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[Vector]

I'd like to add that as long as Obamacare's around, apparently Californian coverage is very reasonable, we have superb produce and ethnic diversity, and there's actually some cheaper places to live around here. Plus, we do have a bit of a Water Problem, but global warming will apparently be making it rain more all over the place, so it should be turning greener presently >_>

Maybe not cheap enough relative to the rest of the country, but if you figure out what you're doing, you can really scratch out a nice living in this state. Locally they have a lot of coding bootcamps where they say "go here for free, then we'll take some of your salary for your first year at your job provided that it's above X mark."

It's not as good as Canada, perhaps, but I did want to say that I really do like it here.

[Reelya]

Well with one of my kids being diabetic, anyplace having a better healthcare system than the U.S. is a pretty big advantage.  Just thinking about him having to deal with that as he gets into adulthood has been triggering a sense of urgency to really go hard for the Canada thing lately.

Well, the thing about having a decent healthcare system is that people come to expect to be able to go to the doctor or hospital without racking up a huge bill. Even for the far-right in Australia, they're not game to criticize people's right to free basic medical treatment. And they aren't even brave enough to propose permanently kicking the unemployed off payments.

So, while the Liberal Party could be referred to as out "Republicans", sort of, the fit isn't actually very good. Our "republicans" aren't talking about removing welfare payments or defunding abortions, or any of that. And they don't blather on about how evolution is a leftie conspiracy theory either.

And on the webpage of our "right-wing Republican" prime minister, he has articles calling for same-sex marriage to be legalized. And while there's a split in the party over this, a serious number of senior leaders in the party publicly support same-sex marriage. Basically, our right-wingers are closer to your democrats.

[PTTG??]

I think that in the next few years our Republicans are going to collapse. There's like three parties inside the Republicans, and they're the Religious Right, the Insane Psychopaths, and the Economic Neoliberals. I suspect that the Economic Neoliberals are going to move center and be the "Republican Party" and mainly focus on small-government and highly liberal economic policy. The RR is going to fade away as its core believers die of old age. The IP are going to become a minor party right of the current position.

The Democrats are probably going to lose some people to the Neoliberal ticket. I also suspect that the NRA is going to start buying off Democrats now that the Republicans aren't a significant force. And maybe, if we're lucky, a Liberal party (possibly the Green party) will grow left of the Democrats to pull the party away from where it stands now.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

See, I thought that once, but now I'm starting to believe that our future is going to be a lot more strange and unpredictable. The Republicans may well not collapse, and actually recenter themselves around Trumpism. What is Trumpism? What was Longism back in the day? The eclectic makes their own definition of truth...

[Reelya]

Well, the modern 2-party systems in advanced countries are basically like "electoral-industrial complexes": they're so tied into so many systems that an existing party really won't just disappear - it will always be co-opted by someone new. So it's clear there will be "Republicans" for the far forseeable future, however they might not resemble the current Republicans.

The main issue is that the Republican voter base is so old compared to Democrat voters. Older voters have a high death rate, and the Republicans are not picking up new voters at anywhere near the same rate as the Democrats.

But I haven't really looked into enough to decide whether this means the GOP is going to go "more loon" or "less loon". Shrinking the voter base for the party could go either way.

[SalmonGod]

Unfortunately, I know a lot of young voters in Indiana who fit the three categories of Republican described by PTTG.  I can't be so confident that stuff is going to fade away.

[smirk]

Not away, not entirely. But far enough into the background to render itself far less relevant than it currently is. Trump has support of around 1/3rd of the Republican base. He'll get more than that as the establishment candidate, but I can't see more than that 3rd - and quite possibly less - lining up behind him long-term via party realignment. Certainly not the entirety of what is now the Republican party. It's tempting to see this election as the apex (nadir?) of the far-right pushes; after Trump, how much more could possibly be done in so large a manner? And that's a pretty hopeful and probably very short-sighted view, but as I am still rather young and have no dependents I'm still interested in sticking around and seeing how this all shakes out. Next four years should be Interesting Times.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

My poor classical conservative father is going to have a conniption at the rate the Republicans are going, such is the fate of everyone who supports Rubio and describes The Donald as a "blatant assclown".

[Reelya]

A particular branch of politics doesn't have to wither to absolutely nothing to effectively disappear. Remember it's a winner-takes-all proposal. 49% = 0%. A shift of a few percentage points here and there can effectively destroy a party.

Normally, they have ways of trying to broaden their support base, e.g. in Australia the Liberal Party (neo-liberals) bring in things that will appeal to working-class voters to improve their support, i.e. they target demographics who normally vote for Labor, and do things that will appeal to them, or they give out financial incentives which actually change the demographics into ones that tend to vote Liberal - government cash incentives for new parents is an example: this was literally worded as "helping mothers stay at home with the baby". While obviously nice for new parents to have this money, it was clearly also intended as social engineering to create more stay-at-home moms.

And under Bush, you saw things like trying to get minorities into home loans (The American Dream Downpayment Act and pressuring Fannie Mae to lower underwriting standards). Of course this backfired (big time), but the most likely reasoning is that by turning the Democrat's core constituency  into homeowners with mortgages, they could be manipulated to vote Republican in the future based on economic self-interest (the fact that this backfired is not the point).

And I guess that's what the current Republicans are trying to do with the Tea Party and similar, but I think their problem is that they're preaching to the choir: the people they are agitating are people who were already Republican voters anyway, so they're not really gaining much traction. So instead, you see laws put in place to restrict new voter registrations and the like: they want to stay on top by exploiting the fact that their base is older, established voters by merely preventing young people from enrolling. The Republicans will miss out on new voters, but not as much as the Democrats.

[mainiac]

and the "massive act of plagiarism" thing.

When I googled that this was the sixth result:
The Dumbest Plagiarism Scandal Ever

Elizabeth Warrren was plagiarized FROM and then accused by the plagiarizing organization of plagiarizing.  For that you vilify her.

"Falsehood will fly, as it were, on the wings of the wind, and carry its tales to every corner of the earth; whilst truth lags behind; her steps, though sure, are slow and solemn, and she has neither vigour nor activity enough to pursue and overtake her enemy…"

after the whole "pretending to be Cherokee" thing

So she made a pretty small lie in the grand scheme of things.  Maybe she even believed it was true.  She is also a very effective advocate of consumer rights.  Someone who actually got something done instead of just looking really angry on camera.

[Sheb]

Did she do anything for pretending to be a Cherokee apart that cookbook thing?

[mainiac]

She put it on a college application and she and her family apparently repeated it a lot in private conversations for decades.

[smjjames]

She put it on a college application and she and her family apparently repeated it a lot in private conversations for decades.

So her parents thought they had Cherokee blood (to speak metaphorically) running in them and thus Warren thought that too? Not sure what's up with that really.

[Reelya]

Well she says that her family told her and her siblings they had one Cherokee ancestor. Nobody who knows the family has come out saying that is a falsehood. I kinda think that at least one person would contradict her if she's made this all up herself. So her mistake there was in repeating this unverified family lore.

But there is that damning cookbook her cousin edited. Although - think about it - if her cousin is deeply involved in producing a "Pow Wow Chow" cookbook, then that sort of verifies that the "family lore" is a thing outside Warren's personal imagination.

As for the cookbook plagiarism, as in the article. It's really a pathetic non-story. It was not claimed in the cookbook that these were Elizabeth-Warren original recipes, and the book had extremely limited circulation. It was sold exclusively in the gift store of a tiny Amerindian museum (Five Civilized Tribes Museum of Muskogee, Oklahoma). If that's the limit of the Elizabeth Warren scandals they can find then it's not really a huge deal to move past.

[Catmeat]

I does trulie belive Lord Solar Trump will become repubic nominee and that Clinton will be pressy.
Purely cos hes ghud tv and she will let the corprates hu run murrica stick thur claws up her sphincter and make her jaw move like a puppet. Burning jew boy is a great candy burt he wont be let in thru the doors cause hesa tacks tje rich. Unlesd he gets a super majority vote his way theyl just fuge the votes their preferable way.
If he does get majority thou its impossible to fuge coz the slaves people will know and use ther muskets aginst the drone army.