The Politics Megathread

[Tamerlane]

My second biggest fear with Biden is that he'll become a Neo-Con shill but for the democrats that will be puppeted by these major corporations and disenfranchise the working class from their rights, and then go on with the foreign policy of the Bush Era doing nothing to quell tensions between both the US and China and the US and the Middle East, nor quelling the tensions with the increasingly radical left and right where outright socialists, marxists, fascists, and authoritarians are gaining power and trying to divide America and undermine its values. Additionally, Biden being in the pocket of major corporations indicates to me that he's not going to go through with enforcing the legislation to protect citizen's rights online from big tech and big business seeking to dehumanize and deplatform until they've cleansed the world.

My biggest fear is that there's a possibly of a civil war if half the country feels the election was unjustly taken by states who did not follow nor respect the constitution, and the division within the country will become too great to amend, leading to both Trump and Biden declaring they're the rightful president of the United States. I thought it was unlikely until I saw the Texas suite having 18+ states and then it being dismissed on technically grounds, meaning that these state who have these concerns feel they don't even get a voice. It's the inevitable when you have major media, big tech and every establishment institution trying to silence one side, that they're going to radical and eventually resort to extreme measures to voice their grievances. Hopefully it doesn't come to that, as any civil war in the US will be destructive and ultimately lead to China taking advantage of the situation to become world hegemon, which is like giving Oceania the reign of power.

I have a grave sense that if Biden gets into office, it will be James Buchanan 2.0.
@kasajizo

 

[2SpiritCherokeePrincess]

@kasajizo So if anyone is honest about who won the election, you assume they must support Biden? 😂🤣🙃 https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/1...power-biden-harris-back-fiction-over-science/

 

[Tamerlane]

>Anyone who disagrees with the election must be lying or be arguing in bad faith!

This is the "Us and Them" mentality that reaffirms my fears about a civil war breaking out.

I hope I am wrong

 

[Greenfrost]

@Tamerlane
Although it's true there are some parallels to the civil war, I can say with 100% certainty that it won't happen again. Main reason, there'd be nothing left afterwards. War today, isn't the same as it was in the 1800s. America has bigger and better weapons now. So If we just start bombing everything, there would be so many craters, the country would start looking like the surface of the moon.

 

[bigtiddyoneesan]

@Greenfrost
I think a civil war in America today would just look like a really big gang war.

 

[Greenfrost]

@bigtiddyoneesan
Well then I hope each side comes up with some cool gang signs.

 

[immortalartisan]

Why can’t we just get a direct democracy? The main reason crrouptiom is so bad right now is because everything is decided by a few groups of politics insiders aka a republic. I mean it certainly would solve it for ever but it would delay it a whole lot longer. I really wish I could move out of the US already

 

[Teddy]

@immortalartisan

The 116th United States Congress, which began on January 3, 2019 and will end on January 3, 2021, has enacted 214 public laws and zero private laws.-wikipedia

You want every citizen to vote on each and every law?

 

[schlo]

@immortalartisan just curious, which country would you move to?

 

[kasajizo]

I'm curious, if I recall correctly (and correct me if I'm wrong—and yes, looks like I'm wrong as you're Alaskan native. Just fyi then) you're Indonesian right? we had this kind of thing on 2019 GE, the difference was opposition didn't have influence in supreme court while for US case, Trump appointed 3 of 9 supreme court judges. And United States has reached some degree that media is not journalism anymore but more like activism™, and don't forget about big tech like twitter, facebook, youtube (and their same argument, "leave it if you don't like our tos, you agreed to it beforehand"—as it would make them as publisher not platform.) @2spiritcherokeeprincess


And he was born in pennsylvania.. @tamerlane

 

[2SpiritCherokeePrincess]

media is not journalism anymore but more like activism™

That's true--we're in the era of Breitbart, The Drudge Report, Fox News, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh & National Review after all. Trump loves using Twitter. Facebook is openly White supremacist. https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-hate-speech-censorship-internal-documents-algorithms Progressives, minorities & LGBT+ activists are surpressed by YouTube. https://www.out.com/tech/2019/10/01/study-youtube-discriminates-against-videos-tagged-gay-or-lesbian https://dailycaller.com/2020/06/18/youtube-faces-discrimination-lawsuit-by-black-creators/

 

[kenx]

^{@Tamerlane said:}
I hope I am wrong

I wouldn't count on it. The US of A is ripe with that mentality. Unsurprising considering that their only two political parties that matter in the eyes of the public are always "against each other". And the partial anonimity of forums and imageboards doesn't help with the polarization.

 

[EOTFOFYL]

@Tamerlane

The U.S Military is not going to back Trump..... there won't be any civil war, If one were to occur who will fight for Trump? Worse case we get a bunch of domestic terrorists (Ironic isn't it).

And Russia would be next in line to watch China as they literally share borders; not to mention that European Nations still have interests in the Pacific. France for example is participating in the next U.S-Japanese naval exercise.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2020/12/japan-usa-and-france-set-for-combined-amphibious-exercise/

@immortalartisan

Because a Direct Democracy would be a literal clusterfuck, the U.S is too big and too diverse to focus on any one issue . It only worked for Ancient Anthens because they were small and even then voting power rested in citizens whose rights are not suspended. And Athenian citizenship itself is a clusterfuck, too much to get into but essentially if you are not likeable....good luck; Citizenship was literally a privilege decided by those in power. The point is, you're romanticizing direct democracy without considering its functionality.

A bonus link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism

media is not journalism anymore but more like activism

The problem is that people don't seek multiple sources and think for themselves, they place too much trust in one source of information without questioning it's value or integrity.

 

[Ivegotnolife]

Spoiler

 

[bigtiddyoneesan]

The problem is that people don't seek multiple sources and think for themselves, they place too much trust in one source of information without questioning it's value or integrity.

This coupled with what kenx mentioned (the "against each other" attitude of many news outlets/party members) makes for a tense climate that's seemingly difficult to remedy.

I honestly wouldn't expect most of the public to not take things at face value. People are often too preoccupied with their own lives to bother with the (unfortunately considerable) task of verifying and seeking out different sources.

Imo, polarization of news sources -> increasing demonization of opposing ideas -> excessive advocacy for censorship -> alien invasion -> rise of Atlantis (you see where I'm going with this).

 

[Tamerlane]

@Greenfrost

The issue is that there's already a cold civil war I'd say between the constitutionalists and the liberals versus the corporatists/establishment and the radical left, in that there are beginning to be animosity and unreconcilable differences between the two.

Additionally, the US military would not likely want to fire upon civilians, nor would they want to engage in open conflict with their own people. You'd have soldiers actively defying orders and refusing to obey, or defecting from the military entirely, and guerilla warfare in the US with its variety of different environments would be very prevalent. Also the fact that if there is a civil war between half the union who believes that the constitution is not being followed indicates it's not treasonous in the same way the Confederate States of America were given that the former swears loyalty to the constitution and principles of the United States and the latter wanted to establish its own independent nation.

I don't think you'd see the same tactics of organized state armies fighting one another but instead would see much more grassroots rebellions and skirmishes caused by civil unrest and populace that feels disenfranchised by a corporate elite that does not care about them. It would not be two organized forces engaging with one another but a hectic free-for-all between warring factions. I think the divided between those who think Trump was cheated and those who believe Trump was not cheated will be too great and we'll essentially have two figureheads ruling two separate nations.


I'd imagine it would be more constant terrorism, sabotage, and guerilla tactics rather than outright war between two organized states, though this is the way modern warfare has been going since the End of WWII, so it's not that surprising, especially because it's the type of warfare the military has the hardest time dealing with.

War is definitely terrible, which is why it worries me so many states were just denied the right to hear the merits of the compliant, as most of the court denials have not been on the merits of the cases but solely on either procedural issues or other extraneous factors not related to the truth of the case.

@immortalartisan

There's a lot of reasons you don't want a direct democracy.

For starters, you want to protect and ensure the rights of minorities. You don't want wolves and sheep to vote on what's for dinner, for instance. So you set up protections that ensure the voices of the minority view. Hence why the bill of rights and other protections from the majority ruling with an iron fist over the minority are so important and need to be enforced. A direct democracy would not ensure that everyone would get these protections

Secondly is that the diversity of the US's cultures and geography means that every place has different wants and needs. Yet, if we go based on a direct democracy, you will have people in cities or in the largest population centers that govern the rules for everyone to follow, which means that the needs of less densely populated areas are not meet. For instance, you wouldn't want Texas and Florida ruling on what Alaska should do or have a handful of cities and their suburbs rule over what everyone else in the country does.

Thirdly think about it like this: most people are low-information voters. It's too much energy for most people to worry about every bill or piece of legislation that comes through Also because IQ is normally distributed, half of the population is below-average IQ. This isn't to disparage people or to say their opinion or point of view is unimportant, but that not everyone has the problem solving capacity of everyone else. Hence why its better a few people who are well-informed and represent a variety of peoples and places are able to decide on what to vote on, but only if those selected are accountable to the public at large and the public at large are able to non-violently prosecute or oust them.

Finally, given the suppression of information by influential people and organizations, it's likely that most people do not have a full picture of what's going on. If a few groups can pull the wool over the eyes of society at large with misinformation that suites their interests then it can lead to people being conned out of fair dealings. Trusts are a big issue in and of themselves, and blindsiding the public is a big issue for a variety of reasons, especially because of the effects of deindividuation and group think as cognitive processes.

Checks and balances mean that people hold the government to account, but we also need to be able to hold the people to account if we need to, which a direct democracy subverts. It is instead to have systems and barriers in place so not one branch has too much power.

@EOTFOFYL

Probably, though I'd say see above. I hope there's not but when half of the states feel like they are not having their voices heard and all official channels blocked, the real concern isn't the politicians running them but the civil unrest from the people who feel their government is denying them their basic liberties and freedoms granted to them, or that the government is letting other unaccountable organizations such as the Tech Giants or Big Business govern their rights instead.

 

[schlo]

@Tamerlane i'd put this as the major for me:

Thirdly think about it like this: most people are low-information voters.

and not because of IQ, I've run across many smart people who just don't keep themselves informed. I've also seen groups play with ballot issues. A couple years ago a county around here got complaints because a ballot issue was written so poorly that it basically came across as a double negative. If you were for it you needed to vote no and the opposite if you were against it you needed to vote yes. It is believed they wanted the issue to pass but figured it wouldn't. Can you imagine low information votes, which I believe we all are some times on some issues, having to vote on issues on a regular basis. No more Manga reading, you'll be too busy reading up on all the issues to do anything else. That is until you get tired of it and quit voting on it and let a handful decide.

As far as civil war, I don't expect it. Outside of the Trump issue many in their daily lives are basically fat and happy and as much as they complain they aren't going to do anything about it. Many aren't going to risk their future and that of their family to do anything. The few who might will then just be looked at as extremist, dealt with and then be used to support gun control.

I'm curious if you have any opinions or thoughts about the electoral college, not at the federal level but the state level. Two states apportion it based on vote but the rest are a winner take all. Some states are kicking up a fuss about the "popular" vote problem but there is not a quick fix to that. However if states started to apportion their electoral votes rather then a winner take all it seems like it would be more representative and encourage some who don't currently vote to vote. So in a state that are normally one party or the other it would be split. In Texas and similar states that means Biden would have got some, in Minnesota, California and the like Trump would have gotten some. Changes the dynamic. At least initially I think it would be good.

Edit: A wall of text is ok.

 

[EOTFOFYL]

This won't go any farther than a Battle of Marawi, it's going to get crushed in an instant without the same level of preparation. People give guerrilla warfare too much credit, at the end of the day you still require a standing army to hold the ground; More so then ever with better equipment to deal with asymmetrical warfare. Anyways I digress... Point I'm trying to say is nothing crazy is going to happen, I'm more worried about the crazy people taking matters into their own hands if Pizzagate is an indicator of anything.

 

[Ceildric]

@EOTFOFYL

You should be much more worried about a world where there are no "crazy people" to keep governments at least marginally honest by "taking matters into their own hands".

 

[BroederTrapist]

Reading all this made me fantasise about a futuristic way to elect a new president.

Nation Wide Online Civil War Virtual Reality Game.

Every "voter" joins a faction in the game.
And the faction that wins the war can choose the next real president.