I really can’t say. Do you still believe that a Senator crossing the aisle to caucus with the Democrats, or putting a hold on a Trump appointment, would be abrogating his responsibilities as a Senator? And do you still deplore that sort of thing?
Personally, I wish they would get rid of the aisle!
To answer it directly though, no that should happen, and the norm even both ways.
The caveat to that, putting a hold on a Trump appointment, would be limited to because the person is not fit. Which is pretty much 90% of them at this point, so basically…yeah.
Couldn’t agree more. Sorry if it seemed like I was quibbling over a minor point but I’m very nervous about fanaticism in service to any cause, even if it’s one I happen to agree with.
Did anyone else read American War by Omar El Akkad?
Bombs in the post is reminiscent of The Troubles. If there’s a civil war, it will be more like that than the last American civil war.
Maybe. The thing I found most convincing about American War was the relish with which other countries would fund a homegrown terrorist war in the US.
Years before secession there was Bleeding Kansas, which turned out to be a bit of a canary in a coal mine and was a small-scale, disorganized, bloody business. In modern terms you would probably call John Brown and his friends domestic terrorists.
Fucking broadswords, man.
I kinda expect this to happen. I’ve decided if my job goes I’m starting the process of leaving for good just to be safe (there’s somewhere I can be naturalized fairly easily). I’d rather run than fight at this point in my life.
I’ve thought of leaving but recently had to dip (scoop) into my retirement fund. I suspect I’m going to be stuck here no matter what, even though I think its possible in a few years it will be so bad, even mexico will lock the borders to keep US out.
See? He told you he’d get Mexico to pay for the wall!
The long con, he’s a GENIUS. Don’t have an immigration problem if no one wants to be in the country!
Same boat, except that it’d be a poor African country with a two-year military commitment. On the other hand, their war just ended and they’re in peace talks, so there’s that.
Also I have to think about my daughter. She’ll be a college grad next Spring and if there’s mayhem in the US I’d like to try and stay near her.
This is what Civil War 2.0 looks like in the beginning. We’re already there. Expect more right wing zealots like this and the MAGABomber, then a police crackdown on left wing protesters after the election.
It’s not a civil war, it’s civil unrest. Look to Syria to see what a civil war looks like in this era. I share your concerns for the future completely, though.
I still don’t think we’ve caught up to '68 (race riots, DNC chaos, two major political assassinations, etc.) but we’re on track.
Those are my thoughts as well. I’m not liking this trajectory we’ve been on since 2016 in particular.
I have said that many times on many threads on this forum. People who think there is social unrest now or some kind of divide have no idea what the 60’s were like.
Arise!
John Dingell, retired congressman (and indeed the longest serving congressman ever,) is not a kook or a crackpot. Yet he is advancing a radical idea:
My friend Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, sees a demographic shift coming that will effectively transform us into two countries. He tells me that “in 2050, 70 percent of Americans will be living in just 15 states. That 70 percent will then have 30 senators, and the remaining 30 percent of the people, mainly those living in the smallest and poorest states, will have 70 senators.”
How do we fix this? Practically speaking, it will be very difficult, given the specific constitutional protection granted these small states to veto any threat to their outsize influence.
There is a solution, however, that could gain immediate popular support: Abolish the Senate. At a minimum, combine the two chambers into one, and the problem will be solved. It will take a national movement, starting at the grassroots level, and will require massive organizing, strategic voting, and strong leadership over the course of a generation. … [W]e now find ourselves on the precipice of a great cliff. Our next step is either into the abyss or toward a higher moral ground.
Though he skips over the big problem with this: a constitutional amendment abolishing the Senate requires sign-on from both 2/3 of the Senate and 3/4 of the state legislatures, meaning it requires some support from the very overrepresented small states that benefit from the two-Senators-per-state rule. Worse yet, Article V of the Constitution arguably states that every single state has absolute veto power over any proposal to change representation in the Senate. (It’s a bit unclear, though, thanks to the founders’ love of long run-on sentences with ambiguous punctuation.)
Meaning, as a practical matter, abolishing the Senate is impossible within the confines of the US Constitution. But then what to do about the fact that the US Constitution is less and less compatible with democracy with each passing year?
See, I think that this is the kind of stuff that I’m talking about when I point out that the left wing has its own nut jobs.
You guys can’t just abolish the senate, jesus christ.
You can’t just shut out the majority of the geographic region from the country’s decision making, as much as you want to. Those folks will rebel. They aren’t going to let the coasts just dictate things to them. While their population density is far lower than the coasts, they are still people… and there are aspects of their lives which mean that stuff that works for the coasts doesn’t work for them. This is a big reason why we have states.
The idea that all things should just be decided by a popular vote nationwide doesn’t work. Our country is too big.