Liz Cheney mulls third-party run to block Trump victory - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15298031
late wrote:Bill Clinton is a politician, not an economist.

Our taxes are comparable to other highly developed countries.

The economy is doing good. Considering that Covid should have thrown us into a recession, it borders on amazing. Labor productivity is up 5.2%, which is really, really good. Inflation is coming down, this year has seen deflation in the durable goods sector. Unemployment is so low it scared the Fed.

You need to realise that when Biden took office, the country was a disaster. Everybody was expecting a recession. He kept that from happening.

I think he's the best president since Ike, and that's saying something.

No, The global economy and US economy is doing very poorly. Central banks and banks around the world just ramped up creating money to mask up actual shrinking economies. They just masked up GDP figures but they can't hide inflation. :lol: We are all able to buy less things with our cash now.
#15298033
Istanbuller wrote:
No, The global economy and US economy is doing very poorly. Central banks and banks around the world just ramped up creating money to mask up actual shrinking economies. They just masked up GDP figures but they can't hide inflation. :lol: We are all able to buy less things with our cash now.



The global economy is down. Europe is getting hammered.

But, again, the FACTS are that the American economy is going strong, low unemployment, great productivity growth. Consumer spending drives the economy, and spending is way up.

Inflation has gone down this year, even in the durable goods sector. Because American wages are going up, inflation is taking a smaller bite than it is in Europe. Oddly enough, Europe isn't panicking the way Americans are, for the most part.

Europeans like to say Americans are children, guess they're right.
#15298044
JohnRawls wrote:@Rancid @Rugoz

I am not disputing that they are power hungry. My question is how would an autocrat/dictator help them with power if dictator by default has all the power. If you are power hungry then you have inherent interest not to allow a dictator/autocrat to rise to power since you will loose all power.

You can see this in history that even if democratic/oligarchic/parliamentary systems make deals with potential autocrats, they eventually provide large pushback against them and only in cases of extreme competence the dictator actually creates a dictatorship. Being mediocre or stupid makes you loose. You need to have extreme cunning, smarts and be able to coat yourself as being useful for both the people and majority chunk of elites or frighten them to actually establish a dictatorship from a democracy. Trump is nothing compared to that. With monarchies and other semi-dictatorships it is much easier but America is a fully democratic state.


John, you need to realize what has been going on lately. The experts on analyzing civil wars in nations are saying the US is in deep crisis. People got killed on January 6th. There are a lot of worrying aspects about how the government is dysfunctional.

They are threatening shutdowns and there is a deeply strange cult going on in the GOP. Frankly, a large chunk of the US is not really respecting constitutional boundaries. At all.

Most of the US is secular and liberalish. But the popular vote has not been in charge for a few Republican presidencies. The Republicans have not had the popular vote but keep winning elections. You analyze it and it is about corruption. You allow corruption to seep in and getting rid of it is hard.

Latin America is a study in the difficulties of eradicating corruption in politics once it has been allowed to ferment and grow and settle into the fabric of a government. The USA has corruption happening.

This is the corruption index for the USA it is tied with Chile in South America and Uruguay in South America is a lot less corrupt than the USA is perceived. You have a very skewed view of the USA. In my opinion you should study the real stats of what is wrong with each nation out there:

https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021

It is not as clean as you think it is. They also since Citizens United have had serious problems with money in politics in the USA and creating corrupt lobbying.





None of those bought-off politicians are going to be interested in serving their constituents. It is all bullshit. They are corrupt assholes and should be kicked in the ass out of office. They are legally allowed to be corrupt. So it is harder to incriminate them than in the nations in which corruption is illegal.

A lot of work to do in the USA to stop the corruption from getting more acute. Too many people who are not understanding that unless you work very very hard? You wind up with the same problems as the rest of the nations struggling with corrupt political candidates.
#15298047
Tainari88 wrote:John, you need to realize what has been going on lately. The experts on analyzing civil wars in nations are saying the US is in deep crisis. People got killed on January 6th. There are a lot of worrying aspects about how the government is dysfunctional.


INdeed, to still think "aah it will be fine, it will all pass" is a fatal mistake. This hasn't ended.
#15298052
Rancid wrote:INdeed, to still think "aah it will be fine, it will all pass" is a fatal mistake. This hasn't ended.


It is far from over Rancid.

There is going to be the death of the GOP. And they will not leave quietly. The USA has a lot of really nationalistic class-conscious religious evangelical and rural and urban right-wing radicals. They are not the majority but the reality is that the Democratic party is full of corrupt and ineffective political people as well.

So, they are going to fight for supremacy. if you give them enough room they will fill the power vacuum with a bunch of power-hungry authoritarians. If you ignore it? They will be a real menace.

My ex boss was such a liberal. She really believed a bunch of liberal shit. I told her, no, the reality is that there is a very deep streak of intolerant ignorant religious Protestant white fanatics who do not want to see Black presidents, or any challenge to a hegemonic Eurocentric idea of what the USA is in the world. You live in a la la land. There is a rotten fascist anti democratic core to the US history of interactions with many nations around the globe. It is rotten in many ways. You just do not see it because they hide it all very effectively.

I never got the hidden part. I was confronted with it a lot when I was growing up. So you saw nothing and I saw it coming.
#15298068
Rancid wrote:INdeed, to still think "aah it will be fine, it will all pass" is a fatal mistake. This hasn't ended.


Its a problem. Is it a crysis or natural democratic process that is a really good question. I lean more on the nature of democracy honestly. US is not the first to experience this and will not be the last. Not sure where you and @Tainari88 took it that I am saying that all is fine in this regard, it isn't. But it also doesn't mean that this is something extremely new that democracies never faced before.

Retrospectively looking through history, Trump doesn't have the qualities, situation nor the ideas to turn US in to an autocracy. Doesn't mean that he won't try in his weird way but he will not succeed. He won't even get elected against Biden.
#15298070
Tainari88 wrote:My ex boss was such a liberal. She really believed a bunch of liberal shit. I told her, no, the reality is that there is a very deep streak of intolerant ignorant religious Protestant white fanatics who do not want to see Black presidents, or any challenge to a hegemonic Eurocentric idea of what the USA is in the world. You live in a la la land. There is a rotten fascist anti democratic core to the US history of interactions with many nations around the globe. It is rotten in many ways. You just do not see it because they hide it all very effectively.

You say you are against the liberal ideologue but then go on to repeat their lies. Far form being a disadvantage, being "Black" is actually an advantage ti getting selected in Republican primaries. You seem to label resistance to White Inferiorism as White Supremacism. The left in America wants to give endless privileges to Black people. The left continually demands that Black people be selected when they are less intelligent, less competent or less conscientious (more lazy). And of course at some point these people fail and then the left blames this on White Supremacism.

Obama was elected in 2008 not despite being Black, but because he was so called Black. The fact that he became very unpopular in some circles was because of his preacher and because of his policies and because of doing things that he had specifically said were unconstitutional.
#15298077
JohnRawls wrote:Retrospectively looking through history, Trump doesn't have the qualities, situation nor the ideas to turn US in to an autocracy. Doesn't mean that he won't try in his weird way but he will not succeed. He won't even get elected against Biden.


It's not just the Trump, but the whole Republican party. The Republican party is on board with changing the rules to cement their rule. They are very near to destroying the nation.
#15298085
KurtFF8 wrote:"Resistance to white inferiorism" is indeed just code used by white supremacists.

Er no, the fact that White Supremacists will oppose White Inferiorism, the fact that White Supremaicsts may even find White inferiorism where none actually exists in reality does not mean that all people who oppose White Inferiorism are White Supremaicsts.

It is also important to note there was not some magical moment when all White Surpemaicsm ceased and White inferiorism began. The two can happily (or unhappily) coexst, sometimes even in the same person. Look at the membership of our current British Tory Government over the past few years. You would have a hard time claiming that so called non Whites are discriminated against. In fact all the signs are that there is massive institutionalised racist discrimination against people of European descent when it comes to selection for government. But at the same time this government has instituted the policy of making people with Pakistani heritage and other non European national origins stateless. This is a quite disgraceful policy, that I oppose. If there was a movement, particularly a violent movement against it, I would support it.
#15298088
Rancid wrote:It's not just the Trump, but the whole Republican party. The Republican party is on board with changing the rules to cement their rule. They are very near to destroying the nation.


GOP have condemned themselves to be the looser party for the next 20 years. It doesn't mean that they won't win anything, they will win here and there at times but on average democrats will be more and more on top. It does mean that their power will fade over time due to the discontent within the party and problems with ideological differences and blatant disregard for the law and so on. Trump loss to Biden was just the beginning.
#15298089
JohnRawls wrote:
GOP have condemned themselves to be the looser party for the next 20 years. It doesn't mean that they won't win anything, they will win here and there at times but on average democrats will be more and more on top. It does mean that their power will fade over time due to the discontent within the party and problems with ideological differences and blatant disregard for the law and so on. Trump loss to Biden was just the beginning.


This is assuming they do not wield disproportionate power to effectively change the rules. Which they do. Republicans have a general strangle hold on state governments (see Texas, and even in some "liberal" states). They has disproportionate power (for example, like I said, about 20% of Texas gets to call the shots for the whole state). Couple this with gerrymandering at the federal level (which they do very well, unlike democrats), and they can still have enough power to take over even with many election loses. At a more basic level, this is how we get Republican presidents even though they lose the popular vote.

They will turn the US into a one party state via the state legislatures basically. Then they will enact federal legislation to prevent less conservative states to exercise those state's rights. Basically, Republicans are playing a game of switch-a-roo. They push for "states rights" right now because that's where they have power. Once they have enough power there, they will push to take state's rights away, and enact their will through the federal government (with help from their corrupt supreme court). Then.... there is nothing that can be done democratically to loosen their grip. This isn't something to take lightly. This party is an absolute danger and threat to the fabric of this (already flawed) democracy.

It's no guarantee this will get stomped out before Republicans get to this tipping. They still have a chance because they have spent decades stacking the deck in their favor.
#15298091
Rancid wrote:This is assuming they do not wield disproportionate power to effectively change the rules. Which they do. Republicans have a general strangle hold on state governments (see Texas, and even in some "liberal" states). They has disproportionate power (for example, like I said, about 20% of Texas gets to call the shots for the whole state). Couple this with gerrymandering at the federal level (which they do very well, unlike democrats), and they can still have enough power to take over even with many election loses. At a more basic level, this is how we get Republican presidents even though they lose the popular vote.

They will turn the US into a one party state via the state legislatures basically. Then they will enact federal legislation to prevent less conservative states to exercise those state's rights. Basically, Republicans are playing a game of switch-a-roo. They push for "states rights" right now because that's where they have power. Once they have enough power there, they will push to take state's rights away, and enact their will through the federal government (with help from their corrupt supreme court). Then.... there is nothing that can be done democratically to loosen their grip. This isn't something to take lightly. This party is an absolute danger and threat to the fabric of this (already flawed) democracy.

It's no guarantee this will get stomped out before Republicans get to this tipping. They still have a chance because they have spent decades stacking the deck in their favor.


Two party systems/Winner takes all are always problematic representation wise be it in US or UK compared to many-party systems which have this problem solved or as good as it gets. But two party system is usually way more easily governable. The electoral count issue persists in both many-party and two party systems though. It is not like 1 voter is valued the same even in many-party system depending on populations and regions.
#15298092
Fasces wrote:Project 2025 is a blueprint for turning the US federal government into a one party state. GOP also has a backup plan that is scarily effective in state legislatures - they're quite close to triggering a second constitutional convention.


The GOP doesn't have the majorities to change the constitution. Nobody has.

The question is whether Trump could ignore the courts, including the SCOTUS. I doubt the GOP would impeach him for doing so (it requires a 2/3 majority in the Senate), but public officials and the military could, in fact would be obliged to, disobey his orders. Of course Trump would claim he's actually the one upholding the constitution against the deep state yadda yadda.
#15298096
JohnRawls wrote:Two party systems/Winner takes all are always problematic representation wise be it in US or UK compared to many-party systems which have this problem solved or as good as it gets. But two party system is usually way more easily governable. The electoral count issue persists in both many-party and two party systems though. It is not like 1 voter is valued the same even in many-party system depending on populations and regions.


A one-party system is far easier to govern as well. :|
#15298123
Rich wrote:You say you are against the liberal ideologue but then go on to repeat their lies. Far from being a disadvantage, being "Black" is actually an advantage ti getting selected in Republican primaries. You seem to label resistance to White Inferiorism as White Supremacism. The left in America wants to give endless privileges to Black people. The left continually demands that Black people be selected when they are less intelligent, less competent or less conscientious (more lazy). And of course at some point these people fail and then the left blames this on White Supremacism.

Obama was elected in 2008 not despite being Black, but because he was so called Black. The fact that he became very unpopular in some circles was because of his preacher and because of his policies and because of doing things that he had specifically said were unconstitutional.


@Rich, I think you and I are going to have to go and debate a truly socialist Latin American-rooted perspective from ex-colonial and currently colonial societies. Because I think you think I am defending liberalism as it is practiced in the USA. I am not. I do like your criticisms of liberalism because most of the time it is spot on. You should read an old book from 1965, Franz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth. It is a very enlightening book about colonialism and how it damages the colonizing group as well as the colonized. It dehumanizes both groups. A more complete point of view about how that works in the brains of people like you are Rich is Fanon at his best. You really fit into the perspective he talks about.

Where you and I really differ, is your tendency to believe a bunch of bullshit about blacks being inferior and incompetent, and your brainwashing from some ex Empire like the UK where they teach you from the cradle that your society and culture and language are a superior way of being, thinking and acting. That is a terrible lie. In all ways. But you believe it. I would say a huge percentage of British white people who grow up in the system and are taught in that society that the reason for the relative success of British imperialism is that the society is technologically superior and culturally superior, and this or that superior to other societies and the idea of colonizing is a mutually beneficial relationship to the ones you colonize. The ones running the show never own up to the barbarism of exploitation and to the need to dehumanize to justify exploiting, and gaining from land, people, and labor that have an innate right to their own path in the world. After all? The reason why you have to fuck people over in life is because they are people who can do the labor that only other human beings can accomplish. The labor that comes from humans is human labor. It is not labor from another species. We are not talking about aliens from outer space. They are humans. It is just that humans who need to be controlled and have fewer rights than the colonizing group because the purpose of it all is for a small group to benefit.

Why do you think I asked you Rich? Of if all that imperialism for the English Crown and the UK imperialism group and the East India Company was supposedly to elevate the entire society of the UK? Why have the lower classes not been elevated to have high standards of living by now? That shit never materialized. The trickle down theory of economics never happened in the UK. It never will. The upper crust talk about civilizing the world for the benefit of all, but in the bottom line it is about being primitive evil people who only use and abuse and they are so cold they do not even have tolerance and benevolence for the white working class in their own societies. They hate even their own race. They do not trust their own either. Much less the ones they exploit in the Third World.

You are never taught jack shit through the lens of the other group and their own history, their own talents and their own trajectory in human history. Nothing you are taught that contradicts that narrative. So of course you think that the Third World is primitive, full of poor people who know nothing, do nothing and are nothing. It is really a big mistake. The reason why all these empires fall in human history is precisely because they believe in the lie of some ethnic humans are inferior and others are superior from the start. That is all bullshit Rich.

You need to write me and say, 'Tainari88, you are inferior. Less than I am. Not as intelligent, not as educated, born to serve me and lose in life. Because I am English and I am better.' Write it now. with complete confidence. If you truly believe that? Then you will definitely lose against the liberals who are hegemonic in the world right now. Because they know how to use Black people, Rishi people and token minorities whom they hold up as prime examples of how benevolent they are. And like fools most people fall for that shit.

Real equality has to start with your head Rich. Where you think about all the people you have most admired in this world for their human high qualities, their artistic abilities, scientific abilities, and every kind of ability. And realize that the group you think is inferior has all those qualities as well. They are your equals and also for not being boasting arrogant fucks are probably your superiors in the end.

If you can not conceive of that? The liberals are going to win the game of we are fairer, better, kinder, more advanced and great. We are the civilizing force. When what they are hypocritical failures at true equality. And always will be.

Be brave. If you truly believe I am inferior to you and my abilities can never compare to a white person of English descent? Then the liberal shit wins. For sure.

You will help them out. :lol:

I am here sitting and thinking about how to think about Rich in England?

He has nothing of my own life experiences. He is another individual. He has not seen, and experiences just how talented are all these supposedly inferior people. How could he? He is over there living in his own environment.

That is what it is all about. Living in isolation and thinking human beings are these islands of isolation. Where they do not really affect each other. The opposite is true. We are like an Aspen Grove thinking we are separate trees when we are all connected to each other.

Our thoughts guide us. If our thoughts make other humans into animals or dehumanize them? Guess what? That has an effect.

I do not think you are inferior to me. I do think you got issues with nationalism and far-right stuff.

Do I think you are not a thinking man? No. You are a very good thinker. I just think you got fed up with liberal shit a long time ago.

Go ahead and be brave Rich. Tell me to my face I am inferior because of my ethnicity or background. It is bullshit. It always has been and always will be.

The lie has to continue because the liberals got to say, see, we got over the hump, we are the best at equality. When deep in their minds? They are not believing in equality at all. They refuse to change society enough to make equality progress drastically.

The reality is the battle for a better world Rich starts with how well we fight our own limitations to our own defective thinking. How well we fight our own lies in our heads. Taught by our society, our culture, our history, our class, our social and economic conditions. How well we wrestle with our own delusions. That is the big test in this life.

Believing in all these lies about Black people being inferior and pastors and bullshit about Obama...and about Rishi? The liberal hegemonic scene has to be able to use symbols that cover the essence of the inequality. Otherwise they lose power.

You will wind up agreeing with them a lot more than I ever will.

I never thought my group was inferior or less human. But I never allowed myself to think that white people are not really my equals. Both are lies. Bad ones Rich.

I do not plan on helping the liberals lie to the world about their hypocritical ways. For me that is wasting time.
#15298126
Rugoz wrote:The GOP doesn't have the majorities to change the constitution. Nobody has.


To call a convention requires a simple majority vote in 34 state legislatures. 19 states have already signed on, as of 2023.

In 2016, Republicans controlled majorities in both chambers of 32 states, and in 2 more states controlled at least one chamber.

In 2023, Republicans have a trifecta in 22 states, and control both chambers of the legislature in 6 more, controlling one chamber 3 more. The states with split legislatures include Kansas Louisiana, Alaska, Kentucky and North Carolina, where a GOP trifecta is entirely feasible.

It really isn't as far-fetched as you think it is. Procedures for adopting a new constitution will be decided by the convention, and I doubt they'll go for requiring unanimous state approval. Once they get their convention, they're pretty much free to do whatever.

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