U.S. Politics Thread
 

let's talk about the next president lol :)

I don't like her...she's kind of a bitch.

I think part of the problem is that people really expect their next president to solve (or exacerbate) all of the problems of their nation. If people really want that then a shift to a monarchy makes sense, like in star wars elect a king every x years so that he can reinvent the whole country.

Wait, since when was there elections for king in star wars? Did I miss a movie somewhere?

Elected Royalty. With term limites.

On a Star Wars tangent, Chancellor Palpatine was over on his term limits as well when the Clone Wars started (using the secession emergency to stall elections) leading to his appointing himself Emperor at war's end after having served as Chancellor for 13 years or so at that point. Term limits would seem to be 8 years for that office, though I can't say if Senators to the Republic have such limits.

shouldn't we be talking about 2014 with the congressional elections.

Nah, congessional elections are just miniboss fights. They're not as exciting.

I see what you did there :p

Did Hillary announce a while ago that she won't be running in 2016, or am I just imagining things?

No, but I think some in the press think she's in a good position followingher leaving her position as Secretary of State.

Not sure who the next president will be but I will put a bet he/she will be a one-term president.

Why's that?

He did it all wrong, you never draw the attention of the people unto yourself by doing something so megalomaniacal as appointing yourself emperor, you get a puppet (like jar jar bink) to take said position and control him from the shadows, so down the line when a hero comes to kill jar jar, Palpatine could have continued to exert influence from the shadows and plot against the meddling forces of good™ (you can always use their own legal system against them, or unearth some dirt to the media).

So wall street will reign supreme, no matter what puppet gets his turn at the bat.

My guess for 2016 is that the Republicans are going to use the strategy the Dems more or less ended up using back in '08:

First they'll play the National Debt card, and then ask, "Do you really want four more years of this?"

The economy will perform poorly over those years and the president will be blamed for it. Why will the economy perform poorly you may ask? The problems of debt and bank deregulation have not been dealt with, merely postponed. Politicians have just kicked the can for the last few years but eventually that can will hit a wall. I think the wall will be reached some time between 2016-2020. It is just a WAG so take it for what it is.

Very likely, seeing as they used that same tactic this past election.

I hope someone really exceptional comes out of the woodwork for 2016. My dad says that the best candidates are often weeded out well before the nominees are selected (ala 2000, where he says that he thinks Dan Quail was the best option).

Still important. And the biggest race out of all of 'em:

Ashley Judd (hot) vs Mitch McConnel (old jackass).

If someone can win by hotness alone, I'm sure California would have had a porn star as Governor instead of Arnold.

Instead of making a US Election 2016 thread in February of 2013, shouldn't we just have a "US Politics" thread?


What say you, mods?

Yeah. Regardless of what anyone says, this thread is going to end up with the 2014 senate race discussions anyway. No one is going to bother with 2016 until that's settled.

Thread renamed.

I'm always excited about US politics in whatever shape and form it happens. I loved Marco Rubio's, the Republican savior, rebuttal to Hussein Obama's SOTU speech. I then later loved the rendition done by Colbert to reenact Marco Rubio's speech in a more dramatic fashion.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-col...e-of-the-rubio

:heh::D:D

Hopefully, the savior who will bring the Hispanic votes to the Republican Party will be ready to speak again after some intensive speech therapy. That said, I'm looking forward to 2014 more than 2016, cause it's 2014 that will be far more interesting. Yes?

Sorry Casey. Better luck in 2.5 years...

Speaking of Stephen Colbert and the (premature) talk of the 2016 presidential election, one of my favourite segments from last year's show had to be the one where he blew up and said enough is enough (for the first minute any way :heh:). It managed to capture what I had felt from hearing about the past campaign and what I thought about further talk about the next one despite it not starting till years ahead.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-col...-the-white-orb

I felt bad for Rubio to be honest. He was very clearly under enormous pressure to be the GOP's ''saviour'' when he was making that rebuttal, and while it was certainly funny segment, I can't help but sympathise with him. I have gone through my own share of early embarrassing presentations. :uhoh:

Good ol' Elizabeth Warren asking the tough questions none of her colleagues have the balls enough to ask themselves.

Indeed, good luck on her endeavors, and hopefully she can get something done.

I'm not gonna hold my breath though :/

I like her style. She was selected for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau... only to be blocked by the Senate...

Then she follows that up by working her way into the Senate, and heads the committee overseeing the very issues she was meant to tackle.

Congress is full of cowards and backstabbing weasels. Warren is not one of 'em. :)

Whoever it is, they will talk about helping the poor and middle class. While people starve in the streets, they will enjoy their warm, comfortable residence, and eat their well prepared, clean food, and have ready access to the best, tasty water. And they will be protected by armed guards, since only the elite get to protect themselves. All at the cost of taxpayers.

And from this place of comfort they will talk about helping people. Would they take a hit to their salary as a symbolic gesture that they are truly in this with us? No. Meanwhile they will continue to order troops and fight enemies that they will never see but urge them on while ignoring the sacrifices they made for this country by not respecting the Constitution they swore to uphold and many a soldier perished to keep those ideals running. Because you know, it's glorious to die for one's country as long as oneself is not at risk so let's be a bit more reckless to ensure the headlines. Nope, let's just talk and give an illusion of choice in fall 2016

So whoever gets elected in 2016. Congratulations, and fuck you. May you stay constipated forever while the peasantry works to maintain your lifestyle.

You've reminded me of one of my favorite sayings- Rich man's war, poor man's fight.

And Heaven forbid any of them take a pay cut! Why, that would mean they'd have to give up on all their luxurious, fancy items like limousines and suits only they can afford! [/sarcasm]

On a slightly off-topic note, I've come up with a recent theory: if you want to see what truly fuels a nation and what people care the most about, see where they put the majority of their money, willingly. Mostly it's done for entertainment and in the case of politicians, TV ads

Nicely put! The next president will be chosen via Facebook and Twitter, and any other popular social media hyped by the press.
No longer is it "Deeds not words", it's now "Words not deeds". A sad state of affairs for a country known as being the last bastion of hope and freedom!

I don't think we consider it the last bastion of hope and freedom.

Warren 2016!

Because.

*goes cry in a corner and whimpers about how it all just ended, just ended, make it stop!*

It was never Deeds not Words anyway. The Attlee's of the world don't get elected that often.

As I saw ages ago elsewhere on the net, there's a question of "Is our world more like 1984 or Brave New World?" IMO, it's a mixture of both, but more recently the Brave New World aspect has been the stronger side

And as for the US being the "last bastion of hope and freedom"... where's that The Pressroom clip (or whatever HBO show it was) when you need it about America supposedly being the "greatest country" or something? Granted, there are certain things that America (and for the record, I'm talking about the USA portion) has greater freedom on than others... but at the end of the day, IMO, it's mostly just a mentality left over and general reinforced from the fact that the US was one of the winners of WWII (hell, if it weren't for the US coming in until after Pearl Harbor, and the fact that Pearl Harbor was the only attack on US soil, I doubt, I doubt it would've even become a superpower, but that's a debate for a History Thread)

I will only say this; the claim that America is "The last bastion of hope and freedom" might sound nice to Americans, but to everyone else, even allies like Australia, it is a grievous insult.

I know people don't mean it like that. But it sounds like a secular version of a demand for a non-religious crusade on the rest of the planet. Australians talk about Australia being the best as a matter of course; but we don't lay claim that every other nation are degenerate Sodom who are all North Koreas. And that's why it is offensive. It doesn't sound like patriotic speech, but more like "We will one day crush all inferior nations beneath us".

Just want to make that observation.

The US does have a fair claim to being "the greatest country on earth", due to it's size, power and cultural influence. But it has no justifiable claim to being morally best on earth. Likewise, I don't think it can claim to be the most "free" country either. Other societies are much more permissive then the USA.

Of course, freedom isn't everything.

That is a dumb statement.

If it wasn't for legal hegemons filibustering bills to permit below-16 marriage, certain countries wouldn't have faced working population shortages.

Nobody should feel insulted. Despite what may be said, look at what is done: America has the highest incarceration rate not just among developed nations, but in the world. Australians could get a good laugh out of that. One could easily mistake America's origins as being that of a penal colony that just never changed :)

It's a fairly moot exercise in semantics at this point though, as everyone has a different idea of what makes a country "great".

As for which country is "morally best"... it'd also depend on which cultural norm you're using as the standard, though frankly I think every country probably have more than enough skeletons in the closet for them to try to claim to be moral anyway :p

Of course, the scary part is that a nation who thinks they are morally superior might feel justified in "Freeing" the other countries with their weapons...

And we have seen that before. The British Empire. It's not new, really.

I'm guessing my sarcasm didn't quite translate through the net, but no surprise there. Anyways, this video has been posted before in another thread, but I love the rant the guy goes on:



The rant itself begins around 4:45

To be frank I am aware you are on my side of the argument. I wasn't posting that to antagonise your points but merely to state my own.