Can this country survive another 4 years of the Orange Imbecile?

[FORD]

Death squad Markos is a total cunt... just like the murderers he descended from.

[FORD]

[Seshmeister]

The title of this implies that either Trump isn't playing you people or it was one of those rare times he was wasn't lying.

Who gives a fuck either way?

We do know for a fact he went to pretty extreme lengths to fuck up Biden but that doesn't mean much either because he is a fucking nutcase.

[FORD]

Cheeto was able to beat Hillary in Midwest states by pretending to be against predatory capitalist "free trade" bills like NAFTA/WTO/SHAFTA/etc. He couldn't have used that lie to get votes running against Bernie, because Bernie had a documented track record of ACTUALLY opposing such policies, while Hillary supported them. As did Biden.

I don't believe that any actual committed Bernie voters would have supported the Orange Imbecile, based on that issue. But I DO believe that "middle of the road" voters in those states, who more than likely have been impacted by these idiotic "trade" bills taking away their jobs, and/or some other economic ripple effect from that, sided with Trump over Hillary for that reason, where they clearly would have voted for Bernie, had he been the nominee.

And since Biden supported those bills just like Hillary did, the outcome in those states may be the same. Biden seems to be able to use that mythological "I'm just a working class kid from Scranton who took the train to work even when I was a Senator" image to fool some people, but his track record does not show him on the side of the working class all that often, and certainly not on the trade issues.

So yeah, I think Orangenfuhrer was having one of his twice a day "broken clock" moments there and actually speaking the truth. He would have a much harder time making a case for himself in those states if he were running against Bernie.

[DONNIEP]

I don’t think the question is “Can the country survive another four years of Trump”. I think the question is “Can the country survive another four years?” Regardless of which side you’re on, one has to ask oneself if what’s happening in America right now is what you want your future to look like. Defund the police? Ok, why? Because Jacob Blake took 7 shots after he resisted arrest and was openly carrying a knife - video proves it, unless you believe the video was doctored. That guy made himself a bullet magnet. Tony’s Ice Cream here in my town - the NBPP showed up and were armed and threatened everyone there. They even live streamed it. So the question shouldn’t be can this country survive another four years of Trump. But can this country survive even for four more years??

I think we’re pretty much fucked. Once you let the genie out of the bottle you can’t put him back.

[ZahZoo]

Donnie raises a very good point... the current direction the nation is heading is quite concerning.

It's naive to think that the guy in the White House for the last 3.5 years is the source of the troubles facing the nation. That's just not the reality, no matter what blinding filter you want to make up. We didn't just arrive here in such a short time within the slow advance of our system of government.

It's even more naive to think an establishment, career politician with 47 years of direct involvement in leading this nation to where it's at presently, will magically change the direction we're heading... That's just plain delusional foolishness.

I've never seen Bernie as a viable alternative in any of this... his socialist crap wouldn't capture independents and frankly scares most of the moderate ranks within the Democratic party. If you seriously look at his record and try to align that with the bullshit that comes out of his mouth... I don't see how anyone with an once of sense could believe the shit he's selling.

There's no reverse gear for time and the nation. As a whole though, we, the people, better get a grip on the steering wheel and get us back on a better course.

[Seshmeister]

My understanding of the defund the police idea is that a large part of police work is taken up with social work because the US has less of a safety net than most other western countries. So instead of sending a pair of highly armed jumpy police officers you take some of that money and spend it on social workers and others professionals to reduce the root of the problem.

This defund the police phrase is being used to try and frighten people that Biden of all people is going to go around closing police departments and black swarms will come and take away your stuff. Its a fantasy of course but will work on some people.

Its the whole North Korea thing but done x10. Trump creates a problem and then says he is the only one that can solve it. Yeah I know there were police shootings and problems with Korea before Trump but they both got worse.

The US police kill 4 times as many people by population as the Canadian police.

The US police kill 10 times as many people by population as the French police.

The US police kill 30 times as many people by population as the UK police.



So unless there is something inherently evil about Americans that's the menu. Some gun control 1/4, lots of gun control 1/10, lots of gun control and police not routinely armed 1/30th.


As to the Zahzoo thing about it's been slow march and not Trumps fault, maybe but he's hit the accelerator. Police killing for the last 10 years were sitting around 1300 which is shocking enough but they have gone up a few hundred a year since Trump got into power which is a big jump.

[twonabomber]

My understanding of the defund the police idea is that a large part of police work is taken up with social work because the US has less of a safety net than most other western countries. So instead of sending a pair of highly armed jumpy police officers you take some of that money and spend it on social workers and others professionals to reduce the root of the problem.

We can funnel more money into those programs, but it's up to the people to take advantage of them. We're kind of there now.

We can put more money into the schools with the goal of bringing test scores or graduation rates up, but we can't do anything about kids who want to be disruptive and not want to learn.

Now, the militarization of the police...yeah, that could change. Not every department needs discarded military equipment. Even if it's offered for free.

[Seshmeister]

one of the things that really bugs me about politicians is the way they use ideology rather than evidence to make decisions. British ones are bad for this and I think US even worse. If i was in government and I had a problem one of my first questions would be who is better at this and what do they do? The way you would deal with any other thing in your life. Hey that guitarist sounds better than me, what does he do?

Politicians hardly ever seem to do this, they treat each problem as though it's never ever happened anywhere else in the world before and then try to apply some simple ideology to it. Let the market fix Covid...

[twonabomber]

After years of listening to people bitch about the government not being able to fix roads, bridges, health care, and Social Security...and then they expect the government to fix the virus? Makes me laugh.

[Seshmeister]

Yeah but you are the USA!

You used to be really good at this stuff, The USA fucking prevented a worldwide ebola pandemic, This is beyond politics right or left. Trump for whatever reason and there are a few i his mind decided to try and erase the Obama presidency,

In the same way that GW Bush did some undeniably don't care who the fuck you are or what you think empirical good stuff on aid for Africa, Obama did the same for pandemic planning, You guys should be Germany+ especially given the spread out nature of your demographics compared to Europe. Trump threw away the playbook like a child, Historians are going to destroy him, this isn't an opinion thing it's just fact.

[ZahZoo]

Defund the police isn't a viable option and the current waves of violence is exactly the reasons why.

It may be a far better proposal to reform and restructure specific portions of police work, especially the non-violent elements. Turning off the funding won't fix anything without clear plans and transitions to fill the community needs.

Getting this virus under control will go a long way to helping calm shit down. Too much fear compounded by the pent up energy of the lock-downs just fired up a bunch of people with nothing better to do. Good news is science is kicking ass on therapeutics, vaccinations and treatments.

[FORD]

After years of listening to people bitch about the government not being able to fix roads, bridges, health care, and Social Security...and then they expect the government to fix the virus? Makes me laugh.

There's one main reason for all of that though.....

And that's the fact that corporations and the inheritance rich leeches haven't paid taxes since 1980.

Biden's dumb campaign slogan of "Build Back Better" is fucking stupid, because Joe - like the other DLC "democrats" before him has no intention of rolling back the Reagan/Chimp/Cheeto tax "cuts" for the tax dodgers, and without that, you're not going to get things like needed infrastructure and a real health care system built. Harry Truman wanted a national health care system in 1947. The post-war occupying governments in Germany & Japan set up their health care systems based on the same thing Truman wanted to set up in the US. And the top marginal tax rate was still 91% then, so he had the money to do it.... but the "do nothing Republican congress" of that day blocked him.

And those guys were downright civil & friendly compared to the Republicans of today.

People look at taxes as "evil" because 40 years of right wing media programming has made them think so. Taxes are higher in other countries, but they get their money's worth. They can go to the doctor any time they need to, and won't have to risk fucking their car up on a bad road getting there. (Or take a high speed train if they don't drive, for whatever reason)

[Nickdfresh]

It's not just "funneling money into programs", it's redirecting money from other parts of the prison industrial complex and some studies have shown that when targeted, well run programs reduce things like poverty and drug abuse we reduce crime and save money, not spend more. On policing overall I think we need a nationwide systemic reform and reducing the number of departments via regional consolidation. The suburb I am originally from is fairly Republican and many bitch about taxes and "big government" yet if you have a plebiscite and say, "hey let's save money and consolidate our three police depts. (two village depts and one town) into one bigger town police dept. and eliminate the highly paid lieutenants and captains," and they freak out. Even if we didn't lay any cops off, they would have had to take pay cuts and ranks would have been reduced because it seems like the whole tribe were made chiefs without any indians. Relieving police of their militarized social worker duties is probably one of the biggest steps forward. Social workers, medics, and councillors are cheaper than police and we would have better outcomes with more social services and freeing up the police to solely focus on crime rather than focusing on filling prisons with nonviolent offenders.

As far as cops using deadly force inappropriately, I believe in part this is poor training mindset. My impression is that from Day 1 at the academy policemen are trained to dominate and be "dicks" and they have a 1980's marine corp basic training mentality. It fosters a poor attitude in some otherwise very good people and it brings out the utter cunt in people like Ofc. Chauvin. I do think police should have a military ethos in their training, but it should be more like a special operations intellectual ethos on counterinsurgency where they see themselves as ideally guarding and protecting the population from an outside foe rather than often times seeing themselves as overlords supervising and seeing everyone as a potential threat from a population as a whole. They should be taught to be more operationally flexible and learn to deal with situations with tact that many otherwise deal with with posturing and threat.

I think at one time this was called "community policing" but it gets lost with all the tactical quasi-military shit hoisted on American policing. There certainly is a need for police in kevlar helmets and vests carrying long arms but only in extreme situations. And at one time a lot of the "conservatives" decried the overuse of deadly force when applied against white people and when Clinton was the president in the 1990s. Ruby Ridge? Koresh and The Branch Davidians? Anyone? NWO? FEMA Camps? "Jackbooted federal police thugs" according to the late G. Gordon Liddy, a former conservative radio commentator and Watergate burglar? Anyone remember those days? It does seem like a bit of a double standard when avowed rightests get pissed when religious and white zealots die, but somehow black people deserve the extremes of force because the didn't comply...

[Nickdfresh]

After years of listening to people bitch about the government not being able to fix roads, bridges, health care, and Social Security...and then they expect the government to fix the virus? Makes me laugh.

They are same people the root cause of why we can't have nice things, competent gov't that is effective in suppressing the pandemic because we have morons that fundamentally mistrust any sort of gov't and think they should just do whatever the fuck they want. Germany and Korea suppressed their pandemics quickly and have a fraction of the deaths. They also don't have asshole militias running around protesting wearing of masks. FFS you can't sit here and complain that gov't doesn't work when you vote for the guy who dissolved the pandemic team simply because he hates the previous black president.....