Please. This is chess, not checkers. And you're asking the wrong question.
The more relevant question is "of these two candidates, whose ill-conceived policies would be easier to effectively oppose, once inaugurated President?" Real world, real time.
And don't even fall for the fallacy of two-valued logic that a vote for a presidential ca…
Please. This is chess, not checkers. And you're asking the wrong question.
The more relevant question is "of these two candidates, whose ill-conceived policies would be easier to effectively oppose, once inaugurated President?" Real world, real time.
And don't even fall for the fallacy of two-valued logic that a vote for a presidential candidate signifies that the voter has pledged their troth to them forevermore (or whatever the numbskull take is on that, I've heard it so many times...) The Democratic Party has made a lot of ambitious proposals in the course of this campaign. If the Democrats win the Presidency and the Senate (required), there's enough free-floating discontent in this country that the people who voted for them will notice any sign of wavering or dissembling on their part. And if the Dems do pull the football away, there will be hell to pay for the Democrats. If they don't follow through, it will polarize the country worse than anything that's happened in the last four years, because the Dems will have sold out their own base of popular support, while clutching levers of power that they plainly don't deserve.
If the Republicans retain a majority in the Senate and the Democrats remain functionally disabled in that house of Congress, a lot depends on the ability of the Democrats to expose GOP obstructions (inevitable, as long as Mitch McConnell or someone like him is Senate Majority leader) and make the case that they'll only be able to accomplish their goals if they obtain a Democratic majority Senate in the 2022 midterms. This should be obvious. Unfortunately, the Establishment Democrats don't have much of a track record of fortitude on that score, and that's a big enough problem to lead to doubts as to whether the leadership cadre of the Democratic Party cares more about pursuing the goals touted in their campaign, or about keeping a ready excuse for their failures on hand.
As long as it's too early to tell, I recommend voting to permit the Democrats to take back the Senate. Just as I recommend voting for the Democratic Party candidate, despite the fact that Joe Biden would not be my top choice if we had ranked-choice voting.
So much is conditioned by the ballot system, don't you see? I learned about ranked-choice voting in 1998, and this is the 5th Presidential election I've had to suffer through, knowing that there's a way out of this rigged, bogus, stagnant status quo of two thoroughly entrenched parties and their media-reified "Red/Blue meme" offal. To speak of Polarization.
How much of the useless chatter in discussions of American Presidential elections would be totally nullified and mooted, if only voters had the ability to rank (as few as two) choices, allowing them to vote FOR the candidate they most want, instead of the current situation for most of us, of being cornered into voting AGAINST the candidate that they've concluded is the worst of two choices? Speaking from extensive personal observation: almost all of it. Which is a telling indication of how much improvement would be effected by a ranked-choice ballot reform.
I’ll be honest-I knew going in that neither Trump nor the Ds gives a rat’s ass about fiscal sanity, so I have to look at other things. I’ll take four more years of the pre-Covid economy, the post 16’ foreign policy, the Justice/Education depts acting as bulwarks against CRT, and judicial nominations going in the direction I prefer.
I’ll take 4 more years of the districts giving the finger to Panem, I’m old enough to realize that my preferred ideological revolution isn’t around the corner-and that’s OK. I’m a libertarian and I believe the US Constitution, strictly followed, is still the most libertarian plan of government developed in history. I want to see it’s specific governmental directives/strictures followed(hint-they aren’t, by all sides of the system), and the Bill of Rights honored and embraced as a national ethos.
"I’ll take four more years of the pre-Covid economy"
By most measures, that economy was around the same one as the 2015-16 economy. It's gains have largely been due to a continuation of the recovery that was already well underway.
But the other flaw in that framing is that it doesn't account for the possibility that fast, dramatic intervention at the national level might potentially have had the ability to stop the spread of the epidemic in its tracks.
From the April 13, 2020 New Yorker:
"...Emboldened by vindication, the Australian, walking through the countryside, laid out his prognosis for the United States and the world. America needed to “rip off the Band-Aid,” he said. The federal government should close the borders, shut off all international commerce, declare martial law, deploy the military to build field hospitals and isolation wards, and arrest or even fire on anyone who didn’t abide by a stay-in-place protocol. (“In 1918, in San Francisco, a cop shot someone in broad daylight for being outside without a face mask, and the cop was celebrated for it!”) Or perhaps the government should reward each citizen who strictly observed the quarantine with fifty thousand dollars. “The virus would burn out after four weeks,” he said. The U.S. had all the food and water and fuel it would need to survive months, if not years, of total isolation from the world. “If you don’t trade with China, they’re screwed,” he said. “You’d win this war. Let the rest of the world burn.” The problem, he said, was that, perhaps more now than ever, Americans lack what he called “social cohesion,” and thus the collective will, to commit to such a path. “Plus, you have guns. Lots of guns. And all the base materials for your drugs, like ninety-seven per cent, come from China.” He predicted that any less stringent measures—the slow removal of the Band-Aid that we are experiencing now—would result in social unrest bordering on civil war, and the decimation of our medical ranks. “So suddenly everyone who’s seen ‘House’ would be a doctor,” he said. Politically, the Australian considered himself well right of center, yet he thought it ridiculous that the United States doesn’t have nationalized health care..."
The person quoted- an unnamed Australian, wealthy young hedge fund dude- went on to elaborate on his dour opinion of the c.2020 American body politic, and to make some decidedly cynical predictions that I hope will not be proven correct. But some of his predictions have been borne out, as illustrated by the quote above. And he evidently shares my own inclination to view economics and social phenomena pragmatically and empirically, rather than choosing to be blinkered by ideological rigidity. As an American, I can't endorse his more Draconian recommendations- martial law, forcible lockdown under threat of death. I think a sufficiently forceful message could have been sent without the necessity for drastic measures like those. But the fact remains that a consistent message backed up with a decisive national strategy was what was required, and we didn't get anything remotely resembling that response from the Trump administration.
We are still not getting it. Trump apparently thinks that the epidemic can be reversed by the force of rhetoric, employing denials that continue to break barriers of logic and reason with every new pronouncement (although as with most other topics, Trump has always been careful to insert some statements that completely contradict his other statements, for the purpose of constructing an official record.) At this point, Trump can't even point to his earlier record of backing up medical support systems with Federal emergency deployments of Army medical personnel and equipment, the way his did in New York State in the spring of the year- ICUs are hitting capacity all over the heartland and intermountain West as I write this, and I haven't noticed any deployments of Army medical personnel or hospital bed units to any of those states. The DoD and National Guard are heavily involved in testing and preparation for vaccine distribution, yes- but I've heard nothing about support for the looming crisis in hospital beds and ICU facilities in recent months. That support surged, and for the most part turned out not to be needed in regions like the New York City metropolitian area, which had ample hospital beds and equipment. But now, cases are surging in more thinly populated parts of the country, and the implications of that for hospitalized patients in parts of the country that lack the care facilities of densely populated states don't appear to be receiving much attention at the Federal level. Other than statements from the incumbent President that the threat from the virus has been wildly and unethically exaggerated by both the news media and medical professionals.
"the post 16’ foreign policy"
I only wish I knew what that policy was. I've witnessed four years of decidedly mixed messages in terms of both rhetoric and action.
For what it's worth, I'm of the mind that a prospective Joe Biden administration will need to tread very lightly in terms of the future prospects of American military intervention- particularly in regard to initiating new foreign adventures or escalations, a path he had better not tread at all. If Biden makes that mistake, he'll doom his Presidency as surely as LBJ did. Only it won't be as pretty.
The neocons are still around, of course, and still as detached from the ghastly consequences of the militarism that they tout as they ever were. In my opinion, once your supposed comrades-in-arms in the local population start targeting your own forces in suicide attacks, that means it's time to pack up and leave it to the people who live there. To speak only of Afghanistan. But I have no assurance that a second Trump term will keep us out of War with Iran- a possibility I rarely hear addressed by Trump acolytes, many of whom give me the impression that they're cool either way with whatever course the Leader charts in that regard. (Whereas whatever liabilities a Joe Biden Presidency might possibly carry, the likelihood of a Cult of Personality forming around him is remote.)
I remember when I used to be a Libertarian Ideologue. But I found out that Practical Reality imposed overriding performance constraints on all idealized mind-maps. All of them are grossly oversimplified models. The more thoroughly worked out ideologies have an internal logical consistency that appears to work fine in theory- as long as the hypothetical examples don't stray too close to an honest and complete accounting of conditions on the ground. None of them scale up as intended in theory.
That consideration alone was sufficient to be a deal-breaker. But as if that wasn't enough, I've never encountered an Ideology that didn't eventually end up demanding that I choose between the dictates of its precepts and my personal moral and ethical principles.
I haven't dispensed with Ideologies entirely. The well-thought out ones are useful maps, and make useful points. They work well for the purposes of synthesis. But an insistence on relying on a single ideological gloss as the answer to every problem of politics, economics, and law is like someone insisting that the only tool required to build a house is a set of screwdrivers.
(To say nothing of what happens when someone comes along to insist on the superiority of philips-head screwdrivers over flat-blades, or vice versa...but it doesn't matter, because once the debate revolves around that question, the discussion is already so off-track that it's doomed to futility. Meanwhile, without that realization, the debate can continue indefinitely....)
Wrong Wrong Wrong. The Dems had control of the House and used it for impeachment instead of policy. Trump wanted to make deals. The Dems didn't want him to get credit. Country be damned. Can't you see where this is going? Cancel culture. Ends justify the means. The Dems aren't progressive at all. It's a game and Big Business, Big Tech and Wall Street are all supporting Dems. How much more info do you need?
Please. This is chess, not checkers. And you're asking the wrong question.
The more relevant question is "of these two candidates, whose ill-conceived policies would be easier to effectively oppose, once inaugurated President?" Real world, real time.
And don't even fall for the fallacy of two-valued logic that a vote for a presidential candidate signifies that the voter has pledged their troth to them forevermore (or whatever the numbskull take is on that, I've heard it so many times...) The Democratic Party has made a lot of ambitious proposals in the course of this campaign. If the Democrats win the Presidency and the Senate (required), there's enough free-floating discontent in this country that the people who voted for them will notice any sign of wavering or dissembling on their part. And if the Dems do pull the football away, there will be hell to pay for the Democrats. If they don't follow through, it will polarize the country worse than anything that's happened in the last four years, because the Dems will have sold out their own base of popular support, while clutching levers of power that they plainly don't deserve.
If the Republicans retain a majority in the Senate and the Democrats remain functionally disabled in that house of Congress, a lot depends on the ability of the Democrats to expose GOP obstructions (inevitable, as long as Mitch McConnell or someone like him is Senate Majority leader) and make the case that they'll only be able to accomplish their goals if they obtain a Democratic majority Senate in the 2022 midterms. This should be obvious. Unfortunately, the Establishment Democrats don't have much of a track record of fortitude on that score, and that's a big enough problem to lead to doubts as to whether the leadership cadre of the Democratic Party cares more about pursuing the goals touted in their campaign, or about keeping a ready excuse for their failures on hand.
As long as it's too early to tell, I recommend voting to permit the Democrats to take back the Senate. Just as I recommend voting for the Democratic Party candidate, despite the fact that Joe Biden would not be my top choice if we had ranked-choice voting.
So much is conditioned by the ballot system, don't you see? I learned about ranked-choice voting in 1998, and this is the 5th Presidential election I've had to suffer through, knowing that there's a way out of this rigged, bogus, stagnant status quo of two thoroughly entrenched parties and their media-reified "Red/Blue meme" offal. To speak of Polarization.
How much of the useless chatter in discussions of American Presidential elections would be totally nullified and mooted, if only voters had the ability to rank (as few as two) choices, allowing them to vote FOR the candidate they most want, instead of the current situation for most of us, of being cornered into voting AGAINST the candidate that they've concluded is the worst of two choices? Speaking from extensive personal observation: almost all of it. Which is a telling indication of how much improvement would be effected by a ranked-choice ballot reform.
I’ll be honest-I knew going in that neither Trump nor the Ds gives a rat’s ass about fiscal sanity, so I have to look at other things. I’ll take four more years of the pre-Covid economy, the post 16’ foreign policy, the Justice/Education depts acting as bulwarks against CRT, and judicial nominations going in the direction I prefer.
I’ll take 4 more years of the districts giving the finger to Panem, I’m old enough to realize that my preferred ideological revolution isn’t around the corner-and that’s OK. I’m a libertarian and I believe the US Constitution, strictly followed, is still the most libertarian plan of government developed in history. I want to see it’s specific governmental directives/strictures followed(hint-they aren’t, by all sides of the system), and the Bill of Rights honored and embraced as a national ethos.
Agree
"I’ll take four more years of the pre-Covid economy"
By most measures, that economy was around the same one as the 2015-16 economy. It's gains have largely been due to a continuation of the recovery that was already well underway.
But the other flaw in that framing is that it doesn't account for the possibility that fast, dramatic intervention at the national level might potentially have had the ability to stop the spread of the epidemic in its tracks.
From the April 13, 2020 New Yorker:
"...Emboldened by vindication, the Australian, walking through the countryside, laid out his prognosis for the United States and the world. America needed to “rip off the Band-Aid,” he said. The federal government should close the borders, shut off all international commerce, declare martial law, deploy the military to build field hospitals and isolation wards, and arrest or even fire on anyone who didn’t abide by a stay-in-place protocol. (“In 1918, in San Francisco, a cop shot someone in broad daylight for being outside without a face mask, and the cop was celebrated for it!”) Or perhaps the government should reward each citizen who strictly observed the quarantine with fifty thousand dollars. “The virus would burn out after four weeks,” he said. The U.S. had all the food and water and fuel it would need to survive months, if not years, of total isolation from the world. “If you don’t trade with China, they’re screwed,” he said. “You’d win this war. Let the rest of the world burn.” The problem, he said, was that, perhaps more now than ever, Americans lack what he called “social cohesion,” and thus the collective will, to commit to such a path. “Plus, you have guns. Lots of guns. And all the base materials for your drugs, like ninety-seven per cent, come from China.” He predicted that any less stringent measures—the slow removal of the Band-Aid that we are experiencing now—would result in social unrest bordering on civil war, and the decimation of our medical ranks. “So suddenly everyone who’s seen ‘House’ would be a doctor,” he said. Politically, the Australian considered himself well right of center, yet he thought it ridiculous that the United States doesn’t have nationalized health care..."
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/20/the-price-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic
The person quoted- an unnamed Australian, wealthy young hedge fund dude- went on to elaborate on his dour opinion of the c.2020 American body politic, and to make some decidedly cynical predictions that I hope will not be proven correct. But some of his predictions have been borne out, as illustrated by the quote above. And he evidently shares my own inclination to view economics and social phenomena pragmatically and empirically, rather than choosing to be blinkered by ideological rigidity. As an American, I can't endorse his more Draconian recommendations- martial law, forcible lockdown under threat of death. I think a sufficiently forceful message could have been sent without the necessity for drastic measures like those. But the fact remains that a consistent message backed up with a decisive national strategy was what was required, and we didn't get anything remotely resembling that response from the Trump administration.
We are still not getting it. Trump apparently thinks that the epidemic can be reversed by the force of rhetoric, employing denials that continue to break barriers of logic and reason with every new pronouncement (although as with most other topics, Trump has always been careful to insert some statements that completely contradict his other statements, for the purpose of constructing an official record.) At this point, Trump can't even point to his earlier record of backing up medical support systems with Federal emergency deployments of Army medical personnel and equipment, the way his did in New York State in the spring of the year- ICUs are hitting capacity all over the heartland and intermountain West as I write this, and I haven't noticed any deployments of Army medical personnel or hospital bed units to any of those states. The DoD and National Guard are heavily involved in testing and preparation for vaccine distribution, yes- but I've heard nothing about support for the looming crisis in hospital beds and ICU facilities in recent months. That support surged, and for the most part turned out not to be needed in regions like the New York City metropolitian area, which had ample hospital beds and equipment. But now, cases are surging in more thinly populated parts of the country, and the implications of that for hospitalized patients in parts of the country that lack the care facilities of densely populated states don't appear to be receiving much attention at the Federal level. Other than statements from the incumbent President that the threat from the virus has been wildly and unethically exaggerated by both the news media and medical professionals.
"the post 16’ foreign policy"
I only wish I knew what that policy was. I've witnessed four years of decidedly mixed messages in terms of both rhetoric and action.
For what it's worth, I'm of the mind that a prospective Joe Biden administration will need to tread very lightly in terms of the future prospects of American military intervention- particularly in regard to initiating new foreign adventures or escalations, a path he had better not tread at all. If Biden makes that mistake, he'll doom his Presidency as surely as LBJ did. Only it won't be as pretty.
The neocons are still around, of course, and still as detached from the ghastly consequences of the militarism that they tout as they ever were. In my opinion, once your supposed comrades-in-arms in the local population start targeting your own forces in suicide attacks, that means it's time to pack up and leave it to the people who live there. To speak only of Afghanistan. But I have no assurance that a second Trump term will keep us out of War with Iran- a possibility I rarely hear addressed by Trump acolytes, many of whom give me the impression that they're cool either way with whatever course the Leader charts in that regard. (Whereas whatever liabilities a Joe Biden Presidency might possibly carry, the likelihood of a Cult of Personality forming around him is remote.)
I remember when I used to be a Libertarian Ideologue. But I found out that Practical Reality imposed overriding performance constraints on all idealized mind-maps. All of them are grossly oversimplified models. The more thoroughly worked out ideologies have an internal logical consistency that appears to work fine in theory- as long as the hypothetical examples don't stray too close to an honest and complete accounting of conditions on the ground. None of them scale up as intended in theory.
That consideration alone was sufficient to be a deal-breaker. But as if that wasn't enough, I've never encountered an Ideology that didn't eventually end up demanding that I choose between the dictates of its precepts and my personal moral and ethical principles.
I haven't dispensed with Ideologies entirely. The well-thought out ones are useful maps, and make useful points. They work well for the purposes of synthesis. But an insistence on relying on a single ideological gloss as the answer to every problem of politics, economics, and law is like someone insisting that the only tool required to build a house is a set of screwdrivers.
(To say nothing of what happens when someone comes along to insist on the superiority of philips-head screwdrivers over flat-blades, or vice versa...but it doesn't matter, because once the debate revolves around that question, the discussion is already so off-track that it's doomed to futility. Meanwhile, without that realization, the debate can continue indefinitely....)
Wrong Wrong Wrong. The Dems had control of the House and used it for impeachment instead of policy. Trump wanted to make deals. The Dems didn't want him to get credit. Country be damned. Can't you see where this is going? Cancel culture. Ends justify the means. The Dems aren't progressive at all. It's a game and Big Business, Big Tech and Wall Street are all supporting Dems. How much more info do you need?