The founding fathers weren't looking for representative democracy. They were looking for government by men of means with large property holdings with the mercantile class as the effective middle class and primary voting bloc. A few states were generally democratic in terms of how they allowed the vote to be distributed but several were already oligarchical in their approach as well. The modernization of representative democracy has extended the vote to large swathes of the population that were never viewed as having any say in the government by the original vision. The peak extension of civil liberties and the right to vote was from 1955 to 1990 or so. For the last generation the GOP has been fighting a stealth war to disenfranchise as many people as possible via onerous voting rights laws in the states and by redistricting to minimize opposing viewpoints by cramming as many dissenters as possible into voting districts while giving friendly representatives a safe 60-40 ratio. In this way you could say that they are following the vision of the founding fathers - carefully minimizing the impact of the rabble while giving themselves maximum leverage over government. The collision between their view and the reality of modern democracy will be resolved peacefully if modern democratic norms are allowed to prevail and will likely end violently in great upheaval if autocracy and oligarchy are allowed to control the processes instead. The failure of the GOP to adequately contain Trumpism is a precursor to much worse abuses down the road. Somewhere in here principled Republicans in Congress are going to have to make a stand - assuming any of them still exist.
Trump is doing what benefits him personally best and fucking America is doing it for him. Thanks to mass media, it's become a lot harder for them to hide how craptastic they are.
What? Every president works his butt off while in office, and if they want to make some money afterwards with speaking engagements or consulting, who has a problem with that? What profiting was Hillary going to do that was any different from that sort of thing? Do you understand the difference between that and the utterly corrupt selling of rooms and golf course entertainment to foreign agents who want to influence our government? Not to mention the stuff Kushner was cooking up with the head of a Russian bank? Which we can't even find out about because none of these aholes will talk to investigators? What planet are you on? Ron
In other news, Putin offered James Comey political asylum. Hahaha, c'mon. Putin trolls the U.S. so fckn hard, you can't script it.
Our political leaders aren't the primary problem, we are. We vote these imbeciles in. Even their divisive rhetoric is simply catering to the extreme and irrational rhetoric that the people spout first. They simply cater to it to keep themselves in power by supporting our own positions that anyone with opposite views are our enemy. We do this to ourselves. Sure, it would be great if we had strong political leaders who would tell us to shut the fuck up and stop being emotional hysterics. But anyone who did that wouldn't get votes.
The first thing we need to do is stop referring to these guys as "leaders." We, the people need to retake leadership and if these hacks insist on playing their self-serving games, they should be left in the dust, or the swamp, as the case may be. It will take effort; it will take enough people to care about what the candidates really are saying rather than simply what color hat they're wearing. It's all about accountability and there's not a single name we all know that would pass that test today.
There have always been corrupt politicians in this country, and we weren't where we are now. The bigger problem isn't corruption, it's polarization and that's a result of us. Whether we like it or not, we need to vote in candidates who promise to compromise with the opposition party.
they don't even have pressers anymore so what does it matter? King Trump can just tell us what they are doing on twitter
Don't worry, the wars will distract everyone from the Russia investigations, the business-ties investigations, the obstruction of justice investigations, and the health care bill travesty. https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...sks-quagmire-and-catastrophe-in-syria/530841/ "And the push for escalation is a particular betrayal for Trump voters who supported the candidate based on rhetoric about quickly defeating ISIS and otherwise eschewing war. Here is what Trump had to say back when President Obama was contemplating a greater U.S. role in Syria: “What I am saying is stay out of Syria… AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA - IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!”" "“We’re inching toward an outright invasion and extended occupation of northern Syria,” French writes at National Review. “All without congressional approval. All without meaningful public debate.” Will Trump’s base stand for this betrayal? So long as he is commander in chief, the U.S. will suffer from the worst qualities of the establishment and its antagonists. It is hard to imagine a president less fit to avoid catastrophe." Ron
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/14/trump-isnt-being-a-ceo-hes-just-awol-afghanistan-pentagon/ "Presidents often say that the hardest thing they have to do, and their most sacred responsibility, is to decide to send troops into harm’s way. Presidential candidate Donald Trump declared two months before the 2016 U.S. election that this is “the most difficult decision you can possibly ever make” and that “there is no greater burden that anybody could have.” Apparently, the decision is so difficult and burdensome that President Trump has now opted to avoid it altogether. On Tuesday it was widely reported that Trump had given Secretary of Defense James Mattis the power to determine U.S. force levels in Afghanistan. This revelation comes after reports in April that the Defense Department had been similarly authorized to determine force levels in Iraq and Syria. During that time — and to further hide the reality of war from Americans — the Trump administration inexplicably stopped disclosing major conventional troop deployments to Iraq and Syria, a practice generally upheld by the past three presidents." "This latest transfer of commander-in-chief-like powers from the White House to the Pentagon is unprecedented for such a consequential decision, and it establishes a dismal model for the remainder of the Trump presidency and for future presidents as well. Trump is not simply further delegating authority in line with his boasts of giving military commanders “total authorization.” Rather, the president is dispersing his own responsibility to an extremely popular and colorful retired Marine general. The buck for war and peace no longer stops in the White House Oval Office but in the Pentagon E-Ring." "As a presidential candidate, Trump declared: “I will never send our finest into battle unless necessary, and I mean absolutely necessary, and will only do so if we have a plan for victory with a capital V.” Now, as president, he will allow his stand-in commander in chief to likely send a few thousand more of our finest into Afghanistan without a clear strategy or defined objectives. Given that Mattis is such a careful and thoughtful scholar of civil-military relations, it is puzzling why he would endorse and participate in such an extraordinary relationship with President Trump. There has been nothing like this in the 70 years since the defense secretary position was established. The best we can hope for is that James Mattis addresses this honestly in a memoir someday." Ron
http://180report.com/articles/49727 https://heatst.com/politics/rapper-cazwell-protest-trump-by-being-as-gay-as-possible/
