What are Democrats doing?

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what are people on SSI or SSDI are going to get

There is an agreement between the white House and Senate leadership but there had not been a formal vote.

It's not law yet

Boeing got their 60B dollar bailout.

Stock is soaring today.

Reportedly, everyone with an adjusted gross income of less than 100k will get $1200.

AOC: What did the Senate majority fight for? One of the largest corporate bailouts with as few strings as possible in American history! Shameful! The greed of that fight is wrong, for crumbs for our families; and the option that we have is to either let them suffer with nothing or to allow this greed and billions of dollars which will be leveraged into trillions of dollars to contribute to the largest income inequality gap in our future. There should be shame about what was fought for in this bill and the choices we have to make!

The_Walrus,

You make a point about the Supreme Court, but I don't really care about respect on the world stage, and I think a lot of the world actors care too much about image and whether the President can use the proper fork than they do about real policy.



What the states of the US are doing has nothing to do with Paris, and the agreement's targets were completely inadequate. In addition, it lacked any real legal authority because all it took was the next President tearing it up.

Still, there is a point to be made that at least the states' regulations would be safe from federal interference, as Trump is doing now.



What I don't want is to make it look like I'm just "crawling back" to the Democrats, because I still have self-respect and I hate feeling like I'm being manipulated. The Democrats are part of maintaining this 2-party system that gives only 2 effective choices, and they know what they're doing here. They want us to come crawling back, and in fact there's even a comic about it:



Just to prevent that man at the end from satisfyingly saying "told ya" to me, I'd refuse to come back and do something completely different. I'd say to them, why are you interfering with plans to remove the two-party system? You speak as if you are completely helpless in this regard, and yet here you are maintaining the two-party system. You are just as guilty as them.



So you guys are lazy, and put it all on the Americans' shoulders. In my opinion, you guys deserve to get taken over by Russia or whatever then, if you're so weak and self-conflicted. If Americans reelect Trump, then there is just absolutely nothing you can do, your hands are tied, oh woe is you!

So I guess you guys just don't really want to fight climate change that much. Because if it really were a world-ending threat and it were up to you, you'd do everything, and I mean everything, you can to try to solve the problem. But you're not. And because you're not in the leadership position and thus your somewhat stronger measures are still less relevant, you get to just complain and complain about the US and feel morally superior.

Good God, you guys deserve to get conquered.

Oh gosh, where to start with that...

While there’s no world police who can enforce the Paris Agreement, governments generally take international responsibilities very seriously and that has proven the case with Paris. If every country sticks to their Paris commitments then the world won’t end. We’ll need some adaptation and some natural habitats will be destroyed but overall the world will be fine.

Yes, the US Climate Alliance wouldn’t happen without Paris and their goals are directly inspired by Paris.

Yes, a future Republican could theoretically just do the same thing Trump did again - but eight years of Biden will make it much harder, as you would have a lot of momentum and large parts of your economy would rest on climate change technology.

The two party system does need to end. I’m not sure that is possible as you would need to change the constitution. Certainly you’ve had decades of complaining about the two party system and nobody has made a serious effort to change that (even Perot was only interested in buying the presidency). If you wanted to then you could have established third parties capable of challenging for senate seats, but you haven’t. Changing the constitution would make up for your apathy, but the necessary changes - abolishing the Presidency, proportional representation - would be very unlikely to attract the required support.

Expanding the EITC is exactly the same as a UBI. The Democrats also want universal healthcare. So that’s two out of three. Biden also supports universal childcare for three and four year olds although there is a gap for one and two year olds. So out of that woman’s three demands, Biden would meet two and a half of them.

Accusing us of laziness? We’re the ones cutting our carbon emissions while you come crying to us for help. If you can’t be bothered running your own country then don’t expect every other country to run it for you.

It would be great to see a third or even multiple party's,I'm not sure it would take a constitutional change but your right again in that at some level our culture would have to change.

And it would require dealing with sort of a initial wild west period as the multiple parties start to organize and settle into there place and become electable,unlike in the case of Ross Perot where he couldn't win but cost Bush the election.

Transitioning into a multiple party system could take decades and likely in all the initial chaos,people would give up and go back to the two party system.I don't think it would take a constitutional change but your right in that it would be very difficult to make that type of transition.

Interesting...

I was pondering only last night if it would be a constructive idea for the United States to hold some form of “national constitutional convention” with a remit to look into three areas of governance and, if they deem it warranted, recommend possible revisions, the areas I was thinking of were:
• 1) The office of president; should it continue as the combined head of both government and state that it is, or be split into two complimentary roles in the manner of many other democratic countries?
• 2) the strong separation of powers; is it still a great bulwark of liberty, or is it so open to being manipulated for partisan political one-upmanship and power-plays as to be dysfunctional in governance, and divisive for the general population?
• 3) the sheer number of administrative roles any new president can restaff; is this a great way to ensure loyal service to the head of government, or a counterproductive practice that robs the government of experienced critical advice when it is most needed?

I don’t think I know the answers to those questions... but I was at the time at least thinking that the US and it’s population might benefit from them being formally asked and exhaustively answered in America, by Americans: regardless of what the answers may be.

FPTP has a very strong tendency towards two party politics. In the UK we’ve overcome that through sheer hard work. We have three viable national parties plus regional parties and even some minor parties with national representation.

In the US you simply don’t have the same commitment from your grassroots activists. There are no elected representatives at federal level outside of the two main parties (Amash, of course, was elected as a Republican). There is only one elected Libertarian at state level and no Greens.

So clearly people don’t want to put in the effort that would make minor parties viable under FPTP. That means you need to change FPTP.

Under the constitution, the Senate is appointed using a non-proportional system. So you’d need to change the constitution if you wanted the senate to be truly democratic.

Under the constitution, you have a president who is appointed using the electoral college. This is even worse than FPTP, which in turn is worse than Instant Runoff, which is worse than not having a president at all. If you want new parties to have a real shot at the presidency then you need a constitutional amendment.

The only hope you have at the Federal level that wouldn’t require an amendment is the House. I think somewhere like California could theoretically use a proportional system to elect their Representatives. This wouldn’t work for small territories which are not given enough Representatives to be apportioned proportionally. So you could end up with a situation where only the larger states have true democracy while the rest of the country is a big democratic vacuum.

Of course you could see state governments changing their own constitutions. Then maybe that would allow other parties to build up their base and have a better chance at cracking FPTP.

There nothing in the Constitution that concerns party's.The first president had no party,and then came the Federalists,who less a party and more of a political reality.Because the US is a federation.

Then came the Confederate Democrats who were opposed by the Whigs who evolved from the Federalists.

The Whigs became the Republicans over slavery in Kansas and then in 1854 the Democrat/Republican rivalry started.

We did have a multiple party system from the 1850's to the early 1900's but the third and fourth party's never did well and we're completely dominated by the Democrats and Republicans.By the the early 1900's two party's became our basic system.

There is nothing in the Constitution that would prevent a multiple party system but people would have to really believe in it through the early years of it's establishment and not give up they did in the early 1900's.

Were any of us actually expecting the Democrats to do anything? When is the last time they did f*****g s**t?

Not in a very long time,maybe not ever A most profound post

You misunderstand. While the Constitution does not name parties, it does mandate a political set-up which leads to a two-party system unless you work very hard against it.

There is no reasonable prospect of people working hard to make third parties viable within the current system. It would already have happened by now.

You need to change the system. But most of the system is set out in the constitution.

That's what I said,that getting a multiple party system to work would be hard work,and would take decades of dealing with it's difficulties until you would get any where.

We had a multiple party system in the late 1800's but people have up on it.

What constitutional changes do you suggest would facilitate a rapid success of a multiple party system.

My last post was screwed up,I edited it to make sense,sorry,thats what happens when you post on your phone.I am curious to get an answer to the question I posed.