OrbitalDawn
Ulysses Everett McGill
A conservative, Republican official thinks liberals don't understand conservatives, and that actually conservatives are very nice people? Well, gosh...
I mean, it could be that they've considered the relentless action of conservatives to gut programmes that help poor people.
Social Security, food stamps, and other programs kept 44 million people out of poverty last year
This is an interesting phenomenon which seems to happen everywhere. They can't bring themselves to even try to defend Trump directly, so they go for an anti-anti-Trump style instead. Ignore the relentless lies he tells, and awful stuff he does, then zero in like a laser-guided missile on any perceived misstep by people who don't like Trump and hammer on that endlessly.
The left/right divide is mostly outdated and struggles to adequately categorise most political viewpoints, especially in the modern era. It emerged out of a specific French political context a very long time ago, so not too much of a surprise that it isn't all that fit for purpose everywhere, I guess!
But what's interesting about centrism (or what many think of as centrism) is that many people think it means you just have a moderate view of either left or right issues. While in practice it quite often actually ends up being people who have a cross-section of rather radical views from both sides. So like the Bannon wing of Trumpism shares the fervent nationalism and racism of the far right, while not at all minding heavy government intervention in things like infrastructure or trade.
You're right, re. Bernie - they also agree on the TTRP, for example. In that they oppose it anyway.
What's interesting is that Republicans have adopted his platform whole sale. Individual senators will tut-tut (like Ben Sasse) but won't do anything.
But the racist side of what he's brought to immigration has always been there on the right, but the Republicans managed to balance the racist wing with the economic/business-friendly wing that like immigration. It was always untenable, though. He just broke it open a bit more.
Did you see that the article was changed?
How about that grift? And bad reporting from the NYT?
That's not grift...
But anyway, good on them for correcting it, wouldn't you say? Not something Breitbart or Fox ever do...
Yes, it does depend whether you agree with what he does or not. Like, for example, I think it's bad that people die from pollution, so the fact that his own EPA determined 1400 people will likely die because he cut pollution regulation is, to me, pretty bad. Given that I think we need to confront climate change, I also think it's bad that he's cutting methane emission regulations.
Well, it's bad because it seems like a good idea to have proper oversight for life time appointments. Trump literally outsourced the process of judge nominations to the Federal Society - a right wing group with a very clear conservative judicial agenda in mind - not merely rigorous and diligent application of the law. And no, the left wing never stacked the Supreme Court with nominees. In fact, their nominees get blocked on spurious grounds. Before the 2016 election senior Republican Senators were saying they aim to keep the Supreme Court seat open throughout the whole presidency if Clinton won. That's blatantly anti-democratic practice.
Their whole legislative approach has been incredibly cynical and cloaked in darkness. No proper hearings or impact assessments of any of the huge bills they pass. Contrasted to Obama's effort with the ACA where he spent months trying to find common ground with Republicans and making compromises to build consensus. Not just ramming it through at great cost.
