Trump

[Vekseid]

To be fair, that was the whole point. Trump knew that whether or not he talked about jobs and The Wall, or fairies and ponies, the Democrats would not stand for anything.  Because the Dems are so committed to the idea of La Resistance that they are willing to throw away whatever principles they had left after Hillary was through with them.

That is a mistake.  An enormous mistake. One they did not have to make, but did.

The Dems have painted themselves into a corner, and it's hard for me to feel sorry for them.

...

Someone makes a blatantly fascist move and you double down with:

They have, because neither side is actually about governance in politics anymore; to each side, it's about power.  Who has it, what can they do with it, and who can they force to comply with their worldview instead of, you know, respecting that people are different.

Pretty clearly isn't if you bother to look at voting records. But that would take work, thinking, and coming to a reasonable conclusion.

Network Neutrality? Party-line.

Campaign finance reform? Party-line.

Adding 1.5 trillion to the debt for a tax cut. ~4,500 per man, woman and child. Where Paul Ryan brags about one woman getting another $1.50. Per week. Party line.

Supporting reasonable healthcare in this country?

For children?

A girl gets murdered at a white nationalist rally for standing against bigotry.

And you're worried about 'both sides'.

The Democratic party is pretty clearly about governance. They've actually tried to get things done, and have been inordinately successful for being a minority party. They're the most powerful minority party in United States history, because the Freedom Caucus will not under any circumstances govern. And Paul Ryan openly admits it. They've been the opposition for so long, they've forgotten how.

That speaks to the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican party. Good on the Democrats for trying to take principled stands against a group so thoroughly filled with such rank hypocrisy that they have completely abandoned the concept.

People are dead, Reiji.

More murders have been attempted. More will be. We've got another school shooting every other day.

You can master fence-sitting all you like. It's an easy skill to brag about.

Thing is, fences come down.

When they do, the people stuck on them are surprised that they are falling. For some reason.

[PrestaDGTation]

  Okay, I just have to get this out somewhere.  Yey, writing as therapy!

  The biggest takeaway I have from the State Of The Union address was that moment he touted the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the supreme court.  "We're appointing judges," he said, to the faces of the other justices and on live television, "that are actually going to interpret the constitution again."  The look on that one man's face, as the president told him he hadn't been doing his job as a judge, was like watching a man screaming through his teeth.

  It's actually kind of brilliant.  The FBI, who was once given responsibility for Trump defeating Clinton, is now being painted as a criminal cartel of politically biased liberal noodnicks.  The Supreme Court, and courts in general, are getting dragged into a political quagmire just so their judgements can be tarnished.  The Republicans that control the legislature, with a few exceptions, are spineless.  So focused on their careers and so afraid of being rebranded on Trumps Twitter account, that they've become complicit.  And the Democrats, dear god, are being called treasonous just for disagreeing.

  The system of checks and balances is breaking down.  It's actually not unfair, at this point, to ask if Mueller is wasting his time.  I personally want the investigation to be seen through, no matter what they find, because those are our laws.  But even if they did find something, even hard evidence of conspiracy with Russian to defraud the American Public to win an election?  Would Trump actually go down for it?  Given that somewhat unprecedented line of questioning and the current state of affairs, I'm inclined to believe otherwise.

  My biggest problem with Trump calling the Democrats treasonous isn't that he thinks anyone will take that seriously.  It's the idea that he's dulling the impact of the word.  Treason.  You don't see that word often.  It's a crime so great and so rare that most people still use Benedict Arnold as the go to example.  A man who lived centuries ago, and who's only other claim to fame is sounding like a tasty breakfast with a loud Austrian movie star.  Eggs Benedict Arnold!  Sorry, I have a requisite amount of silly I have to fill. 

  Treason.  This is a word that makes the hairs on my neck stand up.  It ignites a sense of patriotism, if only because it implies that I, myself am being attacked, along with everyone around me.  And this week, it's a joke.  A way to slime the opposition and get a few chuckles from the base.  It isn't funny, but that's probably the point.  I'll be very interested to see how often that phrase gets blunted against our pop-cultural wall in the coming days, used to shame someone and then laughed off like a gag reel.  Because there's a possibility that Trump is knowingly taking the edge off the word, in case Mueller actually does strike gold.

  No, what really bothered me was Un-American.  Trump's brilliance.. And yes, I think he's a moron, but I'll admit that in this area he's actually very smart.  His brilliance is his ability to rebrand something.  His twitter account has ruined careers.  It's changed a kneeling gesture at a football game into an outright assault on the American Military.  And his base loves it, but that's because they're suffering that unique and very powerful pain, when something traditionally normal starts becoming the new different.  These people aren't stupid or blind.  They want him to rebrand America, and what it means to be American, because there is a culture war going on.  And Trump being able to do that, and being on their side, must feel goddamn miraculous.

  But when you apply that rebranding to people who just don't agree with you.  Not even that, but people who don't stand and shower you with adulation and praise?  That's when you stomp on the very thing that's always made America great.  The right to a voice.  The right to dissent.  The fact that if you're willing to speak, then you have the right to contribute to this nation.  The Founding Fathers didn't spend over 100 days in a room in Philadelphia writing the Constitution because they agreed with each other.  They fought over it, until they had something they could agree was better than what they'd started with.

  More than that, this divisive bullshit has to stop.  Un-American.  It's as if he's trying to pry the country apart so he can fill the hole with his ego.  The idea that he would label anyone who disagrees with him as someone that doesn't belong fills me with rage.  He has the power to exile me, but until that point, he has no claim on what country I call home.  It's absurd, it's seditious, and it's freaking dangerous.  Build a wall, get rid of the dissenters, reshape national identity around a cult of personality.. It's been a while since college, but I seem to remember a place called Berlin where all that happened.

  And now, this just in today, we're going to start having Military Parades!  No seriously!  Trump loved it so much in France, he wants to do it even better here!  North Korea Style pageantry, with seventy ton tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue, and columns of troops.  Am I wrong to feel horrified, that this is where we're headed?  And that's not even the worst part!  Oh yeah, I can hear it now, being typed from the toilet in the White House Residence.  'Anyone who doesn't love it obviously hates our military.'  Which is another gripe altogether.  My point there is that I can't really say "I support our military, I just don't want a column of guys with M-16s marching in the street!"  It already feels political, even to express how that mental image makes me feel.  He's infusing everything with politics, even things that shouldn't be political at all, and that really bothers me.

  I'm looking for ways to fight back, honestly.  This administration has already, repeatedly, gone far enough to be alarming, but it always stops just shy of causing an outrage.  That's also part of the game, I'm sure.  We're getting numb to it, so Trump can go father before he trips the backlash.  Too late might be too soon.

  ...Wow, I feel better!  Blurrt!  Now I go write about a saucy deer person!

[ReijiTabibito]

Network Neutrality? Party-line.

Campaign finance reform? Party-line.

Adding 1.5 trillion to the debt for a tax cut. ~4,500 per man, woman and child. Where Paul Ryan brags about one woman getting another $1.50. Per week. Party line.

A line is only good when the ideas and principles behind the line stand up to scrutiny.  Simply because it is the party line is not enough rationale for me to say 'yes' to it.  Just because the Democrats oppose the Republicans does not automatically make them The Good Guys.

A girl gets murdered at a white nationalist rally for standing against bigotry.

And you're worried about 'both sides'.

And I ask that her murderers be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, that they be given the worst possible sentence to demonstrate that this kind of behavior is not acceptable in civilized society.

And yes, I am.  No one side should have too much power.  Monoparty nation-states, history demonstrates, tend to turn out very very badly.  That's why I would rather have India's coalition democracy than what we have now.

The Democratic party is pretty clearly about governance. They've actually tried to get things done, and have been inordinately successful for being a minority party. They're the most powerful minority party in United States history, because the Freedom Caucus will not under any circumstances govern. And Paul Ryan openly admits it. They've been the opposition for so long, they've forgotten how.

That speaks to the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican party. Good on the Democrats for trying to take principled stands against a group so thoroughly filled with such rank hypocrisy that they have completely abandoned the concept.

If they're so principled, then why not stand for unity when unity is called upon, even if it's an entirely cynical plot by the opposition to make them cooperate with 'the enemy'?  Yes, the Republicans are morally bankrupt.  That's what you get when you have an organization that has no scruples, no guiding principles, no raison d'etre beyond opposition to The Other.  The SOTU was the chance for the Democrats to demonstrate that they were not like their opposition during Obama's tenure, that they were better than that, and they squandered it, because they're in the middle of trying to convince Americans we're one fire away from a dictatorship.  And cooperation is generally not something you get out of such forms of government.

Half the time I don't turn on MSNBC or CNN and hear about how the Democrats are trying to make the wheels turn in an administration that has ordered full-stop, applied every last brake that can be thought of, and ditched the coal tender along a siding somewhere.  I hear Russia.  I hear whatever Trump's latest stupid tweet is.

I'm with Michael Moore - Trump is an evil genius, and he's using whatever jingly keys he can to get the media and the Democrats distracted from his goals, like dismantling Obamacare, gutting the State Department, reversing Net Neutrality.  And to some extent, it's working.

You don't prove you are the people's party by saying "that guy's ideas are stupid."  You do it by saying "and I have a better idea."

People are dead, Reiji.

More murders have been attempted. More will be. We've got another school shooting every other day.

Show me the line that says any of these shootings are about racism, bigotry, and Trump.  I will denounce them for the radical outbursts of hatred they are then, and I denounce them now as violence without cause.

You can master fence-sitting all you like. It's an easy skill to brag about.

Thing is, fences come down.

When they do, the people stuck on them are surprised that they are falling. For some reason.

I'm not surprised.  We're seeing either the fiery furnace that will reforge and rekindle America as a concept, or its funeral pyre.

And if I'm allowed a quotation:

"I do not expect the house to fall - I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - but I expect it will cease to be divided.  It will become all one thing - or all the other."

[Serephino]

I myself am tired of the us vs. them mentality.  However...  Just watch what Trump does and says.  If you are against him you are un American!  He viciously attacks anyone who doesn't shower praise on him with Twitter.  He's trying really hard to discredit the media, which if you do your homework, is the very first thing a wannabe dictator does.  To be a dictator one must control the information, and if Trump has his way we'll just have Fox News and his Twitter feed.  He has said a news organization should have their license revoked and be shut down for spreading lies about him.  Of course, media outlets don't have licenses, and at the moment it is illegal to shut the press up.  Oh, but you can tell he really wants to!

The Republican congress is trying to undo everything Obama did to try and fix the economy Bush and his people wrecked.  They're doing it for 2 reasons.  One, Obama did it and they hate him.  Two, it makes their donors richer, in the short term anyway, until the economy crashes again.  They clearly do not give a shit about anyone but themselves.  That one dude on Fox blamed Obama for the stock market crash even though he hasn't been president in a little over a year.  If something goes right they pound their chests and congratulate themselves.  If something goes wrong, and there could be solid proof it was all the fault of a group of Republicans, all you will hear from them is Obama, Hillary, and the Democrats did it!

Pardon the French, but if you are a principled person, how the fuck do you work with that?

[Hades]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/report-trump-ordered-pentagon-plan-military-parade-washington-003240241.html

So in the space of 24-hours, we go from calling members of the opposition party that didn't give a standing ovation to platitudes and cliches treasonous, to now finding out that he wants a military parade through the streets of the nation's capital to put the military might on display.

At this point with everything else he's said and done since taking office, he might as well just stop pretending and fully admit how jealous he is that Kim Jong Un is the one being called "Dear Leader" instead of him, and wants to be called "Your majesty" rather than merely "Mr. President".

[Arianna]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/report-trump-ordered-pentagon-plan-military-parade-washington-003240241.html

So in the space of 24-hours, we go from calling members of the opposition party that didn't give a standing ovation to platitudes and cliches treasonous, to now finding out that he wants a military parade through the streets of the nation's capital to put the military might on display.

At this point with everything else he's said and done since taking office, he might as well just stop pretending and fully admit how jealous he is that Kim Jong Un is the one being called "Dear Leader" instead of him, and wants to be called "Your majesty" rather than merely "Mr. President".

This is far too familiar to my childhood President (Romania pre '89). But... I can only say that so many times.

[Oniya]

So in the space of 24-hours, we go from calling members of the opposition party that didn't give a standing ovation to platitudes and cliches treasonous, to now finding out that he wants a military parade through the streets of the nation's capital to put the military might on display.

But it's nowhere near May... 

[Ket]

to now finding out that he wants a military parade through the streets of the nation's capital to put the military might on display.

https://youtu.be/QbC6dLG_dQY

[Oniya]

That moment you remember that your kid is asleep and squeals of laughter wouldn't go over well.

[DominantPoet]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/961073467784421382

On a slightly less depressing but equally hilarious show of the stupidity of Trump...he has taken it upon himself, shockingly, to congratulate Elon Musk and Space X for their recent launch. Of course, it wouldn't be Trump if he didn't open his mouth up wide and shove his foot in there pretty good.

Because he decided to claim that this achievement (along with Nasa and their partners, both commercially and, somehow, internationally) showcase American ingenuity.

Why is this hilarious? Musk may have US citizenship, this is true. However, he didn't become an official citizen until he was THIRTY years old, back in 2002. He was born in South Africa - one of those places Trump called, allegedly, a "shithole". He's an immigrant.

[Serephino]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/trumps-lawyers-seem-to-think-hes-incapable-of-not-lying.html

That right there should alarm the crap out of people.  He can't answer questions because he is incapable of not lying about something!  His own lawyers are basically admitting that guilty of collusion or not, he's a pathological liar.  There needs to be some law that if you can't testify under oath you can't be president.

[TheGlyphstone]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/961073467784421382

On a slightly less depressing but equally hilarious show of the stupidity of Trump...he has taken it upon himself, shockingly, to congratulate Elon Musk and Space X for their recent launch. Of course, it wouldn't be Trump if he didn't open his mouth up wide and shove his foot in there pretty good.

Because he decided to claim that this achievement (along with Nasa and their partners, both commercially and, somehow, internationally) showcase American ingenuity.

Why is this hilarious? Musk may have US citizenship, this is true. However, he didn't become an official citizen until he was THIRTY years old, back in 2002. He was born in South Africa - one of those places Trump called, allegedly, a "shithole". He's an immigrant.

Musk is white, so he doesn't count?

[Oniya]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/trumps-lawyers-seem-to-think-hes-incapable-of-not-lying.html

That right there should alarm the crap out of people.  He can't answer questions because he is incapable of not lying about something!  His own lawyers are basically admitting that guilty of collusion or not, he's a pathological liar.  There needs to be some law that if you can't testify under oath you can't be president.

Well, if you can't testify under oath, how can your oath of office have any validity?  (And can someone smack that headline writer with a copy of Strunk and White?  What's wrong with 'Trump's lawyers seem to think he's incapable of telling the truth'?)

[gaggedLouise]

But it's nowhere near May... 

Next month is called March, I said March! Can you find a better excuse for a military parade? 

(Dang, I agree with Hades - I didn't realize just how jealous Trump is of Kim and his massive displays of propaganda crowds!)

[Lustful Bride]

I agree with both Vekseie and Reijitabittio to an extent. Yes the republican party having such a big swing of power is in some ways fueling some of the hate and insanity we see. But the democrats are not pure innocent saints.

Both parties are ugly in their own ways. Each hiding behind a mask that says "vote for me. I will save the country. I will make you life better! The other side is evil and anyone who supports them is evil too! " while breaking their promises all the time.

They benefit by playing us against each other and making us hate those who diverge from out politics rather than trying to work together and find a good compromise.

Now while I admit both parties are evil. The republican party is currently running a mock and has the most influence and has been the one in charge while the US loses a massive chunk of world influence a d respect that will take decades to recover, if ever. That makes them more dangerous and in some ways more worthy of blame. I would say the same thing if it was Democrats doing it.

I feel both Veks and Reiji make good points but emotions and misunderstandings are making us too hostile and that's what those in power like since it makes it easier for them to do as they like without worry.

[Fury Aphrodisia]

Elon Musk: Canada's NAFTA contributions for a good thirty years.



On the subject of Dems vs. Reps, though...?

Yeah, yeah, there's a good deal of "these people weren't saints either!" Especially when it comes to playing... well, politics. Let's set aside the fact that it's quite literally what the process IS, we'll just focus on which side of the argument are without sin.


_____________

That's it. ^ Stone thrown.

But the point that's being missed is that none of that line of argument means a damned thing. Nothing. "Aww, they're not perfect either!" ... Who gives a fuck? Listen, you can't have it both ways. When a black man is shot by the cops and Fox and Friends goes on about how "This man was no saint, either. He had an arrest record and was talking back and didn't stop struggling while he was being choked out and etc, so on, so forth..." People get all up in arms. 'That doesn't mean he deserves to die! That doesn't matter, he shoulnd't be killed by police officers!'

Okay, I'm with you. But now you've gotta go all the way.

Women shouldn't be forced to go through the equivalent of a spec ops mission to get reproductive healthcare.
Environmental preserves shouldn't have to bathe in the product of low regulation environmental protection.
NASA shouldn't have to outsource Twitter following to let the public know what's going on in the world of silence. I'm sorry, Science, it's science. Silence is what was federally mandated in the first... what was it, month of Trump's reign? Sorry, Presidency. Can't seem to talk, today.
No one should have to explain to the President of the United States that no one moves from Norway en masse because you don't give up living in a mansion to live in a shack. Sorry, shithouse, there I go again. People don't move to the US because between DeVoss and Carson and Tillerson, there's nothing someone from Norway would GAIN to move to the US. Fix schools, healthcare, infrastructure, etc and then maybe it might be on par.
My children shouldn't have to wear SPF 5000 because Trump has killed renewable energy and the ozone layer is a doily.
In 2018, I shouldn't have to wonder if the potential in the young lives of my sons is going to be wiped off the face of the planet because Trump and Kim have crossed the streams and now their swordfight has more victims than a Musketeers movie.

If you can agree with this (And the probability that neither Obama, Clinton or Sanders did/would/were putting us through all these terrible ideas at any time), not to mention that at least the Democratic party is splitting, then you've already acknowledged there's a big huge difference between "no one's a saint" and "these people are legitimately dangerous".

See, the Democratic party suffering these fractures means there's still Dems that are fighting through the bullshit. They're still trying to get things done right. Granted not all of them, but let's not be naive, idealistic pricks. No matter how cranky or crappy these people might be, that's a far sight better than the other side of the isle. I'd rather have the maniac muttering to himself on the bus and making me uncomfortable than see Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock hop on.

The trouble with the Republican party right now is that not only are these insane ideas forming policy, but there's no crack. No civil war. No thought that the party, in and of itself, is splintering. There's no one pulling away from the incestuous worm-ball that the party has become. Sure, there's the periodic moment of objection, but no wide-spread dissent over the overall state of affairs. They've been successfully bullied into getting in line and keeping their traps shut.

When it comes down to it, you're arguing the difference between the babysitter that won't sits on the phone all night and talks with their significant other and the priest that won't observe the age of consent. Sure, they're both shitty human beings, but one of them is actually dangerous to people. Are the Dems foolish? Yeah. Are they likely to kill us all/start a race war/boil us in our skins because they don't understand climate change/sacrifice us to the almighty dollar accompanied by the incessant soundtrack of Joel Olsteen sermons? Probably not.

Until one of the Dems comes out and decides their policy is prioritizing who is deserving of life and who of death, until they say that abuses are okay because of the gender one is NOT, until they claim that their fictional space wizard outvotes the rights of tangible human beings, there is no contest. And unless the Dems are in power now, we have to stop those in power now from doing even more to degrade the quality of life that millions are dreading or even actively suffering across the face of North America at this very moment, not because of petulance and pouting, but because of outright hostility, belligerence and greed.

So yeah, the Dems aren't perfect. And no, that argument has absolutely no relevance to what is happening now.

[Fury Aphrodisia]

Also, I find it ludicrous that one of your political parties is based on the goal of getting into power so they can cripple the power of the offices they hold so long as they don't hold it. "Small government" my ass. It's basically "If I can't hold the stick, no one can!"

[Lustful Bride]

I can agree to that. Don't see why not.

Dems and Reps both have skeletons in the closet but the Reps are the ones currently holding the wheel and trying to drive the country right into a ravine. Hence they are worthy of our anger and the blame for things when it goes wrong. And if the pendulum swings back and the Dems are back in charge and they start pulling shady and unethical shit, then they get the same treatment.

[gaggedLouise]

Also, I find it ludicrous that one of your political parties is based on the goal of getting into power so they can cripple the power of the offices they hold so long as they don't hold it. "Small government" my ass. It's basically "If I can't hold the stick, no one can!"

Google Grover Norquist and the "drowned in a bathtub" quote. 

I agree that a small, reduced state is much more likely to be sitting on top of a corrupted country and a debased judicial system than being "small but sharp and just to everybody", to rich and poor.

[HannibalBarca]

I've never belonged to a political party, but I've rarely voted for Republican candidates, and that was in my early years of having the right to vote.  It is even more so now.  I don't like some of the corruption in the Democratic Party, but they are far and away the superior choice in every category.  Every.  One.  The Republicans are in no way, shape, or form a viable party.  The final veneer of respectability has been removed with their support of Trump, regardless of his faux pas or straight up shady shit.

Yeah, I call total bullshit on the false equivalency fallacy.  There are more than enough bought and paid for Democrats in D.C., but even those are at least sane.  I'm not snarking or being sarcastic with that, either.  There is a boatload of cognitive dissonance in the heads of Republicans right now, a lot of it loaded up years ago when Fox 'News' started it's current iteration as a propaganda wing for the Republican Party.  The shit I've seen them purport to be facts has turned a good third of the electorate into authoritarian zombies...although many of them were either tending towards authoritarian or there already.  As far as I am concerned, after all the despicable things Trump and his cronies have hatched on this nation and the world, Republicans are either too brainwashed to see it, too stupid to see it, or part of those who are smart enough but sociopathic enough to take advantage of it for personal gain.

[Norwegian One]

I'm not an American, but the fury I feel at this... I can't describe it with words 

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/08/middleeast/deportee-us-intl/index.html

[Vekseid]

A line is only good when the ideas and principles behind the line stand up to scrutiny.  Simply because it is the party line is not enough rationale for me to say 'yes' to it.  Just because the Democrats oppose the Republicans does not automatically make them The Good Guys.

This is a non-statement.

There are lists with dozens of stances where the Republicans were clearly on the wrong side, and in many cases are causing direct harm to our country.

Tell me a single thing that Democrats have done in the past ninety years, that will do as much damage to America's future as Betsy DeVos.

Hell, a combination of things. Group as many things together as you can.

And I ask that her murderers be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, that they be given the worst possible sentence to demonstrate that this kind of behavior is not acceptable in civilized society.

Unfortunately, he wasn't.

And yes, I am.  No one side should have too much power.  Monoparty nation-states, history demonstrates, tend to turn out very very badly.  That's why I would rather have India's coalition democracy than what we have now.

The United States was effectively a monoparty from FDR's election, through World War II. It was the greatest economic expansion the world had ever seen, for any nation, and saw the beginnings of what would become the civil rights movement. As well as the Southern Strategy, as southern Democrats saw the party turning to support people of color.

Liberum veto, history demonstrates, has annihilated superpowers.

Supporting Republicans 'just because they're the opposition' has driven the United States ever closer to fascism. We have an openly acknowledged foreign agent as a sitting congressman (Rohrabacher). Russia openly admits to attacking our institutions, and every day the Republican party and the right-wing media apparatus gives them their support. With them now attacking the FBI.

The right thing to do would be to support a reformed party that did not tolerate this shit.

But that would be the right thing to do.

Instead you hem and haw. "The Democrats are flawed too!"

If they're so principled, then why not stand for unity when unity is called upon, even if it's an entirely cynical plot by the opposition to make them cooperate with 'the enemy'?  Yes, the Republicans are morally bankrupt.  That's what you get when you have an organization that has no scruples, no guiding principles, no raison d'etre beyond opposition to The Other.  The SOTU was the chance for the Democrats to demonstrate that they were not like their opposition during Obama's tenure, that they were better than that, and they squandered it, because they're in the middle of trying to convince Americans we're one fire away from a dictatorship.  And cooperation is generally not something you get out of such forms of government.

We're pretty clear with what the Republican idea of 'unity' is. "What's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable."

I am genuinely not sure what you are trying to get at. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have managed to get things done because the Republican Party has factions inside of it that are so incapable of governance that Paul Ryan has no choice. Has senators that are so afraid for their jobs that McConnell has no choice.

Trump tries to blame the democrats when this happens, and you just... go along with it?

What?

Half the time I don't turn on MSNBC or CNN and hear about how the Democrats are trying to make the wheels turn in an administration that has ordered full-stop, applied every last brake that can be thought of, and ditched the coal tender along a siding somewhere.  I hear Russia.  I hear whatever Trump's latest stupid tweet is.

I'm with Michael Moore - Trump is an evil genius, and he's using whatever jingly keys he can to get the media and the Democrats distracted from his goals, like dismantling Obamacare, gutting the State Department, reversing Net Neutrality.  And to some extent, it's working.

You don't prove you are the people's party by saying "that guy's ideas are stupid."  You do it by saying "and I have a better idea."

The Democrats have a bill to restore network neutrality (with one Republican on board), a plan for universal healthcare, and actually got billions in funding for health programs through the senate.

As I said, they are inordinately powerful for being the minority party. Especially so compared to the shutout they got during the Bush era. I would not be surprised if the Republican party collapsed next year even if they maintain control of the house and senate.

That collapse would be a great time to find a patriotic, competent opposition to the Democrats.

Show me the line that says any of these shootings are about racism, bigotry, and Trump.  I will denounce them for the radical outbursts of hatred they are then, and I denounce them now as violence without cause.

What, like this one?

[ReijiTabibito]

There are lists with dozens of stances where the Republicans were clearly on the wrong side, and in many cases are causing direct harm to our country.

Tell me a single thing that Democrats have done in the past ninety years, that will do as much damage to America's future as Betsy DeVos.

Hell, a combination of things. Group as many things together as you can.

90 years ago?  Segregation was still a thing.  So was Jim Crow.  And it would be for roughly the next 40 years after that.  The South was still largely Democratic at that time, with the reviled Republican Party being the 'Party of Lincoln.' Why don't we start there?

Hell, anything to do with the South up until the mid-1960s was basically fueled by Dixiecrats, so pretty much anything there.

Since then?  Try the fragmentation of minority families, spurred on primarily by programs like LBJ's Great Society, which tried to help poor minorities but instead of insisting on intact families to qualify for benefits, insisted on single-parent homes.  Daniel Moynihan published a report in the early 1970s urging national action on what he saw as the disintegration of the black family, naming public policies that - while intended to help them - ended up backfiring and doing more harm than good.  The illegitimacy rate then was 25% in the black community; today it is upwards of 70%.  Despite studies that demonstrate lower rates of teen crime, drug use, alcohol use, young motherhood, and better scholastic achievement from two-parent households, I haven't heard word one from any Democrat urging for higher marriage rates.  (Though they did expand the pool of those who can get married, that I will give them.)

Try their abandonment of labor unions in the 70s, one of the few American institutions that enabled those from working-class backgrounds to transcend the economic circumstances of their birth and join the middle and upper-middle classes.

Try the failure to oppose Ronald Reagan (and his follow-up Bush the First), whose pro-business and union-busting policies set the stage for the financial hellhole millions upon millions of Americans live in now.  The House was controlled by the Democrats during all of Reagan's administration - his policies could not have been enacted without their support in some fashion.  The House, FTR, was controlled by the Democrats from 1954 until the second half of Bill Clinton's first term in office.  In short, they controlled the chamber for approximately 40 years.

Speaking of Bill, try his tightening of federal welfare requirements, which we're still feeling today.  Try his repeal of Glass-Steagal, which set the stage for the Great Recession. 

Unfortunately, he wasn't.

Then that is a travesty of justice that has been allowed to occur in our land, and I do not abide it.

The United States was effectively a monoparty from FDR's election, through World War II. It was the greatest economic expansion the world had ever seen, for any nation, and saw the beginnings of what would become the civil rights movement. As well as the Southern Strategy, as southern Democrats saw the party turning to support people of color.

Liberum veto, history demonstrates, has annihilated superpowers.

Under FDR, the Democrats responded to a national crisis.  The Republicans were a party of smaller government at that point (the major outliers to that were either well behind or far ahead in a single instance), and the Great Depression was something that could not be handled by state governments alone, no matter how well they all coordinated together.  FDR's first election was backlash for the Depression, which was Hoover and thus the Republicans.

Elections two and three were votes to, more or less, continue the New Deal because the country still hadn't recovered from the Crash yet.

Election four was because they were in wartime, and the country did not want to change leadership mid-war.  The last time a country had an election during wartime was back during The Civil War, and Lincoln only managed re-election due to Sherman's capture of Atlanta.

As for the economic expansion, yeah, that happened.  But that happened primarily on the backs of the Second World War, since the US was busy cranking out material for the US, the Brits, the Free French, the Soviets (to a limited extent), and the Chinese.  FDR's statement about being the arsenal of democracy was entirely correct.  That it continued after the war was over, for a good three decades or so, was as a result of well-management of the economic boom by the Greats, and by something I'm following up with below your comment about the Republican party line on unity.

For the liberum veto, if you're referring to the Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, I will point out a few things.

1 - the liberum veto actually served to strengthen democratic elements within the Sejm, by placing a check on royal power, and diluting the power of an absolute monarch.
2 - the point where the veto was used to the detriment of the Commonwealth only came about when foreign powers used bribes to the Sejm to force its work to an absolute standstill.  It required someone actively sabotaging the system to make the system fail.  Now, that being said, it's not hard to see that there are people who benefit from the current status quo, and would do absolutely anything to protect it.

It doesn't sound like that's what you're making reference to, however, so can you be a little more explicit?

The right thing to do would be to support a reformed party that did not tolerate this shit.

But that would be the right thing to do.

I'd like to see these Republican party reformers; my opinion?  They don't exist.  It's better to let it all burn to the ground (and by that I mean the Republican Party) so it can be reconstituted anew with better ideas and better-informed decision making than the naked power grab that they're demonstrating as this administration goes forward.

Point being, when the reformers appear, I will support the everloving shit out of them.  Perhaps I simply haven't heard of them, though.  Point me in their general direction?

We're pretty clear with what the Republican idea of 'unity' is. "What's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable."

That's a reason to, as you've stated, reform the party, its ideas, its policies and decision making.  The idea that Hannity and O'Reilly spew (or spewed, in the latter's case) of 'personal responsibility' is a crock.  The political theorist Yascha Mounk wrote in The Age of Responsibility that pre-1980s, "responsibility" was understood as something every American owed to the people around them.  A sort of national effort to help the most downtrodden and vulnerable.  And this wasn't limited to the individual Joe on the street; Nixon proposed a national welfare program and a version of UBI.  That dirty, dirty Communist, Richard M Nixon.

Once the 80s and the 90s - Reagan and Clinton - rolled around, though, the definition of responsibility changed from the affairs of others to the affairs of self.  Your responsibility was to demonstrate that you earned what society was graciously handing you.  It stopped being about community, it stopped being about others, and it came All About Me.

As a hardcore blue friend of mine puts it, "the basis upon which we solve the problems of the common American citizen is not government action or free market enterprise.  It is by dispelling the notion that if I'm okay, everything is okay."

Those that oversaw the Long Boom?  Rejected that notion.  That because they were okay, things were okay.  Their statement was "just because I am okay does not mean everything is okay."  That's a big piece of the reason why you saw a 90% tax rate and the mega-wealthy didn't care.  Because they saw it as their responsibility to help society up, and because they were not concerned about appearances.  About keeping up with the Joneses.  Which seems to be all the wealthy care about today.

The Democrats have a bill to restore network neutrality (with one Republican on board), a plan for universal healthcare, and actually got billions in funding for health programs through the senate.

Good for them.  Good for them making the governing process work by passing a law declaring Net Neutrality instead of leaving it in the hands of unelected bureaucrats.

That collapse would be a great time to find a patriotic, competent opposition to the Democrats.

And I will be waiting to see it happen.

What, like this one?

1.  That happened in Canada.
2.  That was not a school shooting.  I asked for a school shooting, because that's what you said.

(Yes, I realize I am nitpicking here.)

3. Yes, the guy liked Trump on Facebook.  (The article also states that the Facebook page 'reportedly' is his.  Does not mean it is.)  He probably also liked video games.  But we aren't going around asking people to denounce video games.
4. The article states that the motive was officially 'unknown' at the time of publishing.  We can assume all we like from the facts at hand...unless there was a later article which revealed motive?
5. This shooting happened in Quebec, which the article notes has simmering tensions over attitudes about Islam, compared to the rest of the country.  (Maple Leafers, question to you - is it fair to call Quebec the Deep South of Canada?  I didn't want to use the analogy, but I got thinking about it.)

[Fury Aphrodisia]

(Maple Leafers, question to you - is it fair to call Quebec the Deep South of Canada?  I didn't want to use the analogy, but I got thinking about it.)

No way. That'd totally be swathes of the Maritimes. I've lived in both. Quebec is an anomaly. It's more like if you dropped an Italian village structure in the middle of a strangely frozen wasteland, filled it with the snooty German folks from Pitch Perfect II, made them live like a scene from Rent and threw in a lot of self-possessed pop-culture references that were insular and belligerently insisted that you learn a foreign language on the spot. Well, some parts of it, anyway.

Basically, Quebec is what you'd get if Aliens tried to recreate a human experience based off weird D-list movies and hipster literature from the 1910's.

[Fury Aphrodisia]

Conversely, the Maritimes are the "red states" where church is paramount, counties are basically populated by the familially-related, everyone drinks because there's not much else to do unless you like fishing, hunting or ... drinking while you.... fish or hunt. And they might be friendly to visitors, but they make it pretty clear when you try to make a place for yourself that staying was never a hospitality on the table. Also, they're still fighting to keep creationism taught in science class, so there's that.