Outlaw83
3mo ago
A few main things -
1.) Lots and lots of smaller departments, where a combination of nepotism/corruption and just a need for bodies create lower standards. I think while there are some specific pretty terrible big city PD's, the worse police departments in medium and small towns and cities across America, where they truly are unaccountable and incesteous, while having immense power.
2.) A non-professional culture - From what I've seen, European's treat the job of police as yes, something admirable, but it's still a job and one you need the right qualifications and training for. In the US, as I think somebody said, it's basically a place where non-college educated men can make good wages and be respected in society, and not much else. Obvious, there's the matter of the number of guns, but looks at the difference between the median UK or European police officer's uniform and a US police officer's.
3.) Post 9/11 worship - People might forget/not know this, but there were police scandals in the 90's and some pushes for reform, and the median view of the police was something like NYPD Blue - there were good and bad cops, and so on. 9/11 meant it became basically impossible to question anything any cop did for a decade plus, and then another five years for said questioning to reach a critical mass, due to social media.
4.) People like having the thugs around - You sometimes see this in this place, and just in wider America - people who don't think they'll ever have to deal with cops don't mind the proles getting what they deserve, including at times, other proles.
Outlaw83
3mo ago
Terrible training, mostly.
The median European cop spends far more time training than the median American officer.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
He just called in via phone during Kamala's first speech in Wilmington. Ironically, sounds the best he has since the SOTU.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Yup, this weird view the Democrat's have no bench just isn't true. Roy Cooper, Tim Walz, Mark Kelly, and others you haven't listed are also reasonable contenders.
The actual dirty little secret is the GOP bench is kind of bare, when it comes to people who appeal to the median voter - yes, there are plenty of candidates who win red states by 20, but outside of that, when it comes to swing state or blue state Republican's with any crossover appeal who have a chance of winning a MAGA-tilted primary, there's Brian Kemp from Georgia and that's about it, and even he has obvious issues with the whole "not going along with Trump after 2020."
The reality is, in 2028, if Kamala wins this time, and the ticket is say, J.D. Vance/Kristi Noem, I'll have zero worries about that ticket outside of a 2008-style economic collapse.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
I think a legitimate argument is stress over Hunter pushed him over the edge - there's interesting stuff that specific family stress can make otherwise fairly normal older people decline much quicker.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Except basically Generic Democrat's are running ahead in swing state Senate races.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
A pro-union NLRB, support for expanded health care access, a plan to increase manufacturing that actually creates jobs as opposed to just increase tariffs, an IRS that goes after billionaire and millionaire tax cheats, stopping various Republican attempts to deregulate environmental, labor, and other sorts of law or cut social spending, putting Democratic judges on the bench, attempts at student loan forgiveness and reform, criminal justice reform, and since I'm a social progressive like the vast majority of social democrats outside of stupidpol, support for immigration, abortion, LGBT rights, feminism, and action against climate change.
Joe Biden has been the best President of my lifetime, and Kamala will likely be even be better because she won't be as wedded to being nice to Republican's or as abashedly pro-Zionist.
Regardless of what edgy rich left-wing podcasters in Brooklyn may claim, there are differences between the two parties, which is despite being to the left of 95% of the population, I am a partisan Democratic party supporter. Give me STV or proportional voting and I'll shift, but in a FPTP EC-based system, changing the Democratic Party form within is the only way for the goals I support to have a chance.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Sure, in their own personal life, maybe. Not being told that by right-wingers who want to ban abortion as they're calling Kamala a DEI candidate.
But hey, as a left-wing social democrat, I can only hope the Republican campaign becomes all about Willie Brown, how Kamala is a DEI candidate, and so on.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
No, it's even easier - Kamala can say she's prosecuted sex criminals and frauds like Trump before, and no, the Willie Brown attack is not going to work outside of the Republican base.
However, if you want suburban women to vote 75-25 for Harris, then go ahead and do that attack.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Bonds even before he got (rightly) upset over the attention McGwire & Sosa got and started taking roids was a HOF player.
Especially since he was going up against plenty of roided up pitchers himself, I'd argue 2001-2004 Barry Bonds is the among the scariest athletes when it comes to ability to take over a game, and it's in a sport where he only gets 5 chances to do so.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
I want my neighbors to have 0% interest in killing homeless people to simply cull the population of them. That's it - if you have any interest in killing homeless people because you don't like having them around, and they're causing more issues than they're worth as human beings, you're the person I want sent to uninhabited BLM land.
Except this is the lowest period of non-arbitrary violence against the most anti-social elements of society in probably human history and also the least violent part of human history. In the past, there was way harsher actions against anti-social elements of society, and far more general violence and chaos.
Also, the reason I wouldn't want is you're not a nice, respectful, orderly neighbor. You're an authoritarian with dreams of violent cleanses of people lesser than you, so in aggregate, crime and disorder goes down by 5%, if they're out of bounds of what you determine to be an orderly society.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
I mean, there are semi-normal calls on this website, with basically zero real pushback calling for moderate to severe limitations on the ability of 50% of the population to be equal to the other 50% of the population when it comes to educational opportunities and general place in society.
So, maybe there's a "well, IQ shows that actually, I'm OK with some African-American and Hispanic's in prominent positions if they prove themselves worthy" arguments thats pro-merit but basically making it as tough as possible for women to go to college or access birth control is cutting off half the population because they seem to want more babies.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
The funny thing is, as one of the resident left-leaning people, both sides think the other side are genius political actors, racking up win after win, while their side is useless, weak, and being rolled over.
I think part of it is that in a 50/50 political world, and with enough states under strong Dem and GOP control, there are overreaches on both sides to make it seem like either side is running over things, based on your own views, while thinking your side is unable to fight.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
I mean, sure, nothing works 100% of the time. There are still people upset over Brown vs. Board of Education out there after all.
But, I'm not talking about woke self-hating white liberals like myself celebrating the end of the white majority or whatever.
I'm talking about the fact that your median Texan exurban Trump voter in a middle class neighborhood is far less likely to freak out over non-white people moving to their neighborhood than frankly, even pretty centrist to center-left European's when it comes to Muslim's or hell, Romani people. If you look at polling, even now in a fairly anti-immigrant swing of thermostatic opinion, there's still fairly decent numbers of Trump voters about immigrants in society and such, and even now, the less/more/same numbers on immigration are still far better in the US than basically anywhere in Europe.
The same thing happened with gay people - it went from only freaks in San Francisco or whatever to oh hey, that's sad that gay people are dying to oh yeah, my cousin's daughter is a lesbian to oh, Dave in the office is gay - weird, he didn't seem it to Mary & Alice bought the Newman's house and so on.
Integration is key, and ironically, America is much better at it than Europe in a variety of ways. In part because we just got a whole lot more non-white people, but also because we're not wedded to 'my family has lived within 10 miles of this village since before basically recorded history and that's the only true way to be x' or whatever the Euros have their hang ups about. Meanwhile, in America - show up, pay taxes, get a job, and learn to cheer or boo the Cowboys depending on where you live, and welcome to America. Pass the burger. We even threw on some veggie ones for Vivek and Priya even though I'd never eat any.
Same thing will and is already happening with trans people. At an accelerated pace, but partly because the numbers are so small, only conservatives stuck in very blue areas and grifting online right-wing entertainers care all that much in reality. Polling showed in a post-mid-2022 midterms that it was the least important issue among Republican voters.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
I mean, this is how minorities of all kinds have eventually grown their public support, even as people opposed to it are upset - by being parts of various communities, big and small. In a world without an hierarchical society imposed on-high from either an authoritarian government or religion, it turns out continued interactions with people different from you tend to make you friendlier to that group of people.
The big jump that eventually causes the loss of widespread opposition to a minority groups isn't "I love these group of people and embrace them" grows to a majority, it's "I met x, they're a y, and they're fine, so you're weird for being so freaked out" grows to a majority.
That's why even among Trump voters, their actually less harsh on immigration than even some centrist Europeans, because they've grown in a far more multicultural society than most Europeans have.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
I mean, it's mostly just cheaper housing or in Europe, a larger safety net. Sure, maybe family closeness helps in edge cases, but it's actually just housing is much cheaper in China, Turkey, or many other low-income countries with no homelessness. Even accounting for cost of living and wages, there are a lot of cheaper housing options in a second-tier city in Turkey, India, or Kenya than the US.
By the same token, the larger safety net helps left-leaning support of harsher treatment of problem homeless people in Europe. You can't have just the stick, and even if you disagree with how we handle the carrot here in the US, you still need some form of carrot.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Yup, America's inherent libertarian values is something that trips up both the paternalistic right-wingers here and my fellow paternalistic left-wingers here.
The reason why Europe is OK with being harsher to homeless people is partly, there's a larger social safety net, but also, there's more people OK with basically a harsh rules-based order, as opposed to a bunch of descendants of people who didn't like that rules-based order, and risked their lives getting on a boat and being on the ocean for weeks, if not months.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
The Dumb Left might not do that, but the Smart Left and Middle would just run ads in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and even other parts of Appalachia about how Republican's who take money from rich people who own the drug companies that got people hooked on Oxy now want to put your brother, daughters, and cousins to death for getting addicted.
Remember, drug addiction isn't a minority issue anymore, it's a poor people issue, including poor white people, whom the actual reactionary base may not like, but they are still the voting base, and while poor and working class white people may have issues with their relatives who have got addicted to fetanyl, they don't want them put to death.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
The median voter is to the right of the median college-educated center-left politician but to the left of the median far-right politician, and in general, people are more scared of people trying to ban things they see as basically harmless or not that important than people who will allow it, especially when they people opposed to something seem obsessed with it.
I'm not under the assumption that the median American voter is super pro-trans for example, but they largely don't care plus American's inherent libertarianism on a lot of issues (which hurts the Right & Left at times) means it seems weird when somebody seems obsessed with it and acts like it's one of the most important issues in America. Again, ironically, not talking about it and quietly passing a law that does 80% of what Florida did would go over fine in probably 30 out of 50 states, but when you start talking about it, people get freaked out.
Like, in the US, abortion restriction referendums are losing by 10 to 15 points in states Trump won by 20. There are a lot of people who are uncomfortable with social liberalism, but find what actual social conservatives want to do far more scary when they try to put it in practice.
This is all doubly true in Europe, where there really is no socially conservative movement, so when far-righters end up saying out there things like women's basic rights and such, people decide to swallow their anger and vote for the boring centrist parties.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Except Wilders isn't the PM and had to actually step back from wanting to be PM despite his party doing well, because of his wackiness on a variety of issues, and compared to other right-wing parties, he at least attempts to portray himself as anti-Islam/immigration for culturally liberal reasons, just not bigotry.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
1.) Except they are compatible on the issue the far-right/populist/whatever word you want to call them has made the #1 issue - immigration/multiculturalism in general. So, if the main issue in politics is that, other disagreements can be put to the side. This is not new in coalitional politics, where people who disagree on issues that used to be important ally when a new issue pops up. Don't want people to ally over immigration, pro and anti? Don't make it the main issue.
2.) Sure, voters want all kinds of impossible things. The thing is, as I pointed out in another thread is the problem isn't nobody wants an anti-immigration party, they don't want an anti-immigration party with all the weird other right-wing issues connected as well. But, the issue is, many of the voters and most prominent supporters care deeply about the other right-wing policies, which is why many of these right-wing parties lose support once actually in a coalition government, because of a combination of having to compromise (which their supporters hate) and they prove themselves to be incompetent (which low-info voters dislike).
Again, I'm a left-wing SJW social democrat whatever, but I'll be happy to admit their is strong majority support for harsh immigration law in Europe...as long as the rest of the wackiness isn't pulled along behind it. A pro-Ukraine, pro-LGBT, pro-EU but anti-immigration party could do well, but the issue is many of the people behind these populist/right-wing/etc. parties also care about the other three things and being opposed to them. In both the UK & France, once it became obvious Reform & Le Pen's party was fairly anti-Ukraine, they lost support of a lot of soft right-leaning voters.
That's why Meloni has been largely successful in Italy - she's pro-NATO, pro-Ukraine, not all that socially conservative, and also hasn't gone full police state when it comes to immigration, because even many anti-immigrant voters don't want an open sort of what would end up being somewhat violent crackdown on immigrants. But, the base of these right-wing parties do so.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
I think people, on the left, right, and center vastly underestimate the fact Donald Trump was the most famous person since Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for POTUS.
Which is partly, as a left-wing social democrat, I'm not worried about MAGA, post-Trump. Tucker Carlson or J.D. Vance or whomever is famous to political weirdos, but they're not showing up in guest spots in major motion pictures or being on network TV for a decade or referenced by rappers.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Which only happened because the VA GOP did an end around and instead of holding a primary, held a convention that basically installed Youngkin. Even then, in the next midterm elections, despite Biden's unpopularity and Youngkin's at the time relative popularity, the Dem's held the Virginia legislature, largely because of abortion.
I mean, you can vote for those things, if you start to care less about other things. For instance, there are still plenty of people who don't like gay people in the Democratic coalition, they're just mainly old black people who don't care that much about it.
Like, I'm not a leftie who doesn't think there are people with legitimately cross-pressured opinions, but at a certain point, I have to say, "OK, you care more about thing x than thing y we agree on. I'm not going to change my view on thing x or agree we need to compromise, because I care deeply about that issue as well. Good luck on finding a candidate that matches what you care about.'
That's why primaries happen - people vote for their preference, then they decide on whether the person that won is acceptable. I voted for Edwards in '08 and Bernie in '16 & '20, but Obama, Hillary, and Biden were all acceptable, because the alternative in all cases was a in my view, right-wing reactionary to fascist party.
There are also people who feel politically homeless - that was many, many, many progressive people from basically the late 80's to mid-00's, people who thought the New Deal consensus was terrible from the late 30's to early 60's, and so on.
Plus, on the issues you mentioned, there has been advancement - the new IBR plans for student loans, expansion of ACA subsidies, a CTC for one year (damn you Manchin), and so on. It's not enough, but it's still better than anything being offered up by the other side.
I'm also going to be honest and say I thought you were likely trolling, but it took me five minutes max to write-up that response, so why not actually give the pro-Democratic position that basically doesn't exist here.
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