Kamala Harris

[Xanthangum]

... has been selected as Joe Biden's running mate.

Important for all sorts of reasons I feel

twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1293281838337871875?s=20

[ListeningQuietly]

Trump has been a registered Democratic supporter
and stood as a "Reform Party" candidate.
Trump gives no shits about anybody but Trump.

But then he does dish out pardons to delightful people like Roger Stone

[Goosefoot]

I'm not sure why people think that anyone saying voting for Biden is going to be a problem is ok with Trump.

Maybe the issue is that people see this as a binary short term situation. But it's not particularly. The choices avaialable to voters will have an effect on what happens long term, in many indirect ways, and those may be far more important than what happens directly in the next four years.

Trump has no real political program and he doesn't represent one. He's not working for anyone explicitly, he's not in the interests of either party. The biggest dangers he represents are around being incompetent, inability to understand the political and social and economic environment, and a sort of political chaos. Which could be quite bad, but at the end, but it doesn't lead anywhere specific.

Biden wouldn't have those kinds of problems, but his election will very likely prevent the kind of change within the Democratic Party that would prevent another populist from coming to power. It will increase alienation of the group that voted for Trump as well as those who have stopped voting because they feel powerless. It's also very unlikely that it will in any way move towards solving the problems with globalism, jobs, the environment, medical care, violence, or public trust in government.

So what's a voter to choose? Trump, or what caused Trump? Do you really imagine people will vote for someone they know will probably hurt them, even if he's less incompetent than the other guy? And what if people do bite the bullet and vote for Biden? Short term it means more stability, but here is a good chance it will result in more destabilisation in the medium term.

They are fucked whichever way they vote, and a lot of them know it.

[DianasLasso]

they might still live in a country whose democratic institutions are intact and whose leader hasn't made a living providing branding for dodgy con tricks and money laundering. They might have a leader who attends intelligence briefings and who doesn't naturally side with Putin, Duda and Bolsinaro.

Trump would have been as willing to stand as a Democrat as a Republican, and if Trump were the incumbent Democrat president, leading a compromised Democrat Party I would be making the same arguments.

This is spot on - it is not Trump's capitalism that is the problem, it is his insanity, his hair-trigger reaction to world events he knows nothing about, his utter disregard for due process and the constitution, and the fact that he has his finger on the nuclear button. (However as I noted upthread, this doesn't make Trump voters nasty and evil - it may just mean that they are worried where their next pay cheque/check is coming from, and they live in a state of denial about the rest of the shit storm Trump has unleashed on America.)

Yes, Biden and Harris are as establishment as they come (I just re-watched the SNL skit on the Democratic Debates much earlier in the selection proces ) but I am reasonably convinced they won't start WWIII with an ill-timed tweet from the bog when suffering a nasty case of the runs which has put them in an unusually bad mood for that particular 5 minute interval.

Not that it particularly matters what I think because I don't have a vote.

[Goosefoot]

@merrymouse

Trump is not a Republican phenomena. The Democrats have been just as committed to globalist neoliberalism

Trump is neither committed to globalist neoliberalism nor fighting globalist neoliberalism. He isn't committed to anything, except saving his own skin.

The Democrats are supposed to offer regular people and workers policies and candidates who will protect their interests. They have abandoned that job. Until they take a hard look at themselves and back away from that, the problem won't be solved.

Will that happen if people elect Biden?

No, but they might still live in a country whose democratic institutions are intact and whose leader hasn't made a living providing branding for dodgy con tricks and money laundering. They might have a leader who attends intelligence briefings and who doesn't naturally side with Putin, Duda and Bolsinaro.

Trump would have been as willing to stand as a Democrat as a Republican, and if Trump were the incumbent Democrat president, leading a compromised Democrat Party I would be making the same arguments.

Trump isn't an example of either parties interests, which is why they both hate him. And it's also why he was elected.

Electing another party shill, be it a Democrat or a Republican, is not going to give you intact political institutions. It's what has been destroying them.

It's a Catch-22.

[ListeningQuietly]

The biggest dangers he represents are around being incompetent, inability to understand the political and social and economic environment, and a sort of political chaos. Which could be quite bad, but at the end, but it doesn't lead anywhere specific.
No
Trumps agenda specifically leads to the USA leaving the Paris Accord, the WHO and trashing the Arctic Refuge and the National Parks.
It specifically will lead to the Greenland ice cap melting
at which point Trump Tower becomes waterside property
and Mar a Lago becomes Mar sub Lago

Worries about Biden's past conduct pale by comparison with the threat Trump and his payees pose.

[merrymouse]

Which could be quite bad, but at the end, but it doesn't lead anywhere specific.

Trump may not have any clear beliefs, but he can be used by those who do.

E.g. his admission that one of the reasons he moved the US embassy to Jerusalem was for Evangelicals. The fact that he doesn't really understand what he did or why they wanted him to move the embassy doesn't change the extent of their influence.

E.g. his inability to criticise Putin, even when it means undermining US intelligence agencies.

On the specific issue of the conflict between trans and women's rights, his presidency works against GC feminists because it confuses our argument with that of people who are just happy be honest that they don't believe in women's rights. Caring nothing about women's rights there is zero chance that he will take any action to help women.

They are fucked whichever way they vote, and a lot of them know it.

No they aren't. People living in Hong Kong have a reason to believe they are fucked whatever they do. People living in Brazil have a reason to believe they have no control over their future. People living in Belarus have a lot to worry about.

People living in North America and Western Europe, however, are not 'fucked'.

[xxyzz]

BelleHathor, good to hear that you are an avowed Trump supporter. As is BovaryX.

It's good for people reading your posts to know where you're coming from and why you are attacking Biden.

I'm not really clear why people who are clearly not feminists in any sense are so keen on posting on FWR. Obviously, you do you, but as clearly you do not support women and women's rights, I'm not sure why you think that those who are here because they do care about women's rights would be interested in your views.

Voting for Trump = voting for an end to democracy in the US. It's also voting for an end to abortion rights in the US.

Now you have a perfect right to oppose democracy and oppose women's rights to make decisions about their own bodies.

What you do not have is the right to preach that on a Feminism board, on a site aimed at women, and demand that no-one criticise your posts!!!

[BovaryX]

xxyzz

Everyone reading this board can see you and your desire to police this board and who posts on it. Everyone can see you denouncing Belle and me for the thought crime of 'insufficient feminism' and suggesting we have no legitimacy. In fact, I don't recognize you as a regular poster, but hey ho, your authoritarian desire to control the narrative is on explicit display. Don't imagine for one second you can lecture me on my political independence. I will not submit to any orthodoxy. And certainly not your brand.

[Dervel]

The Democrats have pulled off a remarkable bit of political sleight of hand when it comes to Roe vs Wade. It was actually a Republican led Supreme Court that made the judgement, and one of the Democratic Justices, Byron White voted against it.

The Democratic Party are not quite the bulwark against the erosion of women’s rights as they market themselves as. Still they have pulled off the trick of making many people feel that if they don’t dominate the SC the wheels will fall off Roe vs Wade almost immediately.

Whilst I think it’s true a great many on the pro-life side of the debate are conservative christian Republican voters, there are plenty on the pro-choice side who vote Republican too.

I actually think the trans debate is the biggest existential threat to women’s rights in America right now, and on that score the Republican’s are the clear champions for women’s rights as a result, as distasteful as that may be for some to hear it’s the truth.

That said I really don’t envy the American electorate right now I think there will be a lot of nose holding going into the ballot box come November.

[DianasLasso]

The Democratic Party are not quite the bulwark against the erosion of women’s rights as they market themselves as. Still they have pulled off the trick of making many people feel that if they don’t dominate the SC the wheels will fall off Roe vs Wade almost immediately.

Agree with you on the first point, but not the second. Gorsuch, for e.g., was the judge who (at a lower level, prior to being appointed to the SC) found in favour of Hobby Lobby, thus opening the floodgates to employers excluding contraception from their healthcare cover. If RBG goes (and chances are she will not live through a second Trump term) Trump will appoint a conservative, and yes, not all conservatives are anti-abortion, but you can be damned sure the one Trump appoints will be. The constant drip-drip of legislation at State level (admitting privileges bans, compulsory ultrasounds and cooling off periods, time limits such foetal heartbeat restrictions, such that you have approximately 2 weeks from the positive test and first realising you're pregnant to finding that it's now "too late" and your state won't let you terminate) isn't aimed at any of this legislation actually going through right here and now - it's aimed at having a whole slew of legislation making its way up through the lower courts such that, once the SC is packed with anti-abortion conservatives, when that legislation eventually gets tested in the SC, it can be used as a lever to overturn Roe v. Wade.

In fact, I think it could be even worse than a reversal of Roe v. Wade. R v W simply challenged the rights of individual states to set their own laws on abortion, and prior to R v W, abortion was legal in a lot of states. I could see a situation where a test case was set up to try to establish that abortion was tantamount to murder and thus unconstitutional in any state. I could plausibly see the USA under the extreme religious right-wingers pulling Trump's strings actually heading the same way as some of the South and Central American states which outlaw all abortion for any reason.

I'd bet on Roe versus Wade being overturned in a second Trump term.

[xxyzz]

BovaryX - on the contrary, you are the one demanding that you have the right to support a man who opposes women's rights to control their own bodies, who boasted about grabbing women's 'pussies', who has run one of the most anti-women governments anywhere in the western world and to support him without anyone being allowed to criticise you for it.

Well, tough - you don't get to censor my speech.

I get to call out you and your misogyny - and Trump's misogyny too.

And while we're at it, to point out that you support a man who is not only a misogynist but a racist, and a would-be dictator who wishes to bring an end to democracy in the US.

These are Trump's views. If you support him, these are your views. Own them.

[Dervel]

@DianasLasso well that is your opinion, although I don’t mean that in any pejorative sense, it’s clearly a well thought out articulate and informed one. I also entirely accept the same applies to my position and I may be wrong also.

I believe a Gallup poll came out in 2019 that it was only around 20% of Americans who believe abortion should be illegal, with something like around half the population believing it should be legal with some restrictions it’s that latter group that’s important as I think the strategy amongst the pro-life lobby is legislative creep rather than a headline grabbing overturning of RvW. I also don’t think the American voting public have anything like the stomach for it. I think the protests and civil disobedience would be unlike anything we’ve seen if they tried that.

I am also concerned that this redefinition of the word woman will play directly into the hands of the pro-life lobby. Once reproductive rights are uncoupled from the very concept of woman the issue will be in some very deep shit indeed. I really hope I’m wrong on that, but there it is.

Ordinarily being a man the abortion debate is something I prefer to leave to women to decide. I really do not wish to have any say in the sovereign rights of what half the population do with their own bodies, although I’ll always advocate for an individual’s liberty.

[DianasLasso]

I am also concerned that this redefinition of the word woman will play directly into the hands of the pro-life lobby. Once reproductive rights are uncoupled from the very concept of woman the issue will be in some very deep shit indeed. I really hope I’m wrong on that, but there it is.

That worries me too. "Discrimination against pregnant people," "discrimination against chest feeding people," "discrimination against people with uteruses." A hundred fragmented classes of people with no over-arching political identity, with individual quirks of anatomy of no more significance than being brown eyed or blue eyed. The divide and conquer possibilities that opens up are a misogynist's wet dream.

[ListeningQuietly]

I believe a Gallup poll came out in 2019 that it was only around 20% of Americans who believe abortion should be illegal
I've never seen that poll
but the point is that in the USA, Montana has as many votes in the senate as California
so such polls are irrelevant

what the public want and what the SC after RBG decide are utterly disconnected

Trans rights are a miniscule issue
compared with

• maternity pay
• contraception
• healthcare including antenatal
• employment rights

and if feminists vote for Trump because of TWAW
more fool them

[startrek90]

That's what I don't understand about republicans and trump supporters in particular, they constantly go on about how the Liberal left are 'snowflakes' and easily offended but they can't seem to take any criticism themselves. It's like they want the freedom to abuse those who disagree with them but completely lose their shit if you even call out the nastiest of their dear leaders behaviour.

Republicans and trump supporters can vote for and believe what they want but I reserve the right to judge them for it. Its this weird we mustn't shame or judge people at all that has led to the situation that we are in right now. Both left AND right are experiencing this.

Just as I judge left wing dude bros for their misogyny and twaw male sex rights movement, I judge right wingers for their misogyny, racism and male supremacy movement. Trump is the literal embodiement of male entitlement and white supremacy and Mike pence is the perfect example of what happens when you allow religious dogma to interfere with politics.

Biden is not perfect, however I felt that he actually responded to the Tara Reade accusations well. He called for an investigation, he didn't attack her, he denied the accusations but repeatedly called for open investigations and for this to be dealt with. I don't know what else he really could have done.

Biden and Harris may be the 'safe' and 'middle road' candidates but that is a damn sight better than the extremists on both sides.

As we have seen with the twaw situation the extreme left is can be as violently misogynist as the right. The US has a choice in November, the extreme right candidate who will be bad for women, poor people and people of colour or the moderate left who aren't perfect but at least you don't have to worry that they will start nuclear war because of a tweet....

[FWRLurker]

Re: violence in Portland when you look at the statistics there’s actually far more deaths attributable to far right terrorism in the last year than far left.

Portland isn’t on anyone’s radar except those already likely to vote for trump.

It does seem to me that more people were worried about trumps plans to send active military into cities that have had no violence whatsoever (Santa fe for example - NM being one of a few stats that still hasn’t had a Major COVID outbreak btw).

Also yes to whoever said that people leaving NYC has everything to do with deblasio and nothing to do with worries about rioters. NYPD have serious issues And the schools are Horribly segregated by class and race.

[ListeningQuietly]

Lurker
My NYC informant tells me that DeBlasio has told police to only protect people not property
so businesses which have had to close are getting their property wrecked.
I gather that Cuomo is as unimpressed as residents.