[Discussion] The (likely) Depressing Road to the 2020 Election Thread

It's going to be a circus.

Will 45 get impeached or step down or challenged? All 3? MAYBE.

Will the democrats eat themselves alive and hobble literally every potential candidate before the primaries are done? PROBABLY.

Talk about that junk here.

Reaper81 wrote:
JeffreyLSmith wrote:
Yonder wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

Well, at least there's an easy way to provide a massive stimulus to the economy: just implement the proposed plans for forgiving all student debt and the resulting economic boost will make us all better off.

I honestly have trouble imagining the US implementing widespread higher learning reform until we re-evaluate our military hangups. I strongly suspect that there is a number from a military study floating around DC stating "expected recruitment dropoff if young people don't need the military to handle exorbitant education prices". I also strongly suspect that is a big number (like, in the 40-60% range), and that it gets quietly shown to movers and shakers when people start talking about education reform.

You might be on to something there. Oaths and patriotism aside, I know the soldiers I served with in military intelligence (oxymoron noted) were, to a person, there for the college benefits.

The Army was the only way I was going to college. I didn't go active because I didn't want to be a 21 year old freshman so I went Guard instead.

I saved up all my money I could in high school. Graduated in '99 and had to enlist by February of 2000. I was so f*cking poor I couldn't afford community college after one semester.

One War on Terror and two deployments later, I graduated with a BAs in 2009. Six years later, I got my Masters. The GI Bill helped some but not much. The VA home loan has helped me a ton.

I wanted to serve but knowing what I know now I would have lots of questions for a niece or nephew wanting to enlist.

I am still the only college graduate in my entire extended family.

Thanks for sharing your story. It is remarkably similar to many I served with in the Army Reserve after I left active duty.

I would never recommend anyone enlist in the Guard or Reserve today and expect to graduate college on time or build a career. Today's "Operational" Guard/Reserve will take as much as you're willing to give and has no sympathy for your civilian commitments, even though those are the ones that actually pay your bills.

If you really want to serve and get college paid for, go to an academy, ROTC, or knock out a 4-year enlistment and use the GI Bill.

And expect to go into harm's way for at least one of those years, and be away from your family for most of the rest. That will be a hard sell as the Forever War enters its third decade.

The Forever War is almost voting age.

JeffreyLSmith wrote:
Reaper81 wrote:
JeffreyLSmith wrote:
Yonder wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

Well, at least there's an easy way to provide a massive stimulus to the economy: just implement the proposed plans for forgiving all student debt and the resulting economic boost will make us all better off.

I honestly have trouble imagining the US implementing widespread higher learning reform until we re-evaluate our military hangups. I strongly suspect that there is a number from a military study floating around DC stating "expected recruitment dropoff if young people don't need the military to handle exorbitant education prices". I also strongly suspect that is a big number (like, in the 40-60% range), and that it gets quietly shown to movers and shakers when people start talking about education reform.

You might be on to something there. Oaths and patriotism aside, I know the soldiers I served with in military intelligence (oxymoron noted) were, to a person, there for the college benefits.

The Army was the only way I was going to college. I didn't go active because I didn't want to be a 21 year old freshman so I went Guard instead.

I saved up all my money I could in high school. Graduated in '99 and had to enlist by February of 2000. I was so f*cking poor I couldn't afford community college after one semester.

One War on Terror and two deployments later, I graduated with a BAs in 2009. Six years later, I got my Masters. The GI Bill helped some but not much. The VA home loan has helped me a ton.

I wanted to serve but knowing what I know now I would have lots of questions for a niece or nephew wanting to enlist.

I am still the only college graduate in my entire extended family.

Thanks for sharing your story. It is remarkably similar to many I served with in the Army Reserve after I left active duty.

I would never recommend anyone enlist in the Guard or Reserve today and expect to graduate college on time or build a career. Today's "Operational" Guard/Reserve will take as much as you're willing to give and has no sympathy for your civilian commitments, even though those are the ones that actually pay your bills.

If you really want to serve and get college paid for, go to an academy, ROTC, or knock out a 4-year enlistment and use the GI Bill.

And expect to go into harm's way for at least one of those years, and be away from your family for most of the rest. That will be a hard sell as the Forever War enters its third decade.

Exactly. I didn't draw a straight line to this point but I graduated at 28. Had I done a 4/4, I would have better benefits and graduated probably six years earlier than I did.

The active units used to give us sh*t about being weekend warriors until RC branches for getting activated for 15 month deployments.

Now, they say sh*t like, "At least we have jobs when the deployment is over." And boy howdy, they ain't wrong. USERRA sounds great but employers can f*ck around in the gray areas so easily.

I'd vote for a candidate regardless of affiliation if they wanted to push forward a plan to restructure the defense budget. Not increase it. Restructure. I feel like we could get the same value for half of what we're spending and the soldiers get better benefits and pay, and then using that extra to help fund some of these bigger ideas that are being discussed this time around.

Problem is that there's so many fingers in that pie trying to find ways to make money while keeping it secret it will never happen.

Justin Amash has quit the Republican party. As a founder of the House Freedom Caucus this is insane to me, but doubt it'll move the needle for folks like my parents who have become party first folks.

Many people have said Justin Amash is a deep state agent.

garion333 wrote:

Justin Amash has quit the Republican party. As a founder of the House Freedom Caucus this is insane to me, but doubt it'll move the needle for folks like my parents who have become party first folks.

Won't move the needle AT ALL. In fact, all it accomplishes is that it actually serves to make the party more insular, more homogeneous, more bigoted, more.... of all the bad things.

CNN had a decent article on it. In a nutshell, Justin Amash remains staunchly conservative and the Republican party isn't. Because he's anti-Trump, that now means that he is anti-Republican. Weird, weird state of affairs.

And of course...

Trump appeared to celebrate Amash's departure on Twitter, slamming him as a party defector who would not have been re-elected.

"Great news for the Republican Party as one of the dumbest & most disloyal men in Congress is 'quitting' the Party," the president tweeted. "No Collusion, No Obstruction! Knew he couldn't get the nomination to run again in the Great State of Michigan. Already being challenged for his seat. A total loser!"

It’s amazing to watch the creation of “Emmanuel Goldstein” in real time.

OG_slinger wrote:

Well, I’m ready for the rapture to take that woman and her ilk so I can have a safer, happier, quieter place to live.

Painful to watch that woman’s brain struggle to not say the racists things out loud.

I'm curious, does that woman have a German accent?

The thing that amazes me is how someone can believe everything negative about Trump is false, yet everything negative about everyone else is true? I don't understand what it is about Trump that garners this loyalty? I understand people being motivated by someone who talks like them and talks to them. But that implies that there is some coherency in the random babbling? How can someone ramble in a relatable way? How can 10% of the country rally around, vote fore and want to be governed by nonsense?

It sounded like a Cuban-American accent to me

fangblackbone wrote:

I'm curious, does that woman have a German accent?

The thing that amazes me is how someone can believe everything negative about Trump is false, yet everything negative about everyone else is true? I don't understand what it is about Trump that garners this loyalty? I understand people being motivated by someone who talks like them and talks to them. But that implies that there is some coherency in the random babbling? How can someone ramble in a relatable way? How can 10% of the country rally around, vote fore and want to be governed by nonsense?

Racism.

Trump's rhetoric works because he leaves gaps big enough to drive a fire truck through, his audience fills them in with what they're thinking, and lo and behold he's just telling it like it is.

He also tends to say things in public that many people think in private but didn't feel comfortable saying out loud. Because they're bigoted, hurtful things. But the Just World Fallacy crossed with racism and xenophobia means that a lot of people instinctively believe that, for example, brown people crossing the border deserve to be punished with hell on earth.

There's also a myopia, where Americans can't understand why anyone wouldn't like America, or Evangelical Christians who don't understand that other religions don't define themselves around hating Christ. Like, other countries sometimes have nice things like actually working healthcare systems, and people who follow other religions mostly don't spare any thought at all for Christian categories.

I recall listening to someone whose reaction to the line from Born in the USA "And I'm proud to be an American/Where at least I know I'm free" was to point out that he came from a place with plenty of freedom himself, and some of the stuff he saw in America didn't look all that free in comparison. The reflex patriotism that still believes the Cold War American propaganda about freedom but has never looked at the way that we've funded countless anti-freedom initiatives around the globe. America has systemically destroyed many democratic societies when they elected people the CIA didn't like. Heck, that's why we have the standoff with Iran, and why the refugees are fleeing destabilized Central American countries.

Iran's current state is because they threw out the US-backed monarch. And then the Central American problems the refugees are fleeing is a domino effect from wars that were partially funded by the hypocritical Reagan administration selling weapons to Iran to fund the Contras.

We spent most of the 20th century building up a myth about American freedoms, and left out the bits about Jim Crow, American war crimes, and so on. Not really surprising in that light.

Maybe the surprising thing is when people who claim to be anti-government repeat mid-20th-century government propaganda, but that's par for the course.

TheGameguru wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

I'm curious, does that woman have a German accent?

The thing that amazes me is how someone can believe everything negative about Trump is false, yet everything negative about everyone else is true? I don't understand what it is about Trump that garners this loyalty? I understand people being motivated by someone who talks like them and talks to them. But that implies that there is some coherency in the random babbling? How can someone ramble in a relatable way? How can 10% of the country rally around, vote fore and want to be governed by nonsense?

Racism.

And also general transference.

Yesterday Gravel was some 10000 backers short of qualifying for the July debates and his staff were talking about wrapping things up when Marianne Williamson sent out an email to all her supporters asking them to donate to him. No word yet on whether it pushed him over the goal, but I really hope he makes it into the debate.
“Senator Gravel, as president, how would YOU face climate change?”
“I will personally murder the CEO of every corporation in the United States with an axe.”

Gremlin wrote:

There's also a myopia, where Americans can't understand why anyone wouldn't like America, or Evangelical Christians who don't understand that other religions don't define themselves around hating Christ. Like, other countries sometimes have nice things like actually working healthcare systems, and people who follow other religions mostly don't spare any thought at all for Christian categories.

One of the aspects of right-wing projection I keep seeing is a belief that the never-ending struggle to own the libs is echoed right back at them from the left, and see liberals just going about their business as virtue signaling or performative wokeness.

The guy with a diesel Canyonero detuned to roll coal thinks that my hybrid is a shot at him just as much as his "I'm burning the gas you're saving" bumper sticker is one at me. "Straight pride" and related idiots think that gay folks are gaying at them instead of just being out in public, or that atheists want to close all the churches, or that trans people want to steal everyone's gender or something.

Trans people want to steal everyone's bathrooms, obviously!

ruhk wrote:

“Senator Gravel, as president, how would YOU face climate change?”
“I will personally murder the CEO of every corporation in the United States with an axe.”

Now that sounds like policy I can get behind.

nako wrote:
ruhk wrote:

“Senator Gravel, as president, how would YOU face climate change?”
“I will personally murder the CEO of every corporation in the United States with an axe.”

Now that sounds like policy I can get behind.

Compost the rich.

Mixolyde wrote:
nako wrote:
ruhk wrote:

“Senator Gravel, as president, how would YOU face climate change?”
“I will personally murder the CEO of every corporation in the United States with an axe.”

Now that sounds like policy I can get behind.

Compost the rich.

I’ve been thinking about getting that bumper sticker.

Gravel is now less than 5000 donors from getting into the July debates. I encourage everyone to throw in, even if it’s just $1.
In case you haven’t been following his campaign, Gravel has no actual intention of pursuing the presidency, his only goal has been to get into one of the debates in order to push the conversation left and to harry some of the more transparently superficial candidates like Biden and Buttigieg. Afterwards all remaining campaign funds are being donated to charity.

ruhk wrote:

Gravel is now less than 5000 donors from getting into the July debates. I encourage everyone to throw in, even if it’s just $1.
In case you haven’t been following his campaign, Gravel has no actual intention of pursuing the presidency, his only goal has been to get into one of the debates in order to push the conversation left and to harry some of the more transparently superficial candidates like Biden and Buttigieg. Afterwards all remaining campaign funds are being donated to charity.

He's accepting donations for a presidential campaign with no intention of running for president? That seems... not great.

He has to in order to qualify for the debates, there's a minimum mandatory number of donors that have to be reached. Afterwards anything not used by the campaign is being donated to a charity. It's not like this is some weird scam, it's been explicitly stated by his campaign since day one.

From his website:

Sen. Gravel is running for president to bring a message of anti-imperialism and direct democracy to the Democratic debates. He is not seeking to contest any primaries, but rather to qualify for the debates, push the field toward sane views on American imperialism and the need for fundamental political reform, and then endorse the most progressive candidate. All campaign staffers are volunteers, and money is only being spent on campaign expenditures (such as airplane tickets and web hosting). All leftover funds will be donated to get clean water for Flint, Michigan.

I fail to see how this will move the needle at all. Especially since the goal/plan is known. It seems akin to putting a heckler on stage.

That's definitely part of it, but not the totality. It's still a great idea, though.

Ironically, from a strictly policy perspective he is by far the best candidate of the bunch.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/6sdMeys.jpg)