politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles. Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to US politics and contain quality and original content. Social Media adjacent hosts like Substack are allowed, but ONLY if they tie back to a company/subsidiary. No personal or friend group blogs and no self-promotion. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and re-hosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing other users of being bots or paid actors.
- No memes, trolling, misinformation, or low-effort posts/comments (including reposts). If you see posts like this that anger you, do not engage. Report, block, and live a happier life than they do. Any slap-fight is subject to comment removals. Fights full of rule violations will result in temporary bans to cool off.
- No manipulating votes via bots or alt accounts; this will result in permanent bans. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in an account ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be permanently banned.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules and use critical thinking when reading, posting, and commenting. Users that repeatedly have comments or posts removed, weaponize reports, or violate the code of conduct, will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users. The reason(s) behind moderator action(s) are publicly available through the Modlog.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
I want to believe we could have a woman president so long as she ran on something other than being a wet noodle that's trying to be #relatable more than just being a good candidate.
Or better yet, running on something more than
"Are you really gonna let Trump win?"
It's funny, in 2015, I thought that that platform would be the only way a woman would be able to win over such a hard hurdle of all the conservative states with the electoral college we have.
The amount of people that looked past Donald Trump's flaws or embraced his hateful rhetoric, and blamed their decision on their dislike for Hillary was huge.
I didn't like her either. She wasn't my favorite candidate by a long shot, but I still can't believe our country is in a better place now than it would have been if she had won.
Also, it's hard to believe that was ten years ago. Gross.
I do think there's a debate to be had as to if were in a "better place" then if Clinton had won
If she had won, we wouldn't be better off relative to 2015. We would have been in the same shit we were in 10 years ago with a housing crisis on the rise and COVID would have still happened and probably wouldn't have gone too radically differently.
Wed still have increased income inequality and we saw under Biden that the main Liberal answer to climate change is Electric Cars which net doesn't help and in fact worsens our e-waste issue.
Obviously, I don't know this is how it would have gone for sure, but the democrats really haven't given me much to believe in.
So would we have been "better off" with a dem successor compared to the 2015 status quo? No I don't think so and I think we all knew that and it doesn't inspire people to vote or participate in elections.
Would we have been better off to what we got? Yeah probably. But that's stuff we didn't completely know until hindsight kicked in. I think we all assumed he'd be a lame president and not a modern Commodus or Nero.
Now, I don't subscribe to acceleration ist views, but there is that view point as well.
Under that ideology, we are better off compared to a Clinton or Harris win because they would have subdued the flakier radical elements in society longer.
Trump being president and his flagrant disregard for our status quo system is a massive stepping stone towards a revolution of some sort to hopefully fix the problems of our 2015 society plus the additional inflated issues by Trump.
Trump is directly responsible for Kavanaugh, Barret, and Gorsuch. That alone has been destructive already and will reap us tragic consequences for decades to come. Would Hillary have signed the ERA and gotten the right to bodily autonomy written into the law so it couldn't be "reinterpreted" away? Maybe. But she wouldn't have set attack dogs after it, and after trans people and immigrants.
I don't agree with a lot of this, but I can't reply a point by point here. The main thing I'll say is that Clinton wouldn't have defunded the pandemic response team before a pandemic and certainly would have set a better example wearing masks than Trump did.
The country would always have been divided about the COVID response, but Trump followed his base and furthered the divisions.
What, that focusing solely on electric cars are not the solution to climate change and is only a band-aid? No, it's the truth.
It's better than ice cars in the short run, but you guys really need to focus on other, more practical solutions like better public transports and less car-centric infrastructure and laws.
I actually said they're a net negative and I stand by that.
Lithium mining, their fixed short life spans, and the problems of car focused cities as a whole are not addressed by going all EV. Marginally better than combustion? Sure. I'll give you that.
But ultimately its manufacturing and the lack of repair ability make it bad over all.
Well, first of all, you could read usernames. That would be helpful to determine what points you're going to argue against and what the appropriate response would be.
Second, nobody is asserting that the US never considered public transport, we were only addressing the actual decision of the US in general, which IS very much focused on electric cars to the detriment of progress on much saner public transport projects. The Vegas Loop and similar projects immediately come to mind.
The laws that gets in the way of public transport projects are a result of the US's obsession with car-centrism and capitalism. Instead of thinking of long term solutions, they'd rather clutch to a band aid solution to keep their status quo.
And discussions about public transport is not focussed solely on trains. On the contrary, the most depressing thing about the us car-centrism is the inability to do short trips without needing a car. Pedestrian and cycling infrastructure are pretty cheap relative to building high speed train networks or even inner city metros, yet the US even struggle with that.
The source of the problem are the people themselves who have been deluded into thinking they need to force everyone to use a car simply because they don't want to use public transportation, which is an absurd thought process. The focus on electric cars will only continue this brainwashing, not fix it, so it is a net negative in the long run.
Your solution is on the scale of decades — almost certainly over 100 years. None of our infrastructure is set up for this outside of cities that most of us have no interest in living in.
We certainly need more interim projects like electric cars and green energy.
The problem is I haven't seen much news of projects other than those types of interim projects that focus on electric cars. I mean, they spent millions of dollars on the Vegas Loop instead of on more sane public transport projects. America has a very unhealthy focus on electric cars because of their car-centric mindset and I don't see it changing any time soon unless people start pushing back on it.
Most of us don't want to live in cities or put our mobility in the hands of others. People who want it for everyone are primarily city folks who are used to that lifestyle. Those ideas are less popular with the people who would be most affected.
I know eventually the world will go that way and it'll be a good thing, but I'm also glad I won't live to see it because I have no desire whatsoever to live that way. The change will be generational. If folks try to impose it, there is going to be a lot of resistance and pushback. You have to get folks to want it.
More public transports benefits not only people who use public transports, but also people who use cars. You have the typical car-centric mindset that makes it harder for your country to progress in that area.
I know I'm certainly part of the problem. But it's a chicken and egg problem. You have to make people want to change while the change will be inconvenient short term. I don't know how that happens, other than very slowly over time.
Well, you could try and stop thinking that people are trying to make you use public transport and more along the line of not forcing you or anyone to use their car to go anywhere in a practical way. And imagine the improvement to traffic and safety once people who hates driving or not good at it are no longer forced to drive on the same road as you.
Gods, this is how I sell public transit to pro car people.
I am traffic. I want to be off the road and in a bus.
I just don't want my bus ride to be over an hour and a half long when the car ride is 10 minutes.
I'll settle for a bike commute because that's 30 minutes but it would require riding down a major road where the only thing protecting me from a car going 60 MPH is a painted white line and trust.
Yep, all we want are more options other than driving. A good cycling and pedestrian infrastructure even helps in making sure they're out of the road and not in the way of cars, something I'm sure a lot of car-centric people would actually be happy about. It's a net positive for everyone.
Not true. Over 50% of our population lives in suburbs and small cities.
Tearing up all our cities and rebuilding them is way more wasteful that battery powered cars. This is not a switch you can just flip overnight. It is not something that can be done in the timeframe it would be needed.
Should we strive for those ideals with future development? Yes. And we're seeing some of that already.
I just want busses. That tears up nothing.
I just want bollards protecting pedestrian and bike traffic. That tears up nothing.
I want passenger trains between cities where there's already railing. That tears up nothing.
Is this honestly a bigger ask than a decade long rebuild of an interstate that will need another widening in 5 years after?