Quote (thesnipa @ May 12 2021 02:57pm)

If u have to point out that there is crime in the ghetto which necessitates increased police presence/focus then you should seriously consider the conversations you spend time on. maybe spend your effort better and inform people of the blueness of the sky or wetness of water. what you're doing is explaining the obvious to the oblivious.

Quote (thesnipa @ May 12 2021 02:57pm)

people fight the battles they can win, as demonstrated by you pointing out the obvious with your "points". in 10 years police body cameras went from nonexistent to nationwide standard more or less. meanwhile tackling issues like education, employment, and education are multi generational battles even in the best of circumstances. BLM even has cops thinking twice before shooting, the ferguson effect. its been wildly successful. good, whats the worst that will happen? the 45 cops shot in 2020 might go up to 46 because a cop is short on the draw. gasp, the horror.

Quote (thesnipa @ May 12 2021 02:57pm)

ok, ur chicago mayor, u get 10 billion dollars. go, in order, what do you do?

instead of squashing strawmen, fringe loonies, and intellectual cripples let me allow u the chance to post a substantive plan. take ur time.

Quote (bogie160 @ May 12 2021 02:52pm)

You should read more media and talk to more people. I mean, I certainly agree with you, but as this thread alone demonstrates, it's not nearly as obvious to others as you might think.

As you say below, people try to fight battles they can win. If we can't correct misconceptions on this, and there are many misconceptions, we will make no progress on those larger issues. .

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Body cameras are a means of protecting all of our rights, including those of officers, and we should all support it because police encounters are high leverage situations and we all want to be able to fall back upon the facts. Do you see how that can be phrased in such a way as to maximize bipartisan support? Turning police reform into a racial issue is the exact opposite of what we should be doing if we want to be successful.

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As for your second point, murders have skyrocketed. The number of unjustified shootings pales in comparison to the overall cost of violent crime. The pullback that you're speaking of has a tangible impact on the lives of those living in those communities. I'm not sure you even understand the problem at this point.

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We cannot begin to write-off mainstream media outlets (e.g. CNN, NYT, WaPo) as "fringe loonies" when it's convenient. There are many otherwise normal posters on this board, who I'm sure hold down normal jobs in real life, who have misconceptions about what exactly is the problem here.

I'm not the mayor of Chicago. What I can say is that Illinois needs to stabilize their insolvent public pensions and Chicago needs to break the power of the teacher unions, at which point salaries for public sector employees must increase. Community outreach programs between police and the local community have been very effective, but are unfortunately the first to go when funding is cut. Far more attention and effort needs to go into rooting out corruption within the state, where corruption is often at our worst. There aren't quick fixes to any of these problems. They require steady progress over generations to resolve.

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It’s worth dwelling on that for a moment. For five years now, we’ve watched as one political and psychological levee after another has been broken. If in 2016, I’d have hypothetically described the events that led to Trump’s first impeachment to, say, Lindsey Graham, he’d have been appalled. But he’d also have insisted such a scenario was farfetched. If I told him he’d be a shameless apologist for Trump, he’d have been profoundly offended. He’d probably even have been sincere. But because of a series of decisions he made over the course of Trump’s presidency, Graham acclimated to political and psychological appeasement to Trump.

But in 2019, even after that first impeachment and the years Graham spent incrementally selling his soul to Trump, if I hypothetically described the events that led to the second impeachment, he’d still have said, “There’s no way I would stick with Trump if he did all that.” This isn’t even speculation. We saw that Lindsey Graham resurface for a few days after the siege of the Capitol.

“Count me out,” Graham declared in the well of the Senate. In an interview he added that he’d “never been so humiliated and embarrassed for the country.” But now, he’s back in Renfield mode.

This is an old story. Most people don’t start out corrupted or evil. They make a series of seemingly easy and harmless decisions for short-term gain until one day the person they see in the mirror has suddenly become a villain. Whether it’s King Saul, Michael Corleone, or Walter White, the path to ruin is one long series of choose-your-own-adventure decisions.

The question now is this: If the GOP is willing to make peace with an attempt to subvert the Constitution and steal an election, what won’t it be willing to make peace with as it marches further down this road?

But let’s get back to more practical considerations. Republicans are claiming that the party needs Trump. As Graham put it in a conversation with Sean Hannity (of course): “I’ve always liked Liz Cheney, but she’s made a determination that the Republican Party can’t grow with President Trump. I’ve determined we can’t grow without him.”

Now, I think this claim glosses over the true calculation going on in the minds of the individuals who’ve gotten us into this crisis. Whether Trump will help the GOP grow is, at best, debatable. What matters more to the individual Republicans sticking with Trump is that doing so ensures their own reelection. But let’s take Graham’s spin seriously for a moment: It’s nonsense. As Kevin Williamson writes in a brilliant piece for National Review:

"When Trump was elected in 2016, Republicans already controlled the House of Representatives and the Senate. In 2021, they control the board of commissioners in Minnehaha County, S.D., and several very highly regarded hills of beans. Trump never got even to 50 percent approval, the first president in a generation to stay underwater for his entire term in office — and also the first since Herbert Hoover to see his party lose the White House and both houses of Congress in one term. Trump-aligned figures are hearing footsteps in Republican states, with Senator Ted Cruz, for example, having come within a few points of losing reelection to a callow nobody in a race in which he lost every city in Texas more populous than Lubbock.

One in six of the people who identified as Republicans on Election Day in 2020 no longer associate themselves with the Republican party — only 25 percent of American voters do. That’s the political price of January 6 and Trump’s post-election shenanigans. Any more unity, and Republicans will be holding their next convention in a corner booth at Denny’s."
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Kevin puts his finger on the real issue: The GOP is drunk on the cult of unity right now. One of the problems with the cult of unity (and there are many) is that unity excludes as much as it includes. The logic of “You’re with us or you’re against us” axiomatically creates at least two groups. Turning the party into a personality cult dedicated to an unpopular ex-president is simply stupid on the merits. Why? Because the pro-Trump group will be smaller than the other group. Sure, it’s likely that very few voters will have this episode in mind one way or the other in 18 months. But of those that do, precious few will be voting Republican.

But that misses the point. Think of it like dynamic scoring. This decision will have multiplier effects. The closet normals will become Trumpier, and some of them will follow the path of Graham and stop being normals at all. This event will make it harder to reject the next crazy thing Trump wants or says. Elise Stefanik will fulfill her mandate to signal that the GOP is Trump’s party, full stop.

Yes, the people saying the defenestration of Cheney spells the doom of the GOP are wrong. I still think it’s likely the Republicans will take back the House in 2022. But if the GOP does take control, it will be a different GOP, more beholden to Trump than just “Trumpism”—whatever the hell that is—and even less beholden to the Constitution and conservative principles.

This degenerative process will continue until Trump dies or the party—or the country—faces a full reckoning. The only question that remains is what Trump could possibly do between now and then that would lead Republicans to say, “This really is too far.”

Quote (IceMage @ May 12 2021 03:45pm)

https://gfile.thedispatch.com/p/the-defenestration-of-liz-cheney

Article is kind of long so just going to post this excerpt:

I think this argument also applies to the "nothing matters" coalition here on PaRD, who either defend or minimize what Trump has done, and the effects it has had on the country and Republican party. Someone describing what would happen under Trump's presidency to right-wingers on this forum in 2016 would've been painted as overly dramatic and/or deranged. And if that person told these right-wingers they would defend or minimize it all, they would be offended, genuinely believing in their minds that they would never accept such behavior on any level. But they were wrong. And there's really no reason to think they'll change their minds if Trump decides to run in 2024, and all the chaos that will bring should he contest a loss, or(God-forbid) win another term.

Quote (thesnipa @ May 12 2021 04:09pm)

policing isnt being turned into a racial issue, the race issue is being turned on police. and legislators. and judges. and business owners. and racist individuals in public. and racist corporations, landlords, etc.

we cant show that america is at present obsessed with race, then pretend its just cops. thats bad form. you're more than willing to call out race obsession elsewhere.

Quote (thesnipa @ May 12 2021 04:09pm)

im reading cops afraid they cant get away with accidental muders anymore are now enforcing the law less that they're on camera.

basically cops were braver before they were watched and are now cowards.

i understand the problem, i worked directly in the field for a decade on the streets not the statline.

less cops killed year over year in the line of duty, but they cant enforce the law because of Ferguson effect. pathetic cowards.

Quote (thesnipa @ May 12 2021 04:09pm)

govt corruption is going to solve crumbling housing, gang problems, and food deserts?

i grew up in chicagoland, i know its a snake pit, but holy fuck thats an underwhelming answer.

Quote (Ghot @ May 16 2021 12:52am)

What amazes me is that coming from Obama to Trump, was a shock for most people. Wildly different personalities.

But now, going from Trump to Biden seems to be showing Americans, the difference between a president who does nothing (Biden) and a president that did many things.
It seems much more obvious, when following Trump, that Biden, like many other presidents, is just a mouth piece.

Quote (bogie160 @ May 15 2021 10:28am)

We have a problem with violence, crime, and the police. Race is getting interjected and has come to dominate the conversation. That's a mistake. White people are shot dead by police all the time, can you imagine how much more support there'd be if this was made out to be (as it is) a bipartisan issue? Instead we're elevating race-baiters because it sells.



The officer who shot Michael Brown was demonized for getting attacked by a violent criminal. Policing fell off significantly in the aftermath.

When we attach significant costs to doing the job, and it's not very well-paid to begin with, we shouldn't be surprised when enforcement drops off. We (collectively) are the employers, we need to take accountability for our employment decisions.



Illinois has no money. That's the most pressing need. After that they need to reform their public sector unions, allocate additional money towards education, and crack down on crime. The solution is simple, the execution is very hard. I have never lived in Chicago, so I can't tell you what each of these is going to cost or what specific programs they should fund. I am not a micromanager.