US Election 2020 (4 Viewers)

Who do you think will win?

  • Trump/Pence

    Votes: 4 19.0%
  • Biden/Harris

    Votes: 12 57.1%
  • Monsoon/Heenan

    Votes: 5 23.8%

  • Total voters
    21
  • Poll closed .
Obama did nominate Merrick Garland but the Senate (led by McConnell) refused to have a hearing. I don't really know what else he is supposed to have done given that it's the Senate that controls the appointment process.

I'm not really sure what good RBG resigning early would have done though. Surely if she had resigned during the Obama years, with a Republican controlled Senate, any nomination of a liberal successor would have been blocked by the Senate? I suppose she was holding out hoping for a Hilary Clinton victory and a dem-controlled Senate.
 
Well yes i'm being unfair to Obama in a lot of ways, he's better than any Republican ever would be, but the whole Merrick Garland saga shows the underlying weakness of the Dems - their worship of decorum and procedure and their basic belief that they are ultimately on the same side as the Republicans.

How do you get the Republicans Senate to agree to your nomination? You turn the fucking screws, you cause havoc for them, ignore norms and procedure and grind everything to a halt wherever you can. You appeal to their base with popular programs and offers that either turn their base into your base or force their base to put pressure on their leaders to get things moving.

This is what the Republicans do and it works. They worked out long ago that all they have to do is find a friendly judge to rubberstamp one of their insane ideas and the Dems will wilt immediately, it's how Republicans won the Presidency in 2000. The Dems need to grow the fuck up and realize that power is power.


If Trump wins it's going to be because of all his tax cuts for the rich and appointments of hundreds of conservative judges, not because people think he talks well and gives a good speech.
 
Obama did nominate Merrick Garland but the Senate (led by McConnell) refused to have a hearing. I don't really know what else he is supposed to have done given that it's the Senate that controls the appointment process.

I'm not really sure what good RBG resigning early would have done though. Surely if she had resigned during the Obama years, with a Republican controlled Senate, any nomination of a liberal successor would have been blocked by the Senate? I suppose she was holding out hoping for a Hilary Clinton victory and a dem-controlled Senate.

I think he asked her to consider resigning in 2014, so it was a good bit out from the election and the reason the GOP gave for not confirming Garland was that it was in an election year, presumably they would have tried to find some other way to stymie an appointment. Garland was a pretty milquetoast nominee by all accounts, he was basically chosen because it was filling what was a conservative seat and he should have been acceptable to the republican senate.

The SC is just the headline judicial issue though, there were dozens and dozens of lower court appointments that were blocked during Obama's tenure, that Trump has managed to stuff with people more sympathetic to GOP issues.
 
Sorry guys, i'm shouting a lot in here today. Bad day at work. Kind of want you all to tell me im wrong and here's why.

thumped 4ever
 
How do you get the Republicans Senate to agree to your nomination? You turn the fucking screws, you cause havoc for them, ignore norms and procedure and grind everything to a halt wherever you can.
in a fight where a kick in the balls is what your opponent will do, there's not much point in not kicking them in the balls because it's not sportsmanlike.
 
Sure. I'm all for the fight fire with fire approach but I still don't see what they could have done to get Garland through other than turn up in the Senate and literally put guns to people's heads.
 
did biden just hint that he'd pack more supreme court judges on the bench?

in 100 years time, there'll probably be 800 supreme court judges if it goes tit for tat.
 
Sure. I'm all for the fight fire with fire approach but I still don't see what they could have done to get Garland through other than turn up in the Senate and literally put guns to people's heads.
Well, I mean, if you remove the context of them being in power for 8 years then sure, there was nothing they could do. It's not their fault.


did biden just hint that he'd pack more supreme court judges on the bench?

in 100 years time, there'll probably be 800 supreme court judges if it goes tit for tat.
I think all it'll take is someone saying what you just said to convince him not to do it.
 
Well, I mean, if you remove the context of them being in power for 8 years then sure, there was nothing they could do. It's not their fault.

But they weren't "in power" where it mattered because they didn't have a Senate majority which is the thing that matters when it comes to confirming nominations to the Supreme Court. I do get that you want to blame the liberal wing of the Democratic party for all that is wrong with the US today and resist the narrative that everything is the fault of the Republicans but I really don't think you can pin this one on them.
 
But they weren't "in power" where it mattered because they didn't have a Senate majority which is the thing that matters when it comes to confirming nominations to the Supreme Court. I do get that you want to blame the liberal wing of the Democratic party for all that is wrong with the US today and resist the narrative that everything is the fault of the Republicans but I really don't think you can pin this one on them.

I don't want to "blame the liberal wing of the Democratic party for all that is wrong with the US today," I just don't want to let them get away with blaming Trump for everything that is wrong with the US today. It's that kind of thinking that puts them in a position where they have the President but not the Senate.
 
I still predict (perhaps foolishly) a Biden win, and I do think a Biden win would be better for the world over a Trump win, even though I think there's a serious question mark over who would damage more countries foreign policy wise, a competent Democrat or an incompetent Republican.

From what I can see younger dems and younger republicans increasingly have more in common with each other when it comes to stopping endless war and the climate than they do with their elder party members, eg. Nancy Pelosi mocking "the green dream or whatever." We'll see though.
 
That's all fair enough. I've seen some people go from what is an entirely justified dislike of the centrist dems to an ambivalence over whether Clinton/Trump (or Biden/Trump) wins to a position that basically favours a Trump win because the chaos of that sets the ground for an eventual "proper" leftist advance. It's not a totally bananas position but at the same time you have to ask what exactly then is the difference between that and actually supporting Trump.

Not saying you are any of that! Just explaining my reactions I suppose ...
 
You're right Hugh. I've got right-wing US relatives who basically just want to "fuck shit up". It's not that they like Trump, particularly, they just HATE the left with a passion, in that it represents the clucking nanny who won't let them play with their toy guns, and other libertarian nonsense. The far left, to whom I'm also related, also feels this way, and will also sort of support Trump (or not "not support" him) in a sort of "let's fuck shit up" kind of way, in that it could eventually lead to a Corbyn-type being instated or, more likely, some kind of anarchy that finally destroys the hegemonic rule of the US around the world. It's a very interesting situation in which these two groups actually hang out (online) and pat each other on the back. They're mates. Just a lot of very bored people, it seems to me, usually giving out about Hilary Clinton.
 
Yeah, and by the way, I don't mean that as a centrist argument that when you go far enough to the left and far enough to the right they basically end up in the same place (which I think is rubbish).
 
I would argue that both Trump and Obama got voted in on a ticket of change, but neither delivered it.

Saying Republicans and the "far left" are the same because they dislike Hillary Clinton is a very silly position. The center has an ideological viewpoint, even if part of its project is to try and convince people that it doesn't.
 
The center has an ideological viewpoint, even if part of its project is to try and convince people that it doesn't.

It's ideology (in the classic sense of the word) at its finest. See also - Fine Gael.

In fact - it's the very definition of what ideology is.
 
I'm just saying what I've seen. Maybe if someone professes to be a lefty, but thinks the Clintons et al run a paedophile ring etc, they're not really a lefty but a crackpot. In any case, I think the whole right-left thing is too simplistic. People aren't meant to have one monolithic set of views. I sure don't.
 
I too believe in complexity, the Clintons didn't run a paedophile ring but a person who did was in the front row at Chelsea Clinton's wedding. COMPLEXITY.
 

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