Quote (Goomshill @ 3 Dec 2019 18:11)
they won't be able to implement any destructive/transformative economic policies, by the time it ran through the washington meat grinder nothing would even resemble medicare-for-all or nationalized healthcare. That goes regardless of whether they pick up the senate somehow
What I do think the greatest danger is, is an energizing of the culture warriors and supercharging of their movement and implementation of destructive social policies. Obama merely opened the door a crack with stuff like Title IX-Dear Colleague / Restorative Justice and operation Choke Point and other rather tepid measures. But every candidate running for the democratic ticket now is obsequious to the SJW extremes on every social issue- be it illegal aliens, transgenders, toxic feminism, cancel culture, islamophiles, etc.
I don't think the Green New Deal is scary because its so preposterously moronic and idiotic that nobody could even pretend to make an economic platform out of it. Nothing even resembling it will ever become law in even the most fanciful scenarios. But elect Elizabeth Warren in 2020 and there's a good chance we'll have democrats exploring ways to implement "hate speech laws", crippling or end our immigration enforcement and plunge schools and colleges into communist overdrive. Its not about how far the candidate is willing to go, its about how far the overton window will get shifted when they move the middle farther left. You can't have a party that's fanatically screaming about "kids in cages" and expect another centrist approach like Obama that keeps ICE empowered. You can't have a party that thinks misgendering someone is worse than murder and expect even Joe Biden to defend women's shelters for rape victims that want to keep out hairy men with cocks and balls- something they tried to lynch Ben Carson for repeating. The party went extreme, and the extremes will pull them along.
This so much, couldnt have said it any better.
It is on these "cultural" issues where I would see the bulk of the 'damage' done if a Democrat wins.
One thing to add is court nominations. We have seen at the start of the Trump presidency how much liberal judges are able to impede a conservative agenda. To name just one example, it to this day blows my mind that courts allowed Obama to create DACA on an EO, but refused Trump to rescind it via EO. Trump did and keeps doign a great job at putting the judicial system back on its feet, at reversing the overload of the circuits with liberal activist judges. If a Democrat takes the WH in 2020, they can easily get back to the state we were in in 2016 at the end of Obama's tenure. It would also mean that Democrats can replace RBG on the SCOTUS and keep Roberts the swing justice, someone who's unreliable for conservative causes. On the other hand, if Trump wins reelection, he will almost surely get to pick RBG's replacement and thus create a conservative supermajority which doesnt hinge on Roberts anymore. Trump winning reelection would most likely guarantee a conservative-leaning Supreme Court for at least 10-20 years.
When it comes to China, I'm not actually sure if the Dems would completely reverse course compared to Trump. In recent weeks, with all the HK and reeducation camp stuff and the Hongkong bill that passed Congress with broad, bipartisan support, it feels to me as if Democrats and establishment Republicans are starting to come around and acknowledge that Trump was right in his hostile, combative