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[Reelya]

I find it more likely that they'll burn those bridges and send Spicer packing. Trump isn't known for keeping people around who've lost their usefulness out of a sense of loyalty.

[smjjames]

Yeah. They still need a communications director though. Didn't Bill Clinton make the same mistake with having someone be Press Secretary and Comm. Director at the same time? Or maybe that was George W. Bush? I read somewhere that the mistake has been done before.

@MSH: Sounds like the Republicans have a platform problem where they're stuck in the past, heh, and are unable to update it as neccesary.

[redwallzyl]

Yeah. They still need a communications director though. Didn't Bill Clinton make the same mistake with having someone be Press Secretary and Comm. Director at the same time? Or maybe that was George W. Bush? I read somewhere that the mistake has been done before.

@MSH: Sounds like the Republicans have a platform problem where they're stuck in the past, heh, and are unable to update it as neccesary.

i don't think they have change any positions in decades. their so defined by those positions its basically impossible to change.

[Reelya]

One of the biggest glaring issues is that if you look at the executive orders so far release, they're amateurish. They're actually cringeworthy to read even for people who don't understand legalese. That's what happens when you gut the departments that normally give feedback on your executive orders. Sure, it makes it easier to release the order unopposed in the short term, but then you haven't actually ran the order past anyone with qualifications to tell you it's clearly bullshit before it hits the real-world, which you can't control.

BTW, latest news is that Trump's health secretary Tom Price is an anti-vaxxer.

Dr Price remained a member of AAPS until last year.

A resolution by the group in the year 2000 stated:  “Safety testing of many vaccines is limited and the data are unavailable for independent scrutiny, so that mass vaccination is equivalent to human experimentation and subject to the Nuremberg Code, which requires voluntary informed consent”.

Basically, they pulled a Godwin on vaccines, implying it's like Nazi-era human experimentation.

[PTTG??]

I bet you a dollar the anti-vaccers will come up with the same solution they do with everything: less regulation.

[Frumple]

@MSH: Sounds like the Republicans have a platform problem where they're stuck in the past, heh, and are unable to update it as neccesary.

Is more like they're a coalition where certain parts of them are stuck like that, really. There's a bunch of shit the GOP can't really shift on to a meaningful extent without causing chunks of their base to just kinda' catch fire.

i don't think they have change any positions in decades. their so defined by those positions its basically impossible to change.

Nah, the GOP's definitely moved around position wise in the last few decades. It was noted during last year's election that the GOP's platform on homosexuality/LGBT rights was actually close to the worst it had been in pretty much its entire history, ferex, and there's plenty of other stuff like that. Used to be chunks of 'em had a pretty strong conservation/environmental lean, etc., etc. There were points in the past they had a lot more give on a number of issues cultural and fiscal, but in relatively recent years certain rather intractable (and politically naive/ignorant/inexperienced/etc.) groups have been entrenching fairly effectively, pretty steadily cutting off areas the party as a whole used to be able to leverage to adjust their platform.

[Descan]

@A couple pages ago, might have moved on.

But PTTG??'s post was about an equivalent leftist movement *comparable in scope* to the Tea Party right. Not just about *some people leftist do silly shit on the internet*

That's not moving the goalposts when it was in the original post. :I

[smjjames]

Yeah. They still need a communications director though. Didn't Bill Clinton make the same mistake with having someone be Press Secretary and Comm. Director at the same time? Or maybe that was George W. Bush? I read somewhere that the mistake has been done before.

@MSH: Sounds like the Republicans have a platform problem where they're stuck in the past, heh, and are unable to update it as neccesary.

i don't think they have change any positions in decades. their so defined by those positions its basically impossible to change.

I meant having someone fill both positions at the same time, which is what Spicer is doing right now.

[Frumple]

Pretty sure red was talking about policy/platform positions rather than WH staff, heh.

[Reelya]

Yup, the GOP used to be center-right with a fringe of radicals and propped up numerically by the religious right. Now the radicals are center, but they need the support of the religious right to rule. And that's created this odd current situation where the Democrats have been left "holding the bag" as the main proponents of mainstream centrism, where both the parties used to be part of that. This is where the idea that mainstream corporate media is "leftwing" has emerged. It's complete nonsense: corporate media represents the interests of the corporate class of capitalism.

What's happened is that the right veered away from the center, so now to them being in the corporate center looks like radical leftism. So the real enemy to them should be the "corporate citizen" class who represent the wealthy elite, but they misattribute this as "leftism", so it's part of the long history of class struggle where the downtrodden class are duped about who their actual oppoents are, the richclass savior is going to save them from the evil forces of liberalism by further entrenching the power of the richclass, heh, when it's the stratified richclass society which is actually the source of their problems.

But PTTG??'s post was about an equivalent leftist movement *comparable in scope* to the Tea Party right. Not just about *some people leftist do silly shit on the internet*

Yeah this. What I would say is a fair comparison is name any specifically crazy policy advocated by a major Democratic candidate. Sanders' stuff is about as far out there as you're going to see, and every single policy he outlined is in fact considered mainstream policy in large numbers of fellow capitalist nations.

[smjjames]

Oh, misunderstood him a bit.

I don't think the Dems have changed their platforms all that much either, usually because they're pretty broad, but the details have changed I'm sure.

Though the neoliberal part of the platform is likely getting dropped now, the economic portion anyway.

[redwallzyl]

Oh, misunderstood him a bit.

I don't think the Dems have changed their platforms all that much either, usually because they're pretty broad, but the details have changed I'm sure.

Though the neoliberal part of the platform is likely getting dropped now, the economic portion anyway.

i hope the do drop it. that would be the one real thing that could possibly rally people. the republicans extreme neo-liberal economics are absolutely destructive and frankly neo-liberalism is a big reason for why everything is sliding to shit around the world. its an ideal taken to far to the benefit of a few and the determent everything else. the reduction of all to economics it a terrible idea especially when monetary gain is valued over everything else.

[Reelya]

https://science.slashdot.org/story/17/02/13/0248240/us-born-nasa-scientist-detained-at-the-border-until-he-unlocked-his-phone

American-born NASA JPL scientist Sidd Bikkannavar was detained at the border for having a foreign-sounding name, after traveling to South America, and forced to give his phone and pin to the CBP who unlocked it and searched it. Except it's a NASA-issued phone which might have had classified information on it, so they forced him to breach national security regulations. Apparently the cyber-security people at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where this guy works, were not happy about this.

As a note, his name originates in southern India. So it's spreading to be "screw with anyone with one of those weird non-caucasian names regardless of where they were born or where they traveled." Also, he was on a list of people who are supposed to get expedited entry because they've already been vetted by national security. Apprently the CBP decided that didn't matter because "screw you, darkie".

[TheBiggerFish]

...Maybe CBP will finally get a brusque slap to the face now?

[smjjames]

Oh, misunderstood him a bit.

I don't think the Dems have changed their platforms all that much either, usually because they're pretty broad, but the details have changed I'm sure.

Though the neoliberal part of the platform is likely getting dropped now, the economic portion anyway.

i hope the do drop it. that would be the one real thing that could possibly rally people. the republicans extreme neo-liberal economics are absolutely destructive and frankly neo-liberalism is a big reason for why everything is sliding to shit around the world. its an ideal taken to far to the benefit of a few and the determent everything else. the reduction of all to economics it a terrible idea especially when monetary gain is valued over everything else.

You mean Democrats, not Republican, but yes, while globalization has it's virtues, it still has to address all the problems, which neo-liberalism doesn't do.