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I must admit I'm a little stymied by your claim that " the Democrats did their absolute best to cancel the results of the 2016 election." Their actions -- if th

by TT3351 6y ago

I must admit I'm a little stymied by your claim that " the Democrats did their absolute best to cancel the results of the 2016 election." Their actions -- if they do indeed rise to the level of "cancel[ing] the results of the... election" pale in comparison to the shenanigans we're witnessing now. Can you please be more specific? I'm against any attempt at overturning elections, and I'm not aware of any such acts by any of the Democratic officials I voted for or follow closely. EDIT: hopefully you remember how quickly Clinton conceded, and how that still has not happened this year. There's evil to see anywhere you look hard enough, but it's a fairly simple task to weigh them.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Well, there was "he didn't legitimately win, because Hillary won the popular vote". That's just talk, though, not actual action, but it undermines the legitimacy of the election in peoples' minds. Then there was impeachment on, bluntly, very political grounds rather than legitimate reasons. It wasn't like the beginning of the movement to impeach Nixon during Watergate. This time was just looking for some chance, any chance, to accuse him of something, to try to remove him. That seems to me clearly to be "attempting to cancel the results of the 2016 election". Yes, I remember that Clinton conceded quickly. Trump should have done so as well, at the latest three days after the election. It's over, it's been over, and it's going to stay over. But Trump is absolutely making a fool of himself by continuing to fight, and in the process he is damaging the norms that keep this creaking democracy functioning. So far, he hasn't gotten anywhere because people (who nominally should be on his side) haven't gone along with his BS - from the governor of Georgia, to the Supreme Court justices he appointed. I worry, though, that next time it will be worse - that people will be willing to go along. And I worry about that for the left, not just for the right. In fact, I worry about it somewhat more for the left. The right has (some) people who believe in the rule of law, and things like "originalism". The left has (some) people who believe in the "living" constitution, and judicial activism. I worry that if, say, President Harris tries to follow this same playbook in 2024, some on the left in positions of power will be more willing to go along than some on the right have been in 2020. On the other hand, there are far too many people who are still following what I can only call a cult of personality around Trump. They worry me on the right. If they haven't come to their senses by 2024, and Trump runs again... So, yeah. Trump is at the moment worse. I oppose his attempt to remain in power, and I am delighted at how others have refused to play along. But I worry about both the right and the left in the future. Within the next 20 years, I think it's likely that someone will try this again. Biden has the chance, maybe, to strengthen our institutions and repair some of the damage. Or he has the chance to continue to try to make them more partisan, but in the opposite direction of the last four years. Will he be wise, or just political?
- TT3351 6y ago
  "it undermines the legitimacy of the election in peoples' minds" In other words, the EC is sacrosanct and uncriticizable? This statement alone suggests to me that I should stop typing. Impeachment was on the grounds of national security, not partisan poltics. At least one Republican Senator agreed. You can beg to differ. Originalism is exclusively a fantasy based in the observer's desires and perceptions of what they think the Framer's would have wanted. It would be better if we prioritized the actual values of liberty, justice, etc, and the real outcomes of government policy we can all observe, instead of what we would like to believe people who have been dead for centuries may have believed. Wouldn't they likewise have worried more about solving the problems they faced in the present? The Constitution is a living document whether we'd like to accept that or not. It is fundamentally not the same as it was in the beginning, and it is a changeable document. Originalism from, my perspective, is almost always leveraged to maintain institutional control in the hands of a small, wealthy, and white group. We'd only have white landowners voting, after all, if the Constitution never changed. I'm curious if you think that letting the Senate stand as an unchanged institution, for example, without ever adding more states as we have in the past to resolve political impasses, will lead to less of a partisan divide or more. What will happen in 20 years, when government has continued to be paralyzed by an Upper House that will fundamentally not accept the legitimacy of its opposition, as I have seen personally under Mitch McConnell (let's be clear, they cannot be seen to negotiate with a black man, otherwise they will be primaried)? You keep suggesting that Democrats are somehow going to turn into a different party than they are, while not producing evidence, all the while the GOP continues its slide into rank despotism. The House Minority leader himself signed onto the absurd Texas lawsuit. I have seen no evidence that voters who participate in the Democratic primary will tolerate any degree of the election disruption that GOP leadership repeatedly rams down our throats (again, to save their skins in their gerrymandered districts).

by TT3351 6y ago

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

Well, there was "he didn't legitimately win, because Hillary won the popular vote". That's just talk, though, not actual action, but it undermines the legitimacy of the election in peoples' minds. Then there was impeachment on, bluntly, very political grounds rather than legitimate reasons. It wasn't like the beginning of the movement to impeach Nixon during Watergate. This time was just looking for some chance, any chance, to accuse him of something, to try to remove him. That seems to me clearly to be "attempting to cancel the results of the 2016 election". Yes, I remember that Clinton conceded quickly. Trump should have done so as well, at the latest three days after the election. It's over, it's been over, and it's going to stay over. But Trump is absolutely making a fool of himself by continuing to fight, and in the process he is damaging the norms that keep this creaking democracy functioning. So far, he hasn't gotten anywhere because people (who nominally should be on his side) haven't gone along with his BS - from the governor of Georgia, to the Supreme Court justices he appointed. I worry, though, that next time it will be worse - that people will be willing to go along. And I worry about that for the left, not just for the right. In fact, I worry about it somewhat more for the left. The right has (some) people who believe in the rule of law, and things like "originalism". The left has (some) people who believe in the "living" constitution, and judicial activism. I worry that if, say, President Harris tries to follow this same playbook in 2024, some on the left in positions of power will be more willing to go along than some on the right have been in 2020. On the other hand, there are far too many people who are still following what I can only call a cult of personality around Trump. They worry me on the right. If they haven't come to their senses by 2024, and Trump runs again... So, yeah. Trump is at the moment worse. I oppose his attempt to remain in power, and I am delighted at how others have refused to play along. But I worry about both the right and the left in the future. Within the next 20 years, I think it's likely that someone will try this again. Biden has the chance, maybe, to strengthen our institutions and repair some of the damage. Or he has the chance to continue to try to make them more partisan, but in the opposite direction of the last four years. Will he be wise, or just political?

TT3351 6y ago
"it undermines the legitimacy of the election in peoples' minds" In other words, the EC is sacrosanct and uncriticizable? This statement alone suggests to me that I should stop typing. Impeachment was on the grounds of national security, not partisan poltics. At least one Republican Senator agreed. You can beg to differ. Originalism is exclusively a fantasy based in the observer's desires and perceptions of what they think the Framer's would have wanted. It would be better if we prioritized the actual values of liberty, justice, etc, and the real outcomes of government policy we can all observe, instead of what we would like to believe people who have been dead for centuries may have believed. Wouldn't they likewise have worried more about solving the problems they faced in the present? The Constitution is a living document whether we'd like to accept that or not. It is fundamentally not the same as it was in the beginning, and it is a changeable document. Originalism from, my perspective, is almost always leveraged to maintain institutional control in the hands of a small, wealthy, and white group. We'd only have white landowners voting, after all, if the Constitution never changed. I'm curious if you think that letting the Senate stand as an unchanged institution, for example, without ever adding more states as we have in the past to resolve political impasses, will lead to less of a partisan divide or more. What will happen in 20 years, when government has continued to be paralyzed by an Upper House that will fundamentally not accept the legitimacy of its opposition, as I have seen personally under Mitch McConnell (let's be clear, they cannot be seen to negotiate with a black man, otherwise they will be primaried)? You keep suggesting that Democrats are somehow going to turn into a different party than they are, while not producing evidence, all the while the GOP continues its slide into rank despotism. The House Minority leader himself signed onto the absurd Texas lawsuit. I have seen no evidence that voters who participate in the Democratic primary will tolerate any degree of the election disruption that GOP leadership repeatedly rams down our throats (again, to save their skins in their gerrymandered districts).