Biden will have the presidency. But Republicans still have the power

[bigbird 60,525]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/24/republicans-joe-biden-history-congress-president-democrat

 

I think it's imperative that neither side of the aisle is able to secure both chambers  with the Presidency.  The only things that would come from that would be alienating half the country, eliminating any need for compromise, and a continued erosion of the country's belief in their government.  

[CleCoTiger 1,957]

9 hours ago, bigbird said:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/24/republicans-joe-biden-history-congress-president-democrat

 

I think it's imperative that neither side of the aisle is able to secure both chambers  with the Presidency.  The only things that would come from that would be alienating half the country, eliminating any need for compromise, and a continued erosion of the country's belief in their government.  

A few things...

First, the Republican Party already doesn't believe in government. Second, the Republican Party doesn't work for the good of the country when a Democrat holds the White House. It's all about waging political war in an attempt to bring about failure. That's exactly what McConnell promised when Obama was elected ("Our goal is to ensure that Obama is a one term president.") Third, Republicans have alienated half the country, and now Republicans are running away from any reporting of facts that tell them anything they don't wanna hear. Hell, they're calling Fox News "liberal." LOL's!

We need do undo decades of Republican destruction of good government and ill-will.  I voted for Reagan in 1980. I absolutely abhor the Republican party of today. They and the media outlets that have turned their party base into a know-nothing cult are bad for America. So yeah...give me a Democratic house and senate and White House for a while. It's needed.

[Leftfield 2,598]

I agree that this is not the Republican party that we used to have, but I also agree that a split government is generally better, as it reigns in the bad impulses of both sides. If we have a stalemate for most issues, so be it, but it's better than one side running roughshod over the other, because eventually that usually pushes the country to the other side and we have a back-and-forth. It's devolved into what we have now - a bunch of people that think they have a mandate and use that to avoid compromise.

I honestly don't understand why so many politicians, not just this year but for a long time now, get on the news and say they have a "mandate from the people" based on a recent election. It avoids any nuance of why people voted the way they did. It's lazy and instantly turns me off to anyone who says it. A number of them on the far left have already been guilty of this since Biden was elected, despite losses in the House and the likelihood they will not control the Senate.

[wdefromtx 3,159]

5 hours ago, CleCoTiger said:

A few things...

First, the Republican Party already doesn't believe in government. Second, the Republican Party doesn't work for the good of the country when a Democrat holds the White House. It's all about waging political war in an attempt to bring about failure. That's exactly what McConnell promised when Obama was elected ("Our goal is to ensure that Obama is a one term president.") Third, Republicans have alienated half the country, and now Republicans are running away from any reporting of facts that tell them anything they don't wanna hear. Hell, they're calling Fox News "liberal." LOL's!

We need do undo decades of Republican destruction of good government and ill-will.  I voted for Reagan in 1980. I absolutely abhor the Republican party of today. They and the media outlets that have turned their party base into a know-nothing cult are bad for America. So yeah...give me a Democratic house and senate and White House for a while. It's needed.

You do realize the other half of the country feels the same way about the Democratic Party right? You could literally swap out parties and specific people in what you said and it would be spot on with how the right talks about the left. 

I believe that is one of bird’s points, is until you get people out of thinking this way nothing will ever really get done for the good of the country. 

[AUFAN78 3,895]

6 hours ago, CleCoTiger said:

A few things...

First, the Republican Party already doesn't believe in government. Second, the Republican Party doesn't work for the good of the country when a Democrat holds the White House. It's all about waging political war in an attempt to bring about failure. That's exactly what McConnell promised when Obama was elected ("Our goal is to ensure that Obama is a one term president.") Third, Republicans have alienated half the country, and now Republicans are running away from any reporting of facts that tell them anything they don't wanna hear. Hell, they're calling Fox News "liberal." LOL's!

We need do undo decades of Republican destruction of good government and ill-will.  I voted for Reagan in 1980. I absolutely abhor the Republican party of today. They and the media outlets that have turned their party base into a know-nothing cult are bad for America. So yeah...give me a Democratic house and senate and White House for a while. It's needed.

HFS. Folks, I present to you the problem. 

[aubiefifty 16,791]

 

[homersapien 11,373]

Did American Democracy Really Hold? Maybe Not.

Donald Trump didn’t manage to overthrow the electoral system. But he’s drawn a clear road map for breaking it.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/11/25/did-american-democracy-really-hold-maybe-not-440595

 

"What Republicans have learned from this election—apart from their willingness to dismiss as utterly irrelevant the fact that their candidate lost by 7 million popular votes—is that the ancient machinery of conducting elections is rusted, frail and highly vulnerable. They have seen exactly where the stress points of the system are, and how to pressure those stress points, and how it is raw political pressure—not lawsuits, or procedural know-how—that offers them the most leverage. They have already shown their willingness, even eagerness, to discredit the entire democratic process in the hopes of retaining power. There is every reason to believe they will seek to collapse that system the next chance they get."

[DKW 86 7,423]

On 11/25/2020 at 9:05 AM, CleCoTiger said:

A few things...

First, the Republican Party already doesn't believe in government. Second, the Republican Party doesn't work for the good of the country when a Democrat holds the White House. It's all about waging political war in an attempt to bring about failure. That's exactly what McConnell promised when Obama was elected ("Our goal is to ensure that Obama is a one term president.") Third, Republicans have alienated half the country, and now Republicans are running away from any reporting of facts that tell them anything they don't wanna hear. Hell, they're calling Fox News "liberal." LOL's!

We need do undo decades of Republican destruction of good government and ill-will.  I voted for Reagan in 1980. I absolutely abhor the Republican party of today. They and the media outlets that have turned their party base into a know-nothing cult are bad for America. So yeah...give me a Democratic house and senate and White House for a while. It's needed.

So much crazy and so little time....lmao. 

[DKW 86 7,423]

On 11/25/2020 at 2:43 PM, wdefromtx said:

You do realize the other half of the country feels the same way about the Democratic Party right? You could literally swap out parties and specific people in what you said and it would be spot on with how the right talks about the left. 

I believe that is one of bird’s points, is until you get people out of thinking this way nothing will ever really get done for the good of the country. 

Brother quit making sense here. Quit being reasonable and sound minded. All you gonna get here is facepalms. 
 

I have literally just started laughing at the blinkered views of so many here. Let me help. 
1) Obama: Black Man Bad.

2) DJT: Orange Man Bad. 

3) “All members of the opposite party are EVILE, Child Molesting, Anti-American, Anti-Constitutional, Anti-Democratic, Fascistic, turd fans. Don’t forget to indoctrinate all your friends into this belief.
 

4) Post inane article after inane article from the same delusional morons and try to convince people you are correct and everyone else is the Spawn of Satan himself.

5) Never turn down a chance to call someone a name, no matter how ridiculously stupid the rest of the grown ups here think you sound. 

6) Rinse and Repeat Ad Nauseum. 

7) You get a facepalm, you get a facepalm, and you all get facepalms!
 

[DKW 86 7,423]

On 11/25/2020 at 4:01 PM, AUFAN78 said:

HFS. Folks, I present to you the problem. 

I had to look up HFS... BRAVO!

[DKW 86 7,423]

On 11/25/2020 at 9:15 AM, Leftfield said:

I agree that this is not the Republican party that we used to have, but I also agree that a split government is generally better, as it reigns in the bad impulses of both sides. If we have a stalemate for most issues, so be it, but it's better than one side running roughshod over the other, because eventually that usually pushes the country to the other side and we have a back-and-forth. It's devolved into what we have now - a bunch of people that think they have a mandate and use that to avoid compromise.

I honestly don't understand why so many politicians, not just this year but for a long time now, get on the news and say they have a "mandate from the people" based on a recent election. It avoids any nuance of why people voted the way they did. It's lazy and instantly turns me off to anyone who says it. A number of them on the far left have already been guilty of this since Biden was elected, despite losses in the House and the likelihood they will not control the Senate.

You Sir/Madam are about to endure a s*** storm of facepalms....Learn to enjoy them as much as I. 

[AUFAN78 3,895]

11 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

I had to look up HFS... BRAVO!

That's funny. Thanks!

I look forward to a time when folks have a good day. Just wake up and have a good day. No whining like a petulant child, just have a good day. No hate and anger, just have a good day.

To these few I don't need to name, we all know them, just wake and have a good day. Just one day. Try it, you might actually like it. Life is good!

[1716AU 728]

DKW86, you did ask for a face palm

 

[homersapien 11,373]

Divided government is a path to disaster. Why won’t voters admit it?

Opinion by

Helaine Olen

Columnist

November 25, 2020

 

This week, a survey from Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies and the Harris Poll came out that should have received more notice than it did. In many ways, it found what you would expect: Voters said the coronavirus was the most important issue in the election, followed by the economy and jobs. Most people, despite President Trump’s claims, believe Joe Biden won the election fairly.

And then there was this: A majority of voters would prefer divided government. With Biden in the White House, they want to see a Republican Senate. Really.

Control of the Senate rests on the outcome of two runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5. If the Democratic candidates — the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff — can win both, the Democrats will gain the Senate majority. If Republicans win just one, they remain in control.

This would be a disastrous outcome. It would almost certainly result in a slower, more painful recovery from the pandemic-induced economic slowdown. It would also make it all but certain that Biden would be forced to turn to executive orders to get almost any part of his agenda accomplished, which means broader, systemic changes — a public option for health care, free tuition for community college students or an increase in the national minimum wage, which is still set at the poverty-level sum of $7.25 an hour — will not happen.

As a writer who focuses on personal finance, I often talk to people who don’t think about politics all day long or who haven’t spent the past four years addicted to MSNBC, CNN or Fox News. The sentiment I hear all too often is “why can’t the two sides get along?”

People want to see results in Washington, and many believe it is dogmatic pols of both sides that are stopping it. But that’s not the issue. The problem is that one party — the Republican Party — does not want to share power. It’s transformed itself into an obstructionist force with little interest in compromise. This is why we’re struggling to make our way through a third wave of the covid-19 pandemic on the fumes of financial aid that is set to expire within weeks.

Instead of firmly and repeatedly pointing this out, Biden has played to what I’ve called fantasy politics for Democratic moderates. He’s claimed, for instance, that Republicans would experience an “epiphany” and work with him once they voted Trump out of the picture. The result was a tacit endorsement of ticket-splitting — something that helped give Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) another term in the Senate, and likely cost Democrats a few seats in the House.

As Annie Lowrey recounted recently at the Atlantic, divided government that resulted from the 2010 election meant that just about every proposal from Democrats to juice the stumbling economy ended in defeat. Republicans, she noted, “crushed every attempt to rectify the problem.” Voters, as we know, ultimately rewarded them for their obstructionism. They didn’t want to know how the sausage was made. They just wanted results. And, if they didn’t get them, well, the buck stops at the White House. Enter Donald Trump.

A Senate where Mitch McConnell (Ky.) remains majority leader promises a repeat performance. Republicans are not exactly hiding their intentions. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is attempting to move still-unspent money made available under the Cares Act to a fund that future Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen will need congressional assent to access. Senators who voted happily for Trump’s budget-busting tax-reform plan that showered goodies on the wealthy are suddenly remembering the deficit when discussing assistance for those whose financial lives are imploding because of covid-19 shutdowns. Republican operative Mike Davis recently proclaimed Biden’s immigration reform dead on arrival — destined for the “Senate graveyard” next to Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination.

But, again, most voters aren’t spending their days steeped in this sort of political detail. They just want to see Washington work. They fall for the bipartisan schtick and then blame Democrats — the one party that’s actually trying to do the right thing and maintain it — when it doesn’t. As a result, it’s up to Democrats to make the stakes clear. If they can’t or won’t impress upon voters that Republican cooperation is a thing of the far distant past, it’s quite possible we will once again learn that lesson the hard way.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/25/divided-government-is-path-disaster-why-wont-voters-admit-it/

[homersapien 11,373]

Mitch McConnell’s ability to cripple Biden’s presidency depends on one thing

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

 

Opinion by

Greg Sargent

Columnist

November 30, 2020

 

Jon Ossoff, who hopes to unseat GOP Sen. David Perdue in one of two Georgia runoffs, is running on a straightforward message. It has the virtue of being not just largely true, but also one we’ve already learned to be true from bitter experience.

If Republicans win one or both runoffs, Ossoff says, continued GOP control of the Senate will mean relentless obstruction of incoming President Joe Biden’s agenda. That means a much more grueling economic recovery, a less-coordinated response to the coronavirus’ latest rampage and a death knell for popular policies such as expanded health care and infrastructure investments.

In short, unless Democrats win both runoffs — giving them control — it will mean far more economic misery, far more illness and death, and badly diminished prospects for long-term national revival.

We know that if he remains majority leader, Mitch McConnell will work to cripple the Biden presidency by saddling him with the terrible politics of a miserable recovery. We saw him do this for years, mostly as minority leader, during the last Democratic presidency.

But will this matter to the outcomes in Georgia?

“If McConnell controls the Senate, he’s going to block the kind of relief package that we need,” Ossoff told me. “And that means not just short-term, direct economic relief, but also the kind of infrastructure-jobs-clean energy program necessary to support long-term recovery.”

“This paralysis of our government in the midst of a crisis is untenable,” Ossoff added. “People are suffering, and they want government to work.”

A big rescue package is popular

Ossoff says his travels throughout Georgia have persuaded him that voters widely want an ambitious rescue package.

“What I’m hearing from folks across the political spectrum is the urgent necessity of immediate economic relief,” Ossoff told me.

Indeed, pre-election polling did show very broad support for a multitrillion-dollar stimulus package, aid to state governments and direct financial support to individuals.

Yet if this is what voters want, how do you make them appreciate that a vote for Perdue — or a failure to turn out and vote Democratic — is a vote for a GOP-controlled Senate that will all but kill such possibilities?

“We have to make sure that voters understand the stakes,” Ossoff told me.

In this case, two races will largely decide whether we get all those things, or whether we do not get them.

We know what McConnell will do

By blocking a big stimulus, McConnell can do a lot of damage. The coronavirus’ spikes everywhere are requiring new health measures and a pullback from economic activity. Only this time, previously passed federal aid programs are drying up.

Last spring, Republicans backed a large aid package, when McConnell plainly calculated it would boost GOP electoral prospects. This fall, when he appeared to think another big stimulus couldn’t save President Trump, and his members balked at more spending, he opposed a second round.

Now McConnell is still insisting on a much smaller aid package, even as Biden’s economic advisers believe lack of ambitious action now could result in a serious recession.

McConnell is surely chortling with glee about what all this misery means for the Biden presidency. And with Republicans gearing up to pretend deficits matter again after helping explode them with a massive tax cut for the rich, they hope to starve the Biden agenda with austerity in a broader sense.

But how can Democrats make this matter in two races that will largely settle whether this happens or not?

A tough challenge

Until 2020, Democrats were largely stuck at around 45 percent of the Georgia vote. But the incredibly vote-rich and diverse suburbs around Atlanta grew more blue this cycle, probably due in part to Trump.

That lifted Biden to 49.5 percent, but Ossoff fell just short at 48 percent. As a FiveThirtyEight analysis showed, in many of those counties, Ossoff ran a couple of points behind Biden, meaning the challenge for Ossoff is getting a bit higher, but without Trump on the ballot.

Many analysts believe Trump juiced up base turnout, lifting down-ballot Republicans who added to that a sliver of swing voters who couldn’t stomach Trump but liked their GOP congressman or senator. Many voters like the idea of divided government, probably out of a belief that the push and tug between parties can produce quality compromises.

But how do you get that sliver of voters to grasp the true depths of GOP bad faith — the explicit GOP strategic devotion to scuttling that very possibility?

When I asked Ossoff about this, he allowed that much will turn on the ability of Democrats to drive this home. “What we need to communicate is the truth," he told me.

But he noted that ultimately, the challenge will be in mobilizing Democratic base turnout again (which might also prove important if Trump’s absence demobilizes Republicans), and said this also requires demonstrating what GOP obstruction really entails.

Another Trump effect?

While these races will be tough, Trump himself may be making that mobilization somewhat easier. Republicans, Perdue included, have decided going all in with Trump’s lies about the election being stolen from him will juice GOP turnout.

“Black turnout in Georgia is vital,” Ossoff told me, adding that Trump and Perdue “are having a public tantrum because they felt entitled to victory," and expected to be saved by “the apparatus of voter suppression.” That didn’t happen.

“Their efforts to invalidate that result are a direct attack on Black voters, whose extraordinary turnout powered Biden’s victory in Georgia,” Ossoff continued.

A Republican victory in Georgia, then, would also validate the GOP’s use of declaring the election’s outcome illegitimate as a successful political tactic. That’s yet another way the stakes of these runoffs are so high — along with whether we get an ambitious governmental response to the profound crises we face.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/30/mitch-mcconnells-ability-cripple-bidens-presidency-depends-one-thing/