Comment by simoncion

Comment by simoncion 3 days ago

> It doesn’t matter what you or I (or an impartial jury) think if law enforcement can just ignore due process.

Sure. Agreed.

> If people cared enough about civil liberties, legislation like the Patriot Act would have at least been repealed instead of extended [and] things like fraudulent civil forfeiture.. would have been dealt with.

Nah. The average person has effectively zero input into what happens at the Federal level. It's not that they don't care. It's that they can't do shit about it.

h0l0cube 3 days ago

> The average person has effectively zero input into what happens at the Federal level.

A lot of people cared about the Mexican border the last election, and it made a real impact on votes. For better or worse, Trump now has a mandate on border and immigration policy that he'll most likely put to use. That's not to say that election policy platforms are always followed through with (e.g., Obama doubled down on Iraq instead of ending the war, disillusioning many of his voters), but they often are. If people cared more about civil liberties as they did border immigration, a political party would tap into that sentiment, but I'm not seeing that.

Reply View 2 replies

simoncion 2 days ago

> ...it made a real impact on votes.
Votes from the little people don't have an impact on what happens at the Federal level, they just change who's in the seat talking with the folks who actually have input into the decision-making process.
(As you mention, campaign promises aren't actually considered to be promises by the people that make them... they're soundbites built to try to get the little people to put the candidate in the seat.)
> A lot of people cared about the Mexican border the last election...
And I'd argue that a much, much larger reason Harris wasn't elected was that housing, food, and fuel costs have been and continue to rise rapidly, but Harris's political party continues to repeat the "Inflation is under control. Look at the numbers! The economy is doing great!!" soundbite. Will someone wearing the other team's jersey actually attempt to do something about the problem? I doubt it... but roughly half of the people who chose to vote seem to have thought it was worth a shot.

Reply View | 1 reply
- h0l0cube 2 days ago
  
  > Votes from the little people don't have an impact
  I agree to disagree here. The election of, say, Trump vs not-Trump, will have a huge impact not just domestically, but on geopolitics writ-large.
  > much larger reason Harris wasn't elected was that housing, food, and fuel costs have been and continue to rise rapidly
  Maybe. There's a plurality of reasons (and influential demographics) that could be cited. Certainly one strong signal that came through—demography-wise—was that Hispanic males swung to GOP. One theory on this is that new waves of northwards immigration are causing some in-group tension, specifically around access to jobs.
  But certainly all economic indicators in November were looking good. The damage was done on inflation, but the inflation rate was brought back under control. Unemployment was ticking upwards but still only slightly higher than pre-pandemic. But as you say, long-term declines in real wages and housing stock are squeezing peoples' finances, and certainly no political party seems willing to attend to that before heads start rolling.
  
  Reply View | 0 replies