Harris the Magnanomous, President of All Americans, will have a Pub in cabinet

If they wanted a real 'diversity of opinion,' shouldnt they get a MAGA Republican? Or a socialist that is pro-Palestine? This is my main criticism of the NYT Op Ed pages and such. Whatever conservative they find is already inculcated in "group think" in that they agree on the rule of law, the so-called "rules based international order" or that Trump/MAGA is a cult or whatever. People talk about Kinzinger but he, like the various conservatives on the NYT op ed page have no constituency outside the 'elitist' liberal echo chamber. Their invite is already based on subscribing to some kind of pre-approved group think. So who is adding a Republican to the cabinet for other than wanking off some NYT readers?

 

Not sure if they agreed it was stupid, just that it didn't work for them. To me that wa snore a personality issue with Adams Burr and Jefferson. But let's all agree Biden with Trump as VP is what we all really wanted.

That being said my overall point still stands. The govt was set up to work on compromise, not winner gets a degree to rule like they won 100% of the vote.

 

That's really not the case though. The Articles of Confederation was set up to work on more of a consensus driven governance. It was a total failure. The Constitution was created to grant more power to the winners of elections to make governance possible! The AoC couldnt even pay war debts and obligations. Anti-majoritarian constraints like the filibuster or judicial nullification were later inventions, not features included in the Constitution.

 

Considering the whole thing was set up based on A Great Compromise, I'm gonna have to disagree with you.

 

Meaning they agreed slavery was cool, but you could only count 3/5 of them toward representation. Lets not forget this is what broke the system and led to civil war! Why cant we accept that its totally normal that if you win an election you get to govern how you want? This isn't a radical idea. Its more radical to concede power and governance to your rivals when you don't have to!

 

Of course you are right. I think I am seeing diversity of thought as more of a continuous spectrum of more or less than a categorical distinction of yes or no. Having a Republican in the cabinet should lead to more diversity of thought than democrats only. But if we accept your claim that this isn’t enough, we might stumble on when it is enough. Why stop at a socialist Palestinian? There’s a poster here that would probably like to see a virus denying monarch in the cabinet. What about a spiritualist or a Scientologist? I don’t think there is any objective cutoff line here, but pragmatically, a reasonable goal might be a diversity of thought that somewhat mirrors that of our nation’s people, narrow as it is.

 

Big deal, Trump is running as a Democrat and has just scored two big endorsements from lifelong Democrats that he’ll probably include in his cabinet.

 

Yes, your call for diversity of opinion as the top goal presents a lot of contradictions and traps doesnt it? My way is how about you pick qualified people who are also aligned with your political goals? Surely there are differences of opinion among that group. People who wont just blow smoke up your ass, etc. Obama picking James Comey (a Republican) arguably led to Donald Trump being president, and that seems pretty bad and the possible side effect of thinking diversity means handing key roles to non-allies. Of course you dont want yes men, but you probably dont want people to undermine your adminstration either.

 

Having Republicans in the cabinet during Democratic administrations was the norm for a while. I was disappointed when Biden didn't appoint any and fully expected Harris to do it before she made this announcement. Diversity of opinion is a reasonable goal but isn't the objective to find someone who is uniquely qualified for the job by way of education, professional background and/or committee leadership?

 

Agreed. I certainly am not asking for people that are going to undermine my administration. My top goal is to make the best decisions. I am of the mind that a single individual, or multiple individuals of similar mind, are unlikely to accomplish this. Diversity of thought is a means to this end.

Your goal of enacting as much of what your own program as possible appears to be more common, but it also has risks. Eg you are endorsing Republicans refusing to consider Democrat nominated justices, so they can pack the court with their kind of people. I don’t think this is a good outcome. Now my way of thinking assumes that the other side has something meaningful to contribute to decisions, which you probably don’t agree with. However, to many people, your side is the other side.

 

Getting a "normal" republican in your tent to work with you to better the lives makes a lot of sense. We all have blind spots, and having someone who sees things differently but that you can have an honest conversation with can be very helpful.

If on the other hand, you add one just to say you did it could actually backfire if they are disruptive or become a big leak machine.

 

To be honest, right now all who vote Republican right now are MAGA Republicans.

 

That's basically what I'm saying. Put a registered Republican in the cabinet, and to any partisan Republican, they are a "lib" now anyways. So who is doing that serving? Its so a few people can slap themselves on the back and be smug about how open-minded liberals are. In other words, classic Democrat brain. Best case it doesnt matter, worse case its James Comey getting Trump elected.

 

Gosh, where could she possibly find a limp wristed establishment Republican to play patsy token *diverse opinion* and kiss Democrat ass?

I mean, besides bumping into such with every other GOP politician at the RNC...

...where could she possibly find such a human being?

Lol!

Yall eat her shit up like she's serving up gourmet delicacies...

 

What about Liz Cheney? She is conservative but not infected with the trumpian contagion.

 

I would hope that any rational political party operates under the assumption that is what is best for the country is getting party members elected to office so they can wield power and carry out their governing agenda. That is the only point of politics. To what extent appointing rival party members to positions of governance and influence without extracting concessions furthers that is mystifying and irrational. Now if you told me the Republicans promised a vote on a key priority in exchange for a cabinet role, then I would say that is entirely rational. But doing that to "set a good example" to people you argue are unfit to govern is really stupid politics. I know Republicans act like children, but they arent actually children that need a behavioral lesson.

 

So all that talk of 'freedom', and all the blood shed for its preservation and defense during the first 2 centuries of this nation's existence... we throw all that away, and figure it's all been about increasing and centralizing power, by both parties.

Hmmmm....

...how do you suppose it's taken them so damn long to centralize power, if there's been no real resistance?

 

Consider that the "Imperial Presidency" and the largest centralization of presidential power was created during the time people are most nostalgic about, when there were conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans, and we we had to fight the commies after beating the Nazis. Arguably the president is extremely powerful because rival parties are both in agreement that the president should be very powerful.

 

I could be wrong but denouncing donOLD and voting for Harris is probably as far as she could go.

 

We went to war in the 1860's because of who was elected POTUS (which is why the war began in early 1861-shortly after AL was elected in Nov of '60).

That would seem to suggest the power of POTUS was pretty well established almost a hundred years b4 the period you reference.

What's more, that same POTUS used the extraordinary power of that office, to win that war, and re-unify the nation.

Meanwhile, the actual sitting POTUS was just de facto deposed against his will, and replaced with an anointed puppet replacement by invisible powers from behind the scenes (and across the Pacific), along with her appointed/approved replacement (whose ties across that very same Pacific, to the very place of origin of the puppet strings ...) run deep.

Seems to me the office of POTUS has far more recently been co-opted, and largely weakened, not empowered.

I would think, as a proud Marxist, you'd be thrilled at this recent development, not clinging to your old cynicism.

(...meanwhile I'm trying to fight my own, very well grounded cynicism, and hoping against hope that the battered remains of our constitutional Republic may hold, and weather this storm--or rather, that our crew may recapture control of our vessel from the pirates that have climbed aboard and hi-jacked it...).

I mean...your peeps have pirated the vessel.... seems you of all ppl ought to be stoked.