I'll agree that those ten people shouldn't hold power.

Defund the police was the dumbest catch-phrase ever. It didn't encapsulate at all what the efforts were trying to do. Take away multiple layers that fall on the police's shoulders and let them get back to doing what will be more effective for them as they serve their constituents. Their attitude of "this is what we do, and we'll do it how we like" is one of the biggest problems. There are a million ways to skin this fish, and it appears that here, top down cultural change has to happen. That's a far cry from 'defund the police.'

Not hard to figure out really. Some examples:

** People who want abortion on demand with no restrictions
** People who don't just want healthcare, but want the government to run the system. Anything this side of Medicare 4 all is not radical left
** People who don't just want clean energy, but want us to drive the oil business out essentially immediately and won't consider nuclear as a transitional option.
** People who think racism is a severe enough problem in modern America that it justifies tearing down the justice & law enforcement system, not merely reforming/adjusting them
** People who believe the 70% top marginal tax rate in the 1970s was not excessive, and that we generally should use Denmark etc. as our model for economic policy.

Etc.

Look at any issue, see what the general consensus is, then find the position that's left enough that said consensus is unacceptably moderate to them. Or similarly, right enough - there's certainly a plethora of positions we could stake out as radical there as well, though that wasn't the question here. That's the 'radical wing'. I might add that there's nothing wrong with being radical. I'm radical on prisons (axe them all), I'm radical on abortion and individuality, radical on constitutional matters in general and the rule of law, and I'm borderline radical economically as well in the liberal direction. The only responsibility I think radicals have is to be straight up that they're being radical and not dress it up as mainstream.

If you're radical, just own it.

Agreed. Here in Portland for example, we have a huge homeless problem, and I think everybody involved would prefer that the police were not the first & only party responsible for handling those issues, but the politicization & labeling of 'defunding' will likely serve to make any kind of resource shifting that much more difficult in the future.

I think you did a good job there, Brian. That is a pretty solid list. There are some things on that list that would make me radical, but mostly not.

One thing I am radically against is automatic spell checking. I am about to throw this phone into a lake.

Except there are those that are 100% serious. They want to get rid of the police, not just reform it.

Thanks - and I agree with you on spell-checking that you can't turn off. In my line, it is a constant struggle to make sure you're not asking a customer about the Homeless (instead of Hormel) chili or somesuch.

Wonder if Biden would consider an executive order on this subject, similar to Dubya's Do Not Call list/registry? I'd likely find it unconstitutional, but it would still be a small temptation to support it anyway.

Ah well.

What kind of restrictions? meaning a certain trimester/weeks along or other things?




I don't much care if I'm defined as radical. It's another label I don't really care about, though I do think Edward uses it in a condescending way. I'm further left than many of my friends, but also know there is a not insignificant contingent significantly further left than me.


But overall - I think if our definition of radical would be moderate in most of western Europe, then we have a big problem.

Or alternatively, Europe has a big problem. Being different from them doesn't automatically mean we're wrong. It might, but the opposite might also be true


I didn't have any particular one in mind. With the 'eh, polls aren't so great anymore' caveat, the polling I'm aware of indicates about a quarter of Americans want abortion to be unrestricted and available in any circumstance. The consensus falls roughly where current law is, with a modest lean to additional restrictions of some kind.

#BestEpisode_EVER pic.twitter.com/n7oJx9BrhE

— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) November 7, 2020

FWIW, the term I would use instead of radical, at least as I understand how Edward64 means it most of the time, is insular . One can have extreme or radical views and still be open to points of view that are much different than their own. Similarly, you can be quite moderate compared to others and still have no use whatsoever for entertaining why they think what they do, and highly dismissive/disrespectful of those differences.

Personally, I would consider insular to be a much greater insult than radical, and a far greater danger. I also think Edward's main point here is basically correct; Biden won't be able to be 'President for all Americans', because the gulf to bridge is orders of magnitude too large for anyone to bridge. We're well past the point where anyone can do that. I hope he manages to simply do what he believes is right.

The Trump admin reportedly plans on slamming Iran with sanctions sometime before inauguration to ramp up tensions and make it more difficult for Biden to rejoin the nuclear treaty.

I think we'll see more of this in the coming weeks and anyone that thinks the GOP is suddenly going to play nice is crazy.

Sure, I'll buy most of those, but there is nuance. FWIW, I don't know anyone who believes that. I think most of the congresspeople and senators don't either. Electing Jon Osoff does not mean you can abortions on every street corner and have it paid by the government, but that term is thrown so loosely around (radical left) that everyone fits it. Nobody I know wants to defund the police (including Biden), but rather re-prioritize spending.

I would not mind seeing no oil and fracking anywhere. They are both horrible for the environment and none of the companies ever take responsibility for trashing nature. How many times have we heard some pipeline that needed to be built through a conservation area leaked/broke and we are left holding the long-term bill.

This I agree with. But I think he's sending an important and consistent message. If you voted for Trump, or you are in a red state, or hell even if you had some QAnon tweets, this government is not going to be out for revenge. This administration won't do what Trump did and villify opponents. And if you can come back from your QAnon ways, and make reasonable points, this administration will listen to what you have to say and you get to be a part of the conversation.

Of course there's a significant percentage of Trumper's who won't believe any of that and who will dig in on QAnon or whatever conspiracy is next. But from a leadership perspective, the message is really important.

I assume ya'll all know that too, but just to put it down in writing.

That's fair, I think. I think it's absurd, and I think its an incredibly strange view given all of the metrics that I would point to that I feel state the obvious, but yeah, I gotcha.

I'd toss out some more.

1) Proponents for free flow/very little control of people crossing borders and/or opening up immigration to everyone
2) Proponents of Portland protesting of BLM (or whatever they are protesting about and don't know if BLM even supports them anymore) after month 6 (arbitrary) of 8
3) Absolutely no justification of any US military action (successful or not) since WW2
4) Thinks vast majority of Trump supporters are primarily driven by racism vs other additional combination of factors including economic, political, military, societal, competitiveness etc. and different mix of priorities

Yes, although I consider myself moderate right, I too have views that would fall under the radical right such as my support of the Wall, and I suspect many here think my views on the China threat is extreme. But overall, I classify myself as moderate right.


I can see why you would say this. It's not my primary intent when talking to the broader group here but admittedly it can be that way when discussions go off the rails with the "extreme radical left" and responding to rude behavior in like :). I like to organize my thoughts by putting things in buckets and in other discussions, I think you've seen evidence of this.

You would consider a quarter of Americans as the radical left? Well not to mention that there are people who don't want abortion on demand but want Medicare 4 All. So 30% of Americans are radical left? Seems a bit of an expansive definition of 'radical'.

To be fair, I think there is more than a quarter of Americans that are radical right.

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I wasn't combining issues, I was taking each of them separately. I.e. as I described, I am radical left on some issues, radical right on others, moderate on more. I don't think it makes sense to throw issues together and try to come up with some overall label for a lot of people.

In a country as divided as ours where it's rare to get above 60%, sometimes even 55% agreement on most issues, I don't think it's particularly expansive to consider 25% as being radical. YMMV. As mentioned I would do the same on the other side. 25% is less than support than there is for building a wall with Mexico (40% ish), which is generallly and correctly considered to be strongly opposed, less than the % who would not take a FDA-approved COVID vaccine if it were free (at least 35%) which is certainly considered a radical view around these parts, etc. 'Only' 25% is quite a limited amount and definitely identifies issues outside of mainstream political thought IMO.

Trump GSA appointee is refusing to sign paperwork authorizing a transition.

That's not how these terms are used in real life. People are considered radical left or reactionary right and it's considered a whole hog sort of thing.

Add it to the list of ways in which I refuse to be party to the misuse of language then? I think political labels in the sense you describe them, are at very best of limited use and very often misleading. People are more nuanced than that.

Language is what people decide it is. There is no idealized notion of language.

And it makes no sense to me to proclaim most people have a radical position (30% on both sides is 60%). It basically makes the term useless, imo.

Police brutality disproportionally affecting black people is still an issue, and even with increased and heavy focus on this we've still had countless new issues in the last few months. Why would the protesting stop when the issue still exists in exactly the same way?

Most movements like this take 1+ years of consistent protesting and other forms of activism to see results.

So this one I would argue heavily is not radical by any stretch.

Also, if you disagree with a slight bit of anything they said, you are a nazi or a facist.

With both the extreme left or extreme right, there is no dialog.

I think there's a huge number of exceptions to this, especially with the exaggeration of "disagree with a slight bit of anything they said" :P

I don't think anyone is changing anyone else's minds, but I think a lot of people are at least having conversations without yelling fascist at the person or people they're talking to.

A lot of us are on this board.

On the list of Brian's radical examples, the only partial one that I don't fit is "won't consider nuclear as a transitional option." All of the rest of that I agree with 1000%.


Of course, there are people like this, and they're very loud on twitter. Unfortunately all we can do is block them. They likely have value for their respective sides but anyone on the left who considers the GOP, or moderate right folks who separated themselves from trump - their sworn enemy can go fuck themselves.

Well the abortion on demand without restrictions is basically a Democratic Party platform position. President Obama fought for it.

M4A and 70% tax rates is Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren positions. They are definitely pretty far left, but I consider radicals to be the folks beyond them. You know the folks who say Sanders is a 'compromise candidate'.

Like if Sanders is radical left... then what is Jacobin Magazine?

FIFY


FIFY

I think the issue at hand, is before when people shouted at each other at some point you could retreat to your homes, but with social media, and the internet there is no respite. It's always there to engage and it's really hard to turn it off and not feel disconnected when you re-engage. You may have lost the narrative, you may have escalated it when cooler heads were prevailing, you may engage and be totally outnumbered..

When Trump is constantly barraging all discussion (worldwide not just locally), there is a question of whether you ride on the crazy train or stand in front of it. I would say unless your Superman, you are stuck on the train until it crashes or if you are lucky, slows down.

I agree with this too, but didn't seem worth the discussion here, tis a shockingly moderate place :D

That's true. This board is a center-left place. I don't get the folks who say it's far left because Rainmaker gets ganged up on here from time to time (I'm guilty of doing that at times ;) )

All I would say to that is you can always find someone more extreme. I mean, QAnon could say they aren't radical because they aren't as radical as Attila the Hun who is not as radical as ... etc. There's virtually no end to that game.

That's why I think the American public is the most relevant control group. That way we can place terms like 'radical' in the context of the society in which they exist.

Attila the Hun is involved in US politics? (Loeffler doesn't count)

What's funny (not the laughing kind of funny) is that it's considered far left wanting health care for everyone that doesn't have the chance of bankrupting someone or having a clean environment and cutting our reliance on oil by having the burden shifted over to clean and renewable energy sources or having the rich pay a higher tax rate. Then call me far left I guess.

I don't view those as "far left" proposals in the abstract way you've presented them, and I don't think most people do either. I suppose everyone has a different definition.

For me, some specific "far left" proposals are sanctuary cities, abolishing Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), decriminalizing illegal border crossings, giving taxpayer funded health benefits to illegal aliens, Medicare for All, Green New Deal extremism (e.g. banning all fracking, relying on 100% renewables), and excessive tax rates on corporations and the upper class.

ICE isn't even twenty years old. We'd be fine without them. Honestly, we have too many different federal law enforcement groups and should consolidate as much as possible.

The Overton Window is pushed so far to the right in this country that national health care is considered extreme. Every first world country has it and almost all have much better results at a fraction of the cost.

Your average Democrat in this country would be far right just about anywhere else.

Also, in case anyone was actually worried Biden would morph into a socialist, this should clear your mind. Transition team is loaded up with corporate executives in almost every industry.

Agency Review Teams | President-Elect Joe Biden

The former campaign manager and chief of staff of the President is an unapologetic fascist. Like I don't think he'd deny it (and more or less admitted to it the other day). One of the head policy makers in the White House is a white nationalist with ties to neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.

The words get tossed around too much, but what would you call them at this point?

As for the radical left, they have no power in this country. There are not going to be any communists or anarchists in Biden's cabinet. Not sure why we "both sides" this stuff.

President-Elect Biden is a great man. So good to have someone in office who isn't a baby piece of shit

This is the thing that just makes me want to slam my head into the wall. You bring up even having a public option, and the Right starts talking about Venezuela and Cuba. It is so ridiculous.

Then I guess I'm far left then by your definitions. There's some nuance, but, for the most part (I probably don't agree exactly 100% with how they should be implemented), I'm for all of those things.



Exactly! The conservatives and the GOP have been pretty successful at demonizing these things, like national health care with the scary SolcIaListS are coming for you tactic. It's the new Red Scare. We currently live in a 3rd world country with a 1st world façade on the outside of our house and it's disturbing how many people are ok with that because they are afraid others might get 'free stuff'.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/clima...limate-change/


This is great news. If we really want to be serious about climate change we really have to view it as affecting to all agencies and not just leave it in EPA and/or Interior.

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Nice! Even the DoD acknowledged the importance and seriousness of climate change a few years ago and it makes sense that it will affect pretty much every single agency.

I'll just throw in here that there are some people - a diminishing number yes, but still some - who think that freedom is a pretty good idea and that's why they don't want government running the lives of ordinary citizens more than necessary. This idea that it's all just a bunch of socialism scare tactics is becoming more and more true, but there's a pretty darned robust school of thought going back centuries behind the concept that excessive government power tends to lead to some very bad outcomes.

That's an incredibly small amount of people.

Well, I like freedom. However, there is so much wealth and opportunity disparity in this country how does that get fixed without the government?

Some people like freedom as long as it means the status quo. Protect my wealth, protect my beliefs, and leave me the fuck alone. To me that isn't freedom. That's just taking advantage of a system that fucked up somewhere along the way.

Best polls I can find on these (with the previous polling caveat):

** 2:1 or more against abolishing ICE, so that one's borderline. At least as recently as 2018 a majority of Democrats were against it.

** The Green New Deal is pretty much supported strongly by those left of center, so it's really wouldn't qualify.

** Sanctuary cities are in the middle - approximately 40% support from what I can find so a minority position but not an extreme one.

** Banning fracking has slightly more support than that, so again not extreme.

On relying 100% on renewables - I think those that support that would change their tune very quickly if we actually did that. There's a reason no industrialized country in the world has eliminated fossil fuels completely. The debate as I see it is really about how fast to move and in what ways. If we stopped using all oil, coal, natural gas etc. tomorrow the resulting economic collapse would be so massive that it's unimaginable in some ways. There would be no first-world nations, as we define them today, within months. Possibly weeks.

This is a good point, but also a straw man. Very few people think there should be no government at all. Then we need to define how much wealth disparity is acceptable, and how we are going to measure it know we've reached the goal. Zero wealth disparity has never happened, so I'm assuming we're both talking non-zero here.

BTW, to the assertion that it's an incredibly small number of people being talked about; 41% this past year think the government is doing too much as opposed to not doing enough. That's the lowest it's been in a long time, it was 20 points higher eight years ago. So it's definitely headed that direction, but there are still a lot of people concerned about it.

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

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Most people who claim that just don't want government doing things they don't like. They are fine with government doing things they do like.

What voting contingent actually wants less government?

Conservatives often claim they want less government, but they rarely govern that way.

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Just recently saw a farmer on Twitter talking up the self-reliance of farmers and how Democrats want everybody to be on welfare.

Then somebody looked him up on the government subsidies database. He’d received over $2,000,000 in government subsidies.

He just didn't want government subsidies for THEM. That is really conservatism in a nut-shell. Government shouldn't tell me what to do, but it should tell them what to do. Government shouldn't help them, but should help me. I have mine, f-you.

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There's some of that sure, but there's also the obvious point that some people's list of things they like government doing is smaller than that of others.

On the voting part, it's much like how some of the left doesn't want Biden because he's too moderate. You generally still vote for them when the election comes around, because they're still better than the alternative. We can't just say that we should believe people when they tell us who they are, and then decide not to believe them in other cases when we don't like the conclusion.

There certainly is a lot of fighting on these threads, but I wouldn't really consider paint FOFC or anybody in it with the extreme left or right brush. For the most part, we can have conversations here, and that's more than you can expect in many places. We often can't agree, but that's okay.

Reddit on the other hand, is a totally different story.

Ron Klain has just been named Biden's Chief of Staff. Klain was also Obama's "Ebola Czar" back when there was a concern about Ebola spreading in the country and did a good job there.

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Preventing the infectious disease from spreading or talking the media out of their hysteria? Giving realistic assessments & listening to experts seems wise in any case, but I'm not sure the overblown Ebola scare & COVID pandemic have much in common - if anything his job should have been to downplay the threat from what the American public felt while here it's the opposite.

I think what's similar is to listen to scientists, which is what Obama did (and may have hurt him in 2014 midterms), and what Biden is clearly going to do.

Well those small government folks got awfully quiet the past 4 years. Have a feeling they will be real vocal come mid-January.

Kind ofn like the anti-war folks who got eerily quiet when Obama took office.

My point is that small government and anti-war are two areas that get touted a lot but have essentially no real coalition or power in this country. Mostly just a bunch of fakes.

For a while it was considered the pet project of the Norquist types, as a vehicle for no taxes.

Oh, they're coming right back out of the woodwork as soon as Biden is sworn in.

SI

We're currently neck-deep in concurrent political and infectious disease crises and one party is actively cheering on both while the other is paralyzed because they are too busy arguing over which of its members are the stinkiest.

I see this is as building mighty castles in the air based on flawed single-factor analysis. If you look at it from the standpoint of voting political power, then the only groups who have any power at all are pretty much opposition to whoever's been in charge for a while and perceived economic conditions. Nothing else really has enough power to swing anything. Under that way of viewing our system, we might as well stop talking about virtually all political issues. Racism, the environment, foreign policy, you name it can all just go away as well. Reality is more complex.

That doesn't mean people don't care about issues in varying amounts and degrees. I think the anti-war crowd had an impact during Obama's presidency, and small-government types did in Trump's (most obviously during COVID). There's just a massive gap between 'we care about this and only this is enough numbers to swing national elections' and 'we mostly just say we care about this but don't really'. There are multiple issues at play for most people, the natural human bias towards a candidate who does things we like on unrelated issues, etc.

I think it's more in the vein of saying any new vehicles bought by the government should be electric. New stuff should run on renewable energy. Not just saying "Hey guys. You can't use your gas-powered cars anymore."

I get that, but you still can't get anywhere near 100% renewables even going forward from right now. You need a huge investment in new power plants to get off of coal, and right now that would involve quite a bit of nuclear because renewable sources are not yet at the point where you can rely on them to power the grid all of the time regardless how many you build. Electric aircraft aren't viable and it'll be a very long time until they are, if ever, for the longer routes. And then there's the everyday items, from antifreeze and tennis rackets to toothbrushes and crayons to detergents, deodorant, rubber alcohol, thousands of ubiquitous products that you use in everyday life without thinking they come from oil at some point in the chain.

There are algae-based and other replacements being worked on for a lot of them, but we aren't remotely close to being able to get rid of them completely. That's why I say it's a matter of how fast you move, not whether you get there.

I would say that heavily regulating fracking is long overdue. But that's not the same as getting rid of it. Though, at the rate we're going, we're stupidly contaminating a ton of our water supply in places that don't have a ton just for fracking because the price of gas > price of water (and extraction), which seems like a stupid equation to use for this.

SI

It's like people have never heard of the concept of a phased implementation before.

My experience with Trump supporters is they see everything in black and white. Nuance is a concept they don't grasp. whether it is fracking, defunding the police, socialism, etc...they tend to leave very little room for gray area. I suspect that is the influence of FOX News scare tactics.

I've noticed this as well. There's zero nuance when it comes to things they are against/hate, but, they all of a sudden get extremely pedantic when it comes to arguing why trump is the next best thing since sliced bread.

I think it helped Obama get elected, but it also disappeared when he took office and was drone striking villages. Also the next two nominees of that party were individuals who voted for the Iraq War.

When Trump spent like a drunken sailor, none of the Tea Party voices said a word. Perfectly happy with handouts to people and businesses. The huge welfare increases for farmers.

I'm sure there are some diehards out there that truly stand by their principles. But most of this country doesn't really care as long as their person is doing it.

There's a foreign policy group that really does love regime change, but they're pretty small. The larger group of defense contractors and their congressional allies are fine without new wars as long as they keep selling weapons. Trump didn't pull back on anything, increased our defense spending, and pushed for foreign weapons sales. He kinda pleased everyone.

I remember this stat when it came to drone strikes and who was president:

Democratic support: 38% support in 2013, 37% support in 2017
Republican support: 22% support in 2013, 86% support in 2017

It shows consistency with democrats and the normal hypocrisy of republicans.

Source: Republican voters have flip-flopped on airstrikes in Syria - Axios

Question about the senate:

As of right now, the media is showing the senate at 50 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and 2 TBD (Georgia revote). But of the 48 Democrats, 2 are actually Independents (Sanders & King) that canvas with the Democrats. So if the Democrats take both Georgia seats, does that make it 50-50 or 50-48-2?

Just wondering about who will 'control' the senate...

The independents are considered to be Dems in this scenario, I think. Dems only need to get to 50/50 because Harris would be the deciding vote.

I was more concerned about who would be Senate Majority/Minority leaders...

It would be the Dems, Scarecrow. The independents would caucus with the Dems to elect the leader.

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Majority or minority leader is just a name. The party with the votes gets to decide the agenda. the "leader" is just the party's spokesperson for each party on issues. There's really nothing more to it than that. I don't know if the Dems would be minority given 2 independents, but if the independents vote with the Dems, Dems control regardless of what the leader is called.

I am trying to come up with the best ad to convince Republicans not to vote in the run off election. Something like "the Dems stole the last election, and your vote won't count this time either. Why bother?"

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They can't steal your vote if you don't cast it.

"Trump's not on the ballot, so why bother?"

Send a message to RINO Brian Kemp by letting his GA allies fail in the runoffs!

Kind of lost in the shuffle are the gains that the republicans made in the House of Representatives, defying all pre-election polling. Incumbent house republicans have not lost a single race. I think this is further evidence that the blue wave was largely a myth, and the presidential election was a refutation of Trump. The Georgia senate runoffs should be very interesting.

Kim Beats Cisneros in California House Race: Republican Pickup

So, I mean, if you're married to the idea that there was some kind of interference in the elections (see: the memes going DEMOCRATS WERE UP IN ARMS ABOUT RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE FOUR YEARS AGO BLAH BLAH), it wouldn't be a huge stretch to go "look, Russia's goal is to undermine the United States, and they can get a two-fer by both triggering a Trump tantrum over losing AND undermining Biden's ability to actually get anything done as President."

So that blue wave that ends up not being a blue wave? Explains how you end up with situations like "Biden wins this state with a vulnerable Republican senator who wins going away." If Russia interfered again, but did so in a sophisticated enough way to split the baby, so to speak.

The other option is, as I've argued until I'm blue in the face, the Occam's Razor solution - that, yeah, people rejected Trump specifically, but not his Republican allies generally (which is weird).

The intelligence agencies have talked about Russia looking to interfere again in 2020, but there hasn't been any chatter on what that would have looked like, so...

But there isn't really a defensible scenario that has the Democrats, or their allies, putting their thumb on the scale just enough to elect Biden without ALSO bringing along a Senate he can work with.

It's either continued Russian undermining of American democracy, just in a more sophisticated way, or the electorate rejected Trump and not Republicans.

The "Democrats cheated to steal the election!" narrative just doesn't hold water.

Still thinking about Hillary for AG. I know she won't get confirmed so maybe acting AG?

Someone from Biden's team should float the idea after the GA elections just as a jab at Trump.

Did a little post moving to consolidate threads a bit. (NO ONE LOST POSTS!)

Moving forward, let's try this...

"IF TRUMP LOSES IN NOVEMBER...."--Trump's continued fight against the results of the 2020 election, the finalizing of the electoral college, etc. Discussion here should largely end when he either concedes (HA!) or Biden takes office.

"THE BIDEN PRESIDENCY..."--Obviously will be the "moving forward" thread, but I also put the most recent discussion of the Georgia Senate race in there, as it impacts the Biden Presidency tremendously.

"THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY"--If by some miracle the President decides to actually govern--rather than whine and sulk--for the next 2 months, I'd expect this thread to remain active. Yesterday's COVID presser made sense to be in here, and speaking of that....

"COVID 19 POLITICAL DISCUSSION"--Merging that entire thread into the Trump Presidency. Once Biden takes over, COVID-19 political discussion belongs in that thread. There's definitely a place for a non-political COVID-19 discussion, but given the national nature of the response, the political pieces of it fit into discussion of the Presidency.

I don't think for a second he'd do it, but wouldn't something like this just boil down to what happens in GA? Why wouldn't she get confirmed if they have a tie + Harris? (Or do you think some Dems would break ranks?)

More like more fodder for the true believers which will work against the GA senate races. Better to do it after IMO.

But we still have an election going on (Georgia Senate). That should be in the election thread.

Following the Mandalorian theme ...

Ben: I have spoken

Just trying to consolidate. I've gotten multiple complaints of "too many threads on the same thing" and "I don't know where to post this," so I felt this was a place where we could consolidate. As I said about the Biden thread....

I mean, that race is the linchpin for just about all national politics for at least half of Biden's term.

I disagree, but you're the red, white and blue underwear wearing captain of this ship, so carry on.

BUT THE ELECTION IS NOT OVER BEN! IF TRUMP LOSES IS ASSUMING FACTS NOT IN EVIDENCE AND I WILL NOT POST THERE!

people actually have complained about this? Jesus folks...

I've never understood the too many posts complaint. They aren't a finite resource.

I hold up my posting history as evidence, your honor

SI

Not to mention in general we will chase rabbits in any thread. We can branch into several sub-subjects in a discussion, but we had a good break down on where to post main themes (election in the election thread, Trump in the Trump thread, Biden in the Biden thread, Covid in the covid thread).

Now, I have a really interesting election break down tweet from Nate Cohn to post, but where do I post it? Logically, it should have went into the election thread, but now we don't have one. Should I put it in the Trump thread? It is about Trump, but not just Trump. Should I put it in the Biden thread? It is about more than Biden.

Having multiple threads for subjects helps the conversations be diverse and allows us to follow threads of conversation. Having fewer threads leads to hard to follow conversations as they bleed all over each other. I don't think this is an improvement at all.

I don't believe that at ALL

It's probably one republican who doesn't want a biden thread