TitanTiger

You're right. The Democrats have made ample and obvious efforts to position themselves in the political center to center-left and relegate the Republicrazies to irrelevance for the foreseeable future. All the concerns about handing over the entire Federal government to Democratic control are unfounded. I guess it's just all in their heads.

My guess is that they would write off much of the spending under Trump as being related to the COVID-induced economic nosedive we were in. But again, you seem to be intent on making this a simple binary choice between Biden and Trump, in isolation from all other considerations or worries. That's not how those decisions are made by people who aren't an auto-vote for one party or the other.

The price tags for them are concerning even if the aims are laudable. $4.5 trillion in additional spending over the already record spending levels we're currently at, at a time where tons of gov't spending over the last several years has helped create the inflation situation we're in. That's going to unnerve fiscal conservatives if you can't explain how you're paying for that instead of adding it to the credit card.

Yes, Biden is governing as a progressive. But that shouldn’t surprise you By Doyle McManus Washington Columnist May 16, 2021 4 AM PT Then-presidential candidate Joe Biden campaigning near Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second home in Warm Springs, Ga., in October 2020. (Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images) President Biden’s Republican critics charge that he has foisted a “bait and switch” on voters — that he campaigned as a moderate but veered abruptly to the left after he arrived at the White House. “The bait was he was going to govern as bipartisan, but the switch is he’s governed as a socialist,” House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield complained last month. “He talks like a moderate but is governing to satisfy the far left,” Senate Republican chief Mitch McConnell of Kentucky chimed in. They’re right on one count: Biden is pushing an ambitious progressive program while making it sound, well, moderate. But their charge of false advertising is bogus. Biden never concealed his big-government goals; they were all in plain sight in his platform. It’s still on the campaign website for anyone who wants to check. Candidate Biden called for more than $4 trillion in new federal spending, beginning with an immediate stimulus to help the economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. It included massive proposals to combat climate change, rebuild infrastructure, reduce poverty, subsidize child care and provide universal pre-K education. Sound familiar? All those planks resurfaced in Biden’s proposals this year: his $1.9-trillion COVID-19 relief bill, his $2-trillion-plus jobs plan and his $1.8-trillion family-policy plan. To be fair, McCarthy and McConnell may have been too busy to read up on their opponent’s long and detailed program. Their party saved time by not having a platform at all. But surely they noticed when former President Obama released a video last year praising Biden for “the most progressive platform of any major party nominee in history.” Or when Biden, in his last big campaign speech, compared his program to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and prom-ised a pandemic plan, a healthcare plan, a climate plan and an economic plan “to give working people a fair shot again.” “None of this should have come as a surprise,” Greg Schultz, Biden’s campaign manager during last year’s primary season, told me. “My only surprise is that people weren’t listening.” McCarthy and McConnell weren’t the only ones who underestimated Biden’s commitments. Plenty of progressives didn’t quite believe it, either. After all, during the primaries Biden had presented himself as a moderate, pragmatic alternative to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Biden’s Democratic rivals chastised him for centrist positions he took decades ago: his 1970s opposition to mandatory busing to desegregate schools, his 1994 vote for then-President Clinton’s punitive crime bill. Those ancient controversies made him sound like an out-of-touch relic. But they were forgetting one of Biden’s most striking features: his adaptability. He is — as critics used to say about FDR — something of a political chameleon. Over 51 years in politics, Biden has always positioned himself at his party’s center — which has required a steady evolution toward the left. The Biden of 2008 who ran as Obama’s running mate was more progressive than the Biden of 1994 who voted for Clinton’s crime bill. The Biden of 2012 who declared himself a fan of same-sex marriage was more progressive than the Biden of 2008. When he pondered entering the 2016 presidential race, he intended to run to Hillary Clinton’s left and Bernie Sanders’ right — a classic Biden gambit to seek his party’s center point. “Biden for President was going to go big,” Biden wrote of the plans for that never-launched campaign in his 2017 memoir. “A $15 minimum wage. Free tuition at our public colleges and universities. Real job training. On-site affordable child care. Equal pay for women. Strengthening the Affordable Care Act. A job creation program built on investing in and modernizing our roads and bridges…. We needed what I called an American Renewal Project.” Sound familiar? By the time Biden ran in 2020, two things happened to push him even further. One was the COVID-19 pandemic, which made it clear to both parties that big spending would be needed to rescue the economy. After Republican leaders, including then-President Trump, approved more than $3.8 trillion in COVID relief last year, GOP complaints about big-money requests from the new president sounded hollow. The second was Democrats’ unexpected capture of 50 seats in the Senate, which meant the new president could pass much of his program without Republican votes. Yes, Biden had promised to seek bipartisan compromises — but now he no longer had to worry about obstructionist Republicans whose only goal was to stop his program in its tracks. And that — not spurious charges of a “bait and switch” on policy — is probably what makes Mitch McConnell so grouchy.

Did you read any of the links I posted, because I don't think the articles I posted were speaking in generalities. For instance, the level of government spending is going to concern centrists - especially those who are in the "fiscal conservative/socially liberal or at least libertarian" camp. And then his full-on embrace of trans cult is going to worry the "fiscal moderate/socially conservative" centrists. I'm not sure what specifics you're asking for here that aren't provided in what I posted. Finally, again, it's not a binary choice. The POTUS doesn't operate in isolation. A lot of different calculus is being looked at. If they distrust the direction of the Democratic Party overall, then they're going to be wary of handing both the Presidency and Congress over to them. If they feel confident the GOP will at least hold one house of Congress, they might vote for Biden (or withhold a vote for Trump) because it will check the progressives. But if they think the Dems are poised to take both houses, maybe it tilts a bit the other way and a vote for Trump is their only way to keep the Dems in check.

I'd say it's several initiatives actually, but I think the transgender craziness carries a lot of weight compared to say, one's stance on tax policy. For many, it flat out renders a person's judgment untrustworthy and I can't say I blame them. And it appears even the progressives seem to think he's governing as a progressive: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-05-16/joe-bidens-governing-as-a-progressive-thats-a-surprise-only-if-you-werent-paying-attention https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/05/joe-biden-left-president-radical-domestic-plans-west-wing So do others, especially if he's given the opportunity by a Democratically controlled Congress: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/01/30/bidenomics-is-an-unfinished-revolution-what-would-four-more-years-mean People don't think about Biden in isolation either. They consider whether to support him or other Democrats, depending on the specifics in their House and Senate races based on what they think may happen if the restraints come off. And I imagine more than a few are concerned that he's slipping mentally (whether it's actually true or not) and that he's being steered behind the scenes. I don't think you can honestly say great efforts have been made by the Democrats to occupy that middle territory and win over disaffected Republicans. They seem to just be trying to hold ground and hope Trump and people like MTG are just repellant enough to help them eke out the win in November for the WH. I think they could do way better if they were willing to. This country is primed to move off this razor thin national split between the parties but neither of them (the GOP especially) seems to care to take it.

And let me add... When you're trying to win over people who normally don't vote for you but might be persuaded to, you actually have to do more than just stay put. You have to make it more obvious that you're reasonable, that you aren't pulling a bait and switch where you avoid answering questions about hot button issues to get votes then go on voting in typical ways that are too accommodating of your far end after the election. I don't think the Democrats have done a very good job or making it clear that they are the party that extends to the center and, at least in some ways or to a degree, just beyond it. The GOP has completely abdicated the space and seems to be doing their damndest to alienate even their center-right flank. But I don't see the Dems making it clear they want to truly represent either.

The cumulative effect of the things I said add up. Kamala's campaign failed not because of this but myriad flubs and missteps, and the fact that Biden was a known and generally trusted entity. But now she's the VP. Again, I'm not saying the Dems are as bad in terms of letting the inmates take over the asylum. I'm saying that the Dems had an opportunity to become the dominant party for a decade or more and have flubbed it by not keeping their own weirdos in check and making it clear they are the party of normal policies - the party that can reasonably represent even centrists and center-right type folks. It only takes taking the idiotic stance on a few of these things to keep folks on the fence rather than coming over to your side.

First let me state, I don't think the Democrats have the number of complete flakes that the GOP has managed to shoehorn in on the Trump coattails. I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a level of crazy and stupid that it's on its own tier. That said I think of people like Rashida Tliab, Ilian Omar, Ayanna Presley, Ocasio-Cortez make up in volume what they lack in sheer numbers. Appointing/hiring people like Rachel Levine and Sam Brinton to key public facing positions in the administration, representing the US abroad. And for the Democrats at least, I'd say it's as much about positions they are moved to and advocate for that are either new or are now more publicly adopted or deemed acceptable, such as: - The increased platforming of wacko gender identity stuff. Democratic governors vetoing legislation that calls for women's and girls' sports to be reserved for biological females. - The shift from abortion as "safe, legal and rare" to basically no restrictions, with multiple states allowing for abortion right up to the moment of a full term birth. - The statements and positions many of them are taking on Israel vs Hamas (some congressional members even adopting or excusing the "from the river to the sea" messaging). - Kamala Harris in the run up to the 2020 elections not just advocating for universal health care but the elimination of private insurance altogether, even if people like the plan they're paying for. - AOC calling for a 70% top marginal tax rate and stating that "billionaires shouldn't exist." There are more examples but that's just a few I could think of off the top of my head. When people who might otherwise be open to voting to hand the reins of power more fully over to Democrats across the board see patterns like this, it makes them wary. That swath from the center-left to the center-right feels like they can't fully trust the Democrats in power either. They don't want their daughters being denied opportunities in sports or having some one claiming to be a woman with his fully intact penis and testicles showering and changing in the women's locker room at their wife's gym. They have grave moral problems with the idea that you can kill a child in the womb right up to full term delivery. So you end up where we are - the extremes of each party having a outsized and undeserved ability to steer the priorities of the respective parties and gatekeep normal candidates from making it out of the primaries.

I’m not surprised by Trump at all because I never believed the pro-life position was a sincere core value for him to begin with. Trump’s only core value is whatever benefits him most at a given moment - to gain power or more money. He will shift wherever he sees the wind blowing if it gives him a viable path to one of those things. Neither does Kari Lake shock me. She’s an opportunist as well and has no principles. Rick Scott surprised me some. I would say yes, except we have a two-party system and the Democrats are not positioning themselves as a viable alternative for pro-life voters. If anything, they’re staking out even more extreme positions on abortion that are far more liberal than what you see in Europe. So for now, I think they stick with the Republican party and just double down on vetting candidates on their pro-life bonafides. But this just goes to illustrate a point I’ve been hammering home for years now. The GOP has gone through a self-induced frontal lobotomy since 2016 and the Democrats have fumbled away every opportunity to become the dominant party, simply by becoming the party of “normal.” A center-left oriented Democratic Party would gobble up independents right now and keep their liberal voting base as well because so many Republicans have gone Trump crazy. But they just could not resist elevating their own band of weirdos. So the presidential race and congressional races are far closer than they ought to be.

Just as a follow on to the "incremental" vs "do the right thing immediately" debate... Map this same discussion on the issue of slavery for instance. There were obviously those in the South that would have kept slavery in place indefinitely. They saw little to no problem with it as they viewed African races as inferior and suited to their current station in life, and even as something less than fully human. And practically, it was a valuable source of free labor they didn't want to lose. But there were those who felt that slavery was an institution that needed to come to an end but that the best way to do it was gradually. They felt black people weren't ready to have to fend for themselves. And society at large wasn't ready or equipped to suddenly dump millions of poor, uneducated, illiterate laborers into the work market, nor to have the right to vote on matters of importance that required being informed and understanding the issues. It would be too much of a shock to the system and foster resentment and incur radical reactions. Better to gradually educate enslaved blacks, dole out freedoms and privileges in stages and maybe in 20-30 year's time they, and society, would be ready to fully grant them their freedom and full citizenship rights. And the US would have time to gradually wean themselves off dependency on free labor and absorb the economic impact. On paper, it makes a lot of sense. But there's also the argument that continuing to allow one group of people to be viewed as subhuman, as property, and using them for labor to benefit yourself and build the nation's economy undermines the argument that slavery is a moral blight and an abrogation of intrinsic human rights, worth, and dignity. And that's true even if your end goal is to grant them (as a group) their freedom 15, 20, 30 years from now. Ultimately Britain in the 1830s and the US, after a long and bloody civil war, it was abolished pretty much immediately. No gradual granting of freedom and rights. If you can wrap your mind around the problems and considerations surrounding that debate, you can understand in some sense how the various sides view the abortion issue - the pros and cons of incrementalism.

I think there's a case to be made for incrementalism. Move the default toward a culture of valuing human life over treating it as disposable, but do so in steps that the culture can handle. Jarring, radical leaps from one set of norms to a much different set in one fell swoop tends to unnerve people and make them reactionary or susceptible to fear mongering. I also think there's some validity to the idea that the second you start carving out exceptions where it's ok to kill innocent human beings (especially based on arbitrary time limits, rape/incest, etc), you've cut the legs out from under your own position that it's a human rights issue in the first place. I think that many pro-lifers who take a stricter stance and fight for the narrowest exceptions such as life of the mother are coming from a good place, but in practicality by moving too swiftly toward those restrictions without doing the hard work of converting hearts and minds, they will end up losing the battle politically. The impulse to strike while the iron is hot and you have the advantage may ultimately backfire. So maybe - politically at least - the better approach is to establish laws around a new consensus that is miles better than what we had over the last 50 years, even if it's not everything it can be. Then get to work attacking the various societal circumstances that often drive women to consider abortion as the only alternative. Make sound arguments and move people toward seeing the reasonable, humane choice is to choose life, then perhaps revisit the issue and see if we can have more consensus around further changes to the law that save more.

People have been trying to say this for years. I'm glad a thorough review was done to confirm it. COVID deniers and anti-vaxxers aren't the only ones that bend or assume the science to confirm their political and emotional commitments.

Well, if the concerns mentioned above are warranted, maybe we just avoided problems.

I don't have a problem with kids enjoying the process or even backing up commitment dates a few times while they make up their minds. They don't owe us conformity to our timetables. If he was committing and recommitting over and over, or telling our coaches one thing while planning to do something else the whole time just for "shock value," I'd see being turned off by it.

Noon CT.

Exactly. And the Judge he's facing now won't be swayed by lawyer tricks and obfuscation.

Well, most of the recruiting guys on the pay sites seem to think he's going to end up as our walking headache if that's the case.

Because......?

Sweet. I think this is the best option across the board and I think it will be a nice boost to basketball recruiting.

Most people don't care about that stuff until it costs your team. That's when the criticism goes from just a few traditionalists muttering to each other about "playing with class" and whatnot to lots of folks sounding off at a louder volume. If you can push the boundaries a little and get away with it, it's "fire." If you get tee'd up at a critical moment or ejected in a big game, it's a problem. You can't let them bait you into hurting your team. That would be true of Clark as well. That said some of the reactions to CBM were idiotic and I'm glad Pearl came to his defense.

Pretty sure all the top QBs in the portal were commanding over $1M in NIL money. A couple maybe close to $2M. But @bigbird or @RunInRed might be better on those numbers.

My feeling on the portal QB thing is that Auburn wasn't in position to spend big (or overspend) on one guy and that player be the difference maker, even if the one guy was a QB. We weren't/aren't a QB away from competing for titles. This was a roster with several holes in it that needed an influx of talent and other positions that desperately needed depth. So the money had to be used wisely to build the roster more broadly and I support that approach. I guess if we had unlimited funds for NIL it would be different. But my impression of OTV is that it's healthy and makes us competitive within the SEC and nationally, but not so overflowing with surplus that we can just drop bags for everyone we could want or need. We have to make strategic choices. Maybe once the roster is more stocked, we can focus on a smaller handful of portal guys to spend big on at a position of need. But we aren't there yet, or at least weren't there as of the 2024 signing class.