2020 politics

[ruraljuror]

On 8/6/2020 at 7:57 AM, smeagolsfree said:

My thoughts on this are that it could have all been handled differently from the beginning, from make wearing which should have been in  place from the start. But they sent the wrong message saying that mask were not needed and didnt help not following the CDC's own advice and experience  and learning from the last bad pandemic, the Spanish Flu. Yes the administration called for a ban from China, after the crap was already here, again too little too late and did nothing to stop the cases flooding in from the US citizens coming in from Europe. This could have been handled in about a month with a lock down of international travel that should have still been in place, a 1 month nationwide lock down.  We should have quarantined every person that came into the US for 3 weeks. Then we could have moved on, but it was prolonged because of incompetent leadership.

I happen to know of people that came in from Europe and were not tested, quarantined, did not have their temperature checked or anything. I also know of people that were sick in early January. so this crap was already here and spreading. The real problem is that the blame lays on both sides of the political isle for politicizing a disease and these boneheads will not learn from it. It was made worse by the president making false claims and the right screaming personal freedom which the courts have in the past said it is not. The safety of the community trumps personnel freedom in a situation like this and there are a lot of court cases that support it. 

To ask the citizens of this country to come together and do the same thing and have faith in them to do it is just not going to happen. Its sort of like heading cats. Its just not going to happen. I have heard this said time and time again....IT didnt have to be this way...but here we are. We have stupid leaders (both sides) and stupid people (both sides). Too many people in this country take the constitution to extremes and that is just as dangerous as doing away with said rights. I do not think the founding fathers ever intended a lot constitution to be interpreted the way it has been. 

I completely agree with you here Smagols, with the exception that I don't think it's accurate to lay the blame equally on both sides of the political aisle.

One side of the political aisle said the virus was a hoax and that it will be gone by Easter - the other side of the political aisle said no it's not and no it won't. These two positions are not equally blameworthy.

It was also reported this week that early in the pandemic the Trump administration determined that Corona was primarily a 'Blue State' problem and made the decision to abandon a nationwide testing and contract tracing program that was being developed at the time because they thought it would be politically advantageous to to cast their political opponents in a negative light. Here's a quote from the NY Mag that should outrage us all:

"Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert."

 

And you can see this strategy laid out in the quote below that came directly from Trump in late April/early May.  The scheme is pretty transparent, and very shortsighted to say the absolute least. In short, it's easy to blame both sides of the political aisle equally, but that doesn't mean that both sides of the political aisle are equally to blame:

 

“You look at Illinois, you look at New York, look at California, you know, those three, there’s tremendous debt there, and many others,” Trump said in an interview with the New York Post published Monday. 

By contrast, “Florida is doing phenomenal, Texas is doing phenomenal, the Midwest is, you know, fantastic — very little debt,” Trump said.

“I don’t think the Republicans want to be in a position where they bail out states that are, that have been mismanaged over a long period of time,” the president said.

 

 

[shanky]

The 2nd quarter GDP numbers are startling.  We lost a third of our economy! One million plus unemployed every week since March; 160k dead and counting;  a thousand people dying a day; digging mass graves in NY earlier this year; Second wave is coming. 

If this were a sporting event we'd be looking for another game.  

Covid is beating the holy crap out of the US

So much for good ole American exceptionalism.  We are not up to the task.

 

[JoeyX]

4 hours ago, shanky said:

The 2nd quarter GDP numbers are startling.  We lost a third of our economy! One million plus unemployed every week since March; 160k dead and counting;  a thousand people dying a day; digging mass graves in NY earlier this year; Second wave is coming. 

If this were a sporting event we'd be looking for another game.  

Covid is beating the holy crap out of the US

So much for good ole American exceptionalism.  We are not up to the task.

 

You act like this is a surprise. Don't you know job loses occur when various places have lockdowns? American exceptionalism beats living under communism.

Edited August 7, 2020 by JoeyX

[dmillsphoto]

26 minutes ago, JoeyX said:

You act like this is a surprise. Don't you know job loses occur when various places have lockdowns? American exceptionalism beats living under communism.

American Exceptionalism.

 

We excepted ourselves out of the rest of the modern world.

We're on the verge of excepting ourselves to being a second world entity. 

And heads up, Communism isn't coming.

[Armacing]

9 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

And you can see this strategy laid out in the quote below that came directly from Trump in late April/early May.  The scheme is pretty transparent, and very shortsighted to say the absolute least. In short, it's easy to blame both sides of the political aisle equally, but that doesn't mean that both sides of the political aisle are equally to blame:

“You look at Illinois, you look at New York, look at California, you know, those three, there’s tremendous debt there, and many others,” Trump said in an interview with the New York Post published Monday.  By contrast, “Florida is doing phenomenal, Texas is doing phenomenal, the Midwest is, you know, fantastic — very little debt,” Trump said.  “I don’t think the Republicans want to be in a position where they bail out states that are, that have been mismanaged over a long period of time,” the president said.

I'm no defender of Trump or Republicans, but the above quote is more of a Big Government v/s Small Government political calculation.  I don't read any ramifications related to coronavirus or infection patterns into that quote.  This issue had been building for decades before coronavirus. 

 

5 hours ago, shanky said:

So much for good ole American exceptionalism.  We are not up to the task.

Buy gold, because it is still a bargain even at it's current record price.

[ruraljuror]

38 minutes ago, Armacing said:

I'm no defender of Trump or Republicans, but the above quote is more of a Big Government v/s Small Government political calculation.  I don't read any ramifications related to coronavirus or infection patterns into that quote.  This issue had been building for decades before coronavirus. 

Trump doesn't say 'The Federal Government doesn't want to be in the position to bail out [mismanaged] states' - he says 'Republicans don't want to be in the positions where they bail out [mismanaged] states.' It seems to me that you're the one applying the Big Government vs Small government framing, not Trump.  

You are right however, that there are no ramifications related to coronavirus that are implicit in that quote, but coronavirus happens to be what Trump was talking about when he made that statement. Here's the interview where the statement was made, as reported in an article by the NY Post titled "Blue State Coronavirus Bailouts are Unfair To Republicans, Trump Says": https://nypost.com/2020/05/05/trump-blue-state-coronavirus-bailouts-are-unfair-to-republicans/

Further, your interpretation of the quote completely ignores the quote immediately above the Trump quote in my last post that makes it clear that it was in fact a political calculation, not a principled stand against federal spending. This is not a phenomenon unique to Trump, and I'm old enough to remember when so many Republicans opposed Big Government intervention and federal relief spending when Hurricane Sandy hit New York and New Jersey, but quickly changed their tune when Texas and Louisiana requested federal relief spending after Hurricane Harvey hit.  Now that red states have surpassed blue states in Covid cases, I'd happily take anyone's wager about whether Trump's opinion on Big Government relief spending is going to make an abrupt u-turn. 

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by ruraljuror

[ruraljuror]

13 hours ago, Armacing said:

I'm no defender of Trump or Republicans, but the above quote is more of a Big Government v/s Small Government political calculation.  I don't read any ramifications related to coronavirus or infection patterns into that quote.  This issue had been building for decades before coronavirus. 

Your assessment would be correct if Trump had said "I don’t think the The Federal Government wants to be in a position where they bail out states that are, that have been mismanaged over a long period of time” but what he actually said was "I don’t think the Republicans want to be in a position where they bail out states that are, that have been mismanaged over a long period of time.”

That said, you are correct that you can't tell from this snippet of the quote itself that he was talking about federal coronavirus relief spending, but that was the subject of the interview. If you're interested, you can read about it in this article with the headline "Blue-state coronavirus bailouts are unfair to Republicans, Trump says":https://nypost.com/2020/05/05/trump-blue-state-coronavirus-bailouts-are-unfair-to-republicans/

Now that Red States have surpassed Blue states in new Covid cases, we will see whether Trump changes his tune on federal coronavirus bailouts or whether you're right that he was making a principled stand about Big Government vs. Small Government. 

Edited August 7, 2020 by ruraljuror

[Armacing]

1 hour ago, ruraljuror said:

Your assessment would be correct if Trump had said "I don’t think the The Federal Government wants to be in a position where they bail out states that are, that have been mismanaged over a long period of time” but what he actually said was "I don’t think the Republicans want to be in a position where they bail out states that are, that have been mismanaged over a long period of time.”

That said, you are correct that you can't tell from this snippet of the quote itself that he was talking about federal coronavirus relief spending, but that was the subject of the interview. If you're interested, you can read about it in this article with the headline "Blue-state coronavirus bailouts are unfair to Republicans, Trump says":https://nypost.com/2020/05/05/trump-blue-state-coronavirus-bailouts-are-unfair-to-republicans/

Now that Red States have surpassed Blue states in new Covid cases, we will see whether Trump changes his tune on federal coronavirus bailouts or whether you're right that he was making a principled stand about Big Government vs. Small Government. 

Even if the interview was about the affect of coronavirus on the finances of troubled states, you can't ignore that this issue was being discussed at length before the virus hit.  Coronavirus is just the crisis event that brought the whole thing to a head.  Illinois was already in trouble.  Connecticut was already in trouble.  Several states had been adding debt to finance public spending before the virus.

Plus, I'm not even claiming that Trup was "making a principled stand" because I'm not sure he has strong convictions either way - he's just drifting wherever the political winds push him. 

Concerning your comment about "Federal Government" v/s "Republicans", that distinction is really of no import because the states with the worst *state* finances are all blue states.  Sure there are a ton of poor people in red states who get government benefits - but those mostly come from the federal government.  None of the red states have financial situations that compare to the likes of CA, IL, NY, CT.  It's pretty much a foregone conclusion that all Republicans are against bailing out states in general because they have already done the math and realized that doing so would disproportionately benefit blue states.  Likewise, Democrats are in favor of it for the same reason. 

So again, although there is undoubtedly a partisan aspect to his comment, I don't see how his quote can be put in the context of believing that bailing out state finances was needed or not needed based on coronavirus infection rates.   All states got hammered economically, but some were already in more precarious positions before the virus, and this was a known political issue before the virus where red v/s blue battle lines had already been drawn regarding federal bailouts.

[ruraljuror]

2 hours ago, Armacing said:

Even if the interview was about the affect of coronavirus on the finances of troubled states, you can't ignore that this issue was being discussed at length before the virus hit.  Coronavirus is just the crisis event that brought the whole thing to a head.  Illinois was already in trouble.  Connecticut was already in trouble.  Several states had been adding debt to finance public spending before the virus.

Plus, I'm not even claiming that Trup was "making a principled stand" because I'm not sure he has strong convictions either way - he's just drifting wherever the political winds push him. 

Concerning your comment about "Federal Government" v/s "Republicans", that distinction is really of no import because the states with the worst *state* finances are all blue states.  Sure there are a ton of poor people in red states who get government benefits - but those mostly come from the federal government.  None of the red states have financial situations that compare to the likes of CA, IL, NY, CT.  It's pretty much a foregone conclusion that all Republicans are against bailing out states in general because they have already done the math and realized that doing so would disproportionately benefit blue states.  Likewise, Democrats are in favor of it for the same reason. 

So again, although there is undoubtedly a partisan aspect to his comment, I don't see how his quote can be put in the context of believing that bailing out state finances was needed or not needed based on coronavirus infection rates.   All states got hammered economically, but some were already in more precarious positions before the virus, and this was a known political issue before the virus where red v/s blue battle lines had already been drawn regarding federal bailouts.

It seems like you've gotten stuck on a tangent here.  Forget that I even included the Trump quote at all in my post that you originally responded to, and focus on the original quote where a member of the Kushner-led team that was developing a nationwide testing and tracking plan reveals that they decided to scrap that plan because they thought that the Blue states would get hit hardest and the political fallout would be advantageous to the Trump administration and Republicans generally.  That was the outrageous part that I wanted to highlight in response to Smeagol's claim that 'both sides of the aisle' were equally to blame. 

With that out of the way, I understand that you're more interested in Big vs Small government debate, but that debate isn't particularly relevant in the context of disaster relief and force majeure events.  Nobody wanted to do an audit of Louisiana's fiscal health before deciding whether or not we should send FEMA aid after Hurricane Katrina. Nobody was questioning whether to supply federal money to NYC after 9/11.  The Federal government should never be deciding if and when to dole out disaster relief based on whether or not a state 'deserves it' or whether or not that state tends to vote for one party or the other- that is UnAmerican to the core and should bring a deep shame on us all if we allow it to happen.

All that said, if it helps us get back on track to the topic at hand - you're right that Red States are generally more fiscally stable than Blue states. That debate would have to address the factors that have led Red states to be more economically stable than Blue states - which would include how/why federal dollars are distributed among the states, minimum levels of services that government should provide it's citizens, debt/revenue ratios, the corporate relocation race to the bottom, and quality of life metrics like longevity, access to health care, for example - but that would be an entirely separate discussion and your claim about Red vs. Blue fiscal health is certainly true on it's face. 

You're also right that 'All states got hammered economically, but some were already in more precarious positions before the virus, and this was a known political issue before the virus where red v/s blue battle lines had already been drawn regarding federal bailouts' - but what I think you're missing here is that not all states were getting hammered equally at the time of the quote, which is why the administration was incentivized to make a political calculation to abandon the national testing/tracing program at a time when it could have allowed us to keep this virus under control.  At this point, there's no way to put Pandora back into her box, but there was a time when we could've kept that box lid mostly shut just like most of the rest of the modern world did.  Instead, we're in such bad shape that Americans are no longer allowed to fly to most countries in the world for fear of virus contamination. That cold, political calculation not only backfired politically, but it's inhibited our freedom of movement, destroyed our economy, and more importantly, is killing us at record rates. Seems to me that should be the bottom line, right? 

 

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by ruraljuror

[LA_TN]

12 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

C'mon Bob - Still no response?

If you're going to have the conviction to single out posts for deletion, you should probably have the courage of your convictions to at least explain why- otherwise it might seem like you're just arbitrarily deleting posts that you don't agree with, which is a pretty bad look for a newly installed moderator.

If you want to set new standards about what is and is not acceptable discourse around here, I'm willing to play by the rules - but first you're going to have to define those rules.  Which part of my posts crossed the line? 

@ruraljuror, first, my apologies for the delayed response. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time available during the day to moderate.

@smeagolsfree stated "We have stupid leaders (both sides) and stupid people (both sides)", but ever since he posted that, you have been on a political bashing tear saying that one side holds the majority of the blame. You are entitled to your opinion, that is why we have the coffee house. Personally, I maintain we would be where we are today, regardless of who was in leadership - local or national - because of, well, the people

Political bashing (even if it is worded politely) is not allowed. Did your posts contribute to the discussion?    .......no

[titanhog]

44 minutes ago, Craiger said:

What I’m not proud of is a clear attempt to censor one side of a debate because the moderator disagrees with that side. Read through this entire thread. You somehow decide there’s only one post that’s off topic and you admit in your reply that you disagree with the politics of the one single post.

 

 

I've seen more than one conservative driven off this board by moderators in the past...so don't take it so personally.  I've been on this board for over 15 years and it has turned very leftist in the last 3-4 years.  So...don't think for a second that conservatives on here feel like we're "protected". 

[Craiger]

8 hours ago, titanhog said:

I've seen more than one conservative driven off this board by moderators in the past...so don't take it so personally.  I've been on this board for over 15 years and it has turned very leftist in the last 3-4 years.  So...don't think for a second that conservatives on here feel like we're "protected". 

I’d say it’s probably turned “leftist” in the past few years because everyone is worried about the authoritarian wanna be dictator in the WH. Get back to two sane parties that disagree on how to run government instead of one party turning a blind eye to probably the most ignorant corrupt president in history. Then maybe things will calm down outside of normal politics spheres as well. 

[JoeyX]

1 hour ago, Craiger said:

I’d say it’s probably turned “leftist” in the past few years because everyone is worried about the authoritarian wanna be dictator in the WH. Get back to two sane parties that disagree on how to run government instead of one party turning a blind eye to probably the most ignorant corrupt president in history. Then maybe things will calm down outside of normal politics spheres as well. 

 

Folks if this ain't a political attack........

Will the moderators allow it? We'll see if he/they have the ability to separate from the emotion he/they have from his/their side in the political spectrum. We'll see if there is competence or incompetence.

 

 

 

Edited August 9, 2020 by JoeyX

[Craiger]

18 minutes ago, JoeyX said:

 

Folks if this ain't a political attack........

Will the moderators allow it? We'll see if he/they have the ability to separate from the emotion he/they have from his/their side in the political spectrum. We'll see if there is competence.

 

 

 

If you go look at smeags original  post, he talks about both sides being to blame. That’s allowed because it appears neutral, but when you have someone like Trump in office literally proposing to delay the election, a “both sides” argument is an argument equal to “trump ain’t that bad.” I don’t want to speak for RJ if for no other reason than they are way more eloquently spoken than I am, but I assume this is what they have a problem with. 

[markhollin]

I'm moving any topics that get overly political from the main forum (which is dedicated to development topics in Nashville) over here. You guys and gals can have at it here.

[Craiger]

If point B is counter to point A and point C comes later in support of point A, point C is necessarily counter to point B. 
 

right? 

Edited August 9, 2020 by Craiger

[JoeyX]

Let's hope the grown man who watches way too many kids movies doesn't start deleting posts because of his tendency to get overly emotional.

[dxfret]

8 minutes ago, JoeyX said:

Let's hope the grown man who watches way too many kids movies doesn't start deleting posts because of his tendency to get overly emotional.

This comment is extremely rude and not necessary. 

Edited August 9, 2020 by dxfret

[ruraljuror]

5 hours ago, JoeyX said:

 

Folks if this ain't a political attack........

Will the moderators allow it? We'll see if he/they have the ability to separate from the emotion he/they have from his/their side in the political spectrum. We'll see if there is competence or incompetence.

 

 

 

While I agree with Craiger's sentiment, I also think you're right Joey that his claim's about Trump would constitute attacking  of a politician, in a sense.  However, I don't necessarily agree that it's a political attack, because so many of the Republican and conservative thought leaders regularly make similar claims about Trump's corruption and authoritarian tendencies. Check out the writings of Bill Kristol, Max Boot, George Will, Jennifer Rubin, and Steve Schmidt for a few examples.

That said, I personally think it's best to bring up specific examples to illustrate the point whenever making a claim, and Craiger did a good job of singling out an issue to highlight in a follow-up post with a specific claim about Trump floating the idea of delaying the election. I would again argue that raising this issue isn't a political attack as I've seen near universal condemnation of the idea to delay the election - with the notable exception that the current Secretary of State and Attorney General are the only ones who don't seem to recognize (at least publicly) that such a delay would be blatantly unconstitutional (which certainly seems to back up Craiger's 'wannabe dictator' claim).

Here' an example of the election-delay condemnation that came from a co-founder of the Federalist Society who up until a week ago had been a staunch defender of Trump: 

Steven Calabresi, a Northwestern University law professor who has offered broad defenses of the President in recent years, wrote, "I am frankly appalled by the president's recent tweet seeking to postpone the November election. Until recently, I had taken as political hyperbole the Democrats' assertion that President Trump is a fascist."

"But this latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president's immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate," he said.

It's a significant break from the co-founder of one of the most influential groups in Republican politics. The Federalist Society has emerged as a leading conservative and libertarian voice in recent years, urging a limited role for judges in society's problems."

Beyond that, there's also the news from today that Trump asked the governor of South Dakota about the possibility of having Trump's likeness added to Mt. Rushmore. The governor thought Trump was kidding at first, but apparently that wasn't the case. 

In short, did Craiger attack a politician - yes - but was it a political attack? I'd say no to the latter question given that the constitution is inherently nonpartisan. That said, should we all probably stick to providing concrete examples of any claims that we're going to be making about politicians or anything else for that matter - yeah, we probably should.

Edited August 9, 2020 by ruraljuror

[titanhog]

6 hours ago, Craiger said:

I’d say it’s probably turned “leftist” in the past few years because everyone is worried about the authoritarian wanna be dictator in the WH. Get back to two sane parties that disagree on how to run government instead of one party turning a blind eye to probably the most ignorant corrupt president in history. Then maybe things will calm down outside of normal politics spheres as well. 

Conservatives feel the opposite.  We feel that Obama did more to divide the nation than any president in recent history...when he had a chance to bring us all together.  Trump is nothing more than an example of what happens when a political party goes off the rails (the Democratic Party).  The counter punch (Trump) is just as wild.  Trump is no conservative (he was deemed a Liberal all of his life and hung out with mostly liberals until just recently).  He's an opportunist...and basically the same narcissist businessman he's always been...the same one Democrats have loved forever and rap singers sang songs about.  In other words...you guys made this guy who he is...and now you're running a guy against him who we all know is either suffering from Alzheimer's or the beginning stages of it (my father has Alzheimer's...so I know first hand what it looks like).

There was a time not long ago (Reagan and Clinton) where the two sides actually compromised at times...and there was at least a little respect between parties when there needed to be.  But...the Bushes and Obama were disappointing at best...and Trump is what you get when the two political parties decide to go rogue and stop compromising.

[Craiger]

While i disagree with the premise that Obama actively divided the nation, for the sake of argument let’s assume it’s true. What I’m concerned about is not Trump further dividing the nation. I’m worried about him literally destroying democracy in America. That is a lot more worrisome than political division.

As i already stated above, he floated the idea of postponing the election coincidentally when he’s well down in the polls. The day after proposing to postpone the election, his administration condemned China for postponing Hong Kong’s elections! He rails against mail in voting with zero evidence of real widespread issues, oh but not for Florida where’s he’s decided to make an exception. On the topic of elections, he still claims there were 3 million (the number he lost by) illegal votes in 2016 again with zero evidence. Does all that not worry you at a much more existential level than “division?”

im not going to go too far into this Alzheimer theory other than to say if Biden is mentally unfit than Trump is only more so. I’d love to see trump ride a bike. 

[Armacing]

7 hours ago, Craiger said:

Get back to two sane parties that disagree on how to run government instead of one party turning a blind eye to probably the most ignorant corrupt president in history.

Two things about this comment:

1) Calling the parties sane is, in my opinion, incredibly naive.  Like, have you looked at the history of this country (and the actions of presidents in particular) during the past 150 years?  It's one embarrassing disaster after another.   Coolidge was pretty good, but he didn't really have a prayer because the die was already cast in 1913.  Kennedy was pretty good, but you saw what they did to him.  The others have all been establishment hacks that worked hand-in-hand with the political class to rob all Americans (except the ultra-wealthy) of their savings and their freedoms.

2) That comment about "the most ignorant corrupt president in history" has likely been uttered about every president since this nation's founding.  You're placing too much importance on the latest political lunacy coming out of DC and ignoring the long arc of American history and the very important issues that need to be discussed concerning freedom and prosperity.  Or stated another way, it's this whole attitude of "if we can just get a good president for once then everything can be fixed" that has been degrading the standard of living in America for decades now.  I encourage you to consider the possibility that it is in-fact the whole system that is destroying america and we need to break out of this red v/s blue paradigm and this will-he-or-won't-he focus on elections.

[ruraljuror]

1 hour ago, titanhog said:

Conservatives feel the opposite.  We feel that Obama did more to divide the nation than any president in recent history...when he had a chance to bring us all together.  Trump is nothing more than an example of what happens when a political party goes off the rails (the Democratic Party).  The counter punch (Trump) is just as wild.  Trump is no conservative (he was deemed a Liberal all of his life and hung out with mostly liberals until just recently).  He's an opportunist...and basically the same narcissist businessman he's always been...the same one Democrats have loved forever and rap singers sang songs about.  In other words...you guys made this guy who he is...and now you're running a guy against him who we all know is either suffering from Alzheimer's or the beginning stages of it (my father has Alzheimer's...so I know first hand what it looks like).

There was a time not long ago (Reagan and Clinton) where the two sides actually compromised at times...and there was at least a little respect between parties when there needed to be.  But...the Bushes and Obama were disappointing at best...and Trump is what you get when the two political parties decide to go rogue and stop compromising.

I understand that you 'feel' the opposite, Titanhog, but can you provide examples of what Obama did that you thought was so decisive?  It seems to me that Obama went out of his way to be a centrist.

Following the financial collapse, Obama endorsed (then enacted) Sarbanes-Oxley, which was a bi-partisan piece of reform legislation and much, much less proactive than what most progressives were advocating for. Similarly, Obama's signature legislative achievement (the Affordable Care Act) was based on a conservative/Republican healthcare reform concept that was conceived by the American Enterprise Institute (I believe) and had previously been enacted by a Republican Governor (Romney). Obama was caricatured as a leftist radical, but his policies were actually very moderate and rooted in compromise. 

What was it that Obama did that was so divisive?

Also, if you want to talk about the what happened to the good old days when Republicans and Democrats compromised, you're going to have to address the Hastert rule, which was implemented by Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and was the first time that a congressional leader decided that he wouldn't bring a piece legislation on to the House floor for a vote unless it had majority support from his own party. I would argue that was pretty much the end of bipartisan compromise right there, though I'd love to hear a counterargument to the contrary if you've got one. Also, let's not forget (then) minority leader Mitch McConnell's quote when Obama got elected: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." That seems to me like it might be the cause of some division right there. 

Also, you say "Trump is what you get" and that Trump is a 'counter punch' that's just as wild, but that is removing a lot of agency from Republican voters who nominated and elected him, and continue to support him in record numbers. Trump may have been a registered Democrat (I have no idea) and I'm equally perplexed about why you think Democrats have loved him forever (I'd be curious to see what has given you this impression),  but the Democrats certainly never elected him to anything - he was just a real estate developer, failed casino magnate, and (later) reality TV star who got a lot of tabloid coverage. He was certainly never the Democratic choice for "leader of the free world" so I think your argument here is a bit of a stretch here to say the least.

More importantly, even if Obama had been evil incarnate - how on earth would that justify electing somebody even worse as payback? That's worse than playground logic. That's not just 'wer'e mad so we're taking our ball and going home' - that's 'we're mad so we're taking our ball and we're blowing up the whole basketball court so no one can ever play this stupid game again.' I've read enough of your comments over the years and have seen enough common sense and reasonableness in most of your posts that I have a really hard time believing that you actually support this nonsense.  To quote...you actually... "Clean it up!"

But, to get back to the point really. What was it that Obama did that you thought was so divisive? 

 

Edited August 9, 2020 by ruraljuror

[ruraljuror]

5 minutes ago, Armacing said:

Two things about this comment:

1) Calling the parties sane is, in my opinion, incredibly naive.  Like, have you looked at the history of this country (and the actions of presidents in particular) during the past 150 years?  It's one embarrassing disaster after another.   Coolidge was pretty good, but he didn't really have a prayer because the die was already cast in 1913.  Kennedy was pretty good, but you saw what they did to him.  The others have all been establishment hacks that worked hand-in-hand with the political class to rob all Americans (except the ultra-wealthy) of their savings and their freedoms.

2) That comment about "the most ignorant corrupt president in history" has likely been uttered about every president since this nation's founding.  You're placing too much importance on the latest political lunacy coming out of DC and ignoring the long arc of American history and the very important issues that need to be discussed concerning freedom and prosperity.  Or stated another way, it's this whole attitude of "if we can just get a good president for once then everything can be fixed" that has been degrading the standard of living in America for decades now.  I encourage you to consider the possibility that it is in-fact the whole system that is destroying america and we need to break out of this red v/s blue paradigm and this will-he-or-won't-he focus on elections.

I agree with most of what you're saying here Armacing, but the fact that there have been many ignorant and corrupt presidents doesn't necessarily doesn't change the fact that one of them actually has been the most ignorant and most corrupt. How to make award those distinctions and whether or not Trump has earned those superlatives is certainly a matter of debate, but if I were participating in that debate, I'd definitely want to be arguing on the 'pro' side and I'd like my chances. 

[Armacing]

5 minutes ago, ruraljuror said:

I agree with most of what you're saying here 

Great, so what is your opinion about Executive Order 6102 ?