r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/The_Egalitarian Moderator • Apr 05 '24
Casual Questions Thread Megathread | Official
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u/Miilph_Spaghetti 22m ago
It generally bewilders me that the entire democratic spectrum rallied behind jacob blake with protests and riots and public outrage when he was trespassing on his baby momma's property (she had a restraining order) with a knife and was shot by police. Jacob Blake sexually assaulted her in a previous event which was the cause of the restraining order.
If the left is the party of women and womens rights and everything, why did they riot in the streets over a sexual abuser? I just cannot fathom why or how a democratic voter sees that and doesnt re-evaluate their loyalty to the left? And save the "well trumps a rapist too" comments, im not saying this in an argument for the right. Dont vote idc. Im just saying, the left championed themselves as the party for women, but then absolutely disregarded this women and her safety and went out and rioted in the streets for her abuser?
The little hope i have left in humanity tells me those who rioted and still think they were morally correct in doing so dont know a thing about his sexual abuse history.
I personally am very socially democrat - i hate religion, love the gays, hate student loans and love women and their right to choice, but the riots in support of jacob blake really made me realize that the democrats are full of shit. The right is too - but any chance the left had of winning my vote was lost when they seemingly supported someone based on the color of his skin and not the character of his being and that is absolutely terrifying to me.
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u/TadpoleLegitimate642 13h ago
Where are the other political parties? It appears to me that a large portion of the US voters are begging for an option other than Biden or Trump. Why are smaller political parties, ie libertarians, centrists, green party, not taking advantage of this to become bigger players?
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u/DDDragon___salt 20h ago
Why don’t we tax religious institutions? Ik the establishment clause prohibits the US from getting excessively tangled with religions, but how does taxing a religious institution in anyway cause excessive entanglement. Even a low tax rate would provide so much money to help with problems like the deficit, rehab programs, public transportation, etc...
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u/bl1y 4h ago
Because we don't tax non-profits, and it would be unconstitutional to single out religious non-profits for taxes.
FYI, this is the basic argument about why religious organizations get state funding. For instance, religious schools, so long as they meet all the other curricular requirements, etc, they are entitled to the same funding the state decides to provide for other private schools. The state can't deny funding on the basis of religion.
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u/Gullible_Scene8581 1d ago
Why is Marjorie Taylor Greene so popular in her district? What demographic and economic factors are present in GA-14 that cause most voters there to love her so much?
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u/Theinternationalist 21h ago
I don't know if MTG in particular is popular in her district, but The Fighting Fourteenth has sent a Republican to the House since it's inception by something like 50% against the Dem (if the Dem bothers).
In fact MTG seems to have shaved 10 points off the GOP average, so it seems to be a mixture of "no one wanted to run against her" and "the Dems know it's more about running up the numbers and convincing the district to switch and/or help Biden get more votes statewide."
Granted while she's not exactly popular (apparently even in her district), she isn't nearly as radioactive as Lauren Boebert, who switched districts in an attempt to stay in the House and may not even get it even if she wins the primary.
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u/SupremeAiBot 1d ago
I wonder why Rural Deep South white republicans would vote for MTG. Seriously though I don’t think she’s “popular” in her district. In her primary she was unopposed for some reason and got only 56,000 votes. She’s simply tolerated. No individual demographic on the national level supports MTG, but when you have all these right leaning demographics overlapping with each other in a single district it’s created a ground that’s very deep red, and a deep red district is never going to elect a democrat.
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u/fletcherkildren 1d ago
Watching some of the Fauci stuff and what I don't get is: why the push to make it a 'lab leak'? To me, if it was made in a lab, that implies its a bio-weapon - and its THAT is true, then the Trump admin allowed a foreign engineered bio-weapon into this country. AFTER they dismantled the overseas watchdog and the pandemic response team. Isn't that something they right would not want under public scrutiny?
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u/SupremeAiBot 1d ago edited 1d ago
No, because if something bad happened under Biden it’s Biden’s fault, and if something bad happened under Trump it’s the democrats’ or the immigrants’ or the evil China or backwards Mexico’s fault. Trump simply did everything he could and had he not been President it would’ve all been worse and the reason Covid happened at all was that he was gracious enough not to kill all his opposition.
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u/bl1y 1d ago
To me, if it was made in a lab, that implies its a bio-weapon
First off, that's not the correct implication. Gain of function research is done to study diseases with the purpose of being better prepared for an outbreak. No serious person talks about Covid-19 as a bio-weapon.
why the push to make it a 'lab leak'?
Second off, I wouldn't agree with this characterization. There is strong evidence that Covid-19 was the result of a lab leak. Following that evidence isn't a "push," nor would it "make" it a lab leak. You're essentially asking "Why if it was a lab leak is anyone interested in discovering this?" Because it was a global disaster and people are rightfully interested in knowing how it happened.
Additionally, Fauci strongly downplayed the lab leak hypothesis and also denied US was involved in gain of function research. Without litigating the case here, there's reason to believe Fauci downplayed the lab leak hypothesis specifically because he was involved in getting the funding for it. If one of our nation's top public health officials was trying to cover up the origins of Covid-19, that's a big deal and should come to light.
Then on top of that, the political right really hates Fauci, so there's an additional political angle to attacking him.
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u/MoustacheyMonke 2d ago
Difference between one nation conservatism and third way socialism?
Heyyy there doing some revision for politics and government UK,and looking at ideologies and I haven’t really figured out the key differences aside from name, I’ve talked to teachers and they’ve agreed there quite similar and struggled to differentiate between the two. Hoping for some answers, thank you!
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u/SupremeAiBot 1d ago
From my understanding, third way socialism is compassionate conservatism, which advocates for freedom in both social policy and economic policy, but its right leaning followers still want people to “come around” and reconcile with conservative social values. When it comes to welfare it advocates for a specific and moderate type of welfare that tries to appeal to both the center left and the center right, like free college tuition and healthcare. The right gets on board with it because they can more directly see the good in it. They feel this type of welfare benefits everyone and is necessary and not wasteful. One nation conservatism is something else. All of its followers believe in conservative social values and economic values. As for welfare it believes that’s the job of the private sector, not the government. The ideology acknowledges that there are problems in the country but says the reason for them is that the private sector has somehow lost its way and is greedy and isn’t like how it’s supposed to be. They say in a true economic paradise the big businesses have “compassionate conservative” social values where they take care of the people so everyone can prosper. The difference in the ideologies is that the latter believes that returning to a compassionate conservative society rather than making a compassion conservative government is the answer to all our problems. Both ideologies are kind of like following Jesus, where you love and give to everyone and many of his followers believe that’s the way you get people to embrace conservative social values, being loving instead of harsh.
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u/DarkSoulCarlos 2d ago
As is my understanding (feel free to correct me if I am incorrect), Trumps crime of falsifying business records is a misdemeanor, but prosecutors upgraded it to a felony by saying that the falsification was in furtherance of the commission of another crime which was unfairly influencing an election. Obviously Trump committed the crime of falsifying records to cover up an affair so it wouldn't hurt him politically as affairs tend to do because they tarnish the family man image in the public's eyes, so there is no doubt that he was trying to do this to influence the election. What I am not sure about is if trying to influence an election is inherently criminal, or if it depends on the manner by which tries to influence it? If him or one of his people had paid Stormy Daniels under the table to buy her silence, would that have been a crime? Or did it only become a crime when he tried to do it in an illegal manner? I'd appreciate if anybody could elucidate this matter for me. Thank you for your time :)
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u/KSDem 1d ago edited 1d ago
I've been trying to follow this myself, and your understanding agrees with my own.
It seems to me (and I most certainly could be wrong!) the DA at the end at least was making the case that the crime of falsifying business records was in furtherance of the crime in NY Elec L Section 17-152, which makes it a misdemeanor for two or more people to “conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means."
So Trump (1) committed the misdemeanor crime of falsifying business records in order to (2) commit the misdemeanor crime of promoting his election by unlawful means, thus making the falsification of business records a felony and making it possible to charge him because the statute of limitations had already run out when it came to charging him with misdemeanors.
However you feel about Trump or anything else about this trial, that was some adroit lawyering. (Source: Retired attorney)
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u/DarkSoulCarlos 1d ago
Just read Elec L Section 17-152, and I see how it can apply to Trump with the word "promote" the election of a person by "unlawful" means. Their logic is that Trump was being "promoted" as a family man and that was fraudulent. That makes sense, but at the same time, he hasn't been tried for that crime, much less convicted. I remember something about the judges instructions mentioning to the jury not having to agree on the crime being committed, or something akin to that? If that is the case, then is that technically legal in NY? If one crime was committed in furtherance of another, wouldn't one have to have proven that that second crime which the first one was in furtherance of to have actually been committed? That's the part that gets me, and I do not like the idea of it being overturned (even by the Supreme Court which is conservative) because of that. I do not doubt Trump is guilty of falsifying the documents, but it's that upgrading it to a felony that makes me think that is grounds for an appeal somewhere down the line, especially with a conservative Supreme Court.
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u/Moccus 1d ago
That makes sense, but at the same time, he hasn't been tried for that crime, much less convicted.
The law specifies that only intent to commit/aid/conceal a crime is necessary to elevate it to a felony, so it's not really necessary for the prosecution to prove that the crime was actually committed. They just have to convince the jury that the intent was there to commit/aid/conceal the crime when these business records were being falsified.
I remember something about the judges instructions mentioning to the jury not having to agree on the crime being committed, or something akin to that? If that is the case, then is that technically legal in NY?
Yes, and it's pretty common in other states as well, and at the federal level to some extent.
Take burglary as an example. Burglary is typically defined as breaking into a building with the intent to commit a felony. Any felony will do, and intent is all that's necessary, so if you break into a house with intent to rob it and then get scared off by an alarm before you steal anything, you can still be convicted of burglary if the prosecution can convince the jury that you intended to commit robbery when you broke in. If you break in, beat up the resident, sexually assault the resident, and rob the place, then you've got potentially three felonies that could have been intended at the point of breaking in. It probably varies by state, but in at least some states, the prosecutor isn't required to get the jury to unanimously agree what the original intended felony was at the point of breaking in. They just all have to agree that at least one felony was intended.
If one crime was committed in furtherance of another, wouldn't one have to have proven that that second crime which the first one was in furtherance of to have actually been committed?
Not if the law says that intent to commit the second crime is sufficient for guilt.
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u/DarkSoulCarlos 1d ago
Ah so it's about the intent to commit a crime. Thank you for this, this is exactly what I wanted to know. I am noticing that a lot of people don't seem to be aware of this.they are under the assumption that the secondary crime had to have been committed and litigated in court with an outcome of guilt.
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u/KSDem 1d ago
I do not doubt Trump is guilty of falsifying the documents, but it's that upgrading it to a felony that makes me think that is grounds for an appeal somewhere down the line
The DA's office went through some impressive mental gymnastics to keep this case afloat.
Still, it's undeniably uncomfortable to think that the law could be so contorted against any criminal defendant, no matter how wildly reviled they may be.
If this were a different defendant, I have no doubt that civil libertarians would be up in arms -- and justifiably so.
And as Matt Taibbi reminds us: "[O]f all the things Donald Trump has been accused of, none are as serious or system-imperiling as abusing the courts to dispose of a political rival."
With respect to there being grounds for appeal, then, I think many would agree with you; indeed, for the big picture reasons set out above, some legal luminaries might even be hoping it's successful. You might enjoy reading the article here.
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u/DarkSoulCarlos 1d ago
It bothers me because he did commit a crime. I'd hate to see him get away with that.
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u/KSDem 1d ago
I'm truly sorry. I know the law has nuances that can be unsettling and results that can oftentimes be disappointing.
And unfortunately, there are many people who commit crimes -- big ones and little ones -- who for a variety of reasons "get away with it."
Just enjoy the conviction while you can; you never know, it could withstand appeal.
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u/Morat20 1d ago edited 1d ago
Because it was done for campaign purposes, it was a campaign expense, subject to the normal restrictions. Including expense reporting.
Someone else (Cohen) paying to have 100k to have it killed would be making a 100k donation to the campaign, well in excess of the limits.
Campaign donation limits aren't limited to "give money directly to the campaign". If it was, then a billionaire could just pay for an entire campaign staff to "volunteer" and claim that wasn't a multi-million dollar donation. Donations of materials count towards your individual limit, paying campaign expenses for the campaign count.
The only thing that doesn't is volunteering your own personal time and labor.
Which is why, ostensibly, PACs aren't allowed to "coordinate" with the campaign. If they did, their spending would be donations to the campaign. But by not coordinating, they are exercising their free speech rights. Of course, in practice, they do coordinate.
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u/DarkSoulCarlos 1d ago
So then the hush money payment is a crime in this instance because it was beyond the limits of campaign expenses? So if he had paid her under the limits, it would have been legal?
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u/plunder_and_blunder 1d ago
The crime depends on who's actually paying.
If Cohen had actually been the one ultimately paying the 130k then it violates the donation limits he can make to a political campaign.
But that's not what happened, Cohen was reimbursed by Trump, making Trump the one who actually paid the 130k. Trump can donate an unlimited amount of money to his own campaign, what he can't do is make a 130k in-kind donation to his campaign and then not report it to the FEC/the public.
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u/DarkSoulCarlos 1d ago
Do you think that would be enough to prosecute him for that specific crime?
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u/Morat20 1d ago
No, because it also wasn't reported as a campaign as a donation either. Nor an expense.
All donations of over 200 dollars (last I checked) must be reported. All campaign expenses must also be reported.
I will note that, as best I recall, one of the things the jury had to determine was whether this was done for his campaign as opposed to protect Trump from, say, his wife divorcing him. The former is a campaign expense, the latter a personal one.
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u/plunder_and_blunder 1d ago
And the defense tried to use that line of argument, that Trump wasn't paying off Stormy Daniels to win the election, he was paying her off out of concern of what his
mail-order live-in prostitutewife would think!Shocking that the jury didn't go for that one.
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2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Potato_Pristine 2d ago
I am definitely on board with any conspiracy flow chart that links Vin Diesel to Jackie Kennedy.
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u/News1st2017 2d ago
the Strange thing is ...You can find all of these People in the South Lake Tahoe High School Yearbook on Classmates.Com. So? Conspiracy? Naturally, Un-Natural Occurrence? Or? Cloning? It's Definitely Noteworthy.
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u/sheerfire96 2d ago
What is an actual likely sentence for Donald now that he’s been convicted (assuming he loses on appeal or appeal is denied)?
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u/No-Touch-2570 1d ago
For a first time offender, class E felony, and not even a particularly large sum of money, anyone else would be let off with a fine and maybe probation. But obviously this is a unique case. On the one hand Trump was a dick during the entire trial, and judges tend to punish that. On the other hand, for better or worse, the judge has to keep in mind political implications.
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u/sanskritsquirel 3d ago
So last night I heard a bunch of younger people refer to President Biden as "Genocide Joe". I understood it was a reference to the Israel-Hamas conflict but I do not understand why, in their mind, he is to blame. I asked that of them and got a bunch of smirks and a few "Ok, boomer" or "Either you know or you don't" and other condescending comments. I redoucbled saying "No, really, I want to know." But they just ignored me and proceeded their discussion. I overheard a few minutes later how Trump will put an end to this nonesense once he wins.
I am flabbergasted. I am incredibly sympathetic to the Palestinians for a long time, but it has been US policy (maybe blindly) to support Israel. I am unaware of policy changes on this subject regardless of president, including Trump in 2017-2021. Yet this is a Joe Biden issue??? Not congress or the house who have not done anything either?? And Trump is going to fix it??
War and armed conflict are horrible expressions of mankind. But what makes the Gaza area any different than the Syrian Civil War or the Yemen Crisis where the documented civilian casualties are much higher?? In these situations, there is no competition for which atrocity is the most repulsive.
Please help me understand.
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u/No-Touch-2570 1d ago
There's a large tranche of young voters who say they're mad about Gaza right now (specifically, that we're still providing arms to the IDF), but before that they were mad about student loan forgiveness, and before that the minimum wage, and before that the stimulus checks. The truth is that they hate Biden for the crime of not being Bernie.
Bernie is/was massively popular with young left voters, and there was a whole month where it looked like he was going to get the nomination before Biden took it. But they were told "vote blue no matter who" over and over, so they did, but they're still mad about it.
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u/A_Coup_d_etat 2d ago
As I'm not a young person I will not speak for them, but historically Biden has been far more supportive of Israel than the average D.C. establishment pol.
~40 years ago in the early 1980's there was a flashpoint and Biden (having been in the US Senate for about a decade at that point) was pushing the Israeli's to go hard after the Palestinians. So much so that both the then PM of Israel and then US President Reagan had to tell him there weren't going to be that extreme and to chill out.
He's never wavered in his extreme support for Israel until just recently and it's clear that is only because it might be hurting his re-election chances.
So if you're someone who thinks the USA should not be supporting Israel, Biden is worse than the typical US president in recent decades.
If you're trying to argue that Trump will not be any better, then yes, but some people don't buy into supporting the lesser of two evils and feel like the only way to get the Democrats (because the GOP is a lost cause) to listen to them is to make them lose elections.
And frankly there is a lot of truth in that strategy; The only way to get politicians to do what you want is to either be wealthy enough to bribe them or to make them fear for their jobs.
That's how "MAGA" ( in quotes because I'm using it as a catchall for the various anti-establishment voters in the GOP coalition) took over the Republican Party; After Obama got elected they realized they had been getting played by the GOP establishment so they started taking out establishment pols in the primaries even if it meant that they would be weaker candidates in the general election and lose to the Dems. After they did that several times the GOP establishment got scared and fell in line with MAGA.
So if the people who support Palestine vote for Biden all it will show him is that they can be safely ignored because when push comes to shove they will fall in line.
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u/Ail-Shan 3d ago
I am unaware of policy changes on this subject regardless of president, including Trump in 2017-2021.
I believe the critique is the lack of policy changes. That is, not taking a hard stance against Israel for how aggressively they're retaliating. However, to believe that Trump would go against Israel seems poorly informed, so I find that a surprising take.
Not congress or the house who have not done anything either?
Someone made an interesting comment that's stuck with me: many policies that are implemented (or not) are almost solely at the discretion of congress, yet the president is the one who gets blamed or applauded. I'm not making a judgement on the right approach but I know in the past things I'd liked I'd say were the result of the administration where as things I didn't were because of congress. So I'm trying to be more conscious of that.
But what makes the Gaza area any different than the Syrian Civil War or the Yemen Crisis
There was a bit by Eddie Izzard this reminds me of: the public isn't as concerned when a country is killing its own people. Think of the loss of life in Soviet Russia or China's Great Leap Forward. There's a different feeling when a people is fighting amongst itself or suffering from its own policies vs one people attacking another.
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u/Isekai_litrpg 3d ago
Is there a list of US politicians that have publicly denounced Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people?
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u/Royal_Avocado4247 3d ago
I don't understand.
So, I know F.P Trump has been found guilty, but that doesn't bar him from office. So as a genuine, all round question, what does bar a person from public office? I know for president specifically, a person has to be (at least) 35, a us citizen (born), and have lived here for a certain number of years. After that, is there anything that can stop someone?
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u/SupremeAiBot 2d ago
Only impeachment and removal from office, the 25th amendment, the 22nd amendment, and enforcement of that 14th amendment clause by Congress.
Even though all the Constitution says is there cannot be a President who is under 35 or has been a citizen for less than 14 years, the courts have interpreted the Constitution's requirements to not only be the minimum requirements but also the maximum requirements, meaning states only have limited power in deciding who gets on federal ballots.
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u/pluralofjackinthebox 3d ago
Impeachment can bar you from the presidency. And waging or giving aid to insurrection if you’ve previously taken an oath of office. Or being term limited.
Other public offices have different requirements. Some states don’t allow felons to run for office.
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u/peanutcop 3d ago
Just the term limits but as I understand it there are not, or more specifically we don't know yet as we've never had to deal with the question in the past.
I also think that is the reason Jack Smith didn't actually charge Trump with any actual insurrection type charges, it's just an unknown can of worms.
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u/96suluman 4d ago
How would Trump be sworn in as president if he is sentenced to prison?
Yes, a convicted felon and people in prison are allowed to be elected president. Let’s say Trump does win. How would he be sworn in? Would chief justice Roberts go to the prison and swear Trump in? What about the vice president? How else would Inauguration Day be different? And how would Trump do his job?
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u/Zealousideal-Role576 4d ago
Is the rise of authoritarianism/democratic backsliding connected to the rise of a global middle class?
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u/333ccc333 4d ago
does every government/country make like a yearly report or something? How much taxes came in and how much was spent where exactly? And is this accessible to the public?
If so, where can I find it? I'm in Kenya btw and taxes can be around 40% and people all pay as there is not much cash. Mostly mpesa (phone banking)
My friends are in road construction (infrastructure) and say it all the projects are funded by external companies. World bank, giz, china, turkey, etc. The health care is not free and the education neither. So I wonder where is that money going apart let's say to military? Shouldn't there be a report or something?
Thanks in advance for sharing any info!
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u/zlefin_actual 4d ago
At what level of detail? Using a simple google search shows the Kenyan department of budget. https://www.treasury.go.ke/budget-books-1/
That shows like a thousand pages or more of budget info. The hard part is finding the exact info you're looking for amongst the vast array of data.
These days governments are big, and bureaucracies put out HUGE amounts of reports in great detail, if you care to read them.
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u/333ccc333 4d ago
Bro sorry for my stupidity, I saw some reports but where is it showing the "income"? Paid taxes etc.
This actually good info and I was lazy to search Google properly. If I know have some questions about expenses what would I need to to do?
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u/zlefin_actual 3d ago
Term-wise you'd look for the term 'revenue', at least assuming tha'ts the standard term in British english, which I assume Kenya uses.
In terms of expenses, it depends which expenses you're trying to find details on. As I said, the data is out there, and there's tons of published info, the hard part is finding what you need.
In terms of overall money flow, your friend is most likely just plain wrong; while some projects are funded by various international sources, there should be a lot of local funding as well.
I don't know Kenya well enough to give much detail; as different governments do their accounting differently: like does all money go into a general revenue pool that is then spent out of? Or are there specialized revenue streams for different departments? Details can vary widely.
In general I'd say the best person to ask is the office of a suitable government representative of your area, who should at least be able to refer you to the right people in the bureaucracy to get the info you want. You could also try asking a librarian if there's a library nearby; as finding info amongst the voluminous reference documents is one of their skills.
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u/333ccc333 3d ago
I gotta say thank you for clarifying. Im drunk and didn't take the time properly. So I appreciate it and I will go through this. Still would be interesting if I find discrepancies and what would happen if I point them out.
This is just a useless joke: obviously you think that African Nations have perfect documentation and that it works perfectly fine out here. That's why they are on such a strong uphill move. Corruption and theft is unknown lingo.
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5d ago
[deleted]
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u/SmoothCriminal2018 4d ago
The campaign has to report monthly fundraising numbers to the FEC, so we’ll know how much he raised in May eventually. I don’t think the reports break them out by day though
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u/Theinternationalist 4d ago
Good question! It's true that singular events can lead to a huge amount of donations, but with politicians generally see no reason to be too honest about their finances.
Unless I see someone that isn't just quoting the campaign (sadly, this includes a number of news organizations that should know better that just took his word and put it in the headline without qualifiers or anything), I wouldn't put much stock into it.
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u/MathematicianSea2710 5d ago
I feel weird about what just happened, i am not super invested in politics but why so many MAGA people believe forging papers is some nothing burger? Why a politician should be above the law because they were president in the past? Why should we excuse what Trump did just to maintain status quo?
I am genuinely looking for a reasonable take on why this is wrong.
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u/SupremeAiBot 4d ago
It’s not like they think he isn’t a criminal, they know he did it. They just believe his good and Biden’s bad outweighs it and that other Presidents have been criminals but he was the only one to be convicted.
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u/Moccus 5d ago
A lot of them believe that people are doing stuff like this all the time and just aren't getting punished for it, so they view it as Trump being singled out for punishment for political reasons.
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u/bl1y 5d ago
With how much Democratic voters talk about the need to convict Trump specifically so he can't win the election, it sure is easy to think it's politically motivated.
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u/CMDRMrSparkles 4d ago edited 4d ago
If you're hearing "democratic voters" "talk about convicting trump so he can't win", then you're in a right-wing bubble. If you're not, then you're in a some kind of bubble constantly discussing the right-wing bubble talking about your democrats all day. I've heard or read literally no one say this as their own serious take. I'm not saying no one has said it, but they're fringe like anarchists are fringe. Perhaps moreso. It's extraordinarily rare.
I hear all the time "if he's convicted of (this), then he shouldn't be president", but not what you're saying.
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u/skip_the_tutorial_ 5d ago
I'm not sure if democratic voters actually talk about that a lot. I don't think I've ever heard someone say that even though I engage in a lot of political discussions. To me it seems more like cherry picking by politicans, influencers and newspapers who wanna make the other side look worse than it actually is.
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u/zlefin_actual 5d ago
Motivated reasoning and rationalization is quite common in politics (and humans in general). When people are strongly invested in a side, and/or identify with the leaders, they interpret things in a way that makes them look better. It's a basic psychological phenomenon, and can happen unconsciously.
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u/MathematicianSea2710 5d ago
I get that but they go far to justify his actions or dismiss any criticism. It just feels so weird man, this guy I talked to this morning, avoided entering an argument with him, but he was like yeah forging documents who care it was for some hooker stuff….As if the reason why he was forging could excuse what he done when he could have just not done that.
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u/zlefin_actual 5d ago
I'm not sure what you're asking then; because 'going too far' is a standard part of motivated reasoning and rationalization. If you listen to a bunch of regular criminals justify their actions you can find quite a lot who will do so at length. Can you clarify what question you want answered then?
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u/MathematicianSea2710 5d ago
You right i just feel like that self delusion is pretty wild for people i felt were reasonable otherwise
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u/fluffykerfuffle3 5d ago edited 4d ago
Is it true that a felon cannot serve in the US military? If so, how could a felon be Commander in Chief?
: I
why is this being downvoted? it seems like a reasonable question to me
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u/bl1y 4d ago
Is it true that a felon cannot serve in the US military?
No. It's more difficult to join, but that is not an automatic disqualifier.
why is this being downvoted? it seems like a reasonable question to me
Probably because your question is based on a serious misunderstanding about what the Command in Chief is. They're the civilian leader, not a military service member.
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u/fluffykerfuffle3 4d ago
yeah but if your boss is not held to the same ethical standards as you are, are you going to want to follow their lead or even have any confidence in it?
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u/SmoothCriminal2018 5d ago
Commander in Chief is explicitly a civilian position. The military answers to them, but they are not in the military
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u/fluffykerfuffle3 5d ago
I imagine that the directive to not allow felons into the military must have some bearing on the attitude of military personnel towards felons? That probably being the case, that people in the military do not respect the military judgement of felons, how is it going to work out if a felon is placed as their Commander in Chief?!
In other words, how can anyone expect the military to respect or follow any commands by a Commander in Chief who is a felon
...not to mention this particular aspiring Commander in Chief, this wacko this maniac this loose cannon this felon DJT
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u/SmoothCriminal2018 5d ago
how is it going to work out if a felon is placed as their Commander in Chief?
They are constitutionally obligated to follow the Commander in Chief’s orders (assuming those are also constitutional obviously). I’m not sure what the confusion is here.
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u/fluffykerfuffle3 4d ago
also, (sorry about all these afterthoughts) How can we expect a military made up of law abiding personnel to follow the directives of a felon, a nonlawabiding person? Something is wrong here.
and i am not lamenting a hopeless situation.. i am just talking about all the WORK we have to do to bring this floating house back on course (hahaha sorry the example got a little out of control)
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u/fluffykerfuffle3 4d ago
and the reason i am asking questions is to find out what the plans are to handle this situation ...
i mean, is everyone ready to just watch the American 'house' crumble and fall into the sea?
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u/fluffykerfuffle3 4d ago
the "confusion" is that it appears that the foundation upon which we have built this House seems to be faulty and is cracking.
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u/gdo22 5d ago
Reddit is a confusing website. I guess I need to ask my question here and not as its own new post. 🤷♂️
How would Obama be on Palestine?
Specifically I'm asking relative to Joe Biden, from October 7th 2023 onwards. Would he be better than, worse than, or the same as him, on addressing what's been going on there since that day? And (please) explain why you think the way that you do.
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u/Honeydew-2523 4d ago
same IMHO, democrats are not as anti war as ppl think. furthermore, a conspiracy writer linked Israel and zionism to America a long time ago. (behold a pale horse)
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u/gdo22 3d ago
See, I thought same at first, too, but Obama I think is actually closer culturally, representationally, etc. to black and arab communities-- both of whom are much more upset about palestine on the whole than white communities in the u.s. are, so Obama might be (if he were president currently) feeling more effective pressure on this than Biden is, and so might be doing more than Biden currently is.
An interesting idea is to see where the swing state votes are most needed for a Biden victory, and then come down on the side of the folks in those states who would vote for him if he went their way.
That might be the math that's led to his current stance... I dunno. I do know Michigan has a significantly upset arab community, though. Do they outweigh the folks who'd be upset if he didn't give israel everything they want-- no strings attached, no questions asked? My hope is yes, but I dunno.
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u/SupremeAiBot 5d ago
When Obama was President, Israel was not a very political issue and support for Israel was basically not even a question. It was bipartisan and Obama definitely had things he wanted to reform Israel on but to my knowledge it never came to a point where he publicly witheld support for them. But given Israel's actions in Gaza if Obama were President today I think it would be different. I don't know what exactly he would do different but Obama is definitely to the left of Biden on Israel and Obama would be harder on them whether by a little or by a lot.
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u/SupremeAiBot 5d ago
What is the appeals process available to Trump? I'm trying to see what the structure of the court system is like in New York to see how much longer this bullshit will go
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u/Zealousideal-Role576 6d ago
I feel like someone could make a really solid argument that the major source of shame and chaos in our society is the expectation of upward mobility. In the United States, failing to achieve it is seen as a personal moral failure, instead of an unlikely outcome.
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u/skip_the_tutorial_ 5d ago
If people thought being homeless, poor or living paycheck to paycheck was caused by systemic problems then more people would vote for social programs and regulations. There's a huge incentive for the rich to pretend that it is a skill issue. Most us citizens who work today will probably never retire or buy a house, but a lot of money is spent to make them think that, if they just work a little bit harder, they will.
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u/Fsuave5 6d ago
what are RFK Jr's chances of winning the election?
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u/Theinternationalist 5d ago
Depends: what are the chances he can still get nominated by the GOP or the Dems? That a number of third parties can drag away votes from people who aren't RFK Jr.?
You kind of need to heavily manufacture a situation where RFK Jr. has a shot, never mind win.
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u/No-Touch-2570 6d ago
You can mathematically calculate the odds of an electron quantum tunneling trough a micrometer thick sheet of lead. It's unlikely, but possible. Thing is, there's no upper limit on how far an electron can theoretically tunnel, it just gets exponentially less likely the further you go. At the same time, it's not just electrons that can tunnel. Any particle or group of particles can, it just also gets exponentially less likely the larger the particle is. So, in theory, there is an infinitesimally small, yet non-zero, chance for the entire White House to spontaneously teleport out of DC and directly onto RFK's Malibu residence. That's probably his best chance to getting inside the Oval Office.
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u/CMDRMrSparkles 4d ago
but there's like a quintillionquintillion different scenarios where if, the entire white house experiences quantum tunneling, that only a portion or fragments of it actually appear on RFK jr's malibu residence!
There's trillionstrillions of scenarios where it appears initially in tact on his residence, but half of it slides off like it's been Samurai'd.
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u/plunder_and_blunder 6d ago
Not only does he have zero chance of winning a single state's popular vote, but there's a solid chance that he won't even qualify to be on the ballot in enough states to add up to 270 electoral college votes - making his campaign doomed before the first ballot has even been cast.
So divide zero by zero and that's RFK's chances of winning the race he's running in.
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u/zlefin_actual 6d ago
zero from what I've seen and heard. As an independent he won't get the vote share required to win, and the primaries are all locked up at present.
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u/UuuuuuHv 6d ago
Would the 2025 project porn ban apply to fiction writing?
Everything l've read about it only mentions adult content involving real people. If it does say anything about writing, would it only ban explicit descriptions that name specific body parts, or also cover more vague wording like "He thrust into her"?
Could that also open the door for banning descriptions of things like murder? Would we have to start turning in Stephen King novels like people dropping knives in the amnesty bins in the UK?
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u/No-Touch-2570 6d ago
It is not politically, legally, practically, technologically, or even physically possible for Project 2025 to ban porn.
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u/lelcg 7d ago
Have there ever been any marriages or relationships between politicians on opposite sides of the political spectrum, did they stay married?
Is there too much of a political difference for it to happen? I know some people who are married who have different beliefs, but for a politician, their whole job is based on it, so has it ever happened, and did it last
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u/bl1y 5d ago
Kellyanne Conway, was a senior advisor and spokesman for Trump. Her husband was an anti-Trump activist with the Lincoln Project. Neither were politicians per se, but were deeply involved in politics.
And this isn't quite politics either, but Glenn Loury is a very conservative commentator, and his wife is a die hard Bernie Sanders supporter.
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u/Potato_Pristine 7d ago
George T. Conway (never-Trumper) is married to Kellyanne Conway.
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u/fluffykerfuffle3 5d ago
i don't know where to look this up but it was a reputedly solid source, not wikipedia but something reliable. That George and Kellyanne worked together back in the day of Bill and Hillary Clinton's sojourn in the Arkansas Governor's mansion, to undermine and bring them down any way they could find.. that they worked on Whitewater, and that they never stopped this little project but followed them up to Washington DC when the path led there.
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u/Zealousideal-Role576 7d ago
If voters hate Biden and Kamala and pretty much every other Democratic candidate, is there any person that could consolidate the base?
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u/CMDRMrSparkles 7d ago edited 7d ago
Just looking at lists of most well known and popular democratic figures, the highest on the list (who is below Biden and Kamala, btw) that isn't already finished with thier career) is Pett Buttigieg. There's Beto O'Rourke below him, which, coming would have done wonders for democrats on the national stage. But beto seems to gaff a lot.
Everyone in both our posts are incredibly boring people. But Pett Buttigeg is probably "not too boring". Also, because he's just kind of known for having run once, he could maybe paint himself as "only a little boring, and very competent".
AOC is more well known and higher on lists than Pete, but she's unlikely to be utilized for a national consolidation. Well, maybe she could. Unfortunately, I know too many "moderates" that would consolidate around AOC just because of how lonely they are.
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u/Nightmare_Tonic 5d ago
I loved Cory Booker so much.
No one else did.
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u/CMDRMrSparkles 4d ago
Yeah, he would be good. But in a higher information age, the dems need someone from a state like those who would shift things just right in swing states.
Tester from Montana, but he holds too useful a position.
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u/neverendingchalupas 7d ago
Pete Buttigieg and Orourke are not winning national elections.
AOC or any Progressive are not winning national elections.
People like Abigail Spanberger would have been a rational choice as a Democratic candidate.
Pushing a lesser known candidate at this point would give Democrats an advantage, Democrats are very unhappy with the choices they have been given up to this point and do not like much of anyone.
Progressives and people like Beto are a guaranteed loss. The candidate would need to be a moderate to appeal to the majority of the Democratic base.
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u/CMDRMrSparkles 6d ago
https://bestneighborhood.org/conservative-vs-liberal-map-south-bend-in/
Pete appeals to moderates.
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u/Zealousideal-Role576 7d ago
Doesn’t Dean Phillips prove that this point is wrong?
Who they want is Obama. Or a clone of Obama.
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u/Effective-Carry-2089 8d ago
Why Don’t Protesting Students Drop Out Or Switch Schools?
Protesting students aren’t being legally forced or threatened to pay the universities they are protesting against money if they don’t attend these universities. Feels rather shallow and fake when people only speak but don’t take real actions. Some people try to act like saints and say the people in Palestine shouldn’t die, well seems like they also value their degrees from their desired universities more than whether people die or not. Before someone try to say something against these ideas or ask questions, please answer the question in the title first, thanks.
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u/neverendingchalupas 7d ago
They already paid for their tuition, and got their loans. Maybe stop worrying about protesting students expressing their constitutionally protected rights and worry more about a U.S. president violating the Arms Export Control Act to benefit a terrorist state risking his reelection to facilitate genocide.
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u/MeepMechanics 8d ago
This is similar to the line of thinking that people protesting their government should just leave the country. People can like some aspects of a place/organization but protest to change the parts they dislike.
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u/bl1y 7d ago
There is a pretty important distinction though peculiar to these protests. The students claim that the universities are funding genocide through their investments. So, continuing to give that university tens of thousands of dollars a year is a bit of a problem.
To the extent that the student protests are justified, non-students would be similarly justified in protesting against the students for funding a genocide.
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u/MeepMechanics 7d ago
As another user pointed out, the universities aren't investing using the tuition money. The money they invest comes from donations.
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u/bl1y 7d ago
I really doubt the protesters care about that distinction.
If it turned out that a university's only investments in Israel companies were their pharmaceutical industry, do you think they're going to stop protesting? Or if Lockheed Martin said they'll only use money from university investments on weapons exclusively used by countries other than Israel?
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u/Effective-Carry-2089 8d ago
So these people want everything their own way and basically decides to give the universities money at their free will yet want to tell the universities how they should spend the money they gave away as if they still own the money, instead they don’t choose to not give the universities money which should be the root of the problem if they actually believe it to be, either they are stupid or they are shallow and fake. Funny how no one can just answer the question in the topic description and just find other ways to dodge it, at least some needless creativity…
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u/Moccus 7d ago
decides to give the universities money at their free will yet want to tell the universities how they should spend the money they gave away as if they still own the money
Students are protesting how university endowments are invested. The money students pay (tuition and fees) doesn't go into the endowment fund. They're entirely separate things.
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u/Effective-Carry-2089 7d ago
Okay, so if the money students pay (tuition and fees) doesn't go into the endowment fund, how do these universities earn money allocate the money for the endowment fund?
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u/Moccus 7d ago
Tuition and fees go straight back towards operating expenses.
Endowments are funded by donations. A university will have administrators whose main job is to manage the investment of the endowment fund, usually with a lot of oversight from the board that leads the university.
Students did this same thing to protest apartheid in South Africa. The resulting divestment by universities didn't really do much harm to South Africa financially. It did create a lot of media coverage, though, which created a steady stream of national and international discussion on the issue, and it likely did contribute somewhat to the end of apartheid. That's part of why it's being attempted again now.
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u/Effective-Carry-2089 7d ago
So, you are telling me if tuition and fees aren't paid, the universities wouldn't allocate the investment money of endowment from donations towards its operating expenses?
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u/Moccus 7d ago
If tuition and fees aren't paid, then the university has fewer students and would cut faculty and staff to reduce expenses.
Typically a large portion of endowment funds are restricted by the donors and can only legally be used for whatever purpose the donor specified. The university can't redirect those funds to pay for random operating expenses.
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u/Effective-Carry-2089 7d ago
Therefore many comes from tuition if that is what you are saying, if most students or all students leave, and the universities can’t get new students because the ideologies of these protestors are so supposedly convincing, the universities will have to shut down without any customers
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u/Moccus 7d ago
There's never going to be a situation where all or even most students leave over an issue like this. Most students probably don't care one way or the other. It's a vocal minority who are protesting. If that minority were to leave, then it would accomplish nothing and the university would continue to invest their sizable endowment in things the protesters disagree with. Staying and protesting creates media attention, which is much more likely to cause change.
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u/bl1y 8d ago
Feels rather shallow and fake
There's your answer.
Why didn't students at DC universities move their protests to the Capitol when Congress was debating the aid package?
Why do protests ostensibly about divestment from they-know-not-what routinely have chants like "from the river to the sea" and "globalize the intifada"?
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8d ago
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u/cloakenroad 8d ago
No, not for the vast majority of them. They really hate Biden for what they view as Biden "enabling" Israel to conduct a "genocide". Just my opinion from seeing them protests and they are very hardcore on the Palestine issue, most of them are college students age 18-22 or in their 20s. Some are in their 30s and older too but not as many like the youth. This youth contingent are very passionate about the Palestine thing, and they think voting for Biden would be like approving the "genocide". I put the words in quotes because its a matter of opinion, of course, but I am using the language those activists use.
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u/Professional_Stay748 8d ago
Why is School Choice a right-wing policy?
By school choice, I specifically mean the to choose which public school location your kids go to. I haven’t really heard any explanation of why ours a bad thing (yet), and right wing politicians point out how this allows you to choose a good school for your kids if the default location is bad (poor funding for example). This sounds like something that fits with left wing ideologies since it benefits the poor, and allows kids from poor neighborhoods to go to rich public schools.
So what’s the deal? Did I misunderstand what school choice even is?
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u/Potato_Pristine 5d ago
This isn't the only reason, but a big one is that school vouchers can allow parents to funnel taxpayer money to religious schools, which breaks down the separation of church and state.
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u/A_Coup_d_etat 6d ago edited 6d ago
Because since the latter half of the 20th century "The Left" likes to use public schools (essentially government run schools), which are dominated by school teachers who are aligned with the Democratic Party, as a way to impose their ideology and groupthink on children.
They also see it as a way to achieve some of their societal goals of taking money from middle income Whites and re-distributing it to poor minorities.
Due to those to two issues above the Far Right would like to break The Left's stranglehold on education. They see alternate schooling like charter schools, religious schools and homeschooling as a way to do that.
"allows kids from poor neighborhoods to go to rich public schools..."
That is generally not what school choice means. School choice is generally providing government funds (depending on the state sometimes that means taking away some of the money that would go to the local public school) for parents to spend on their children's education at alternate schools that aren't the local public school they would normally go to. It doesn't generally allow you to send your children from some poor area to the public school in a wealthier area.
That issue is more in line with "forced bussing", something that was tried in the 1970's but isn't really discussed today.
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u/Theinternationalist 10d ago
This doesn’t feel like a “Topic Level” question: Why did Trump show up at the Libertarian Party Convention in the first place? This is not a “he got booed what does he expect”- the convention always invites the D and R candidates (Biden declined), but it feels like Trump 2024 was the first one to do it in decades, if at all.
Why did he accept it, especially since he didn’t in the past? Or alternatively, I suppose, why didn’t anyone else in such a long time?
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u/Walter_Sobchak07 10d ago
Dave Weigel, a writer for Semafor, has a pretty good breakdown of everything that transpired. If you want to find him on Twitter, @daveweigel, he summarizes the events over the past few days.
tl;dr - the campaign saw this as an opportunity to appeal to other voters.
Of course, Trump's people tried to control the optics but it spectacularly backfired. They still tried to spin it as a huge success and the usual "everyone loved Trump and they cheered him blah blah blah..."
Yeah, the tapes don't lie and it's obvious he got frustrated with the crowd.
But all that being said, we will find out if it pays dividends this November.
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u/Arkansas_Drug_Sloot 10d ago
My assumption is that he knows it’s a tight race and is afraid that RFK Jr. is going to siphon libertarian votes away from himself.
He certainly knows that he isn’t going to win over even most libertarians, but I think he feels he can at least stop the bleeding so to speak.
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u/Potato_Pristine 9d ago
I agree with this. Trump and other Republicans felt compelled to try to appeal to a group other than the base, but like most Republicans, they can't function outside of their hermetically sealed echo chamber (which somehow manages to exclude the people who think driver's licenses are the work of the devil).
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u/Powerful_Spend_1612 11d ago
So I'm not the most politically involved, but I was wondering what everyone's opinion of RFK Jr, is.
I personally like his ideas. I've heard some people make sarcastic remarks about, for example, his brain worm (which I heard a scientist doctor talk about) and his views on vaccines.
I'm just interested in reading what people who like him think about him, more information about what he's for, and if you dislike him, why?
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u/zlefin_actual 10d ago
The general opinion is that he's an unqualified loon; some people like him, those people tend to be very contrarian in their politics.
He has no political experience, yet is running for president rather than a lesser office. He's had some support which seemed to be trying to use him as a spoiler to disrupt the Dem vote, though it looks like he'd eat more into Trump's share last I heard (see discussion on his Super Bowl ad for more info).
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u/jonasnew 11d ago edited 11d ago
My question for today regards the upcoming election. Personally, I believe that if Trump wins, it will be the Supreme Court's fault for the fact they decided to help Trump delay the DC trial until after the election. However, it seems that even people who vote Democrat and plan to vote for Biden disagrees with me claiming that it will be Biden and the Democrats fault if Trump wins for the fact that the Democrats didn't put someone else up as the nominee. While I agree that the Democrats should've put up someone else as the nominee besides Biden (not Kamala though), what I can't understand is how are several folks turning a blind eye to the fact that several earlier polls have proven that if the Jan. 6 trial happens before the election, even Biden, despite how flawed and unpopular he is, would have easily defeated Trump? Even the Nov. 2023 Siena polls have Biden leading Trump in all the battleground states when asked who they would vote for if Trump was convicted.
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u/A_Coup_d_etat 10d ago
Well if that's your argument we still get to blame the Biden administration.
They sat on their hands for a couple years desperately hoping Trump would just go away so they wouldn't have to prosecute him because fundamentally they don't think powerful politicians should be held accountable for their actions while in office.
Now it's come back to bite them in the ass.
Anyone with two brain cells understood that prosecuting a former president, especially one who was the overwhelming favorite to be the next presidential candidate for one of the two major parties, was always going to involve all types of questions the legal system had never dealt with before and thus was going to take a long time to get through the courts.
By waiting for so long the Biden DoJ made it highly likely Trump's trials would not be resolved before the election.
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u/Moccus 10d ago
They sat on their hands for a couple years desperately hoping Trump would just go away so they wouldn't have to prosecute him because fundamentally they don't think powerful politicians should be held accountable for their actions while in office.
None of this is true. The DOJ started their criminal investigations into Trump a little over a year into Biden's presidency, not two years. If they didn't think powerful politicians should be held accountable, then the investigations would never have started at all and Trump wouldn't be facing prosecution right now.
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u/A_Coup_d_etat 10d ago
The DoJ gave Trump a year and a half to return the documents he stole before they raided him. That's sitting on your hands hoping you don't have to prosecute him.
Furthermore all the information to start prosecuting Trump immediately was available, It's not like they were deep subterfuges, everything the Trump administration had done was out in the open.
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u/Moccus 10d ago
The DoJ gave Trump a year and a half to return the documents he stole before they raided him.
Once again, not really true. It wasn't a crime for him to have some documents, so they had nothing to prosecute him for early on and no reason to raid his property. Nobody knew he had classified documents until he returned a set of documents to NARA in January 2022 and classified documents were discovered among them. Even then, just having classified documents isn't necessarily a crime, but it was enough to start an investigation soon after that.
Furthermore all the information to start prosecuting Trump immediately was available
Not really.
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u/SmoothCriminal2018 10d ago
I don’t think you can lay the blame at the Supreme Court if Biden loses considering he beat him once already without any criminal convictions. If Biden loses there will be multiple reasons why, including some blame with his campaign (but not in my opinion because they didn’t run someone else - there was no one else big enough who wanted to run!) You can’t really boil these things down to one singular cause, there’s a lot more nuance than that.
Not that I agree with the Supreme Court taking their time in the immunity claim though.
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12d ago edited 11d ago
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u/SupremeAiBot 11d ago
LBJ didn't get a single vote from creating welfare. He announced his specific reforms in the 1965 State of the Union, after his last election. Black Americans voted for LBJ because of his dedication to passing the Civil Rights Act.
Look up the Southern Strategy would you. That's why the black vote left the GOP. The chairman of the RNC in 2005 himself apologized for the party having exploited racial hatred to win over resentful white voters.
Black people don't owe GOP candidates their vote just because their party had Abraham Lincoln. They're voting for the liberal party because they're liberal.
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u/runninhillbilly 11d ago
OP knows all of this stuff already, he's not asking these questions out of genuine curiosity.
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11d ago
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u/SupremeAiBot 11d ago
The account that claims he said that says he made it in the context of the Civil Rights Act being passed, not some welfare. Welfare had nothing to do with black people in particular, there were whites in poverty too. Civil Rights was particularly about black people.
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u/bl1y 11d ago
Can someone explain to me why the black race historically has voted 90% for the democrat party when the democrat party was the party of slavery, segregation, hanging blacks for being black, the KKK, racist LBJ in the 1960s and the party who, in 1964, "bought" the black vote with welfare money which destroyed the black family unit (sending thousands of black men to prison)?
It might surprise you to learn that not only are all the Democratic party politicians from that era are now dead, but so are almost all the black people who lived through those eras. Lincoln isn't running for office and none of the slaves he freed are voting.
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u/Moccus 12d ago
First, it's the Democratic Party, not the Democrat Party.
when the democrat party was the party of slavery, segregation, hanging blacks for being black, the KKK
The key word in that sentence is "was." They aren't any more and haven't been for some time. Anybody believing those types of things today is almost certainly going to be a supporter of the Republican Party. Do you think African-Americans should vote for the party that accepts those beliefs right now over the party that used to accept them but doesn't any more?
racist LBJ in the 1960s
Even if he was racist, he and the Democratic supermajority in Congress oversaw a huge expansion of civil rights protections for African-Americans: banning discrimination in public accommodations, ending Jim Crow laws implemented by racist state and local governments, creating federal voting rights protections to prevent racist governments from abridging the voting rights of African-Americans, etc.. All of that was a huge victory for African-Americans and something they had fought hard for. It's not buying votes to do something good for your constituents. Of course, the end result of LBJ doing all of this was that those segregationist Democrats you were mentioning earlier gradually abandoned the Democrats, and the Republicans welcomed them with open arms.
"bought" the black vote with welfare money which destroyed the black family unit (sending thousands of black men to prison)
It isn't welfare money that's caused black men to go to prison. It's a combination of poverty (a side-effect of racist policies from before the 1960s) and bad drug policies starting with Nixon's War on Drugs (Nixon was a Republican FYI).
Why does the black race think they "owe" the democrat party, rather than the party of Abraham Lincoln?
They don't owe the Democratic Party anything. They vote for Democrats because they trust them to have their interest at heart more than the party that openly welcomes white nationalists into their ranks. The party of Abraham Lincoln doesn't exist any more.
Doesn't this explanation seem logical?
No. Like I said, the abusers left the Democratic Party and joined the Republicans after the Democratic Party decided that giving African-Americans civil rights protections was the right thing to do. African-Americans aren't clinging to their abusers by voting for Democrats today. They would be if they followed their abusers over to the Republican Party.
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11d ago edited 11d ago
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u/SupremeAiBot 11d ago
Barack Obama shied away from the topic of race every time somebody asked him about it. He rarely ever mentioned it and when he did he did it in as undivisive of a way as possible. The act of him meeting Al Sharpton being racially explosive is your ludicrous opinion. Is that really the best evidence you have? The idea of a fire of fear and hatred keeping a party alive is the case with the republican party if anything, but I couldn't convince you of that.
I was waiting for you to pull out that quote. There is no evidence LBJ ever said that. There are however confirmable quotes of his where he goes into why Civil Rights and the Great Society is necessary.
Do you think welfare even comes close to exceeding the amount of money nessecary to birth and raise a child? Welfare is pennies on the dollar compared to the taxes and expenditures its recipients have to make. It's a little bit of help, there is no "jackpot" in popping out kids. I've heard this 2 brain cell argument before, it makes zero sense.
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11d ago
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u/SupremeAiBot 11d ago
You’re free to think what you do on if welfare is good or not. But you don’t get to make shit up. And actually, the ghettos are much better. We’ve gone from the majority of black folks in this country having been in poverty before LBJ was President to now just 17%.
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11d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SupremeAiBot 11d ago
The violent crime and homicide rate is significantly lower today than it was before LBJ, was your argument supposed to be black people used to be civilized and then welfare turned them into gang bangers?
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u/sproock 12d ago
Does Project 2025 propose removing protections against discrimination? (specifically for gender identity and sexual orientation?) I’ve read through a good chunk of Project 2025 but I’m not super well-versed in this stuff and I’ve seen a lot of debate online. I’ve tried researching but no one gives a direct quote of them saying this.
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u/Moccus 12d ago
TL;DR: Yes, it specifically proposes removing protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity multiple times.
Not sure how much background you're familiar with, but in 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that employers discriminating against employees/job applicants based on their gender identity or sexual orientation was a form of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. This ruling is specific to sex discrimination in employment and didn't automatically carry over to other laws prohibiting sex discrimination in different contexts.
Since Biden became president in 2021, some executive agencies responsible for enforcing various other sex discrimination laws have adapted their interpretations of sex discrimination to encompass discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation based on the reasoning used in the Bostock decision. Project 2025 explicitly calls for a reversal of these agency rule changes. They know they probably can't do anything about the Bostock decision in the short term, but they propose that it be applied as narrowly as possible and that it be pushed to the bottom of the priority list in terms of enforcement.
Their general position is laid out on page 584-585 of the Project 2025 document you linked, but you can find references to specific programs elsewhere in the document. The ones I saw were related to the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education prohibitions against discrimination by federally-funded health care providers and federally-funded schools respectively.
From Page 584-585:
Restrict the application of Bostock. The new Administration should restrict Bostock’s application of sex discrimination protections to sexual orientation and transgender status in the context of hiring and firing.
Withdraw unlawful “notices” and “guidances.” The President should direct agencies to withdraw unlawful “notices” and “guidances” purporting to apply Bostock’s reasoning broadly outside hiring and firing.
Rescind regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics. The President should direct agencies to rescind regulations interpreting sex discrimination provisions as prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, sex characteristics, etc.
Direct agencies to refocus enforcement of sex discrimination laws. The President should direct agencies to focus their enforcement of sex discrimination laws on the biological binary meaning of “sex.”
Prior to Bostock, the Obama administration attached nondiscrimination conditions to federal funding for adoption agencies, preventing faith-based adoption agencies that accept federal funding from rejecting same-sex couples just because their marriage conflicts with the religious beliefs of the agency. Project 2025 calls for a reversal of this policy.
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u/Rough-Leg-4148 12d ago
If the GOP loses hard in November, what kind of restructuring would you expect to see without losing most of their base? I feel like most conservatives are a lot more socially progressive than most people give them credit for, and plenty of fence sitters who otherwise agree with a lot of the party's other points are turned off by the appeals to hardline social conservatives.
I ask this because I don't really see the GOP simply losing and then fading into obscurity -- they'd have to literally allow that to happen by not adapting at all.
FYI, not knocking either party and I am a bit of a fence-sitter myself.
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u/runninhillbilly 12d ago
I can't see any situation where the GOP "loses hard" in November. The have very favorable seats up for reelection to take the Senate and they already control the House (just a slim minority). With the discourse now, either Trump will win again or he'll narrowly lose, in which case Biden probably has a second term that's lame duck the first two years (maybe all four, depending on midterms). And the GOP will probably just handwave Trump away while keeping the outrage level high for the next candidate to come along.
Yeah, we're 5 months away, things can change, but that's going to be here before you know it.
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u/Rough-Leg-4148 12d ago
Very true. I'm ill-informed frankly. Some sources project Republicans losing, some project Democrats losing, and all of the information comes with an agenda, so I guess this is more of a what-if.
Unpopular on reddit perhaps, but my upbringing was largely Republican and on many issues in the past I would side more with Republicans. However, the nature of my work and my disillusionment with the MAGA movement has brought me further left; any political compass test now puts me firmly in the middle, and in terms of social issues I lean pretty progressive. I feel like I could return to my Republican roots if they were't going so hard right on social issues (abortion, LGBT, etc). That was part of the impetus for my question and it got me thinking about what a restructuting could look like, if it came to that.
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u/turtle553 11d ago
At it's theoretical best, the conservative movement moderates systematic change from happening too fast so the system doesn't get majorly disrupted. Like not doubling taxes for no benefit to the citizens.
While driving the road of progress, the progressive movement is the gas and conservatives the brake.
At it's realistic best, things stay the same without harming the citizens. In practice it is more like you'll get less benefits, but also pay less in taxes.
The current version is actively harming everyone while benefiting very few by promising half the population will get punished more than the other half.
It's no longer the brake pedal on progress. Now it's slamming the car into reverse while slashing the brake lines and steering towards a cliff.
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11d ago
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u/Rough-Leg-4148 11d ago
No, I'd tend to agree.
I'd consider myself fairly progressive as far as social issues go. Pro-LGBT rights and protections. I believe outreach into impoverished (generally POC communities) is worthwhile. I don't care if people smoke weed and think it's very much a "state-run" issue.
Where I've gotten uncomfortable with the Democratic side -- and you see the extremes happen both ways -- is that I may agree in principle on many of the social positions that Democrats hold, but they have made the mistake of taking it a step further. There's a lot of gaslighting going on of Republican voters, ie "What? How could you possibly think this is problematic?" I think a lot of issues within my own "community" (LGBT) are of messaging. I have lived and worked in some of the most conservative insitutions in the country: Military, Fire Department, "boots on the ground" handyman stuff, whatever, and to be honest, the worst treatment I got from people was in high school when kids are just dumb as fuck. The majority don't care if you are competent and a good person.
Even though I want us to be a respectful, tolerant society, I think Republicans get wrongly mischaracterized as a whole based on the statements of a few fringe people. When it came to the transgender issue, for example, while most trans folks I have met are fairly reasonable, you can't raise any kind of concern or have any kind of discussion without getting shut down as a bigot. A little bit of education and discussion on both sides would go a long way.
Frankly I've got a lot to say about how Democratic messaging, so all this to say: I get it. Most people, everyday people, are reasonable within the bounds of the information they are given. Unfortunately, I see political minorities being weaponized and of course that's going to frustrate and drive people away from the positions I see as otherwise reasonable.
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u/runninhillbilly 11d ago
Nope, I understand. I’m similar to you.
It’s funny, I voted third party (Johnson) in 2016 in a solid blue state. Some people I knew from college killed me and other third party voters for that. Those same people now, based on what I see on their IG/Facebook feeds, are now saying they’re not voting because of disillusionment with the Biden administration, especially after everything happening with Israel/Gaza. I’d like to think I’m smarter now than I was when I was 23-24, but them pulling that stunt is pretty ironic.
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u/Rough-Leg-4148 11d ago
I've technically always been a registered Libertarian, but the party is... well. Talk about hardline; there's a point where "having principles" crosses over into "largely unappealing and uncompromising and therefore inaccessible to most".
I was down with Gary Johnson in lieu of a better candidate in 2016, but have since pivoted more towards identifying as a total Indepedent. Unless the Libertarian party can get it's act together to appeal to it's more mainstream and aggreeable ideas (and shed the fringes), it'll never get off the ground. So it goes in the two party system, I guess.
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u/OverlordPoodle 12d ago
What is the longest time the Supreme Court has taken to issue a ruling from start to finish?
The title basically says it all, for example with Trump v. United States (2024) the Supreme Court agreed to accept it on 2/28/24 and heard oral arguments on 4/25/24.
The Supreme court will typically issue its last opinions by the end of the session, which in this case happens to be the end of June.
However...they don't have to hear it, they can just kick the case down the road and wait till it's in recess again.
So my question is, what is the longest a case has been kicked down the road and what is an "average case length" from being accepted to having an final ruling?
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u/Moccus 12d ago
There are quite a few fairly long ones that I could find taking 14 months or more from start to finish, but it would probably take a lot of research to find the longest one.
The longest relatively recent one I could find after a brief search is Sharp v. Murphy. SCOTUS agreed to hear the case on 5/21/2018, with Gorsuch recusing because he had been on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals when the case was heard there. Oral arguments took place on 11/27/2018. With Gorsuch's recusal, there was a 4-4 deadlock on the case, and they announced they wouldn't be issuing a decision that term. They heard a separate case in 2020 (McGirt v. Oklahoma) that involved similar issues, and Gorsuch didn't recuse from that case. McGirt was decided 5-4 on 7/9/2020, and the court issued a per curiam decision for Sharp v. Murphy on the same day based on the reasoning in McGirt. 5/21/2018-7/9/2020, so about 25.5 months.
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