[Politics] US mid-terms

[Quebec Seagull]

One final consideration is the amount of gerrymandering and voter suppression that the Republicans have carried out since 2020 - not least changes to voter registration laws and giving greater power to election officials at state level to overturn votes (reverse the result!) all of which have been designed to reduce the number of people that would vote and would disadvantage minority voters who are more likely to vote Democrat..

2020 was the biopsy; 2022 is the day of surgery. If Republican governors and state legislators' dirty legal tricks work, and most losing GOP candidates claim voter fraud and sow chaos, distrust, violence and hung elections, 2024 will be the year democracy is taken off the respirator in the US.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

They will do it to stop him doing anything other than defend himself. Paralysing the government.

Straight out of the Democrat play book.

 

[Scappa]

CNN coverage is worth it just for the utter disdain they use terms like "election liar" and "math disbeliever" when discussing many of the Republican runners.

I suppose based on all evidence of the last few years this shouldn't come as a surprise, but say what now?

 

[Swansman]

The result will be the intended one.

Whatever that will be, will be.

The US is a corrupt and genocidal superpower that has "earned" its position in world politics through brute force and corrupting or overthrowing governments all over the planet, this is no secret, and this will not change regardless of election outcomes.

People get shat at, so they vote for whoever or whatever isn't in charge, thinking they're clever enough to escape the inevitable pathway.
The mid-term election will be interesting in the sense that it will show us the current pulse of the Americans - are they pissed off enough to install this perceived alternative to their endless suffering, or are they calm enough to remember that the orange man in the end did nothing to help them despite their faith in trying something that was claimed would be "different"?

 

[The_Viper]

 

[nicko31]

Pennsylvania: Fetterman gains Senate seat for Democrats beating celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz

Overall looks pretty close, no knock out blow from the Republicans yet...

 

[rogersix]

Straight out of the Democrat play book.

is that a good or a bad thing?

 

[Machiavelli]

The result will be the intended one.

Whatever that will be, will be.

The US is a corrupt and genocidal superpower that has "earned" its position in world politics through brute force and corrupting or overthrowing governments all over the planet, this is no secret, and this will not change regardless of election outcomes.

People get shat at, so they vote for whoever or whatever isn't in charge, thinking they're clever enough to escape the inevitable pathway.
The mid-term election will be interesting in the sense that it will show us the current pulse of the Americans - are they pissed off enough to install this perceived alternative to their endless suffering, or are they calm enough to remember that the orange man in the end did nothing to help them despite their faith in trying something that was claimed would be "different"?

Beyond the dubiousness of your theoretical position on politics, which seems to amount to I support paleo-anarchism, which contrives to be something that is both impossible and, in its former component, idiotic, I'm not entirely convinced by your historical analysis.
The US has had three different approaches to foreign relations throughout its history. All three ideas remain current; they are isolationism, internationalism and interventionism.
From its inception up until WW2, the predominant (some might say only, but Latin America indicates otherwise) approach was isolationism. Amongst other things, this is evidenced by the US' late entry into both WWs. After WW2, depending on your political perspective, one or both of internationalism and interventionism took over. Yet by the end of WW2, the US' economic pre-eminence was undeniable. In other words, it actually "earned" its position in world politics through very different means than that which you attribute. Brute force may have maintained its position, but it didn't produce it but, then again, that's not what you said.

 

[knocky1]

Trump swiping at Ron Desanctimonius already. Giving him a derogatory nickname and claiming to dish the dirt on him if he runs for President.
An evil orangebungle**** against an intelligent evil @#£] will hopefully tear the MAGA lot apart and make a path for a moderate and ethical Republican Presidential Candidate.

 

[nicko31]

Trump swiping at Ron Desanctimonius already. Giving him a derogatory nickname and claiming to dish the dirt on him if he runs for President.
An evil orangebungle**** against an intelligent evil @#£] will hopefully tear the MAGA lot apart and make a path for a moderate and ethical Republican Presidential Candidate.

Nice...

 

[A1X]

Trump swiping at Ron Desanctimonius already. Giving him a derogatory nickname and claiming to dish the dirt on him if he runs for President.
An evil orangebungle**** against an intelligent evil @#£] will hopefully tear the MAGA lot apart and make a path for a moderate and ethical Republican Presidential Candidate.

DeSantis is Trump's big rival for the Republican nomination, and neither have an awful lot of time for each other. If DeSantis gets it he likely won't give Trump and his mob the pardons they're all desperate for, leaving them to face the music in court.

 

[Insel affe]

DeSantis is Trump's big rival for the Republican nomination, and neither have an awful lot of time for each other. If DeSantis gets it he likely won't give Trump and his mob the pardons they're all desperate for, leaving them to face the music in court.

That is the best outcome for not only the USA but the world

 

[sparkie]

Trump swiping at Ron Desanctimonius already. Giving him a derogatory nickname and claiming to dish the dirt on him if he runs for President.
An evil orangebungle**** against an intelligent evil @#£] will hopefully tear the MAGA lot apart and make a path for a moderate and ethical Republican Presidential Candidate.

Trump sees De Santis as a real threat to him running for President again. So the derogatory nickname is being used.

Must admit I expected Trump to be dead by now - I'm really surprised he's still around, so what do I know ?

 

[Insel affe]

Must admit I expected Trump to be dead by now - I'm really surprised he's still around, so what do I know ?

That is exactly what people have been saying about Putin....

Dictators and narcissistic folk have a way of sticking around, unfortunately.

 

[A1X]

Only the good die young

 

[chickens]

Only the good die young

Well of course, they’re in the way of the bad.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

is that a good or a bad thing?

It's a predictable thing in a system that has two f***ed up parties who hate each other so much but work together so hard to keep other potential result changing parties out of the system.

 

[Machiavelli]

It's a predictable thing in a system that has two f***ed up parties who hate each other so much but work together so hard to keep other potential result changing parties out of the system.

They really don't need to work hard to keep other potential result-changing parties out the system. The system does all that work for them.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

They really don't need to work hard to keep other potential result-changing parties out the system. The system does all that work for them.

And they have kept changing that system to keep the minor parties out constantly.

The Greens and Libertarian Parties are working together all the time to assist in cases where the majors have tried to screw them over.

In one state this mid term the Dems tried to have the Greens struck from the ballot and to avoid that the Libertarians went out with the Greens to collect signatures to prevent that happening.

 

[Swansman]

Beyond the dubiousness of your theoretical position on politics, which seems to amount to I support paleo-anarchism, which contrives to be something that is both impossible and, in its former component, idiotic, I'm not entirely convinced by your historical analysis.
The US has had three different approaches to foreign relations throughout its history. All three ideas remain current; they are isolationism, internationalism and interventionism.
From its inception up until WW2, the predominant (some might say only, but Latin America indicates otherwise) approach was isolationism. Amongst other things, this is evidenced by the US' late entry into both WWs. After WW2, depending on your political perspective, one or both of internationalism and interventionism took over. Yet by the end of WW2, the US' economic pre-eminence was undeniable. In other words, it actually "earned" its position in world politics through very different means than that which you attribute. Brute force may have maintained its position, but it didn't produce it but, then again, that's not what you said.

I disagree strongly that US had some isolationist approach until WW2. US business had over and over tried to manipulate, or rather create, a government willing and cooperative to carry out the politics of the big business & banks - none of which were isolationist.

The perhaps clearest example of American involvement in the creation of a "desirable" world (if you are a US business/bank) is the heavy involvement in the Russian revolution. This was carried out in multiple ways: illegal international loans made by Morgan & Rockefeller, overseen and overlooked by the US govt, and through the govt-business decision to take charge of the American Red Cross. It was allowed into Russia due to its alleged neutrality yet spent money bribing Lvov & Kerensky into a lenient treatment of revolutionaries.

The 1917 American Red Cross mission consisted of five doctors, a similar amount of interpreters/transport people... and 16 representatives from Wall Street, many of whom were connected to president Wilson. The leader of the mission, William Boyce Thompson, director of the Federal Reserve Bank, then left the Russian mission to his assistant and travelled across Europe to raise funds for the Bolzhevik revolution.
First destination was the UK, where the British War Cabinet was strongly anti-Bolzhevist until Thompson arrived and made the case that "the revolution was here to stay" and that UK could choose between being a "neutral positive ally or a neutral negative ally".

UK prime minister Lloyd George was heavily indebted to a person (Sir Basil Zaharoff) who was selling arms to both sides in multiple wars, and was not unkeen on listening, and the British changed their stance. Thompsons assistant/deputy pretty much sum the situation up in his statement to British agent Bruce Lockhart:

"You will hear it said that I am the representative of Wall Street; that I am the servant of William B. Thompson to get Altai copper for him; that I have already got 500,000 acres of the best timber land in Russia for myself; that I have already copped off the Trans-Siberian Railway; that they have given me a monopoly of the platinum of Russia; that this explains my working for the soviet .... You will hear that talk. Now, I do not think it is true, Commissioner, but let us assume it is true. Let us assume that I am here to capture Russia for Wall Street and American business men. Let us assume that you are a British wolf and I am an American wolf, and that when this war is over we are going to eat each other up for the Russian market; let us do so in perfectly frank, man fashion, but let us assume at the same time that we are fairly intelligent wolves, and that we know that if we do not hunt together in this hour the German wolf will eat us both up, and then let us go to work."

A lot more can be said about US business & US govt (or associaties) funding and spreading pro-Bolzhevik propaganda, supporting a revolution in a foreign, important country.

Isolationist? Not so much. Building and funding the military of the post-1917 Soviet Union is not "isolationist".

Neither were the US "isolationist" in the 1920s and 1930s, when business & bankers - many of them in bed with the US government - funded Adolf Hitler and the German war machine. Yes, the Kilgore Committee labelled it "accidental":

"The United States accidentally played an important role in the technical arming of Germany. Although the German military planners had ordered and persuaded manufacturing corporations to install modern equipment for mass production, neither the military economists nor the corporations seem to have realized to the full extent what that meant. Their eyes were opened when two of the chief American automobile companies built plants in Germany in order to sell in the European market, without the handicap of ocean freight charges and high German tariffs. Germans were brought to Detroit to learn the techniques of specialized production of components, and of straight-line assembly. What they saw caused further reorganization and refitting of other key German war plants. The techniques learned in Detroit were eventually used to construct the dive-bombing Stukas .... At a later period I. G. Farben representatives in this country enabled a stream of German engineers to visit not only plane plants but others of military importance, in which they learned a great deal that was eventually used against the United States."

... yet a lot points towards US business knowing exactly what it was doing. As historical archives show, the yankee business press was well aware at least from 1935 onwards that a) German prosperity was based on war preparations, b) nazis were in control of industry, not least of IG Farben, where American business provided technology and financial assistance to grow the company.

In the 20s and 30s, Germany needed money to build the country and not least its war machine. US business came up with two ideas: one to lend money to Germany and get it repaid in goods, and another one to lend money to Germany and have it repaid in money. Nazi business man Fritz Thyssen was aware of the purpose: "to disrupt the entire economy of the Reich". The Young Plan, which was the one where Germany had to repay with assets, was very interesting to a lot of US business men and politicians (including Roosevelt). It was a tool to use state power to manipulate foreign policies that would eventually be advantageous.

Without IG Farben, Germany would not have been able to carry out the war. Without loans from American business, IG Farben would (most likely) not have existed. As several post-war investigations concluded, IG Farben directors (which was a mixed board of Germans and Americans) knew exactly what the Nazi-Germany plan was.

We can go on about the connections between the rise of Hitler and American funds, there's plenty more if you're interested... But in summary: Owen Young (powerful American industrialist... and diplomat) and Hjalmar Schacht (Hitlers central bank president, as well as his financial minister) met and exchanged idea, partly on how to improve the German economy and to create a situation where Hitler got the amount of power required, and also curiously how to make sure a potential war would be profitable for those in Germany and America who would indeed like to profit from such a thing.

President Roosevelts close friend, Putzi (who was involved in a lot of curiosities such as working for Hitler, being the first one who noticed the Reichtag fire, later being saved by Roosevelt from ending up in a POW camp, and even later actually working for FDR), was a German-American and another strong link between US govt/US business/German govt/German business. But we could go on for days really, such was the vastness of American-German collaboration before and during the war.

TLDR

America was not "isolationist" until WW2 - it was to a high degree responsible for both the creation of the Soviet Union and Nazi-Germany. Through enabling these entities (for political and financial purposes), a lot of pain was also enabled, as we all know.

Am I wrong in saying that "brute force" did not create the American position as it is today? While brute force of their own may not have created their position, the financing, meddling and exchange of ideas (and tech) of brutal regimes in the past, now and probably forever, certainly helped them into that position.

The US position as a superpower was and is created through their speciality in profiting (power and money) from creating a chaos and then also profiting (power and money) from "saving the day". They have reached their position through having no morals whatsoever - installing brutal regimes and then by equally brutal means exploiting the situations they created.