Ignorant ass Canadian here. I think we have trouble fathoming how ridiculous you make it.
One time on the way back from class (or getting high, I don't remember) we walked by an advance voting station so we took a couple minutes to vote, during which we realized I didn't have my wallet on me so a roommate (who had id) vouched for me, the poll worker took down my info and I voted within a couple minutes.
That's fair. I come at guns with my weird Canadian perspective but I do think different classes of weapons is reasonable. Here, rifles are treated vwry differently from handguns which are basically allowed in a locked storage box at home (with ammo in, if I remember my firearms license training correctly, another locked box) or in the trunk of your car while you are on the most direct route to a firing range or coming home from one.
We have almost no gun crime. In America, I've had guns drawn on me twice by cops (understandably nervous cops, I would be nervous too if everyone had a handgun!) after being pulled over for speeding and one time a dude I met at a Sharks game pulled one on a guy who threatened us with a knife.
That just seems like a ridiculous way to live. I've had a blast shooting off guns in the bush, drunk and high in Oregon but as much fun as that was, definitely doesn't outweigh the whole "guns are just around and yeah, school shootings happen" thing.
You mean "your" 3 points. I am not three points.
Anyway, I went to the Republican 2024 platform. There's a lot of fluff but, as evidenced by tonight, their big issue is immigration, which is the first 2 items in the platform.
Then there's generic fluff about inflation, tax cuts for the working class and boosting manufacturing, claims both parties make. (Also about energy but I already included climate change in the Dems column.)
Nonsense about stopping ww3 (yes, a level headed leader like trump is what we need to do that.) Then "stop charging donald for his crimes. Back to immigration. Then random attack on cities, despite urban voters voting Dem. Then generic silliness. Then climate, then culture war etc...
So, what would you say are the two non immigration issues on the Republican side?
As much as we hated Joe Manchin, goddamn I wish he was running again. Democrats with 49 seats + Manchin >>>>> 51 Republican Senators.
The first one (I think) was during immigration, which is kind of trump's playground. And her expression when he, instead of going on a brutal attack, wasted a quarter of his time bitching about crowd sizes, was amazing. It was "they said he was dumb enough but really? He'ss stupid enough to not just take the bait but to take it home, marinate it, overcook it and then swallow the damned hook? How am I tied with this goddamn clown?!?"
What?
Real tough. (Which kind of makes me roll my eyes when fellow Canadians criticize the American Right on immigration.
We have a points based system, you get points for education, skills etc. (And some specialized seasonal programs etc.)
That being said, we do take in a boatload of refugees so maybe you can claim asylum?
Okay, "secret" confession, I'm a Canadian too. But I can't stop watching American politics, much like I can't help but look when passing a car crash.
I think a more reasonable compromise would be to give Republicans most of what they want on immigration reform.
I strongly agree here. I think this is actually what the Harris campaign is doing. I really hope she smacks donald around on this after he stopped a pretty Right leaning border bill from happening. While I didn't love it all, it does seem much more humane/realistic than donald's current "Deport 'em all!" mantra.
I am bothered by how few people seem to grasp this fact.
Yeah, some of the responses in this thread have been predictable but still disheartening.
would do the obvious deal and sacrifice their dilatory approach to immigration and in particular border security.
100%. It just seems like the progressives are losing the war for the sake of being in the moral feel good category, witness the rise of the Far Right in Poland, Germany, France and probably others that I'm too ignorant to know about (sorry!) That being said, reading over this thread and you can kind of see why the Progressive parties are in a bit of a bind, we do seem allergic to the notion that we might not get everything we want.
And then those mass movements resulted in... Yup, democratic change! And frankly, the illegal actions were mostly to stir sympathy because, yes, the key making policy changes was having enough people support your side because, you guessed it, that's how democracy works!
I don't recall the book's name but there's a great account of why the civil rights movement targeted Birmingham in particular and one of the big reasons was they knew the sherrif, Bull Connor, would over-react and over-react violently in a way that would garner sympathy for the movement. (That's how they got the iconic photo of the Black kid getting bitten by the cop dog.) King might have talked about it in Letters from Birmingham jail?
That's fair.
I think for a news station they did a pretty decent job of fact checking him a few times; murdering babies post birth, eating pets and the health care plan follow up which gave us "concept of a plan."
Absolutely, they could've fact checked more but honestly, if we're going ideal world I want a completely different set up etc. Okay, and different candidates and...