Big Picture American Politics

[Lisnaholic]

SCD has a couple of threads that look at the 2024 primaries, but that leaves an awful lot of American politics unexamined, or at least uncommented on.

What's going on, nationwide and historically in American politics? From where I sit (in a different country, consuming CNN news) the picture isn't good.

One place to start is with the GOP turning into a Trump cult.

Another place to start would be with the erosion of women's healthcare rights now that Roe vs. Wade has been overturned.

Another starting point might be the consistent tampering with the electoral process state by state on the ground: from voter suppression measures to fake electors and allegations of voter fraud.

When I was about 14, the dad of a friend of mine told us, "When people stop being polite to each other, that's the end of civilization." He fell for the temptation of labelling something as a turning point: "this is where the slippery slope begins" but to be frank, it's tempting to do the same with American democracy: What was the tell-tale sign that caused it to go from "shining beacon on a hill" to the 2020 ranking I found on a German website: "deficient democracy", 36th runner-up in the world democracy stakes?

Furthur points on that decline are surely the recent book-banning progs, underway chiefly in Florida I believe, and last item I can think of at the moment, the corruption of the Supreme Court, both in terms of individual judges' conduct and the controversy around recent judge selections.

I always like a post with some images, so here is a graphic:-

 

And here's a GOP cult member crying on tv: is he crying out of sympathy for the plight of his guru, or is he crying because he knows that his public self-abasement is destroying his reputation forever?

[Guybrush]

I have various thoughts about the current state of the USA, but to be honest I also feel like they're unwarranted and probably unwanted. As an outsider, what do I know? How valuable are my opinions? They're probably only good for annoying people.

But in very broad strokes, the US to me seems like the post-truth society where anyone can claim anything and large swaths of the population no longer know what's fact or what's fiction. You always get some of that, but it seems rampant in the US.

If people don't know what's real, they might not know what's important and how to best use their political power, even if it's just a vote.

I generally think that society's goal should be to better the life quality of its people in the long run and some of the legislation happening in the US seems counter to that.

[Lisnaholic]

^ Thanks for responding to my OP, which hasn't generated the kind of discussion that I thought it might.

I have various thoughts about the current state of the USA, but to be honest I also feel like they're unwarranted and probably unwanted. As an outsider, what do I know? How valuable are my opinions? They're probably only good for annoying people.

Yeah, I imagine there's a lot of truth in what you say, so from now on I'm going to try cutting back on critical observations about the politics of a country I have little personal experience of.

[Nimbly9]

Lisna, have you ever considered the possibility that perhaps "democracy" just doesn't really work long-term in societies where nobody can agree on anything?

Europe as a whole is already well on their way to that place.  For example, Sweden and other countries are rolling back gender-affirming hormone therapy for minors in a big way despite championing it before.  And that's a pretty big deal since Sweden was the first country in the world to authorise legal gender transition in the early 70s.  Yet you think conservative America is somehow out of step with global trends as some kind of outlier?  It isn't.

Here in the U.S., you get slandered for merely suggesting that maybe lockdowns weren't always a good idea or that maybe that Covid-19 actually did come from a lab.  People were even banned over these discussions on social media.  It's McCarthyism with a different coat of paint, and this particular look from Reason at the Rand Paul vs Fauci situation in Congress is a good illustration of my next point here.

Here's the thing about America. While there is a lack of nuance from extreme right-wing people on the issues they care about,  I would say it is an even bigger problem when supposedly more educated left-wing people aren't scrutinized and follow the same playbook...because many of the Bill Nyes and Steven Colberts in their safe blue bubbles do a better job than their red-wing adversaries at disguising and obfuscating their biases and blind spots....and as a result, they don't get called out on it nearly enough.  You can be on the "right side" of history and say all the "right things" on Twitter and still be part of the problem.

Your average liberal voter is supposed to be more educated, but if they are I haven't seen any evidence of it in a long time. They're happy to hear about how "the GOP is a cult111", yet Biden still sells all the same weapons as Trump did to the same autocrats in all the same places that violate human rights and mismanaged the border in ways Trump could only dream of, coupled with the worst inflation I've seen in my lifetime.  Biden doesn't even have the balls to assassinate Putin but he's happy to waste my taxes to fund Zelensky's eventual "retirement" fund for the next 10 years. 

The lack of accountability is rather galling, and people should expect better from the supposedly "better" Party in this country. Fauci knew 100% that money went to Wuhan on his watch and he avoided accountability in every way that he could.  We say Trump should be held to account for things he said and did, but we don't even do that with people like Dr. Fauci, Hillary Clinton over the emails and funding that dossier, Eric Swallwell over that Chinese spy incident...the list goes on.  It is a fact that if I did what any of these people did, I'd be in jail right now.

You want another part of the big picture? Observe that most major media here and abroad don't scrutinize the Biden Administration with even a fraction of the fervor they did with Trump's, which demonstrates that they haven't really learned anything from the past. Every questionable thing that Biden or Kamala Harris say is just written off as "gaffes" and they just move on. They whine about polarization and then proceed to conduct themselves in a way that will simply accelerate it during the next election cycle.

Your commentary on voting rights doesn't really gel with the reality of the process - gerrymandering is a problem in blue states, not just red ones. Read up on it. People in power like to keep that power wherever they are. Blue states push back against voter ID, red states say it's important.  Then both sides go to work to "redistricting" to dilute their respective oppositions. Again, ground up observations from someone who has lived here for 30+ years and looking at what both "sides" say about the issue.

Lastly, I would say your comment about the Supreme Court is based on too much CNN. Look at their ruling of Allen v. Milligan just a little while ago.  You have both John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, two major Conservative justices, siding with their liberal peers on a major voting rights decision.  Yeah they rolled back Roe v. Wade, but people have predicted it being rolled back for years at some point because it's constitutionality was questionable to begin with. There was never some kind of universal consensus about it, and speculation of Roe v. Wade getting overturned was a political boogeyman that goes back to the late 70s.

America needs real options if "democracy" is going to have a future, cause both parties have shown repeatedly that they will embrace authoritarian action at the expense of regular people.  We need legitimate alternatives ASAP lol.

[Lisnaholic]

That's a long response with a lot of info, Nimbly! I'll try to comment on most of your ideas, ok?

Lisna, have you ever considered the possibility that perhaps "democracy" just doesn't really work long-term in societies where nobody can agree on anything?

Europe as a whole is already well on their way to that place.  For example, Sweden and other countries are rolling back gender-affirming hormone therapy for minors in a big way despite championing it before.  And that's a pretty big deal since Sweden was the first country in the world to authorise legal gender transition in the early 70s.  Yet you think conservative America is somehow out of step with global trends as some kind of outlier? It isn't.

Democracy has been around a long time, although it's taken various knocks recently, in places like Israel for example, I think it'll be around for a long time to come. The "post-truth" era with voters believing different facts is worrying, but let's remember: democracy is designed to accomodate differences of opinion - that's one of its fundamental characteristics. In Europe, democracy is still more widespread than it was in the 1930s, but perhaps the better answer is that Europe consists of 45 separate independent countries, so it's unwise to make a one-sentence prediction about where it's heading.
In bold: I'm not aware of either thinking or saying that.

Here in the U.S., you get slandered for merely suggesting that maybe lockdowns weren't always a good idea or that maybe that Covid-19 actually did come from a lab.  People were even banned over these discussions on social media.  It's McCarthyism with a different coat of paint, and this particular look from Reason at the Rand Paul vs Fauci situation in Congress is a good illustration of my next point here.

Here's the thing about America. While there is a lack of nuance from extreme right-wing people on the issues they care about,  I would say it is an even bigger problem when supposedly more educated left-wing people aren't scrutinized and follow the same playbook...because many of the Bill Nyes and Steven Colberts in their safe blue bubbles do a better job than their red-wing adversaries at disguising and obfuscating their biases and blind spots....and as a result, they don't get called out on it nearly enough.  You can be on the "right side" of history and say all the "right things" on Twitter and still be part of the problem.

Sorry, but I didn't fully follow the long discussion of Fauci's sins. Is the bottom line that dangerous research was funded on Fauci's watch and that he then lied about it? Sure that's not good, but I don't think it helped that Trump so undermined his authority on covid-prevention tips, and the expertise of the CDC, at a time when misinformation was literally costing lives. If Fauci is now found to've done something terrible, then he should be called to account.

Your average liberal voter is supposed to be more educated, but if they are I haven't seen any evidence of it in a long time. They're happy to hear about how "the GOP is a cult111", yet Biden still sells all the same weapons as Trump did to the same autocrats in all the same places that violate human rights and mismanaged the border in ways Trump could only dream of, coupled with the worst inflation I've seen in my lifetime.  Biden doesn't even have the balls to assassinate Putin but he's happy to waste my taxes to fund Zelensky's eventual "retirement" fund for the next 10 years. 

You've thrown several issues together here, I think. The idea that the GOP and Trump voters have turned Trump into a cult figure is distinct from comparing the the policies of Biden and Trump imo.
AFAIK, no President has ever come up with happy solution to the Southern border problems. I think Biden's try to be more humane - why else is the GOP constantly accusing Biden of leaving the borders open? I remember reading once:"the Mexico/US border is the longest land border in the world where the First World meets the Third World" That's an uncomfortable geographical fact that no-one wants on their doorstep. It's also the kind of problem that other countries, with lesser border problems, can't solve either.

US inflation: high but going down. Causes, afaik: post-pandemic probs, war in Ukraine, OPEC cranking up price of oil, US crops failing because of droughts. What happens is that any incoming President gets dealt a hand, and hopefully does the best he can with it. Poor old Trump was dealt a pandemic, which was a once-in-a-lifetime challenge for all world leaders.

The lack of accountability is rather galling, and people should expect better from the supposedly "better" Party in this country. Fauci knew 100% that money went to Wuhan on his watch and he avoided accountability in every way that he could.  We say Trump should be held to account for things he said and did, but we don't even do that with people like Dr. Fauci, Hillary Clinton over the emails and funding that dossier, Eric Swallwell over that Chinese spy incident...the list goes on.  It is a fact that if I did what any of these people did, I'd be in jail right now.

Yeah, lack of accountability is, exactly as you say, "galling". I don't know about all the issues, except the one in bold: wasn't she extensively investigated, co-operated with long interviews with the DOJ and ultimately found to show "no evidence of criminal intent"? Why then should she be in jail? 

You want another part of the big picture? Observe that most major media here and abroad don't scrutinize the Biden Administration with even a fraction of the fervor they did with Trump's, which demonstrates that they haven't really learned anything from the past. Every questionable thing that Biden or Kamala Harris say is just written off as "gaffes" and they just move on. They whine about polarization and then proceed to conduct themselves in a way that will simply accelerate it during the next election cycle.

I must admit that I don't know how the media arranges its stories and investigations, so I can't comment on any bias in their investigative fervour. What I've always assumed is that they go for the most scandallous stories they can find - which leads me to think that the Trump admin was more scandal-ridden than Sleepy Joe's. Where is the tape of Biden extorting Zelenski before he hands over weapons that have already been allocated to him by Congress? Where is the pic of Biden gaslighting the US about a hurricane trajectory by altering a map with a Sharpie, like a 10-year-old cheating at Show And Tell? Biden really bumbles as a speaker, but he doesn't come out with outrageous comments the way Trump did in office, and after a while, Biden's off-topic mumbling just doesn't have the same news impact.

Your commentary on voting rights doesn't really gel with the reality of the process - gerrymandering is a problem in blue states, not just red ones. Read up on it. People in power like to keep that power wherever they are. Blue states push back against voter ID, red states say it's important.  Then both sides go to work to "redistricting" to dilute their respective oppositions. Again, ground up observations from someone who has lived here for 30+ years and looking at what both "sides" say about the issue.

That's a fair enough comment, Nimbly. I'm sure you know more about this issue than me.

Lastly, I would say your comment about the Supreme Court is based on too much CNN. Look at their ruling of Allen v. Milligan just a little while ago.  You have both John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, two major Conservative justices, siding with their liberal peers on a major voting rights decision.  Yeah they rolled back Roe v. Wade, but people have predicted it being rolled back for years at some point because it's constitutionality was questionable to begin with. There was never some kind of universal consensus about it, and speculation of Roe v. Wade getting overturned was a political boogeyman that goes back to the late 70s.

  I can't deny the comment in bold either.

None the less, even given that the present Supreme Court can make some pro-Liberal decisions, a number of justices misled the Senate during their confirmation hearings, with talk of Roe V. Wade being "settled precedent". Now they seem to be suggesting that no precedent is settled: that every previous decision can be revisited and chucked out. Plus all the ethics scandal around Clarence Thomas and others: it's not just me and CNN, it's the majority of the American people that have lost confidence in SCOTUS: 75%, in fact, like my graph showed. 

[Nimbly9]

I appreciate your in-depth responses.  My comment on Hillary Clinton was to point out that people go to prison even if someone's intent was all well and good.  She was let off the hook by Comey for reasons that make no sense other than the fact she's in a protected political class. If I had done what she did, I'd be in jail.  And more that likely, Trump would be in jail already too as a private citizen because intent matters less when you have a precedent. The point is, we'd all be better off and people would have more confidence in the justice system as far as how it applies to politicians of all stripes.

Also, Biden basically did extort Ukraine before and supposedly even financially benefitted from it.  That's part of the current Hunter Biden investigations going on right now.

[Jwb]

I have various thoughts about the current state of the USA, but to be honest I also feel like they're unwarranted and probably unwanted. As an outsider, what do I know? How valuable are my opinions? They're probably only good for annoying people.

But in very broad strokes, the US to me seems like the post-truth society where anyone can claim anything and large swaths of the population no longer know what's fact or what's fiction. You always get some of that, but it seems rampant in the US.

If people don't know what's real, they might not know what's important and how to best use their political power, even if it's just a vote.

I generally think that society's goal should be to better the life quality of its people in the long run and some of the legislation happening in the US seems counter to that.

is that honestly different over there? Genuine question

Because yes in the US, in my opinion, most common working people who have any sort of political ideology tend to be all over the place in terms of conspiracy theories and disinformation that is largely distributed online. It didn't used to be like this. There were always conspiracy theories but they used to have radio shows and pass out pamphlets and shit like that.  It was never as mainstream back then when most people turned to cable news, which was controlled by a handful of corporations and had a much narrower overton window.

But the internet allows for much more niche content so that nowadays if there's enough people who believe something, that creates an opportunity for someone to make that their bread and butter. Since it is such an online phenomenon i would've thought you guys would have a similar dynamic over there.

[Guybrush]

is that honestly different over there? Genuine question

Because yes in the US, in my opinion, most common working people who have any sort of political ideology tend to be all over the place in terms of conspiracy theories and disinformation that is largely distributed online. It didn't used to be like this. There were always conspiracy theories but they used to have radio shows and pass out pamphlets and shit like that.  It was never as mainstream back then when most people turned to cable news, which was controlled by a handful of corporations and had a much narrower overton window.

But the internet allows for much more niche content so that nowadays if there's enough people who believe something, that creates an opportunity for someone to make that their bread and butter. Since it is such an online phenomenon i would've thought you guys would have a similar dynamic over there.

Maybe a little more, but the conspiracy nut is still rare here. I don't see it seriously disrupting f.ex. support for action against climate change or any other issues that I can think of.

Things are different here though, like the winning party won't have enough support in Parliament on its own and so has to cooperate with other parties, which there is a number of, and so has to find common ground with others. It's much less like political warfare.

We also trust our government and our politicians, leaders and even rich people seem a lot more relatable. They're just people pretty much like myself. How would they weave conspiracies? Norway's too small for that.

Media is also less political and we have our state media which is the news outlet I turn to the most. They're tasked with reporting in a politically unbiased way.

There's just less conflict here and and fewer reasons for conspiracy theories to gain widespread support.

[Jwb]

So if you talk to the average gas station clerk or shit shoveler in Norway and you ask them if 9/11 was an inside job what would they say?

[Guybrush]

So if you talk to the average gas station clerk or shit shoveler in Norway and you ask them if 9/11 was an inside job what would they say?

I know a lot of shit shovelers, but I've only ever met one person in Norway who said he believed 9/11 was an inside job and he's obviously insane. Like, you look at him and think this guy could benefit from medication and some time inside an institution.

[jadis]

So if you talk to the average gas station clerk or shit shoveler in Norway and you ask them if 9/11 was an inside job what would they say?

In France (the real one) they would be at least as sympathetic to the CIA did 9/11 theory as anywhere in the US. Maybe even to the Mossad did 9/11 one. But overall people in Europe are palpably more sane and overwhelmingly less paranoid than Americans.

[Jwb]

I know a lot of shit shovelers, but I've only ever met one person in Norway who said he believed 9/11 was an inside job and he's obviously insane. Like, you look at him and think this guy could benefit from medication and some time inside an institution.

that's really bizarre to me lol.  I honestly have a hard time believing that.  Around here if you don't think it's an inside job people look at you like you're a complete govt shill. Maybe living in the post 9-11 world contributed to our paranoia.  Along with the memory of JFK having his brains blown out in front of everybody and the various theories that spawned over the years.

[Jwb]

In France (the real one) they would be at least as sympathetic to the CIA did 9/11 theory as anywhere in the US. Maybe even to the Mossad did 9/11 one. But overall people in Europe are palpably more sane and overwhelmingly less paranoid than Americans.

what about Canada?

[jadis]

what about Canada?

Resembling the US more and more it seems. I haven't lived there for any serious length of time since 2017 and even while I have it was only in Montreal so what do I know. But if feels like the pandemic sent many people over the edge.

[Jwb]

How about israel?