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[Duuvian]

Because the only thing that matters is the standard set by the worst option.

Was just reading a thread elsewhere about how much easier it will be to fight for progressive policies and hold Democrats accountable when they have majority control of government.  The one person to talk about how this worked out in 2008-2010 gets dogpiled by people defending Obama.

Lots of high profile figures talking about how much they're looking forward to being able to ignore politics again.  Barely even avoiding using those exact words.

We are so very dead on track for a worse fascist than Trump in 2024.  This dude was the easy mode fascist.  A warning about where the direction we're going is taking us.  And I feel like hardly anybody learned anything.

Not shaming anyone for voting for Biden.  But the sit-down-and-shut-up attitude towards anyone who expresses concern about the general direction of politics they're reading from this election is disturbing to me.

I posted this to the europol thread a couple of days back but is more relevant here.  Note that the trend as reported is distinctly a bipartisan one even if somewhat lopsided.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/10/01/political-violence-424157
Basically significantly more americans than ever before believe that political violence is or could be justified.  Hopefully the next couple of days/weeks turn out okay but chances are that the trend will continue into the forseeable future.

I don't think it's a fixture.

However it does present an interesting point that as people become frustrated with the government their anger at the side or groups they blame goes up. I do think the article was being a little alarmist though yes this is the worst I've seen it and hope to help mend bridges with those around me of differing opinion after election should those have been tested by this election which at least in personal relationships haven't resulted in worse than arguments ranging from agreeable to placid to critical to lightly heated and between; and minor name calling that is quickly apologized for as a breach and forgiven with no loss of comraderie in say the workplace for example

That's been my experience so far. That is anecdotal of course and I'm not the person who knows about this anyways.

many ninja edits due to post tilting to the rude side, apologies for responders

[da_nang]

May I interject with some government theorycrafting while we're waiting for the tentative results?

What if the US elected two presidents, one by popular vote, one by state vote? Two presidents needed for veto, two presidents needed for pardon, two presidents needed for executive orders etc. for anything domestic. Foreign affairs, military deployment on foreign soil, naval deployment in blue waters, etc. handled by the popular president.

A bicameral executive, so the minority can't use the executive to fuck over the majority and vice versa.

[wierd]

Worst case, it would completely cripple the US government, since the cognate of the veto is signing into law. (as such, it should also take both signatures to validate a bill.)

Consider how Russia influenced the 2016 election, then consider the danger of say-- putting a Mitch McConnel in there, who does nothing but obstruct any and all action.  A foriegn power could arrange to obstruct and hamstring the US government for 4 solid years.

[feelotraveller]

@Duuvian
Well I'm glad you read the piece, that's why the link was posted.  I think you are too quick to dismiss, the opinion comes from a couple of researchers in the field and was published a month ago now.  While I strongly encourage people to read it for themselves let me share one quote from the updated (toned down) trend section:

All together, about 1 in 5 Americans with a strong political affiliation says they are quite willing to endorse violence if the other party wins the presidency.

If that was nothing to worry about/business as usual then that just has me more concerned than ever.

[wierd]

1/5 is very close to the magic number.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180607141009.htm

We all should be VERY concerned.

[Duuvian]

@Duuvian
Well I'm glad you read the piece, that's why the link was posted.  I think you are too quick to dismiss, the opinion comes from a couple of researchers in the field and was published a month ago now.  While I strongly encourage people to read it for themselves let me share one quote from the updated (toned down) trend section:

All together, about 1 in 5 Americans with a strong political affiliation says they are quite willing to endorse violence if the other party wins the presidency.

If that was nothing to worry about/business as usual then that just has me more concerned than ever.

Yeah you were right, I ninja edited the post before you made that one hehe, for dismissing a source out of hand like that; its just.. I have a boss who likes to show me links on his phone so it's like reflexive now

I apologize

[feelotraveller]

My apologies too, I missed the edit as I was writing. 

[da_nang]

Worst case, it would completely cripple the US government, since the cognate of the veto is signing into law. (as such, it should also take both signatures to validate a bill.)

Consider how Russia influenced the 2016 election, then consider the danger of say-- putting a Mitch McConnel in there, who does nothing but obstruct any and all action.  A foriegn power could arrange to obstruct and hamstring the US government for 4 solid years.

For that, we can get rid of the pocket veto. Veto must be affirmative.

[Dostoevsky]

Worst case, it would completely cripple the US government, since the cognate of the veto is signing into law. (as such, it should also take both signatures to validate a bill.)

Consider how Russia influenced the 2016 election, then consider the danger of say-- putting a Mitch McConnel in there, who does nothing but obstruct any and all action.  A foriegn power could arrange to obstruct and hamstring the US government for 4 solid years.

For that, we can get rid of the pocket veto. Veto must be affirmative.

Pocket veto is actually a very narrow situation where a law remains unsigned when a congressional term ends; normally if a bill is unsigned but not vetoed it automatically becomes law after 10 days.

(That said, veto in general would have to be reworked under the concept of a presidential pair.)

[bloop_bleep]

Worst case, it would completely cripple the US government, since the cognate of the veto is signing into law. (as such, it should also take both signatures to validate a bill.)

Consider how Russia influenced the 2016 election, then consider the danger of say-- putting a Mitch McConnel in there, who does nothing but obstruct any and all action.  A foriegn power could arrange to obstruct and hamstring the US government for 4 solid years.

I mean, it would be approximately equally easy to put such an obstructionist president in there right now, especially since the popular vote president and the electoral college president would often be the same... This isn't really much of a valid point.

[wierd]

Since it would require both parties to perform executive actions (which REALLY exist to give marching orders to the executive branch, and is not really a "Decree of the president" to substitute for his lack of ability to produce legislation), that means it could be used to effectively prevent all manner of actions, not just signing or vetoing bills.

Say for instance, mobilizing armed forces.  Or negotiating a foreign policy.


The fact that our government is currently equally vulnerable to "The Manchurian Candidate" is not a mark that is favorable to this suggested alternative-- all it does is promote a way to cripple the executive further. Not a way to ensure proper function of the executive, or to prevent fascists from coopting the executive.

[sluissa]

1/5 is very close to the magic number.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180607141009.htm

We all should be VERY concerned.

Also note "1/5 with a strong political affiliation." Given that only about 30% of people are registered with either party(and about 40% going toward "Independents") and even fewer of those people feel "affiliated" with the party they're with. That's 1/5 of a much smaller fraction of the populace. It wouldn't surprise me at all if there's small, localized groups that tip over into violence. But I'd be very surprised if anything widespread happens.

RE: Presidential power.

The solution is for congress to get off its ass and reign in the presidency when they're doing stupid things. That's what they're there for. But this party bullshit means there's either total gridlock or rubberstamping in most cases. Discussion is dead. Compromise is dead. All that's left is "getting one over on the enemy."

[wierd]

Clearly more data is needed-- how much of a demographic exists where "The only thing we agree on is that those people (congress, senate, et al) need to be drawn and quartered!", is shared between all political alignments?  You don't need agreement on which congress critters to draw and quarter, only that the mob gets to draw and quarter members of congress.

Once you cross that threshold, the angry mob will form, and bad things will happen.

If you divide the nation in to 3 piles-- Democrat, Republican, and Unaffiliated-- and get 1/5 of all 3 pools-- you end up with the same statistic.

EG-- start with 100 people-- divide 3 ways so that each group has 33 members (with one leftover. We'll say they are Green Party, just as a joke), and then 1/5 of each of these strongly opinionated groups feels it is OK to lynch congress.  From each group, that is a bit over 6 people.  taken in isolation, 6 people out of 100 is small change.  However, when you add all three groups together, since all 3 groups have that same demographic, you end up with nearly 20 people, which is close to the magic number to reach the tipping point.


They dont need to agree on who to lynch, only that lynching is acceptable.

[Egan_BW]

"1/5th of people with a strong political allegiance" is explicitly not 1/5th of the entire population.

[bloop_bleep]

Yeah, 1/5 of people with a strong political allegiance being willing to resort to violence doesn't seem too far out to me. Having a strong political allegiance seems like being ready to defend it firmly, and it makes sense to me that some of those people would have a desire to do violence.