Since the nightmare is over, figured we'd retire the previous thread and start a new one for discussing US politics.

Obviously, all sorts of problems in the US are far from over, and they're too numerous to list. But most of us (at least the sane, non-shitty people) can breathe a little easier. (Congrats on barely avoiding fascism, guys!)

Use this thread to discuss US political topics. Couple of ground rules:

- No bigotry (or defense or downplaying of bigotry) of any kind is allowed. This is a forum-wide rule, but here's a reminder especially for this thread. Any lurking MAGA or QAnon douchelords reading this: you can fuck off, you are not welcome here, not now, not ever. Piss off.

- No trolling or baiting. Avoid hit-and-run provocative shitposting too. No one cares about your smug hot take. Memes and humour are generally OK, we can all use a chuckle every now and then, but please don't spam them.

- Try to stay cool. This can be difficult, I get it. Things can become heated pretty fast. But most of us here are on the same side overall, let's remember that. Exceptions are made against people breaking the two rules above: while we'd prefer if you didn't feed the trolls, mods generally won't care much if you tell some stupid troll to fuck off. Still, though, better to ignore them and let moderators handle it.

- Try to stay on topic. The US is a powerful entity and its politics have widespread ramifications, so tangents and mini-"derails" are normal, expected, and generally fine. But if you have been spending the last 3 pages discussing the merits of Soviet-style communism, it's time to stop.

Cool. I'll start the thread with this question: What is your wishlist for Biden to do for this year?

What I expect Biden to do is to mainly get this country out of the hellhole that is COVID-19, as well as reverse Trump's stupid policies.

Hooray, I'm on the first page! Brighter days ahead!

tbd. The QAnon and Trumpist crowds might crawl into a hole for a while, but surely someone is going to take the mantle for their own personal power and lead the gnashing mob back out.

It will be interesting to watch as the Democrats have both the House and the Senate. Any failure to pass meaningful legislation will be solely on them, so they won't be able to just blame it on McConnell being the bogeyman.

I don't mean to start off on too pessimistic of a note, but eh *shrug*

I’ve never turned down a novelty hot sauce before, and not about to start now:
https://www.hireanillustrator.com/i/912 ... sauce-art/
Yep, Delaware-based Billy T’s Natural Foods release secret recipe #46 (get it?), Joe Biden-branded hot sauce - tangy and mildly spicy, to bring everyone together

Covid-19 being finally taken seriously is something I think we're all looking forward to. Also, getting back into the Paris climate agreement.

Seems like they're starting right away. Executive orders concerning, amongst other things, COVID and rejoining the Paris climate agreement!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-exec ... 021-01-20/

I have to wonder how this will impact Covid. Never been a Biden fan, but looking at the drastic difference between U.S. deaths/cases and the rest of the world makes me wonder how having a normal boring competent person in charge will help. We can hope I guess.

Biden will at least try to take Covid seriously, but I seriously doubt that anything beyond mass, mandatory vaccinations will fix the problem at this point. Too many people nationwide are completely ignoring and disregarding whatever restrictions are in place, and cases & deaths will only continue to go up as long as the majority of the country remains unvaccinated.

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Thing I posted in the last thread (and was actually the very last thing posted in there before it got closed), as my reaction to seeing so many people act as if a great victory has been achieved simply by having a woman of color as VP and the general attitude of the new administration:

Diversity means nothing if the person that’s in a position that is viewed as embracing or expanding diversity objectively sucks at their job, or is a shitty person. It reduces the person that’s getting praise simply for not being a white man to nothing but their skin color or gender, which is the exact opposite of what diversity should be. They become a token, put in that position solely to fulfill a diversity quota and satisfy the ever growing subset of people that don’t care about actual positive change and just want someone on their team in that position for the sake of it, rather than on that person’s own individual merits. Ultimately, it turns into a hindrance to progress rather than an advancement towards it, and it actually might be a hindrance to the idea of diversity as well by cheapening the successes of people of other colors or genders.

This post has been brought to you by “The Coalition to Make People Stop Stanning Kamala Harris”.

Of course having a competent person will help, but ultimately there are 50 states, some that are undoubtedly hostile towards Biden and COVID measures, and the guy before has already done a lot of damage with his stances and disinformation. But at least, the guy in charge will not actively make things worse now, so there is that.

For the Paris Accord, it's in his first round of EOs.

My wish is that he goes further than bare minimum on that. He cancelled the pipeline which is sure to anger many Canadians but I, for one, would rather give up Alberta dollars and start focusing on renewables.

He's already on track to bring the US back to where they were at the end of Obama so even if it's not enough for some it will be a better starting point than whatever mess another 4 years of Trump would have brought.

Oh, also, make Puerto Rico and D.C. into States. And kick Cruz and Hawley out of the Senate, for starters. That'd be a good Year One.

The difference is just so staggering right now that it's clear that things were catastrophically wrong straight from the top down. It'll always be dysfunctional because of how the country is set up with numerous states and governments, but that can't have been the only reason it was this much worse. And there had to have been vaccine deniers and crazies in other countries too. So we'll see what can happen now I guess.

That is exactly what I believe too. The only problem is going to be somehow getting the half of America that believes that the vaccines contain 5G chips or some other baloney to inoculate themselves.

I have been a Biden fan but frankly having literally anybody managing the crisis would have been better, considering Trump pretty much wasn't even bothering by the end there. Biden's management will be an improvement by virtue of that alone. That being said, Biden on day one is streamlining the COVID response process and investing a lot more resources in vaccination manufacturing and distribution, so I'm sure in the weeks to come his administration is going to be making some solid progress in combating the pandemic, independent of comparisons to Trump. Assuming he's able to coordinate well with state governments in getting vaccines to them, it's not a stretch to say we can expect a return to something like normalcy by the summer-- not completely back to pre-pandemic status, but close to it. The absolutely baffling reluctance towards vaccination shown in early polls is vanishing and if that trend keeps up making vaccination mandatory for the general population won't be necessary.


Man, what I wouldn't give for those things to happen. Unfortunately, with the Senate we've now got, I don't see them on the horizon. The old-fashioned Democrats who think we're still in the vaunted days of bipartisanship won't support throwing out Cruz and Hawley because it would 'ruin the collegial nature' of the Senate or something (as if the Republicans haven't been hard at work doing that for years now). And I'm sure Joe Manchin will come up with some reason to oppose DC statehood, on top of the Republicans who will be unified in opposition to it.

Democrats have got to get serious about finding ways to weaken or eliminate the filibuster. Absent the Senate GOP spontaneously discovering an itch for cooperation it hasn't exhibited since the start of the Obama presidency (being charitable) that's the only way we're going to make any real progress on progressive priorities.

I could have done without the Keystone XL cancellation..

Those Albertans are going to go crazy and further radicalized. I have noticed since oil prices went down and then the pandemic started, several have lost it altogether. For sure, it's not a big deal for the U.S. to buy crude from South America, and countries are free to do what they want. But from a selfish national point of view, I think we could have done without the cancellation, and let Albertans have one thing to give them hope for their tar sands, while they ween from coal to natural gas. Whatever doesn't come out through a transcontinental pipeline will likely come out from the port of Vancouver, or not at all.

Nah, fuck 'em. You're not wrong about how the gas might be transported in some other way, though. But I really couldn't care less if some rednecks are butthurt.

This whole next 4 years is make or break for democracy in this country. If Biden and the legislative branch can't do anything to redistribute wealth and alleviate the massive burden felt by almost 60% of this country, then there's going to be another Trump. Republicans also have to realize that if there is a next Trump, he/she (probably he because women don't typically have the track record of being machismo shitheads) probably won't be a republican. We really could be looking at the end of the republican party.

With all the climate change immediacy going on, there's no way some kind of political concern can take precedence - no more pollution pipelines. Got to be big drastic action from here on out.

Well, he's only had time for executive orders, but so far:

1. Stopped the US withdrawal from the World Health Organization. As a bonus, the much Trump-maligned Dr. Fauci will be the head of the US delegation.

2. Rejoined the Paris climate accord.

3. Cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline.

4. Cancelled Trump's idiotic and racist 1776 Commission.

5. Reversed Trump's bullshit regarding not including non-citizens in the Census and in apportionment of congressional representatives.

6. Reversed Trump's restrictions on US entry for passport holders from seven Muslim-majority countries, aka The Travel Ban.

7. Cancelled Trump's expansion of immigration enforcement.

8. Stopped Trump's largely imaginary border wall, by terminating the phony emergency declaration that was being used to fund it.

So far so good.

1. Suppress the fascists using existing law. No new "domestic terrorism" bullshit to expand the repressive powers of the state. Use the tools already at hand to snuff these fuckers out as a movement.

2. National lockdown until covid brought under control, seize direct control of supply chains if necessary to ensure PPE and medical equipment is produced and made available in adequate quantities

3. UBI at least for the duration of the pandemic

4. Cancellation of rents and mortgages for the duration of pandemic (not deferrals, not temporary moratoriums on eviction, cancel the debts

5. Emergency order seizing empty housing stock and housing all houseless people for the duration of the pandemic at the bare minimum

6. Pass the Equality Act, deep six the filibuster to do it

7. Repudiate the new cold war with China

8. End the inhuman blockade on Cuba. Lift all existing sanctions.

Can confirm, I'm already working on my effigy of Biden and Trudeau making a premarital gay kiss. I plan to burn in celebration once we crown Kenney supreme overlord and separate from Canada.

Keystone XL is regressive and short-sighted. So, much like looking into America these past four years, poor stupid leadership does not really reflect the diversity of opinion and outlook of the population.

The stuff I want that I expect him to actually do he's already done, or will do this week. Cutting off Keystone, rejoining the Paris climate accords, stuff like that. I expect a pretty firm hand being used on the Capitol insurrectionists.

Trump's death cult will have a fit, but gradually will realize that Q isn't coming and Trump is gone for good. Their ideology will not change, but I think we're going to enter a period of history where it's once again considered uncouth to talk about politics in polite society, and political contradictions will be swept under the rug until they reach a boiling point again at some point in the future.

There are actually poor deluded souls that exist who believe that Trump is still somehow president, that Biden and Pelosi are in jail, and that the country is secretly under military control now.

You can't make this shit up.

Some extra bits to GTog's list above in here - the sudden kicking delivered to the large scale oil industry projects is great stuff, and truly unexpected by me (I'm sure the better informed saw it all coming).

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/20/paris-climate-accord-joe-biden-returns-us

Edit - and more good environmental news, that will likely have a side-effect in knocking off some criminal financing activity if it gets going.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/biden-treasury-pick-yellen-favors-new-restrictions-on-cryptocurrency/

.

Yeah, I don't expect this cult that Trump started to wind down anytime soon...

I'll take Albertan rednecks getting radicalized over continuing to focus on destructive energy. It's a long in the making failure of the Albertan government to diversify their economy.

Really, the writings are on the wall; oil is going out. Alberta would be 100x better to get out of it now and get a head start in some other forms of energy than wait till the inevitable crash. People just think short term here.



So they'll love everything Biden does in the enxt four years because they think it's Trump?

I'm OK with that.

I should have used another phrasing than 'Those Albertans'; I didn't mean all Albertans. But I did think MOST Albertans for sure. If you look at the U.S. as a whole, Trump never got more than 47% of the popular vote. Kenney got 55% in Alberta. Canadian Federal elections: 69% of Albertans voted Conservative, and an additional 2% voted for that dumber CPP. Now, Kenney and Scheer (then) aren't as problematic as Trump is (who is ?), but I think - and you tell me if I'm wrong - there is a deep rooted convinction in most Albertans, and certainly more than in any other Canadian province proportionally, that climate change is a communist invention fueled by foreign investments whose aims are to destroy the Amer... Canadian way of life, that all French-souding Canadian prime ministers have vowed to milk Alberta from its oil revenue to fund a communist/socialist / liberal (arent those all synonyms to them) agenda, that transfer payments from Alberta to the rest of Canada literally pay for EVERYTHING, that Trudeau funds all mainstream media (even the National Post) in an attempt to drive his agenda, etc. This set of belief is more firmly anchored in Alberta than Q-Anon in the U.S., and more believable, because it stems from some basic facts that have been slightly twisted and blown out of proportion. It doesn't involve satanic cults and pedophiles. Figures like Harper and Kenney have even literally said bits and pieces of what I wrote above.

He's already taken some big steps, but I am not going to feel good about anything until he closes down the ICE concentration camps and directs them to begin reuniting families, or finding humanitarian solutions for the THOUSANDS of children whose parental data they seem to have lost.

Nope, but they can. lol

goddammit this country has become so fucking awful in recent decades that I'd forgotten that we were maintaining child concentration camps for fucking refugees. fuck

I think we're all suffering from Shitfuckery Fatigue at this point.

Wasn't a court order already given to stop separating families & reunite those separated ? I did read something about them deporting parents but keeping the children, effectively ruining any chance of ever reuniting them, which is absolutely awful. When that court order came down, they couldn't comply as they'd already fucking it up so spectacularly.

Meanwhile, the fearmongering and hate propaganda network is ramping up its bullshit:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/20 ... s-opinion/



So, even more Carlson/Hannity/etc.-style brain poison. Ew.

Edit: they also laid off the guy who called Arizona early, lmao

Big shocker. They did the same thing when Obama was elected/inaugurated. Remember the Glenn Beck days? They'll probably rally behind Tucker Carlson now as "their guy."

Biden already halted student loans through September 2021. I think Betsy DeVos was one of the more inept Trump appointees, and the Department of Education a consistent shitshow. Looks like Biden is at least off to a decent start here.

1. Yes. Do not go revenge crazy, employing the same extremist tactics Trump did. It is not ok if the left acts the same way as the right.

2. If you want to guarantee a shitstorm, sure. There's no way to mandate a national lockdown, because the Executive branch doesn't have the power to do that. President Biden knows that. Using Executive power to force your will is something Trump would've done.

3. Never. Not in a million years, never. After all the "He's a Socialist!" faux outrage, you want to do something actually Socialist?

4. Can't pay for it, can't enforce it, and can't do it. See #2.

5. Sigh. See #2 again.

6. Not a bad idea, but they can't axe the filibuster. The Senate majority is too tenuous and that's picking a fight that can't be won. And when Reid did it, it turned right around and bit the Democrats square in the ass.

7. LOL, actually the only thing I think Trump did right. It was always going to take a raging unrepentant asshole to deal with the raging unrepentant assholes that make up the CCP. They're liars and thieves, and deserve to suffer.

8. I really don't know what the deal is with Cuba anymore. Obama lifted some restrictions and the world didn't end, Trump put them back and the world didn't end either.

Mainly, the Democrats can not, absolutely can NOT, so all apeshit "Now we can be LIBERAL! Woo!" because no we can't. Biden needs to be temperamentally the same as No Drama Obama. Work the issues. Calm, measured responses. Back it up with science and reality.

The rest of us need only to drop the "We won! Let's get 'em!" attitude. Realize that all the GOP's ills are self-inflicted and let them bleed to death.

Unfortunately not doing things like canceling rent/mortgage, a national lockdown, a UBI, et cetera will just ensure that our country remains a chasm of inequality and that the pandemic will be that much harder to get out of. It'd be hard to do those things because of the generally right leaning governance here, but I wish this administration would at least try to do some of it. I guess we'll see.

Gotta love how Republicans run riot for four years (after six of preventing anything they didn't approve of) and now that they've finally lost a teeny bit of power the centrists gut reaction is to do literally nothing and basically just let them keep doing their things as though they'll magically stop.

We do nothing because THEY WON'T LET US and then we get the power to do something and OH NO WE CAN'T BECAUSE X Y Z. Grow a god damned spine.

It'll be interesting to see what your new government do in that regard - just reversing everything Trump did there & saying 'lube up' really isn't the right approach with an actual Reich-spec autocracy. If it's the only positive thing he created, Trump's attitude there caused a lot of the Western world to actively interrogate everything from trade links to corporate purchasing / financing / etc., to intellectual theft in regards China. (The red one of course - Taiwan seem to get along with also being China and not being a bunch of bastards)

It's also forced companies like Twitter to take a closer look at moderating the propaganda published by Beijing, partly in reaction to finally policing Trump's nonsense. It'd be a shame for all of that to vanish in a fit of 'we can't be like that guy in any way' pique.

In my lifetime, the problems Democratic administrations have had to deal with have never been "Oh no! The country's not liberal enough!" because actually yes it is. When people vote, the overall majority does not vote Republican. By a lot. The GOP knows that. That's why they've gone all-in on gerrymandering and voter suppression.

Anyway, in my lifetime the problem Democratic administrations have had to deal with is the cultural, social, and economic devastation left behind by the previous Republican administrations. Every time. It's almost like the Democrats get to be firefighters. Where to spray the water? No problem, just look at what's burning. Hose that.

Then strike a heroic pose and take advantage of the good will to push some major policy initiatives, all while reminding people that the GOP were the arsonists. It doesn't take a "Now it's OUR turn mwa-ha-ha!" attitude. It takes measured intelligence. Democrats are handed the high ground, gift wrapped, every time. You're all in such a hurry to surrender it. Obama didn't. He used it to get us the first major health legislative package in, like, ever. Biden can do that too.

The question then becomes, "Was it really a fuckup, or was it fucking intent?"