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Election 2020 (Page 6)
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OreoCookie
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Dec 9, 2020, 09:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I feel “no matter the means” implies they’re being extralegal, which isn’t usually the case.
Things don't have to be extralegal to undermine democracy. You can use freedom of speech to undermine democracy by claiming an election was stolen with no proof whatsoever (and the race not being close enough to warrant that). Not holding even confirmation hearings, much less votes to confirm appointees is legal but clearly against the spirit of the law, for example. Onerous voter law IDs that “target minorities with surgical precision” (to paraphrase a judge) is another.

That's how democracies slides into autocratic rule. You wanted examples? Recent examples are Turkey, Hungary, Belarus, Russia and Poland.
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Spheric Harlot
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Dec 9, 2020, 10:33 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Which one were you thinking of specifically?
Yeah. That one too.
     
subego
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Dec 9, 2020, 10:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Yeah. That one too.
Hitler?

Maybe I’m missing something, but I assumed what the Brownshirts were doing was extralegal.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Dec 9, 2020, 11:02 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Hitler?

Maybe I’m missing something, but I assumed what the Brownshirts were doing was extralegal.
The NSDAP was voted into the Reichstag, and they assumed power using legal mechanisms, adapting and voting into law along the way whatever formalities they needed to achieve their goals. The final constitutional amendment that made Hitler the undisputed autocratic ruler was approved by the necessary two-thirds Reichstag majority after a law was enacted that declared members of parliament unable to attend due to imprisonment as formally present.

The "illegal" bit was that armed SA and SS members were present in the Reichstag, where they weren't allowed. Pretty much everything else up to that point was (or was made) perfectly legal, the line just gently (at first), and then rapidly moving right.

As Oreo has mentioned above, there are plenty of sadly recent examples where democracies have been or are being turned into autocratic empires. Legally, through the enacting of increasingly undemocratic laws enabling further steps into autocracy.
     
subego
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Dec 10, 2020, 06:01 AM
 
Wait... the Brownshirts never committed extralegal beatings during Hitler’s rise to power?
     
Doc HM
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Dec 10, 2020, 06:35 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Which one were you thinking of specifically?
Well avoiding Godwins Law, Mugabe was voted in entirely legally the first time.
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OreoCookie
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Dec 10, 2020, 07:27 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Maybe I’m missing something, but I assumed what the Brownshirts were doing was extralegal.
No, most of that was legal. Spheric covered one important aspect that wasn't technically legal, but the NSDAP did not even have a majority in parliament. They were aided by conservatives like Hindenburg at the time. And by overt and covert threats of violence against people who thought differently.

But I think you still mistook this as a reference to Hitler. This sliding transition from democracy to autocracy or dictatorship is often not facilitated by a revolution — I gave a few recent examples. And you don't have to be a full-blown dictatorship, it is a sliding scale. Iran is more democratic than North Korea, but less democratic than Poland.

The important thing is to recognize the pattern. Court packing and “administration packing” are two. That's what has happened in Poland and what has happened under Trump. Now Poland ≠ USA, but the important point is to recognize the same patterns. For example, my father studied law in the 1970s. A lot of judges, which he relied on to pass his bar exams, had very particular opinions how law should be applied. (When my father got one of his assignments back (a legal analysis of a case), he correctly argued that a confession while inebriated should be disregarded; the judge who corrected the assignment wrote in the margins that “Alcohol loosens the tongue.” and got points deducted.) Changes in the judicial system and the administration happen on a much slower time scale, so court packing, for instance, can have pernicious effects that can last decades — even if it is not immediately obvious. Also the Weimar Republic suffered from this. As far as I know the common German saying that “The judicial system is blind on the right eye.” (“Die Justiz ist auf dem rechten Auge blind.”) originated during that time. Right wingers in the 1920s who led open revolts against the government and killed people in the process sometimes only got months in prison.

Circling back to other countries, you see common elements in quite a few countries. Court packing was an important battle in Poland, where the current government forcefully (and illegally) retired Supreme Court Justices they did not like. That’s why I find the GOP’s successful court packing efforts so worrying. But there are still elections. PiS does not win all of them. Even in Russia there are regions that resist Putin’s party, but the playing field is no longer level. Opposition parties have to climb steeper and steeper gradients. Turkey used an attempted military coup to purge universities, courts, schools, the administration and the military from elements they saw as opposing them. Tens of thousands of people lost their job even if they had nothing to do with the coup.
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Wait... the Brownshirts never committed extralegal beatings during Hitler’s rise to power?
As I wrote, “justice was blind on the right eye” initially and later when the NSDAP came to power, they orchestrated a lot of the violence with official government backing.

It seems to me that you think Hitler and the NSDAP coming to power was by and large based on them breaking laws. The converse is true, and I think it is an important component of why they were as successful as they were when grabbing power. They exploited that the constitution of the Weimar Republic wasn’t as robust as, say, Germany’s post-WW2 constitution. The Nazis exploited that many things were “just” customs, which meant they could violate the spirit of laws without violating the letter. Laws were really an important component, because they could make use of existing government structures like the judiciary and the administration. Discrimination of Jews and their genocide were based on laws, which were then implemented by the German state. Most people tend to conform to laws, because that’s how societies function — and the Nazis were exploiting that. Harboring Jews and protests against the NSDAP were illegal and could lead to you being sentenced to death.

They exploited that all conservative parties in the German parliament preferred to work with the Nazi party, thinking they can somehow control it, rather than work with social democrats and communists who were the only ones that opposed the NSDAP. (There were very few exceptions. The father of my father’s best friend was a staunch catholic conservative who was in the resistance. He fought together with communists in the last days of the war against the last remaining hardcore nazis so that his hometown wouldn’t have to be reduced to rubble by the allies. He always insisted that whenever he was honored that his communist co-conspirators would be honored as well, something that didn’t go over well with the Christian Democrats at the time. He eventually left the party out of protest.)
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subego
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Dec 10, 2020, 07:52 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
It seems to me that you think Hitler and the NSDAP coming to power was by and large based on them breaking laws.
Stop putting words in my mouth.
     
OreoCookie
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Dec 10, 2020, 08:40 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Stop putting words in my mouth.
There is no need to be this aggressive. I think I chose my words carefully enough to warrant a different response.
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subego
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Dec 10, 2020, 10:33 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
There is no need to be this aggressive. I think I chose my words carefully enough to warrant a different response.
Careful wording won’t make a straw man more palatable.
     
subego
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Dec 10, 2020, 10:56 AM
 
Originally Posted by Doc HM View Post
Well avoiding Godwins Law, Mugabe was voted in entirely legally the first time.
I’ll grant Mugabe legitimately won, but I think entirely legally is a bit of a stretch.

More importantly however, that’s not an example of a free society’s slow descent into authoritarianism. Do we pin Mugabe on the law, or a cluster**** civil war in a colony falling to pieces?
     
OreoCookie
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Dec 10, 2020, 11:06 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Careful wording won’t make a straw man more palatable.
We have known each other long enough that you should know by now that I am not a troll who gets off of winding people up, arguing with them in bad faith. Your aggression towards me is unnecessary and unwarranted, you see bad faith in my words where there is none. I'm just trying to have an interesting discussion.

Writing “It seems to me that you think …” is not a nice way to couch a straw man argument, I'm clearly delineating what I understand your point to be (= my interpretation of your text) from your words. If I have misinterpreted what you wrote, you should explain where I am wrong and then engage with my substantive points rather than aggressively accusing me of putting words in your mouth. And it is hardly the same as “So you're saying that kicking puppies on Sundays is ok.”
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Doc HM
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Dec 10, 2020, 01:39 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I’ll grant Mugabe legitimately won, but I think entirely legally is a bit of a stretch.

More importantly however, that’s not an example of a free society’s slow descent into authoritarianism. Do we pin Mugabe on the law, or a cluster**** civil war in a colony falling to pieces?
Zimbabwe fell to pieces after the election, there was no unavoidable reason for it happen and it wasn't an inevitability from the first election other than Mugabe's drift from elected president to re-electable hard man to dictator so yes I think it IS an example of exactly that.
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subego
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Dec 10, 2020, 03:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
you see bad faith in my words where there is none.
This isn’t at all what I see. I assume good faith, which is what I told you last time you accused me of this.

This is one of the things I find most exasperating about our discussions. Somehow, the subject of what I see is a job for “tell” and not “ask”.
     
subego
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Dec 10, 2020, 03:07 PM
 
Originally Posted by Doc HM View Post
Zimbabwe fell to pieces after the election, there was no unavoidable reason for it happen and it wasn't an inevitability from the first election other than Mugabe's drift from elected president to re-electable hard man to dictator so yes I think it IS an example of exactly that.
A civil war doesn’t constitute “falling to pieces”?
     
Doc HM
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Dec 10, 2020, 03:43 PM
 
The election was the conclusion of the civil war. After that it was about rebuilding and democracy. For a while. Free elections concluded the armed struggle in Zimbabwe. The newly democratically elected ZANU PF then proceeded to amend laws and accrete power in order to stay in power until Mugabe became a fully fledged dictator. For a while Zimbabwe had a chance, so it fits the definition of a democratic country that slid into dictatorship pretty much exactly.
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subego
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Dec 10, 2020, 08:11 PM
 
I didn’t claim a democracy can’t become a dictatorship. What I claimed was Zimbabwe isn’t an example of a slow descent into authoritarianism. Within three years of being elected, Mugabe escalated from “duly elected leader” to “genocidal maniac”. (Edit: and to clarify, I blame that hasty descent more on colonialism and a civil war than I do on the inherent flaws of democracy)

Further, my original claim is dictatorships use extralegal means to assist in consolidating power. Yes, Mugabe used his political power to legalize his actions, but unless I’m mistaken he also rather casually broke a bunch of laws, too.
( Last edited by subego; Dec 11, 2020 at 12:14 AM. )
     
andi*pandi
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Dec 10, 2020, 09:10 PM
 
What, like a casual little emoluments clause or hatch act violation?
     
Thorzdad
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Dec 10, 2020, 09:25 PM
 
106 House Republicans have signed on to the Texas suit. The crazy just keeps spiraling.
     
subego
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Dec 10, 2020, 09:27 PM
 
Originally Posted by andi*pandi View Post
What, like a casual little emoluments clause or hatch act violation?
More like torture and murder.
     
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Dec 11, 2020, 02:05 AM
 
Originally Posted by Thorzdad View Post
106 House Republicans have signed on to the Texas suit. The crazy just keeps spiraling.
Civil War II?
     
Doc HM
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Dec 11, 2020, 07:03 AM
 
Originally Posted by Thorzdad View Post
106 House Republicans have signed on to the Texas suit. The crazy just keeps spiraling.
Once you've drunk the kool aid...

Although I see them more like Fry hopped up on Slurm than anything else.
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Doc HM
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Dec 11, 2020, 07:06 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I didn’t claim a democracy can’t become a dictatorship. What I claimed was Zimbabwe isn’t an example of a slow descent into authoritarianism. Within three years of being elected, Mugabe escalated from “duly elected leader” to “genocidal maniac”. (Edit: and to clarify, I blame that hasty descent more on colonialism and a civil war than I do on the inherent flaws of democracy)

Further, my original claim is dictatorships use extralegal means to assist in consolidating power. Yes, Mugabe used his political power to legalize his actions, but unless I’m mistaken he also rather casually broke a bunch of laws, too.
To be fair Trumps only taken 1 additional year to get to this stage in the discussion starting from an assumed much more robustly democratic starting point.

Mugabe came to power in 1980. He won reelection in 1987 in coalition (ism) whereupon he really started to expand his constitutional powers - (note therefore making his new regime in effect lawful). He didn't fully extend into full blown mad dictator until around 2000 so the descent could accurately be described as slow enough certainly by African standards.

Yes there were acts of violence against the population during that time, notably in 1982 crushing the rebellion that led to Nkomo sharing power for a while.

I guess we will just have to park this in the disagree list.
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Dec 11, 2020, 08:05 AM
 
Originally Posted by Brien View Post
Civil War II?
Well, that is along the lines of what so many on the far right have been prepping for over the past few decades. Though, they've always framed it in terms of them being forced to take violent action, never mind they're the only ones who seem to want it. A "race war" has been the primary uprising they seem to desperately want.
     
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Dec 11, 2020, 09:30 AM
 
Pennsylvania files a response to the Texas suit.

The opening statement...
Since Election Day, State and Federal courts throughout the country have been flooded with frivolous lawsuits aimed at disenfranchising large swaths of voters and undermining the legitimacy of the election. The State of Texas has now added its voice to the cacophony of bogus claims. Texas seeks to invalidate elections in four states for yielding results with which it disagrees. Its request for this Court to exercise its original jurisdiction and then anoint Texas’s preferred candidate for President is legally indefensible and is an affront to principles of constitutional democracy.

What Texas is doing in this proceeding is to ask this Court to reconsider a mass of baseless claims about problems with the election that have already been considered, and rejected, by this Court and other courts. It attempts to exploit this Court’s sparingly used original jurisdiction to relitigate those matters. But Texas obviously lacks standing to bring such claims, which, in any event, are barred by laches, and are moot, meritless, and dangerous. Texas has not suffered harm simply because it dislikes the result of the election, and nothing in the text, history, or structure of the Constitution supports Texas’s view that it can dictate the manner in which four other states run their elections. Nor is that view grounded in any precedent from this Court. Texas does not seek to have the Court interpret the Constitution, so much as disregard it.

The cascading series of compounding defects in Texas’s filings is only underscored by the surreal alternate reality that those filings attempt to construct. That alternate reality includes an absurd statistical analysis positing that the probability of President-Elect Biden winning the election was “one in a quadrillion.” Bill of Complaint at 6. Texas’s effort to get this Court to pick the next President has no basis in law or fact. The Court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and should send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated.
I get the feeling Pennsylvania is a wee bit ticked off.
     
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Dec 11, 2020, 09:44 AM
 
Reposting Heather Cox's daily summary of everything, because it covers everything. It's long, but all relevant:
Heather Cox Richardson
December 10, 2020 (Thursday)

Today more than half of the Republicans in the House of Representatives signed onto Texas’s lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to overturn the results of the 2020 election and install Trump, rather than the legitimately elected Joe Biden, into the White House.

Democrat Biden won the election by more than 7 million votes and by 306 to 232 electoral votes. Trump has lost 55 of the 56 court cases he has brought to change the election’s outcome, and all 50 states have certified their election results. This election is not close; attempts to overturn it reject the central concept of democracy: that voters choose their leaders.

The story is this: Texas’s Attorney General Ken Paxton is asking the Supreme Court to hear an original case between the states—which it can do, but it’s rare—arguing that Texas was harmed by voting procedures in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Essentially, Paxton is arguing that mail-in voting in those states, which Democrats used more extensively than Republicans did after Trump insisted it was insecure, stepped on Texans’ rights. This will be a hard sell.

If the Supreme Court does say Texas can sue, Paxton is hoping that 5 justices will then decide to toss out the electoral votes—but not the votes in the downballot races-- from those states. This would take away Biden’s victory in the Electoral College, handing the election to Trump.
After Texas filed the lawsuit, Trump filed a request to join it.

This is a crazy lawsuit. As Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) said: “It’s just simply madness…. The idea of supplanting the vote of the people with partisan legislators is so completely out of our national character that it’s simply mad…. [T]his effort to subvert the vote of the people is dangerous and destructive of the cause of democracy.” University of Texas Law School Professor Steve Vladeck was more succinct: “In a nutshell the President is asking the Supreme Court to exercise its rarest form of jurisdiction to effectively overturn the entire presidential election.”

It is possible—likely, even—that Paxton is advancing this nonsense because he has been under indictment since 2015 for securities fraud, is now under investigation by the FBI for bribery and abuse of office, and is hoping to impress Trump enough to get a presidential pardon. Just today, the FBI issued at least one subpoena for records from Paxton’s office. Knowing that this lawsuit has virtually no chance of winning, he could file it and win points with Trump while also knowing it would go nowhere.

But this moment has grown far beyond Paxton’s lawsuit into a fight over the future of the Republican Party and, ultimately, over the future of democracy.
States have squared off on both sides of Paxton’s lawsuit. Last night, seventeen other states supported the suit to hand the election to Trump, including Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia. Later, Arizona joined them.

Today, the four states named in the suit made it clear they are standing up for democracy. Pennsylvania’s brief notes that Trump has “flooded” the courts “with frivolous lawsuits aimed at disenfranchising large swaths of voters and undermining the legitimacy of the election.” Adding to “the cacophony of bogus claims,” Texas is trying to throw out four state elections because it doesn’t like their results. Its demand “is legally indefensible and is an affront to principles of constitutional democracy.” The brief warns, “Texas’s effort to get this Court to pick the next President has no basis in law or fact. The Court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and should send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated.”
“[T]his case is not ordinary,” the Wisconsin brief says. “Texas is asking this Court to overturn the will of the people of Wisconsin—and the nation—based on meritless accusations of election fraud. If this Court agrees to do so, it will not only irreparably harm its own legitimacy, but will lend fuel to a disinformation campaign aimed at undermining the legitimacy of our democracy.”

Twenty-three Democratic-led states and territories, along with the Republican Attorney General of Ohio, Dave Yost, today signed a brief supporting the four states Texas is attacking. The District of Columbia, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Guam, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington all backed the states whose votes Texas is trying to throw out.

But six states—Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Utah—joined Texas’s lawsuit today. Members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly filed a brief supporting Texas and Trump, signing on to the idea of taking the vote away from their own people.

Then the 106 Republican members of Congress jumped aboard the lawsuit, signing a brief in support of it. Trump worked the phones and enlisted Representative Mike Johnson (R-LA) head of the Republican Study Committee, the party caucus of social conservatives in the House, to hold members’ feet to the fire. Johnson sent around an email saying that Trump had “specifically asked me to contact all Republican Members of the House and Senate today and request that all join on to our brief.” Johnson noted that Trump “will be anxiously awaiting the final list to review,” in order to see who was on his team and who was not. Only ninety House Republicans refused to sign.

What on earth is going on?

First: Trump is throwing at the wall anything he can in hopes of staying in office. The more chaos it creates, the happier he is. The lawsuit crisis has, for example, muted the story that at least 2,923 Americans died today of Covid-19, and 223,570 cases were reported, a 28% increase in the weekly average of cases since two weeks ago.

It has also diverted attention from the fact that there is no deal, and no real sign of a deal, on a coronavirus relief bill. A bipartisan group of senators has managed to hammer out a $908 billion deal but Republicans refuse to allow its $160 billion for aid to state and local governments and Democrats refuse to agree to shield businesses from liability for coronavirus injuries. The bipartisan group tried to put the two things together, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says that’s a non-starter. Meanwhile, 26 million Americans say they don’t have enough to eat.

Second: There is a war underway for control of the Republican Party. While a losing incumbent president usually loses influence in the party, Trump intends to continue to call the shots. He wants to run again in 2024, or at least to anoint a successor, rather than letting the Republican National Committee pick a presidential candidate. There is a struggle going on to control the RNC and, as well, to figure out who gets control of the lists of supporters Trump has compiled. Trump also controls a lot of the party’s money, since he has been out front as its fundraiser without a break since he decided to run for office. He was the first president ever to file for reelection on the day of his inauguration, permitting him to hold “rallies” and to raise money throughout his presidency.

So Republican lawmakers are willing to swear loyalty to him, either because they want to attract his voters in future elections, or because they want access to the cash he can raise, or both. They no longer defend traditional policy positions; they defend Trump.

This loyalty requires contortions. In Georgia, the Republican Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr called the Texas lawsuit “constitutionally, legally and factually wrong.” But Georgia’s two senators, Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, have backed it. The senators are facing a runoff election in January against Democrat challengers Jon Ossoff and the Reverend Raphael Warnock, and they need Trump’s support. So they are taking a stand against their own voters. So are nearly half of Georgia’s Republican congressional delegation, despite the fact that this position logically would overturn their own elections.

Third: Texas’s lawsuit and the Republican Party’s embrace of it is an unprecedented attempt to destroy the very foundation of our democracy. Since the 1980s, Republican leaders have managed to hold onto power by suppressing votes, promoting propaganda, gerrymandering states, gaming the Electoral College, and stacking the courts.

Now, so unpopular that even gaming the mechanics of our system is not enough, they have abandoned democracy itself.
     
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Dec 11, 2020, 12:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by Doc HM View Post
To be fair Trumps only taken 1 additional year to get to this stage in the discussion starting from an assumed much more robustly democratic starting point.
If I understand correctly, in 1983, Mugabe had the army begin (illegal) torture and executions of Ndebele minority.

I get not liking the guy, but good God, man... Trump never got anywhere near this stage in the discussion.
     
subego
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Dec 11, 2020, 12:55 PM
 
Originally Posted by Heather Cox
Since the 1980s, Republican leaders have managed to hold onto power by... gaming the Electoral College
Wat
     
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Dec 11, 2020, 01:23 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I get not liking the guy, but good God, man... Trump never got anywhere near this stage in the discussion.
Not deliberately, no.

It's very easily argued, though, that Trump's denial/political gaming/indifference re: the pandemic has resulted in many more deaths than would have happened under a more responsible administration. And it's only getting worse, so his body count keeps growing.
     
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Dec 11, 2020, 01:29 PM
 
Originally Posted by Thorzdad View Post
Not deliberately, no.

It's very easily argued, though, that Trump's denial/political gaming/indifference re: the pandemic has resulted in many more deaths than would have happened under a more responsible administration. And it's only getting worse, so his body count keeps growing.
The people most affected by his pandemic policy (i.e., killed) are his allies. There is no comparison.
     
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Dec 11, 2020, 01:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I get not liking the guy, but good God, man... Trump never got anywhere near this stage in the discussion.
Of course he didn't. He hasn't set the army on anyone yet (small issues with Portland aside). However this is America and to be where you are with him is pretty shocking. Just how far the Republican Party is prepared to go to show loyalty should chill everyone in your country to the marrow! You are NOT Zimbabwe, but the shadow is definitely on the wall, and who would have though that even remotely possible only 4 years ago.
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Dec 11, 2020, 01:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Wat
Gerrymandering voting districts to isolate and devalue blue votes could be considered "gaming" the electoral college, right?
     
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Dec 11, 2020, 02:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
Gerrymandering voting districts to isolate and devalue blue votes could be considered "gaming" the electoral college, right?
Not sure if serious
     
Laminar
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Dec 11, 2020, 02:22 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Not sure if serious
https://www.npr.org/2020/11/08/93288...ntial-election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP

Critics have noted that the Republican Party won a 33-seat majority in the House of Representatives despite its candidates collectively receiving 1.4 million fewer votes than Democratic candidates.
More people voted for Democratic candidates, but due to the structure of the districts, more Republican candidates won.

These candidates then have influence in enacting voter-suppression measures and other tools that Republicans are using to affect the presidential election.
     
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Dec 11, 2020, 02:31 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
https://www.npr.org/2020/11/08/93288...ntial-election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP



More people voted for Democratic candidates, but due to the structure of the districts, more Republican candidates won.

These candidates then have influence in enacting voter-suppression measures and other tools that Republicans are using to affect the presidential election.
Amateurs.

The Conservative party here are pro's at this, From resisting enlarging the vote historically to setting up the fixed term parliament act so that they could ride out their own austerity policies, before ignoring it twice, illegally shutting parliament down as needed. Etc.
Plus gerrymandering like a boss.
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subego
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Dec 11, 2020, 04:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by Doc HM View Post
Just how far the Republican Party is prepared to go to show loyalty should chill everyone in your country to the marrow!
Let’s say the legislature needs to vote on some horrible, regressive bill.

If there’s no chance the bill will pass, that’s like free political currency. I can vote for the bill, tell my constituents I fought the good fight, and most importantly bear zero responsibility for the horrible things in the bill because those horrible things didn’t happen.

This is the same thing. It’s theater.



As an aside, it also happens in reverse. If there are more than enough votes to pass the bill, and my constituents hate it, I horse trade to get let off the hook and vote against the bill. This is what Susan Collins does, like with every goddamn vote.
     
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Dec 12, 2020, 03:39 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Let’s say the legislature needs to vote on some horrible, regressive bill.

If there’s no chance the bill will pass, that’s like free political currency. I can vote for the bill, tell my constituents I fought the good fight, and most importantly bear zero responsibility for the horrible things in the bill because those horrible things didn’t happen.

This is the same thing. It’s theater.




As an aside, it also happens in reverse. If there are more than enough votes to pass the bill, and my constituents hate it, I horse trade to get let off the hook and vote against the bill. This is what Susan Collins does, like with every goddamn vote.
There is theatre and there is covering yourself in gasoline and lighting a match while people look on. They are not the same thing.
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Dec 12, 2020, 05:19 AM
 
Originally Posted by Brien View Post
Civil War II?
Unanimously boned by the Supreme Court.

That’s gotta hurt.
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Dec 12, 2020, 07:54 AM
 
It's helpful that Alito and Thomas wrote the order. It'll be pretty hard to question their bona-fides as conservatives, though I'm sure the right will do its best to paint them as RINOs now.
     
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Dec 12, 2020, 12:28 PM
 
It answers my question whether it would have been 8-1 or 9-0.
     
subego
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Dec 12, 2020, 01:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
More people voted for Democratic candidates, but due to the structure of the districts, more Republican candidates won.
In 2006, the popular vote in the house was D+8%, and the Democrats had 233 seats.

In 2018, the popular vote in the House was D+8.6%, and the Democrats had 235 seats.

If 2012 was due to gerrymandering, why didn’t that carry through in 2018?

The previous time the Republicans kept the majority but lost the popular vote in the House was 1996. Do 1996 and 2012 have anything in common? Like, for instance, a popular incumbent Democrat up for re-election as President?

Might the correlation between the popular vote in the House and the number of seats be similar to the correlation of the popular vote for President and the Electoral College? In other words, not really that good of a correlation?

Is drawing a conclusion from a single data point ever a good practice when more data is available?



Edit: as an aside, something interesting I found is in recent history the Republicans reliably “tick-tock” with the popular vote for the House. The “tick” is on Presidential election years, and the “tock” is on the midterms. The “tock” turnout is always significantly lower.

In contrast, Democrats will at times go “tick-tick-tick-tock”. This always works well for them with the second tick, but then they get creamed when they finally tock. 2022 will be one of those “delayed tock” years, BTW.
( Last edited by subego; Dec 12, 2020 at 02:51 PM. )
     
subego
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Dec 12, 2020, 03:21 PM
 
Originally Posted by Doc HM View Post
There is theatre and there is covering yourself in gasoline and lighting a match while people look on. They are not the same thing.
How have the people involved in this immolated themselves?

It got smacked down hard by the Supreme Court, so no one is left holding the bag for destroying democracy.

Without even looking I can tell you every House member who signed on comes from a district where Trump is popular. Now they have extra insurance against being primaried in two years. Anyone who’s not in their district will have forgotten about this in a month, and the people in their district approve, otherwise the Representatives wouldn’t have done it in the first place.
     
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Dec 12, 2020, 05:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
How have the people involved in this immolated themselves?

Without even looking I can tell you every House member who signed on comes from a district where Trump is popular.
“but mummy... an electorate made me do it”.

Good luck with the having people with zero morals or principals leading you. I can tell you from our current experience here, it does not go well.
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subego
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Dec 12, 2020, 05:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by Doc HM View Post
“but mummy... an electorate made me do it”.

Good luck with the having people with zero morals or principals leading you. I can tell you from our current experience here, it does not go well.
None of the people involved are my leaders. The President elect is a Democrat. Both Senators from my state are Democrats. My Representative is a Democrat. My Governor is a Democrat, my state legislature is run by Democrats. The last time my city had a Republican mayor was over 80 years ago.

Also, I don’t begrudge Representatives, you know... representing the desires of their constituents.
     
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Dec 12, 2020, 11:55 PM
 
Something I should have added to the thing about the House popular vote...

2016 seemed unusually beneficial to the Republicans. It was only R+1.1%, but they held on to a close to 50 seat advantage.

2020 might indicate a slight Republican advantage. It was D+3.1%, but they lost 10 seats. In 2012 Republicans dropped a point or two more of steam, and lost 8 only seats.
     
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Dec 13, 2020, 06:34 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
None of the people involved are my leaders. The President elect is a Democrat. Both Senators from my state are Democrats. My Representative is a Democrat. My Governor is a Democrat, my state legislature is run by Democrats. The last time my city had a Republican mayor was over 80 years ago.

Also, I don’t begrudge Representatives, you know... representing the desires of their constituents.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e_iOSApp_Other

Petrol. Match.

Going along with any further enabling of the man child is not defensible. However hard you try.
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Dec 13, 2020, 12:58 PM
 
     
subego
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Dec 13, 2020, 01:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by Doc HM View Post
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...e_iOSApp_Other

Petrol. Match.

Going along with any further enabling of the man child is not defensible. However hard you try.
I’m sure it’s because I’m an idiot, but I’m completely lost on how I get from the article to the conclusion.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Dec 13, 2020, 01:38 PM
 
Enabling the mango menace has brought the nation to a point where people are stabbing each other at demonstrations.

Anybody who still stands by the as-yet-president tacitly or explicitly approves this development.

I’m sure you’re not an idiot, because I’m sure you understood perfectly well what was said in spirit, even if you will now proceed to poke holes into the explicit wording.
     
subego
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Dec 13, 2020, 02:12 PM
 
I like to understand something before I poke holes in it. **** me, right?

Tell me... who stabbed who, and was it self defense?

I also like to know what actually happened before I come to a conclusion. **** me, right?
     
 
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