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[Zafer Kaya]

I never said that society was "doomed."  I just said that we probably wouldn't be the world's dominant force like we have been.  People in Canada, UK, Sweden, and virtually every other country in the world seem to be alright.  I mean, it's not quite as cool as being #1, but it's fine.

A major factor behind why the right is so lost is that the whole idea of nations being in competition and us having to win it is fucking stupid and outdated in the first place. It's part of the whole "let's bring back the 1950's" mentality behind Trump.

The other part to it is the idea of American Exceptionalism.  Every nation rises and falls.  Someday it will happen to us.  But it will definitely happen to us if we get lazy or aren't honest in our self-assesments.  Which we have become because we've been on top so long.

I mean, why did Trump try to ban Huawei and then have to back off from it?  Why do we have so much trouble rolling out 5G?  Because we are reliant on their technology.  We can't build the shit they can and this is partly because we're not very good at math and science anymore.  Our healthcare is rather mediocre.  So is our infrastructure.

The one awesome thing that America has always had going for us is that our cultural/economic/governmental system is good, and it allows us to adapt quickly to whatever is working.  China is churning out great engineers and physicists?  Great!  Let's steal them.  Taiwan makes really good chips?  Great let's pay them $.50 for a chip and then put them into iPads we sell for $500. 

But that's the exact thing we're throwing away because we're now trying not to adapt.  Like oooh yeah, we will pay Foxconn tons of money to build a shitty factory in Wisconsin.  Let's prop up the coal and steel industries even though they're stupid.  Let's attack Facebook and Google even though those are massively companies in the new economy. We're trying to win the race back to 1950.  And other countries will be happy to let us.

There's just so much wrong I can't even talk about it all.  But ask yourself how a guy like Trump gets elected, if there isn't something much bigger that's wrong.  What conditions led us to Trump in the first place?  Something is really wrong when a guy like Trump can not only get elected but maintain an unshakeable 40% approval rating.  And whatever is wrong didn't happen overnight.

When Trump won, everyone was like "We need to look at these blue collar/rural voters and see why we've ignored them."  But it wasn't just a local issue.  We really need to do was take a look around at our overall culture and see how we got to this point in the first place.  But the nevertrump neocons continue to believe that it's just a little glitch and not that their whole philosophy was fucked up in the first place.  Which is why no one gives a shit about neocons.

[Markalot]

I don't totally agree with some of that but you and I are near the same page, in the same book anyway.

The point is there is no one to take over the leadership role.  China can't do it, they have an authoritarian government and those collapse under their own weight.  Europe can't do it, they don't pay for their own defense.  Russia?  See China.    The entire world is in a step back at the moment, if anything they are following our lead again.  Why?  Dunno, ask them.  Right wingers popping up everywhere, Britain trying to pretend Brexit won't happen, and the European Union constantly struggling to achieve anything important.  Have you been following along? 

You talk about attacking google ... did you not read how the EU is attacking google?

The point is not how we're screwing up compared to the baseline, it's how we're screwing up based on the reality curve.  We still get a B+ no matter how much you want to think it's an F. 

I've talked about how a guy like Trump gets elected, so have you.  Hillary sucked and we were coming of 2 years of Obama, a democrat.  Had Biden ran I think he would have easily won, instead Hillary ran and no one liked her.  There's this shock that some loser like Trump can get elected but most people don't listen to the stories about all the bad shit he did because there was too much of it. 

So now we have what I''l call the twitterverse, those who live on social media, who cannot understand why Trump got elected.  They feel like they're the center of the universe AND if they can't understand then the US must have a deep rooted problem that can't be solved.   The fact is they're s small minority and when people go to vote for someone, especially a president, they apparently don't pay attention to many of the sordid personal details.

End of story.

So if the dems don't offer something the majority believe in Trump will win again.  Most people don't give a fuck.  Fix my bridge, fix my taxes, make my cell phone cheaper, make sure I can get a job.

[Zafer Kaya]

I've talked about how a guy like Trump gets elected, so have you.  Hillary sucked and we were coming of 2 years of Obama, a democrat.  Had Biden ran I think he would have easily won, instead Hillary ran and no one liked her.  There's this shock that some loser like Trump can get elected but most people don't listen to the stories about all the bad shit he did because there was too much of it.

No but see, I don't think that's how Trump got elected at all.  I think Trump was the culmination of the last 20 years of Republican/conservative politics. 

Quick example.  McConnell blatantly defied the constitution by refusing to allow Garland to get a vote.  This was just the latest stop in the GOP blocking every nomination, no matter how reasonable for years.  That left massive vacancies in the Federal court system.  The GOP then used that as a selling point.  People voted for Trump because they wanted to stack the courts.  That's an example of the kind of authoritarian/unconstitutional shit you think people should be worried about.  But they're fully aware of that it happened and they support it.

To the extent the right is being fooled by Trump, it's that because of incompetence and the fact he doesn't actually care, he's not actually been that great about following through on his promises.  Which is really a good thing.  We're lucky Trump  sucks, because if he was actually good about delivering on what his voters wanted we'd be in even worse shape.

You talk about attacking google ... did you not read how the EU is attacking google?

Yes, so it created a potential opportunity for us.  Which we are throwing away by acting just like them.  Just like us going crazy with tariffs created an opportunity for the EU which the UK is pissing away by trying to withdraw from the EU.  Which brings us to:

The point is there is no one to take over the leadership role.

Who says there has to be a leadership role?  You're still stuck in an old way of thinking.  I'm not sure if there ever will be a "leadership role" like the US used to have.  Maybe we just end up with 20 years of wars and chaos.  Or maybe instead of one leader we just have several entities, and maybe those entities are actually markets or alliances and not individual countries.

I think the world has changed, and if there's going to be "leadership" it's going to be in a vastly different form and wielded in a very different way.  Other countries have problems as well, sure.  But they can evolve.  That was our trick.  That we evolved as the world economy and culture evolved.  China is of course way more authoritarian than we are.  But they are a lot less authoritarian than they were 20 years ago.  Whereas we are a lot more authoritarian than we were twenty years ago, or even five years ago. 

Most of Asia has made massive gains in technology and economic power.  The old formula was that US made the cool shit, and Asia made the cheap shit.  That's no longer the case.  Huawei, Samsung, and Oneplus are not selling because they're cheap knock-offs. 

[Butter]

No but see, I don't think that's how Trump got elected at all.  I think Trump was the culmination of the last 20 years of Republican/conservative politics. 

Quick example.  McConnell blatantly defied the constitution by refusing to allow Garland to get a vote.  This was just the latest stop in the GOP blocking every nomination, no matter how reasonable for years.  That left massive vacancies in the Federal court system.  The GOP then used that as a selling point.  People voted for Trump because they wanted to stack the courts. That's an example of the kind of authoritarian/unconstitutional shit you think people should be worried about.  But they're fully aware of that it happened and they support it.

The way I heard it put today, I agree with: The right would rather work with Russians than with Democrats.

[Markalot]

So why leave good old Harry Reid out of the conversation?  Did he not do anything in order to bypass normal checks and balances?  McConnell, evil twit that he is, did nothing unconstitutional.

No the world HAS NOT CHANGED.  Our access to information has changed, the worlds ability to react faster has changed, but I don't think we've changed at all.  50 years from now the kind of reactionary bullshit we see today will be fringe as everyone gets used to, or tired, of the insta-outrage drug that new media provides.

My sister goes on long rants about how stupid all her neighbors are.  How do you know this sis? Most of us are on a neighborhood facebook group.
You think anyone changed?   I'm not on a neighborhood facebook group, I don't want to know every though that drops onto my neighbors keyboards.

[Zafer Kaya]

The filibuster is Senate procedure not governed by the Constitution.  The constitution explicitly states that each branch of Congress makes its own procedural rules.  That power is granted to them.  So, no Reid did not upend the constitution. 

The President appoints the Justices, and the Senate provides advice and consent.  That is what the constitution says.  By filibustering every nominee so they could not get a vote, then later killing everything in committee the Senate was not doing it’s job to advise and consent.

What Harry Reid did was 100% constitutional, and it was done to prevent McConnell and the GOP from refusing to do their constitutional duty.  Not that Harry Reid is a patriot.  He was a massive shithead. Nonetheless, in this case he was in the right.

No one has ever just outright refused to even consider a Supreme Court nomination.  They couldn’t get away with it.  Your buddy Biden threw out the idea, but it was rejected.

Had Reid been put in McConnell’s situation, perhaps he would have done the same.  And I would have criticized him for doing so.  But, it never came to pass.  So Reid did not do anything that threatened checks and balances the way McConnell did.  Nor did he ever pull off quite such a stunning display of hypocrisy by preventing votes, then complaining when procedures were altered, then promptly turn around and ramrod justices through by expanding the Senate’s ability to do the very thing he complained about. 

McConnell has just said straight up that all his constitutional arguments about wanting to wait until a new President was confirmed to better capture the will of the people were straight up bullshit and if the same situation came up with Trump, he would confirm.  He just wasn’t going to let a Democrat get a nominee in.  And no one cares.  Including, it would seem, yourself.

But yeah, this is why no one gives a shit about neocons anymore.  Like, you are pissed off at Trump, but you blame Democrats and the media.  You think he’s a jerk, but then you defend all the shitty things he and the GOP do with whataboutism arguments.  It’s stupid.

Trump supporters make a lot more sense.  They’re just like, Democrats are evil, the country is going into ruin, fuck it, it’s gloves off.  Your buddy Bolton is just itching to nuke the shit out of every Muslim in the Mideast, but you’ll wring your hands over Trump.  It’s so uncouth.  They think you guys are hypocrites and pussies, and they’re right.  They finally got tired of pretending, you still want to play the game. So much cleaner to just nuke people out of existence than to resort to undignified name calling.

[Markalot]

I don't blame the dems and the media.  You have become what you abhor.

The dems have to run a good candidate to win, that's not blaming them per se, just stating a fact.  The media is after money, they aren't helping the cause, but you can't honestly argue that they don't exacerbate the issues by using the Faux news model.   

McConnell did not do anything wrong, he got his way by not providing advice or consent.  Unfortunately that's part of what the framers allowed.  No one has to like it.  No one has to pretend McConnell is anything but a sleazy opportunist.  You can pretend to be mad at the blockade they put on all Obama's nominees but they did it for a clear purpose, they did not want to tilt the courts.  The solution is for the dems to have a majority in the senate. 

You don't have to like any of it, but it's not some sea change. The dems are now blocking most of Trumps nominations, refusing to even talk about many of them.  So what, big deal.  More power too them.

[Zafer Kaya]

No.   “Advise and consent” means “vote.”  It’s how the checks and balances work.  The President has a duty to appoint a nominee, and Congress has the duty to vote.  Otherwise either or both branches could render the judiciary powerless by simply refusing to ever nominate or confirm judges.

When they vote on a nomination, it’s called an “advise and consent “ vote.  It’s literally in the bill that is passed.  Like, we the congress have advised and consent that Xxxx be appointed...

McConnell refused to allow a vote.  That is why it is unconstitutional.

Now, there is a minority legal of school of thought that the only “Shall” language in the constitution applies to the President.  Meaning that advise and consent is simply a suggestion to confer with the Senate, which means the President can consult with Congress after the judge has been appointed or not at all.  Of course, McConnell would not have agreed that Obama could just appoint whoever he liked whenever he wanted.  He tried to have his cake and eat it too, that the President needs the vote of the Senate, but The Senatebwas under no obligation to provide it.  Which of course is completely nonsensical.

And no, the Democrats are not doing the same thing.  Maybe they would if they could, but they can’t.  Because they are the minority in the Senate.  They cannot stop votes from being taken, especially now that the gray area filibuster has been nuked.  McConnell controls the committees, including the rules committee.  GOP has every leader, and a majority of every committee.  Nothing even gets to the floor if he says it won’t.

[Markalot]

Well, Obama then, and Trump now, would need to appoint and let the courts decide.  I don't see any issue with it because the very idea was to prevent any single branch from getting their way, it always takes at least 2.  By the way, how is fillibustering to prevent a vote, which was what the old rules allowed, any different from not having a vote?

[Zafer Kaya]

Yeah, it should take two branches.  And the Senate is free to vote against any nominee.  It's when they refuse to vote that it's a problem.

The filibuster is a gray area.  Technically, the bill is on the floor and in the process of debate.  Someone can move for cloture at any time and if they get it, then debate is over and the vote occurs.  Back in the day, it was actually a physically grueling task, so the most you could delay a vote was by 2-3 days.  The purpose was to stall things and hope you could change a few people's minds by keeping them waiting, or to generate publicity.  Both of which are acceptable political goals in discussing an issue.

Nowadays, the Senate has the two-track procedure.  Which means the filibuster as a delay mechanism is no longer a viable strategy since the Senate is free to move on to other things.  On the other hand, it also means filibustering is easy.  You don't have to hold the floor anymore.  The modern filibuster effectively just means it takes 60 votes for any remotely controversial bill to pass the Senate.  Everything still moves as normal, the Senate is still doing their duty, they just don't have 60 votes so the bill fails.

I hate the filibuster, and I wish they would get rid of it.  Nonetheless it's a time honored tradition that's been done for years, on all kinds of bills.  And TECHNICALLY, a filibustered bill is active.  The Senate is doing their duty, their just being reallllly slow about "debating" it.  But anyone can stop a filibuster at any time by moving for cloture.  And then the full Senate votes on that motion, which takes 60 votes. You may not have 60 votes which means there is no cloture and the debate drags on.  But technically, the issue is active.  And as a practical matter, you're voting on that bill the whole time.  It just takes 60, and you don't have 60 votes.  Everyone is doing their job in good faith-- one side is trying to get to 60, the other side is trying to stop them.  It's the same thing that happens in the House with no filibuster.  The only shitty thing is, it takes 60 to pass any bill when it should only take 50.  BUt then the reconciliation loophole addresses that.

The other thing about the filibuster/super majority is that it probably makes less of a difference than people think.  No matter how many votes it takes to get a bill done, the trick is getting the last vote. If you need 50, and the holdout is Susan Collins, then Susan Collins has a ton of power and it's contest on both sides to win over Collins.  If you need 60, and the holdout is Murkowski, then you have to win over Murkowski.  The filibuster tilts the balance of power slightly more towards the minority party, but it doesn't actually prevent the Senate from doing it's job.

IMO, the filibuster is at the limit of what you can do constitutionally.  I'd argue it's actually a bit over the limit, but it's somewhat debatable.  And I can deal with the filibuster because the alternative is so much worse.  Which is what McConnell is doing.

When you kill a bill in committee it's just done. It never makes it to the floor, so there is never a full vote.  McConnell's argument was bullshit because he asserted that the constitution required Obama to get "advice and consent" from the Senate, but the Senate was under no obligation to supply it.  Effectively then, the Senate controls the process.  Which is why the number of vacant judicial proportions reached ridiculous numbers.

The filibuster is the Senate doing its job in a ridiculously stupid manner.  McConnell refusing to even consider a Garland nomination is just outright refusing to do your job.

Well, Obama then, and Trump now, would need to appoint and let the courts decide.

That's not the way this is supposed to work.  Politicians have a duty to obey the constitution.  They don't get to do whatever they want and then like "Hey, sue me."  Especially when the thing they want is to stack the courts in the first place.

But see here's the thing.  I don't even get why you don't like Trump.  Because he won't nuke the Russians?  Yeah, I don't want that either.  That's why neither Trump or the left is going to do anything for you.  You appear to just be a somewhat confused Trump supporter.

[Markalot]

So now I'm a somewhat confused Trump supporter?  You know very well I don't like liberals or progressives when it comes to the economy, this should be very well known by now.  Offering shit free to people and letting some giant government bureaucracy handle it is not the way that works.   But see that's what I mean by you're turning into what you hate.   If I don't like the dems I must love Trump, or somehow be confused and actually do love Trump.

That's the way we argue nowadays. 

Good job, you're doing wonderful.

[euro60]

Calm down everyone, seriously.

I am not aware of a single person on the Randomville boards that wants to see Trump re-elected. If I am wrong, someone please correct me.

[Zafer Kaya]

Markalot, it doesn’t matter that you don’t like Trump if you hate the Democrats just as much.  There’s no reason why anyone should seek consensus from you.

Like, I get where euro60 is coming from.  We don’t agree on a lot of stuff, and we’re never going to agree because he is simply farther right than me.  But I know there is stuff we DO agree on, which is that Trump’s extreme nationalism is worrisome.  And I think we are both appalled by his dickishness.  We are both alarmed at where we think the country is going, beyond just Trump’s policies.

But see you, you’ve always been a neocon and therefore somewhat of a nationalist, just not an isolationist.  You’re a big fan of John Bolton, who no one on the left can stand.  You hate the liberal media, you think we are all Socialists.

So, what do you expect is supposed to happen?  That the left should somehow run neocon candidate as a Democrat?  Why would they?  We can’t stand those dudes, and your political clout is zero. 

No, I have no idea what offends you about Trump or what you want.  Because all you do is blame the left wing for running shitty candidates or the media for Trump and come up with a million reasons why Trump is not that bad and everyone is overreacting.

Paul Ryan in that new book blasts Trump.  Paul Ryan was the face of the GOP, and had a bright future.  And yet, if he hates Trump so much why did he not do a thing to stop him?  Ryan pushed through his ridiculous and soon to be disastrous tax cuts bill like he wanted for years and Trump signed it.  So where’s the problem?  He thinks Trump should talk nicer to women?  Yeah that’s great but how does that weigh against supposed Communism.  I mean, I’ll take a guy who says mean things to women over a Communist government.

Like Justin Amash.  That dude votes with Trump like 90% of the time.  But I know why he hates Trump.  He’s a Libertarian and Trump’s authoritarianism scares him.  The shit that you keep downplaying.

As far as I can tell, it’s business as usual for the National Review/Washington Examiner crowd.  Everything the left does sucks, the media sucks, everything that is wrong with the country—including Trump— is really just a result of the left.  Pretty much everyday, it’s a relentless attack in the left no matter what they do just like it has been for thirty years. 

From my standpoint, Trump is a natural evolution of what these guys have been saying for years and are still saying.  That’s why Fox can so easily pivot to pro-Trump all the time.  Carlson and Shapiro both dislike Trump but they are out there preaching the same thing to the same audience.

It’s laughable when no one on the left voted for Trump, none of us can stand him and somehow we are to blame and not the people that actually voted for him?  Or the station that sucks his dick nightly? 

And here’s why it is a problem.  When you keep making excuses for the things that Trump does, then you are just going to get a left wing Trump.  Because that becomes the new normal.

The Democrats are moving too far left for my tastes as well.  I can’t stand Bernie Brosand the dirtbag left is basically the alt-left.  Yes, it exists.  But I can’t stand them for the same reasons I can’t stand Trump, which are the same things you keep defending him for and saying it’s not such a big deal.

The Democrats are not ever going to run anyone you like.  But the way this works is, euro60 tells me what he hates about Trump, and I agree, and he trusts me that if the Dems start pulling the same shit, I will be just as mad about that and will stand with him. We’re all going to have to deal with policies we don’t think are that great for four or more years, but we can at least hold firm on the things that are killing the country.

But you— you don’t think anything is wrong, except you sort of think he’s incompetent and he’s not a neocon.  I have zero interest in voting for a competent neocon. I might rather have Trump, because at least he is incompetent.  I mean this is the problem with most of the ex-mainstream GOP.  They vote with Trump like 90% of the time.  They think the left is evil.

So yeah, what’s the problem?  That he’s uncouth?  Well you should vote for the uncouth guy and not the party that is actively trying to destroy America. That’s what the Trump supporters did.

There is a culture war in the US.  When the far right says that I am trying to destroy their America, they are 100% correct.  I’m not trying to compromise, not one bit. 

But, what we can do is agree on some ground rules where the country doesn’t go to hell and both sides lose.  That’s all I can offer.  You don’t think anything is really massively amiss here, so in that case no one has anything to offer you. 

[Markalot]

> You’re a big fan of John Bolton

Um, ok.   

So you made some statements about the decline of the US and I asked some questions you seem unable to answer.  Where exactly do you stand?

[Markalot]

Rather than edit, let me expand on a few things you said.

Yes, Neo Conservative by definition describes what I believe, at least as far as capitalism and foreign policy are concerned. 

1.
relating to or denoting a return to a modified form of a traditional viewpoint, in particular a political ideology characterized by an emphasis on free-market capitalism and an interventionist foreign policy.

The problem is that first bit, traditional viewpoint.  What does that mean?  I'm for nearly open borders, free market capitalism,and interventionist foreign policy.  No doubt about it.  I feel like if left alone the various countries of the world will end up creating messes we have to deal with anyway. I feel that for a country to remain healthy and vibrant it needs a robust and liberal immigration system.  Trump wants white people rule, so immigration does not work for him. 

Trump is a corrupt racist idiot.  While what he does might match some of the things I like that doesn't make me a fan of Trump, it's not worth the tradeoff.  I also believe that to be interventionist we also have to act at a higher standard, which Trump is certainly not doing. 

Do I like Bolton?  He's a little inflexible for me, just like Amash and the freedom caucus are too inflexible.  Pure ideologies don't work well in a democracy.  Compromise is not a dirty word.

What more do you need to know?