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Trump is being urged by some advisers to formally address the nation and call for calm, while others have said he should condemn the rioting and looting more forcefully or risk losing middle-of-the-road voters in November, according to several sources familiar with the deliberations.
[...] During a staff call Friday, Trump's top domestic policy aide Brooke Rollins argued for a measured response to riots the night before, advice that was echoed by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. Several advisers feared, and hoped to avoid, another Charlottesville moment, when Trump was criticized after declaring in 2017 that "very fine people" were among the Nazi mobs that descended upon Charlottesville, Virginia.
[...] While aides like Kushner have pushed for a more restrained response, Trump is also hearing from several advisers who warned that by not condemning the protests after the death of Floyd, an unarmed 46-year-old black man, that turned into rioting and looting, he is risking losing some demographics that will be key to his election victory in November, like suburban women voters.
As Protests and Violence Spill Over, Trump Shrinks Back
The president spent Sunday out of sight, berating opponents on Twitter, even as some of his campaign advisers were recommending that he deliver a televised address to an anxious nation.
how the George Floyd protests left Donald Trump exposed
“Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims. I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon – and I mean very soon – come to an end.”
These were the words of Donald Trump, not in May 2020 but July 2016, as he accepted the Republican presidential nomination at the national convention in Cleveland.
[...] Not even Trump’s harshest critics can blame him for a virus believed to have come from a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, nor for an attendant economic collapse, nor for four centuries of slavery, segregation, police brutality and racial injustice.
But they can, and do, point to how he made a bad situation so much worse. The story of Trump’s presidency was arguably always leading to this moment, with its toxic mix of weak moral leadership, racial divisiveness, crass and vulgar rhetoric and an erosion of norms, institutions and trust in traditional information sources. Taken together, these ingredients created a tinderbox poised to explode when crises came.
Antifa: Trump says group will be designated 'terrorist organisation'
"It's ANTIFA and the Radical Left. Don't lay the blame on others!" Mr Trump tweeted on Saturday.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DrkShadow on Friday June 05 2020, @07:02AM (23 children)
Maybe, just maybe, vote for a decent candidate. A candidate that you actually like and agree with.
Maybe, just maybe, when people determine that their votes aren't "thrown away" by not voting for one of the reality-tv-show candidates, _others_ will vote for decent candidates, _too_.
But not at first. Not without a demonstration. Not without an example. And probably not while they're so taught what to vote for and how to vote - perhaps not even this _generation_ of people will see the better end result.
It will take time, absolutely, and in the mean time there will be people elected that you don't like or approve of. (Really, how is that different from people that you don't approve of or like being elected?) Discipline, perseverence, knowing rhat you're doing right, with an end goal that _later_, we'll have elected someone to office that knows their head from their ass and cares about the voting public. Someday - but certainly not next election, nor the next.
Or you can just vote for someone terrible who is hell-bent on screwing up this country to the maximum extent that will benefit them. That's easy. I mean hey, who am I to tell you what to do.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Friday June 05 2020, @08:23AM (1 child)
Paraphrasing, I think Eugene Debs: I'd rather vote for what I want and not get it, then vote for what I don't want and get that.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday June 05 2020, @11:21PM
Because that's the only way you have any chance of getting what you want.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VacuumTube on Friday June 05 2020, @11:01AM
I would agree with this strategy except that we have a pretty good idea about what we get either way. If we stay with things the way they are, we'll likely end up with:
- Another few $trillion in tax-cuts for wealthy corporations and individuals resulting in more huge increases in the national debt
- Cuts in the pathetic skeleton of a health care system we have at present for the poor and middle class
- Additional conservative lifetime appointments to the Supreme and other Courts
- An emerging dictator will gain additional power
If we go the other way, we'll probably have:
- Meager improvements in Obama Care and Medicaid
- Appointments of liberal-ish judges to the Courts, which should help to limit the effects of what's been done in the last four years
- Modest improvements in environmental policies
- Some improvement in application of the rule of law
- Other modest improvements that will leave the country in slightly better shape than we're in at present.
Neither strategy is ideal, and both play into the hands of groups that don't have the best interests of the country as a goal. But the choice is a no-contest decision for most of us.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @11:02AM (3 children)
We might lose the election voting for a third party candidate, and we might have 4 more years of shit. But if enough of us start voting for third party candidates, then the D's and the R's will see their funding evaporate and the other candidates will have better chances in the next election and the election after that. If enough third party candidates make it into the House of Representatives or the Senate then we can pressure them to establish real changes to how our officials are elected or how our government is run. We may even get a third party president into office before this whole process is done, although whether he or she is working for the people or has already been placed in the pocket of corporate interests will have to be seen.
Whether you consider yourself a liberal or conservative, realize the state of the country and that your actions can have more of an impact than 'just this election'. Losing a battle is bad, but continuing the status quo for another term means nothing will change and the war itself will be lost. I hope each and every one of you will bear that in mind while deciding who to vote for in the upcoming election. If you need examples that what I am saying is true, just look to the history of the united states since the founding of the union in 1784^H7 (how many of you thought 1776 was when the Union was founded? Hint: It was originally a confederation, and even that was years after the Declaration!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @01:34AM (2 children)
Sorry that was what we tried on 2016, and now we know how bad Trump is so the lesser of two evils it is! I think the younger generation might have had some early wisdome shaken besten i to their heads so we can push on every election for the next decade. Hopefully push through candidates that will repear the Patriot act, enact election reforms, limit mass surveillance, remove citizen's united, put back the fairness doctrine, and some other stuff we need.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @12:06PM
Formerly-Democrat-Republican-"Billionaire" isn't exactly the same as a third party candidate. In fact, it's almost the opposite.
(Score: 2) by VacuumTube on Monday June 08 2020, @02:19PM
It's not a sure thing no matter what we do. But at this point the chances of electing a third party candidate are almost non-existent, so like it or not a vote for such a person increases the likelihood that the next four years will be as bad--and more likely worse--than those we've just experienced.
(Score: 4, Informative) by HiThere on Friday June 05 2020, @12:20PM (10 children)
Unfortunately, with a plurality wins all voting system, you *are* throwing away your vote when you vote for a minor candidate. You *are* voicing opposition, but both of the major parties can, and do, ignore that. The system is such that when one of the two major parties disintegrates, the remaining major party will split into a new pair of major parties. This has been how it has worked since at least the 1860's.
If you analyze the vote systematically you can determine that the options of a minor party either joining the current pair or replacing one of them is nearly impossible. Even Teddy Roosevelt couldn't make his "Bull Moose" party a go, and he was a popular ex-president who was able to capture a larger share of the vote than any other "independent" candidate in the history of the country.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @02:17PM (9 children)
So are we just supposed to live with it and chose between D and R forever? Frankly, I'm not convinced.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 05 2020, @02:47PM (3 children)
Instant Runoff Voting (or some other proportional/ranked choice voting reform)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday June 05 2020, @05:09PM
IRV is actually a pretty horrible voting system. Someone did a mathematical analysis of it a while back, comparing to other voting systems, and it comes up with some bizarre results in many scenarios. I'm all for switching to another voting system, but IRV would be the last of my picks there.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday June 06 2020, @12:11AM
IRV has the advantage that it's easier to explain, and it *is* better than the current system. My preference is Condorcet, but it's rather difficult to explain.
There is *NO* perfect voting system. Every single one will, under some circumstances, produce an undesirable result. But IRV is a lot better than plurality rules.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @12:11PM
As long as that means it's a vote for which candidate gets to instantly run off a cliff, I'm all for it.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday June 05 2020, @04:50PM (1 child)
Yes, that's really the only thing you can do as long as you have a Plurality voting system. The only way to fix this is to change the voting system. Somehow, I don't see Americans staging mass protests demanding an Approval or Condorcet voting system anytime soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @08:56PM
Fortunately, you don't have to stage protests [wikipedia.org]:
If you can get it in the ballot, people *will* vote for it.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday June 05 2020, @05:13PM (1 child)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday June 06 2020, @06:06AM
In my Province, the right wing party has died a few times, they just move to the new party and take it over. The current right wing party is the "Liberal Party of BC", in no way related to the "Liberal Party of Canada" as a few elections back, a lot of people voted 3rd party. The time before that, we actually had proportional representation for one election, the old Conservative party got replaced by Social Credit, who immediately went back to first past the post and replaced the Conservative.
Federally, there has been mergers, way back the Progressive Party managed to come in 2nd at one point, eventually they merged with the Conservative Party and became the Progressive Conservative Party (PC). More recently, the Reform Party appeared on the far right and eventually merged with the PC's to become the new Conservative Party of Canada and governed for a decade.
The left seems to splinter and stay splintered here, with 3 Federal parties that Americans would call extreme left and one right wing party.
One thing that helps here is that the Provincial elections are divorced from the Federal elections, so new parties can and do appear at the Provincial level and sometimes move into the Federal level.
(Score: 2) by VacuumTube on Monday June 08 2020, @02:22PM
Not at all. But the cost of taking a stand this year is far too high.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 05 2020, @02:03PM (2 children)
The primaries are over, the people have spoken, all the decent candidates have already lost. What we're left with is a choice between Dumb and Dumber.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @03:41PM (1 child)
The Presidential debates are going to be THE WORST in living memory. I'd be surprized if either of them remembers their own name let alone the other guy's.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 05 2020, @07:28PM
Yep, Biden will mention a phonograph and Trump will literally take a shit on stage. And y'all will be right here saying they're both the exact same.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday June 05 2020, @04:29PM
The way to get credible third-party candidates is to have a preferential ballot with instant run-off.
That way no one need be afraid of wasting their vote by voting for their first choice.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @06:29PM
If you want to see more varieties of ideas/political voices/parties, work toward implementing ranked-choice voting (RCV) [wikipedia.org] in your community, as has been done in more than 20 places in the US already.
This allows you to not "waste" your vote on the "lesser of two evils," since you get to pick (ranked in order of your preference) multiple candidates for a particular office.
However, this requires you* (unless, of course, you're in Maine or New York City or any of the other places which have implemented this) to get up off your fat, lazy ass and *do* something. If you don't (whether that be advocating RCV or volunteering/support for other candidates), then you're not being constructive, just whinging.
*This is a general "you," not specifically "you," drkshadow. Although you, specifically, are a member of that set.