US Politics Thread

[shawnbm]

^ Well, this is a topic that will roll on for some time me thinks. Trump is the next Grover Cleveland. History has been made a second time. Biden will soon ride off and perhaps may pardon himself going back to his days as Obama's vice president. Who knows?

 

[Moxie]

If you want me to mention the young girls and women being mutilated by trans activists masquerading as healthcare workers, I mentioned them many times.

You didn’t care then, either. You’re misunderstanding as well, that is not only about the quantity of kids being abused, it’s that the left are trying to change the truth regarding these things, in order to damage the west. They’re fifth columnists happily spreading chaos. And they’re welcome at the White House when there’s a democrat living there.

I don’t really care about abortion clinics being closed. Probably as much as you care about kids being targeted and abused by the left…

You asked me to point out what you say is reactionary, so I bolded the above. The idea that this is some plan to "damage the west" is downright conspiratorial. A bit tin foil hat. I know you think this is anti-science, but there have always been transgender and intersex people. I don't think anyone is embracing it to destroy western values, only that they see it differently than you do. I'm sure you can allow for that possibility. The treatment of children who feel themselves to be gender-dysphoric is complicated, and I can understand the hesitancies there. I really do get that.

I know you're anti-abortion, but I was making the point about the knock-on effect of strict (very strict!) anti-abortion legislation in some states that has led to the closing of healthcare clinics that do far more than just perform abortions. This affects women's health and healthcare, particularly that of poor women. In addition, some of these very draconian laws go after health care providers, targeting them for potential prison sentences. That leads some OB/GYNs to move out of the more restrictive states, i.e., leaving those states with fewer doctors to tend to women. It's real problem, and affects millions of women in the US. I thought you might care about that. Anyway, I do.

 

[Fiero425]

You asked me to point out what you say is reactionary, so I bolded the above. The idea that this is some plan to "damage the west" is downright conspiratorial. A bit tin foil hat. I know you think this is anti-science, but there have always been transgender and intersex people. I don't think anyone is embracing it to destroy western values, only that they see it differently than you do. I'm sure you can allow for that possibility. The treatment of children who feel themselves to be gender-dysphoric is complicated, and I can understand the hesitancies there. I really do get that.

I know you're anti-abortion, but I was making the point about the knock-on effect of strict (very strict!) anti-abortion legislation in some states that has led to the closing of healthcare clinics that do far more than just perform abortions. This affects women's health and healthcare, particularly that of poor women. In addition, some of these very draconian laws go after health care providers, targeting them for potential prison sentences. That leads some OB/GYNs to move out of the more restrictive states, i.e., leaving those states with fewer doctors to tend to women. It's real problem, and affects millions of women in the US. I thought you might care about that. Anyway, I do.

I can't tell you how offended I am by so many of these people thinking this is a time to joke about this past election of a felon! He's promised to turn the country upside down & these a-#oles are making jokes! My hands are beginning to shake thinking of the possibilities as the proposed cabinet names filter thru to me! I'm trying my best to ignore the horror of it all, but they're so insane it's been hard! IDK WTF is wrong w/ people to not take this seriously?! The whole Fk'n world is being put in jeopardy & that isn't hyperbole! I can barely speak or reply to many out here who've obviously lost their collective minds! Actually parroting Trump's "Trans Trash" is so disgusting which proves how stupid & insensitive many people are about the subject! They're all dead to me!

 

[Kieran]

You asked me to point out what you say is reactionary, so I bolded the above. The idea that this is some plan to "damage the west" is downright conspiratorial. A bit tin foil hat. I know you think this is anti-science, but there have always been transgender and intersex people. I don't think anyone is embracing it to destroy western values, only that they see it differently than you do. I'm sure you can allow for that possibility. The treatment of children who feel themselves to be gender-dysphoric is complicated, and I can understand the hesitancies there. I really do get that.

I know you're anti-abortion, but I was making the point about the knock-on effect of strict (very strict!) anti-abortion legislation in some states that has led to the closing of healthcare clinics that do far more than just perform abortions. This affects women's health and healthcare, particularly that of poor women. In addition, some of these very draconian laws go after health care providers, targeting them for potential prison sentences. That leads some OB/GYNs to move out of the more restrictive states, i.e., leaving those states with fewer doctors to tend to women. It's real problem, and affects millions of women in the US. I thought you might care about that. Anyway, I do.

I think if you hadn’t all gone psycho over killing babies then these clinics would be viable. Of course you need the clinics and it’s important for women - you need a culture of care instead of what you had.

And yes, we know there are intersex people, and people with gender dysphoria. We discussed this at length. These people didn’t need your far left pink haired “therapists” to groom them. I think a benefit of - and cause - of Trump’s victory is that people have had enough of destabilising forces running up and down their campuses and Main Street making claims that are false, claims that are designed to weaken society, forcing people to believe and repeat lies at the threat of losing their jobs.

This is how they’re trying to destroy western values. The people who are intersex and suffer gender dysphoria are minimal in number. But activists have made concerted efforts to make this go mainstream. When you see mobs of activists in America, take it for granted that they’re wrong, and the truth is the opposite of what they say. They don’t even allow questions because they can’t answer them. That’s the real giveaway.

You never noticed because you don’t critique the left - I don’t remember you ever mentioning anything of the left as being a bad idea. Kamala was obviously a lousy candidate who didn’t even earn her place to run for president, but you were silent about that throughout, Biden was obviously struggling - and still is, yet didn’t resign to let her take over - but nobody cared about him. Nobody cared about America, when you left him in charge. It was the ultimate unspoken vote of no confidence in Harris. The ultimate desperate act of political deception.

I blame Biden’s wife and family largely for this particular act of cruelty, but rank and file democrats just got in line behind it and said nothing…

 

[Federberg]

so is this 4B movement a real thing? Damn it, I wish I had bought rabbit stock as soon as Trump won!

 

[Federberg]

you go girl! Hopefully this Trump term will finally squash this insanity once and for all

 

[Federberg]

Democrats and the Case of Mistaken Identity Politics​

Nov. 9, 2024

Credit...Jonno Rattman for The New York Times



By Maureen Dowd
Opinion Columnist, reporting from Washington
Some Democrats are finally waking up and realizing that woke is broke.
Donald Trump won a majority of white women and remarkable numbers of Black and Latino voters and young men.
Democratic insiders thought people would vote for Kamala Harris, even if they didn’t like her, to get rid of Trump. But more people ended up voting for Trump, even though many didn’t like him, because they liked the Democratic Party less.
I have often talked about how my dad stayed up all night on the night Harry Truman was elected because he was so excited. And my brother stayed up all night the first time Trump was elected because he was so excited. And I felt that Democrats would never recover that kind of excitement until they could figure out why they had turned off so many working-class voters over the decades, and why they had developed such disdain toward their once loyal base.
Democratic candidates have often been avatars of elitism — Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and second-term Barack Obama. The party embraced a worldview of hyper-political correctness, condescension and cancellation, and it supported diversity statements for job applicants and faculty lounge terminology like “Latinx,” and “BIPOC” (Black, Indigenous, People of Color).

This alienated half the country, or more. And the chaos and antisemitism at many college campuses certainly didn’t help.
“When the woke police come at you,” Rahm Emanuel told me, “you don’t even get your Miranda rights read to you.”
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
There were a lot of Democrats “barking,” people who “don’t represent anybody,” he said, and “the leadership of the party was intimidated.”
Donald Trump played to the irritation of many Americans disgusted at being regarded as insensitive for talking the way they’d always talked. At rallies, he referred to women as “beautiful” and then pretended to admonish himself, saying he’d get in trouble for using that word. He’d also call women “darling” and joke that he had to be careful because his political career could be at risk.
One thing that makes Democrats great is that they unabashedly support groups that have suffered from inequality. But they have to begin avoiding extreme policies that alienate many Americans who would otherwise be drawn to the party.

Democrats learned the hard way in this election that mothers care both about abortion rights and having their daughters compete fairly and safely on the playing field.
A revealing chart that ran in The Financial Times showed that white progressives hold views far to the left of the minorities they champion. White progressives think at higher rates than Hispanic and Black Americans that “racism is built into our society.” Many more Black and Hispanic Americans surveyed, compared with white progressives, responded that “America is the greatest country in the world.”
Gobsmacked Democrats have reacted to the wipeout in different ways. Some think Kamala did not court the left enough, touting trans rights and repudiating Israel.
Other Democrats feel the opposite, calling on the party to reimagine itself.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a vulnerable Democrat in a red congressional district in Washington, narrowly held her seat. The 36-year-old mother of a toddler and owner of an auto shop told The Times’s Annie Karni that Democratic condescension has to go. “There’s not one weird trick that’s going to fix the Democratic Party,” she said. “It is going to take parents of young kids, people in rural communities, people in the trades running for office and being taken seriously.”
Representative Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat, said the party needs rebranding. “Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone,” he said. “I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”


On CNN, the Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky said that Democrats did not know how to talk to normal Americans.
Addressing Latinos as “Latinx” to be politically correct “makes them think that we don’t even live on the same planet as they do,” she said. “When we are too afraid to say that ‘Hey, college kids, if you’re trashing a campus of Columbia University because you aren’t happy about some sort of policy and you’re taking over a university and you’re trashing it and preventing other students from learning, that that is unacceptable.’ But we’re so worried about alienating one or another cohort in our coalition that we don’t know what to say.”
Kamala, a Democratic lawmaker told me, made the “colossal mistake” of running a billion-dollar campaign with celebrities like Beyoncé when many of the struggling working-class voters she wanted couldn’t even afford a ticket to a Beyoncé concert, much less a down payment on a home.
“I don’t think the average person said, ‘Kamala Harris gets what I’m going through,’” this Democrat said.
Kamala, who sprinted to the left in her 2020 Democratic primary campaign, tried to move toward the center for this election, making sure to say she’d shoot an intruder with her Glock. But it sounded tinny.



The Trump campaign’s most successful ad showed Kamala favoring tax-funded gender surgery for prisoners. Bill Clinton warned in vain that she should rebut it.
James Carville gave Kamala credit for not leaning into her gender and ethnicity. But he said the party had become enamored of “identitarianism” — a word he uses because he won’t say “woke” — radiating the repellent idea that “identity is more important than humanity.”
“We could never wash off the stench of it,” he said, calling “defund the police” “the three stupidest words in the English language.”
“It’s like when you get smoke on your clothes and you have to wash them again and again. Now people are running away from it like the devil runs away from holy water.”

 

[Moxie]

I think if you hadn’t all gone psycho over killing babies then these clinics would be viable. Of course you need the clinics and it’s important for women - you need a culture of care instead of what you had.

And yes, we know there are intersex people, and people with gender dysphoria. We discussed this at length. These people didn’t need your far left pink haired “therapists” to groom them. I think a benefit of - and cause - of Trump’s victory is that people have had enough of destabilising forces running up and down their campuses and Main Street making claims that are false, claims that are designed to weaken society, forcing people to believe and repeat lies at the threat of losing their jobs.

This is how they’re trying to destroy western values. The people who are intersex and suffer gender dysphoria are minimal in number. But activists have made concerted efforts to make this go mainstream. When you see mobs of activists in America, take it for granted that they’re wrong, and the truth is the opposite of what they say. They don’t even allow questions because they can’t answer them. That’s the real giveaway.

You never noticed because you don’t critique the left - I don’t remember you ever mentioning anything of the left as being a bad idea. Kamala was obviously a lousy candidate who didn’t even earn her place to run for president, but you were silent about that throughout, Biden was obviously struggling - and still is, yet didn’t resign to let her take over - but nobody cared about him. Nobody cared about America, when you left him in charge. It was the ultimate unspoken vote of no confidence in Harris. The ultimate desperate act of political deception.

I blame Biden’s wife and family largely for this particular act of cruelty, but rank and file democrats just got in line behind it and said nothing…

Interesting to blame the people who support women's health clinics for their demise, but that's consistent with your convoluted efforts to find blame for everything on the left.

Trans people are still very minimal in number, and yet it sets your hair on fire. We will never agree on these issues, so I'll leave it.

 

[Moxie]

Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield reverses it's position on limiting payment for anesthesia, right after someone shot the CEO of United Healthcare. Doesn't seem like a coincidence, since doctors have been petitioning against this for months, to no affect. When that guy got shot, and we heard who he was, I guarantee you every person in this country thought, "I know know why HE got shot." Sad, but true.

Healthcare in this country has been a mess for ages. The Clintons tried, naively, to go to a single-payer system all at once, and got slapped down by Big Insurance. They made small head-way, instead. Obama made better strides, and got a large swath of the country insured, which we've loved, across party lines, though it's still beholden to big insurance. But the insurance companies keep trying to chip back away at what they can, to keep up their profits. Which are massive.

Insurance companies don't care about people, though maybe they care about their CEOs. They've just realized that, in a country full of guns, they are now as vulnerable as school children. That seems to have gotten their attention.

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield halts anesthesia payment policy after backlash

The health insurer planned to cap the length of time anesthesia can be covered during medical procedures in three states, prompting outrage.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Kieran]

Interesting to blame the people who support women's health clinics for their demise, but that's consistent with your convoluted efforts to find blame for everything on the left.

Trans people are still very minimal in number, and yet it sets your hair on fire. We will never agree on these issues, so I'll leave it.

Killing babies in the womb is a bizarre form of “healthcare”.

And you’re still not getting what I’m saying about trans. You are not good at listening to an opposing view…

 

[Fiero425]

^^^Some people are just lost! @Moxie, they can't be convinced! The stupidity & insensitivity is too prevalent! The brainwashing began long ago!

 

[britbox]

Killing babies in the womb is a bizarre form of “healthcare”.

And you’re still not getting what I’m saying about trans. You are not good at listening to an opposing view…

Indeed. I found this quite apt:



I think the figure is something like 64 Million since 1969. Strange form of healthcare.

 

[Kieran]

Indeed. I found this quite apt:



I think the figure is something like 64 Million since 1969. Strange form of healthcare.

Yep. The decimation of roughly the equivalent of a large European nation, but hey, it’s no biggie. Typical of greedy westerners…

 

[Federberg]

Indeed. I found this quite apt:



I think the figure is something like 64 Million since 1969. Strange form of healthcare.

that was absolutely gripping. I have to watch that movie. Don't often see that sort of intensity these days

 

[Federberg]

Just finished watching that movie. That was actually pretty good! Never heard of it before

 

[britbox]

Just finished watching that movie. That was actually pretty good! Never heard of it before

Quite thought provoking. They could even make a movie about the making of it!

âNefariousâ: From strange ailments to car accidents, the spiritual warfare that occurred while filming

When Nefarious directors Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman first conceived of bringing the spiritual thriller to the big screen, they knew they would face unseen opposition But the duo didn t know

www.christianpost.com

 

[shawnbm]

^ that film looks interesting and apropos for much of what is going on these days. Thanks.

 

[Kieran]

How old fashioned this BLM spoofer is, after the election:

 

[Kieran]

This is an interesting discussion on the history and role of name calling and insults in American politics. I think the conclusions can be applied everywhere. It’s 5 minutes 30 seconds long:

 

[britbox]

So Govt don't know what these drones are... except they're not US military or a foreign adversary...