Ding Dong.....the US Politics Thread (Part 1)

What are her extreme views? Healthcare for all? Subsidised higher education? Union rights?
All of these are mainstream views in most democratic countries.

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Compared to the immoral/illogical/insane MAGA crackpots in the other party she is very grey, boring and highly conservative.
But she has a combative rethoric, which I think is part of the reason why more conservative Americans find her scary. And of course, they don’t like many of her actual positions either.

To be fair, me personally, I do understand that many find the student loan debt forgiveness policy thing a bit too much. I don’t think it’s that good a policy either to be honest. The problem is tuition fees and the cost of college. A better policy would be to actually deal with that, to make it cost a symbolic amount (registration fee of maybe 80 dollars like we have in Scandinavia) so people could afford to go to college without coming from money. People would still probably need loans unless they manage to work full time while studying (not everyone is able), but then it would be for living as a full time student and not pay exorbitant sums for schooling, so far less in loans.

This ain’t that, son. This 'Merica.

But seriously, folks. From wiki.

Ocasio-Cortez is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America[8] and embraces the democratic socialist label as part of her political identity. In an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, she described democratic socialism as “part of what I am. It’s not all of what I am. And I think that that’s a very important distinction.”[212] In response to a question about democratic socialism ultimately calling for an end to capitalism during a Firing Line interview on PBS, she answered: “Ultimately, we are marching towards progress on this issue. I do think that we are going to see an evolution in our economic system of an unprecedented degree, and it’s hard to say what direction that that takes.”[213] Later at a conference she said “To me, capitalism is irredeemable.”[214]

Ocasio-Cortez supports progressive policies such as single-payer Medicare for All, tuition-free public college and trade school,[215] a federal job guarantee,[216] the cancellation of all $1.6 trillion of outstanding student debt,[217] guaranteed family leave,[218] abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,[219] ending the privatization of prisons, enacting gun-control policies,[220] and energy policy relying on 100% renewables.[221] She told Anderson Cooper that she favors policies that “most closely resemble what we see in the UK, in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden”.[222]

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Like I said

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The first paragraph there is potentially more difficult, but the second paragraph is fine.

As it happens, lots of millennials and younger like AOCs policies, as they are in favor of a fairer society. Older people generally bought into the American dream a bit more, and want to say work harder, and get your rewards.

Whether it is AOC or someone else, I do feel as though some of those policies will become ingrained in American life in time.

Go back a few generations and the idea of social security was seen as leftist and radical, but just the other night, Biden had the most extreme Republican Party we’ve seen, eating out of his hand and calling for Social Security to be protected.

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That is because it is NOT seen as lefist and radical. In fact its opposition is from the radical right, the bit of the Paul Ryan agenda galaxy brain conservatives in DC and Washington tell us represents the GOP but that their voters have never cared for. They stood up and applauded because they were caught in a trap knowing their real opposition to cutting it is not popular. Which is why they play this stupid game of saying they want to cut it then denying it when being held to account for it.

They don’t call Social Security the third rail of American politics for nothing. Very popular program.

Defunding the police, which is another AOC position, is by contrast much less popular. It’s just not likely any politician calling herself a socialist will gain the democratic nomination anytime soon. Bernie came close against a weak opponent. Even if it happened, such a politician would get trounced in the general election.

Could change in the future. As @RedOverTheWater points out, young people coming up may be more open to such policies. I would point out that young folks in the 1960s were also fairly radical and then became more conservative later on.

Sanders was up against one of the most over qualified and highly anticipated candidates ever. She had a huge network of powerful backers. The Democratic establishment fought tooth and nail to keep him out. In a race against Trump he may well have prevailed, especially as he would have removed Trump’s outsider appeal. We’ll never know, but it might well have been a better contest.

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Note to self: Cancel high-altitude balloon expedition. Or did we shoot down E.T. today? Not sure.

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It was probably a goose, minding his own business.

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Another lie,how surprising…

Can’t he be sacked or something? He’s such an embarrassment.

uh oh

Ryan Goodman, a professor at the New York University School of Law, said the new report was “a BIG deal.”

“Potentially means dissemination of the classified docs to third parties (not just retention). It’s multiple classified docs. Trump aide, at PAC, on unsecure laptop,” Goodman tweeted.

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He’s guilty as hell. Im sure he has been selling classified information. What info? To whom? And in exchange for what? Im not sure if we will find out. And even if we do, it will be minimized and downplayed.

Trumps whole life is an exercise in mastering the legal system, in the wrong way - ducking, diving, obfuscating, ignoring, not cooperating, threatening, bringing frivolous counter suits all the time, etc.

Whether or not any of this latest stuff meaningfully catches up with him before he dies remains to be seen. On the face of it, he should be in jail, on numerous clear counts, but he is having another go for the White House.

I expect the obliging media to spit out stories, at a ratio of more than 10:1, about Hunter Biden’s laptop, not the Trump laptop.

I used to have hope that he would be held to account, but the more years that have elapsed, that hope has faded. His life illustrates the limitations of the system we have, and it still astonishes me that such a clear charlatan held the Presidency and is going for it again!

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I know I sound like a broken record, but every revelation just drives home the failure of the media. Their coverage is never driven by what is true, but what people pretend to care about and then is always framed as if that lie is real. The coverage of the Clinton private server “controversy” was absurd, but that represented a new standard for caring about it then fine. But the second Republicans stopped pretending it was a big deal the press stopped treating it as such. For there to have been multiple cases of senior people in the Trump team doing the same thing given the focus of it during the campaign should he been disqualifying. Trump has repeatedly gone way further, into practices that far more meaningful risk exposure of sensitive info, and it isnt treated with even a fraction of the seriousness with which they pretended to believe the CLinton situation represented.

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Thus far hasn’t his (or more accurately , the people who seek to excuse his actions) defence been that he was merely hoarding souvenirs or keepsakes for personal reasons. If this latest reporting is true , why on earth would he be making copies of this stuff.

Unlike Red , I’m not convinced he would be selling secrets. Much more likely to my mind is him gathering information to use as leverage (blackmail) against anyone who he perceives to be a potential threat in the future.

Either way (if true) this would appear to take the whole affair to another , more serious , level of wrongdoing. Even before these latest revelations I struggled to see how Jack Smith would not indict him. Surely now it’s an inevitability.

Yes, that is mostly the defense of this situation, but it is only the latest violation. While in office there were multiple, and in every case more dangerous than what Clinton did and the stories barely lasted a news cycle

I share your frustration mate , but look this is the cunt who said he could shoot someone and get away with it , and nobody’s proved him wrong yet. The thing with him is there’s just so many examples of his wrongdoing that people barely know where to start.

We have to start believing now though that it is finally about to catch up with him.