I'm surprised that you're this short-sighted. If you don't address climate change or at least try to mitigate it's effects, who do you think that's going to affect? Do you think it's going to affect me? Fuck no, I can move elsewhere. It's going to affect the working class and you'll have even more sad sack immigrants trying to get into this country. Regulations? Please! Most people can't name a fucking regulation that's bringing them down to save their lives. Trade? Most people are too stupid to even understand the ramifications of trade. China? You know I'm a China hawk and Trump was a fucking pussy towards them. Ooooo steel tariffs! So scary!

The GOP runs on helping these folks but did very little to improve their lives from an economic point of view. The GOP DID take care of the large corporation (good, they are the ones who actually contribute something to society) though!
Now, I'm of the opinion that we should give these people the finger because they are becoming more and more useless from an economic point of view. Where is the GOP solution for families? Where is the GOP solution to healthcare? Where is the GOP solution to our education crisis? Where is the GOP solution to the inevitable destruction of a third of American jobs? You see, the GOP is a reactionary party...not a proactive one. They don't actually have solutions and I'm surprised that someone like you would fall for it time and time again.

That isn't to say that the Democrats have good solutions but they at least TRY. I'd love for the GOP to have an intellectual base again so that we could actually spar and come up with something good to our pressing issues. Those times are long gone though.


If you're at the point where they are taking half your money then you're doing well for yourself and I agree that the GOP is better for you economically. I was obviously referring to the working class scum that him and fender seem to adore though. I guess it takes a few generations to remove "Arbeit macht frei" from their minds.

What makes you think that I am happy with the solutions proposed by the GOP? I'm more and more under the impression that you're fundamentally misunderstanding where I'm actually coming from. Just for the record: I was still preferring Obama over Romney back in 2012, I am not the prototypical GOP supporter and well aware of this fact. The only reason I prefer to see the GOP in power these days is because the ideology and agenda adopted by the Democrats over the past decade sucks complete and total ass. Dito for most left-wing parties here in Germany/Europe. Yes, I prefer a reactive, intellectually bankrupt party which does not have solutions, but tries to preserve the status quo (as flawed as it might be) over a party which offers the wrong solutions and promises to proactively march in a direction that I consider absolutely toxic, detrimental and unacceptable.

Do you seriously think that I enjoy having to rely on braindead, heroin-addicted trailer park trash and bigots as a cornerstone of "my" political coalition? Do you seriously think that I enjoy seeing my policy preferences supported by the dregs of society while they are increasingly shunned by the professional class? Do you seriously think I enjoy twisting myself like my pretzel to excuse the gaffes and shortcomings of figures like Trump time and time again? Of course I would love to see the newspapers of record or the decision makers as my ideological and political allies instead of a menacing force that's seeking to disrupt my world, threaten my status and undermine my livelihood. Of course I would love a stronger intellectual movement that doesn't have to rely on crooks like Tucker Carlson (lol!) or buffoons like Trump (LOL!!) as "thought leaders". I am not blind to the disastrous state of "my side" - it's just that I consider the alternative to be even worse.






Regarding climate change: our own efforts cannot tackle this issue unless the rest of the world joins in. A climate policy which is based on sacrifice and restrictions and diminishes our standard of living will never find support in places like China, India, Russia or Latin America. And if they don't go along, we will have to bear the brunt of climate change anyway and the painful sacrifice we demanded from our bottom ~80% will have been in vain. The only hope for tackling climate change is to find solutions which are compatible with economic growth and a preservation of our standard of living. The industrialized countries shooting themselves in the foot and hoping that the rest of the world will follow suit is moronic. It's no coincidence that all over the world, the climate protests are mostly gaining traction among rich kids who grow up surrounded by so much affluence and privilege that they can easily give up a lot of it and still feel no actual impact.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 21 2021 07:42am

Romney advanced pro-family legislation, I read a brief overview and it seems like a reasonably responsible plan, but one that will unfortunately go nowhere in the current political climate. The GOP solution to health-care is tied to regulations and de facto state monopolies, Trump advanced this as an idea during one of the Republican debates, but was sadly too stupid and/or incompetent to put into effect as president. The education crisis in the public's mind is the attack on meritocracy and the promotion of racist propaganda in schools. Does anyone besides Andrew Yang have a solution to the inevitable obsolescence of most American workers?

I don't think open borders and indiscriminate social spending count as "solutions", good or bad.

no, because most of the politicians and their lobbyists will profit off of this phenomenon

You're saying this and yet your actual politics doesn't line up with it.

The GOP is fundamentally against things that you would be absolutely furious at removing in your home country, and the "wrong solutions" you accuse Democrats of having are almost all of those things.

You're basically saying "Sure, Democrats are for all the great things that have been implemented in my country, and the GOP is fundamentally against them and has no solutions to problems, but have you seen their position on bathrooms! Totally unacceptable!"

China has taken far greater steps on climate change than the U.S. has, and they've done it in a fraction of the time. There's a reason China basically solved their acid rain problem as soon as it started and it took us decades, and there's a reason why China is the world leader in renewable energy manufacturing and we aren't. If you actually thought about the things you say you do, you would be aware of these things.

Basically your position can be summed up as "I prefer Democrat policies in my home country, and far more extreme democrat positions economically, but everybody else should just deal with GOP style policies because everything's pretty good right now".

This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on Oct 21 2021 12:55pm

Tump Media announced they plan to launch a new social media platform.

Indeed. Romney's plan is a serious proposal and merits discussion in committee but you're right that nothing will come of it. The problem is that Romney is on the outs of the GOP and it's not endorsed by someone with more gravitas. I wouldn't consider anything from AOC to be a "Democrat" plan either. I'm not convinced that the GOP has a health-care solution outside of the "allow health insurance to be purchased across state lines" and we both know that's nonsense. It seems that the GOP solution is to maintain that status quo and not really address the problems (which is often the right thing to do!)

Your perception of the education issue is a culture war issue. Those are things that should be decided at the state and local levels and they largely are. What I'm referring to is what GWB tried to solve with NCLB in that our students are consistently underperforming their peers. I think Biden has a really good first step in trying to get childcare addressed followed by universal Pre-K. The next step is getting some serious reforms done in primary and secondary education and tertiary education should be addressed last. The GOP seems to be asleep at the wheel here.

Yang was the most radical and vocal regarding the issue but he was probably a decade too early IMO. I think Biden's agenda is addressing portions of the issue by focusing on modernization but it won't be enough. We really need to be doing more in helping people transition several times throughout their careers.

I'd push back on the "open borders" characterization because it's deeply unpopular and we're largely following the Reagan model. Trump was the only one who really shook things up but a lot of it was for show and didn't address the causes. I also don't think what Biden is proposing is "indiscriminate social spending." At this point, we're talking about 2.5 T in NEW spending over 10 years which amounts to a 5% increase in our budget. That's 500 B for hard infrastructure, 1.8T in new spending which is the latest number that Biden came up with after gutting more of his agenda, and adding a significant offset for the CBO being wrong. Part of that will be offset by revenue increases and I'm not including that.



Well, I'm glad you understand that the GOP is a clusterfuck but I'd push back on the idea that the Democrats are worse. Yes, the rhetoric of a substantial portion of Democrats is worse in a lot of ways but I think the culture war shit can largely be ignored. If you look at the actual tax policy, regulations implemented, healthcare policy, trade policy, foreign policy, immigration policy, etc. I think you'd be surprised how much you agree with Democrats. For the record, I DON'T align with Democrats much in this regard and I only align with Dems because I don't believe in destroying our institutions.

You're not wrong regarding climate change in that the rest of the world needs to join in. However, we really need to walk and chew gum at the same time and our emissions per capita are significantly higher than China/India. Your country has 5x the CO2 emitted per capita than India and it's significantly higher than China. You need to get your own house in order first so that you can actually convince the 3rd world to join in. Otherwise, you're just a bunch of hypocrites. For the record, the US and Canada have over 50% more CO2 emitted per capita than you guys so you're at least doing better than us. I agree that solutions need to be compatible with economic growth and I think they are for the most part. Creating a power-grid that uses renewable energy, getting electric/hydrogen powered cars, etc. are all in line with that. The last part, tackling industrial emissions, will be much much tougher and you'll probably need some sort of carbon dividend, carbon tax, etc. You seem to be okay with tariffs so I imagine you'd be okay with that as well.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/us/igor-danchenko-arrested-steele-dossier.html

Federal authorities acting on John Durham's probe into Crossfire Hurricane have arrested Igor Danchenko, the analyst who wrote much of the Steele Dossier
The indictment of Danchenko is still sealed

The is the second arrest resulting from Durham's probe, after the Perkins Coie lawyer who was arrested for lying to the FBI when he attempted to pass off the Alfa bank story as if he was an apolitical tipster and not someone on Hillary's payroll.

At this pace we'll see a serious person indicted by DeSantis's second term.

While the truth is still putting on its Khakis, a lie is already running around the world.