Democrats a permanent minority?

Merrill said:

The American media paints Trump's efforts as some kind of authoritarian power-grab that will threaten civil rights

but unelected bureaucrats in the DOJ and anywhere else do not run the country. The FBI doesn't run the country

Trump's powers are kept in check by SCOTUS and Congress --and if he goes too far, he will be limited

I have always been against the imperial presidency, but congress is hopelessly corrupt and inefficient right now--and this is why we have an executive, for better or worse

we will see what Trump does going forward--he does have authoritarian tendencies, but he has yet to do anything seriously problematic in my book: he has not gotten us into a war (Bush Jr., Biden), has not issued any terrible executive orders (like Biden's cancellation of student loan debt--which amounted to forgiving the loans of his supporters using tax dollars, among many other things he did).

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Sure, if 2/3 of Congress can agree, then they can be held in check by Trump.

Given the SCOTUS decision last year, Trump can do whatever he wishes in his official actions and not be subject to any check.

But, yes, SCOTUS can do a lot. It can force Trump to get the department heads to do the firing instead of Musk. BTW, we will see just how much a check SCOTUS is on the continuing measles cases. Will we even get a new flu and COVID vaccine this fall? Certainly, not if Kennedy requires many years of testing,

As I said, we'll see. We have no other choice.

Merrill said:

Trump's powers are kept in check by SCOTUS and Congress --and if he goes too far, he will be limited

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Not by this Congress and this Supreme Court

Merrill said:

I have always been against the imperial presidency, but congress is hopelessly corrupt and inefficient right now--and this is why we have an executive, for better or worse

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You just contradicted your previous sentence.

Merrill said:

we will see what Trump does going forward--he does have authoritarian tendencies, but he has yet to do anything seriously problematic in my book: he has not gotten us into a war (Bush Jr., Biden), has not issued any terrible executive orders (like Biden's cancellation of student loan debt--which amounted to forgiving the loans of his supporters using tax dollars, among many other things he did).

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Biden did not cancel any student loans that he was not already obligated to cancel either because the courts had found them fraudulent or because those persons were already in special debt-cancellation programs.

The Democratic party is a house divided against itself, and you know what Jesus said about houses divided against themselves.

RDKirk said:

Not by this Congress and this Supreme Court

You just contradicted your previous sentence.

Biden did not cancel any student loans that he was not already obligated to cancel either because the courts had found them fraudulent or because those persons were already in special debt-cancellation programs.

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Not every member of SCOTUS was appointed by Trump, and the idea that the institution is a corrupt puppet headed by Trump is a left-wing fantasy without any foundation in reality

but I would remind Democrats that it was FDR who tried to pack the court to literally turn it into a puppet of the president, and more recently, Democrats have floated this idea again (when Biden was in office)

blatant hypocrisy

Biden expanded the public service loan forgiveness program in order to cancel the loans of public-sector workers--his political supporters. He also modified or expanded other programs to forgive additional loans, which was legally dubious after the SCOTUS ruling which shot down his initial plan. He ultimately cancelled 144 billion in loans, with the overwhelming majority going to public-sector workers, graduate students, those with medical school and law school debt. The tax dollars of the working class went to cancel the debts of white-collar, coastal professionals. It was totally corrupt

RDKirk said:

There was Progressivism by those in the latter 1800s who explicitly called themselves so, with Theodore Roosevelt as their national political leader. If you look at his speeches of the day, he covers nearly all the same issues as the Progressives of the Democratic Party in the 1960s (distinguished from the "Dixiecrats"): Civil rights, immigrant rights, labor rights, women's rights, the environment, prison reform...Theodore Roosevelt and his Progressives were on the side of the angels in all those categories. That is what I'd call "classical Progressivism."

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Why restrict our perspective to only the late 1800s? If we extend our view back 2000 years, a Jewish man spoke about civil rights, immigrant rights, labor rights, women's rights, environmental protection, and prison reform. This is known today as the Sermon on the Mount. At that time, many Jewish ruling classes and religious leaders perceived these ideas as radical and contrary to divine principles.

In the late 1800s, when progressives advocated for women's rights and civil rights, the majority of society did not perceive these changes as normal. Many people believed it was unnatural for a Black man to marry a white woman or for women to vote and have equal rights as men. Similarly, today, some individuals believe it is unnatural for transgender women to participate in women's sports.

In 18th century Europe, there was a belief that democracy was not the natural order and could result in the downfall of civilization. Nevertheless, progressives continued to advocate for democracy.

In the early 1990s and 2000s, there were concerns that permitting same-sex marriage would lead to the acceptance of non-human marriages. Bill O'Reilly argued on his TV show that recognizing same-sex marriages would remove boundaries in marriage. Many considered homosexual marriage as unnatural, unbiblical, and immoral.

The modern progressive movement or Jesus' Sermon on the Mount from 2000 years ago share similarities in challenging established boundaries and norms.

RDKirk said:

I agree four years may not be enough, sadly. At this point, the Democratic leadership cannot conceive that their basic ideology is flawed. It took the Russians 70 years trying to practice it. Unfortunately, it's such a pie-in-the-sky concept that it takes such abject failure in the real world to get people to give it up.

You are calling Kennedy, Johnson, Humphrey, Carter, Clinton, and Gore "centrists" only in hindsight. They were "Left" by everyone's definition at the time, but not "Far Left."

Obama was a Critical Theory ideologue, which is as I've been saying, a very different thing from the traditional American Left. Biden had been traditional American Left, but by 2020 he was elderly enough to be controlled by the Democratic Critical Theory ideologues.

What you're calling the Left here were (except for Clinton) the traditional Left. Clinton herself was still traditional Left in 2008 (which is why the DNC punished her and gave the nomination to Obama), but she had been re-educated into Critical Theory Ideology by 2016.

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If the basic ideology of the Democrats is flawed, it appears that the American people have accepted these flaws as the norm. In 7 out of the last 9 presidential elections, Democrats have won the popular vote. Over the past 25 years, Republicans and Democrats have won an almost equal number of presidential elections: four Republican terms and three Democratic terms.

If you focus solely on the last three elections, losing two out of three constitutes a setback rather than a catastrophe necessitating a complete overhaul of policy.

Kamala Harris lost each battleground state by a narrow margin of 1% to 3%. It would be an error to change Democratic policy solely based on losing 1% of the vote in Wisconsin.

FAITH-IN-HIM said:

If the basic ideology of the Democrats is flawed, it appears that the American people have accepted these flaws as the norm. In 7 out of the last 9 presidential elections, Democrats have won the popular vote. Over the past 25 years, Republicans and Democrats have won an almost equal number of presidential elections: four Republican terms and three Democratic terms.

If you focus solely on the last three elections, losing two out of three constitutes a setback rather than a catastrophe necessitating a complete overhaul of policy.

Kamala Harris lost each battleground state by a narrow margin of 1% to 3%. It would be an error to change Democratic policy solely based on losing 1% of the vote in Wisconsin.

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I said "at this point," and I clearly delineated the distinction between the current Democratic ideology and that of prior Democratic administrations. The current Critical Theory ideology has been in control of the Democratic party only since about 2004. It was that Critical Theory ideology that necessarily resulted in the Democratic Party ejecting the "average working man" from its ranks, even though the "average working man" had been the base of the party.

It took a while for the "average working man" to figure out that he no longer had a place in the Democratic Party ideology. That ideology cost the Democratic Party in nearly every state.

FAITH-IN-HIM said:

Why restrict our perspective to only the late 1800s? If we extend our view back 2000 years, a Jewish man spoke about civil rights, immigrant rights, labor rights, women's rights, environmental protection, and prison reform. This is known today as the Sermon on the Mount. At that time, many Jewish ruling classes and religious leaders perceived these ideas as radical and contrary to divine principles.

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Because we're talking about American politics.