Political Civilian

It comes up in every discussion remotely related to the "politics stinks" trope - Term limits. It's always presented as some sort of obvious solution to a lot of problems, but as Ezra Klein pointed out years ago , term limits would be counterproductive and only increase incentives for corruption. As much as it would be great to have fewer entrenched centers of power (heck, George Washington figured that out), we have a complex world, and we need experienced legislators making laws for it. It also always bears mentioning that we already HAVE term limits - regular elections.  So term limits will never happen because of all that, and because congresscritters would have to voluntarily limit their own power. Good luck with all that. Term limits are never really put forth as a solution to the old age problem we definitely have with our elected government, nor the incumbency problem . Things like term limits are almost always proposed as a cure - all for whatever is wrong with

Conservatism is Trumpism. Not to get too wonky bout it, but while there may not be a straight line from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump, the line from Reagan to Trump is undeniable. That matters because there is a concerted effort on the part of mainstream conservatives, traditional media, and professional Republicans to disassociate Trump and all he represents from "conservatism". And it absolutely should not be allowed. The line needs to be drawn in permanent marker between the fundamentals of conservative philosophy and the corruption, incompetence, and authoritarianism of Donald Trump. Conservatism is Trumpism. It's the logical endpoint of a political philosophy that millions have adhered to in (relative) good faith, many for their entire lives. And lifelong Republicans shouldn't be able to just disown and redefine it because they don't like where it leads . It's easy to conflate "Republicans" with "conservatives", but I like to think tha

It occurs to me that I haven't actually... debated a conservative on an actual policy matter in years. Part of that is the nature of the internet, and also that whole global pandemic thing. But you'd think that an actual, fact - based, legitimate disagreement would have materialized at some point. But it really hasn't. Here's my fantasy of what that kind of debate might look like: Liberal: Climate change is a real issue that our scientists and experts are saying could cost the world billions of lives and trillions in property damage. We need to do something. Conservative: All right. We need to be careful though, as we don't want to harm our current economy. We also have to acknowledge that it's a global problem, and engaging some policies that might slow the American economy without actually addressing the GLOBAL crisis isn't optimal. Liberal : The simplest thing to do then is to institute a carbon tax - we've helped ameliorate a different crisis by t

It was a Republican terrorist attack. Now, just about every word in that sentence is inflammatory and rude, and probably to an unnecessary degree. But it's important that the proper words be used, because as George Carlin put it, we do think in language.  And this is accurate language. Republicans committed a terrorist attack on the United States. It should also be noted that along with being rude, the big flaw in that framework is the same flaw that Republicans encounter when accusing all Muslims of being terrorists. Small, extreme groups who claim to share an affinity with a larger group that contains multitudes do NOT - at all - represent that larger group. There's a degree to which mainstream members of groups should hold their extremists accountable, but at the end of the day, they're just not representative of their outliers. That's why they're outliers. But there's a fair argument to be made that the the group that attacked the United States Capitol buil

We don't really have a blueprint for what a "loyal opposition" looks like, do we? Take the periods from 2008-2010 and then 2016-2018. Putting the filibuster aside, that's when we had (mostly) one party rule.  During those times, there was little for the opposition party to do aside from either vote with the ruling majority party or kvetch from the sidelines about what the majority was doing. The former constituted disloyalty, the latter, weakness. Millions upon millions of people voted for representatives that were confined to minority status and (almost complete) powerlessness. Game theory - almost - dictates that such scenarios should make people vote for candidates that they didn't prefer. Better to have a candidate that you disagree with and has power that can be leveraged and positions that can be influenced than one that's utterly powerless, rendering their ideology meaningless. We need to square that circle as we shouldn't have representatives that.

President Obama's comments about "defunding the police" being a mantra that "loses people"  are absolutely correct - no qualifications necessary. It's yet another one of those things in our politics in which several things can be true at the same time. First, the obvious. Something needs to be done at a national level about our police and that starts with funding. Our police forces are trigger happy and dangerous, particularly for black people as well as people with mental illness. Decades of defunding mental health and social services, as well as a failed "war on drugs" has led to an insane amount of over - policing. And the population is so awash in propaganda from "blue lives matter" up to and including "protect and serve" that it makes their budgets particularly impenetrable. But that's where it starts - redirecting funds from policing to broader public services for people who need them. We - and Obama - get that. But -

We know - pretty much for a fact - that on his way out, President Trump is going to sabotage as much of the executive apparatus as he can in a fit of pique. We know - pretty much for a fact - that President - Elect Biden's overtures to bipartisanship are going to fail in the face of universal, bad - faith Republican obstruction . We know - pretty much for a fact - that even given 50 Democratic Senators that the greatest negotiator in the world couldn't get anything resembling progressive policies passed.  We know - pretty much for a fact - that our international relationships have been effectively poisoned top to bottom over the last four years and that will make repair difficult to nearly impossible. We are - probably for a long time - the country that elected and almost re - elected an incompetent fascist.  We're not to be trusted with the world's car keys. So here's what I can't puzzle out - given that we know these things as much as anyone can know thin