The politics of 2024 and who do you think will be best for us

[Ivy]

Couldn't read the article because, paywall.  I'm not going to pay somebody to denigrate me.

I didn't realize how right leaning The WSJ was until recently.  TBH I never paid much attention.

 

A few years ago I could vote for a conservative.  But the GOP has gradually alienated me more and more on a number of issues.  It is now becoming an issue of survival.

As much as I hate to say it, I would probably just not vote before I voted for a Republican again.

[Willow]

Good morning

 

i think it’s a sad state of affairs in American politics these days. I don’t watch “The View” but apparently they started taking swipes at Nikki Haley recently.  Then I read another article where someone or plural in the Air Force released us redacted information about several Republican congressional candidates to a Democratic affiliated investigative organization prior to the 2022 elections. Can you say Watergate?  Or dirty tricks?

 

I agree @Ivy it’s hard to vote for a conservative mostly because they have made use fair game with little ability to fight back.  But it’s also pretty hard to justify voting for a Democrat either.  
 

The only reason I favor Niki is historically, even though she is a Republican, she has supported, perhaps to a small degree, transgender rights.  She took a conservative anti transgender state and at least got it to allow us to live here in peace.  Even today, they haven’t made things too difficult, YET, except doctors are still wary about opening up their practices to transgender surgeries.

 

 

[KathyLauren]

37 minutes ago, Ivy said:

As much as I hate to say it, I would probably just not vote before I voted for a Republican again.

 

I could say just vote for the other guys, but I don't want to go there. 

 

But I hate to see someone driven out of the electorate by the absence of viable parties that align with their thoughts.  The sooner there is a breakaway moderate conservative party in the US, the better it will be for everyone, including your neighbours to the north.

 

So, I would urge you to contact the campaign managers of the Republican candidates in your district, both federal and state, and tell them why you will not be voting for their candidate.  Ask your friends to do the same. 

 

If enough movers and shakers start to realize that the Republicans are too extreme for many voters, things might change.

[Marcie Jensen]

@Ivy and @Willow, I'm in agreement with you about not voting for what passes as a conservative these days. Personally, I feel the same way about what passes for a liberal. And about not voting. Frankly, an I know I've said this before, what happened here in AZ during the last election cycle left me vowing to never vote for either the GOP or the DEMs as long as I live. In my entire life I've never seen such vile, hate filled advertising from both parties. There was no discussion of ideas, no reasons given as to why we should vote for any candidate other than the other person is evil. The DEMs came off as worse, imho, but only because they spent about five times as much on advertising.

 

Now I will admit that about 10 years ago I did vote for two candidates based solely on their names. (Warning low humor alert.) There was Jeff Flake running for the US Senate and a guy named Schmuck running for the state legislature. I voted for both because I thought it was funny to say, "Yeah. We've got a Flake in the senate and a real Schmuck in the state house." I kinda wish they would both run again, because at least with names like that we'd get some truth in advertising with their campaign commercials...

 

And years ago there was a moderate conservative party in the United States--the Libertarians. Sadly, they've changed, too and are no longer viable. I gave up on them in 2016 when their candidate was being interviewed about the situation in Syria just after Bashir al Assad had used nerve gas on his own people. The interviewer asked the candidate about it (the city where the gas had been used was Aleppo) and the candidate replied, "What's Aleppo?" The reply speaks volumes.

 

The point being I've never seen a worse slate of candidates from top to bottom and that includes the 1976 election between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. It's been famously said that we get the candidates we deserve. If that's true, we've scraped through the bottom of the barrel.

[dale]

I am late to this topic, just wanted to add that don't forget your local and state elections in the midst of a national November election. Getting to personally know an elected official -- so that they know you and how diverse their constituency is -- is very powerful. Its harder to do of course for higher office, but start local and build relationships.

[awkward-yet-sweet]

14 hours ago, Marcie Jensen said:

And years ago there was a moderate conservative party in the United States--the Libertarians.

 

I have a problem with moderates. Usually, moderate means "I'm OK with a bit of socialism on one side, and some conservative regulations on the other."  Ugh.  Be either hot or cold.

 

What I want are radicals...people who will go into the government as wreckers of the status quo and do everything possible to keep the Federals off our backs.  I don't know where I can find candidates who will support these things:

 

Eliminate personal income taxes at state and federal levels

Eliminate personal property taxes

Increase import tariffs to protect domestic industry

Prohibit exports of strategic resources, especially fuels and war materials

Permit expanded domestic oil production and refining to reduce prices for consumers

Completely deregulate firearms production, transport, possession, and use

Eliminate regulations for personally produced alcohol, tobacco, and natural drugs

End the "war on drugs" and replace it with a focus on substance abuse treatment at the state and local level

Get rid of the EPA, ATF, FBI, and remove the police powers of numerous other federal agencies

Get rid of federal departments of Education and Health - return those duties to the states

Stop sending monetary aid to foreign governments

Significantly reduce the defense budget, close most foreign bases, and avoid foreign wars

End US participation in formal military alliances such as NATO

Negotiate further nuclear force reduction treaties, with the goal of completely eliminating nuclear weapons globally

Get the government out of defining marriage entirely and make legal recognition of multi-partner relationships possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Marcie Jensen]

@awkward-yet-sweet, I've an observation here. Just about all of your points are the positions of the Libertarian party.  Not condemning here; just saying...

[Willow]

At the risk of alienating some one here, I do find some of the ideas @awkward-yet-sweetputs forth as things we tried 150 or so years ago.  
 

But while we all know isolationism didn’t work there are concepts here that are still being campaigned.  But, we need to look more closely at the concepts.

 

eliminate Federal agencies like ATF, FBI, and so on.  Let’s not for get that state’s jurisdiction end at the state border.  Without some of these agencies only cooperation between states, which isn’t always given, gets things like interstate sex trafficking and kidnapping investigated.  Same with interstate drug smuggling, gun running, and many other crimes.  
 

certainly we all have concerns about government overreach but I really think that it would be a bad idea to take any number of these ideas, regardless of how tempting the sound, and turn them into the law of the land.  I strongly believe we allowed the Obama administration to push too many things on us that just weren’t right, but the Trump administration took their own agenda and pushed to far the other way to the point of attempted insurrection.  Now, we have Biden trying to take us back towards insolvency with now plans to pay our debt.  
 

Reshoring technology and jobs back from so called low cost producers has to be a priority even if the means an international trade war.  We have allow greedy shareholders to ruin our industrial base.  We have allowed greedy corporate executives to profit without equal taxation to the point of driving the middle class, the working class down.  We allowed the government to break promise after promise to the people.  Our infrastructure is a mess.  Our heavy industry is crumbling if not all together gone.  
 

Do I believe in isolationism?  Not on your life or mine.  But do I believe it’s time we took back control of our funds and stopped supporting technology exports and aid aid to countries that don’t really need it.

 

soap box withdrawn.  Time for another speaker.

[Carolyn Marie]

I think this topic has long since run its course.  Everyone has had a chance to express their views, in some cases several times.  The topic is locked.