Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[hector13]

That shouldn’t affect the DoJ thing, hopefully. There’s the House investigation into it, that would be promptly stopped.

[Lord Shonus]

The Judiciary and Executive branches of government are not under the control of Congress. Even if the GOP took both houses, it would be very difficult to interfere with the investigation.

[EuchreJack]

Keep hoping. Most likely, if the Republicans get both houses, they'll use it to investigate the crap out of DoJ until DoJ drops their case against Trump. And/or other dirty tricks.

But hey, you wanna think otherwise, I ain't getting into that fight.

[Dostoevsky]

I'd expect plenty of harassment even if DOJ wasn't actively investigating Trump, hah. Right now the government writ large is Public Enemy, so...

Hypothetically they could try to attach policy riders to appropriations bills blocking any funding toward certain DOJ activities, but that'd be pretty darn unorthodox and likely just lead to a government shutdown.

(Not saying they wouldn't do it, just that it'd be relatively high stakes.)

[Lord Shonus]

Going after the Justice Department is extremely risky electorally. Support for police - including Federal police - is high among all US demographics (yes, even whatever one you're going to cite in opposition), and extremely high among the core GOP demographic. Remember how Trump failed to repeal Obamacare despite having both houses, because it turned out that the actual ACA provisions were broadly popular? It would be that all over again.

[EuchreJack]

Going after the Justice Department is extremely risky electorally. Support for police - including Federal police - is high among all US demographics (yes, even whatever one you're going to cite in opposition), and extremely high among the core GOP demographic. Remember how Trump failed to repeal Obamacare despite having both houses, because it turned out that the actual ACA provisions were broadly popular? It would be that all over again.

Sorry, but DoJ ain't Police.
They're basically scumbag lawyers, from what little I think most Americans understand.

[EuchreJack]

Trump's Game Winning Strategy: "I can do whatever I want, I put enough of those Supreme Court Justices on the bench!"
(Results may vary, no guarantee upon purchase)

[StrawBarrel]

President Biden Full Speech on Democracy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JemWkV2Vcic (speech from a few days ago)

It was super great to see Joe defend democracy. He gave a legitimately good speech. I liked how Biden called out white supremacists and how optimistic his messaging was a times. Also I really liked how aggressive the speech is. Hopefully we get more of these out of Biden and less sleepy Joe. Seeing the conservatives get mad at Biden for making this speech is a good sign. It could mean that the GOP is fearful of this tone shift.

[Rolan7]

It seemed like a good speech.  I should probably just stand by and leave it at that.  It seems to be mobilizing boomers who "aren't into politics", so uh... good?  Welcome?  There's a bit of a virus going around, if you haven't heard about that either...

As a pointer for people here:  Liberal boomers apparently still like the "AMERICA IS GREAT" language.  They're SO desperate to "return" to "normalcy".  I would be a little bit livid if I didn't also approve of Biden's recent actions.  A year and a half after taking power, but who's counting.  Aside from Biden, and he counted the Affordable Care Act as a win for him and Obama.

I don't know, uh... fine, I guess.  Whatever works.  Glad he's finally doing anything at all, and at least addressing the fact that American democracy has been in a CRITICAL state for the past 2 elections.  I guess Jan 6 wasn't enough of a clue, nor the midterm primaries (who notices primaries, right?) but now we're ramping up to the actual vote so... mobilize!

I seriously can't figure out what combination of incompetent and complacent American Libs are, but at least they aren't explicitly calling to murder me.  Woo.

Edit: Oh but seriously, fucking vote, because cynicism is not an excuse to let people get murdered

[MorleyDev]

As an outside observer, it seems like the first year of Biden was him trying to lead by example after the Trump years with how he treated the GOP. He was trying to treat it as 'proper' politics, where the major political parties have broad political agreement but disagree on specifics and genuinely want to work to improve things in the now, and so are willing to co-operate and find common ground because the end goal is to actually make the country 'better'.

Problem is American Politics has already devolved to the point where the 'opposition' will automatically vote down *anything* proposed by the main party, regardless of text, out of a desire to not 'let the other side have a win' because they perceive that as hurting their chances at 'victory' against the 'evil' opposition who they oppose on principle. It's not actually about improving things now, it's simply a competition that they want to win at all costs, which means anything the other side touches is 'wrong-by-default'.

So by treating the GOP like reasonable adults that want to work to better the country in the hope that they act in kind, you aren't engaging with the reality of politics in the USA.

Recent approach makes me think that after it became clear that this wasn't going to work, Biden seems to have switched to more aggressive tactic focusing on what can be achieved purely by minimal senate to get results.

[nenjin]

Going after the Justice Department is extremely risky electorally. Support for police - including Federal police - is high among all US demographics (yes, even whatever one you're going to cite in opposition), and extremely high among the core GOP demographic. Remember how Trump failed to repeal Obamacare despite having both houses, because it turned out that the actual ACA provisions were broadly popular? It would be that all over again.

Sorry, but DoJ ain't Police.
They're basically scumbag lawyers, from what little I think most Americans understand.

Maybe you should stop speaking for most Americans.

[EuchreJack]

Going after the Justice Department is extremely risky electorally. Support for police - including Federal police - is high among all US demographics (yes, even whatever one you're going to cite in opposition), and extremely high among the core GOP demographic. Remember how Trump failed to repeal Obamacare despite having both houses, because it turned out that the actual ACA provisions were broadly popular? It would be that all over again.

Sorry, but DoJ ain't Police.
They're basically scumbag lawyers, from what little I think most Americans understand.

Maybe you should stop speaking for most Americans.

Fair enough

[Dostoevsky]

Taking a glance around the web, the only recent polling done regarding DOJ is from rightward groups with an axe to grind. (The question wording in the Rasmussen poll a few weeks back is very leading, for example, and is also asking specifically about The Investigation as opposed to DOJ in general.)

Closest thing I could find from Gallup was a late December poll on various leaders, which put Garland at 49 approve 43 disapprove - basically above Biden, Harris, and any congressional leaders, but below JPow and Roberts. (Roberts was the most popular at the time, though Dec. 2021 was an eon ago for the S.Ct.) -40 with Republicans, which is actually less than they dislike most other government officials who don't have an (R) by their name.

There's also a YouGov poll from April on Americans' trust levels in various agencies; DOJ was 31% Trustworthy / Very Trustworthy, 24% Neither, 36% Untrustworthy / Very Untrustworthy, 9% Don't Know. Below average, though there are quite a few agencies in that range.

[delphonso]

So by treating the GOP like reasonable adults that want to work to better the country in the hope that they act in kind, you aren't engaging with the reality of politics in the USA.

Recent approach makes me think that after it became clear that this wasn't going to work, Biden seems to have switched to more aggressive tactic focusing on what can be achieved purely by minimal senate to get results.

So the Democrats run a donation-collection racket on this principle. They ask for as many donations as possible, but then play the old-style game, which the Republicans haven't been playing since Reagan. They can say "We tried, but we just can't do it because ____!" then ask for more donations to deal with whatever the monster of the week is. This is how the Republicans have slowly pushed them out of power, and moved the American discourse further to the Right. Partially because the Dems themselves pushed themselves out of power, preferring the donation boost from a loss over, well you know, actually Progressive policies.

I wouldn't expect Biden's tactics to have any legs. This is just what everyone wishes the Democrats would do, so he's saying they'll do it right now before the election. I expect there to be zero action all the way up until the next election. It's a shame, really.

[MorleyDev]

I mean, they did get several major bills through recently by playing the "what can we do" game rather than the "try and get Republicans to not veto what we want to do" game.

From what I can tell, the last time the Democrats had a majority immune to filibuster was maybe the very beginning of Obama's presidency, depending how you count (relied on some independents) and that only lasted about two months.

Which is another issue US politics seems to run into: The lack of viable political parties outside of the big two. It means that politicians have to align themselves with the party closest to them, which can be a pretty broad range on the spectrum and can't jump to another party except the other major one if they dislike the direction of their current party.

It means that even more so than in European countries each political party is actually a broad coalition of what under a different system would be several different political parties, and then they need a majority not just in their own party but in the house and a supermajority in the senate to reasonably get things done.

Even Trump, who had majorities in both house and senate, ran into this problem and (I'd say thankfully) couldn't get a lot of the things he wanted done simply because there wasn't all of the majorities required.