| That's a great approach. I like the concise way of stating it. I'll apply it to a couple things that are popular topics right now. --- Automated fact checking: The negative consequences are pretty obvious. It's easy to cheer when the target is neo-Nazis who want to overthrow the government. Well what if the shoe were on the other foot, and Republicans had been able to compel social media companies to flag posts disputing Trump's claims of election fraud as misinformation? It's not exactly censorship, but it's a ridiculously powerful lever for manipulating public opinion. On a more mundane level, clamping down on non-mainstream opinions could cause a lot of low-level chronic harm. For example, it's not hard to imagine social media "fact checking" disrupting discussions on fitness and/or nutritional science to promote the food pyramid and the importance of a low-fat diet for heart health, or to shut down conversations about medical uses of cannabis because the DEA still has it listed as schedule 1. Maybe there's a reasonable middle ground, but it's dicey either way. --- Killing or reforming the filibuster: The obvious negative consequence (from a center-right to left-wing perspective) is that Republicans will regain a trifecta of power and find themselves with carte blanche to pass all sorts of wildly unpopular laws eviscerating civil liberties. Even so, I say do it. The filibuster is massively advantageous to Republicans because it gives them the ability to complain about problems while offering few or no solutions. I say we call their bluff, and risk giving them the opportunity to pass their agenda. Either they'd still do nothing (in which case they'd lose a lot of single-issue voters), or they would do the things that they claim to want to do (in which case they would lose the next election in a landslide and never hold power again). As-is, they're stuck in between a rock and a hard place trying to appeal to: * Pro-life Christians * Gun owners * Right-leaning libertarians * "Selfish"/anti-tax rich people * The alt-right / neo-Nazi / Q cultist crowd * Populists (who may not necessarily be conservative, as evidenced by the overlap in support for Trump and Bernie) * People with conservative social/cultural values * Typical center-right conservatives (to the extent that they still vote Republican consistently, or at all) That's just what I can think of off the cuff, but even that is a pretty diverse coalition. All they really have in common is that they oppose (or, in some cases, believe they oppose) various parts of the Democratic agenda (both real and imagined). Their continued unity depends on the GOP remaining a superposition of all the different values they each independently project onto it. The second the GOP actually gets a chance to pass a major law along partisan lines, whether they choose to do it or not,
the superposition collapses and shoes will start to drop. What do you think will happen if they take power and proceed to ban all abortions, remove every form of gun control, repeal the Affordable Care Act, take federal action against vaccine development/distribution during a pandemic, pass or shoot down a relief bill during a pandemic, escalate or deescalate the Drug War, dramatically increase or decrease environmental regulations while a climate disaster affects a red state, and/or dramatically alter regulations on the Internet / social media / E2EE / cryptocurrency? What if, with a legislative majority and in the absence of the filibuster, they don't do any of those things? I suggest that any action or lack thereof would be a huge blow to their support in some of those groups; they would have to pick their poison. The wildcard here is if they were to use such a trifecta combined with their current dominance of the Supreme Court to enact anti-democratic reforms to prevent any further transfer of power. However, seeing as this is already the direction we're heading in, I would say that it's vitally important to override the filibuster and pass voting rights legislation now so that we have a stronger chance at remaining a democracy, rather than accept the massive gamble of doing nothing. The greatest threat facing humanity today isn't climate change. It's the current Republican Party, and the prospect of world's most powerful military and nuclear arsenal ending up in the hands of a hypothetical future theofascist America. |
It is important to never demonize your opponents too much, if you are going to try and remain civil with them.
>* Pro-life Christians
>* Gun owners
>* Right-leaning libertarians
>* "Selfish"/anti-tax rich people
>* The alt-right / neo-Nazi / Q cultist crowd
>* Populists (who may not necessarily be conservative, as evidenced by the overlap in support for Trump and Bernie)
>* People with conservative social/cultural values
>* Typical center-right conservatives (to the extent that they still vote Republican consistently, or at all)
This smacks of making a list..
> The greatest threat facing humanity today isn't climate change. It's the current Republican Party, and the prospect of world's most powerful military and nuclear arsenal ending up in the hands of a hypothetical future theofascist America.
Please reconsider how you post in the comments section