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[anewaname]

if you measure the volume of "confidential documents", the volume of "willingness to comply", the volume of "intent to obstruct"...

in biden the report found a minnow and in trump it found a whale

[Folly]

This is why we should have Engineers write (or at least vet) laws, not Lawyers, to make sure there are no ambiguities.  Laws should be subject to formal representation and provable logic.
I only half jest.

The problem is not so much that the letter of the law is ambiguous, but that the intent behind the law is ambiguous.

I think that we should require that every law be appended with a broadly stated intended function of the law. That way future lawmakers could accurately determine whether that original intent is still something desirable in the modern world and whether the letter of the law is still effectively serving that intent, and amend or replace laws as appropriate.

[Lord Shonus]

The problem with that is that the majority of laws are written with clear intent and are read as such when they are new. It becomes a problem when the laws are so old that linguistic and social drift has fundamentally changed the meaning of some of the words (see the arguments over what the word "search" means in the 4th Amendment), and no amount of explanatory paragraphs will guarantee that won't happen.

[feelotraveller]

We're definitely missing out on all the fun that could be had arguing over the intent of the intent.

(In almost any other thread this would be a shitpost.)

[hector13]

Trump evidently seeking to place loyalists as chair, co-chair, and COO of the RNC.

[anewaname]

So, the elephant is having problems both eating and walking now, as the parasitical worms work their way into new organs.

[Frumple]

What little bright side there is to that, I can't think of much that'd be more damaging to the RNC than trump's idea of loyalty or competence taking over its reigns.

Wouldn't exactly be a good thing but the whole rotten mess turning into an even bigger sump of corruption would probably do a pretty good job of actively crippling the organization... and there is precious little that would be better for the US than the republican party just kind of ceasing to exist, heh.

[Folly]

and there is precious little that would be better for the US than the republican party just kind of ceasing to exist, heh.

I'm curious, how do you see that scenario panning out? Do the Democrats just take over unopposed? Or does a new party rise to fill the vacuum?

[Frumple]

Either/or, really. So long as the blighters that have been actively sabotaging the country basically since it was even an idea lose meaningful political power, the rest of us'll probably be in better shape (and by rest, that probably includes the rest of the goddamn planet, nevermind people on US soil). Exactly what happens is less important than getting folks that don't want government to work and are intent on making sure it doesn't out of the business of governing.

Probably you'd have a period of substantive dem control for a bit until some of the major issues are unfucked, then they'd splinter without the pressure that comes from having to deal with bastards that are trying to tear the country apart and kill/oppress swaths of the electorate, or the messes said bastards have made. You'd end up with the legacy of the confederacy a continued domestic terror threat (if maybe less of one than it currently is with less institutional support for it!) but not a substantive political issue otherwise and the rest of us actually trying to make the day to day better.

We've seen similar things multiple times over the course of US history, so it'd likely take roughly the same shape. Regardless, finishing the friggin' reconstruction'd likely do us little but good, and if that takes care of itself from self-sabotage, that's pretty okay, heh.

[Starver]

(Ninjaed.)

There are various other nascent, dormant and sidelined parties sitting in the wings. I'm sure the vacuum would be filled almost immediately, and settled into a new two-party-main-split.

The GOP are relative newcomers to the game (the "Grand Old Party" name proves that at least Leftpondians have some sort of concept of irony, after all!), and Democrat vs. Republican is just the current choice. In less recent times there were Whigs, Federalists, Anti-Masonics, (Anti-)Jacksonians, Know-Nothings and others.

Looking forward, we've got the current anticipating No Label movement (though if they became a "top-two-party, vs. any other 'swing' flavour" then it would probably add to irony), perhaps the Greens might plant themselves as a firm envirocratic stance in the system (doubtful) or the Tea Party/Trumpian/Hyper-Libertarian parts of the shattered (R) base just do a T1000 and reform into a slightly more deranged opposition to the 'left'-wing of US politics. It could easily be the way for moving into Handmaid's Tale territory, with the right charismatic and evangelic figures.

...I can't see a rebalancing moving things too far that way, but the pressures towards (or across) the current political centre (by US terms (if not spelling!)) aren't really there, with not enough high-power moderate-Republicans and not much reason to see a left-of-Democrat pull swaying the relevent overton window, unless they also decide to cleave in twain.


Of course, such predictions are difficult. Especially about the future....

[Egan_BW]

Depends on the how of the GOP imploding, I guess. If the voters retain an appetite for ever-more-deranged politics, then whatever fills the gap will probably have to cater to that. Maybe the democrats will see an opportunity to fill that niche, even.

[Maximum™]

We have plenty of room for the Democrats to accept their role as a right of center party with a proper left wing competitor vying to actually broadly improve things for everyone, but we need to wait for lots of republican shitbags to die or go to prison.

Gladly it seems that each covid reinfection ages you 5 to 10 years, but it still isn't turning them into drooling invalids incapable of voting or holding a gun fast enough.

[Schmaven]

The main divide between democrats and non-democrats seems to be about spending.  Democrats argue for spending all our money and the money of our grandchildren on (insert noun here).  The fiscally responsible person is therefore inclined to choose non-democrat.

[hector13]

Like most things politicians say, “fiscal responsibility” doesn’t actually mean anything.

Does it mean balancing a budget? Does it mean reducing debt? Does it mean getting the most out of every dollar spent? Something else? Some of these things? All of these things? None of these things?

[Schmaven]

It's a wide bucket with various meanings to various non-democrats.  It essentially means not spending money we don't have.  As opposed to borrowing money to spend on things.