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[Folly]

Isn't voter intimidation illegal?

[Eric Blank]

Yes. It's also traditional right winger behavior.

[Robot Parade Leader]

Preclusion is a powerful thing. If people like someone, and want them to "win", they will overlook reality in order to agree with them on principle. We all have inherent biases, but not all of us can spot them.

I mean, yup. Trump has just done a whole ton of things that are bad to the point we don't remember all of them. He's on tape saying "Grab 'em by the p*****," lost a civil lawsuit related to that ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Jean_Carroll_v._Donald_J._Trump ), and then there's the whole criminal thing in New York case he lost. He said he would trade  https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/former-president-trump-wanted-trade-puerto-rico-greenland/ Puerto Rico for Greenland, nuke hurricanes, and the list of stupid bad stuff just goes on and on. He is saying January 6th was somehow ok, when it just was not.

Somehow his supporters don't care. They've made some sort of fictional character out of him that simply does not exist.
The truth is simple. He is a 78 year old man who has done a lot of intentionally bad things and is going to do a lot more (why would he stop now). He claims not to know what project 2025 is, but he does and his VP pick wrote parts of it. Trump's name is all over it.

https://imgur.com/gallery/312-times-trumps-name-is-stated-this-proposal-Hq1REZi

If Biden, (or anybody else really) did any of that, he would have been gone immediately and Biden just got exhausted during a debate so you know it's true he would have been out sooner if he pulled this stuff. Same for any other politician. When Biden is exhausted (because surprise surprise he's 4 years older than last time at 80), it's a huge deal and even Trump went after him politically for it, but when Trump is exhausted it's just fine, according to him:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/campaign-official-admits-trump-refusing-152354332.html

At least some republicans are starting to understand he is just too far out there.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-questioned-trump-pet-eating-014919196.html

The only way for republicans to get a halfway respectable candidate in the future is for them to vote against trump, so people see this type of extreme candidate is just not viable to elect. George Bush seems pretty tame by comparison, even though I didn't agree with him on a lot of things. Basically, Trump has taken over the republican party, turned against other republicans, and is flat out saying he will install loyalists and be a "dictator on day one." https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-reiterates-dictator-for-one-day-wisconsin-rally-1235127435/

Basically, any republicans have only 3 options. Support him (vote for him), Voluntarily not vote (because they find him distasteful), or vote for Harris (his opposition). If they support him, then the republican party is now MAGA. A lot of republicans have realized that sitting it out isn't enough because he has no problem going after anyone who isn't personally loyal to him above all else and at any cost to person or country.

https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-republicans-endorsing-kamala-harris-trump-1960937

[Frumple]

Early voting done, frumple has become statistic. Straight blue as possible (some of the local dems went NPA years back when the locals stopped electing anyone with a D besides their name), yes on 3 and 4, no on everything else. Boot the judges, sod the rest of the amendments. Chances of florida matching that are... not particularly great, but hey, every little bit.

[hector13]

Trump has apparently said all presidential candidates should have cognitive tests.

I very much doubt he means in this particular cycle.

[McTraveller]

Cognitive tests aren't what you want though; trust me; I had a relative that literally had half a brain due to a stroke, and they could pass cognitive tests (which made it extraordinarily difficult to get them the care they needed, because they had "enough acuity" to be able to refuse to sign the power of attorney over). Yet they were a fall hazard, drove without a license, bought more food they could eat and let it rot in their kitchen...

I don't know what the solution is to be honest; any meaningful change is going to require a Constitutional Amendment or a straight-up revolution; neither of which are practical.

[Robot Parade Leader]

You need a license to drive but not to be a politician?

There should be a politician license and it should require passing a hard test to show you understand how things actually work before you are allowed the privilege of running for office.

And if you say "I'm going to do X,  Y, and Z! and I'll make them do it," then you should be called in front of the licensing board and forced to explain exactly how you are going to do that. If you can't in detail with an actual method that is legal and sensible, then you get your license revoked and you can't be elected. If you are "not a crook," like Nixon, they drag you in front of them for that too.


Probably would help to be an engineer, veteran, doctor, lawyer or experienced actual business leader with real world results (not multiple bankruptcies) instead of some brain dead idiot who can trick people into voting for them with lies.

Voting is important. We should have better choices.


Everybody else has to have qualifications. Why not them.

[hector13]

Political office is meant to be open to anybody who wants to try for it. Putting in a test or license for it will likely be ruled unconstitutional, and I would say with very good reason.

[Eric Blank]

I keep thinking the same thing, but the thing is as soon as a partisan asshole gets ahold of it they'll make sure their opponents never pass it again. And I bet that's exactly what Trump is hoping for; a republican-dictated test that keeps liberal democrats out of the running, not a fair non-partisan test of necessary knowledge of legal, cultural and scientific sorts run by a non-partisan non-affiliated organization that is watched like a hawk for corruption by a second non-partisan organization that is in turn...

But yeah, setting up such a test would be next to impossible to do in a non-partisan no-ulterior motives way. And then nobody would agree to pass a bill to use it if they think it would disqualify them or their allies

[Maximum Spin]

You need a license to drive but not to be a politician?

There should be a politician license and it should require passing a hard test to show you understand how things actually work before you are allowed the privilege of running for office.

And if you say "I'm going to do X,  Y, and Z! and I'll make them do it," then you should be called in front of the licensing board and forced to explain exactly how you are going to do that. If you can't in detail with an actual method that is legal and sensible, then you get your license revoked and you can't be elected. If you are "not a crook," like Nixon, they drag you in front of them for that too.


Probably would help to be an engineer, veteran, doctor, lawyer or experienced actual business leader with real world results (not multiple bankruptcies) instead of some brain dead idiot who can trick people into voting for them with lies.

Voting is important. We should have better choices.


Everybody else has to have qualifications. Why not them.

You simply do not want to live in a democracy, then. This would be an oligarchy where whoever gets to serve on the "licensing board" has political control of the country.

[Robot Parade Leader]

You need a license to drive but not to be a politician?

There should be a politician license and it should require passing a hard test to show you understand how things actually work before you are allowed the privilege of running for office.

And if you say "I'm going to do X,  Y, and Z! and I'll make them do it," then you should be called in front of the licensing board and forced to explain exactly how you are going to do that. If you can't in detail with an actual method that is legal and sensible, then you get your license revoked and you can't be elected. If you are "not a crook," like Nixon, they drag you in front of them for that too.


Probably would help to be an engineer, veteran, doctor, lawyer or experienced actual business leader with real world results (not multiple bankruptcies) instead of some brain dead idiot who can trick people into voting for them with lies.

Voting is important. We should have better choices.


Everybody else has to have qualifications. Why not them.

You simply do not want to live in a democracy, then. This would be an oligarchy where whoever gets to serve on the "licensing board" has political control of the country.

You simply oversimplify, don't get it, frame anyone who disagrees as having bad motives and don't have to do those things. You can have a democracy with standards without it being an oligarchy. Democracy is not what most people think it is. "Democracy" with no standards is mob rule.

There is a reason the Founders were against mob rule.

https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/james-madison-federalist-no-55-1788
"On February 15, 1788, James Madison published Federalist 55—titled “The Total Number of the House of Representatives.”  Following Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts, Madison and his allies pushed for a new Constitution that might address the dangers of excessive democracy, including mob violence."

https://archivesfoundation.org/newsletter/a-promise-from-the-founders/

https://www.sierrathread.com/thread/founding-fathers-fear-of-tyranny-of-majority-and-mob-rule

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/james-madison-mob-rule/568351/
https://emerge-magazine.com/the-founding-fathers-greatest-fear-was-mobocracy/

Even the ultraconservative Heritage foundation can't deny it:
https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/preventing-the-tyranny-the-majority

So fact checking is bad somehow? Having someone who actually knows what they are doing is bad somehow?  Let's invite the morons who have screwed everything up to keep right on screwing everything up? They can lie about anything? They can try to overthrow the government on January 6th (let those criminal convictions speak for themselves) and just do whatever with 0 consequences that would ruin you or I or anyone else if we tried it? They can suggest nuking hurricanes seriously, even though that would make the problem so so much worse. Just spew out whatever completely unworkable garbage no matter how much of a lie it is?

Standards are not bad or undemocratic. Having someone actually know something is "undemocratic?" Really? Wow?

[hector13]

Describe a system of licensing for politicians that is fair and can’t be corrupted by a bad actor.

[McTraveller]

Yes, I'm sure a "politician license" would ensure people are good politicians the same way "drivers licenses" ensure people are good drivers. 

I'm still working on the thesis that the largest population group we should allow to be under one government is somewhere around 30 million people. Once you get bigger than that it becomes a mess; it's probably something like a sociological square-cube law, which is one of the driving factors for cellular division.

[Robot Parade Leader]

Describe a system of licensing for politicians that is fair and can’t be corrupted by a bad actor.

Describe how the current system is working better.

I don't have to obey your demands. You could look at some of those articles I posted and the Federalist papers they reference.

It isn't impossible and it would trim back some of the worst excesses. Audits would be possible. Ethics experts are a thing. There are licensing boards for doctors. Base it off that. 

[Maximum Spin]

Who gets to choose the standards for politicians?

If it isn't "the people, by voting" then it's not a democracy. That's definitional.