So Biden-Haters: why Trump over Biden?

[Agema]

Yes actually. If a political party is clearly not actually interested in supporting your cause then why continue to support that party? In regards to the environment they have shown through their actions that they do not care. Your train of logic is the same as that of an abuse victim that continues to stay with their partner.

My train of logic is that of a pragmatist with an idea of getting the best done under the circumstances, rather than a spoiled child who throws all the toys out of the pram because he can't get his own way.

The Republicans have factions with competing interests too. They just knuckle down and back the party. The membership stuck up a massive twat like Donald Trump as choice, and the voters dutifully put him into power anyway. I mean, just about the only way a Republican can really blow it is to have an uncomfortable interest in underage girls.

If any of the factions of the Democrats want to get anywhere, they have to understand that they need an alliance with all the other factions, and that means those other factions are likely to water down each others' agendas. The alternative is that they condemn themselves to something worse every election, and sit around in mutual recrimination all demanding the other factions surrender their objectives until the Republicans turn the USA into Mad Max.

 

[Agema]

There is, in fact, a second party in the two-party system. If the Republicans are supposed to be the blockade stopping environmental policy, maybe put some environmental policy through the Republicans. Why waste the breath on the Democrats who are supposed to agree, but then instead propose measures that are 10% environmental, 90% screwing with Republican donors on purpose?

There is no meaningful environmental policy to pass through the Republican Party.

I'm aware that opinion of Republican voters on climate change isn't quite as bad as often thought. Unfortunately, Republican politicians don't need to give a monkey's what this more environmental minority of Republican voters think, because it's obvious they're not going to jump ship even if the government pours oil into the oceans and sets it on fire just for lulz, whereas the oil and oil-dependent industries fund Republican electoral campaigns handsomely. Trump just opened up national parks for drilling, cut pollution controls, pulled out of the Paris accords, and it cost him nothing.

 

[tstorm823]

There is no meaningful environmental policy to pass through the Republican Party.

There are a lot of renewables in Texas. Also Republicans created the National Park system and the EPA. It's not coincidence that Republican opposition to environmental policy coincides exactly with Democrats proposing exclusively economically disastrous policies.

 

[Eacaraxe]

The point with the tea party however, was they still voted Republican regardless of their differences, and they have elected some of the worst members of congress we have as of yet.

Yes, they continued voting Republican, because they were willing to primary incumbent Republicans, put a genuine sense of fear into party leadership, and forced the hand of party leadership to act inconsistent with its platform and the priorities of its voters. The tea party forced the Republicans to actually adhere to their platform, not the other way around.

I said its easier, not that its 100% guaranteed. The tea party did a lot of damage to the republicans for awhile before their ideology became more of the republican party line.

Damage? Winning over a thousand seats over the course of eight years on the state and federal level and holding both chambers of Congress for nearly a decade, is damage to you? The tea party was, rhetorically and in raw numbers, the biggest boon to the Republican party since Eisenhower. Spare me "moderate" Republicans' and neoconservatives great big ol' crocodile tears, that the chickens finally came home to roost.

That's the true face of the party. Deal with it.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Is that your point? Because it sounds more like you are attempting to say that the left should divide itself up. The human mind isn't really equipped to deal with global warming, it takes too long to really effect us and yearly weather patterns make it difficult to really concretely pin bad weather on global warming, at least in the publics mind. The democrats take steps to address it and when the republicans end up in power again they remove those steps and then some.
I said its easier, not that its 100% guaranteed. The tea party did a lot of damage to the republicans for awhile before their ideology became more of the republican party line.

It is my point and the left SHOULD divide itself up so a party with an actual goal can enter the vacuum, if this is a case of the whole world burning up then there is no reason and no time to make tiny changes like they have. What should be done is things like beginning the moving of people out of Florida before it's under water. If the consequences for failing to deal with this is global death then we need a party that will actually tell people about the drastic changes needed to prevent it as apposed to the current party that claims they care while dripfeeding their constituents sedatives so they don't realize how little they're actually doing.

As I said before, the steps they take right now, even before the Republicans fight back against them, are like trying to put out a house fire by pissing on it. Yes people will not like to hear that they can't just do the same things they always have and that all of our first world problems are going to have to go on the back burner while we man up to deal with saving the entire human race. It's too bad, but it's the kind of thing all those boomers people like to whine about today had to do all the time, maybe realize you need a little bit of that gumption in order to push back against the Republicans instead of degenerating into some kind of neo-victorian era withering flowers.

 

[tstorm823]

As I said before, the steps they take right now, even before the Republicans fight back against them, are like trying to put out a house fire by pissing on it.

It's even worse if the Republicans primary complaint about the Democratic solution is opposition to public urination.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Trump has his coalition. The Democrats are doing an atrocious job of putting together theirs.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

My train of logic is that of a pragmatist with an idea of getting the best done under the circumstances, rather than a spoiled child who throws all the toys out of the pram because he can't get his own way.

Yeah? Well that's my view on this too. I fail to see how global destruction and wanting to see that threat be treated like an actual threat is being a spoiled child. A spoiled child thinks they can have everything they want, an adult realizes they need to make hard choices and do what they have to even if that means not getting everything they want or everything being sunshine and rainbows.

The Republicans have factions with competing interests too. They just knuckle down and back the party. The membership stuck up a massive twat like Donald Trump as choice, and the voters dutifully put him into power anyway. I mean, just about the only way a Republican can really blow it is to have an uncomfortable interest in underage girls.

Maybe if the Democrats didn't have their heads so far up their own rear ends that they can't even smell their own stink because there's no air down there then they wouldn't have put up Hillary Clinton. Didn't you just say you were a pragmatist? How the hell was Clinton a pragmatic choice and not a sign of them having power and getting lazy and overconfident with it?

If any of the factions of the Democrats want to get anywhere, they have to understand that they need an alliance with all the other factions, and that means those other factions are likely to water down each others' agendas. The alternative is that they condemn themselves to something worse every election, and sit around in mutual recrimination all demanding the other factions surrender their objectives until the Republicans turn the USA into Mad Max.

Oh yes, because that plan has worked SO well so far. The watering down over others agendas is the whole problem! It's a bunch of wishy washy nonsense that helps no one. Peace out everyone!

 

[Eacaraxe]

Maybe if the Democrats didn't have their heads so far up their own rear ends that they can't even smell their own stink because there's no air down there then they wouldn't have put up Hillary Clinton. Didn't you just say you were a pragmatist? How the hell was Clinton a pragmatic choice and not a sign of them having power and getting lazy and overconfident with it?

More like...

...run the national party into fiscal insolvency during the Obama administration...

...making them vulnerable to hostile takeover by a well-connected and exceptionally well-funded candidate's campaign and her corporatist allies, inarguably the least popular politicians and policy elites in the country...

...who purged the party committee, subcommittees, and staff of any not loyal to that candidate and that candidate alone, replacing them with staffers from that campaign...

...who then enacted a fundraising structure and organizations for the sole purpose of defunding and defrauding state parties...

...and sitting atop this giant, unprecedented, mountain of money, ran the single most tone-deaf and incompetent Presidential campaign in American history...

...against her hand-picked opponent, the most obnoxious and loathsome bastard ever to stand for the office...

...and somehow, despite enjoying every systemic, strategic, and social advantage one could possibly hope to enjoy in a Presidential election, still lost.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I fail to see how global destruction and wanting to see that threat be treated like an actual threat is being a spoiled child. A spoiled child thinks they can have everything they want, an adult realizes they need to make hard choices and do what they have to even if that means not getting everything they want or everything being sunshine and rainbows.

I'm pretty sure that's what Agema means by "spoiled child", yes. Going back a bit:

If the consequences for failing to deal with this is global death then we need a party that will actually tell people about the drastic changes needed to prevent it as apposed to the current party that claims they care while dripfeeding their constituents sedatives so they don't realize how little they're actually doing.

Is the US actually going to get such a party? Sure, it'd be great if they did, but is it going to happen?

There's two ways to answer that, there's the flat "Nope." or then there's "Well, if..." followed by something that's got no chance of coming to fruition.

If the GOP wins the next election, they've got another 4 years to make things worse, and by the end of it the Democrats will not have been destroyed and been replaced by a new, viable actually left-wing party who will fix everyone, or have changed into one. If the GOP wins the next election, they still won't, if they win the one after that, they still won't.

You don't like Biden, we get that. There's any number of good reasons for that, I don't think anyone here likes him. You are not going to like the candidate who opposes the GOP in 4 years time either. Save this page, come back later, and you'll at best get another Clinton, though I'd expect rather worse. 8 years time, same, 12 years time, same. You've got the Democrats or the Republicans and no other viable options, and that's not going to change. Yes, that's terrible, we all know that that's terrible, it's just that being terrible doesn't make it untrue.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Yes, that's terrible, we all know that that's terrible, it's just that being terrible doesn't make it untrue.

Joe Biden 2020: You're screwed either way. VOTE.

 

[Agema]

There are a lot of renewables in Texas. Also Republicans created the National Park system and the EPA. It's not coincidence that Republican opposition to environmental policy coincides exactly with Democrats proposing exclusively economically disastrous policies.

The USA lags well behind the EU and China in renewables, and in terms of the attitude of the Republicans, the last 30 years account for far more than the any tattered glories it can try to dredge up from 50-100 years ago.

I've spent over 20 years on the net conversing with Republicans, and with the exception of the last few years, all I've ever witnessed is climate change denial, non-stop derision for and implacable opposition to environmental policies, frequently outright glee at any hitches in environmental policy. You should know by now I am bored stiff with feeble attempts of Republicans to blame the Democrats. No Democrat policy has ever forced the Republicans to approach environmental issues with such hostile fervour and contempt for science: they chose that for themselves.

 

[Agema]

Maybe if the Democrats didn't have their heads so far up their own rear ends that they can't even smell their own stink because there's no air down there then they wouldn't have put up Hillary Clinton. Didn't you just say you were a pragmatist? How the hell was Clinton a pragmatic choice and not a sign of them having power and getting lazy and overconfident with it?

Hillary Clinton was a good choice for candidate. Clinton's reputation in government remains high. The people she worked with overwhelmingly seem to have liked and respected her, both personally and professionally. She was good at her job. But the public don't see that side of a politician - the negotiator, the policy planner, the hard worker, the team builder. They see the public performance put on for them in press conferences and debates, and there, she came off worse.

As for Bernie, well. In the end, Bernie failed by failing to that most basic of political chores, which is going round making friends, mollifying skeptics, and so on. When Biden's campaign suddenly resurrected after endorsements from major black leaders and swept Sanders away this year, it exposed Sanders and the Democratic left for their political failings: they hadn't truly gone out there and built the trust and relationships with key voter groups that they needed to. He didn't work the media effectively because the left, like the further right, can view the mainstream media as playing their own little game which they think themselves above. That's really why Clinton beat Sanders. The Sanders camp can complain about the DNC shenanigans and all that jazz, but it massively underplays the many, many years of hard work Clinton put into assiduously courting people within her own party and building relationships with them, winning a reputation for diligence and competence. Sanders just barked irascibly from the sidelines for decades, and then expected party grandees to suddenly vote for him.

 

[tstorm823]

The USA lags well behind the EU and China in renewables, and in terms of the attitude of the Republicans, the last 30 years account for far more than the any tattered glories it can try to dredge up from 50-100 years ago.

I've spent over 20 years on the net conversing with Republicans, and with the exception of the last few years, all I've ever witnessed is climate change denial, non-stop derision for and implacable opposition to environmental policies, frequently outright glee at any hitches in environmental policy. You should know by now I am bored stiff with feeble attempts of Republicans to blame the Democrats. No Democrat policy has ever forced the Republicans to approach environmental issues with such hostile fervour and contempt for science: they chose that for themselves.

I'm sure that you're aware that my perspective is in large part informed by Catholicism. There's a single line in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that I've found infinitely useful over time, and that's the Catholic perspective on atheism. Atheism is false, atheism is a sin, but:

Believers can have more than a little to do with the rise of atheism. To the extent that they are careless about their instruction in the faith, or present its teaching falsely, or even fail in their religious, moral, or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than to reveal the true nature of God and of religion.

To put in more general terms: if you've got the right message, and people are rejecting you, you're probably a crappy messenger. People reject truth because of the messenger all the time. Trump says he's heard good things about hydroxychloroquine, the media declares "it will kill you".

I know "An Inconvenient Truth" is not the beginning or end of climate activism, but consider it for a moment. A high level Democrat delivering hyperbolic exaggerations of the future, some of which are already proven incorrect, and the only way to avoid disaster is the whole-scale and desperate dismantling of the world economy. Why do you think Republicans might doubt that? And not the politicians, don't say they were paid to, I'm talking about the people you argued with on the internet. Why would a regular old Republican doubt that message? Is it contempt for science? Or is it because the messenger is an already disliked person telling lies to push their politics onto others and using climate change activism as the vehicle for that?

What is the Green New Deal that AOC wants? In the words of her chief of staff, "The interesting thing about the Green New Deal, is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all... Do you guys think of it as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing." Republicans who don't believe the warnings on climate change are wrong to not have done their own research and been informed, but if your political opponents deliver a warning that you don't know is true, and they 100% are using that as a vehicle to push their policy wish lists, you're gonna doubt them. The Democrats have more than a little to do with the skepticism of Republicans.

 

[Agema]

To put in more general terms: if you've got the right message, and people are rejecting you, you're probably a crappy messenger. People reject truth because of the messenger all the time. Trump says he's heard good things about hydroxychloroquine, the media declares "it will kill you".

No, I think it's much simpler.

The Republicans in the 1970s turned more aggressively towards hostility to government intervention and regulation. They set the EPA up oppotunistically with the growing awareness of environmentalism from the 60s, and then rapidly (if a little half-heartedly) set about wanting it to do as little as possible. As it became more and more pro-business throughout the 80s, the fossil fuel industry and fossil fuel-dependent industries (amongst others) took one look at climate change and funded anti-environmental sentiment up the wazoo. Fake scientific bodies and right-wing think tanks etc. all rolled into action with the economic libertarians and launched a non-stop campaign of ideological war that bought the Republican Party heart and soul, and that occurred long before "An Inconvenient Truth". ("An Inconvenient Truth" has some exaggerations and errors, but was overall considerably more accurate than not. Republicans have just concentrated on the not for their own purposes.)

It's only now as more storms rage across North America and the Florida and Lousiana coasts start disappearing under the waves it's beginning to break the stranglehold.

As for "dismantling the world economy", this is every bit as much ludicrous hyperbole as climate change activists claiming the world's going to collapse and we're all going to die in a sea of fire. The "Green New Deal" only really appears in any political significance in 2018, and so cannot realistically be used to explain the previous 30 years of anti-environmental sentiment. Republicans have resisted government intervention in name, whilst ensuring massive subsidies flow to the fossil fuel industry. At easiest and more direct measurements these are tens of billions of dollars per year - looking at more complex, indirect costs (e.g. patrolling the seas for the safety of oil tankers), vastly more.

These days, you can find a few Republicans who care about the environment, but no significant movement or plan to proactively do anything for it... because at an institutional level it doesn't care, it's being funded to not care, and some of what might need to do is an ideological anathema. Thus Republican environmental policy amounts to nothing more than reactively shouting down anything the Democrats come up with.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Joe Biden 2020: You're screwed either way. VOTE.

Essentially, yes. The word "less" should appear in there somewhere, though.

 

[Agema]

Essentially, yes. The word "less" should appear in there somewhere, though.

"Joe Biden 2020: You're screwed either way. VOTE less."?

 

[tstorm823]

"Joe Biden 2020: You're screwed either way. VOTE less."?

"Joe Biden-less 2020"

 

[Worgen]

It is my point and the left SHOULD divide itself up so a party with an actual goal can enter the vacuum, if this is a case of the whole world burning up then there is no reason and no time to make tiny changes like they have.

So how does that not mean that they will just lose, over and over and over again? How does your philosophy mean you can win and actually make any changes?

 

[Hades]

I think its really simple why a lot of politicians and especially populists are so against addressing climate chance. There's just nothing to gain by taking on this issue.

A politician's greatest concern is to be elected and to achieve this they must get successes in the short term to take credit for, they must give an appealing message to voters and they must have the support of powerful donors. Climate change is uniquely unsuited for this agenda.

Tackling climate change will take a very long time which means that no politician will be able to get credit for it. If a politician does take action now then the problem will be solved years if not decades after he left office. The credit will go to someone else and the politicians of today can't benefit from it.

To address climate change a politician must tell the electorate something they really do not want to hear. We simply must make very heavy sacrifices in order to tackle this issue and it will not be pleasant. That's a very hard sell and its so much easier to just do as the wacky populists do and deny there is a problem in the first place. Tackling climate change isn't getting you any votes so why bother?

And donors? Well, considering the sacrifices that must be made its safe to say that most powerful donors will be fanatically opposed to any measure you propose. You might get some funding from environmental organisations but they can't even give you half as much as an oil drilling company would give you.

Lastly there's also a very personal issue that counts for both politicians and the electorate as a whole. The real problems will only emerge in a few decades. Many people can feel very safe while dismissing global warming and sabotaging any attempt to fight it because they know they will already be dead when the worst will come to pass.