists to deny a Clinton presidency any hearings on SCOTUS Justice nominees at all.
Burr went so far as to brag to a group of GOP volunteers that he would work to see Scalia's vacancy would remain so after four years.
So cry us a river, GOP.
All the women could march last week and there were no arrests.
Trump will use these behaviours as an excuse to tighten the screws.
Wow, she was right, you do love the smell of your own farts.
Trump abused the PM of Australia. Says his phone call with Turnbull the worst one yet!
I'm rather proud our PM gets that distinction.
One method of 'stooping' is to use all the political tools at your disposal. It's the equivalent of a work to rule. If the law says Dems can delay, obstruct and filibuster, then they should delay, obstruct and filibuster. To pretend this is business as usual is insane. We have a president threatening to invade Mexico to sort out 'bad hombres' because he thinks the Mexican military are cowards. Playing by the established rules of the game is stupid - and appeasement. It's the classic mistake of the abused ... thinking you can control the abuser by being nice. It has been proved time and time again not to work with people who lack any sense of empathy for others, such as Trump and Bannon.
The other method of 'stooping to their level' is lying, dissembling, misleading, confusing, distorting and FUD - fear, uncertainty and doubt. That's the method Dems can't get involved in, but the Republicans and Republican media have become experts at since the advent of Fox News. Dems need to keep telling the truth, and nothing but the truth, backed up by science, facts and evidence. They do also need to keep some sort of positive alternative vision for the future available, as a government in waiting, rather than simply being a party of opposition. They need to offer a way for the less dumbass, moronic and more 'moderate' Trump supporters to realise the error of their ways and come back to the Dems without feeling they are unwelcome.
With that proviso, Dan is totally right.
As to holding firm, people like strength & directness.
Dems will gain by holding firm!
He and Rasputin. The Supreme Court must stop him if the republicans won't.
I agree that if these democrats let this guy thru, they are just as grasping as trump. Not caring for the civil rights of so so so many people.
And if they betray their base for their cosy life styles to be maintained, then they underestimate the power that is building.
Not just in America, all around the world.
If you can help yourself.
Filibustering is not playing dirty. It's not going low. It's playing by the rules. It's legal, it's transparent. It respects tradition. The voters will have every opportunity to hold Democrats, and the Republicans, accountable, missing out on none of the information they are entitled to when the people vote. If Republicans decide they don't think filibustering is legitimate, they are perfectly capable of getting rid of it.
If they choose not to get rid of it, then they are the ones who left that move on the table. It's not cheating if you're adhering to *their rules*. What the hell is the filibuster even for if using it is "dirty"?
Absurd.
Block the actions, yes. Not necessarily the appointees. ie Haley yes; deVos No.
Democrats' offices should be flooded with calls alerting them that if they won't fight, change or do a little studying about what the Democratic Party us supposed to mean (hint: donors aren't involved) then they will be rejected/primaried. I'm stunned that they aren't fighting - 2018 is mere moments away.
Corporate media doesn't like this message. The political/media relationship really freaks me out. I thought the media was supposed to be government's relentless hall monitor - annoying when you're trying to get away with something. Truth to power, not easy going for access.
Thank you. Also, as a straight woman with a gay dad (he told me when I was 8 - I recall knowing already, and thinking he was just as annoying and magical no matter what he did or who he did it with. I cared for him through his illness and unsuccessful treatment/clinical trials at Nathan Smith - I only hope that his participation may have led to the treatments we have today.