What is considered 'left' in America more more right each year I find ;)

(I'm fairly certain Reagan was a lefty by todays standards :D )

I think it's just the opposite.


Democrats continue to move further and further to the left to the point where what was at one time considered to be the middle is now considered far to the right....and anyone who was right of center 25 - 30 years ago is now considered a cook fringe righty.

I for one refuse to keep moving the the "new center", which to me, is simply the same as moving to the left of where I have always been.

What is this "center" you two are speaking of when it comes to politics?

I agree its good to define as the definition shifts.

In my own views, I see some stratification between foreign, economic/budget and social issues.

Personally, I'm more right on foreign, more right on economic/budget and more left on social. Admittedly, they don't mesh perfectly as my social vs budget are often at odds.

That stratification usually is defined as lacking commitment to a side at best by the extremes on both sides, not as being a centrist.

Panerd, 100% respect for what you are saying here and your position and opinion on how government should function even if am I one of those "leftists" who would disagree with most of what you said in the second paragraph. So are you still okay with a Trump Presidency because he still gives you closer to what how you believe a government should be run, or are you as fed up with him as we "leftists" are?

Center=whatever I think is correct

I think it's interesting that this particular thread has become mostly a left leaning progressive groupthink. I think you could rightly say that this board leans pretty strongly left, but I also think that if you went back to read this thread at around election time you'd see a lot more posts from our conservative commenters praising his victory. A few months later, and you only see an occasional few posts from these same folks, and flash forward to now & this thread is primarily a place for all of our liberal posters to wonder at Trump's latest daily misstep, while our conservative posters stay completely silent on the man and his administration.

...one could perhaps blame that evolution on some kind of collective bullying or political fatigue, but I think the easiest explanation is that the Republican base is pretty much stuck int he same place as his party: they don't agree with much Trump does (or at least says), and their thoughts that he might be manageable or steerable have fallen away over the months, they have no desire to defend Trump's individual actions on a daily basis, but they maintain a dedication to their own conservative beliefs so all they can do is kind of suffer in silence as the 'girl they brought to the dance' drunkenly knocks all the tables to the ground.

Pretty much anywhere outside of the fox/breitbart bubble sounds like a liberal, progressive groupthink, because the liberal have endless material to work with, whereas no individual conservative wants to speak up publicly in order to defend Trump's personal beliefs and/or separate them from his administration's policy. Although my evidence is only anecdotal, I see the same thing on my Facebook feed, where the conservative noise was loud before the election, reached a peak in victory and in the few months that followed, and then has steadily trailed off until now, when even the loudest conservative meme-factories in my feed have become quiet as a church mouse. I get the impression that many conservatives have simply disconnected from this administration.

says media cannot be played-got another link Ben?

I don't see this at all. I mean the left in this country couldn't even pass national health care if they wanted to with a super majority. That's a staple in most first world countries.

Hillary was a fairly moderate candidate and beat out the much more left-wing candidate.

Maybe it's that some people think that opposing Trump makes you liberal. But I don't consider Trump on the right or anything. He's kind of his own person with views that change based on what he sees on Fox News.

Take the FISA bill from the other day. He opposed it early in the morning and then did a 180 an hour later. He campaigned on no tax cuts for the wealthy, getting rid of the carried interest break, and other populist ideas which he changed his mind on.

He's as far to the left as any politician in this country on trade (farther than even Bernie!). Wants to dump a trillion into infrastructure. Says he loves debt and just signed a bill that massively adds it.

I think I'm mostly in the middle. Find myself voting Republican in local races and Democrat in national ones. I have issues with both sides though and like some balance. But I oppose Trump for reasons that go beyond his policy. I just don't think he's qualified to hold the office and has been a stain on the country. I have issues with both someone like Bernie and Pence but I'd take either of them over Trump any day.

This seems to hold true for most civilized online discussions (the number of which is growing smaller), but elsewhere, even speaking up a word of conservative opinions gets you labeled racist misogynistic scum. Dare provide a counterpoint to anything the left says, and you're attacked on all fronts. Hell, there are cases where it gets you fired.

It's not worth it. Trump's sure as hell not a guy worth defending. He might have a decent viewpoint more often than many will admit - despite him constantly presenting any such viewpoint in the most batshit insane manner physically possible - but he's not worth defending.

That, and the far left / militant sjw front is just beyond crazy at this point. The shit coming out of the extreme left is even more insane than the far right, and that's hard to accomplish. There's no reasoning with those people.

Doesn’t seem like their is much actual discussion happening. Feels more like post after post of reactions to daily emotional outbursts.

I agree to an extent. I think Trump makes it suck long term for people who are more to the right politically. The party elected an openly racist person so that's going to trickle down to the supporters of that party.


Difference is that those people have no power in this country. Insane ramblings on Twitter mean nothing.

I think that we've shifted left socially and shifted right economically over my 46-yr window. If your focus were minority rights it would be hard to argue we haven't significantly shifted to the left in the last 20 years, but we've also placed corporation and industry above the individual concern in that same period and shifted resources away from the working and middle classes.

I find this facet of the Trump era particularly fascinating because it's perhaps the only thing I agree with Trump about, and it's resulted in some extreme, seemingly acrobatics from all politicians, as well as most of my friends. In between arguments about immigration and racism, I've caught friends & talking heads trying to extend that righteous indignation to the fact that Trump's trade policies will now prevent them from buying cheap Chinese shit from Walmart, which sounds ridiculous coming from those particular mouths. On the other side, watching the right try to adjust to Trump shrugging off global trade initiatives/leadership, as if that's what they wanted all along, is similarly hilarious/frustrating.

I don't think he is "draining the swamp" at all or running the government like a company. He governs with a very strange form of ego-stroking populism that seems to leave him with very few allies on either side of the aisle. Don't get me wrong about the only thing better from a Libetarian's perspective would be Clinton as president with a GOP Congress. Of course leading up to the election I was under no impression he would support any reducing government programs, I just didn't think he had any chance to win.

About the only thing I will agree with him is the media does have a pretty big hard-on for reporting every single thing about him, his past, etc. I wouldn't call it "fake news" like he does but the agenda is pretty apparent. I mean Obama would hang out with celebrities (including the Weinstein group) and they would fawn all over him and Trump does something similar and it's a breaking news crisis.

During the election I was firmly Gary Johnson but then preferred Hilary Clinton and just about every other candidate to Trump. Sadly this election certainly will reinforce the lessor of two evils argument for the rest of my lifetime.

I have a feeling this will be the new "normal" going forward, even after Trump leaves office. While most media organizations were struggling to retain viewers/readership over the last couple of decades, FoxNews, Breitbart, and many right leaning media outlets paved the way for the "outrage" journalism that we see across all outlets now. Sadly, it works as ratings and readership are up across the board for almost every outlet as more and more people retreat to their own echo chambers.

This is absolutely false on a legislative level and is simply a right-wing myth created to make anyone to the left of Hillary Clinton seem equal and opposite to Trump.



As you see, Democrats in Congress have become only slightly more liberal over the past few decades, and even that shift is largely due to the more conservative Southern Democrats becoming Republicans in response to the Civil Rights Movement. Someone like Bernie Sanders is not nearly as far left as Trump is to the right; someone as far to the left as Trump is to the right would be trying to abolish ICE and use its officers to forcefully expropriate the wealth of billionaires. Or raising the marginal tax rate for the highest income bracket to 90 percent in order to fund reparations for African Americans. It's either disingenuous or representative of a complete lack of imagination for anyone to think that something like nationalized healthcare is a fringe left-wing idea.

I don't doubt that you're seeing that "increased polarization" on a personal level because you now likely read more and have access to better technology, so you're exposed to opinions of people you never would have associated with before.

According to 538 and the analysis of policy alone, Trump grades out as the most conservative president since Reagan. That has nothing to do with what he has said, and everything to do with what he has done. Any consideration of him not being an R is irrelevant when he acts like one.

The false alarm in Hawaii revealed an abdication of leadership by Trump - The Washington Post

No tweets about the Hawaii missile alert to reassure people-none either I think about the mudslide victims in CA.

Couldn't blame it on a Muslim so why bother.

https://news.wgbh.org/2017/03/15/pol...nly-right-wing

If you follow a lot of right wing media then it'd going to feel like everything is moving left. That's because right is trying to move further right to support the Trump administration, which as point out above, is on par with Reagan as far as conservatives go. He's also shifted further to the right since taking office, which shows that the right is moving more to the right.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethi...the-right/amp/

At least Arpaio was able to work the birth certificate into his discussions on the false alarm.

Don’t worry. Trump insists he’s not a racist. In fact, the least racist person ever.

LOL this is the definition of normalization. You seriously think it wouldn't have been a big news story if it came out that Obama had paid a porn star six figures to keep quiet about an affair? That wasn't even the stupidest Trump-related revelation this week!

It this any more real than the 'Obama Birth Certificate' scandal which ran? ... I've yet to see anything overly credible in this regard .. just rumor and inuendo.

(and trust me I'd like to see something 'stick' on Trump - but I think constant rumors help no one nor the presses credibility when its under attack by Trump)

Word is leaking that there is disagreement from those who were in the room over whether Trump said "shithole" or "shithouse," and that's what the Cotton/Perdue "denial" statement is all about. (If these reports are correct, Cotton and Perdue are saying they heard "shithouse," not "shithole.")

What an awesome time to be alive!

:(

pass the cyanide

yeahyeah yada yada he's the best at being not the worst...

"You mean you changed your name TO Latrine?"
"Yeah, it used to be Shit House"
"That's a good change!"

On a tangent, when I was working in Italy, one of my very good looking Italian coworkers was reading an English book. She asked me "Greggorio, what does it mean 'to be built as if a brick shithouse'? I said, well, that describes you! She got mad and said "I am like a place where you poop?" It took a while and several outside confirmations to get the meaning across. :D

"She" got mad - tbh most English lasses would take that as an insult as well ... the connotation here is that you're muscular, fearless and ready for a rumble ... is it not the case in the US?

The US connotation is "very well put together"

I think cartman would say that any English lass who would take that as an insult is a bit too petite for his liking :lol:

But I’m kinda with you in that if it’s shithouse rather than just house (like the Commodores song) my mind conjures up someone who looks like Wayne Rooney.

Huh. My interpretation is much closer to the UK interpretation, though I've only ever interpreted the phrase by context.

+1

If I'm thinking of a female that's built like a brick shithouse, I'm thinking of a masculine female.

+2

There's females I have played co-ed sports with who would take as a compliment, but for the vast majority of women I know it would come off as a pretty big insult.
Where's the graph from? I agree with your overall point, but I'm interested what they're using as a definition of 0.0 - I can't imagine the average American hasn't gotten more progressive when it comes to things like minority rights since the 1970's let alone the 1870's, so I'm curious what they're using as a baseline. There's also the shift from when Republicans were the ones pushing for minority rights to when Democrats took over the mantle, so unless it's purely economic I'm not sure "Liberal/Conservative" on the left is an accurate definition, since the graph should be an X in that case.

Factually based, I think of it as a lady who is stacked. She's out there and never holds back. Very well assembled. She has everything you want in a female. With dimensions of 36/24/36, there's no way she can lose.

In Australia, it's a term that gets used a lot to describe your typical rugby player.

The first graph on the Wikipedia page for political polarization. The measurement they use (NOMINATE) is the standard for political science that quantifies how liberal or conservative a member of Congress is.

Again, the graph is a measurement of legislative polarization, and America has certainly not become much more progressive over the past few decades in terms of actual policy. Even if we were to ignore purely economic stuff like how the marginal tax rate for the top bracket in Hillary Clinton's tax plan was lower than the one in Ronald Reagan's, we just had the first presidential election without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We haven't had any major civil rights or environmental legislation since the early 90s, for example. Also it should go without saying that if it took 100 years after the Civil War for Congress to get around to desegregating schools, neither party was pushing particularly hard for minority rights.

Correct me if I'm wrong - and Trump should not have used the word at all; no need to be crude there - but I'm having trouble seeing the inherent racism in calling those countries "shithole countries" without more context. Like, if they were talking about Macedonia or the Ukraine as well as Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa, would Trump not have used the word "shithole"? If so, then that is racism, but I have trouble inferring that. If he meant that those countries are in bad condition, then I have no trouble with that. If he said Barbados or Botswana is a "shithole country", then we have a racism issue. Haiti has serious infrastructure problems among other things. Not every African country is in bad shape, but some are.

I think the bigger issue should be that he said "Why do we need to take in people from these shithole countries?", rather than "shithole countries" by itself. To me, the former is a more racist statement than the latter, even without the word "shithole", because he's putting everybody in the country in one boat ("They're all rapists", etc.). Nobody is talking about that, but rather "shithole countries" in isolation.

So the last three Presidents did something to honor MLK. church, white house speeches with King relatives, community service etc. Trump-had a link to his weekly address where he talked about King...then went to play golf. No events, no community service, nothing.

The man has done nothing but take his whole life, not a surprise at all.

Africa, Haiti and El Salvador being shitholes while needing more people from places like Norway gives away the game.

Well, that and fifty years of Trump's history.

Don't we also get to say that his dad was involved with the KKK? I mean, it's in his realm of reality so it's real, right?

But most NOMINATE graphs that aren't on single votes/issues tend to use two axes - one for economics and one for hot button social issues - for a reason. And of course neither party was progressive by today's standards, which is doubly why a graph that implies that Democrats from 1880-1930 were more liberal than their Republican counterparts, and 2010 Democrats is so incredibly weird that I would love to hear the explanation of what exactly it's measuring, because as far as I can tell that's not actually from any of the linked works, and it's certainly not the definitions of "Liberal" and "Conservative" as I understand them. If it's just a measure of how often those voters voted along party lines on all issues (which would be my best guess), fine, but it's such a lax and misleading labeling of the axis it makes me distrust the whole graph.

True, true.

There are plenty of other studies that show the same thing. If you're willing to distrust it based on the labeling (the labeling specifically says the liberal-conservative aka economic dimension, which is the one that far outweighs the other) that probably says more about you than the graph. I'm not aware of any definitions of liberal-conservative that don't revolve around how big a role the government should play in the economy, and Democrats in the 1800s were certainly more liberal in that sense.

Nice timing. Git 'em when they are down and weakened.

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/16/politi...non/index.html

Mueller: The gloves are off, l'm playing hardball. lt's fourth and fifteen, and you're looking at a full court press.

I'd pay good money to be able to watch that testimony :)

So, Bannon says disparaging remarks before he's brought in to talk about Trump. Think Trump's team can now make a play that Bannon's testimony is full of lies because he's got a beef with Trump? Sounds like a smart way to let Bannon tell the truth but have Trump say it's retaliation for the fallout...

The only thing that matters is Mueller's ability to bring indictments and/or plea deals. All the spin in the world won't make any of that go away, and anything short of that will be ignored by the GOP.

I got to say this is all crazy. There is a strong possibility we have a resignation or impeachment of POTUS.

I wonder if Trumps fall from grace will eventually force the Republican party to break from the religious and fringe right.

Anyone want to guess how long before Mueller finally brings charges?

Trump will have to be escorted out of the white house in handcuffs or will fall victim to one too many cheeseburgers. no way he resigns.

So according to the WH Doctor President Trump has been found mentally competent to stand trial.

What the CFO's said about the Corporate Tax cuts.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/22/cfos...edium=exchange

That's not really a surprise. If you feel hiring an employee for $50,000 will make your company $100,000, you don't need a tax cut to do it.

The money was just going to end up going to shareholders or top execs.

I believe the tax cuts will provide some (and I stress 'some') stimulus for the economy and jobs - just not in the way its being presented by Trump.

What will happen is that a large proportion of companies will buy back stock, that will push up the stock market which will increase consumer confidence and allow a proportion of 'normal' people to spend money in the same way the real estate bubble did.

This gives Trump a 'win' as he uses the stock market as 'proof' that the country is doing well, it will also increase the confidence of the retired community watching their 401k's (one of Trumps key bases).

The rich on the other hand will sit on this increase and continue to look pretty as do corporations.

Big day today!

The Fake News Awards, those going to the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media, will be presented to the losers on Wednesday, January 17th, rather than this coming Monday. The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2018

Or will the Fake News Awards turn out to be just......fake news??? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It'd be great if the news did not cover his little awards show.

So you've heard of the grumblings of California wanting to secede when Trump was elected right? But have you heard about the right-wingers who want to secede from California?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...te/1036681001/

The first time around it was pretty strongly linked to Russia, and I’d suspect that’s the case this time too.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.the...rticle/517890/

interesting article, thanks. Former Republicans with ties to Russia? Shocking :)

I'm trying to picture the media moving on this quickly if credible allegations came out that President Obama paid 6 figures of hush money to a porn star.

I'm really confused. And all along I thought the shithole was on the bottom of Trump's face. Now I don't know where it is.

Some hope?

A Wisconsin State Senate district that went to Trump by 16% and hadn't been blue since the 20th century had a special election last night and the Democrat won.

The GOP even finagled a way to get the special election to occur when the University (my alma mater) in the district was on winter break.

I'd love to see the Republican party pay the price all the way down the ballot in 2018 for getting in bed with the devil that is our President. With census coming up in 2020, the next two elections are going to be to set things up for the next ten years.

Still waiting on those Fake News Awards. C'mon Mr. President don't let me down!

I'm betting on Trevor Noah winning the night because he's not an American and he's not white.

I think you are on to something there... :)

2018 by itself ain't enough. It'll be the winners of the 2020 elections who redraw those boundaries, largely (a few states don't permit their legislatures to handle that).

Even if the GOP gets drubbed this year, two years is plenty of time for the narrative to reverse itself (although at least this time around the census is in a Presidential election year, so the Democrats should be able to turn their base out).

I should have been more specific.

2018 will be huge in states like Wisconsin that are electing their governors that will be sitting 2020-2022.

Reuters Politics on Twitter: "EXCLUSIVE: Trump deviates from Netanyahu, saying U.S. embassy won't be moved to Jerusalem within a year https://t.co/oAbzfAY3fC https://t.co/R4J4YJ1FDU"

Your routine reminder that everything is a con.

there's no way trump only weighs 239 pounds. I'd have said 265-280 at the minimum

I saw a pretty exhaustive comparison of photographs of Trump & Obama (who is 6'1") and Trump & Jeb Bush (who is 6'3") which also questions his height being 6'3".

As someone in that thread said, it speaks for itself that 6'3" & 239 is exactly 1lb below the medical definition of overweight.

This might be the funniest thing he's said:


That's a test where anything but a perfect score may indicate oncoming dementia.

Approaching peak North Korea.

dola: fully expecting the next release from the White House to be 'The Nativity of Donald', a 3 page release on the extraordinary circumstances involving his birth.

Yeah, I'm 6'3" 280. Not a chance in hell Trump is under 260.

I'm gonna need to see the Long Form Girth Certificate

And the winners are:

Trump gives out his 'Fake News Awards' to CNN, N.Y. Times, Wash Post, others - POLITICO

And now we know why he released it when he did-an event on press freedom was taking place-and it was disrupted when everyone started getting alerts he had announced them.

I could see maybe 5'11 240. He's really doughy, has no muscle mass, and the weight hangs on him terribly, but he really doesn't look that large. Most say, 6'2 250 lb guys look stronger, like they could help you move furniture. Trump has that tallish man girth but without the strength.

That "doctors diagnosis" was beautifully grotesque.

Its reported the guy was Obama's WH doctor. Unless something really turns up, I'd take him at his word on weight.

Now there is discussion about how good the cognitive test is. I'm not qualified to say how accurate it is but its still a good thing he passed it.

From what I read earlier, it's not a question of passing it - it's a question of you should get 100% or you have some problems. I saw some sample questions (can't vouch for how accurate they are, or even remember which site I was on), and it was basically problems you'd expect an 8 year old to not struggle with.

But lets be fair. I'm willing to bet many of us would have said he wouldn't have passed a "basic" cognitive test. I know I feel a little better.

Let's give him some credit for passing (unless the Dr. is really lying to us).

Oh, wonder how Melania is taking the news about the porn star.

It'll be like NK, analyzing pictures of the "dear leader" and who is around him and how they are acting.

So, no response to Apple’s and Chrysler’s big news? Instead, you would rather play in the same crap that Trump wallows in. It is that arrogance that is partly the reason that bastard got elected in the first place.

Teacher is back. Everyone sit up straight.

My take on it is that they're bringing money back into the US which is 'good' as some tax is paid on it, however the bulk is going into stock buybacks which has only limited value to society (ie. it'll help shareholders however how much actually gets pushed back into the economy through liquidation is nominal).

Apples proposed investment into ventures sounds very promising as does their talking about job generation, however I'm waiting to see something come to fruition before getting excited as I've seen a lot of similar announcements in the past which have come to nothing and purely acted as smoke and mirrors to cover for them benefiting financially from things (I'm thinking of the plants which were said be be built or 'not closed' early on with Trump which then didn't happen or quietly closed a little later on anyway).

If this can translate into pushing the economy then that'd be fantastic - but I'm expecting even if Apple build factories they'll be mainly automated and as such not huge job creators (which would make total sense, the tax rate in the US for corporations is now ludicrously low, wages are still higher here than many other countries but for low manpower ventures that isn't a big issue).

Both news items are potentially good news - but I'm cynical on the basis given above and because Trump is fantastic at PR to promote the slightest 'win' in a way which previous politicians haven't been ... to listen to him the US growth is accelerating at an previously unknown pace in reality its 3.2% GDP growth which is great (most recent high was 2.8% in 2014 previously with the Q3 growth in that year being 5.2% far above anything this year) but it's still a far cry from the 4-7% which was seen back before 2005. It'll be interesting to see if this can be pushed further up, but importantly also whether this actually translates into a 'win' for the average citizen or just the people with investments.

So, no mention from Buc about the tens of thousands of layoffs from Carrier, AT&T, GE, Walmart... :rolleyes:

Found this ... "funny" isn't the word, but it'll do in a pinch:

Much as I detest Trump and the GOP - both sides do this, along with trying to extort money from voters through repeat 'subscriptions' if you donate and such.

He's got a 42" waist. No way he's 240. I know I'm taller than the president and bigger, but I'm not 55+ lbs bigger. I usually buy 44-46" pants.

Not sure. He's got a lot of flab and skin that isn't as heavy or dense as muscle. 240 could be right, but his body fat % has to be sky high.

Age also plays a factor in his weight.
Muscle atrophy and bone density denigration are very real from the late 50s onward.


And for comparison Im 6'0 295 and wear a 38 or a 40 waist.
There are a myriad of body comp types

Geez all you people need to lose some weight :)

Regardless of what you think about the whole Tax legislation, I do think this specific incentive is good. Kudo's to Apple and new repatriation rules. Hopefully more companies will follow.

Apple: We'll pay $38B in taxes and add 20,000 jobs in the U.S. - Jan. 17, 2018

Well this is an interesting twist in the Mueller investigation if true:

FBI looking into whether Russian banker gave money to NRA to support Trump: report | TheHill