21st January 2021, 4:19 PM
(This post was last modified: 21st January 2021, 4:29 PM by A Black Falcon.)
We... won. We actually won! I know that we won in November, but it didn't really feel real because Trump was still there and we didn't win the Senate. But then... we won the Senate on the 5th. And then Trump's insurrection the next day failed and he decided to slink away with his tail in between his legs instead of trying to overthrow the government again. And then... Biden was actually made President without incident. I know this should not be surprising but somehow it is... I thought that at least there would be some right-wing violence in Washington, but they seem to have given up, huh. Well that sure is nice, and amazing.
Meanwhile, as for the thread title, right now I think that the Republican Party has not, yet, "gotten what it deserves" for its longterm support for racism and authoritarianim. After all, in November they won most of the close races that we were hoping to win. Trump got a wave of people to come to the polls and vote for him. 74 MILLION Americans voted for Trump despite knowing exactly who he was. And while Trump lost by a very narrow margin in the states that decided the election, Repubilcans in the House and Senate won those races. We did manage to win, just barely, thanks to our spectacular successes in Georgia more so than anything but it was way too close; Trump's appeal among his massive cult was pretty terrifying.
But despite all that we won, and I think that next we'll see the Democrats in the Senate finally throw out the filibuster, since otherwise we get nothing passed. I know some Senate Dems don't want to do this, but while there are definite downsides, if we fail to get the filibuster removed we pass nothing of note in these next two years. And if that happens, even though the 2022 election has 20 Republicans up for re-election, some vulnerable, and only 14 Democrats, most likely we won't hold the Senate and we wouldn't deserve to; you need to get things done to get re-elected.
So, has the Republican Party "gotten what it deserves"? Partially, I guess, but not to the extent the nation needs. They have lost their Senate majority and they sure richly deserved that, but they still have the loyalty of almost half of the voters in this nation. May their intraparty war be fierce over the next two years as the Trumpist and not-Trump factions battle it out... hopefully they can help the Dems go against the usual midterm results and hold power by defeating themselve with some nominees too crazy to win and without Trump's inexplicable charisma.
Oh, and in the end, may the not-fascist wing win, because America needs two parties and not one who both believe in democracy. We survived four years of Trump with democracy intact, but how many shocks like this can we weather...
But even so, I am very happy about things right now because we WON and have the government now and kicked the fascists out! And they left! Democracy survived and decency returns, at least for the next few years. It will be on our government now to try to put the pieces of our system back together and strengthen things so next time someone tries they will find destroying our democracy even harder. And yes, this definitely includes making Donald Trump suffer in court for his actions is essential; we can't do like Obama did with Bush administration move on and not try anyone for anything. It shouldn't have been done then, but now it's even more essential because of how seriously destructive the Trump administration as to the rule of law.
So far, as far as laws go Biden's off to a very fast start; he's already issued dozens of major, far-reaching executive orders that should rapidly undo most of Trump's accomplishments apart from all the people he put on courts. That stuff is all awesome and I'm thrilled to see it; once again, choosing someone as experienced as Joe Biden was the perfect choice for this time since he can go right out there and get to work from day one undoing Trump's actions as fast as possible. He knows the system better than just about anyone, after all. It remains to be seen if there will be legal repurcussions for Trump peoples' support for fascism and sedition, though. We'll see.
Regardless Trump will suffer since Twitter banning him pretty much shuts off his megaphone that he pushed himself to the presidency with. In the last week of the administration it was pretty shocking to see how much better the world felt without that constant drip of stupidity and evil from Trump's twitter feed!
In conclusion we probably need a new politics thread since this thread title is now a bit dated, but I don't know what a good new thread name should be...
Meanwhile, as for the thread title, right now I think that the Republican Party has not, yet, "gotten what it deserves" for its longterm support for racism and authoritarianim. After all, in November they won most of the close races that we were hoping to win. Trump got a wave of people to come to the polls and vote for him. 74 MILLION Americans voted for Trump despite knowing exactly who he was. And while Trump lost by a very narrow margin in the states that decided the election, Repubilcans in the House and Senate won those races. We did manage to win, just barely, thanks to our spectacular successes in Georgia more so than anything but it was way too close; Trump's appeal among his massive cult was pretty terrifying.
But despite all that we won, and I think that next we'll see the Democrats in the Senate finally throw out the filibuster, since otherwise we get nothing passed. I know some Senate Dems don't want to do this, but while there are definite downsides, if we fail to get the filibuster removed we pass nothing of note in these next two years. And if that happens, even though the 2022 election has 20 Republicans up for re-election, some vulnerable, and only 14 Democrats, most likely we won't hold the Senate and we wouldn't deserve to; you need to get things done to get re-elected.
So, has the Republican Party "gotten what it deserves"? Partially, I guess, but not to the extent the nation needs. They have lost their Senate majority and they sure richly deserved that, but they still have the loyalty of almost half of the voters in this nation. May their intraparty war be fierce over the next two years as the Trumpist and not-Trump factions battle it out... hopefully they can help the Dems go against the usual midterm results and hold power by defeating themselve with some nominees too crazy to win and without Trump's inexplicable charisma.
Oh, and in the end, may the not-fascist wing win, because America needs two parties and not one who both believe in democracy. We survived four years of Trump with democracy intact, but how many shocks like this can we weather...
But even so, I am very happy about things right now because we WON and have the government now and kicked the fascists out! And they left! Democracy survived and decency returns, at least for the next few years. It will be on our government now to try to put the pieces of our system back together and strengthen things so next time someone tries they will find destroying our democracy even harder. And yes, this definitely includes making Donald Trump suffer in court for his actions is essential; we can't do like Obama did with Bush administration move on and not try anyone for anything. It shouldn't have been done then, but now it's even more essential because of how seriously destructive the Trump administration as to the rule of law.
So far, as far as laws go Biden's off to a very fast start; he's already issued dozens of major, far-reaching executive orders that should rapidly undo most of Trump's accomplishments apart from all the people he put on courts. That stuff is all awesome and I'm thrilled to see it; once again, choosing someone as experienced as Joe Biden was the perfect choice for this time since he can go right out there and get to work from day one undoing Trump's actions as fast as possible. He knows the system better than just about anyone, after all. It remains to be seen if there will be legal repurcussions for Trump peoples' support for fascism and sedition, though. We'll see.
Regardless Trump will suffer since Twitter banning him pretty much shuts off his megaphone that he pushed himself to the presidency with. In the last week of the administration it was pretty shocking to see how much better the world felt without that constant drip of stupidity and evil from Trump's twitter feed!
In conclusion we probably need a new politics thread since this thread title is now a bit dated, but I don't know what a good new thread name should be...