Election 2020

[Harshax]

You said, to paraphrase, impeachment is a public indictment and opinion. It is not a criminal trial and doesn’t follow those rules. And I am saying, public opinion is not even leveled against impeachment because: 1) isolationism in media and 2) elected officials only care about their apparatus to get re-elected.

The stage is set. There’s no walk-in cameos. What the left could have done, should have done, wouldn’t change the outcome. Specifically because an impeachment trial does not have the same burden of conviction that a criminal trial does.

[Kaelik]

Parlaying public opinion with congressional discourse is literally:

Do I, call witnesses despite the fact that no right wing media channel will actually broadcast a damning public record of incitement of insurrection. Despite the fact that congressional al managers have a majority in the Senate. Overlooking the fact that impartial jurors met with the defendants counsel and are on record for providing them insights.

Or

Do I accept that as a prosecutor, I can only reach neutral jurors who are willing to be persuaded by the evidentiary record. And, no amount of testimony will change a verdict that is based on opinion instead of evidence.

I don't know. Seems like if your Either/Or that the Either part talks about the trial as a way of swaying public opinion, and your Or part is about the trial as a method of removal then your Either/Or structure was the wrong structure to present this in.

But I would respond as usual that the part where you take as premise that impeachment trial witnesses could not possibly sway marginal voters to view the events differently because Fox News won't broadcast them is a really shitty argument when most marginal voters and even most Very Unmarginal very committed voters get news from sources besides Fox News, and the testimony would likely be conveyed to a large number of marginal voters many of whom would think differently about the matter.

By the way, some marginal voters are in fact not car dealership owners in Wyoming watching Fox News but black and brown people in Georgia, Arizona, and Texas who are marginal in that watching democrats say "I know the impeachment managers WANTED witnesses, but I personally wanted to go on vacation." makes them less likely to vote because it convinces them that democrats don't actually care about anything and that electing them doesn't actually accomplish anything anyway. A thing you might have picked up from the time pointed out that Trump did significantly better in many hispanic counties in 2020 then he did in 2016.

Or in other words, This claim seems to be very untrue:

Only that demonization will play out directly to public opinion.

[Kaelik]

You said, to paraphrase, impeachment is a public indictment and opinion. It is not a criminal trial and doesn’t follow those rules. And I am saying, public opinion is not even leveled against impeachment because: 1) isolationism in media and 2) elected officials only care about their apparatus to get re-elected.

The stage is set. There’s no walk-in cameos. What the left could have done, should have done, wouldn’t change the outcome. Specifically because an impeachment trial does not have the same burden of conviction that a criminal trial does.

At best one sentence of this addresses the concept of impeachment as public opinion. But it seems really clear from all the other sentences that you think impeachment is supposed to sway public opinion so that it changes the votes of republican senators in impeachment and I cannot stress enough how much that is clearly not at all what I am talking about.

It does not matter what elected officials care about, or what the burden of proof in conviction is! It only matters that some marginal voters will have different opinions about republicans and Donald Trump going forward because of the message conveyed by involved witness testimony.

Marginal voters are not generally watching Fox News, and as such they probably will find out something about the witness testimony. Some subset of them will see these events and obtain a background belief in the perfidy of the republican party and/or presidential candidate. And that's good!

[Harshax]

Kaelik, every single aspect of this trial’s result points at “alternative facts” as the underlying malaise that effect civil discourse. And no amount of dealing with the symptoms will address the root causes. You’re are wrong to suggest drawing out the impeachment process for a predetermined result would have changed the outcome.

[PhoneLobster]

Didn't Harshax want to basically amend the constitution in order to embarrass Republicans for how they voted on impeachment?

But now he doesn't like the barest minimum effort that would have made the impeachment not an obvious farce to non-partisan observers?

What am I missing here?

edit: No wait, of course, it's love me I'm a liberal again isn't it? Fuck it. Damn you Phil Ochs!

[MGuy]

Kaelik, every single aspect of this trial’s result points at “alternative facts” as the underlying malaise that effect civil discourse. And no amount of dealing with the symptoms will address the root causes. You’re are wrong to suggest drawing out the impeachment process for a predetermined result would have changed the outcome.

Harsh I have no idea what you're arguing or what you think happened in that trial. Republicans were never going to do anything other than acquit Trump. A number of Republicans were working with Trump's defense, a number of them were sleeping/doodling/not paying attention during the trial, Trump's actual defense team and their arguments were dog shit. The decision to acquit or not for Republicans was likely one of considering if doing so would help them politically and of course most of them realized that it wouldn't. Unless that calculus changed the result was never going to.

Your solution is to imagine that the rules changed so they couldn't use this specific excuse to do what they were never going to do in the first place. A rules change they would never agree to because they don't want to let Dems actually do things. So not only is it naïve to believe Republicans have to honor things they say but your ideal solution would never happen.

Meanwhile the most effective thing that could happen is to shape up voting rights and make it more representative which also is a thing they would never let happen but would be more effective at causing change.

[Kaelik]

You’re are wrong to suggest drawing out the impeachment process for a predetermined result would have changed the outcome.

Please for the love of God just read what I am actually typing one time.

[Prak]

If something works correctly half the time, it is time to fix it.

Point of order- in my 33 year lifetime, the presidential impeachment process has correctly worked precisely 0 times.

But, that said... yes, an amendment to the impeachment process is absolutely what we need Congress doing right now /s

Political calculus requires you to engage your opponent

fbmf won't let us discuss how I think the opponents in this case should be engaged.

But... veiled bravado aside...

The issue is that, like, 98% of Congress (at best), ranges from "utter dogshit" to "completely fucking useless." And I'm being generous. It is clear that save for, like, 7 people, no one in the Senate or House both cares to help the people, and has the will to do so.

And as we're a representative democracy, with set elections and terms... What the fuck do we do about that? I know what I'd like to do, but in addition to not being able to say it, it's incredibly impractical.

So long as they continue making their money, and they have their healthcare and their ivory towers, next to none of them give even half a shift about the rest of us.

So, what the hell do we actually do about that? Seriously, concretely. Voting out is only so effective, impeachment is clearly only effective in non-presidential cases of an actual no-shit, we can prove it, here's iron clad evidence, crime...

So. How do we avert our slow fucking inexorable slide into the pits of Hell?

[Kaelik]

Voting out is only so effective

Voting out is pretty much not effective at all, because we don't live in a democracy, and money decides who wins elections, and the congressional establishment will distribute it's funds much better than you, and gets their funds from a bunch of rich people, so they will successfully stop you from voting them out no matter how incredibly shitty they are if they even half pay attention.

[Harshax]

This country is fucking insane that Ted Cruz's last minute vacation decision gets more reporting than his private meetings with defense counsel when he's supposed to be an impartial juror.

[Kaelik]

This country is fucking insane that Ted Cruz's last minute vacation decision gets more reporting than his private meetings with defense counsel when he's supposed to be an impartial juror.

No one ever thought he was an impartial juror and impeachment was probably not designed for senators to be "impartial" jurors.

A senator abandoning his constituents to die is going to get more coverage than a republican senator acting in the political interests of the republican party and his republican voters in a political contest.

[deaddmwalking]

This country is fucking insane that Ted Cruz's last minute vacation decision gets more reporting than his private meetings with defense counsel when he's supposed to be an impartial juror.

Explaining why meeting with defense counsel is an ethics violation and why people should care is hard. Explaining why someone running off to sunny Mexico while they freeze their asses off is easy.

Additionally, news relies on advertising, and people click articles with easy to understand premises. If your goal is to get a large number of people to be aware of why Cruz is a shitty person, articles like this are much easier.

I mean, what's funny is that it's not even surprising that someone ANYONE with the money to go someplace sunny wouldn't do that, but it's all about optics. Obviously most people can't do that, but unlike meeting with defense attorneys, there isn't anything unethical about taking a vacation, even (maybe even ESPECIALLY) when your home is experiencing shitty weather - that's what most people do. But opting to do it specifically because it has gotten really bad really quickly looks much worse than planning to leave Minneapolis for 3 weeks in January for a Hawaii vacation.

[phlapjackage]

I mean, what's funny is that it's not even surprising that someone ANYONE with the money to go someplace sunny wouldn't do that, but it's all about optics. Obviously most people can't do that, but unlike meeting with defense attorneys, there isn't anything unethical about taking a vacation, even (maybe even ESPECIALLY) when your home is experiencing shitty weather - that's what most people do. But opting to do it specifically because it has gotten really bad really quickly looks much worse than planning to leave Minneapolis for 3 weeks in January for a Hawaii vacation.

You saying "it's not unethical" and "it's just optics" when a senator flees a major disaster in their home state instead of staying around to help people and help fix the problem is kind of sad. You're trying to imply that it's not ACTUALLY bad, that it just LOOKS bad. For an average person, sure flee away. For someone in a position of responsibility and power, elected by the very people they're leaving to their fate, you think this behavior is ethical? And he lies about it, throwing his kids under the bus, and it's "just optics"? Is there some reason you're a Cruz apologist?

Yes I too wish the media would focus more on his more heinous crime of meeting with Trumps defense attorneys. But that doesn't mean this isn't also shitty, unethical behavior.

Oh look some tweets showing even more what a liar he is - nm guess it's just optics...

[deaddmwalking]

A Senator isn't a Lineman or a mayor. His job is to meet with the Senate and make policies that benefit the United States and Texas in particular. Since meeting with constituents doesn't make sense in a disaster, no, there's no reason for him to be there. Leaving means there's one less person in need of rescue.

One of the mayors did say that they would have told their residents to evacuate if they knew what was going to happen. Evacuating to Cancun is entirely sensible. Seriously, other than sheltering-in-place, what would Cruz have been able to do if he didn't leave?

His constituents were suffering. They expect their elected officials to represent them, so 'sharing their pain' is something that they can demand. But it's 'misery loves company and if they weren't being selfish they wouldn't begrudge him a vacation.

I'm all for excruciating Cruz because he'd a terrible person, and it's easier to say it for this reason than all the absolutely valid reasons. But if you look at it like a Vulcan, there's nothing here. He had no professional obligations, and no ability to participate in emergency response.

[Kaelik]

Seriously, other than sheltering-in-place, what would Cruz have been able to do if he didn't leave?

Ted Cruz has entire offices and staff designated for "constituent services" and allegedly congress going on vacation all the time is good because they go back and do constituent services.

Beto O'Rourke and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez both organized coordinated networks of support to help people, things that are made easier when you have a bunch of offices and staff already for that purpose.

(And AOC doesn't have offices and staff in Texas, and O'Rourke lacks the senate staff and offices since he is not the senator.)

[MGuy]

That response falls in line with what I have been saying for a while. People like dead have next to 0 expectations of people in leadership positions or people in power. It is true that a Senator isn't a lineman or a mayor but he's a senator who's ultimate responsibility is to their constituents. Or at least that's the idea. Something something great power and responsibility. So when a person vested with the responsibility to serve the public that happens to have a bunch of power and resources flees their state that would be seen by people with more agreeable moral frameworks as that person doing a bad thing. I can see how a person who doesn't actually think elected officials should do anything beyond the bare minimum wouldn't see a problem with it (a trend among the Biden stands it seems) but it is interesting to claim to actually see Cruz as a terrible person but not in this instance when there are people, both famous and not, utilizing what little they have to do more than he's done. People who's ultimate responsibility aren't the people of Texas.

For funzies though let's look at this like a Vulcan. Here's what I get if I'm a Vulcan senator: I'm a Senator, in a position of power. People have expectations of me. If I, myself, leave this situation having done nothing then that is/will look bad. Also Vulcans promote civic duty among members so I the good Vulcan leader am going to want to make an effort to earn merit by aiding as much as possible during this disaster otherwise I am obviously not fit for the position and I will have failed the greater Vulcan society.

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, not seeing much practically useful he could do by staying, but c'mon, stay there and get in front of a camera and promise that things will be sorted out. Making sure they get sorted out would help as well, though.

[violence in the media]

I'd throw in the old saying about the captain goes down with the ship. If you are in a position of power and responsibility, it's your obligation to suffer through whatever bullshit your people are going through.

[Kevin Mack]

Yeah at the end of the day even ignoring all other factors in regards of what he could/could not do it's going to be very bad for Moral seeing one of your leaders basically doing a runner when the going gets tough

[deaddmwalking]

That's why I refer to it as 'optics'. Yes, chugging down the same shit sandwich that everyone else is eating is a matter of 'fairness', not ethics. It would be BETTER if NOBODY ate a shit sandwich, and seriously, Cruz could have supported policies that made that less likely - investments in infrastructure and modernizing the energy grid could have been handled at a National level and benefitted Texas.

Does anyone know where Barbara Boxer (CA Senator) was during the California wildfires? Where was Mary Landrieu (LA Senator) during Katrina?

No, nobody knows and nobody cares because they didn't have any ACTUAL responsibilities, but didn't take any actions that highlight what a dick they are.

If you live in Texas and you think that running away was cowardly and shows poor character, that's great - vote him out of office. But if you live in Texas and you didn't have heat or running water, hard to say you WOULDN'T have also gone if given the choice.

And if Cruz had gone to El Paso instead of Cancun, he would have been warm and still been in the state, so the optics would have been much less worse - even though mechanically it would have been the same effect. Why is that? Because it absolutely is an emotional response to be being 'abandoned' by leaders who literally couldn't do anything, anyway.

[MGuy]

That's a lot of words to say "I don't think elected members of office,people with massive amounts of power and leverage, are obligated to utilize that leverage for the good of the people of their state"

There you can lay out a clear argument without going down the what aboutism that don't work for any argument or other pointless things like what if he'd gone to a different place within the state which has nothing to do with what actually happened.

[Whatever]

Does anyone know where Barbara Boxer (CA Senator) was during the California wildfires? Where was Mary Landrieu (LA Senator) during Katrina?

Weird how you decided to pick two women here.

Anyways you're going to have to be more specific. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... _wildfires California's seven largest wildfires all occurred after Boxer's senate terms ended, so I have no idea which other wildfires "the California wildfires" is supposed to refer to.

Meanwhile, per Wikipedia:

Hurricane Katrina

In the weeks following Hurricane Katrina, Landrieu and fellow Senator David Vitter co-sponsored the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act of 2005 (S.1765),[44] a 440-page aid package worth an estimated $250 billion[45][46] The bill was read twice by Congress, then referred to the United States Senate Committee on Finance.[47]

Separate legislation was passed to provide $1 billion in loans to communities affected by Katrina despite Landrieu's objection to the provision insisted on by Republicans that prohibited the loans from being forgiven. In 2007, when Democrats took control of the House and Senate, they passed legislation written by Landrieu that authorized FEMA to forgive the loans.[48] However, 40% of the loans were not forgiven by FEMA, which led Landrieu to insert addition provisions into the 2013 federal spending bill to forgive the remainder of these loans.[49][50]

Landrieu's national name recognition rose in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as she made multiple TV appearances to discuss the response effort.[51] Landrieu was noted in The New York Times as becoming "a national spokeswoman for victims of the hurricane" as she complained of "the staggering incompetence of the national government."[52] She was particularly critical of President George W. Bush, who, in turn, was critical of her in his 2010 memoir Decision Points, in which he related telling her to be quiet after she interrupted him in a meeting with what he called an "unproductive emotional outburst".[53]

[Kaelik]

Yeah, not seeing much practically useful he could do by staying, but c'mon, stay there and get in front of a camera and promise that things will be sorted out. Making sure they get sorted out would help as well, though.

I think it is important to distinguish between the fact that Ted Cruz OBVIOUSLY wouldn't do anything good to help people if he did stay with what he COULD have done.

Ted Cruz has a 2 million dollars in staff salary for the year of 2020. I'm not sure the exact proportion of that which is in Texas vs DC, but it's definitely more than zero.

Here is what other people did with zero staff salary in Texas:

https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updat ... -4-million

https://news.yahoo.com/beto-orourke-org ... Au617zQBaI

[deaddmwalking]

Meanwhile, per Wikipedia:

Yeah - sponsoring a bill is what you would expect a Senator to do after a natural disaster that affects their state. Because that's the job of Senators.

If there is a captain of the ship, it's the Governor.

Now, I don't think people are being UNFAIR to Cruz - I think they're just glomming onto the wrong reason for hating him. Running to Cancun is absolutely in character for him, and it's a pretty shitty thing to glibly ignore the suffering of others and enjoy yourself while saying 'sucks to be them', and it is a staggering lack of empathy for an elected official and I expect it will hurt him in terms of getting re-elected (GOOD!), but I still think it's ridiculous that it takes him going on vacation to turn public attention against him.

It's tone-deaf, but not actually WRONG. Nobody got hurt because he went; nobody would have been saved if he hadn't gone. It's just Gluckschmerz - the reverse of Schadenfreude. When bad things are happening to you, you don't want to see good things happening to other people (especially ones who don't deserve it).

The fact that people are having an emotional reaction makes sense, but if you look at it in any way using reason, there's no reason for it (other than humans aren't reasonable creatures and typically react emotionally).

He is an elected official, but he has no official responsibilities IN THE STATE. He represents Texas to the Federal Government. His job is in Washington DC, where he probably will support a bill to address fallout from the declared State of Emergency. Clearly doing nothing would have played a lot better than leaving his fellow Texans, but literally sitting with his thumb in his ass would have avoided all the criticism. It isn't that he did nothing (or less than nothing) - it's just that going off to have a good time betrays his absolute lack of compassion for his fellow man. Anyone who has spent more than 3 seconds reviewing his career or statements SHOULDN'T be surprised by that.

[Whatever]

Hey deaddm, are you going to clarify which pre-2020 wildfires you meant, or did you straight up forget that California elected Kamala Harris to the Senate in 2016 when Sen Boxer retired?

Senator Landrieu showed up at the Senate, to meetings with the President, and on television, to advocate for her constituents and to do her job. That's where she was during Katrina.

That you can acknowledge that this was Cruz "going on vacation" and still somehow defend it as "not actually WRONG" is both hilarious and sad. Senators have a responsibility to their constituents, and extremely more resources to bring to bear than private citizens do. Going on vacation in the middle of an ongoing disaster is a direct abdication of that responsibility.

And that you continue to ignore how completely Beto and AOC are dunking on Cruz's inaction with their volunteering, fundraising, and actual leadership just shows how weak your PURE LOGIC case for not ridiculing Ted Cruz is.