The Race For 2024

[Swammerdami]

First: I have no sympathy for RFK, Jr. and find it very unfortunate that loonies like him, MTG etc. are gaining so much dominance in U.S. politics.

HOWEVER, RFKJ didn't quite say what it is claimed he said. Google News shows lots and LOTS of phrases from RFKJ and puts them in quotation marks with "RFKJ said", but never a complete sentence! RFKJ language was equivocal and he NEVER said what is claimed in these out-of-context incomplete sentences quoted.

He ALMOST said what is claimed, but he didn't. When the right-wing media quotes Hillary out of context to promulgate a lie, I object. While agreeing that RFKJ is probably a worthless idiot, I hereby object to the truncated quotes. Sure: Truncate the quote in the intro paragraph, but show his complete sentences in context in the article body.

RFKJ also said China is developing ethnic bioweapons and knows how much they are spending on it. And he says the US is too, and attaches it to the Ukraine biolabs conspiracy theory. He loves so many conspiracy theories because he's a malevolent, worthless dimwit.

 

[lpetrich]

The Electoral College is the big factor in a third-party nightmare for Democrats - POLITICO - "Battleground states may actually be the least likely places for non-major party candidates to draw support."

Democrats are rightly spooked by the prospect of credible third-party candidates this cycle.

Third-party candidates tend to get the most traction when there’s greater-than-usual dissatisfaction with the major party presidential candidates — like in 2016, when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had favorability ratings of just 43 percent and 38 percent, respectively.

...
But there is one point of solace for Democrats: Voters in battleground states have been less likely to vote third party in recent elections than those in less competitive states.

...
That doesn’t mean well-funded third-party candidates with significant or universal ballot access don’t pose a major threat to Biden. Analysis of way-too-early polling by FiveThirtyEight suggests that those third-party candidates currently draw more voters away from Biden than Trump.

But the Electoral College — which has otherwise favored Republicans in the Trump era — could blunt those effects.

I looked for which states that additional parties had won in at least one state. I found:

• 1824: 4 candidates, all Democratic-Republican
• 1832: 4 candidates, 2 in minor parties
• 1836: 5 candidates, 1 Democrat, 4 Whigs
• 1856: 3 candidates, 1 Democrat, 1 Republican, 1 Whig
• 1860: 4 candidates, 1 Republican, 1 Southern Democratic, 1 National Union, 1 Democratic
• 1872: 6 candidates, 1 Republican, 2 Democrats, 1 Liberal Republican, 2 Liberal Republican / Democratic
• 1892: 3 candidates, 1 Democrat, 1 Republican, 1 Populist
• 1912: 3 candidates, 1 Democrat, 1 Republican, 1 Progressive
• 1924: 3 candidates, 1 Republican, 1 Democrat, 1 Progressive Socialist Farmer-Labor
• 1948: 3 candidates, 1 Democrat, 1 Republican, 1 Dixiecrat (Strom Thurmond)
• 1968: 3 candidates, 1 Republican, 1 Democrat, 1 American Independent (George Wallace)

In more recent years, Ross Perot set the high-water mark for independent candidates: 18.9 percent in 1992. Other than Perot’s 1992 and 1996 performances, only one other third-party candidate has won more than 3 percent of the national popular vote: Libertarian Gary Johnson in 2016.

...
Over the 2016 and 2020 elections, no state has cast a greater average of votes for non-major-party candidates than Utah, where a home-state candidate, Evan McMullin, won 22 percent of the vote in 2016. But after Utah, third-party strength comes in a long list of states that are considered safely in one column or the other: Alaska, Idaho, Vermont, Oregon, New Mexico, Washington, Wyoming, North Dakota and Colorado.

The traditional, core swing states rank much lower for third-party voting, according to this analysis. All but Nevada (No. 21) are in the bottom half: Wisconsin (No. 27), Arizona (No. 28), Michigan (No. 33), Pennsylvania (No. 43), North Carolina (No. 45) and Georgia (No. 48).

 

[lpetrich]

Cornel West Slammed For Russia, Ukraine Comments on CNN
Blaming the US for the Russia-Ukraine war and saying that Ukraine must make territorial concessions to Russia.

“If Russia had missiles in Mexico and Canada, the United States government would probably blow them to smithereens because that’s how empires behave. We had the same challenge in Cuba in 1962. So what we end up with is a criminal invasion,” declared West, who is seeking the Green Party’s nomination.

“And I know that some of my left-wing comrades, ‘Oh it’s an invasion,’ but a criminal invasion provoked by the expansion of NATO, which is an instrument of U.S. global power,” West added.

Collins then asked West, “Practically speaking, what would you accept in Ukraine? Like what? I mean, Trump claims he could fix it. What would that look like for you?”

“Oh, what I would do, I would bring in the Chinese, the Turks, the African rulers. I would sit down with the Ukrainian leaders and say, we must stop this war, stop these war crimes, cluster bombs on a variety of different parties and make sure that we begin a diplomatic process for a just peace,” West replied, adding:

"And that just peace is going to have some serious concessions across the board. Russian troops have to leave. There’s going to be debates over the territory. There going to be some kind of concessions over the territory, but stop the killing. Why? Because the Ukrainian brothers and sisters are precious and they are bearing so much of the suffering with this proxy war between the American empire and the Russian Federation."

"So there’s responsibility and blame across the board. But the American empire does bear a significant responsibility here, even though it is not the sole or exclusive responsibility. And it’s in no way a pro-Putin talking point."

He seems like Noam Chomsky, someone who seems to believe that the US is the only international villain.

 

[lpetrich]

Aaron Rupar on Twitter: "Cornel West on CNN says NATO "provoked" Russia's invasion of Ukraine, calls for "concessions of territory" to stop the war, and says the US "bears significant responsibility." But he adds that he's not "pro Putin," so there's that. (vid link)" / Twitter

Former GOP Rep:
Joe Walsh on Twitter: "He’s no different than Trump, RFK Jr, Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, or any other member of the “blame America” club. Despicable." / Twitter

Of The Bulwark:
Will Saletan on Twitter: "@atrupar sounds more like Cornel anti-West" / Twitter

Garry Kasparov on Twitter: "Whose territory!? His? Who the hell is he to offer Ukrainian land and the Ukrainian people on it to an invader because he is so ashamed to be an American that he sides with imperialist Russia massacring civilians in an unprovoked war of choice?" / Twitter

I like this response: peepeepeep on Twitter: "@Kasparov63 Horseshoe hell (pic link)" / Twitter
Cornel West: Hi Don. Hi Marge.
Don Trump Jr: Hi Cornel.
MTG: Nice of you to join us.

Idrees Ahmad on Twitter: "Brother @CornelWest wants to offer Ukraine's territory to Putin to stop America's "proxy war"!
I can't believe I ever took this clown seriously." / Twitter

Joshua Zeitz on Twitter: "Sounds pretty pro-Putin from where I sit." / Twitter

Josh Marshall on Twitter: "West has become a brutal caricature of himself. This is what happens when you are so committed to your liberationist philosophy that you believe that foreign invaders shld be allowed to amputate vast swathes of territory from countries they don’t believe shld be allowed to exist." / Twitter

Mike Madrid on Twitter: "If Cornel West was ever a serious thinker those days are long past" / Twitter

Devin Nunes’ cow on Twitter: "Delete your account @CornelWest" / Twitter

Michael A. Cohen (NOT TRUMP’S FORMER FIXER) on Twitter: "That West spends more time condemning the United States for the war in Ukraine than he does Russia speaks volumes." / Twitter

Mike Walker on Twitter: "But Cornel West’s position is exactly what Putin wants to hear from a US presidential candidate" / Twitter

 

[Derec]

Aaron Rupar on Twitter: "Cornel West on CNN says NATO "provoked" Russia's invasion of Ukraine, calls for "concessions of territory" to stop the war, and says the US "bears significant responsibility." But he adds that he's not "pro Putin," so there's that. (vid link)" / Twitter

What an idiot! But then again, he has been an idiot for many years.

Biden people must be losing sleep over his candidacy. He will probably be able to siphon off a couple of percentage points of support (esp. from black voters!) from Biden in key states delivering the election to the Republican candidate like Nader did for W.

 

[Politesse]

Cornel West Slammed For Russia, Ukraine Comments on CNN
Blaming the US for the Russia-Ukraine war and saying that Ukraine must make territorial concessions to Russia.

“If Russia had missiles in Mexico and Canada, the United States government would probably blow them to smithereens because that’s how empires behave. We had the same challenge in Cuba in 1962. So what we end up with is a criminal invasion,” declared West, who is seeking the Green Party’s nomination.

“And I know that some of my left-wing comrades, ‘Oh it’s an invasion,’ but a criminal invasion provoked by the expansion of NATO, which is an instrument of U.S. global power,” West added.

Collins then asked West, “Practically speaking, what would you accept in Ukraine? Like what? I mean, Trump claims he could fix it. What would that look like for you?”

“Oh, what I would do, I would bring in the Chinese, the Turks, the African rulers. I would sit down with the Ukrainian leaders and say, we must stop this war, stop these war crimes, cluster bombs on a variety of different parties and make sure that we begin a diplomatic process for a just peace,” West replied, adding:

"And that just peace is going to have some serious concessions across the board. Russian troops have to leave. There’s going to be debates over the territory. There going to be some kind of concessions over the territory, but stop the killing. Why? Because the Ukrainian brothers and sisters are precious and they are bearing so much of the suffering with this proxy war between the American empire and the Russian Federation."

"So there’s responsibility and blame across the board. But the American empire does bear a significant responsibility here, even though it is not the sole or exclusive responsibility. And it’s in no way a pro-Putin talking point."

He seems like Noam Chomsky, someone who seems to believe that the US is the only international villain.

As always, Chomsky's perspective on the issue is not difficult to find:

Chomsky: A Stronger NATO Is the Last Thing We Need as Russia-Ukraine War Turns 1

Persisting on its present course, the war will come to vindicate the view of much of the world outside the West that this is a U.S.-Russian war with Ukrainian bodies — increasingly corpses. The view, to quote Ambassador Chas Freeman, that the U.S. seems to be fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian, reiterating the conclusion of Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison that in the 1980s the U.S. was fighting Russia to the last Afghan.

...

Those calling for a stronger NATO might want to think about what NATO is doing right now, and also about how NATO depicts itself. The latest NATO summit extended the North Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific, that is, all the world. NATO’s role is to participate in the U.S. project of planning for a war with China, already an economic war as the U.S. dedicates itself (and by compulsion, its allies) to preventing Chinese economic development, with steps toward possible military confrontation lurking not far in the distance. Again, terminal war."

In short, he does not believe in heroic wars or anyone who claims to be fighting one, nor that either Russia or NATO have any interest or intention of de-escalating this conflict while there are still Ukrainians left alive to fight it for us. But, you are incorrect to say that he sees the US as the only villain in the situation, only that both the "heroes" and "villains" of the conflict have a shared interest of escalating it beyond its present atrocious state of violence, and to a catastrophic extent are colluding to make it happen.

And we will continue to do so. Anyone who is paying attention knows that there are only two real candidates in the 2024 election, and neither of them will have any real interest in bucking the trend. Indeed, Biden absolutely must be seen as somehow "winning" this war that we supposedly aren't fighting, in order to impress his voters (anticipate a major ramp up in our involvement throughout late summer of next year), and Trump of course must bluster and brag about how much more quickly he would be taking things in a nuclear direction if he were in charge, in order to impress his. Ukrainians lives are not of concern to either, as they do not vote in our elections one way or the other.

I do think Ukrainians would be marginally safer with Trump in office, though. As his recent senile meandering on FOX showed, he does see a negotiation of peace between these parties as a potential feather in his cap, and the terms of that peace are irrelevant to him. Biden has nothing at all to gain personally for ending a (thus far) very popular war.

 

[Elixir]

And we will continue to do so. Anyone who is paying attention knows that there are only two real candidates in the 2024 election, and neither of them will have any real interest in bucking the trend.

I guaranfuckingteeya that if Trump is re-elected the trend will be royally bucked up, as far as democracies flourishing in the world for a while. Good luck without us, NATO. - Oh, and you too Ukraine. You should have coughed up that dirt on Sleepy Joe when we asked.

Of course there will be ever increasing US military spending nonetheless, even if it is reduced to relatively harmless posturing displays of loyalty to our great leader in order to burn up expendable commodities, and imprison 'threats to democracy'.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

And we will continue to do so. Anyone who is paying attention knows that there are only two real candidates in the 2024 election, and neither of them will have any real interest in bucking the trend.

I guaranfuckingteeya that if Trump is re-elected the trend will be royally bucked up, as far as democracies flourishing in the world for a while. Good luck without us, NATO. - Oh, and you too Ukraine. You should have coughed up that dirt on Sleepy Joe when we asked.

Of course there will be ever increasing US military spending nonetheless, even if it is reduced to relatively harmless posturing displays of loyalty to our great leader in order to burn up expendable commodities, and imprison 'threats to democracy'.

Hey Elixir, you forgot to explain the gas ovens.

That also explains his recently-expressed love for gas stoves.

Especially gas ovens.
Yikes.

What a strange comment. Could you explain it in more detail?

Yes, could you explain that in more detail? Inquiring minds want to know.

Sure. Happy to disabuse you of your lack of information that fails to make it to your right wing bubble.

your refusal to answer will be yet more evidence about how I don't answer questions.

Here’s my answer, and evidence that you ask stupid questions out of ignorance.

How Gas Stoves Became the Latest Right-Wing Cause in the Culture Wars

No, that's gas stoves. You meantioned gas ovens when you refused to elaborate. And you still refuse to elaborate.

Perhaps you switching back from ovens to stoves is a right wing conspiracy. Wait, that would make you the right wing conspirator.

Where's that harpy chorus that screeches every time I don't answer a question immediately?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Moved my comment over to the Ukraine thread.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'll now consider the feasibility of ethnic and racial targeting of bioweapons.

Understanding Human Genetic Variation - NIH Curriculum Supplement Series - NCBI Bookshelf - "In fact, research results consistently demonstrate that about 85 percent of all human genetic variation exists within human populations, whereas about only 15 percent of variation exists between populations."

Though that 15% includes the more visible sorts of differences, like what goes into such traditional racial classifications as  Caucasian race Caucasoid people include Europeans, North Africans, Middle Easterners, and South Asians -- essentially Western Eurasians.

So? Want to make a white world? You target the dark skin gene. It doesn't matter that most genes are the same.

Now, making a stable bioweapon is left as an exercise... The Great Yuck should be enough to deter anyone halfway sane from making such a weapon. (Hint: When they're experimenting with potentially hazardous bacteria they like to knock out some vital metabolic element, producing a strain dependent on an external supply of whatever it is that was knocked out. That's a huge chasm for evolution.)

 

[lpetrich]

He seems like Noam Chomsky, someone who seems to believe that the US is the only international villain.

As always, Chomsky's perspective on the issue is not difficult to find:

Chomsky: A Stronger NATO Is the Last Thing We Need as Russia-Ukraine War Turns 1

Persisting on its present course, the war will come to vindicate the view of much of the world outside the West that this is a U.S.-Russian war with Ukrainian bodies — increasingly corpses. The view, to quote Ambassador Chas Freeman, that the U.S. seems to be fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian, reiterating the conclusion of Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison that in the 1980s the U.S. was fighting Russia to the last Afghan.

That's what I mean: exclusive US villainy.

Those calling for a stronger NATO might want to think about what NATO is doing right now, and also about how NATO depicts itself. The latest NATO summit extended the North Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific, that is, all the world. NATO’s role is to participate in the U.S. project of planning for a war with China, already an economic war as the U.S. dedicates itself (and by compulsion, its allies) to preventing Chinese economic development, with steps toward possible military confrontation lurking not far in the distance. Again, terminal war."

This talk about "indo-Pacific" seemed like excessive mission creep, since that is far away from Europe. But I found NATO - Topic: Relations with partners in the Indo-Pacific region -- Australia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand -- it's about NATO's "cooperation" with its "partners".

In short, he does not believe in heroic wars or anyone who claims to be fighting one, nor that either Russia or NATO have any interest or intention of de-escalating this conflict while there are still Ukrainians left alive to fight it for us. But, you are incorrect to say that he sees the US as the only villain in the situation, only that both the "heroes" and "villains" of the conflict have a shared interest of escalating it beyond its present atrocious state of violence, and to a catastrophic extent are colluding to make it happen.

I could respect Noam Chomsky if he says that we should try to fight hostile nations without imitating their vices, and if he was willing to point out ways to do so. But I haven't seen any such thing from him.

 

[lpetrich]

I'll now consider the feasibility of ethnic and racial targeting of bioweapons.

Understanding Human Genetic Variation - NIH Curriculum Supplement Series - NCBI Bookshelf - "In fact, research results consistently demonstrate that about 85 percent of all human genetic variation exists within human populations, whereas about only 15 percent of variation exists between populations."

Though that 15% includes the more visible sorts of differences, like what goes into such traditional racial classifications as  Caucasian race Caucasoid people include Europeans, North Africans, Middle Easterners, and South Asians -- essentially Western Eurasians.

So? Want to make a white world? You target the dark skin gene. It doesn't matter that most genes are the same.

The Genetics of Human Skin and Hair Pigmentation | Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics - journal paper, very technical -- several genes are involved in human skin and hair and eye color, involved both in making melanin and in regulating its production.  Human skin color -  Human hair color -  Eye color

Furthermore, light-skin and dark-skin versions of at least some genes are not very different: point mutations. Also, Europeans and East Asians ("Caucasoids" and "Mongoloids") seem to have gotten bleached separately, with separate mutations in their skin-pigmentation genes.  Dark skin and  Light skin

So it would be very hard to select by skin-color genotype. Skin-color phenotypes seem easier: detect how much melanin the skin makes. But that will be difficult for a respiratory-tract virus, and it would be very broad-spectrum. For light skin, that's all except the southernmost Eurasians.

Another variation that one might target is  Lactase persistence -  Lactase is an enzyme for digesting lactose, a sugar in milk. If one can't digest it, some microbes digest it instead, causing nasty digestive problems. Ancestrally, only babies can digest it - lactase production gets switched off as one grows. But some present-day people keep the ability into adulthood, mostly in northern and western Europe, and in the Arabian Peninsula. This ability is the result of point mutations in a bit of genome upstream of the lactase gene itself.

Going the phenotypic route again, lactase is secreted in the small intestine, also out of place for a respiratory virus.

 

[lpetrich]

Cornel West on Twitter: "I am running ..." / Twitter

I am running for truth and justice as a presidential candidate for the People’s Party to reintroduce America to the best of itself - fighting to end poverty, mass incarceration, ending wars and ecological collapse, guaranteeing housing, health care, education and living wages for all!
Join the movement at http://cornelwest24.com!!

with some video of his announcement.

Amelia Malpas on Twitter: "Like @justicedems @OurRevolution & Brand New Congress, Sanders alumni started @PeoplesParty_US. But its third "party" strategy, opposite the former groups running progressives w/in the Dem Party like Sanders, has made it incomparably ineffectual at advancing progressive politics" / Twitter
@justicedems -- Justice Democrats
@OurRevolution -- OurRevolution
@PeoplesParty_US -- the recent US People's Party

Amelia Malpas wrote Bringing the Party Home: The Progressive Insurgency in the House of Representatives and its Impact on the Democratic Party
It's a very nice piece of research.

Bernie Sanders lost the Democratic presidential nomination—twice. And yet, since his first loss in 2016, the Democratic Party has moved toward his policy stances on a range of issues. Ideas that pundits derided as politically impossible when he first ran are now at the center of the policy debate within the party.

That's rather evident from Build Back Better and student-loan forgiveness.

Sanders lost his insurgent bids, but the “political revolution” he sought to ignite continues through a movement of progressive insurgents in the House of Representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nina Turner. Like Sanders, most of these insurgents lose. Despite this, they are a serious force pushing Democrats left.

AM found that a big part of this was primary challenges.

It finds that the Progressive Insurgency is a semi-coordinated movement that aims to capture the Democratic Party to reorient its policy priorities and through that, turn the United States into a multiracial social democracy.

Something like a left-wing version of the Tea Party.

The insurgency has had a substantial influence on Democrats’ policy conversation and proposed policy but only a limited impact in its passed policy.

Part of that may be personality -- unwillingness to be as combative and abrasive as (say) Jim Jordan. AOC once had a panel discussion with someone who said that to succeed in politics, one needs to have a "rhino skin", and she herself has said that it's important to select out who is worth listening to. She comes off as very friendly, like calling Nancy Pelosi "mama bear of the Democratic Party", while it's hard to imagine Jim Jordan calling John Boehner "papa bear".

More broadly, in Rubenzer's and Faschingbauer's scoring of the Presidents in the Big Five personality traits, they tend to be low on agreeableness, while AOC seems to concede that being high in agreeableness can be a weakness in politics. Presidents also tend to be high in conscientiousness, something typical of people successful in academia and careers. That's yet another reason that Donald Trump is so anomalous -- he's very low in that.

 

[lpetrich]

As a comparison, Amelia Malpas looked at the Green Party. She found that it is a complete failure.

The Progressive Insurgency has not been as immediately successful as the Tea Party, but it has been much more successful than an older but still contemporary left electoral movement, the Green Party, that chose to seek institutional power as a third party rather than through the Democratic Party. The Progressive Insurgency has achieved levels of outright electoral success and policy influence on the Democratic Party in a matter of years that the decades-old Green Party could only dream of. This underscores the efficacy of insurgency over a third party bid in the United States, given its two-party system.

That's a result of first-past-the-post elections and single-member districts.

The power of insurgency starts with elections. Contesting elections since 1996, the Green Party has failed to win a single seat at the national level. While the party fields roughly 50 congressional candidates per election, they usually receive less than 3% of the vote. The Progressive Insurgency, meanwhile, has won 16 seats in Congress in its first two elections, with a sizeable number of its candidates winning over 25% of the vote in Democratic primaries. Very few of its candidates have earned less than 3% of the vote. Green Party presidential candidates have earned at most 2.7% of the nationwide general election vote. At the presidential level, the Progressive Insurgency’s closest equivalent, Sanders’s presidential insurgencies in 2016 and 2020, garnered the support of roughly 30-40% of the Democratic primary electorate. Further, the Green Party’s electoral contestation outside of the Democratic Party in general elections, in contrast to the Progressive Insurgency’s contestation within the Democratic Party in primary elections, makes its candidates potential “spoilers.” That is, while only receiving a small share of the vote, Green Party candidates can “spoil” Democrats’ prospects and allow Republicans to win the seat in narrow races. Vying for power within the Democratic Party in primary elections, the Progressive Insurgency does not have the same detractive effect on the party’s candidates in general elections.

That's why Cornel West ought to run as a Democrat, like Marianne Williamson and RFK Jr. Bernie Sanders was almost successful in getting the Democratic nomination both times, but he would have failed miserably if he had run as an Independent. In fact, he was successful enough to make the Democratic Party establishment close ranks and shut him out in 2020, and I've seen some claims that it did that in 2016 also.

Thus, from the outset, the Progressive Insurgency has been dramatically more successful in winning election outright but also in the electoral performance of its losing candidates. In the spring of 2016 when the presidential primaries were in full swing, Ralph Nader—the Green Party candidate who won 2.7% of the general election vote in 2000, potentially costing Democrats the presidency—opined in the Washington Post that “Bernie Sanders was right to run as a Democrat.” He wrote, “By running as a Democrat, Sanders declined to become a complete political masochist, and he avoided exposing his campaign to immediate annihilation by partisan hacks.” Not only does running as a Democrat seem to increase the electoral support for candidates left of the mainstream of the Democratic Party, but insurgent candidates’ intraparty institutional and ideological challenge is more threatening to the party, and therefore results in more policy concessions, than the general election contestation of a third party candidate.

Seems like Ralph Nader has learned a good lesson from the 2000 election.

 

[lpetrich]

As an example of the success of running as a Democrat, Amelia Malpas cites the Green New Deal, something that has been around in various forms for years. "The policy idea originated with the Green Party in 2010. It was not until insurgent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s election in 2018 that Democrats entertained the policy and it permeated the national political discourse."

Some Democrats, at least. Early in 2019, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed it as "The green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they're for it, right?”

AOC has introduced her Green New Deal in every numbered Congress so far:

• H.Res.109 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
• H.Res.332 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
• H.Res.319 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

Each time, it's been cosponsored by nearly half of the House Democrats, though it hasn't had any hearings or been voted on.

Ed Markey introduced it in the Senate in 2019 and 2021:

• S.Res.59 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): A resolution recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
• S.Res.166 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): A resolution recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

About 1/4 - 1/3 of Senate Democrats cosponsored it.

Mitch McConnell also introduced it - S.J.Res.8 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): A joint resolution recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress - but he did so to get it to a vote without any hearings on it. Senate Democrats boycotted that vote.


Can the Green Party point to anything comparable?

 

[lpetrich]

Mary Trump hands GOP presidential contenders a tip on how to 'humiliate' Donald at the debates - Raw Story - Celebrating 19 Years of Independent Journalism
MT appeared on MSNBC's "The Katie Phang Show":
KP: "Take a page out of Donald Trump's playbook and go for the jugular?"
MT: "Katie, it amazes me that they have not done that yet."

MT then conceded that they may not have done so because they are afraid of alienating the party's base.

MT: "Just call him what he is: he is a loser, he loses constantly, he has never legitimately won anything in his life. He is a thin-skinned baby who has nothing to offer but white grievance."

Yes, a big baby.

MT: "If I were one of these candidates, I would simply show up to a debate with a bowl of mashed potatoes because that was his very first experience of humiliation was when he was being a total brat before my grandmother put dinner on the table. My dad had just ordered to shut him up and stop him from tormenting his little brother Robert. Took a bowl of mashed potatoes, dumped it on Donald's head."

What a thing to suffer from.

Mary Trump: The president 'gaslights himself' -- and is stuck believing there's no way he could have lost - Raw Story - Celebrating 19 Years of Independent Journalism - November 18, 2020, 11:43 PM ET

Psychologist Mary Trump: Why Pres. Trump Hates Losing | Video | Amanpour & Company | PBS - 11.12.2020

Interviews before his attempted coup.

 

[lpetrich]

Trump Plans to Expand Presidential Power Over Agencies in 2025 - The New York Times - "The former president and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies."

Caesarism. Führerprinzip ("leader principle").

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

Like putting such independent agencies as the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission under direct presidential control.

He wants to revive the practice of “impounding” funds, refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like — a tactic that lawmakers banned under President Richard Nixon.

He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda. And he plans to scour the intelligence agencies, the State Department and the defense bureaucracies to remove officials he has vilified as “the sick political class that hates our country.”

Then discussing how Trump campaigners and the Heritage Foundation are involved with planning this increase in Presidential power.

 

[lpetrich]

The agenda being pursued has deep roots in the decades-long effort by conservative legal thinkers to undercut what has become known as the administrative state — agencies that enact regulations aimed at keeping the air and water clean and food, drugs and consumer products safe, but that cut into business profits.

Its legal underpinning is a maximalist version of the so-called unitary executive theory.

The legal theory rejects the idea that the government is composed of three separate branches with overlapping powers to check and balance each other. Instead, the theory’s adherents argue that Article 2 of the Constitution gives the president complete control of the executive branch, so Congress cannot empower agency heads to make decisions or restrict the president’s ability to fire them. Reagan administration lawyers developed the theory as they sought to advance a deregulatory agenda.

Donald Trump himself agrees with that theory. In 2019, he stated “I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”

Early in Mr. Trump’s presidency, his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, promised a “deconstruction of the administrative state.” But Mr. Trump installed people in other key roles who ended up telling him that more radical ideas were unworkable or illegal. In the final year of his presidency, he told aides he was fed up with being constrained by subordinates.

Now, Mr. Trump is laying out a far more expansive vision of power in any second term. And, in contrast with his disorganized transition after his surprise 2016 victory, he now benefits from a well-funded policymaking infrastructure, led by former officials who did not break with him after his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Trump promises that his administration will “find and remove the radicals who have infiltrated the federal Department of Education”.

“We will demolish the deep state,” Mr. Trump said at the rally in Michigan. “We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists. And we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”

 

[lpetrich]

Opinion | Trump Has Big Plans for 2025, and He Doesn’t Care Whether You Think He’ll Win - The New York Times - Aug. 3, 2022

As he contemplates a third straight run for the presidency, Donald Trump has a multimillion-dollar political machine and a network of tax-exempt advocacy groups at his disposal. He also has a plan. The plan is to wrest control of the federal government from what he sees as a policy apparatus dominated by “radical left-wing Democrats.”

Donald Trump speaks at America First Agenda Summit in Washington, DC Transcript | Rev

To drain the swamp and root out the deep state, we need to make it much easier to fire rogue bureaucrats who are deliberately undermining democracy, or at a minimum just want to keep their jobs. They want to hold on to their jobs. Congress should pass historic reforms, empowering the president to ensure that any bureaucrat who is corrupt, incompetent or unnecessary for the job can be told — did you ever hear this? — “You’re fired? Get out. You’re fired.”

...
Where there is a true and total breakdown of law and order where citizens’ most basic rights have been violated, then the federal government can and should send the National Guard to restore order and secure the peace without having to wait for the approval of some governor that thinks it’s politically incorrect to call them in. When governors refuse to protect their people, we need to bring in what’s necessary anyway. We have to go beyond the governor.

He also said that his admin would round up “the homeless, the drug addicted and the dangerously deranged” and put them in “thousands and thousands of high-quality tents” on “large parcels of inexpensive land in the outer reaches of the cities.”

Theda Skocpol:

Trump, in a second term, would bring in like-minded loyal and lawless authoritarians from the get-go, especially to run Justice, Homeland Security and Defense. From all he says, it is clear that exerting domination and using the government apparatus to reward loyalists and punish perceived opponents is his main thing now.

American institutions, she continued,

would not survive another Trump term, especially because of parallel reinforcing developments in a majority of states and in the federal courts. Discouragement and outright repression and popular threats of violence would push most centrists and liberals into full retreat. Minority rule would lock in.

The US “would enter a major new decades-long era of U.S. politics. We may already have done so, given the 6-3 SCOTUS majority devoted to eviscerating federal government power for many Democratic Party agenda priorities.”

Caesarism. A takeover from inside.

 

[lpetrich]

The architects of one of the most radical of Trump’s proposals have described it as “the constitutional option.” It would provide for the wholesale politicization of the elite levels of the Civil Service through the creation of a new “Schedule F” classification, allowing the president to hire and fire at will thousands of government employees “in positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policymaking, or policy-advocating character.”

...
To better understand the dangers posed by ending Civil Service protections and merit requirements, Stier suggested envisaging the country under a Trump administration, or a president with a similar program, in which the “I.R.S. agents, the F.B.I. agents and prosecutors were all there on the basis of their loyalty to the president.”

Max Stier then noted that the US gov't

already has an extraordinary number of political appointees — 4,000 of them — that every president gets to make. No other democracy has anything remotely close to that number, and our government would be much, much more effective with fewer of them and not lose out on accountability. The last thing we need is an even larger cadre of patronage appointments, which is what in effect Schedule F would do.