volkris @volkris@qoto.org

Lately I've been thinking about how the #Republican party has evolved over the last decade or so as viewed through the lens of the games that major voices in the party play.

Previous generations of #GOP speakers were proudly golfers, but lately major voices are football fans. You can hear them make that shift from talking about golf to talking about football.

Well, over the years Republicans have made this marked shift from looking to work together and build consensus to just looking to fight their opponents. And it strikes me that that's also a difference between golf and football.

The new generation of conservative speakers don't understand the realities of political systems where they have to work with others, convince others, to get things done. It's as if they are projecting philosophies from football on to their politics in ways that didn't happen previously.

And that's a shame for us all. That's how you get #Trump... and #Harris.

#USPolitics

I've heard it said that if you don't vote with whichever party then you are a coward. I think that's exactly backwards, and even reflects poorly all the person making that argument. It doesn't take much courage to go with the group.

Instead I go the other way: no matter which party you might prefer in general, it takes courage to say they nominated a moron, and fortunately the other party also nominated a loser, so no matter what the US is going to slog through these next few years.

In my opinion the courageous position is to say no, you nominated a moron, and I'm not going to give you my vote. We're going to be okay I guess, whether you win or not, but I'm not going to let you assume that you have my vote if you insist on nominating a moron. You should have nominated someone better. You should have nominated someone worthy of my vote. Do better next time.

That's the state of #USPolitics . As South Park said, big douche versus turd sandwich. So screw both #Democrats and #Republicans. Neither of you managed to nominate someone worth voting for, so I'm voting for my dog.

To give either party our votes is to sign on to their nomination of garbage people. Let's not. Let's say that they need to actually nominate worthwhile administrators.

But more practically, let's focus on #Congress. No matter who wins this election, they're going to suck, but we can still express ourselves through our representation in Congress, and that's honestly how it should be anyway.

Check out your representatives. See how they have actually been voting, and vote them out if they have been letting you down. That's really where our focus should be anyway.

Not on which jerk ends up in the Oval Office.

(But thank God #Biden is on his way out, as he has been terrible for #science in the US, which has not gotten nearly enough attention from the press.)

For folks upset about the #Trump case being thrown out over the unqualified prosecutor, remember that it was Biden's administration that screwed that up by not having any of their properly appointed and qualified officials lead the case.

We really need to be holding folks like #Biden accountable for their screwups, and it's just one more reason Democrats should dump him as their nominee.

But no, so many that are most disappointed in the guy's performance are going to vote to keep him in power.

#USPolitics

There's an old idea of fairness that when cutting a cake between two people one person cuts and the other picks the piece they want.

This method aligns the interests of both parties, no matter how corruptible and *human* they may be.

I think it's underappreciated how often the US government design has a similar method in its checks and balances: one group can reject an official, but they don't get to choose the replacement.

See, for example, impeachment proceedings.

After all: "This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public."

--Hamilton (maybe)

#USPolitics #politicalscience #federalistpapers #hamilton

To understand the state of #USPolitics, and US society more broadly, a person has to realize that the process against #Trump isn't merely two camps who want the guy found innocent or guilty after a weighing of the evidence.

No, it is as if there was a murder trial where one side believed they were having beers with the purported victim as the trial was going on.

It's not a matter of legal technicality or weighing preponderances of evidence or reasonable doubt; it's a matter of the country being divided over fundamental fact, here whether a person is alive or not.

It's not a political division. Sadly it's a reality division.

BBC reports that in response to calls to lock #Trump up, #Harris said the courts would take care of that, not only toeing the line to prejudice, but more strikingly... it's as if this is yet another case where she doesn't know what the different branches of government actually do, she doesn't know locking people up is an executive branch function?

As she's applying to be the head of the executive branch?

But no, that level of ignorance does seem to be pretty consistent with what she has shown for years now.

The Democratic Party did not have to such an incompetent candidate. And I'm going to say it over and over because it's so depressing, the party really let us down.

Nothing will change if we don't hold the party accountable.

#USPolitics

The #DemocraticParty sure has made a mess of things choosing #Harris.

But this kind of thing shows #journalism has already lost so much respect.

It all goes to show how the US came to be in the state that it's in.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cbs-accused-significant-intentional-news-195151613.html

#USPolitics

There's the running question of how #Harris could be managing to perform so badly that she can't run away with the election against such a broken candidate as #Trump.

Well, the interview last night answers the question: she's either incapable or unwilling to connect with half the country.

That interview would have been a slam dunk for a competent candidate. She blew it, providing a TON of fodder for #GOP speakers to bash her, and they're having a field day pointing it out today.

The #DemocraticParty is to blame here. By skipping consultation with their voters and instead jumping right to this obviously weak candidate, the whole country is now saddled with this mess.

Well, I guess we'll try again in four years.

#USPolitics

It's always striking to hear a self described liberal in the US praising feudalism and sounding like they wish we could get back to that sort of system.

That's just how it's going over here.

#USPolitics #liberalism #democrats

Lately I've been thinking about how the #Republican party has evolved over the last decade or so as viewed through the lens of the games that major voices in the party play.

Previous generations of #GOP speakers were proudly golfers, but lately major voices are football fans. You can hear them make that shift from talking about golf to talking about football.

Well, over the years Republicans have made this marked shift from looking to work together and build consensus to just looking to fight their opponents. And it strikes me that that's also a difference between golf and football.

The new generation of conservative speakers don't understand the realities of political systems where they have to work with others, convince others, to get things done. It's as if they are projecting philosophies from football on to their politics in ways that didn't happen previously.

And that's a shame for us all. That's how you get #Trump... and #Harris.

#USPolitics

A lot of people don't understand this, and I think it's an interesting factoid, so without trying to make any particular point I want to repeat that the #SecretService works for the current president, whoever they may be, and not for the person they are protecting.

They aren't private security hired by the person. They are a police force, basically, operated by the executive branch.

And it's protection that the executive branch can choose to discontinue. Again, I'm not trying to make a point or say that it should or should not be discontinued, I just think this is interesting and a lot of people don't understand it.

It's back in the headlines with another #Trump assassination attempt, so when people start thinking about the Secret Service, I think it's useful to keep them in context.

I've heard it said that if you don't vote with whichever party then you are a coward. I think that's exactly backwards, and even reflects poorly all the person making that argument. It doesn't take much courage to go with the group.

Instead I go the other way: no matter which party you might prefer in general, it takes courage to say they nominated a moron, and fortunately the other party also nominated a loser, so no matter what the US is going to slog through these next few years.

In my opinion the courageous position is to say no, you nominated a moron, and I'm not going to give you my vote. We're going to be okay I guess, whether you win or not, but I'm not going to let you assume that you have my vote if you insist on nominating a moron. You should have nominated someone better. You should have nominated someone worthy of my vote. Do better next time.

That's the state of #USPolitics . As South Park said, big douche versus turd sandwich. So screw both #Democrats and #Republicans. Neither of you managed to nominate someone worth voting for, so I'm voting for my dog.

To give either party our votes is to sign on to their nomination of garbage people. Let's not. Let's say that they need to actually nominate worthwhile administrators.

But more practically, let's focus on #Congress. No matter who wins this election, they're going to suck, but we can still express ourselves through our representation in Congress, and that's honestly how it should be anyway.

Check out your representatives. See how they have actually been voting, and vote them out if they have been letting you down. That's really where our focus should be anyway.

Not on which jerk ends up in the Oval Office.

(But thank God #Biden is on his way out, as he has been terrible for #science in the US, which has not gotten nearly enough attention from the press.)

#KamalaHarris is such a flawed candidate for #Democrats, one with so much baggage and historically bad choices that to nominate her is to risk giving #Trump another term as president.

Almost any other candidate would cinch the election, so why risk it with Harris? Do Democrats not want to win?

We've already seen that Democrats can choose a different candidate. All the folks insisting over and over that it has to be Biden have been shown to be wrong, so let's not believe the new chants that it has to be Harris.

Democrats need to nominate someone more electable, someone that more voters would get behind. Because that's just how this works. Whatever you think of Harris, to put her forward is to take a risk that Democrats don't have to take.

To paraphrase Archer, You like Trump? Because this is how you get Trump.

The DNC needs to nominate somebody more electable.

#USPolitics

Folks upset that the #SecretService may have denied #Trump more security resources for his events need to think about it the other way around:

If his events were getting so dangerous, then they shouldn't have had the events.

At that point it's really about questionable judgment on the part of Trump's team, and it's fair to call them out over that.

#USPolitics