US Election

[dyqik]

What can they possibly hope to achieve ...

Getting elected. That's what politicians do, because if you can't get yourself elected, you're no longer a politician.

Yeah, this, with an added "If Biden and Harris don't get elected, there won't be any more chances to elect progressives".

And instead of incremental change towards dealing with climate change, you'll get continued massive radical efforts to make it worse.

If you want radical change to fight climate change, then you need to get voters to a place where they will vote for politicians that will implement that. And radical change in this area is a decades long project, so they have to keep voting for them, election after election. Changing voters minds is also a ~decade long project.

If you don't do that really well, you get the Obamacare pushback, where conservative legislation is introduced, and the right push back hard, winning mid terms and stare houses, and blocking it for most of a decade until voters catch up to the benefits of the legislation. Meanwhile those reactionary politicians have screwed over a whole bunch of other areas, and we've got Trump and oil pipelines, drilling in the Arctic, etc.

[Bird on a Fire]

You're kidding yourselves if you think ending fossil fuel subsidies would be a deal breaker for a significant number of voters. It would be a deal breaker for a lot of corporations, however.

This isn't about winning the election (the easiest in US history). This is about backtracking on campaign commitments to please the party's donors.

The Obamacare analogy doesn't work here. Providing healthcare, while normal for developed nations and popular with US voters, is swimming against the economic current in the US. Subsidising the fossil fuel industry is doing the opposite - propping up failing companies so they can undermine some of your flagship campaign promises that the whole world desperately needs you to deliver on.

I don't give a f.ck if the next president is merely better than Trump. Trump is obviously sh.t and rubbish and everyone has known that since 2015, and it's boring hearing about it. Anybody with a f.cking pulse would clear that bar, because it's subterranean. I want the next president to be actually good, not some slippery opportunist who talks a good game to get the job and then pisses about compromising with corrupt w.nkers because they're afraid to upset the status quo, even when their entire campaign was built on identifying grave problems with it. And it's going to incredibly f.cking tedious if every misstep and missed opportunity for the next 5 years is excused with "oh well at least he isn't Trump". Have some self-respect and demand better than execrable.

So, thanks for your insightful points that Biden is a politician and isn't Trump. Fascinating stuff, guys. Now, does anybody give a crap about US climate policy?

[dyqik]

What I am talking about is how you get the US to a point where it has a climate policy that is sufficiently radical, and the political conditions to keep that policy in place for the time needed for it to work.

[lpm]

US politics isn't about electing one individual. As shown in the Obama era, if you elect one good individual but not the senate or the house or the state governors or the state senates or the state houses, you can't get much done.

The election isn't the easiest in US history because it's not just a presidential election.

[lpm]

Steve Bannon huh? But he seemed so trustworthy. And the build the wall fund seemed so legitimate.

[lpm]

I'm not entirely sure this is fraud, morally speaking, even if it is legally.

If a crowd of people rush up to you and ask you to defraud them, with you continually repeating that you are going to steal the money they give, holding up great big signs saying we are fraudsters, yet people insist on giving you their savings, is it really fraud?

[Bird on a Fire]

What I am talking about is how you get the US to a point where it has a climate policy that is sufficiently radical, and the political conditions to keep that policy in place for the time needed for it to work.

Exactly. Letting uneconomic polluters go bust is a lot more sustainable than giving them federal tax dollars to continuing lying to the public and bribing policymakers.

This wasn't a big policy announcement designed to win over undecided voters in downticket elections. It was a sneaky rollback of a previous big policy announcement that they hoped would go unnoticed. The bulk of the policy still stands, including rejoining Paris and subsidising the transition to renewables, so climate skeptic voters won't be impressed.

Continuing to also subsidize fossil fuels is simply nonsensical in the context of the Dems' wider platform - who exactly do you think is going to be in favour of the party platform generally but for whom an end to fossil fuel subsidies would be a deal breaker?

[bolo]

Maybe workers in communities dependent on fossil fuel extraction?

[dyqik]

What I am talking about is how you get the US to a point where it has a climate policy that is sufficiently radical, and the political conditions to keep that policy in place for the time needed for it to work.

Exactly. Letting uneconomic polluters go bust is a lot more sustainable than giving them federal tax dollars to continuing lying to the public and bribing policymakers.

This wasn't a big policy announcement designed to win over undecided voters in downticket elections. It was a sneaky rollback of a previous big policy announcement that they hoped would go unnoticed. The bulk of the policy still stands, including rejoining Paris and subsidising the transition to renewables, so climate skeptic voters won't be impressed.

Continuing to also subsidize fossil fuels is simply nonsensical in the context of the Dems' wider platform - who exactly do you think is going to be in favour of the party platform generally but for whom an end to fossil fuel subsidies would be a deal breaker?

I don't think you understand the scale of the problem of getting the US to that point.

You can't get elected if you promise to do what you want to see. What's needed first is a several year effort to dismantle the Gingrich/McConnell/Trump GOP project to make the government incompetent, to get voters to trust government institutions again and not see the government as a conspiracy of liberals against their interests.

Part of that will be to get American voters, and the center right* media to understand that climate change is not a liberal conspiracy to impose socialism and diversity on them. Only at that point can you get elected on a platform of having the government deal with long term climate issues.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Maybe workers in communities dependent on fossil fuel extraction?

Or people who used to be those workers and who want their old jobs back, and happen to live in states which voted for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Also, this really isn't the easiest in US history. You can see the easiest ones here.

Barack Obama got 365 electoral college votes in 2008, which put him at 32nd in the list. That was an excellent result. Biden might get over 400, in a very favourable result, which would put him somewhere around Warren G Harding in 24th.

In the memory of many of the people on this forum is the 1984 election, in which Reagan won every state except DC and Minnesota. He only dropped 13 electoral college votes and even then is a mere fifth on the list.

The electoral college is tipped in the Republicans' favour, largely thanks to rural states having a higher impact per head of population than more populous states, and rural states tending very strongly to vote Republican. Generally speaking, the democrabs need to have about a 5-6% lead to break even in the electoral college.

Don't at all overestimate how easy this election will be. Remember Dukakis. Always remember Dukakis.

[Little waster]

I'm not entirely sure this is fraud, morally speaking, even if it is legally.

If a crowd of people rush up to you and ask you to defraud them, with you continually repeating that you are going to steal the money they give, holding up great big signs saying we are fraudsters, yet people insist on giving you their savings, is it really fraud?

As I gather the short 3 mile section of wall they actually built is already falling down due to poor engineering.

So Trump awarded them a further $1.7 bn.

My that swamp must be crystal-clear blue water by now, lapping gently at Trump's wall as it runs from sea to shining sea.

[dyqik]

Steve Bannon huh? But he seemed so trustworthy. And the build the wall fund seemed so legitimate.

Arrested on his yacht, by the US Postal Service.


Fraudulent Boater puns are too easy, but fire away.

[Bird on a Fire]

Maybe workers in communities dependent on fossil fuel extraction?

Or people who used to be those workers and who want their old jobs back, and happen to live in states which voted for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016.

While Biden's climate plan does include a lot of promises of job creation, it's true that few of those measures are specifically targeted towards vulnerable communities - this is one of its main weaknesses compared to, say, the Green New Deal. e.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/prakashdol ... 32fd17309b

Obviously the reality is that those jobs are mostly going, subsidies or otherwise. Coal especially is doomed, and "just transition" mechanisms to lessen that blow are infinitely preferable to funding uneconomic pollution with taxpayers' money (during what will likely be a severe and protected recession). But that's not the point I'm trying to make.

Both Biden and Harris said repeatedly and publicly that they want to end those subsidies. They haven't made any such announcement that they've changed their mind. It seems more like they want voters to think they'll end subsidies but don't actually intend to, than that they secretly want to and are hoping nobody will notice, if you think about the relative amount of fanfare each position has received.

In other words, I think politicians tend to over-promise rather than under-promise. I'd love to believe that they're keeping their cards close to their chest to try to win the election, and upon securing a decent majority they'd suddenly whip about a bunch of big-picture strategies to tackle problems effectively and sustainably, but I'm afraid I'm not quite there yet. Can anybody help me out with reasons why they believe this, other than hope?

[dyqik]

The President and Vice President largely don't set fiscal policy like that, the legislators in Congress do. It's Pelosi and Schumer that you need to direct those questions to more than Biden et al.

Practically, it'll be because they need left wing votes to pass other legislation that these things will happen if they do. Remember, Biden is backing many big elements of the Green New Deal, but under the auspices of "Build Back Better".

And climate legislation won't mean much without winning a significant number of state houses and governorships in this redistricting year.

Before any of that can take hold, they need to get the overwhelming majority of voters, including in red states, onside. Red states will sue to block any and all climate legislation unless the loud majority of voters in those states are for them.

[dyqik]

What's needed in the US right now is a return to regular order of government. Government needs to become boring again rather than a daily torrent of BS. Institutions need to be rebuilt, including the internal checks and balances against corruption.

Then progressive and thoughtful policies have a chance of taking hold rather than being a trigger for a another Trump type populariat who sets things back 30 years again.

[bmforre]

To get a slight idea of how mad and bad much of US politics now is I suggest to have look at NYTimes report of QAnon being more and more accepted. "We are the storm" - fighting against

a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile Democrats who seek to dominate America and the world.

Link to scary report on what Trump calls “people that love our country.”

[dyqik]

Meanwhile, that liberal left wing rag Forbes is running a story about Trump's business partners' ties to human trafficking, the mafia, and money laundering.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexand ... ering/amp/

[Little waster]

To get a slight idea of how mad and bad much of US politics now is I suggest to have look at NYTimes report of QAnon being more and more accepted. "We are the storm" - fighting against

a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile Democrats who seek to dominate America and the world.

Link to scary report on what Trump calls “people that love our country.”

Still it is nice to think that Trump can still find time from his on-going battle against the global child-sex trafficking elites to give his thoughts and prayers to close-personal friend Ghislaine Maxwell in this difficult time for her.

The good news is the strangely-yellow-stained man smelling of pee has offered a Roger Stone-cold promise that if she could possibly see her way to not blabbing about whatever insignificant nothings may or may not have happened on his regular visits to Epstein and his special island he'll pardon her faster than you can say "Kompromat".

[Bird on a Fire]

This is interesting - Biden has said that he still wants to end fossil fuel subsidies after all:

But reached by The Verge, the Biden campaign emphasized that it was still committed to ending oil and gas subsidies, both in the US federal budget and across the world. “Vice President Biden’s commitment to ending fossil fuel subsidies remains as steadfast as it was when he outlined this position in the bold climate plan he laid out last year,” Stef Feldman, policy director for the Biden campaign said in a statement to The Verge. “He will demand a worldwide ban on fossil fuel subsidies and lead the world by example, eliminating fossil fuel subsidies in the United States during the first year of his presidency,” Feldman said.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/19/2137 ... convention

So now it sounds like the DNC trying to undermine him, rather than Biden himself backtracking. I'd assumed the DNC platform would follow their presidential candidate's plans, but once again US politics has confused me. It sounds like Biden does definitely want to do that, but the DNC either doesn't want to, wants its candidates to be able to pretend not to want to, or doesn't mind if its candidates actually don't want to.

In any case, this is the kind of proposal-weakening rollback we need to be on constant lookout for.

[bolo]

I'm sure party platforms must be good for something. I'm just not sure what it is. Maybe wrapping fish?

All the individual candidates for president, House, Senate, and state and local offices will take policy positions in their speeches and on their websites etc etc etc. It would never occur to most voters to check whether those positions match the party platform. Nobody reads the party platform. It is not at all like a parliamentary style election manifesto.

Remember the 1994 Republican Contract with America? That novel idea that a party should have a list of things it plans to actually do if elected? It was novel because the platforms they'd had every election before and since weren't a list of things they planned to actually do.

[bmforre]

I'm sure party platforms must be good for something. I'm just not sure what it is. Maybe wrapping fish?

I'm not sure but believe these are Obviously Important Papers to be prepared by Persons whose Importance shall be Shown.

[lpm]

Sounds like Biden nailed it.

The speech appears to be one of those vague-platitudes-noble-sentiments-soaring-rhetoric speeches, that Americans seem to love and the rest of the world find tedious. Healing the nation stuff. Personally, I prefer Trump speeches where he can go from war in Syria to hating sharks in less than 50 seconds.

[bmforre]

The speech appears to be one of those vague-platitudes-noble-sentiments-soaring-rhetoric speeches, that Americans seem to love and the rest of the world find tedious...

Do you mean you wouldn't stand up for basics because of fear of being considered platitudinous?

Reagan had success against Carter with such technique:
Carter posed a basic question that Reagan had no good answer to.
Reagan just quipped "Here you go again!" and was revarded by big applause.
Never tried to answer question.

[headshot]

Some of my American friends on Facebook are posting about Biden's speech at the DNC and how it was ok, and they're a little disappointed that it wasn't as ambitious as they'd hoped.

Because yeah, that's the thing you should be discussing right now...Biden's stump speech delivery and whether it fits with your political wish list.