Objectively intelligent.

[Icky Thump]

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[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

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[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

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It's time. United States of Blue. Let's just carve ourselves out a new country and let the red states do whatever they want.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

It's time. United States of Blue. Let's just carve ourselves out a new country and let the red states do whatever they want.

How about recognizing that we are the majority, that Republicans are a minority, and that they are not interested in bipartisanship on any issue that matters. Assume that there will be no Republican votes on anything that matters. Democrats need to elect a majority, and use that majority to change things for the better. The Court, voting rights, healthcare, etc.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

It's time. United States of Blue. Let's just carve ourselves out a new country and let the red states do whatever they want.

Trump has himself in a tight spot here. Two big questions.

1. Is it better to deal with: (a) increased blue turnout accruing from Democrats' desire to control appointment of the next judge; or, (b) increased blue turnout from anger at the GOP having appointed a judge prior to the election?

This is impossibly difficult. A and B are so close.

2. Is it better to have: (a) increased red turnout accruing from conservative voters' desire to control appointment of the next judge; or, (b) increased red turnout following the GOP having appointed a judge prior to the election?

This is difficult but a bit easier to assess. A forces a lot of Never Trumpers and business people who are thinking of voting for Biden back into the fold. B is a bet that placing a SCOTUS justice will create momentum going into the election. I could see it backfiring. Those "Rockefeller Republicans" and Never Trumpers I cited see getting a 6-3 split and getting rid of Trump as a pretty decent deal. They're more focused on holding the Senate. Losing the Presidency while getting a 6th conservative justice and holding the Senate is a recipe for gridlock, which they like.

But the GOP also has to worry about losing the Senate if the appointment of a right-wing justice causes them to lose a significant portion of the suburban female vote.

This is all fantasy, of course, as Trump isn't thinking this deeply, but instead allowing his id to make the decision. And that decision will all but assuredly be, Take the Fastest Win You Can.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

How about recognizing that we are the majority, that Republicans are a minority, and that they are not interested in bipartisanship on any issue that matters. Assume that there will be no Republican votes on anything that matters. Democrats need to elect a majority, and use that majority to change things for the better. The Court, voting rights, healthcare, etc.

Democrats are the majority in certain states. In other states, they are not the majority. And no party is ever really the majority in swing states. In those states you have people who vote one cycle for Obama, the next for Trump. Who's the majority there?

Also, moderate Democrats and Progressives are not in the same party. Nor are pocketbook Republicans and Trumpers.

The party umbrellas are hopeless, 30,000 ft. high labels that are increasingly irrelevant as people are atomized by our new forms of media and connectivity. People are only stuck within those tents against their wills, captive to a two party system that's increasingly defective.

This is what you get when a society bases what it does on competitions, zero sum games. Do you believe that the team that wins the basketball game is always the better one? No. Of course not. You see one team crush another for the entire game and then lose because it plays three lousy minutes near the end, or suffers a few bad calls. Is a defendant guilty exclusively because a judge or jury found him so? Sometimes. But in close cases, he's only guilty because his counsel chose a strategy that didn't work. If he'd chosen another strategy, the defendant would have been acquitted.

Contests where a 51% win, or success in any adversarial conflict which can be gamed, are highly entertaining. From the Roman gladiators to the NCAA tournament, that shit's always been fun to watch. But is it really a way to run a fucking government? A way to decide who does and doesn't go to jail? I realize that using competition is seen as the imperfect but only fair way of doing certain things. But this obsession with making important decisions via adversarial contests only worked when smart people cooperated a bit to avoid having the contests become bloodsport (like when the old school moderate Republicans avoided appointing SCOTUS judges who'd actually try to flip Roe).

There was a time when a Republican could wink and say, "Well, we can't really fiddle with Roe. Only the crazies want that, so we tell them we will, take their votes, and then appoint people like Souter."

Sadly, those days are over. Now it's pure gladiator matches, scorched earth. And yes -- this is more the GOP's fault.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

It's time. United States of Blue. Let's just carve ourselves out a new country and let the red states do whatever they want.

In.


Just have to make sure and get hold of all those nukes. We know how the Hunger Games started.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Trump has himself in a tight spot here. Two big questions.

1. Is it better to deal with: (a) increased blue turnout accruing from Democrats' desire to control appointment of the next judge; or, (b) increased blue turnout from anger at the GOP having appointed a judge prior to the election?

This is impossibly difficult. A and B are so close.

2. Is it better to have: (a) increased red turnout accruing from conservative voters' desire to control appointment of the next judge; or, (b) increased red turnout following the GOP having appointed a judge prior to the election?

This is difficult but a bit easier to assess. A forces a lot of Never Trumpers and business people who are thinking of voting for Biden back into the fold. B is a bet that placing a SCOTUS justice will create momentum going into the election. I could see it backfiring. Those "Rockefeller Republicans" and Never Trumpers I cited see getting a 6-3 split and getting rid of Trump as a pretty decent deal. They're more focused on holding the Senate. Losing the Presidency while getting a 6th conservative justice and holding the Senate is a recipe for gridlock, which they like.

But the GOP also has to worry about losing the Senate if the appointment of a right-wing justice causes them to lose a significant portion of the suburban female vote.

This is all fantasy, of course, as Trump isn't thinking this deeply, but instead allowing his id to make the decision. And that decision will all but assuredly be, Take the Fastest Win You Can.

The magic bullet in his choices is to appoint a woman that Dems don't hate.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

The magic bullet in his choices is to appoint a woman that Dems don't hate.

He can't do that, it would piss off every republican.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Democrats are the majority in certain states. In other states, they are not the majority. And no party is ever really the majority in swing states. In those states you have people who vote one cycle for Obama, the next for Trump. Who's the majority there?

Also, moderate Democrats and Progressives are not in the same party. Nor are pocketbook Republicans and Trumpers.

The party umbrellas are hopeless, 30,000 ft. high labels that are increasingly irrelevant as people are atomized by our new forms of media and connectivity. People are only stuck within those tents against their wills, captive to a two party system that's increasingly defective.

This is what you get when a society bases what it does on competitions, zero sum games. Do you believe that the team that wins the basketball game is always the better one? No. Of course not. You see one team crush another for the entire game and then lose because it plays three lousy minutes near the end, or suffers a few bad calls. Is a defendant guilty exclusively because a judge or jury found him so? Sometimes. But in close cases, he's only guilty because his counsel chose a strategy that didn't work. If he'd chosen another strategy, the defendant would have been acquitted.

Contests where a 51% win, or success in any adversarial conflict which can be gamed, are highly entertaining. From the Roman gladiators to the NCAA tournament, that shit's always been fun to watch. But is it really a way to run a fucking government? A way to decide who does and doesn't go to jail? I realize that using competition is seen as the imperfect but only fair way of doing certain things. But this obsession with making important decisions via adversarial contests only worked when smart people cooperated a bit to avoid having the contests become bloodsport (like when the old school moderate Republicans avoided appointing SCOTUS judges who'd actually try to flip Roe).

There was a time when a Republican could wink and say, "Well, we can't really fiddle with Roe. Only the crazies want that, so we tell them we will, take their votes, and then appoint people like Souter."

Sadly, those days are over. Now it's pure gladiator matches, scorched earth. And yes -- this is more the GOP's fault.

You're being obtuse. Democrats are the majority, nationally. Republicans have won the popular vote in exactly one presidential election since Mike Dukakis was the Democratic Candidate. Their voters are losing, demographically. Republicans know this, which is why they think every election now is a Flight 93 election.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

How about recognizing that we are the majority, that Republicans are a minority, and that they are not interested in bipartisanship on any issue that matters. Assume that there will be no Republican votes on anything that matters. Democrats need to elect a majority, and use that majority to change things for the better. The Court, voting rights, healthcare, etc.

Yep. Get a majority in the Senate, get the Presidency. Eliminate Filibuster. Get two or four more Senators through DC and Puerto Rico. Expand the Supreme Court to 12, expand judiciary in general. Name expansion bills after McConnell.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

Yep. Get a majority in the Senate, get the Presidency. Eliminate Filibuster. Get two or four more Senators through DC and Puerto Rico. Expand the Supreme Court to 12, expand judiciary in general. Name expansion bills after McConnell.

You forgot the constitutional right to vote.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

It's time. United States of Blue. Let's just carve ourselves out a new country and let the red states do whatever they want.

The problem with that is that you're abandoning all the minorities who live in the red states and who already have more than enough troubles.

I think we just give extra electoral votes to the states that contribute more to the fisc than they take out. That will counteract all the years that the small states without real economies had the college gerrymandered for their benefit.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

"Who was going to be fooled by this?" Uh, that would have been Sebby.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

Yep. Get a majority in the Senate, get the Presidency. Eliminate Filibuster. Get two or four more Senators through DC and Puerto Rico. Expand the Supreme Court to 12, expand judiciary in general. Name expansion bills after McConnell.

Everyone realizes that once demographic shifts move Texas, Georgia, and NC into solid D states all these things start becoming possible.