I have the ill-informed impression that the hours actually arise from long-established rules/the constitution?
I thought it was an artifact of requiring that 24 hours of defense fit inside two days.
My ill-informed impression was of the ultimate cause, not the proximate.
Mitch McConnel sabotaged the sidebar.
Also, every serious blue presidential candidate is a senator required by law to attend the trial. So.
Also also, I'm a couple of days early but this is the best possible thread in which to wish you all a happy Year of the Rat.
7: "required by law to attend"
Really? I can't find a cite for that, but it sounds hilarious. I see they can't bring their cell phones in either. Cruel and unusual!
They're also required by law to be impartial. More hilarity ensues!
They can have their aides print out porn since they can't use a phone.
I have the ill-informed impression that the hours actually arise from long-established rules/the constitution?
No, the constitution says almost nothing about the procedures for impeachment and there's very little in the way of precedent or established rules since it happens so rarely. These rules are based mainly on the ones from the Clinton impeachment but with some strategic changes to get the whole thing over quickly with minimal damage to Trump. The timing is part of that.
And as if on cue, McConnell has apparently now walked back the timing so that each side has 24 hours over three days rather than two.
13: And we were all saying that Mitch was going to be unfair! We all owe him an apology.
I'm sure that Mitchy will preserve Trump's wish to have it all over by Feb 4th, but it would be kind of nice to read about Trump short-circuiting out mid-speech instead of crowing about victory.
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Semi-OT. Did Hillary Clinton really refuse to pledge to support Sanders if he were the Democratic nominee. I get that she probably would not want him to be the nominee, but if that is a fair representation of what she says - and it could easily not be - that is really shitty. The worst president in our history and she wouldn't necessarily support the party's nominee.
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16: She was asked and if she would endorse and campaign for him and her response was, "I'm not going to go there yet. We're still in a very vigorous primary season"
17: which sounds very weaselly to me. I would have liked her to say, "Of course, I will support the party's nominee."
I think its hilarious that all this "but your are going to support the nominee no matter what, right?" talk originated with centrists freaking out that the left wasn't going to support Biden, when really the cause for concern runs strongest the other way.
Centrists haven't spent 2 decades saying that the party is the enemy. Or proudly refusing to join it.
I agree with 18, and my first reaction to the whole thing was to wonder what she is accomplishing by talking to reporters at all.
21: it was a summary of one exchange in a documentary that was done one her. So not reporters per se; and not sure exactly when said.
23: It wasn't in the documentary - it was in an interview to promote the documentary. And it was quite recent because she talks about the Warren-Sanders brouhaha.
Also she already sort of took it back on Twitter. She doesn't mention Sanders, but she says she will support the nominee of the party.
Centrists haven't spent 2 decades saying that the party is the enemy. Or proudly refusing to join it.
Of course they haven't, they've been running the place. There are many would rather loose to the external opposition rather than to the internal opposition.
25: ok, then. Wish she hadn't said anything to any reporters at all and would just keep a low profile, but we can just move on.
Yesterday was about as discouraging as Election Day. Yes, of course I should have known better (and did), but my God. And fucking jackass John Roberts (aka The Most Effective Racist in America*) stepping in to remind me people to keep it in civil in Mitch McConnell's star chamber was the real fucking capper.
*Certainly not the "most" racist on the court** but his despicable Shelby County opinion and Medicaid expansion blocks were incredibly harmful (and sadly effective).
**Hello Sam Alito, come on down.
Christ on a stick.
There are many would rather loose to the external opposition rather than to the internal opposition.
No there aren't.
After seeing what went down with the Labour Party in the UK, I have my doubts.
28: She probably shouldn't be talking to reporters, but she's promoting a film. It's a film that encouraged her to be candid, that is supposed to be about her in a sympathetic but rawer depiction than she has previously allowed.
She really didn't actually say anything about not supporting the nominee, but that she didn't want to talk or think about having to go out and stump for Sanders right now. Later in the same interview she says she'll do whatever it takes to defeat Trump.
I'm not saying that line, or speaking to reporters at were particularly advisable, but I feel like expressing some sympathy for the incredible bind she is always in. She is constantly harped on for being inauthentic, and the moment she's like, fuck it, I'm not a candidate anymore; I'm just going to say things I think to people who ask people harp on her for that too. People constantly suspect her of harboring secret ambitions and when she behaves in a way that makes it clear she's done that's also a reason to be angry at her. Sanders gets constant tongue baths for his authenticity. I'm *not* saying Sanders overall is gently treated by the media, just that this quality, the quality of allowing yourself to say things because they are your actual sentiments, he is rewarded for, and she is either punished for it or punished for the lack of it, constantly. There is really no way to be Hillary Clinton, but if she disappeared people would shriek (people have shrieked) about how hypocritical and cowardly is her absence.
32: Yeah, this. I feel very ambivalent about defending her at all, and even more so about being seen to defend her -- she has many terrible political positions and is also not personally blameless in many regards. But wow does she come in for a whole lot of abuse, and yes, a lot of it places her in a double-bind where there's nothing she could possibly do right.
32: I think making the film at all at this time was unwise and the right thing to do would be to pull back from the spotlight.
33 is also true.
34: Or she could do what the losing Republican from 2012 did and return to the Senate.
Why is she the only one who should stay out of public life?
31: the Labour party didn't get half annihilated in the UK because of Corbyn's opponents within the party. Do you think that any normal voter gives a shit what Tom Watson thinks or Guardian leader writers? The party got trashed because Corbyn is a self-righteous dunderhead, and this came across to everyone over the years he led the party. I admit that I personally found it hard to choose between the horrors of a Corbyn and a Johnson government. Not that it mattered, since in my constituency we get a Conservative MP whatever happens. But the people who switched didn't do so for my sort of reasons.
Brexit didn't help, I know, but a competent leadership could have made a clear decision and defended it.
The Clinton thing is a nice break from the Warren/Sanders thing. Kind of a nostalgia trip.
If it weren't for you people here, I could totally ignore the primary.
35: they should withdraw too.
But also, I think she is uniquely toxic for reasons that are not her fault. I mean, my middle of the road conservative Canadian in-laws disliked the Clintons. Though, of course M-I-L thinks Trump is worse.
Update: This is also the Impeachment Day 2 thread.
38, 40: Ignoring impeachment is going pretty well for me. I check in with the news occasionally: "Yep, still totally ignoring what's actually going on." Then I can get on with my day.
To get back on topic, the conduct of the Republicans in this impeachment business is so depressing. You think they can't get worse and they do. You can hear all the testimony and still acquit, if you're Republican scum that is.
Does anyone know why they start in the afternoon and go to latest night / instead of, say, 9am?
My understanding is that the Republicans set up the rules that way in the hopes that people wouldn't watch.
44: I would think that was their goal except it doesn't make sense to me -- don't most people work during the day? Aren't there more people watching TV at night?
32: I read her answer as "let's not jump the gun about who is going to be the nominee" with a side of "I am not throwing my support behind anyone publicly right now" and it's somehow A Sign she doesn't support Sanders.
The Supreme Court hears cases in the morning -- today one from Montana -- so the Senate trial schedule is built around that.
(There was probably another case too, but who cares . . .)
The Montana case, if you guys aren't being buried with emails etc about it, is about church and state. Specifically, the constitutionality of state constitutional restrictions on giving state money to religions.
32: I read her answer as "let's not jump the gun about who is going to be the nominee" with a side of "I am not throwing my support behind anyone publicly right now" and it's somehow A Sign she doesn't support Sanders.
I think it's also clear that Sanders irritates her. I don't think her comments helped anything; it does make her look petty. But, at the same time, I don't think it should be too out-of-line for her to say, "I ran against him, he pisses me off, and he still pisses me off." Not the most politic thing to say, but as Tia says, there is something satisfying about seeing Clinton be blunt.
Honestly, he sounds a bit too much like Super Dave Osborne.
47: I was wondering if this had completely disrupted the business of the Supreme Court.
News reports indicate that the Supreme Court is likely to overturn our Supreme Court on church/state. This is the second case they've considered from the Montana Supreme Court this term -- one was argued last month in which is appears that the US Supreme Court is going to overturn our court on CERCLA preemption.
FYI, this is the provision at issue:
Article X, Section 6 Aid prohibited to sectarian schools
(1) The legislature, counties, cities, towns, school districts, and public corporations shall not make any direct or indirect appropriation or payment from any public fund or monies, or any grant of lands or other property for any sectarian purpose or to aid any church, school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination.
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Really, what with Bach's son becoming a composer and Curie's daughter becoming a physicist and George Bush's son going into politics and so on, one should have expected Aung San's daughter to be a violent Burmese nationalist who collaborates with a mass-murdering military junta.
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I mean, apart from showing up to defend a pogrom in person. The sheer fuck-youness of which I confess I find perversely admirable.
36: the Labour party didn't get half annihilated in the UK ...
Let's keep some perspective here. Popular vote totals:
2019, Corbyn: 32.2
2017, Corbyn: 40.0
2015, Milliband: 30.4
2010, Brown: 29.0
2005, Blair: 35.2
The outlier here is really 2017, when the self-righteous dunderhead Corbyn managed a 9.6 point gain, almost 5 points above Blair's--the God of Electability--winning 2005 total. What makes 2019 seem so disastrous is that the UK's FPTP system, which has always been terrible, is 1- particularly ill-suited to the >4-party system the UK now has; and 2- extra bad for Labour's inevitable shift towards urban voters.
... because of Corbyn's opponents within the party. Do you think that any normal voter gives a shit what Tom Watson thinks or Guardian leader writers?
Actually, yes, I absolutely do, and I was under the impression that this was the received wisdom in the field of political behavior. It's not that your average normal voter could even name Tom Watson, let alone correctly identify his views. It's that elite views, and even more, elite consensus vs dissensus, become part of the background stuff that everybody knows or has heard about. A party leader who is constantly attacked by his own MPs, to such an extent that they repeatedly attempt to depose him, with a bunch finally even leaving the party, all while being fellated by the center-left press, gives the impression that there must be something wrong with the guy.
The party got trashed because Corbyn is a self-righteous dunderhead, and this came across to everyone over the years he led the party. I admit that I personally found it hard to choose between the horrors of a Corbyn and a Johnson government.
But he's always been that same self-righteous dunderhead, and he previously preformed quite well (though not well enough). That you could even write "the horrors of a Corbyn ... government" is testament to how effective the internal smear campaign has been. I hope that was just hyperbole, because otherwise, what the fuck? A Corbyn government would have meant 1- soft Brexit agreement leading to 2nd referendum, with Gov't almost certainly against its own agreement, hence a real chance--the only possible path--of no Brexit; 2- a serious commitment to rebuild the UK's welfare state. Horrors!
I know fuck-all about UK politics, except for what I learn in blog comments, which has led me to two two conclusions:
1. A lot of very smart, decent people generally share a low opinion of Corbyn
2. All of my intuitions about American politics lead me, by banned analogy, to suspect that x. trapnel has the same read that I would have on UK politics, were I more knowledgeable.
Like X.T, I found this from NW particularly striking:
I personally found it hard to choose between the horrors of a Corbyn and a Johnson government.
With all due respect to NW, who of course is one of the smart, decent people I'm talking about, I'd be interested to see a defense of this comment. Even as hyperbole, it strikes me as inappropriate.
58: popular vote totals are about as relevant to actual politics in the UK as in the US, i.e. not. What matters in the "did our party get annihilated" question is number of MPs. The PLP now is only slightly bigger than Tony Blair's 1997 majority. (1997, you know; that was one of the elections that you... didn't post the vote totals for.)
As for the "he was stabbed in the back by the PLP" narrative, this is very difficult to disprove, because you have two possible accounts of events:
1. Corbyn is unelectable, the MPs conclude, so they try to get rid of him and fail, but are proved right when he repeatedly fails to get elected.
2. We hate Corbyn because he's an awful socialist or something, the MPs conclude, so they try to get rid of him and fail, but this results in him being unpopular and losing lots of elections.
Did he lose the election because his own MPs tried to get rid of him? Or did his own MPs try to get rid of him because they knew he couldn't win the election? We can go round and round on this issue. I don't know any Labour MPs personally but I know lifelong Labour voters, including Labour party members and even a Labour CLP chair who were unwilling to vote Labour last month because of Corbyn. It is easy for outsiders to underestimate just how unpleasant the 1980s struggle in the Labour Party was, and how much Corbyn - an unpleasant, ineffective, vicious and self-righteous man - represents a return to that trough to long-term Labour voters. This is why - even before the leadership challenge in 2016, even before he had had a chance to lose any general elections at all, even before the anti-semitism scandal kicked in - his personal approval rating was at a record low and was negative even among Labour voters.
That you could even write "the horrors of a Corbyn ... government" is testament to how effective the internal smear campaign has been.
I'm sure that the poor easily-duped NW, who only does this for a living after all, will be terribly glad that you've turned up to tell him the truth about how his country's political system really works.
58.last: Yeah, I don't know much about UK politics, but I am very confused by how powerful anti-Corbyn sensible-moderate-kinda-left feeling is. I'm remembering, e.g., Edwards against Duke for governor of Louisiana back in the nineties -- the election where the pro-Edwards bumper stickers were "Vote for the Crook, It's Important." Or in 2016 -- lots of people were lukewarm at best about Hilary, but it was still pretty fringey among actual Democrats to say that she was bad enough that it was worth risking Trump winning to keep her out.
People who aren't nutcases seem to think that Corbyn is bad enough that it's worth driving the country off a cliff to keep him out of power, and I don't see what makes him worse than a personally flawed guy who's roughly on the right side of most major issues.
62 crossed with 61. I'll accept that there are good reasons to be unenthusiastic about Corbyn, but I still don't get exactly what makes them so compelling.
First the point of agreement: Yes, of course the FPTP system is wildly unfair and unrepresentative. But it is what it is. The system completely excluded UKIP and the Liberal Democrats from power when it was working to the advantage of the Labour party and now it may have slammed the door against them too. We will see.
I think the substantive disagreement is that you think (as almost all his supporters do, IME) that what matters is having the right policies, and that who is to put them into action, and how, is an entirely secondary consideration. You envision system where voters choose between policies and then the hard part is over. All the choices will translate into action equally smoothly. But Corbyn's policies, or some of them, were popular. They were popular even within the Parliamentary party. It's just that people who had worked alongside him in parliament for 24 years didn't think he was remotely competent to put them into action. I have only spent an hour or so in a small group with him, but that was plenty enough to convince me he was useless and not to be trusted with power. This matters far more than what he was useless *about*.
That is why I think that policies on their own don't matter. Effective politics is about getting people to do what you want them to do, and most of that is getting them to want to do it. Corbyn is useless at that. He has no idea how to talk to people who disagree with him, how to understand what they want and present himself as someone who can deliver it.
So a Corbyn government would have meant one mired in infighting, wishful thinking, and incompetence, rather like his election campaign. It wouldn't have had a serious commitment to anything, even if it had sincere ones. Just look at the policy you praised: soft Brexit agreement leading to 2nd referendum, with Gov't almost certainly against its own agreement, hence a real chance who the hell would vote for a government that proposed to spend six months of wrangling to produce an agreement which it would then solemnly campaign against. Not denounce, repudiate, or throw away, mind you, but invite people to vote against, with the option of voting instead against the government that had dragged them into this (for the referendum you suggest would inevitably have been a referendum about the Corbyn government as well). There is nothing about that plan that makes sense.
Voters can sniff that kind of equivocation. Remember that there were two huge reasons given by voters who switched from Labour to Tory: Brexit (they wanted it) and Corbyn himself. Of course he was the target of a savage right wing press. But it wasn't the Daily Mail that made him give tea to the IRA, or chair the Stop the War coalition and generally behave like a man who was on the side of England's enemies in every war fought in his lifetime. [And, speaking as someone who marched three times against the Iraq War, I know damn well that some of the marchers were pro-Saddam and anti-Semitic, and that this was the faction represented in the leadership, even though it was a clear minority]. That's really not going to get you elected in many places outside Islington North.
62: I don't see what makes him worse than a personally flawed guy who's roughly on the right side of most major issues.
But he isn't on the right side of most major issues. He is on the wrong side of Brexit (always against the EEC/EC/EU, in favour of leaving). He is on the wrong side of freedom of movement - he's vocally opposed to immigration because he thinks it drives down the wages of British workers. He is on the wrong side, generally, on foreign policy (anti-NATO, pro-Serb, pro-Russia). He is on the wrong side on Northern Ireland (voted against the Anglo-Irish Agreement). To the extent where he is on the right side of things, the rest of the PLP is on the same side as him.
And he is personally unpleasant, as NW says, and his inner circle are deeply unpleasant.
NW says it better than I did. And 64.2 is particularly worth stressing: competence matters. An election is not just a referendum between two different sets of policies, it is also a contest for who you want to put those policies into effect. Tony Blair might only have wanted to do, say, 75% of the stuff I personally wanted a Labour government to do, but he and his team were competent enough to actually do it.
65: As contrasted with Boris, isn't he on the preferable, if not the ideal, side of the policies where they differ? Quite dramatically?
That is, voters never had a choice between Corbyn and anyone else in the PLP, they had a choice between Corbyn and putting the Tories in power. Even with the problems you list, I don't see why that was a hard choice.
67.1: well, no, not all of them.
And even on the ones where that is true, there's the competence issue that NW alludes to.
Which are the issues where you prefer the Tories, or Johnson specifically, to Corbyn? This is the bit I really don't get.
I seem to have written more than enough already, but it's worth tying together two things from ajay and LB to bring out something presently only implicit:
LB writes that People who aren't nutcases seem to think that Corbyn is bad enough that it's worth driving the country off a cliff to keep him out of power, and I don't see what makes him worse than a personally flawed guy who's roughly on the right side of most major issues.
and Ajay that It is easy for outsiders to underestimate just how unpleasant the 1980s struggle in the Labour Party was, and how much Corbyn ... represents a return to that trough to long-term Labour voters.
The consequence of the 1980s struggle was three further consecutive Tory victories at general elections. If the Corbynistas maintain their grip on the party now, the consequence will be the same. And I think that if he had got into power, it would have had exactly the same effect in the long term.
So, speaking at least for myself, the thing that makes dislike of Corbyn such a compelling political factor is the conviction that he is a gift to his opponents (and mine). Objectively speaking, comrades, the Labour member who voted for Corbyn as party leader was voting for Johnson as Prime Minister. I would have liked a chance to vote effectively against Johnson.
There is also a factor that applies to people more deeply into the Labour Party than I am: the eagerness of the Corbynistas to purge their opponents. For some, that provides a powerful personal motive to oppose them. But that is not an important minority in the grand scheme of things.
69:
Opposition to the existence of NATO and to UK membership in it
Support for the coal industry including reopening mines and restarting the use of coal for electricity generation
Regional income tax variation across England
NHS support for homeopathy
Support for Irish republicanism and for the cession of NI without the consent of its inhabitants
Abolition of the monarchy
Compulsory 50:50 gender split in parliament
Opposition to the defence of the Falkland Islands
Opposition to action in Bosnia and Kosovo, and denial of the genocidal activities of Serbian troops in both
Opposition to action in Sierra Leone
Opposition to sanctions against Russia
Support for state aid for UK businesses in order to allow them to compete unfairly against foreign businesses
69: From Berlin, I could not see that Corbyn was sufficiently different from Johnson over Brexit for that to be a real choice. As 64.4 describes, the tortured semi-policy that Labour under Corbyn came up with was not a counter to "getting Brexit done." So he bollixed up the existential issue of the campaign, is there any wonder his party lost seats in droves?
To get an idea of the visceral reaction that he provokes among Labour voters, imagine that the Democratic candidate this year was basically Bernie Sanders, but vocally pro-segregation. I suspect a lot of Democratic supporters might find it not easy at all to vote for him, even with Trump as the alternative.
Thanks, ajay, NW. This is all very helpful.
From Berlin, I could not see that Corbyn was sufficiently different from Johnson over Brexit for that to be a real choice.
I find this truly baffling. Corbyn's position, Labour's official position, was nothing like Johnson's. Phil Edwards' post on this was quite good:
In short, Labour policy has developed to the point where Labour can simultaneously maintain that we should see Brexit through and set criteria which rule out any possible Brexit - all of this while making demands, in the name of Brexit, which can be met within the EU. Labour's current commitments can be summed up as follows:
1. Honour the referendum; 2. No to a no-deal exit; 3. No to any deal that fails the six tests [which effectively DOES commit to Freedom of Movement in test 2: "Does it deliver the "exact same benefits" as we currently have as members of the Single Market and Customs Union?" - x.t.]; 4. The UK should push harder on state aid and on low-wage immigration than it currently does
This only seems convoluted and contradictory if you think that the referendum result has no (or very little) normative weight at all. But if you don't--if you think that, even though the result was mistaken, it's fundamentally necessary to honor that result--something like the Labour plan was the only way to do that and still end up with Remain. Negotiate for something better in good faith, but then reject the result because it fails to actually be better than Remain. Perhaps "Bollocks to Brexit" would have played better electorally (not that the LDs did all that well out of it), but from my point of view this kind of "no different from Johnson", "secret Brexiteer" stuff seems totally unsupported by evidence.
I should say -- should have said right up front -- that obviously NW and Ajay are very smart observers of the scene, are much closer to it than I am, and know much more. And yet so are, for example, D^2 and Phil Edwards, and it's like you guys are just talking about entirely different worlds.
75: but that policy which you quote is actually self-contradictory.
How do you honour a vote to leave (point 1) while simultaneously saying that you will oppose any deal you don't like (2 and 3)?
How do you ensure exactly the same SM/CU benefits and simultaneously clamp down on low-wage immigration?
And Edwards recognises this by saying "Labour policy has developed to the point where Labour can simultaneously maintain that we should see Brexit through and set criteria which rule out any possible Brexit". Yes, very clever, very cunning.
Thing is, it turns out that quite a few British voters can tell when you're trying to bullshit them on an issue like this, and will vote either for people who actually want Brexit or for people who actually say out loud that they're against it.
this kind of "no different from Johnson", "secret Brexiteer" stuff seems totally unsupported by evidence.
What's secret about it? Jeremy Corbyn has been opposed to UK membership of the EU for the entire duration of the UK's membership of the EU.
73 I get the analogy, but in our system it would still be a huge mistake to let the Republicans in. The Republican presidential candidate may not have his own thoughts on whether our national parks ought to be opened up to more opportunities for profit making, or whether arsenic standards should be loosened, but many among the 3,500 or whatever senior appointees he brings in will, and will have the competence to put those policies into motion.
(Folks will recall me saying something in the earliest months of Trump that his performative use of executive orders was likely to be mostly ineffective, but when he learned what could be done with rule-makings, we'd be in a world of hurt. And so we are.)
And even the candidates have opinions on Roe, and an indirect ability to put them into place, so you end up with there basically not being any excuse at all to sit out even the least effective of Dem nominees.
"Labour policy has developed to the point where Labour can simultaneously maintain that we should see Brexit through and set criteria which rule out any possible Brexit"
This is such a pathetic, dishonest, weaselly approach to a major policy issue. And the really self-sabotaging thing about it is that it convinces everyone - whatever their opinion on Brexit - that you are a pathetic dishonest weasel. "But we're only deceiving the other lot!" is not a great defence against charges of weaselling.
This is such a pathetic, dishonest, weaselly approach to a major policy issue. And the really self-sabotaging thing about it is that it convinces everyone - whatever their opinion on Brexit - that you are a pathetic dishonest weasel.
I agree that it certainly seems to have had that effect! But I don't at all think it's fair to call it pathetic or dishonest. Why do you reject the other interpretation, which is that it comes from a sincerely held commitment to the democratic authority? If you really and deeply believe that referendum results matter, but that the best Brexit is still worse than Remain, the Labour policy is entirely reasonable: negotiate (using the Starmer guidelines); when the result is basically "like Remain, but now as a rule-taker" urge rejection in a referendum; if Remain wins, your democratic dilemma is solved; if Brexit wins again, at least you've gotten the softest Brexit.
Hard to remember now, but back in October, it seemed like Corbyn's strategy on Brexit, despite being willfully mischaracterized and attacked by everyone, had just about worked. But it was always going to require actually winning the election.
I'll jump into the cuddles for NW and Ajay here and agree that this was helpful.
I have raised the issue in the past that as a lefty American living, as of fairly recently, in the UK, it was always hard to understand the depth and breadth of disregard for Corbyn. I think that's because I arrived here with memories of how the press treated Howard Dean as obviously unelectable even while being perfectly reasonable on policy in general and absolutely right on the most important issues of the day, and how the right wing considered Obama a socialist even though he governed like a 90's republican. With that as the background I brought, it was hard to see the animosity toward Corbyn as something other than the establishment finding him too lefty and charismatically impaired.
What was missing, as Ajay and NW point out, was the long-term memory of what Labour was like before the Blair era, and every inscrutably bad position Corbyn has held over the years. If the things on the list in 71 had been my primary associations with Corbyn, rather than just thinking of him as the guy who's against austerity budget policies, I would probably have had the same precognitive revulsion that so many British voters apparently did. Even without it, I grew exhausted of the the waffling on Brexit and complete lack of leadership when so much was at stake.
I couldn't vote, but if I could have, I probably would have voted Labour holding my nose, because at this point I have such a gut-level loathing of everything right wing -- which is really the fault of US republicans, not UK tories -- and because Brexit is likely to have seriously negative consequences for me personally, and I would have grasped at any hope that it might be avoided or mitigated. But I would have done so expecting a shitshow to ensue had they won. Just a better flavour of shitshow than the one we've got going now.
Anyway, relitigating this is almost as pointless as relitigating the 2016 primary, at least for those who aren't voting in the Labour leadership election, so I apologize for the derailment.
81: thank you - NW made the very good point, that, for those with a longer history with UK Labour, the biggest issue with Corbyn is that as leader he looked likely to bring a rerun of 1983.
I couldn't vote, but if I could have, I probably would have voted Labour holding my nose
This is in fact what I did, mainly because my local Labour MP is excellent and has been right on all the things I care about even when that meant going against the current party leadership. The equally repellent Ken Livingstone led me to vote Lib Dem in the mayoral elections for the first time in my life. His opponent, who won, was Boris Johnson. The man shares one characteristic with Barack Obama: he's lucky in his opponents.
If you really and deeply believe that referendum results matter, but that the best Brexit is still worse than Remain,
At this point I have to wonder what "matter" means. We want to sound respectful towards the result of that unprecedented referendum called by people we disagree with about everything while doing everything we can to make the results less likely? It's obviously hard to imagine any politician literally saying, "Holding that 2016 referendum was a stupid decision. There's a reason no one uses direct democracy. Sometimes the voters are wrong."... but it's a logically consistent position to have, and might not have done worse than the position they actually took.
Not to keep the thread going any longer, 81-83 sound very reasonable to me, I just thought that line was weird.
OT which in this case means on topic, I feel a tiny bit bad that no one has anything to say about impeachment, but I don't have much to say either. It's all so predictable. It was almost painful even listening to the good guys talk just because of how bad they are at public speaking. Or, I guess, how the traditions of Congress or the law get in the way of it, or just how much it bugs me personally maybe? I heard Hakeem Jeffries on the radio yesterday and he was just droning on, repeating "X would not happen in a perfect call. Y would not happen in a perfect call. Z would not happen in a perfect call..."
Am I right at this point that these are the only two optimistic scenarios?
1. A miracle in the conscience of Roberts or 5 or so Senate Republicans, such that there's a bare majority in favor of impeachment
2. The impeachment proceedings to make them look bad enough that it nudges their approval ratings down and key Senators and Trump get voted out in November, and Democrats try to be grownups and clean up the mess again, just like 2008 but with the Republicans even more fascist and the SC even more stacked
FWIW, I was also in the Corbyn-doesn't-seem-that-bad camp, until I listened to some interviews from his fellow travelers. Stepping into a different world. Paraphrasing, foreign policy "remain in NATO, bad"; post-election "there are advantages to being in opposition, if you're in government you have these endless fights about policy". And the twittering Momentuming interviewer nodding along. It was just astounding, like a parody of a Marxist student meeting.
Oh, XT, Ume and I will be in Vienna for a weekend in early February. If you felt like the world's smallest meetup there's an email address in this post.
85: the @maomentum twitter account is good if you like parodies of that kind of thing.
And, more generally, an excuse for a London meetup would be good. Step up, Americans!
There is also a factor that applies to people more deeply into the Labour Party than I am: the eagerness of the Corbynistas to purge their opponents. For some, that provides a powerful personal motive to oppose them.
Didn't the Johnsonistas purge their opponents (Remain) from the Conservative party in 2019, and the Corbynistas not purge any of their opponents?
Am I right at this point that these are the only two optimistic scenarios?
I'm not sure what you mean by 1; he's already been impeached by the House, and conviction by the Senate requires a two-thirds supermajority rather than a bare majority. It's possible they'll get a majority for some procedural things like calling witnesses, but even that doesn't seem very likely at this point.
Your 2, on the other hand, I think is the only real optimistic scenario here and the one the Dems are actually going for.
Agree with Teo and Cyrus about the optimistic scenarios.
But, like, the alternative is not doing the impeachment and that would be worse. I imagine how I'd feel if Pelosi were still holding up the impeachment and everyone was talking about whether it is appropriate to do this in an election year.
I've known the Republicans would never, ever yield since I watched the CA budget crises in the Schwarzenegger admin. There was never going to be the miraculous option 1. But at least Democrats can do their best and later say 'We did our best.'
Senate Republicans have behaved disgracefully with respect to this trial. That's a huge opportunity for Democratic candidates to accuse their opponents of being fucking corrupt assholes in advance of the November election, although it remains to be seen how much Democrats will fuck up the opportunity.
91: The wrangle over mandatory reselection is all about purging MPs. Opponents within the party's own power structure have already been purged.
94-last On this kind of thing, all politics really is local. Our Senate nominee will undoubtedly talk about Sen Daines' rejection of democracy, but, to be honest, there's a lot more mileage to be made, imo, on Daines' joining an effort to get Roe overturned. Our candidate will do both, but as to which resonates the most, it's not going to be particularly close.
With Collins, they get to add her pathetic conduct on impeachment to what she did on Kavanaugh, and that should be enough. Also, supporting Trump's tax cuts and all the rest of it. Same with Gardner, I suppose, and maybe there's a Roe issue in there as well.
Are there voters who don't care about Roe, Kavanaugh, kids in cages, clean water and clean air standards, corporate tax cuts who are instead going to finally be motivated to vote for the Democratic challenger because their senator went with the Republican herd on the impeachment? Who are those people?
I agree that it's an issue that we have the right side of -- and I expect every challenger to raise the issue -- I'm just not sure it's a 'huge' opportunity that translates into votes (or turnout).
Further to 78, I don't know how you guys do this in the UK, but the one of the biggest issues on the ballot in most places in the US in 2020 is redistricting. This is the kind of thing that gets handled by party caucuses in bulk -- which means there is no excuse of any kind to not vote for a Democrat running for a state legislative position. I don't care how weak the Democrat is, a Republican is going to vote to fuck large numbers of Democratically-aligned voters for the next decade. Even if your Democratic nominee is an actual Nazi -- and none of them are going to be -- this is still a no-brainer.
Who are those people?
Republican-leaning suburban women, I suppose. Pitching to whom is anathema (for good reason) in other parts of the coalition.
Opposition to the defence of the Falkland Islands
Are there strong feelings about the Falklands in the UK? The intensity with which Argentines care about the Islas Malvinas is off-the-charts. It sort of feels like one of those lop-sided rivalries from the recent US-hatred-map thread.
87: redistricting is handled by non political bodies here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_commissions_(United_Kingdom)
We don't have the weird majority-minority law (which doesn't work in the US anyway) so UK constituencies generally look pretty normal.
99: it isn't really a salient issue on politics, but that's because we won. No potential for a grudge to be exploited by joke politicians like Menem and Kirchner and Fernandez.
And it was a long time ago. The Falklands War is closer to WW2 than to the present day.
But, like, the alternative is not doing the impeachment and that would be worse. I imagine how I'd feel if Pelosi were still holding up the impeachment and everyone was talking about whether it is appropriate to do this in an election year.
This times one million. Forcing this sham Senate trial is absolutely the right thing to do.
Right? This lets me hate fuck-up Republican Senators and not slightly more moderate Democratic Representatives. Win!
Is it true that most Republican Senators do privately hate Trump? I mean there are nuts in Congress like Nunes but even though they're all pieces of shit (eg Cruz) I doubt they actually support him. And here's the chance to be rid of him if just half the R senators can agree to act together. A few might be picked off in primaries but it just seems like it would be in their own interest to have President Pence who probably cruises to reelection on a platform of healing.
I think President Trump gets reelected more easily than President Pence does. The people who go to Trump rallies aren't going to show up for a stand-in. It's like, "Cookie Monster will now be played by your vice principal."
My high school didn't even have a vice principal.
Mine did. He showed up with bruises from dirtbiking. He would've killed as Cookie Monster.
It's like, "Cookie Monster will now be played by your vice principal."
whoops, I forgot to say my comment, which is that that made me laugh.
Because you're picturing your vice principal with someone's hand up his butt far enough to reach his mouth?
96: More straws for the elephant camel to bear.
Pledging to "respect the results of the referendum" was conceding the election before it even started. The whole period of 2016-19 should have shown Labour's leadership that Brexit was the defining issue, that the Tories were all in for BREXIT!!!, and that kinda-sorta-brexit-but-maybe-not-but-then-again-maybe-if-we-have-to was not going to cut it in a two-party race. Maybe choosing FCKNOBREXIT would have led to an equal Labour loss, but Corbyn wasn't the person to make that case.
104: Ask Gerald Ford how well that went, campaigning for re-election as a stand-in.
Trump could shoot someone and be acquitted 53-547 in the Senate. Unless it was a Republican Senator, then it would be 52-47. (Slight modification by me of a tweet from someone.)
Does not mean that many of them don't hate him with a vengeance.
They blame liberals for scaring white people into voting for Trump.
Donald Trump forced then to realize how spineless they are and you most pay for doing that to them.
And now for a multiple day shitshow.
Seriously. I'm pretty offline over the weekend, so the timing works for me.