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Prison system is fucked at all levels. Amazing how privitisation and profit focused incarceration + "The war on (insert noun)" hasn't produced great outcomes.
Really hope the 'reform the police' movement (not defund) grows to include looking at the justice system + prison system alongside policing. Those seem to be the three main threads - although you could argue that social services fits in the mix.Anywho - have heard some Reps saying the impeachment is just another witch hunt, while others do seem genuine about Trump having incited the events at Capitol Hill. Interesting that during 2-3 in person events Trump continued to push back about doing anything wrong, but a white house release from him today has explicitly said 'don't riot, vandalise, get violent' etc. Too little too late? really hope the inauguration event proceeds without any (extra) madness!
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@Paekakboyz said in US Politics:
Amazing how privitisation and profit focused incarceration
I was curious about that, so looked it up: while private prisons are still only ~9% of prisoners, their growth in the last couple of decades has been something like 45%! And, no surprises, their level of cost saving is practically nonexistent over state run prisons.
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@NTA said in US Politics:
policy failures like the War On Drugs
I studied the US WoD program as part of my history degree a few years back. Arguably the biggest cluster-fuck in US policy post WW2, if not ever. Still impacting today in all sorts of ways. A shortage of opium to make morphine and a post-Taliban Afghanistan was a great opportunity to fill a shortage and help get a country back on its feet, but the overhang from the WoD killed that.
There's a lot to admire about LBJ, but his focus on this was worse than his Vietnam actions.
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TL;DR - some GOP officials are afraid to impeach Trump in case there is dangerous backlash from the angries.
There is a disturbing reason Republicans in Congress are giving for refusing to break with President Donald Trump: They fear for their lives. According to Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), this is a major reason why more House Republicans aren’t voting to impeach Donald Trump in the wake of the attack on the Capitol. “The majority of them are paralyzed with fear,” Crow said in a Wednesday MSNBC appearance. “I had a lot of conversations with my Republican colleagues last night, and a couple of them broke down in tears — saying that they are afraid for their lives if they vote for this impeachment.” Tim Alberta, Politico’s chief political correspondent, found in his own reporting that “Crow was right.” “I know for a fact several members *want* to impeach but fear casting that vote could get them or their families murdered,” Alberta writes. “Numerous House Republicans have received death threats in the past week.” This fear has not only affected the impeachment vote. Rep. Pete Meijer (R-MI) has said that he personally knows several House Republicans who wanted to vote to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral win but were afraid for their lives if they chose to do so. “I had colleagues who, when it came time to recognize reality and vote to certify Arizona and Pennsylvania in the Electoral College, they knew in their heart of hearts that they should’ve voted to certify, but some had legitimate concerns about the safety of their families,” Meijer told Reason magazine’s Matt Welch. “They felt that that vote would put their families in danger.” The comments from Crow, Alberta, and Meijer illustrate a devastating truth: The Capitol Hill attack was, in large part, a success. The violent seizure of the Capitol demonstrated to legislators that crossing Donald Trump puts them in the literal crosshairs. This was explicitly part of the point for some: In online comments cited in an FBI document on the violent threats before the attack, one person wrote that “Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in.” “We get our President or we die,” they added. “NOTHING else will achieve this goal.” Convincing Congress to install Trump for another presidential term was always an unattainable goal. But influencing legislators to vote differently in the future, in ways more congenial to the Trumpist movement, was not. In weak and young democracies, especially ones with recent experience of civil war, you often see a phenomenon called “electoral violence,” in which armed groups use intimidation and force to coerce voters into supporting their preferred political parties. In the United States, it seems like we’re seeing the emergence of something more properly termed “legislative violence.” Far-right demonstrators in both DC and state capitals are using both threats and actual violence to coerce members of their own broad political faction, the Republican Party, to toe their line. In a country where firearms are omnipresent and easily attainable by legal means, legislators have good reason to take such threats seriously. Of course, both electoral and legislative violence are antithetical to democracy. They replicate the political conditions of an authoritarian state, where the fear of physical violence prevents citizens and government officials from having an authentic voice in their government. It is the antithesis of the democratic ideal of self-government, its replacement with the rule of the most ruthless and brutal. It is alarming that this is happening in the United States today. And there are very good reasons to believe that the success of these tactics — that the rioters successfully took the Capitol and scared elected officials — will lead to them being tried again. A recent Politico article describes an unnamed GOP House member flying home after the Capitol attack, expecting support after their ordeal from constituents. Instead, he recalls being greeted by a striking refrain from his supporters. “Do you think that Congress got the message?”
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@Paekakboyz said in US Politics:
"The war on (insert noun)"
One of the worst politicians on this over the last 50 years has been Joe Biden. Various crime bills and 'war on drugs' bills etc. The racially charged language he used really didn't help either.
Harris of course is a Prosecutor who aggressively sent drug users to prison. On the media circuit last year she joked about her own drug use.
Of the 25 of so Dems running for President last year they picked the two worst candidates for this issue
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@Paekakboyz said in US Politics:
but a white house release from him today has explicitly said 'don't riot, vandalise, get violent' etc. Too little too late?
I haven't actually read what he tweeted leading up to the riots - apart from calling the election rigged. What did he say/tweet that kicked the violence off?
Heard some say he said "be peaceful" to the marchers, others say the opposite.
really hope the inauguration event proceeds without any (extra) madness!
Apart from the politicians....
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I think the even bigger issues are making Trump a martyr, and the proceedings being seen as some sort of Soviet era show trial by revengeful Democrats - ending up being as big a reputational stain as last weeks riots
It's almost as if the Democrats want to keep the country divided.
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@Victor-Meldrew without having it verbatim the gist of his speech ahead of the riot was calls to be strong, send a message, convince some Reps (the weak ones - the strong ones were ok) that the election was a rort and to vote down the electoral votes (something, something), then called on the crowd to take a walk up the avenue to express their feelings.
At best it was a stunning lack of any kind of awareness of his influence on that crowd, or what could emerge as mob mentatility kicked in.But one of the most insane things I've read in the last day or two is the (new) Rep Senator who was live tweeting where Pelosi was located in the building during the riot! wt in the actual f? sounds like there are investigations underway about visits/tours she might have interacted with in the days leading up to the event. A few cases of footage where rioters seemed to know the layout of the building and were trying to direct the mob. Seems too crazy to believe but .... yeah.
@Duluth totally agree on your call about the Dem candidates. Not that it was a stunning crop to pick from but they went with Joe for the Obama carry over and Harris as something of a nod to the newer groups emerging. Stink aye.
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@Victor-Meldrew GOP willingness (even if on the down low) to see Trump impeached seems to be growing. I guess they can support it to ensure no Trump in 2024, without having to say they led the calls for impeachment, so the Dems still get cast as trying to get Trump at any and all cost.
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@Paekakboyz said in US Politics:
At best it was a stunning lack of any kind of awareness of his influence on that crowd, or what could emerge as mob mentatility kicked in.
Sums up the man.
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@Paekakboyz said in US Politics:
Dems still get cast as trying to get Trump at any and all cost.
Could be a smart strategy for the GOP in '24 - particularly if Harris & Biden carry on the divisive rhetoric we've seen in the last few weeks. Bad for the country though.
Not that I'd expect Pelosi to see the danger - too flaky and deranged about Trump.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
I think the even bigger issues are making Trump a martyr, and the proceedings being seen as some sort of Soviet era show trial by revengeful Democrats - ending up being as big a reputational stain as last weeks riots
The way I'm reading the impeachment: they can frame it in such a way to disqualify him from future Presidential elections, so he's not a divisive force in future. Particularly for those GOP who believe they've made a mistake in letting him in the door.
If they don't go down that road and he's just a mouthpiece slanging politicians from the sidelines (as he was well before even deciding to run), they're relying on him fading into irrelevance. Which I don't think has any guarantees.
It's almost as if the Democrats want to keep the country divided.
The Democrats and a growing number of GOP representatives, yes. I don't think it'll come to anything because they know how big a step it is.
I think there is always going to be (and always has been) a level of division that can't be healed. Particularly with the extreme right / white supremacists who have thrown their support behind Trump. This can never be reconciled, and actually shouldn't be.
There are another group who are on the bandwagon and they can move back from the cliff's edge given enough time and education. Better public policy would help with that.
But the system there, and increasingly in other countries, is relying on this sort of shit to gain/maintain power. Meanwhile, public service falls by the wayside...
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Regardless of track record now is the time for Biden/ Harris to make their play. Will they try to be moderate or will they go for broke? They have 4 years to bring people back to them, a smart person would try and tread the middle and unite as many people as possible before 2024. I honestly have no idea what they will do
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@nostrildamus said in US Politics:
@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
@nostrildamus said in US Politics:
@No-Quarter said in US Politics:
@Tim said in US Politics:
Biden pick to head DOJ Civil Rights Division wrote Blacks had 'superior physical and mental abilities'
That plus this:
Doesn't fill me with confidence that he is not beholden to the radicals of the party
Not the only ones going after ethnic votes:
Did you not argue that those with power in the Dems are moderate? I'd argue that playing identity politics like that, which is something Trump did as well, makes them pretty far from 'moderate'.
Actually, I wrote they weren't radical lefties - not necessarily the same as what you wrote.
In general, I'm beginning to wonder who doesn't play identity politics. But Trump does/did more than identity politics, and as I have said before I don't think Trump should be simply placed on a left/right spectrum, at least not a simple conservative one.
As to the VP elect, she seems to have critics on both sides of the spectrum.I agree with you re: Trump, he's..... something else
I also agree that both the left and the right play identity politics in different ways. I really don't like it.
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@Siam said in US Politics:
By the way, the whole black people's plight in modern America goes nowhere until the prison industry is gutted and overhauled.
Believe no solution until that is included and talked about often.
convo seems to have moved on a bit but yes, ive been listening to this podcast, Ear hustle, for the last couple of years coming from inside San quentin prison, they are messed up
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@NTA said in US Politics:
I think there is always going to be (and always has been) a level of division that can't be healed. Particularly with the extreme right / white supremacists who have thrown their support behind Trump. This can never be reconciled, and actually shouldn't be.
My contention was that it's the politicians - Trump, Biden, Harris - who don't want to heal division.
There's really fuck-all leadership.
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@canefan said in US Politics:
They have 4 years to bring people back to them, a smart person would try and tread the middle and unite as many people as possible before 2024. I honestly have no idea what they will do
Their utterances so far haven't been too promising.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
There's really fuck-all leadership.
Actual leadership is hard to soundbyte
When most of the electorate don't really have it that bad, proposing big policy is an easy way to get shot down. Look at the ACA being renamed "Obamacare" and then being shot down by bad faith actors.
"They're trying to force you to go to a doctor you couldn't ordinarily afford!" was beautifully crafted craziness...
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@Victor-Meldrew said in US Politics:
@canefan said in US Politics:
They have 4 years to bring people back to them, a smart person would try and tread the middle and unite as many people as possible before 2024. I honestly have no idea what they will do
Their utterances so far haven't been too promising.
Let's judge them by their actions...
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