The long, weird history of partisan electoral shenanigans
It was a presidential election unlike any before.
During the campaign, one candidate was accused of using his political connections for personal enrichment. His opponent, in turn, stood accused of being mentally unfit for office. Allegations of voter fraud, intimidation, and attempted disenfranchisement flew in both directionsâand only got worse after the election did not immediately provide a clear winner.
The crucial electoral votes in four states were disputed by the losing candidate, and his supporters pushed a wild plan to submit alternate slates of electors to Congress. There were even calls for impromptu militias to march on Washington. Finally, weeks after the election, Congress settled the dispute and declared a winner, but the inauguration took place under unusual circumstances due to fears of more violence.
Watching those chaotic events unfold, observers surely couldn't help but wonder whether the American experiment was in peril. Could the country survive another election like this, or was it a sign of dissolutionâor even another civil war?
Nearly 150 years later, the union endures.
Oh, you thought I was describing the tumultuous events of the 2020 presidential election? The parallels are there, of course: the accusations of bad faith, the threats of mob violence, the resolution by lawmakers under the Capitol dome. And the core of the fight, then as now, was whether the election had, in effect, been rigged by shadowy forces defying the will of the people.
The election of 1876 culminated with Rutherford B. Hayes inaugurated as America's 19th president, despite having lost the popular vote and initially appearing to lose the electoral vote too. It probably remains the most controversial presidential contest in American history.
That's not to diminish the importance of the events that unfolded in the immediate aftermath of the most recent presidential election. The January 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump and the preceding attempts by Trump and his associates to cajole everyone from county election officials to the vice president himself into overturning the results of the election were deeply worrying signs for the nation's health.
But the past provides context. It can also be a guide. A dysfunctional, chaotic election is not necessarily the end of democracy. If the history of American politics teaches us anything, it should be that parties and candidates will stop at almost nothing to achieve power, and not only on Election Day. Trump and his cronies are not the first maniacs to take a hammer to the American electoral system. They probably won't be the last.
The project of democracy is always in flux. Maintaining and improving the system requires an unfiltered view of history and a healthy amount of skepticism. That means refusing to dismiss the rising threat of anti-democratic sentiment on the right, but it also means not letting the issue become a partisan tool for the left either. Preserving American democracy will require what it always has: common sense, good faith, policy reforms that target real problems rather than partisan obsessions, and a willingness to accept that there's no such thing as a perfect democracyâonly a functional, legitimate one.
Your domestic product is something like 70 times higher and GDP per capita is higher in the US (the blip up in Australia in 2011 was a short-lived mining boom). Maybe you could afford to take care of people if you hadn't given all those tax breaks to the rich.
It's never been a matter of "can afford." It's this ingrained idea that all the people needing help are welfare queens.
The idea that people can be overwhelmed by unexpected bills, or a string of bad luck, or a rotten boss...never occurs to the rich. No bread? Let them eat cake while we piss on the poor to demonstrate trickle down economics.
Your domestic product is something like 70 times higher and GDP per capita is higher in the US (the blip up in Australia in 2011 was a short-lived mining boom). Maybe you could afford to take care of people if you hadn't given all those tax breaks to the rich.
If Trump declaring that the federal government would pick up all expenses related to the treatment of CV 19 for everyone is not a safety net, then I do not know what is. Anyone with a CV 19 problem can show up for treatment without the fear of having to pay for it. You are not the first here to make your false assertion. Others have as well.
No, treating people who show up with a disease isn't good enough. That's just the norm for most developed nations, all the time. Australia is far from perfect, but we are doing a far better job of keeping small businesses afloat and supporting people who have lost their jobs or are furloughed.
I would hope so. There is far less going on there than here. I wonder what % of GDP Australia is spending on CV 19 compared to the USA. Maybe that makes a difference. How many Trillions of $$'s has Australia spent on the bug and related items so far ?
We have 10 million more suddenly out of work than you have people ... Think about that for a minute, eh ?
If Trump declaring that the federal government would pick up all expenses related to the treatment of CV 19 for everyone is not a safety net, then I do not know what is. Anyone with a CV 19 problem can show up for treatment without the fear of having to pay for it. You are not the first here to make your false assertion. Others have as well.
No, treating people who show up with a disease isn't good enough. That's just the norm for most developed nations, all the time. Australia is far from perfect, but we are doing a far better job of keeping small businesses afloat and supporting people who have lost their jobs or are furloughed.
The problem is that US government aid in the pandemic went mainly to the rich and the safety net for the poor and middle class is almost non-existent. Countries with a whole lot less GDP per capita have done a much better job of managing the crisis by looking after people rather than leave them hanging. And you can put that on the Republicans who are willing to have the working people take the fallout.
If Trump declaring that the federal government would pick up all expenses related to the treatment of CV 19 for everyone is not a safety net, then I do not know what is. Anyone with a CV 19 problem can show up for treatment without the fear of having to pay for it. You are not the first here to make your false assertion. Others have as well.
kurtster wrote: The problem is that US government aid in the pandemic went mainly to the rich and the safety net for the poor and middle class is almost non-existent. Countries with a whole lot less GDP per capita have done a much better job of managing the crisis by looking after people rather than leave them hanging. And you can put that on the Republicans who are willing to have the working people take the fallout.
Matt Taibbi, the heir to the Hunter S. Thompson throne at Rolling Stone, discovered something amid the pandemic panic. He is horrified to learn that lefties are a bunch of fascists.
"I can understand not caring about the plight of Michael Flynn, but cases like this have turned erstwhile liberals – people who just a decade ago were marching in the streets over the civil liberties implications of Cheney’s War on Terror apparatus – into defenders of the spy state. Politicians and pundits across the last four years have rolled their eyes at attorney-client privilege, the presumption of innocence, the right to face one’s accuser, the right to counsel and a host of other issues, regularly denouncing civil rights worries as red-herring excuses for Trumpism.
Democrats clearly believe constituents will forgive them for abandoning constitutional principles, so long as the targets of official inquiry are figures like Flynn or Paul Manafort or Trump himself.
In the process, they’ve raised a generation of followers whose contempt for civil liberties is now genuine-to-permanent. Blue-staters have gone from dismissing constitutional concerns as Trumpian ruse to sneering at them, in the manner of French aristocrats, as evidence of proletarian mental defect.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in the response to the Covid-19 crisis, where the almost mandatory take of pundits is that any protest of lockdown measures is troglodyte death wish. The aftereffects of years of Russiagate/Trump coverage are seen everywhere: press outlets reflexively associate complaints of government overreach with Trump, treason, and racism, and conversely radiate a creepily gleeful tone when describing aggressive emergency measures and the problems some “dumb” Americans have had accepting them.
On the campaign trail in 2016, I watched Democrats hand Trump the economic populism argument by dismissing all complaints about the failures of neoliberal economics. This mistake was later compounded by years of propaganda arguing that “economic insecurity” was just a Trojan Horse term for racism. These takes, along with the absurd kneecapping of the Bernie Sanders movement, have allowed Trump to position himself as a working-class hero, the sole voice of a squeezed underclass.
The same mistake is now being made with civil liberties. Millions have lost their jobs and businesses by government fiat, there’s a clamor for censorship and contact tracing programs that could have serious long-term consequences, yet voters only hear Trump making occasional remarks about freedom; Democrats treat it like it’s a word that should be banned by Facebook (a recent Washington Post headline put the term in quotation marks, as if one should be gloved to touch it). Has the Trump era really damaged our thinking to this degree?"
Matt Taibbi, the heir to the Hunter S. Thompson throne at Rolling Stone, discovered something amid the pandemic panic. He is horrified to learn that lefties are a bunch of fascists.
"I can understand not caring about the plight of Michael Flynn, but cases like this have turned erstwhile liberals â people who just a decade ago were marching in the streets over the civil liberties implications of Cheneyâs War on Terror apparatus â into defenders of the spy state. Politicians and pundits across the last four years have rolled their eyes at attorney-client privilege, the presumption of innocence, the right to face oneâs accuser, the right to counsel and a host of other issues, regularly denouncing civil rights worries as red-herring excuses for Trumpism.
Democrats clearly believe constituents will forgive them for abandoning constitutional principles, so long as the targets of official inquiry are figures like Flynn or Paul Manafort or Trump himself. In the process, theyâve raised a generation of followers whose contempt for civil liberties is now genuine-to-permanent. Blue-staters have gone from dismissing constitutional concerns as Trumpian ruse to sneering at them, in the manner of French aristocrats, as evidence of proletarian mental defect.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in the response to the Covid-19 crisis, where the almost mandatory take of pundits is that any protest of lockdown measures is troglodyte death wish. The aftereffects of years of Russiagate/Trump coverage are seen everywhere: press outlets reflexively associate complaints of government overreach with Trump, treason, and racism, and conversely radiate a creepily gleeful tone when describing aggressive emergency measures and the problems some âdumbâ Americans have had accepting them.
On the campaign trail in 2016, I watched Democrats hand Trump the economic populism argument by dismissing all complaints about the failures of neoliberal economics. This mistake was later compounded by years of propaganda arguing that âeconomic insecurityâ was just a Trojan Horse term for racism. These takes, along with the absurd kneecapping of the Bernie Sanders movement, have allowed Trump to position himself as a working-class hero, the sole voice of a squeezed underclass.
The same mistake is now being made with civil liberties. Millions have lost their jobs and businesses by government fiat, thereâs a clamor for censorship and contact tracing programs that could have serious long-term consequences, yet voters only hear Trump making occasional remarks about freedom; Democrats treat it like itâs a word that should be banned by Facebook (a recent Washington Post headline put the term in quotation marks, as if one should be gloved to touch it). Has the Trump era really damaged our thinking to this degree?"
I’m fvcking with the conspiracy nuts in my neighborhood
I renamed my WiFi to:
5Gcovid-19 test tower
:lol: I've seen that going around. Def. worth doing; I can add a new network to my system so I think I will.
Current wifi is "Does This Look Infected?"
There is always the good old "FBI Surveillance Van" in our hood.
I may have to update to the test tower one.
Current one is Record Man. The last tech through here that replaced the modem gave it that name. He was kinda inspired by the piles of LP's he had to negotiate in the office to get to the modem. He set the password to one of our phone numbers which made things real simple to remember, especially when someone comes over and needs to access our wifi.
political parties have had wood for each other forever...
October 2010
Have this year's negative political ads really "taken dirty to a whole new level, as CNN's Anderson Cooper frets? Is a "return to civility...a relic of a bygone era," as President Barack Obama laments?
Er, not exactly.
If anonymous political speech, the other widely decried villain of this political season, helped found the United States, attack ads are as American as apple pie. If you fancy yourself a patriot or a history buff, you will most certainly approve this message, which is taken from statements made by, for, and against the nation's founders. For historical sources, go here.
Approximately 1.45 minutes. Written and produced by Meredith Bragg. Voiced by Caleb Brown, Michael C. Moynihan, and Austin Bragg.
