Kind of offtopic but are 'Pence 2024' people serious?? Pence is a good guy & would be great for the country but he'd get blown out worse than Trump did.

(02-25-2022 04:08 PM)Bronco14 Wrote:  Kind of offtopic but are 'Pence 2024' people serious?? Pence is a good guy & would be great for the country but he'd get blown out worse than Trump did.

Pence doesn’t have a real base to start with. He’ll get a nod from D.C. types but that’s about it.

Btw Trump wasn’t blown out the true difference I believe was 43,000 between 3 states and all of that came around 2 to 4am in the morning when they sent all the observers and media home

(02-25-2022 09:28 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(02-25-2022 08:49 AM)Gamenole Wrote:  That was probably too much to hope for, but I still hoped we might see a shift in the focus of our immigration laws from family reunification to a merit-based points system like in Canada & Australia. Unfortunately, in my view Trump blew all of those chances by poisoning the well with extremist rhetoric and bad policies like The Wall and family separation.

I held out hope for a long time that Trump would get the Wall in place where it could actually do some good, like the overland borders of California, Arizona, and New Mexico, which pretty much already had walls along a large portion, and then trade the Wall along the Rio Grande for a rational merit-based immigration policy. A wall along a river just has a lot of complications that don't make any sense. Heightened electronic and manual surveillance would have made a lot of sense. One problem with a wall from a legal standpoint is that unless Mexico lets us put the wall on their side of the line, anyone who reaches the wall is already in USA territory, and all the constitutional stuff comes into play, which is one more reason why a rational immigration policy is essential.

As far as extremist rhetoric, we have been absorbing far left extremist rhetoric for so many years that it now strikes some as mainstream. I think Trump was trying to fight fire with fire, but I think a better approach would be for the republicans as a party to come up with a sensible set of ideas like Newt's contract, and get everybody on their side reading off the same sheet of music.

As far as family separation, the alternatives are family separation or catch and release, and one is not as bad as the other, particularly since a lot of those "families" have no actual family ties and were assembled for the sole purpose of crossing the border. The better alternative to either, of course, is Stay in Mexico, which that rational immigration policy could have made not only possible but mandatory.

You make a lot of sense here Owl, I don't see any absolute red lines for me in what you'd like to do and I definitely think we could work out an immigration plan that would get some votes from both parties. A majority even, lol although maybe not 60 to get past the filibuster in the Senate.

(02-25-2022 09:43 AM)b2b Wrote:  

(02-24-2022 09:58 PM)Gamenole Wrote:  

(02-24-2022 08:50 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(02-24-2022 08:48 PM)Gamenole Wrote:  Is everything wonderful? No. Do I have any buyers remorse, given the alternative? Not even a scintilla.

What was so bad about the alternative? I am asking a serious question. I keep being told how terrible he was, but nobody can seem to explain what was so terrible.

Except maybe mean tweets.

OK here's a sampling of some Trump administration policies I disapproved of. Certainly nobody has to agree with me, you may love these policies. But I do indeed have substantive, policy-based reasons for my lack of buyers remorse -

* attempted to repeal the Affordable Care Act
* reversed numerous environmental regulations and withdrew from the Paris Agreement on climate change
* appointed Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, unqualified in my opinion due to lacking an appropriate judicial temperament
* signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, primarily benefitting corporations and increasing the deficit
* withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, a pact designed to counter the rising influence of China
* implemented family separation for migrants apprehended at the Southern border
* denied all citizens from some Muslim nations entry into the US
* withdrew from the Iran nuclear agreement
* ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials in his Covid 19 messaging, and promoted misinformation about unproven treatments

This looks like a list of reasons to vote FOR Trump.

Yes! To many, the list of what I hated about the Trump years is a list of what they loved about his presidency. We all have our own values, interests and opinions. It doesn't mean any of us are mentally ill, wrong, or badly informed. I think most of us here are paying attention to what's going on, and although we likely disagree on which sources are best we can usually agree on at least some small base of agreed-upon facts. The debates here are fun and sometimes I learn new things from you all, hopefully someday if you're on the right, you'll learn something new from me or another person with a different perspective. We all win when we can disagree without being disagreeable.

(02-25-2022 04:08 PM)Bronco14 Wrote:  Kind of offtopic but are 'Pence 2024' people serious?? Pence is a good guy & would be great for the country but he'd get blown out worse than Trump did.

I think you're right, I can't imagine how he really thinks he has a shot. While we give him credit on the left for doing his constitutional duty, he's still a conservative Republican and he isn't going to get any Democratic votes. And I would think he is toxic to the Trump base, as well as a less than ideal fit for the traditional establishment GOP. Where would his votes come from? Evangelicals who aren't hard-core MAGA? Perhaps I'm wrong but I don't see that as a large enough block to win him many primaries.