LongTimeLurker Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 (edited) 53 minutes ago, GordonS said: ...get a decent climate change plan going... That will largely take care of itself at this point. The most easily exploited fossil fuel reserves have been largely tapped out so it is increasingly easy for renewables to compete without any state subsidies. Fracking has been a very bad investment for most of the people who got involved with it due to its extremely rapid depletion rates, so a post-COVID recovery for that sector is not going to be easy regardless of what Biden does. If oil supply had peaked back in 2008, as it would have in the absence of fracking and other unconventional sources, the technology wasn't in place yet for a relatively smooth transition away from fossil fuels and the world economy would have been in dire straits with Vlad and OPEC very much at the controls. Since then grid parity has been achieved with wind and solar and that meant coal had no chance of a renaissance even with Trump in power because market forces now favour renewables backed up by natural gas. Storage technologies are getting there to eventually remove more of the natural gas component even if they are not 100% there yet, and massive progress has also been made on electric vehicles with a range and performance that is genuinely practical enough to realistically get transportation off fossil fuels, so now if oil supply with fracking etc factored in really has peaked (as some believe but time will tell) the pieces are very much in place to slowly transition away. Although the USA gets a lot of grief from climate activists, large portions of that have happened there because their flexible venture capital market makes it relatively easy for people to explore risky new possibilities and walk away unscathed financially when they don't work. There are always people trying to sell worst case doomsday scenarios as being the likely future if we don't hand over power to them, but overall there are actually plenty of reasons for optimism over what lies ahead right now. Much more so than 15-20 years ago when Iraq was being invaded as part of a scramble to secure the last large easily exploited conventional crude oil sources. Edited November 8, 2020 by LongTimeLurker 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeeTillEhDeh Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 In the long run, if all Biden achieves in 4 years is to take the heat out of American politics, get the government functioning like a normal country, get a decent climate change plan going and shift Senate Republicans out of their Comrade Nyet behaviour, that could be enough. America's still in a dark place.It might not be radical but getting their country back to something approaching normality would be an achievement - still a very divided country.If he can marginalise the extreme fringes in both parties he might just do it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Granny Danger Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 6 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said: It might not be radical but getting their country back to something approaching normality would be an achievement - still a very divided country. If he can marginalise the extreme fringes in both parties he might just do it. Who do you regard as extreme left? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 2 minutes ago, Granny Danger said: Who do you regard as extreme left? Socialised medicine. Making people earning over $400,000 pay a bit of tax. Switching from carbon to renewables over time. Fucking commies. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICTChris Posted November 8, 2020 Author Share Posted November 8, 2020 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeeTillEhDeh Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 Who do you regard as extreme left?The more extreme Defund the Police arseholes - those that want to disband police forces entirely. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 Yaaas! He's back! Shit... he's back. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arch Stanton Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 Still at it... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICTChris Posted November 8, 2020 Author Share Posted November 8, 2020 I’m sure the first thing that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will do is appoint a load of purple haired, nose ring wearing activists from Portland to set about defunding the police. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 (edited) No way did he write these. Wonder who the British Pollster is? Not that Belize shyster? P.S. Wonder if he's got Steve Bannon back on tweeting duty? Edited November 8, 2020 by welshbairn 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 9 minutes ago, welshbairn said: Wonder who the British Pollster is? Scotland In Union? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bohemian Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 18 minutes ago, welshbairn said: No way did he write these. Wonder who the British Pollster is? Not that Belize shyster? P.S. Wonder if he's got Steve Bannon back on tweeting duty? Was about to say..neither of those tweets are written by Trump.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 Just now, Bohemian said: Was about to say..neither of those tweets are written by Trump.. The lack of grammar errors and capital letters are a dead give away. But whoever is tweeting on his behalf, he isn't requesting that any of those tweets be removed, 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bully Wee Villa Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 He isn't allowed to remove any Tweets, they're public record as he is President. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurkst Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 26 minutes ago, welshbairn said: Wonder who the British Pollster is? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bishop Briggs Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 3 hours ago, Granny Danger said: The Libertarian agenda should really appeal to much of the fuckwit Republican/Trump supporters. Abolishing immigration controls, legalising all drugs and free trade (abolishing tariffs) should really appeal to Republican/Trump supporters? You really know f**k all about American politics! -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonS Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 48 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said: The more extreme Defund the Police arseholes - those that want to disband police forces entirely. Which elected Democrats, or Democrat candidates, want to do that? There's a very fair case that the police are over-funded, which leads to them driving around making up things to do. It also wastes resources that could be much more effectively spent elsewhere in reducing crime. But I don't think any Democrats are in the 'abolish the police' camp. To me the single biggest difference between the two US parties is that the Republicans have their full-on wingnuts inside the party. For someone to be described as extreme left they'd have to at least believe in the nationalisation of industry, the abolition of private property, salaries based on need, collectivisation of farms. No Democrat supports anything like that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bishop Briggs Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 3 hours ago, DeeTillEhDeh said: Libertarians don't like either side. They'll either vote for their candidate or not vote at all. In any case there has always been a small percentage of the vote going to other parties - anywhere between 3% to 5%. This. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonS Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 (edited) 7 minutes ago, Bishop Briggs said: Abolishing immigration controls, legalising all drugs and free trade (abolishing tariffs) should really appeal to Republican/Trump supporters? You really know f**k all about American politics! There's obviously plenty of differences but you can't argue that overall they're not much closer to Republicans than to Democrats. It's exactly the same for Greens on the other side of the spectrum. There's no doubt that in a French-style run-off election, forced to pick between the two, many if not most Libertarians would vote, and would break more for the Republican candidate than the Democrat. Edited November 8, 2020 by GordonS 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bishop Briggs Posted November 8, 2020 Share Posted November 8, 2020 5 minutes ago, GordonS said: There's obviously plenty of differences but you can't argue that overall they're not much closer to Republicans than to Democrats. It's exactly the same for Greens on the other side of the spectrum. There's no doubt that in a French-style run-off election, forced to pick between the two, many if not most Libertarians would vote, and would break more for the Republican candidate than the Democrat. Ron and, to a lesser extent, Rand Paul are the only Republicans have had a lot of support from libertarian activists. Ron was the LP candidate for President in 1988 and has since rejoined the party after leaving Congress. He is far more libertarian than recent LP candidates for President, notably Gary Johnson. In practice, Libertarians are just as willing to vote Democrat if there is no LP candidate but most will abstain. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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