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2020 Presidential election

sirkickyass said:
Russia actually is a hostile foreign power.
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Yes, and the existence of Islamic-extremist terror is not a very good justification for someone's fear of their fellow Muslim countrymen trying to enact Sharia law in the United States.
 
RandyForRubio said:
#believeallwomen

Glad that due process is a valid idea now though.
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The importance of due process, and it’s force and function in the rule of law, has barely slipped. You’d never know that, though, if you listened to people of your general political persuasion.
 
sirkickyass said:
The two-party system problem isn't really about the number of parties. It's that we don't have a mechanism for a major political party (in this case the GOP) to naturally die.

In a parliamentary model with lots of parties there's no obvious reason for the white supremacists, the single issue abortion voters and the low tax enthusiasts to be lock step aligned into a single slot of candidates. As demographics and times change narrow issue groups could wax and wane over time naturally. The first past the post system means there's no natural way for the GOP to fade and have something replace it. So the desperate push to prop the infrastructure up become increasingly desperate and weird. Next thing you know, the only person that can unite the base is the most racist and vile one of them all.
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While I largely agree with this, I'm not sure if this is 100 percent accurate. Perhaps a more accurate statement could be made that we have "no quick mechanism to quickly kill off a political party." We've seen the GOP essentially "die" before and reinvent itself. Between FDR (1932) and Nixon (1968), the GOP was largely shut out of national politics and "dead" as a party. In 1968, the party that FDR built was "killed" and it was nasty. As the Democratic party died, Nixon and Ailes resurrected the Republican party with the Southern Strategy. They first concentrated on picking up the racists. Then, with Reagan, they picked up the Christian (moral majority) and free market nutjobs. Today, we're seeing a similar "dying" of the party as its power base is primarily in the south and intermountain west. Yet, because it has taken such extremist views and because such is such a moron, this pandemic crisis is only speeding up the death of the party. A similar transformation has happened to the Democratic party through the decades. The party of FDR has changed into a broad party where its strength is in urbanized coastal centers, the college educated, and minorities. Clinton called an "end to the era of big government." While it's pretty obvious now that a new era of big government to keep the economy afloat and rectify inequalities in health care and education might be ready to begin.

We might be in the middle of a new reshuffling of the parties as the GOP suffers a major defeat this fall. The party could essentially "die" this fall if Trump is defeated, Senate control is lost, state governments continue to go blue, and the Biden presidency is at least successful in combating the pandemic and depression. What really complicates the reshuffling is the communication/media bubbles that exist. As we see on this board, there are people who live in completely different realities due to the ease of communicating on the Internet.

Either way, we're going to see drastic changes to either/both parties after this fall, right? If Democrats fail to retake the White House and/or the Senate, we're going to see a wholesale change in Democratic leadership, right? Even if they're largely successful, I'm interested in seeing how the party maintains balance with its left flank and newly picked up conservative suburban voters. If/when the Republicans lose big this fall, they'll have to make major changes, right? I'd hope that they take a look at Reince's 2012 election autopsy.
 
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infection said:
From March 28. I do suppose GF was right that this was handled in a significantly different way than Kavanaugh.
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She hasn't been attacked for being a slut. I think there's room to investigate the allegation that doesn't involve "but she asked for it" and that's not the path that has been taken so far.
 
NAOS said:
The importance of due process, and it’s force and function in the rule of law, has barely slipped. You’d never know that, though, if you listened to people of your general political persuasion.
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And yet the difference in how Kavanaugh and Biden have been treated by the media couldn't be more stark.
 
RandyForRubio said:
#believeallwomen

Glad that due process is a valid idea now though.
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I was never really a categorical "believe all" person. I literally cancelled my subscription to the Times because I thought the way they handled the #MeToo stuff was pretty awful. I thought the best take on the entire thing was this article by Masha Gessen in the New Yorker.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/when-does-a-watershed-become-a-sex-panic

I lost liberal friends over saying that the relationship between sex and power was complex and multifaceted and that we had to develop a societal agreement around what the appropriate punishment for #MeToo violations was because "you're not allowed to work for the rest of your life" is clearly not a good answer. The only truly prominent politician forced from office due to "believe all women" was Al Franken. Somehow the GOP has convinced themselves they are real victim of the whole thing.
 
Scat said:
I agree that they don't always mean the same thing. The definition of sexual assault is much broader. That said, what she is accusing Biden of is rape.
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Huh, I always thought rape had to involve intercourse.
I stand corrected.

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RandyForRubio said:
#believeallwomen

Glad that due process is a valid idea now though.
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When was it not valid? If you are referring to kavanaugh then iirc he got the position he wanted. The accusation did nothing to prevent that.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using JazzFanz mobile app
 
fishonjazz said:
When was it not valid? If you are referring to kavanaugh then iirc he got the position he wanted. The accusation did nothing to prevent that.
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A white man had to answer uncomfortable questions. Don't you know what a violation of due process is?[/sarcasm]
 
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