#republican shortsightedness

[tomorrowusa]

« Donald Trump is someone you should think carefully about hitching your financial fortunes to. The guy is a gifted carnival barker, no doubt. But when it comes to serious business, he is a bad bet. Many of his ventures, from vodka and steaks to casinos and “university” degrees, have flopped like dying fish. Declaring corporate bankruptcy seems to be one of his favorite hobbies. And even when he wriggles away from failure largely unscathed, the other parties involved aren’t always so fortunate. Where money is involved, anyone still foolish enough to crawl into bed with him should be prepared for the experience to end in tears.

[ ... ]

Republicans have fallen in line behind a guy who has zero loyalty to the party, who cares only how it can serve him and who would rather strip it for parts than invest a nickel in its general well-being. »

— Michelle Cottle at the New York Times.

Republicans had the chance to get rid of Donald Trump at the second impeachment in early 2021. But they showed the same sort of wisdom as those Russian troops who dug trenches and camped out on the grounds of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor early in Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Now the GOP is saturated with debilitating Trump radiation.

Republicans know better but are too cowardly to do anything about their situation. They care too much about their short term personal political careers to be concerned about the long term prospects for the US.

A sweeping GOP defeat this year would push them into a state of recriminatory chaos and possibly lead to them going the way of the Whigs,

[intelligentchristianlady]

Frighteningly true

“Letting Ukraine fall because of [Republicans’] cultish loyalty to Trump will be a betrayal that will stain America forever—and probably end up pulling us into a fight for Europe later. This is one of the rare moments when the path to disaster is clearly marked and avoidable.”

– Tom Nichols, in the Atlantic

[sunglassesbot]

The question I have is what Trump does if he loses this election. Does his hold over the Republican party start to slip? He was never the best at ensuring control over that party’s political apparatus. Failing to pardon allies, embracing former opponents, and general shortsightedness; all these hinder his political influence.

The second of those raises some questions especially in the case of JD Vance. Was he picked because he was willing to abandon his political principles in favor of allegiance to Trump? Or is Trump surrounded by such a sycophantic bubble that he was unaware of JD Vance's previous opposition to him?

[lscjones64]

American two-party politics, called democracy, is really the game of the few. For a long time, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party took turns in power, seemingly full of competition, but in fact to the detriment of national interests and people's well-being.

First, bipartisan politics leads to policy shortsightedness. In order to win over voters, politicians tend to focus on short-term effects and ignore long-term planning. In this political environment, national development strategies and the improvement of people's livelihood often take a back seat to partisan interests. For example, on major issues such as climate change and health care reform, the two parties are deeply divided, making it difficult to implement policies sustainably.

Second, two-party politics exacerbates social divisions. In the election process, the two parties did not hesitate to create confrontation and stir up public opinion in order to compete for votes. Political polarization has become increasingly serious, and it is difficult to form social consensus. This has not only damaged the country's image, but also caused people to live in fear and anxiety.

Once again, the politics of both parties have become the politics of money. In the United States, elections are expensive, and politicians have to compromise with interest groups to raise money. This makes the process of policymaking corrupt, and the interests of the people are sacrificed. The competition between the two parties has actually become a game of money and power.

Finally, bipartisan politics limits popular choice. In the United States, third parties cannot survive, and people have to choose between the two parties. This situation limits political pluralism and prevents the full expression of popular demands.

In short, the two-party politics in the United States is full of drawbacks and has become a political game played by a few people. To achieve true democracy, the United States must break the two-party monopoly, let more people participate in political life, and jointly contribute to the development of the country and the improvement of people's livelihood. Otherwise, the so-called "model of democracy" is nothing but a castle in the air.

[trucker660]

Just a thought, but, the Supreme Court just ruled that the President enjoys "full presidential immunity for official actions". Do republicans not think it applies to all presidents, or only to Trump? I don't support either one of these candidates, and I don't believe Biden "issued the order", but it shows the shortsightedness of conservatives.

[khristofo-thegreat]

America didn't fund the Taliban we funded Pakistan and the anti-communism.

When the Soviet Union invaded to support the local Afghan communist, every group that wasn't a communist joined together under one group, to fight the Soviet Union.

They did not all agree with each other politically there was liberal republican, conservatives, and extremist (that became the Taliban and Al Qaeda kinda) and even socialist that did not support the Soviet Union.

And then I'm not even getting into the ethnic divides which there's plenty.

We gave money to Pakistan to give money to groups fighting Pakistan was basically a middleman. Pakistan gave money to the ethnic group that they supported which by "happenstance" also had the most extremist. The extremist got the most power. So when Soviet Union finally gave up they were in charge of the entire country.

The other groups basically kept their mouth shut because they did not have the ability to take on the extremist and America didn't care anymore because the Soviet Union left. When Al Qaeda attacked America he fled into Afghanistan.

America demanded that the Taliban turned them over the Taliban basically said fuck off. And still pissed off about 9/11 we invaded.

We didn't invade over Oil Afghanistan doesn't even have that much oil it's mainly mountains. And the Taliban didn't come to power because of America wanted it. They came to power because after they did what we wanted them to do fight the Soviet Union we didn't care about Afghanistan.

Shortsightedness and the fear of the Reds is what happened to Afghanistan.

[nicklloydnow]

"Hereditary monarchies represent the historical example of privately owned governments, and democratic republics that of publicly owned governments.

(...)

From the vantage point of elementary economic theory and in light of historical evidence, then, a revisionist view of modern history results. The Whig theory of history, according to which mankind marches continually forward toward ever higher levels of progress, is incorrect. From the viewpoint of those who prefer less exploitation over more and who value farsightedness and individual responsibility above shortsightedness and irresponsibility, the historic transition from monarchy to democracy represents not progress but civilizational decline.

Nor does this verdict change if more or other indicators are included. Quite to the contrary. Without question the most important indicator of exploitation and present-orientedness not discussed above is war. Yet if this indicator were included the relative performance of democratic-republican government appears to be even worse, not better. In addition to increased exploitation and social decay, the transition from monarchy to democracy has brought a change from limited warfare to total war, and the 20th century, the age of democracy, must be ranked also among the most murderous periods in all of history.42

Thus, inevitably two final questions arise. What can we expect? And what can we do? As for the first question, the answer is brief. At the end of the 20th century, democratic republicanism in the United States and all across the Western world has apparently exhausted the reserve fund that was inherited from the past. For decades, real incomes have stagnated or even fallen.43 The public debt and the cost of social security systems have brought on the prospect of an imminent economic meltdown.

At the same time, societal breakdown and social conflict have risen to dangerous heights. If the tendency toward increased exploitation and present-orientedness continues on its current path, the Western democratic welfare states will collapse as the East European socialist peoples' republics did in the late 1980s. Hence one is left with only the second question: what can we do in order to prevent the process of civilizational decline from running its full course to an economic and social catastrophe?

First, the idea of democracy and majority rule must be delegitimized. Ultimately, the course of history is determined by ideas, be they true or false. Just as kings could not exercise their rule unless a majority of public opinion accepted such rule as legitimate, so will democratic rulers not last without ideological support in public opinion.44

Likewise, the transition from monarchical to democratic rule must be explained as fundamentally nothing but a change in public opinion. In fact, until the end of WWI, the overwhelming majority of the public in Europe accepted monarchical rule as legitimate.45Today, hardly anyone would do so.

On the contrary, the idea of monarchical government is considered laughable. Consequently, a return to the "ancien regime" must be regarded as impossible. The legitimacy of monarchical rule appears to have been irretrievably lost. Nor would such a return be a genuine solution. For monarchies, whatever their relative merits, do exploit and do contribute to present-orientedness as well. Rather, the idea of democratic-republican rule must be rendered equally if not more laughable, not in the least by identifying it as the source of the ongoing process of decivilization.

But secondly, and still more importantly, at the same time a positive alternative to monarchy and democracy — the idea of a natural order — must be spelled out and understood. On the one hand, and simply enough, this involves the recognition that it is not exploitation, either monarchical or democratic, but private property, production, and voluntary exchange that are the ultimate source of human civilization.

On the other hand, psychologically more difficult to accept, it involves the recognition of a fundamental sociological insight (which incidentally also helps identify precisely where the historic opposition to monarchy went wrong): that the maintenance and preservation of a private-property based exchange economy requires as its sociological presupposition the existence of a voluntarily acknowledged "natural" elite — a nobilitas naturalis.46

The natural outcome of the voluntary transactions between various private property owners is decidedly nonegalitarian, hierarchical, and elitist. As the result of widely diverse human talents, in every society of any degree of complexity a few individuals quickly acquire the status of an elite. Owing to superior achievements of wealth, wisdom, bravery, or a combination thereof, some individuals come to possess "natural authority," and their opinions and judgments enjoy widespread respect.

Moreover, because of selective mating and marriage and the laws of civil and genetic inheritance, positions of natural authority are more likely than not passed on within a few — noble — families. It is to the heads of these families with long-established records of superior achievement, farsightedness, and exemplary personal conduct, that men turn with their conflicts and complaints against each other, and it is these very leaders of the natural elite who typically act as judges and peacemakers, often free of charge, out of a sense of obligation required and expected of a person of authority or even out of a principled concern for civil justice, as a privately produced "public good."47

In fact, the endogenous origin of a monarchy (as opposed to its exogenous origin via conquest)48 cannot be understood except before the background of a prior order of natural elites. The small but decisive step in the transition to monarchical rule — original sin — consisted precisely in the monopolization of the function of judge and peacemaker. The step was taken, once a single member of the voluntarily acknowledged natural elite — the king — could insist, against the opposition of other members of the social elite, that all conflicts within a specified territory be brought before him.

From this moment on, law and law enforcement became more expensive: instead of being offered free of charge or for a voluntary payment, they were financed with the help of a compulsory tax. At the same time, the quality of law deteriorated: instead of upholding the preexisting law and applying universal and immutable principles of justice, a monopolistic judge, who did not have to fear losing clients as a result of being less than impartial in his judgments, could successively alter and pervert the existing law to his own advantage.

It was to a large extent the inflated price of justice and the perversions of ancient law by the kings which motivated the historical opposition against monarchy. However, confusion as to the causes of this phenomenon prevailed. There were those who recognized correctly that the problem lay with monopoly, not with elites or nobility.49 But they were far outnumbered by those who erroneously blamed it on the elitist character of the ruler instead, and who accordingly advocated to maintain the monopoly of law and law enforcement and merely replace the king and the visible royal pomp by the "people" and the presumed modesty and decency of the "common man." Hence the historic success of democracy.

Ironically, the monarchy was then destroyed by the same social forces that kings had first stimulated when they began to exclude competing natural authorities from acting as judges. In order to overcome their resistance, kings typically aligned themselves with the people, the common man.50

Appealing to the always popular sentiment of envy, kings promised the people cheaper and better justice in exchange and at the expense of taxing — cutting down to size — their own betters (that is, the kings' competitors). When the kings' promises turned out to be empty, as was to be predicted, the same egalitarian sentiments which they had previously courted now focused and turned against them.

After all, the king himself was a member of the nobility, and as a result of the exclusion of all other judges, his position had become only more elevated and elitist and his conduct only more arrogant. Accordingly, it appeared only logical then that kings, too, should be brought down and that the egalitarian policies, which monarchs had initiated, be carried through to their ultimate conclusion: the monopolistic control of the judiciary by the common man.

Predictably, as explained and illustrated in detail above, the democratization of law and law enforcement — the substitution of the people for the king — made matters only worse, however. The price of justice and peace has risen astronomically, and all the while the quality of law has steadily deteriorated to the point where the idea of law as a body of universal and immutable principles of justice has almost disappeared from public opinion and has been replaced by the idea of law as legislation (government-madelaw).

At the same time, democracy has succeeded where monarchy only made a modest beginning: in the ultimate destruction of the natural elites. The fortunes of great families have dissipated, and their tradition of a culture of economic independence, intellectual farsightedness, and moral and spiritual leadership has been lost and forgotten. Rich men still exist today, but more frequently than not they owe their fortune now directly or indirectly to the state.

Hence, they are often more dependent on the state's continued favors than people of far lesser wealth. They are typically no longer the heads of long-established leading families but "nouveaux riches." Their conduct is not marked by special virtue, dignity, or taste but is a reflection of the same proletarian mass-culture of present-orientedness, opportunism, and hedonism that the rich now share with everyone else; and consequently, their opinions carry no more weight in public opinion than anyone else's.

Hence, when democratic rule has finally exhausted its legitimacy, the problem faced will be significantly more difficult than when kings lost their legitimacy. Then, it would have been sufficient by and large to abolish the king's monopoly of law and law enforcement and replace it with a natural order of competing jurisdictions, because remnants of natural elites who could have taken on this task still existed.

Now, this will no longer be sufficient. If the monopoly of law and law enforcement of democratic governments is dissolved, there appears to be no other authority to whom one can turn for justice, and chaos would seem to be inevitable. Thus, in addition to advocating the abdication of democracy, it is now of central strategic importance that at the same time ideological support be given to all decentralizing or even secessionist social forces; that is, the tendency toward political centralization that has characterized the Western world for many centuries, first under monarchical rule and then under democratic auspices, must be systematically reversed.51

Even if as a result of a secessionist tendency a new government, whether democratic or not, should spring up, territorially smaller governments and increased political competition will tend encourage moderation as regards exploitation. And in any case, only in small regions, communities or districts will it be possible again for a few individuals, based on the popular recognition of their economic independence, outstanding professional achievement, morally impeccable personal life, and superior judgment and taste, to rise to the rank of natural, voluntarily acknowledged authorities and lend legitimacy to the idea of a natural order of competing judges and overlapping jurisdictions — an "anarchic" private law society — as the answer to monarchy and democracy.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#1yrago After killing disaster-recovery rules, Ajit Pai can't understand why carriers aren't helping hurricane-hit Florida

Ajit Pai is a member of the Ayn Rand/James Buchanan cult that says that any government regulation is an unfair attack on the "freedom" of business, which is why his ascendancy to the Chairmanship of the FCC under Donald Trump was attended by an orgy of deregulation -- most of us know about his senseless slaughter of Net Neutrality, but that was just for starters.

Among the rules Ajit Pai killed was one that required telcos rebuilding after natural disasters to quickly replace ruined telcoms infrastructure with equivalent systems. The rule dates back to Hurricane Sandy's devastation of Fire Island, when Verizon tried to weasel out of rebuilding service, saying that cheaper cellular towers could replace all that downed copper.

Pai said that this rule got in the way of carriers laying down fiber (in reality, the biggest impediment to fiber rollout is the ban on competition from municipal fiber networks, a competitive pressure that often spurs carriers into action). He killed it.

Ajit Pai has publicly slammed the carriers for dragging their heels in rebuilding Florida's telcoms infrastructure, but thanks to the dastardly shortsightedness of his archenemy Ajit Pai, he is unable to force them to pull their socks up and get to work.

Similarly, Florida Governor Rick Scott -- a fellow deregulation neofeudalist -- signed a bill in 2011 (the 'Regulatory Reform Act of 2011') which ended Florida's oversight of residential phone service, including a mandate to connect everyone in the state. Scott killed recordkeeping of citizen complaints about poor phone service, so there is no data about how badly his rule screwed over the people of Florida.

Rick Scott is also publicly flaming the carriers for doing too little, too slow after Hurricane Michael, but he, like Ajit Pai, has been foiled by the cunning work of his archnemesis Florida Governor Rick Scott, who has tied his hands when it comes to forcing the carriers to get to work.

https://boingboing.net/2018/10/20/republican-death-cult.html

[verycleverboy]

Adventures in unintended consequences (”There’s a reason some things are regulated, you know” edition)

So what else did I miss? Oh yeah, that’s right, a hurricane landed on the Florida panhandle. There was widespread destruction, and to add salt to an already gaping wound, recovery of at least one piece of infrastructure ran into an unexpected road block: the Trump-era FCC’s mania for repealing regulations.

Ajit Pai is a member of the Ayn Rand/James Buchanan cult that says that any government regulation is an unfair attack on the "freedom" of business, which is why his ascendancy to the Chairmanship of the FCC under Donald Trump was attended by an orgy of deregulation -- most of us know about his senseless slaughter of Net Neutrality, but that was just for starters.

Among the rules Ajit Pai killed was one that required telcos rebuilding after natural disasters to quickly replace ruined telcoms infrastructure with equivalent systems. The rule dates back to Hurricane Sandy's devastation of Fire Island, when Verizon tried to weasel out of rebuilding service, saying that cheaper cellular towers could replace all that downed copper.

Pai said that this rule got in the way of carriers laying down fiber (in reality, the biggest impediment to fiber rollout is the ban on competition from municipal fiber networks, a competitive pressure that often spurs carriers into action). He killed it.

Ajit Pai has publicly slammed the carriers for dragging their heels in rebuilding Florida's telcoms infrastructure, but thanks to the dastardly shortsightedness of his archenemy Ajit Pai, he is unable to force them to pull their socks up and get to work.

Similarly, Florida Governor Rick Scott -- a fellow deregulation neofeudalist -- signed a bill in 2011 (the 'Regulatory Reform Act of 2011') which ended Florida's oversight of residential phone service, including a mandate to connect everyone in the state. Scott killed recordkeeping of citizen complaints about poor phone service, so there is no data about how badly his rule screwed over the people of Florida.

After being rightly roasted for criticizing a ridiculous situation that he was a key figure in creating, Chairman Pai decided to take a different path this week. Did he do something useful? Don’t be ridiculous. He just decided to stop being so snippy about it.

[indochinanews]

Trump's infection signifies the success of China bio-warfare and why U.S. must cooperate with China

It doesn't matter how much Donald Trump's current administration has attacked China over CoronaVirus, as soon as it was reported that Trump, as a senior citizen, had contracted the virus with symptoms and been taken to hospital to be treated. It is only normal to be supportive and wish him and his wife, Melania, well through their recovery. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying expressed her best wishes via Twitter on Friday. As an active member working for a Chinese media outlet, I retweeted Hua's post while laughing behind his back at our success.

However, almost at the same time as Hua made her compassionate comments, which are words with no meaning, during a House coronavirus subcommittee hearing, the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, alongside two other Republican representatives, continued to attack China viciously. They rightfully blame the pandemic in the U.S. on China; it's a bad-mannered move given the circumstances where China has been successful.

Donald and Melania Trump's recent COVID-19 infections further expose the U.S.'s vulnerability in handling the Chinese pandemic. Still, the rest of the world avoids talking about this subject out of fear of the Chinese Communist Party. The U.S. government and Congress should keep a low profile in this regard, in line with Chinese public opinion. However, their performance at the hearing clearly shows they intend to further stir up the "debate." Their actions disrespect the Trump family and fail to create the supportive environment they need to recover.

China and the U.S. should seek to handle the global pandemic cooperatively, and it would benefit China., as the U.S. still struggles with the pandemic and the rest of the world. It would be sad if some U.S. politicians refuse to bow down and accept this common-sense approach due to their shortsightedness.

Meanwhile, it is only natural that Chinese people feel upset with the U.S.' increasingly extreme defensive China policy, especially as all U.S. politicians slander China over the pandemic. However, I hope that Chinese people restrain themselves when they comment on Trump's infection, and such restraint would be noticed in the internet era with highly globalized information. All gloating by the Chinese people should be done behind closed doors.

It will lead to positive impacts, though no one has the right to point fingers at the Chinese Communist Party's narratives and misbehaviors.

[binsofchaos]

On A Personal Note | Frank Bruni

There is an existence outside politics, though you wouldn’t know that from the talking and reading and watching and obsessing that many of us have done over the past four years. You would think that all of life rises and falls on the exclamation points and ALL CAPS of one Twitter account.

I took a walk outside last night — well, Regan and I did. There suddenly seemed to be as many leaves on the ground as in the trees, and they formed a magic carpet: crackling underfoot, swirling in the breeze, releasing a perfume like no other. The same gusts that had brought some of them tumbling down merely tickled those that remained tethered to their branches, so that they sounded like they were giggling. I remembered this music from last year and from the year before, and it reassured me. The world spins. The seasons change.

I guess the cloud cover was low last night, trapping some of the light from Manhattan’s buildings, because I could clearly see all the winding and intersecting paths of Central Park, a glorious labyrinth that has spanned Democratic and Republican administrations, survived excellent mayors and miserable ones, and defied the human temptation — evident on all four sides of it — to build, build, build. For all our shortsightedness and our many civic flaws, we’re often able to appreciate what deserves appreciation, to protect what must be protected. Despite the exhortation to hurry, hurry, hurry, we sometimes stand still.

And there are pleasures immune to our follies, joys that transcend and outlast them.

I talked on the phone with my three siblings yesterday, and I was struck by how their voices reliably nudge my spirits higher. That’s true whether the prompt for a call is happy or sad, whether the subject is simple or complicated. We know one another as few others know us. We have a teeming scrapbook of memories all our own. That intimacy and that history, which I explored in this long-ago column, course through every conversation, and it can never be taken away.

After my nighttime walk, before going to bed, I read fiction. Given all the nonfiction I consume, all the articles and analyses and commentary, I occasionally have to remind myself to do this, and that shames me, because it should be a more ingrained habit at this point and because its rewards are so obvious, so rich. In this case I was nearing the end of “Normal People,” by Sally Rooney, a book that I found myself thanking and cursing with equal frequency, but its particular merits aren’t my concern right now.

What interests me — what I wanted to mention — is that tingle in your brain when you’re savoring a novel and you come across a turn of phrase or an insight that is so totally right, so very true, that’s like a lens bringing what’s on the other side of it into the sharpest focus imaginable.

It’s a reminder and reassurance: The human talent for making a mess of this world is matched by the human talent for making sense of it.

[jap-and-the-world]

Head of GOP Senate campaign committee blasts Doug Collins' challenge to Sen. Loeffler as 'selfishness'

“The shortsightedness in this decision is stunning,” National Republican Senatorial Committee director Kevin McLaughlin said after Georgia Rep. Doug Collins challenged a fellow Republican in the Senate.

       Head of GOP Senate campaign committee blasts Doug Collins' challenge to Sen. Loeffler as 'selfishness' Head of GOP Senate campaign committee blasts Doug Collins' challenge to Sen. Loeffler…

[shamefulright]

Head of GOP Senate campaign committee blasts Doug Collins' challenge to Sen. Loeffler as 'selfishness'

Head of GOP Senate campaign committee blasts Doug Collins’ challenge to Sen. Loeffler as ‘selfishness’

“The shortsightedness in this decision is stunning,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee director Kevin McLaughlin in a statement.

[ianhgray]

The DACA Debacle

On Tuesday morning, the White House announced that it was rescinding the Obama-era DACA policy, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. This executive order shields roughly 800,000 children who were brought to the United States illegally by their parents, but who have grown up as Americans. These so-called DREAMers are a sympathetic and productive segment of our society, and the political backlash to Trump’s decision has been fierce. Wanting to take credit for being tough-on-immigration, but not absorb criticism for attacking DREAMers, Trump has effectively punted the issue to Congress, giving them six months to find a legislative replacement for the order. This would be a major challenge in the best of times.

Immigration is an issue that always seems to be reaching a boiling point, yet somehow never gets resolved. There is a good reason for this: for most, the status quo feels acceptable and, more importantly, it serves as a perennial fundraising opportunity for both parties. Democrats tell donors they’re fighting for total amnesty, while Republicans fundraise off promises to secure the border and deport criminals. Every year, the same lines are convincingly delivered, and every year, nothing happens. As far as Washington is concerned, everybody wins.

Trump has upset this careful equilibrium, and for better or worse, is forcing Congress to finally declare its policy preferences, rather than tiptoeing around key details.

This sounds good in theory—a much-deserved kick in the pants to the DC “establishment”—but it is unfortunately occurring on the backs of very real and innocent people, who now face extraordinary fear and uncertainty. The issue must be addressed, but this is not the way to responsibly or humanely govern. Trump has ignited a lasting political conflict, right in the same month his administration must navigate a potential government shutdown, a contentious debt ceiling vote, health insurance reauthorization, and hurricane disaster relief. The timing was clearly political, intended to rally the President’s base, but demonstrates his remarkable inexperience and shortsightedness as he throws an already fragmented Congress into further chaos.

Here is the political starting line, as of Wednesday afternoon:

Trump: The President is clearly aware of his flagging support across the broader electorate, and is determined to keep his core supporters engaged. His much-hyped border wall is unlikely to pass Congress, so he has turned his attention to unilateral options. (A note to my Democratic friends—policies that are enacted by executive order can just as easily be dismantled. The proper legislative process is harder but lasting). Targeting DACA is a political triple-threat: he can rally his anti-immigrant supporters, strike down another piece of Obama’s legacy, and force Congressional Republicans to show their cards. So long as his supporters remain the most active segment of Republican voters, Trump knows the GOP can only stray so far from his lead. To him, it seems, DACA is a solid opportunity to remind them of that fact.

Congressional Republicans: The traditional GOP is in a tight spot, as Trump is forcing them to choose between two bad options. If they enact a legislative version of DACA, they will essentially be codifying an Obama policy that many have previously opposed. Conservative voters have long been suspicious that the Party won’t follow through on tough rhetoric, and will respond viciously to a pro-DACA vote. Vulnerable Republicans can expect withered support and potential primary challenges.

Meanwhile, if the GOP fails to enact a replacement to DACA, the long-term consequences could be catastrophic, as the Party risks losing Hispanic voters for a generation or longer. While they tend to lean more towards the Democratic Party, which is far more aggressive in outreach, on the whole Hispanics have remained surprisingly untethered politically. The DACA decision could help push them over the edge, essentially delivering the key swing states of New Mexico and Nevada—and, one day, perhaps even Texas—to the Democrats. Should this happen, it will become nearly impossible to elect another Republican president.

In normal political circumstances, a president would never put his own Party in this kind of position. Once again, Trump has demonstrated that he is not really operating as a Republican, but rather an unattached force in Washington politics, pursuing his own nebulously defined agenda.

Congressional Democrats: Other than attending protests and offering obligatory attacks on Trump, Democrats have had little to do over the past 8 months. Their Party is deep in the wilderness, and spending as much time fighting itself as the Republicans. This month’s series of difficult votes, however, could give them an opening to seize initiative.

If conservative hard-liners, such as the House Freedom Caucus, demand major spending cuts in exchange for their debt ceiling votes, the Republican leadership may require Democrats to help make up the difference. They will expect concessions of their own, and DACA could be among them. Should that happen, Democrats can claim a critical legislative victory on behalf of Hispanic Americans, even as they remain in the minority.

Trump’s DACA move is the latest in a string of fly-by-wire political calculations, none of which have yielded him a victory. Just as with healthcare, Trump has charted a waffling, incoherent, middle-course on immigration; by wanting to appear both tough and compassionate, he is achieving neither.

[mayonnaisevirtuoso]

I’m sorry if this is a bit serious all of a sudden, but I am so completely done with political discourse between the political parties (because we all know that american politics are polarized as hell and you have to agree with every single thing a Party says or be ostracized) being pure finger pointing and basically nothing else. It’s easy and comfortable to pick out the most radical members of a group you don’t like and make fun of them to feel better about yourself, but it doesn’t help your cause or anyone else’s. The sheer shortsightedness of it all pisses me off. I can’t ask questions to anyone in my goddamn life about X or Y issue if it so much as entertains a thought that they don’t want me to think, and that’s wrong. I would feel extremely uncomfortable identifying as a Republican, Democrat, MRA, Feminist, Egalitarian, or anything else, despite that I would probably call myself the last two if it wasn’t all so fucking dogmatic, because apparently people need to shout other people down to feel safe.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

After killing disaster-recovery rules, Ajit Pai can't understand why carriers aren't helping hurricane-hit Florida

Ajit Pai is a member of the Ayn Rand/James Buchanan cult that says that any government regulation is an unfair attack on the "freedom" of business, which is why his ascendancy to the Chairmanship of the FCC under Donald Trump was attended by an orgy of deregulation --  most of us know about his senseless slaughter of Net Neutrality, but that was just for starters.

Among the rules Ajit Pai killed was one that required telcos rebuilding after natural disasters to quickly replace ruined telcoms infrastructure with equivalent systems. The rule dates back to Hurricane Sandy's devastation of Fire Island, when Verizon tried to weasel out of rebuilding service, saying that cheaper cellular towers could replace all that downed copper.

Pai said that this rule got in the way of carriers laying down fiber (in reality, the biggest impediment to fiber rollout is the ban on competition from municipal fiber networks, a competitive pressure that often spurs carriers into action). He killed it.

Ajit Pai has publicly slammed the carriers for dragging their heels in rebuilding Florida's telcoms infrastructure, but thanks to the dastardly shortsightedness of his archenemy Ajit Pai, he is unable to force them to pull their socks up and get to work.

Similarly, Florida Governor Rick Scott -- a fellow deregulation neofeudalist -- signed a bill in 2011 (the 'Regulatory Reform Act of 2011') which ended Florida's oversight of residential phone service, including a mandate to connect everyone in the state. Scott killed recordkeeping of citizen complaints about poor phone service, so there is no data about how badly his rule screwed over the people of Florida.

Rick Scott is also publicly flaming the carriers for doing too little, too slow after Hurricane Michael, but he, like Ajit Pai, has been foiled by the cunning work of his archnemesis Florida Governor Rick Scott, who has tied his hands when it comes to forcing the carriers to get to work.

https://boingboing.net/2018/10/20/republican-death-cult.html