To you Americans, your view on politics.

[Andiferous]

Americans: help with a political analysis?

I'm interested in global politics in general, but I have followed American politics for a very long time (from a distance, obviously.) But as a 'foreigner' and receiving the info second hand, I'd much prefer to hear your opinions and arguments than those of the random blogs and news articles.

Is Obama really in as much trouble as it seems? Why is that?

Do most Americans now blame him for an enormous debt (which I think is traced back to Bush... ) thereby somehow winning voters to the right 'conservative' fiscal management?

When following the democratic primaries way back when, btw, I supported Clinton. But I was okay with Obama too. I have observed (possibly mistakenly) that Obama tried to delegate tasks in the government somewhat independent of political affiliation. I also observe that his government has been fraught with stand-still politics; and I believe largely due to lobby groups.

I've seen him do stupid things too, like not give his support for gay marriages.

And 'obamacare'? I'm even confused by the word as an insult; because I'd be thrilled for national healthcare to be named for me! The man to push for and ultimately responsible for our national healthcare system has become a hero. (He's Keifer Sutherland's grandfather, btw ) I'm not sure if that anti-Obama association is racist or not, yet.

But anyway. This is all second hand egghead information and I'd like to hear your analysis as an American... especially given midterm elections.

 

[Prolescum]

Yeah I'd second this; sometimes American politics looks like a bunch of headless chickens trying to figure out the rumba.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Well, I doubt that I'm typical, but I can give it a shot:

Is Obama really in as much trouble as it seems? Why is that?

No. In fact he comes off as kinda sheepish. I'm not sure if it's because he's actually a weak president or if he's just been boxed-in politically, but he can't seem to get much done.

Do most Americans now blame him for an enormous debt (which I think is traced back to Bush... ) thereby somehow winning voters to the right 'conservative' fiscal management?

I don't think so, but I could be wrong.

When following the democratic primaries way back when, btw, I supported Clinton. But I was okay with Obama too. I have observed (possibly mistakenly) that Obama tried to delegate tasks in the government somewhat independent of political affiliation. I also observe that his government has been fraught with stand-still politics; and I believe largely due to lobby groups.

It also has to do with the fact that the Republicans as a block have refused to cooperate at all, whatsoever. Or, in fact, do anything. As foolish as it sounds, it's not actually a terrible stratagy. The lack of acomplishment somehow casts Obama in a poorer light then it does the minority party.

I've seen him do stupid things too, like not give his support for gay marriages.

I agree. But (and this is quite ironic) Obama is actually something of a conservative Democrat. You'd never know it from the media coverage, of course.

And 'obamacare'? I'm even confused by the word as an insult; because I'd be thrilled for national healthcare to be named for me! The man to push for and ultimately responsible for our national healthcare system has become a hero. (He's Keifer Sutherland's grandfather, btw ) I'm not sure if that anti-Obama association is racist or not, yet.

At some point the Republicans realized they could use this cult of personality that sort of sprung up around Obama durring the election against him. They now brand everything the Democrats try to do with his name, as an attempt to simultaneously cast him as a sort of would-be dictator and defeat legislation. They're trying to make him seem like Juan Peron (not that any of their constituants would know who that is.)

The whole buisness is not overtly racist, but there's a strong racist implication. I'd rather say it was Xenophobic however, in the most litteral sense of the word - fear of the stranger, the other. There's a deep sense in America that the people are no longer really in control of the government, and opinion is more or less devided on who really is. Both groups will readily say 'special interest,' but when Republicans say it they tend to mean groups like the ACLU, which they cast as 'Liberal Elites' - Well educated, affluent, New England types (or people they let into their ranks), who think they know better than the common man, are usually atheists, and have communist sypathies. Democrats tend to make 'special interest' out to be corporate giants, laughing in their cigar-smoke filled conference rooms while they scheme-up new marketing stratagies to convince the poorest Americans that it's in their best interest to let them have yet another tax-break, while simultaneously preparing to fire thousands of American workers and ship their jobs to somewhere in Asia. In either case, the point is that whatever club is running the government, it's not elected, it's not accoutable, and it's not us. It's very easy then for something like the Tea Party to case a black man with a muslim name as a villain.

But anyway. This is all second hand egghead information and I'd like to hear your analysis as an American... especially given midterm elections.

Honestly, can I ask the same of you? I sometimes feel as though I have no perspective over here.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

It comes down to a couple of basic points:

Obama is an appeaser and compromiser, and not at all a fighter. The Democratic Party in general is made up of corporate-backed centrists, who aren't interested in doing anything but holding the middle ground. When one side straddles the fence and the other side fights for their positions, the fighters win by default.

The Republican Party in incapable and unwilling to govern, responsibly or otherwise. They have made recent declarations like that their goal is to shut down government, pass no laws, roll back previously passed laws, and create excuses to impeach Obama.

The Republican Party is also willing and even eager to lie about literally every single issue facing America. Look up any fact, and the Republican Party rejects it.

America has a media which allows and encourages Republican lying by way of a sick perversion of journalism that they call "balance"... as in, they will present a moderate person against a raving right-wing lunatic, call it a balanced discussion, and then act as though the truth is somewhere in the middle of normal and batshit. The media has also decided that their job is to act as stenographer, and not to report facts as they are. That's why so many Americans believe so many stupid and incorrect things: the media never says things like "politician X says this, but he is lying. Here is the truth."

 

[Yfelsung]

The trick to US politics is skewing the Right-Left meter.

Their left is center, their center is right and their right is REALLY right. They have maybe 2 or 3 Congressmen and no Senators I know of who are truly left-wing, and even then they're only marginally Left.

Neither party is fiscally conservative and they usually find the lines drawn on social conservatism and liberalism. The Tea Party WAS an extension of Ron Paul supporters but they were basically hijacked by the ultra-conservative right wing very early.

Demographically, you find your university educated more likely to vote Democrat while the rich are more likely to vote Republican. The Republicans maintain a power base by pandering to religious concerns and playing racial fears (less now than before, but it's still prevalent) so that they can convince poorer Americans to vote for them despite it not being in their best interest.

As for Progressives in the US, they currently have no party or anyone to represent them in government. They, like the fiscal conservatives, are increasingly disillusioned with the entire process since both parties seem to have very similar higher-level goals and only differ on social policies.

I foresee some sort of major fracture of the party system in the US in the not to far future due to larger and larger amounts of US citizens having no one who really represents their views. Polls show that the majority of Americans are fiscally conservative while socially progressive. There is no party that represents either of these ideals currently.

 

[Andiferous]

Honestly, can I ask the same of you? I sometimes feel as though I have no perspective over here.

Well, to start, as you may know, we have a different parliamentary system. Ours is more directly based on the British parliamentary model, and we even retain some British-inspired parties (whigs and tories). We have multiple parties, and when electing a government, our votes go towards a party and not a leader. The winning party naturally decides the leader of government. Senate is somewhat akin to the House of Lords and positions are awarded rather than elected. And oh yeah, we have a Queen representative in parliament who rarely has to ever do anything. Technically Lizzy still helps run the program over here, not that she really does.

Our politics are a bit left of yours, as pointed out. Our conservatives could be said to be leaning to your democrats.

At present we have a minority government with representation by the conservatives (minority governments here usually fail, and I don't think Canadians have ever successfully pulled off a European-style coallition government for some reason. But likely because we've had two minority governments successively, this one seems to be sticking around longer than any other. I suspect we'd pull off a third if we had another election today.) Our conservative government is not terribly popular, but it seems we've lacked charasmatic leaders for a while, so everyone seems all blah and divided on who to vote for. I didn't vote for my Prime Minister, despite the fact that he ran in my political riding, lol. But I've never really succeeded in voting for the winning candidate.

That all combined, our political climate has been quite vanilla lately.

 

[borrofburi]

The way I see it DeistPaladin made the single most salient point about american politics:
If there was ever a time to vote against the republican party it was with palin as a vice presidential candidate, and yet the republican party still got 46% of the votes. The inevitable conclusion to draw from this is that the republican party can be certain that no matter what happens they will get at least 46% of the votes.

 

[Andiferous]

:lol:

I ran into this curious page today: Wtf has Obama done so far...

 

[DepricatedZero]

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/wed-october-27-2010-barack-obama

If you're able to watch this, it's a stellar interview with Obama that kind of highlights what he's done since taking office. He's been effective, even if people bicker over what they didn't get from him. Unfortunately, you're seeing what he's doing through the lens of our "24-hour politico-pundit-perpetual-panic-conflictinator*." Most of what he's done hasn't made news, but that doesn't mean he's not doing anything.

If you can't watch that let me know and I'll see what I can do to find a proxy for you.

 

[Mapp]

Is Obama really in as much trouble as it seems? Why is that?

Obama is facing what nearly every President has faced in times of economic downtown. Every President with the exception of FDR has lost seats in the Congress in mid-term elections during times of economic hardship. So is Obama in trouble? No, not really. The press, being its typical sensationalist self is portraying this as some kind of crisis for Democrats. It's not helped by the fact that Democrats are themselves spineless fools who leap like lemmings whenever public opinion polls tell them to. Likely there will be some political readjustments after today, but it will not be the end of the Democrats, or President Obama. Obama will be in trouble if the economy has not improved two years from now, but at this point, it's par for the course.

Do most Americans now blame him for an enormous debt (which I think is traced back to Bush... ) thereby somehow winning voters to the right 'conservative' fiscal management?

The Republicans have launched a concerted and coordinated effort on network, and cable t.v. as well as in talk radio, the internet, and friendly publications to foist the blame for the current deficit and recession on Obama. This is helped by an incurious press that simply parrots what their sources tell them, and a Democratic political machine that is completely paralyzed by indecision. One of the great ironies of American politics is that it has historically been the Conservatives that have latched on to new technologies and modes of communication, and they are undoubtedly effective at getting their message across. However, the current anger at Obama is much more of an anti-incumbant anger than it is specifically directed at him, despite the best efforts of Conservative pundits. Just ask any of the moderate, mainstream Republican incumbants who are barely hanging on, or have lost primaries that two years ago they would have easily carried.

The American political memory is incredibly short lived, and the Democrats have done an abysmal job of reminding them of the striking improvements that have been made in the past two years. Jobless rates are no longer climbing, the banking system has largely stabilized, taxes have in most cases either gone down or stayed the same, the auto industry is improving and will likely be able to start making major payments on T.A.R.P. American troops have largely withdrawn from Iraq. None of these things are being talked about because the Republicans are simply more press savvy than the Democrats.

When following the democratic primaries way back when, btw, I supported Clinton. But I was okay with Obama too. I have observed (possibly mistakenly) that Obama tried to delegate tasks in the government somewhat independent of political affiliation. I also observe that his government has been fraught with stand-still politics; and I believe largely due to lobby groups.

Obama is a consensus politician in a time when consensus can not be had. He has attempted on every occassion to include former Bushites, and Congress in his plans. This has hurt him in two ways. First, by sticking with so many Bush appointees and their policies Obama lost the opportunity to make a bold policy statement early in his campaign. This hurt him especially because he campaigned on change. Second, Obama has fundamentally misunderstood his opposition. They are not interested in the success of the country but, to paraphrase Rush Limbaugh, in the failure of the President. Their killing health care for 9/11 victims because they couldn't attach their own riders to it is a perfect example of this. Obama has belatedly learned that you can't negotiate with this kind of enemy. It will be interesting to see how he handles the next two years. By placing so much of the onus on Congress, Obama has seen his most important pieces of legislation get hopelessly compromised.

Plus, I think Obama had his priorities screwed up. He wanted to get health care done early in his administration, when he knew he would have strong Democratic majorities in both houses. Meanwhile the entire country was clamoring for something to be done about the economy, so his core constituency really didn't have their heart into it. This left a highly mobilized and energized opposition, fueled with hundreds of millions of dollars of insurance company money to work against him. I understand why he chose to do it when he did, but I think it would have made a far better second term initiative, then when he was still trying to clean up the mountain of shit left behind by the last administration.

I've seen him do stupid things too, like not give his support for gay marriages.

This is not true. Obama has refused to defend Don't Ask, Don't Tell in court, and has publicly stated his support for gay marriage on numerous occassions. His rhetoric has been consistently pro-rights. Short of pushing for an amendment to The Constitution however, there is not much the President can do for gay marriage issue. Marriage licensing is a state issue. This is something, like segregation, that will be largely decided in courts through the interpretation of existing law. The 14th Amendment already guarantees the right to marriage, since the SCOTUS has established marriage as a fundamental right in earlier cases. What the President can do, should such a battle come up is enthuisatically, nothing. The best thing Obama can do if the case goes federal is to instruct the D.O.J. to refuse to support it, which he likely will.

And 'obamacare'? I'm even confused by the word as an insult; because I'd be thrilled for national healthcare to be named for me! The man to push for and ultimately responsible for our national healthcare system has become a hero. (He's Keifer Sutherland's grandfather, btw ) I'm not sure if that anti-Obama association is racist or not, yet.

Obamacare is a red herring created by the extreme right. The health care bill that passed congress is actually fairly modest. While is does guarantee that no one can be denied for prior conditions, and curtails some of the worst offenses of the insurance companies, it does not provide a single payer system as most of Obama's constituents wanted. Obamacare is a propaganda myth, created by the Right to shout down their opposition. Right or wrong, it doesn't exist.

But anyway. This is all second hand egghead information and I'd like to hear your analysis as an American... especially given midterm elections.

My prediction hews pretty close to Karl Rove's. The Republicans will most likely take the House, as the opposition party almost always does mid-term, and that the Senate will be up for grabs, and could go either way. I do think though that the Tea Party will, in the long run hurt the Republicans much more than help them, since they keep putting forward utterly unelectable candidates.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Obama is facing what nearly every President has faced in times of economic downtown. Every President with the exception of FDR has lost seats in the Congress in mid-term elections during times of economic hardship. So is Obama in trouble? No, not really. The press, being its typical sensationalist self is portraying this as some kind of crisis for Democrats. It's not helped by the fact that Democrats are themselves spineless fools who leap like lemmings whenever public opinion polls tell them to. Likely there will be some political readjustments after today, but it will not be the end of the Democrats, or President Obama. Obama will be in trouble if the economy has not improved two years from now, but at this point, it's par for the course.

That's not true. Democrats don't consider public opinion polls, because if they did they would have pushed for a public option, withdrawal from two wars, and a bunch of other stuff. They are spineless worms who leap like lemmings whenever the opinion of the Washington media/social elite tell them to. You won't get invited to the good parties if you piss off the "journalists" and social butterflies in D.C.

 

[Mapp]

Obama is facing what nearly every President has faced in times of economic downtown. Every President with the exception of FDR has lost seats in the Congress in mid-term elections during times of economic hardship. So is Obama in trouble? No, not really. The press, being its typical sensationalist self is portraying this as some kind of crisis for Democrats. It's not helped by the fact that Democrats are themselves spineless fools who leap like lemmings whenever public opinion polls tell them to. Likely there will be some political readjustments after today, but it will not be the end of the Democrats, or President Obama. Obama will be in trouble if the economy has not improved two years from now, but at this point, it's par for the course.

That's not true. Democrats don't consider public opinion polls, because if they did they would have pushed for a public option, withdrawal from two wars, and a bunch of other stuff. They are spineless worms who leap like lemmings whenever the opinion of the Washington media/social elite tell them to. You won't get invited to the good parties if you piss off the "journalists" and social butterflies in D.C.

Conservative organizations launched a very carefully crafted campaign to make public opinion appear as if it were against the public option. Those people they bused into Congressional town-hall meetings to sit around and shout down their elected leaders, the contrived rallies here in D.C. (I'm writing this from one of the reading rooms at the L.O.C.) and the marshalling of conservative call-in talk show audiences have created the illusion of a vast, popular groundswell against health-care. Liberal pundits have pointed again, and again to reliable, testable statistical data that shows Americans are desparate for a public option, but that hasn't shouted as loudly as the illusion the Conservatives have created. As I said, the Conservatives have always been on the cutting edge of political activism and organization and the Democrats, with a few exceptions like Barney Frank, were simply unprepared for the onslaught. Also, you've got the journalist/politician relationship backwards. It's the journalists who are the slaves of the newsmakers. The Republicans have figured this out and have been threatening to withold access if they don't get favorable coverage since Reagan. The Democrats, who have against all logic and reason been playing on the defensive since last February have been happy for whatever they can get press-wise.

Conservative politicians have it far easier than the liberal ones. They've created television and radio networks that are entirely friendly and uncritical to their agenda. It's a lot easier to avoid gaffs (unless you're terminally idiotic like Sarah Palin or the Delaware Witch) if you're speaking to someone who will never call you on your lies. Thanks to the 24 hour news cycle, whatever they say on these shows wil get repeated ad-nauseum by third party news bureaus desparate for something to fill the time. The Democrats, despite their best efforts, have nothing that can match the Conservative apparatus.

 

[Aught3]

Obama has refused to defend Don't Ask, Don't Tell in court

Isn't his DOJ defending DADT in court right now? And also the DOMA. Obama talks well on gay rights but doesn't follow up well in the court room, at least he's consistent.

 

[Andiferous]

I've seen him do stupid things too, like not give his support for gay marriages.

This is not true. Obama has refused to defend Don't Ask, Don't Tell in court, and has publicly stated his support for gay marriage on numerous occassions. His rhetoric has been consistently pro-rights. Short of pushing for an amendment to The Constitution however, there is not much the President can do for gay marriage issue. Marriage licensing is a state issue. This is something, like segregation, that will be largely decided in courts through the interpretation of existing law. The 14th Amendment already guarantees the right to marriage, since the SCOTUS has established marriage as a fundamental right in earlier cases. What the President can do, should such a battle come up is enthuisatically, nothing. The best thing Obama can do if the case goes federal is to instruct the D.O.J. to refuse to support it, which he likely will.
.

I'll probably take your word on it. Thank you for the very informative and concise replies, by the way.

I think my perception originated from this:

This morning, senior White House adviser David Axelrod struggled to defend this position on MSNBC. Here's what he said:

"The president opposed Proposition 8 at the time. He felt that it was divisive. He felt that it was mean-spirited, and he opposed it at the time. So we reiterated that position yesterday. The president does oppose same-sex marriage, but he supports equality for gay and lesbian couples, and benefits and other issues, and that has been effectuated in federal agencies under his control. He's supports civil unions, and that's been his position throughout. So nothing has changed."

 

[Aught3]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43793.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69B63U20101012
http://www.mlive.com/news/us-world/index.ssf/2010/10/us_urges_delay_in_dont_ask_don.html

Right the first time Andie

 

[DeistPaladin]

Americans: help with a political analysis?

I'm interested in global politics in general, but I have followed American politics for a very long time (from a distance, obviously.) But as a 'foreigner' and receiving the info second hand, I'd much prefer to hear your opinions and arguments than those of the random blogs and news articles.

Is Obama really in as much trouble as it seems? Why is that?

No. This is par-for-the-course as far as American politics are concerned. The sitting president almost always loses control of Congress during the first mid-term.

If you're elected president, you almost know you have two years to part water and create manna from Heaven. After that, the honeymoon ends and the public elects the other party to the congress. Bush was one of the few exceptions to this rule and it took 9/11 to get the country to rally around him so thoroughly. Reagan also lost the congress after two years, as did Clinton, yet both were elected to a second term. I remember how Reagan suffered a massive congressional defeat just two years after enjoying one of the biggest landslide re-elections in American history. We're really funny that way. Our mood swings is one of the many eccentricities of our political system.

Like Clinton and Reagan, Obama may also enjoy an upswing in his popularity and get re-elected if he plays his cards right. His best strategy is to call for the Republicans to try to come forward with a plan and make fools of themselves in the process. After all, they've promised to cut taxes and reduce the debt at the same time. Calling for "spending cuts" sounds nice in the abstract but wait until they start to get specific about the what and how much. And if they fall on their faces, which they almost must, the tide will turn against them again. Then again, perhaps I'm being optimistic.

What concerns me, and I think I've posted on this topic before, is that the Republicans seem to be running further and further to the right wing (Bush now seems like a centrist in comparison) and the Democrats are continuing to run to the center to try to appeal to independents. I don't like the trend.

Do most Americans now blame him for an enormous debt (which I think is traced back to Bush... ) thereby somehow winning voters to the right 'conservative' fiscal management?

I don't think his defeat is about the debt as much as it is demotivation of his base that swept him into office in 2008.

Polls showed that a majority of registered voters favored the democrats but the "likely voters" (those who said they would definitely vote) favored Republicans. This suggest to me that Democrats didn't turn out the vote that might have made a difference.

Much of Obama's problem is that he gave too much away too quickly in an effort to be bipartisan. The stimulus bill wasn't big enough and he gave away single-payer and the public option too easily. He was able to accomplish some progress but the perception is that he hasn't fought hard enough. Given the majorities he had, he should have been able to do much more.

In sum, Republicans were fired up, Democrats were not.

his government has been fraught with stand-still politics; and I believe largely due to lobby groups.

The impact of lobbyists is a major problem for American democracy. One British colleague once asked me about "corruption in American politics" and his use of that word helped me see the depth of the problem. The use of money to buy influence is so prevalent that its out in the open. Everyone knows this candidate has been bought by the unions, this one by big oil, etc. It's all done right before our eyes. Unfortunately, without money, you can't run a campaign. Either you have to be rich enough to self-finance (see Ross Perot or Mitt Romney) or you have to sell out to one group or another.

Were I president, I would seek to ban political advertising completely as we've done with cigarette ads. Fat chance of that happening in real life. Though such a move would enjoy popular support, I fear no politician could get that far without selling out.

Well, to start, as you may know, we have a different parliamentary system. Ours is more directly based on the British parliamentary model, and we even retain some British-inspired parties (whigs and tories). We have multiple parties, and when electing a government, our votes go towards a party and not a leader. The winning party naturally decides the leader of government. Senate is somewhat akin to the House of Lords and positions are awarded rather than elected.

Our system was also based on the British model, moreso than most people realize.

We set it in stone with a Constitution, so while the British system has evolved over time, ours has remained fairly static. The struggles 200 years ago in Britain between king and parliament are now reflected in America today between president and congress. The powers of the president are remarkably similar to those of the British king 200 years ago, with the most notable exception being that the court system was spun out into its own branch. The analog to our "Prime Minister" would be the "Speaker of the House". For all our bitching at the time about the "tyranny of Britain", we quickly adopted a lot of their style of government when it came time to form our own. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as they say.

Our Senators were also appointed at one time, so that wing of congress was likely inspired by the House of Lords. A Constitutional amendment changed that and now Senators are directly elected.

 

[DeistPaladin]

The way I see it DeistPaladin made the single most salient point about american politics:
If there was ever a time to vote against the republican party it was with palin as a vice presidential candidate, and yet the republican party still got 46% of the votes. The inevitable conclusion to draw from this is that the republican party can be certain that no matter what happens they will get at least 46% of the votes.

Ouch. Thanks and unfortunately, you've reminded me of my cause for pessimism.

Younger voters are more liberal. Perhaps much of that "46" will be eclipsed soon? Well, all we can do is hope sometimes.

 

[djarm67]

The problem as I see it stems from two critical factors,

1) Voluntary voting.

This results in the political left and right spending more time attempting to motivate their respective bases to "get out the vote". The typical way to motivate is taking extremist positions and demonising your opponents position. Here in Australia we have compulsory voting. This results in extremist positions (left or right) being crushed by the general populace. As such, the major political parties have tended to take moderate positions with the country as a whole moving a steady path to the left over time.

2) Campaign finance

The US badly needs campaign finance reform. Politicians are meant to represent the people. In the US they represent the lobbyists who fund their re-election campaigns. A simple solution would be to exclude any members from any vote which targets particular sectors due to a conflict of interest where that industry sector has contributed above $X to their campaign.

i.e. If Senator Smith received $2M from the health insurance sector they are not permitted to vote on health care reform bills.

DJ

 

[nemesiss]

And 'obamacare'? I'm even confused by the word as an insult; because I'd be thrilled for national healthcare to be named for me! The man to push for and ultimately responsible for our national healthcare system has become a hero. (He's Keifer Sutherland's grandfather, btw ) I'm not sure if that anti-Obama association is racist or not, yet.

Obamacare is a red herring created by the extreme right. The health care bill that passed congress is actually fairly modest. While is does guarantee that no one can be denied for prior conditions, and curtails some of the worst offenses of the insurance companies, it does not provide a single payer system as most of Obama's constituents wanted. Obamacare is a propaganda myth, created by the Right to shout down their opposition. Right or wrong, it doesn't exist.

so basically that guy that said that he wanted to undo "obamacare" will do the following;

1 - take/steal tax payers money
2 - change it into a huge roll of toilet paper
3 - sits on his ass for a certain amount of time
4 - wipe his arse with the tp-roll he made
5 - ????
6 - gain personal profit
7 - proclaims he did something awesome


sounds like standard republican activity to me....

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Something I was thinking about today that was interesting is that if you listen to the American punditry, you'll hear the same tired script that you hear every two years... no matter which party holds what branches of government, the narrative is always the same, at least since I was old enough to notice around 1990. According to the mainstream media, the Republicans ALWAYS have a mandate to do what they want, and the Democratic Party ALWAYS needs to move "towards the center". It doesn't matter that Bush won in 2004 by a few hundred thousand votes and then lost the house in 2006. It doesn't matter that Obama beat McCain by almost 10 MILLION votes and Democrats controlled both houses of Congress in 2008. The Republicans always have a mandate and the "American people" on their side, and the Democrats always need to move further right.

Sound familiar? Sound like other con games that we talk about on the LoR? If the narrative is the same about every election no matter what the outcomes are, even when the outcomes are polar opposite from each other, that means the narrative cannot ever be falsified, and should therefore be rejected.