volkris @volkris@qoto.org

Both #Trump and #Harris are ridiculous candidates, and the parties need to be held accountable for that.

I can't help but keep thinking about how Harris has been openly talking about ignoring Congress, ignoring the law, ignoring the democratic process, to implement her preferences while claiming that Trump is the authoritarian even as he is also being bashed for promising to give up power, promising to relinquish power away from the federal government to the states.

This is the level of nonsense we have in #USPolitics these days. It's absolutely #Orwellian.

And beside all of that, this platform seems really eager to promote those propagandistic messages.

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.)

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

#Democrats overwhelmingly voted against keeping government open.

That really gets lost in all of the media discussion about this. But it really needs to be emphasized. Did your representative vote against keeping government open? You should know that, and hold them accountable for that vote.

#USPolitics

Remember, #Democrats in the #House have nearly a majority of votes in the chamber.

The math says that if they wanted to, they could partner with even a few moderate #Republicans to take control of the chamber outright or at least move their preferred legislation ahead.

The ONLY way a few #GOP hardliners get their way is if Democrats vote with those Republican extremists, supporting their cause.

We shouldn't let politicians point fingers at others, scoring points in this us-vs-them mentality, when they themselves have the tools to make things better.

If the #US government shuts down it will be because Democrats refused to break with Republican extremists and vote to pass funding.

Dems have the votes. Hold them accountable for using them.

#USPolitics

A fantastic sign that so many people cheering the murder of the #insurance #CEO are really off base is that so many describe that role as parasitic.

Factually that is wrong.

A parasite doesn't ask for permission to take, it just takes. In stark contrast, we pay for insurance. And these employees are paid, they don't just drain bank accounts unilaterally.

There's plenty of room to criticize insurance, insurance companies, the healthcare system, the political systems that support that, and on and on, but anyone buying into that entirely false perspective of parasitism is losing the argument flat out.

Because right from the start they're showing they don't know what they're talking about, and it only makes it worse that they're jumping from there into killing people.

They don't make a compelling argument for anyone not already in their echo chamber.

Many #Trump supporters take the stance that he was never ACTUALLY going to impose tariffs, that they were mere negotiating threats, and anyone who doesn't know that is an idiot.

Meanwhile #Harris was criticized for not laying out specifics of what she would do in office.

Funnily, then, that was a contest between someone who **wouldn't** say what they **would** do versus someone who **would** said what they **wouldn't** do.

What a time to be alive.

#USPolitics #kamala

Access to medical care in the US has long been highly regulated. Politicians interfere in personal medical decisions every single day.

Personally, I don't think that's right, but it's the status quo, and it's not going to change any time soon, especially when so many insist on turning a blind eye to that fact.

But it's in that context that "hands off my body" arguments fall flat. We have long lived in a society where political intrusion into personal medical decisions is not only tolerated but actively demanded.

At this point it's not about whether to keep politicians out but rather which politicians to give the power to.

#SCOTUS #Skrmetti #USPolitics

#Biden's pardon of his son crosses the line when it gives a blanket get out of jail free card to any laws his son might have violated, not just the ones we know about.

He put his son above the law. That's striking.

It's only the icing on top that he attempts to justify it by claiming persecution... by the administration that he himself was leading.

We need to be clear that this is disgraceful, as really that's the only way to hold such a person of power accountable.

Biden should be forever remembered for crap like this.

#USPolitics

At this point mainstream #Republicans are saying that they know Biden didn't get all those votes legally when he ran against #Trump not because they have evidence of any particular conspiracy, but because come on, Trump is awesome, how could anyone not have voted for him?

I don't have a dog in the fight between Republicans and Democrats, but geez, I really hate to see how far down the #GOP has fallen in the last couple of years.

That kind of imbecilic argument is fit for drunkards at the bar and fifth rate media personalities, but at this point some of the preeminent conservative talkers are laying that down.

This is going to be a hard four years in media.

#USPolitics

Skimming this article, it strikes me as a pretty good survey of how the state of popular politics in the US ended in a #Trump election.

It captures #Democrats being out of touch and #Republicans being fed up and #Harris running a bad campaign, one that really channeled that out-of-touch-ness.

Or, at least, this confirms my baises :) reflects my perception on the whole thing.

But those themes seem to be repeated over and over through quote after quote.

#USPolitics

I honestly think there is something wrong with #Harris

Listening to her giving her concession speech she honestly doesn't sound like she cares at all that she lost. She doesn't seem to be invested in this at all. It's kind of sociopathological.

I think that's part of why she lost, but seriously, what's wrong with this?

https://www.youtube.com/live/WckEFzGku0Q?si=oZd5jW-O7TFpQcCf

#USPolitics

Both #Trump and #Harris are ridiculous candidates, and the parties need to be held accountable for that.

I can't help but keep thinking about how Harris has been openly talking about ignoring Congress, ignoring the law, ignoring the democratic process, to implement her preferences while claiming that Trump is the authoritarian even as he is also being bashed for promising to give up power, promising to relinquish power away from the federal government to the states.

This is the level of nonsense we have in #USPolitics these days. It's absolutely #Orwellian.

And beside all of that, this platform seems really eager to promote those propagandistic messages.