What’s next after the Trump administration revokes key finding on climate change?
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The midterms replace the members of the House of Representatives, who all serve 2 year terms. 1/3 of Senators also get replaced but that body has 6 year terms on a staggered schedule. The President isn't due for election until 2028. Federal judges are not elected.
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It would be tempting to suggest that the US could benefit from a multi-party system with proportional representation in state-wide voting districts. Such a system would not pretend that all the complex and multi-faceted issues in a modern society can be distilled into two polarized alternatives based on some wedge issue. Instead, it might enable a wider set of alternatives, a more nuanced and open political discourse, and a public seeking of compromises, potentially leading to more centrist and widely agreeable policies.
However, you would eventually be likely to end up stuck in the same old rut anyway. If most of the population is concerned with economic survival in a dog-eat-dog society, people may well prefer the simple tribal competition of my team vs your team for entertainment over caring about complex political issues. And, as reducing competition is the key to riches in the business world, astute politicians may well seek the benefits of merging into two factions once again. The level of education needed to overcome these tendencies is likely beyond reach.
P.S. The US seems to be on a one-way ticket. For many years, I have been observing that the one constant about US elections is that the losing party becomes increasingly infuriated time after time.
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In the US, midterms are an opportunity for the voters to place a check on the current administration. (NB: This is all described from a "normal times" perspective. The one thing times are not right now is "normal".)
In the midterms, all of the members of the House of Representatives and 1/3 of the members of the Senate are up for re-election. In normal times, the party that is out of power gains a few seats; the more upset the voters are with the administration, the more seats the other party gains.
Right now, the US House of Representatives is on a knife's edge with 218 Republicans, 214 Democrats, and 3 vacant seats (all of which were Democrats in Republican states; the governors in those states have delayed filling the seats to help preserve the Republicans' majority). If the Republicans lose even one seat in the House of Representatives, then the Democrats take over that chamber and can set the legislative agenda by deciding which bills to hear (e.g., funding for ICE, impeachment of officials). This is why Trump begged the various state legislatures to reapportion the districts; he knows that if the Democrats take the majority, his misrule is over and the birds of impeachment will come home to roost.
Of the seats up for grabs, about 50 are really toss-ups; 30 Republicans and 22 Democrats are retiring, so those seats have no incumbents in play. The common wisdom is that the Democrats will pick up about ten to twenty seats, giving them a strong majority (224-244 range) but not a veto-proof one (which would take 261 seats). This is important because it means that the Democrats will have more room to negotiate and won't need every single member to vote for a bill to pass (this has been a problem for the GOP).
The US Senate is safer from the GOP's perspective. There are 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, and 2 Independents (who usually, but not always vote with the Democrats). There will be 35 Senators up for election with 22 Republican and 13 Democratic incumbents. In order to get a veto-proof supermajority, the Democrats would have to win 31 of the elections. Most think that is unlikely and that the Democrats will only gain four or five seats (win 17-18 of the elections), which isn't even enough to claim the majority. This is important because a supermajority (or even a majority) would allow the Democrats to set the rules for any impeachments (in trump's first impeachment, the Republicans notoriously forbad the presentation of any evidence). But narrowing the GOP's majority will make it harder for them to prevent bills from being heard.
TL;DR: It is complicated, but this is a chance to slow down the march to fascism provided that the Democrats all get off their asses and vote and that the "none of the above" voters learn their lesson from Trump's election - neither of which is a sure thing at this point.
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My understanding is that they're going with Option 2.
RTÉ: Bunker Mentality: The billionaires prepping for doomsday
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Here's the thing: Harris was soundly trounced by Biden in the run up to the previous elections. And Biden beat Trump by a narrow margin, so the party pivoting to back Harris after Biden stepped down was a failure to read the room. There was no way to drum up enough support to get her into office. The 2020 primaries had already proven that. Now, certainly Biden dragging his feet about stepping back didn't help either, and it robbed the party of the time it needed to find, vet, and back a better candidate. But I'm not sure if that would have mattered either. There are too many 'establishment' Democrats who can't and won't change tactics to engage the unrepresented majority who are thoroughly disillusioned with America's paper-thin 'for the wealthy, first and foremost' democracy. They can't engage with that voting demographic, because they're too beholden to 'the powers that be' to represent anyone or anything else. And given how quickly those same democrats turned on non-traditional candidates who ARE trying those kinds of tactics, it's should be abundantly clear that when push comes to shove, those 'democrats' will turn on their own party rather than embrace the change. They're more interested in preserving the status quo than saving the country from the very fascism their 'preservation' efforts are enabling.
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You kid about that last sentence but that is essentially the conclusion of JP Morgan Chase.
View: https://youtu.be/3FYFJNKgJR0
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I have trouble reconciling the idea of a fascist being a nice guy. Maybe it's because of the banality of evil. Your BIL may seem like "a nice guy at the personal level", but most serial killers are also described as model tenants or neighbors. Don't let the window dressing fool you. It's their actions that talk the loudest, their treatment of their fellow man, whether that person is in the in-group or not.
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I would have so much Schadenfreude when the billionaire bunker builders realize they can't live a life of luxury without the entire fucking social and economic infrastructure built by humankind over the past several centuries...
if I wasn't going to be exterminated with the rest of my icky trans ilk long before that in one of God Emperor Trump's "Freedom Towns".
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We know what’s next.
Point of no return: a hellish ‘hothouse Earth’ getting closer, scientists say (The Guardian)
Point of no return: a hellish ‘hothouse Earth’ getting closer, scientists say (The Guardian)
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Should have been more clear - pre for ME. I had quite a long period of selective ignorance. If we went through with my oil-bonfire thought experiment, it would surely be catastrophic for the planet. It was probably before An Inconvenient Truth, but I definitely remember that having a major impact on me.
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Fair enough.
One thing that still pisses off a lot of climatologists is that they've been doing this work for more than a century now, collectively speaking, and yet most folks think that it just goes back to Gore's movie...
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This makes me wonder: is the US just extraordinarily good at creating sociopaths and selecting for them to lead our largest companies, or does every country see this trend?
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If this administration truly believes that greenhouse gasses are harmless, maybe they should lock themselves in their garages with their cars running and prove it.
I'm not advocating for violence or their demise. I want to see them actually reconcile their statements with reality or stop fucking lying about everything.
I'm not advocating for violence or their demise. I want to see them actually reconcile their statements with reality or stop fucking lying about everything.
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What's next is that we bite the towel and take nature's collective punishment dry.
Ain't nothing significant we can do as individuals. Any challenges to this future have to be made at the societal level, with policy and regulatory changes, and those aren't coming for at least three years, likely more.
And remember as we lift more people out of poverty across the globe, which is most certainly a noble pursuit, we introduce more people who want wall-to-wall carpet and air conditioning.
Ain't nothing significant we can do as individuals. Any challenges to this future have to be made at the societal level, with policy and regulatory changes, and those aren't coming for at least three years, likely more.
And remember as we lift more people out of poverty across the globe, which is most certainly a noble pursuit, we introduce more people who want wall-to-wall carpet and air conditioning.
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The most stupid regime ever, putting faith over science. Not to mention putting corruption ahead of everything else.
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I don't think that's the case.
They believe in climate change. They even believe it's harmful. They just don't think it's as harmful to them - specifically - as the theoretical lost money/profit/amusement from doing anything about it. And individually and in their lifetimes they're mostly right.
This is about "I could get richer on my oil stocks if EVs don't happen." This is about products that are cheaper because they cut costs, meaning more stuff.
They just don't care.
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Capitalism preferentially lifts sociopaths into leadership. This probably happens everywhere, but their behavior can be modified by strict regulation.
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See also:
- The generational and psycological impacts of the US's obsession with turning blood into money via non-stop wars.
- The US's rampant, generational obsession with adding lead to everything.
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Edubfromktown
Ars Praetorian
Ya better get as energy efficient as possible, before the other (1d10t 'thuglican) shoe drops...
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The US has become a moral compass*.
For example; if I am unsure of what is right or wrong, I think to myself "What would the US do?"... then I do the opposite. Works every time.
* also work as a stupidity compass.
For example; if I am unsure of what is right or wrong, I think to myself "What would the US do?"... then I do the opposite. Works every time.
* also work as a stupidity compass.
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On climate change, I am very optimistic that future generations will know who robbed them off their opportunities and livelihoods; fully aware of the consequences. Those responsible that did not just not act, but decided to act against future humanity. Trump probably couldn’t care less as he is almost 80. Someone like Zeldin still can expect to have 35 years to go (well … significantly less given the trend of male life expectency in the US). Good luck to with that!
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I don't. They'll all try to move north and mess with our politics here too. No thanks.
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She was the VP, the person who takes over when the President needs to step down, even if that happens partway through the election campaign. It's not like Biden was playing kingmaker by handing it over to his vice president. Maybe you could blame Biden for trying to run for re-election when he really should've retired and gone straight to a primary, but the turnout for Harris doesn't seem to suggest she lost primarily because she was uninspiring: She had 30.66% of eligible voters picking her, the third highest turnout of any democratic presidential candidate in 40 years (beaten out only by Obama's first term and Joe Biden's win).
It's easy to try to blame her loss on not being progressive enough or for failing to condemn the Gaza genocide because you don't like those things about her and know someone who stayed home and complained about those failings (and because that actually was Hillary's problem (and the electoral college)).
She lost because America has a Nazi problem, so we need to look at that. And to write down the short explanation as for why America has a Nazi problem: Economic interests in slavery bred ethnonationalism in our country and those ethnonationalists went to great lengths to have their beliefs carried into the future. A big reason why they were so successful in preserving their beliefs into the future was because those who were opposed to ethnonationalism often made compromises with ethnonationalists in an attempt to preserve the Union (i.e. the Three-Fifths compromise, Abe Lincoln's running mate, democratic congressmen caving in the middle of the 2025 shutdown). These compromises really only delayed the inevitable for those who aren't ethnonationalists and handed away power to American ethnonationalists and sabotaged efforts to dismantle entrenched ethnonationalism.
Which leads me to agree with you on progressive candidates for a different reason: Establishment democrats are unwilling to take steps towards dismantling fascism in the United States. We actually need uncompromising hardline progressives who fully understand that fascism is incompatible with democracy to uproot those entrenched ideologies.
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That's the problem with facts, just because you strongly feel nay believe that the Sun revolves around a flat Earth resting upon four giant elephants on the top of a turtle does not make it true.
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If they permit the Tangerine Palpatine regime to continue, what's next for Americans is fascism, mass death, and economic collapse. What's next for the world is confronting overwhelming power constrained by nothing but the personal power and wealth Of the U.S.' predator parasite class.
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I'm gay. I haven't found that rejecting bigots to go off and live in my own (quite nice) bubble makes the world a better place. Disagree, change the subject, amuse, and make substantive but very oblique arguments. Fascists are nothing if not susceptible to propaganda.
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Luckily the world is going green with or without US, it makes economic sense as well.
US just gave up on beating China to Mars (SpaceX now targets Moon), is it also giving up on selling its cars outside US and going to let China dominate the green power sector!? Since the madman in power also endangers his former allies on defense and IT, US trade will take huge hits.
This is the way the superpower ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.
US just gave up on beating China to Mars (SpaceX now targets Moon), is it also giving up on selling its cars outside US and going to let China dominate the green power sector!? Since the madman in power also endangers his former allies on defense and IT, US trade will take huge hits.
This is the way the superpower ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.
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