2020 Presidential Election

[cathexis]

Originally Posted by Martina

If it were realistic to get rid of Texas, I think I might sacrifice y'all. You could move to Georgia and turn it from purple to blue. Just a thought. I would so love to say bye bye to Texas. Just as a teacher -- the effect Texas has had on text books alone. Texas is the big stupid bully of American culture. Proudly ignorant, but unlike say, Alabama or Oklahoma, influential. And truly don't many Texans actually want to secede. My response to that is "Bye, Felicia."

Originally Posted by charley

Trump is forgetting words, couldn't remember the word "origins", so said "oranges" - twice... also said that his father was born in Germany, which was false, since his father was born in USA, it was his gf who was born in Germany (if I remember correctly), early signs of dementia ... - his reward, which he has done to himself

so, do you really think he will be able to run for a 2nd term?

Trump may be an narcissistic, a bully, ruining the US both here and abroad, and the worst president we've encountered; however, tarnishing the reputation of the entire State of Texas as refuse one wouldn't mind giving back to the Mexicans. Many soldiers died taking and defending the Louisiana Purchase, also this dishonors all the Texans who have fought and died in our country's wars. Texas is our issue to deal with. Blame a state as large as Texas for a bunch of yahoos is like saying that all New Yorkers are rude. Even if it is believed that folks from the city need a bit more civility, NY is a large state like Texas with populations of people who don't deserve that sort of sullied reputation.
If that is really how people feel, let's chop off CA, what about FL-the keys have wanted to secede for decades. Hell, we can chop up the country to politically impotent blocks. Sounds just like what Trump would love.

A person's medical problems have no business being discussed in the public arena. Personally, I think Rosenstein didn't go far enough into FBI discussion for removal of Trump. Sure, he's mentally unfit for president, and needs to go but there are procedures and committees elected by the people empowered to consult experts as witnesses for those Amendment 22 issues. Did America splash Reagan's Alzheimer's disease all over the press daily. Who here can diagnose Dementia based on film clips and interviews, I sure can't. Not certain a Psychiatrist or Neurologist could make a spot decision like that. How about FDR's physical limitations. I know the history of the 22nd Amendment, but it could have (and did) happen during our Presidential history. We probably should have written it clearer into the Constitution, but we didn't and can't act as though we had.

[C0LLETTE]

Sanders is a voracious tapeworm in the Democratic gut.

[Martina]

Originally Posted by C0LLETTE

Sanders is a voracious tapeworm in the Democratic gut.

That's unnecessary. Have some basic civility. Especially when it's not your country. He's a US Senator.

[C0LLETTE]

Originally Posted by Martina

That's unnecessary. Have some basic civility. Especially when it's not your country. He's a US Senator.

"The “Sanders would have won” crowd will have their chance to make their case, but forget it. Sanders is a parasitic worm eating the Democratic Party from the inside out, and Democrats should get it through their heads quickly: nominating a revolutionary Red Diaper socialist for the presidency would result in a 1984-style wipeout." RICK WILSON

Please write your complaint to the NY Daily News opinion page. I do think Wilson is an American.

And please lay off the repeated references to me being Canadian. You seem to have your own "personal" Canadian here, who posted a very nasty attack on me to which I chose not to respond and who applauds every silly post you make without any word of complaint from you or mention of nationality.

Go slam someone else. Far as I know, there is no rule here that only Americans can post or that only people you agree with or self-righteously label "civil"can post here.

Want less comment on your politics? Stop promoting regime change and political interference in just about every corner of this planet.

[Martina]

Originally Posted by C0LLETTE

And please lay off the repeated references to me being Canadian. You seem to have your own "personal" Canadian here, who posted a very nasty attack on me to which I chose not to respond and who applauds every silly post you make without any word of complaint from you or mention of nationality.

Go slam someone else. Far as I know, there is no rule here that only Americans can post or that only people you agree with or self-righteously label "civil"can post here.

Want less comment on your politics? Stop promoting regime change and political interference in just about every corner of this planet.

I have said nothing about Canada. I have nothing bad to say about Canada. I have said that you are not a U.S. citizen, which makes your rudeness about our politics particularly rude, especially when you clearly don't even stay abreast of the news. It's just an axe you have to grind, such as your point about our promoting regime change. You didn't mention a specific event, but characterized the U.S. in general terms. That is your take on U.S. foreign policy. Whatever merit the argument has, you are using it to say the US is criminal therefore you can be as abusive as you want in your comments about it. Well, no. It's a big complex country, the news about which you barely seem to follow. Sure you can say whatever you please, but you will be recognized as rude and abusive in your discourse.

[C0LLETTE]

You characterise my posts as "rude and abusive" ( in and of itself rude and abusive ), claim that I barely seem to follow the news and clearly don't even stay abreast of the news. Well, rather than my trying to respond to those nebulous inchoate charges by taking on the impossible task of telling you everything I know about American politics, why don't you tell me everything I don't know...that should show you how empty and impossible your post is.

As for regime change, it's rather sad that I have to offer you information and examples of American foreign policy but here goes:

"They say it's a mark of insanity to do the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.

So what does it tell us about the political establishment of the United States that it repeatedly pursues the same horribly destructive foreign policy?

I'm talking about "regime change" — the idea that the proper response to a conflict with a foreign country is to overthrow its government, on the assumption that whatever follows the (sometimes literal) decapitation will be both a net improvement for the people who live there and geopolitically advantageous for the United States.

This idea is affirmed by a remarkably broad spectrum of powerful people in and around the nation's capital. You can hear arguments in its favor during Republican and Democratic administrations, among leading members of Congress and prominent senators, from the richest donors to both parties, and within the bipartisan foreign policy establishment. It shaped decisions during the hawkish administration of George W. Bush and the supposedly more restrained administration of Barack Obama. It influenced thinking in the McCain, Romney, and Rubio campaigns no less than the policy assumptions of Hillary Clinton and her leading advisers.

And now we know that it even plays an important role in the supposedly anti-interventionist Trump administration, at least when it comes to Iran. In recent days Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton, and even President Trump himself have hurled barbed threats at the Iranian leadership, indicating a strong preference to see, not the establishment of a mutually beneficial relationship, but a change of regime in the country. As Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary during the Bush administration, put it in an appearance on Fox News, "The more unstable we can help Iran become, the better it is to actually secure peace if we can get rid of that theological regime one day."

This is foolish. There is no reason to think that aiming to change the Iranian "regime" will lead to positive results.

The instinct to seek the overthrow of antagonistic governments spans not just ideologies and parties. It also stretches back in time. During the Cold War, the U.S. often pursued this strategy by using the CIA and other groups to foment coups against regimes we considered too friendly to the Soviet Union or communist China, or too hostile to American economic interests more generally. The results were often bad for the people in those countries, who frequently ended up living under dictators or contending with civil wars or other forms of unrest.

Since the end of the Cold War, we've increasingly favored a more overt and aggressive policy of regime change — first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq, then in Libya, and now, possibly, in Iran. (Along the way, a loud chorus of people during the Obama administration clamored to get Syria added to this list as well.)

Have any of these acts of military destabilization turned out well for anyone?

Overthrowing the government of Afghanistan was the most justified, since the Taliban had given refuge to Osama bin Laden and refused to turn him over after 9/11. But the U.S. military has now been stuck fighting there for over 16 years, with no end in sight, and with the Taliban constantly sowing chaos and threatening to make a political comeback (which is something we've now becoming more open to accepting). In the end, the two most likely outcomes of American involvement in Afghanistan are an interminable semi-occupation underwriting an unstable government contending with a permanent insurgency — or a return to a version of the very fundamentalist rule we deposed more than a decade and a half ago.

But that's nothing compared to the utter disaster of regime change in Iraq. Life under Saddam Hussein may have been awful, but it's hard to imagine a scenario in which the continuation of his rule would have led to the deaths of 600,000 Iraqis (along with roughly 5,000 Americans), the displacement of millions more, the destabilization of the region (including the empowering of Iran and collapse of Syria into a civil war, the latter of which has led to another half-million deaths as well as a flood of migrants and refugees that has helped to catalyze a right-wing anti-immigrant movement across Europe), and the formation of a new terrorist organization (ISIS) that managed to surpass in brutality the one that launched the 9/11 attacks (al Qaeda).

The Iraq War has been a perfect storm of unintended, awful consequences.

But that didn't keep a Democratic president who ran for office in part on his opposition to the Iraq War from making the very same misjudgments as George W. Bush before him. In Libya, Obama overthrew the tyrannical government of Moammar Gadhafi, which cheered American do-gooders, but he made few if any arrangements to guarantee order. The perfectly predictable result was chaos in the resulting power vacuum. Subsequent years have brought economic collapse, the rise of tribal warfare, instability, violence, and even the return of the slave trade — not to mention even more of those migrants and refugees headed to Europe across the Mediterranean.

Given the abysmal track record of regime change, why do our policymakers opt for it again and again?

For one thing, there's a distinctly American form of arrogance and hubris. We like to think we're entitled to rid ourselves of nuisances (instead of learning to live with them) — and we also tend to presume that we're capable of fixing every problem with a minimal exertion of effort. That second assumption is so deeply embedded in our national consciousness that every time it ends up refuted by experience, we find ourselves shocked as if for the very first time by the recalcitrance of reality.

Then there's our very American paranoia about government power and tendency to take our own stability for granted. These lead us to overestimate the awfulness of authoritarianism (the draconian imposition of order) and vastly underestimate the horror of chaos (the absence of order). As a result, we invariably presume that removing a dictator produces a net improvement.

But it often doesn't. Just ask anyone who's endured life in Iraq or Libya since we liberated them into the arms of anarchy.

Finally, there's our most unconservative national trait: an incorrigible optimism about the benefits of change and consequent refusal to entertain the possibility that a bad situation might be made even worse by overturning it.

And now, after so many foolish mistakes and so few signs of self-reflection, we're contemplating bringing our magic touch to Iran. We really must be out of our minds." THE WEEK July 2018

If you disagree with the above contentions or the source, let me know but please be specific and no more empty accusations til you have some facts and can prove you know better.

If you have some other aspects of American ( or World ) politics you'd like to discuss, I'd be happy to oblige.

[Martina]

If you disagree with the above contentions or the source, let me know but please be specific

Well I really can't respond re the source since you don't tell us the author or title or provide a URL. I looked up the periodical name, The Week, along with the date, but found nothing. So if you want me to respond, YOU'LL have to be more specific.

In any case, I didn't ask to debate you on this. Nor did I contest the truth of the point. What I said was that you are using this issue -- US intervention -- as an excuse to name us as criminals, justifying your endlessly rude comments. That is what you said.

Want less comment on your politics? Stop promoting regime change and political interference in just about every corner of this planet.

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by C0LLETTE

Sanders is a voracious tapeworm in the Democratic gut.

I happen to agree with you, COLLETTE. I fell for the Bernie charisma the first time around. It won't happen again.