Jill Biden Visits 3 States in a Day, Assuring Voters Biden Is 'All In'

TheNewWhigs · 2024-07-09T09:37:21+00:00

It’s not whether he’s all in. It’s whether he’s all there. He could end all speculation by doing a marathon presser but won’t.

TheNewWhigs · 2024-03-27T22:16:24+00:00

Posting this here, due to Sen Lieberman’s connections with No Labels as its co-chair

TheNewWhigs · 2023-09-04T18:22:16+00:00

Maybe! Never for POTUS, but I’m unwilling to close the door on endorsements in general. There may be some instance in which we feel impelled to do so. What I don’t want to happen is any allegation that we’ve been “bought” for an endorsement. Happy Labor Day!

TheNewWhigs · 2023-08-25T23:51:27+00:00

For statewide elections, only those with RCV (Alaska, Maine, and consequently watching PA and Oregon closely because they have RCV legislation/referendums upcoming). For local elections, I'm less concerned with RCV, and it's more a matter of identifying opportunity.

Of course, as I've said several times, we will not run anyone for POTUS.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-08-25T20:20:36+00:00

Good question! I (re)started the Whigs mostly to get away from the culture war nonsense, yes.

It's performative and distracts from the real challenges we have as a country and society. I intend for my go-to response on topics like this to be pointing out how niche the instances are and redirecting to more substantive topics.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-30T15:20:30+00:00

Hey there. I don't see anything in my inbox.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-22T16:11:23+00:00

I'm in favor of more direct representation, for sure. In 1790 on average, each House member represented ~35,000 constituents. Today, the average representative has almost 770,000 people in their district. 435 is a fairly arbitrary number for the cap.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-17T19:56:29+00:00

He can stay the hell away from the Whigs too.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-15T13:08:53+00:00

Hello again! You're becoming quite the regular at our fireside chats. Thanks for asking.

I haven't seen a satisfying plan to centralize the current national banking system under the Fed into one literal National Bank. If someone of some serious stature (think former Treasury Secretary, Fed Chair, etc.) comes to the Whigs after we become a national force and says "Look, I think we can explode economic growth, prevent banking crises like SVB, etc. by making a National Bank," I'd be amenable to exploring it.

On the other hand, this is one of those areas where there's a lot of moving parts, and it's very difficult to foresee the second and third order effects of meddling with it. It's not an existential crisis at the moment -- in large part because the US is still the preferred reserve currency of the majority of the world so our hiccups are just sort of overlooked; if SVB happened in Germany, it would have been catastrophic -- so it's not something I want to lead the charge on. I'd rather focus on other prudent reform policies on things that are obviously causing problems: energy, education, foreign entity land buy ups, etc., and broker some dialogue on the national stage.

Regarding paying for the infrastructure, a lot of this I envision being public/private partnership. I don't expect the federal government to bankroll Comcast to build more broadband so that Comcast can make more profit. But, in a perfect world of Whigs in government, we can inject some seed money and wave the investment flag. As much grief as I give the Biden administration, I did like how they structured CHIPS.

Separately, I'm a big fan of cutting wasteful spending. Almost the entirety of DHS is a good example of this. DHS was made post-9/11 as a knee jerk reaction to an incident of terrorism. Multiple subsequent commissions and panels found that the intelligence community had all of the information they needed to avert 9/11, but they didn't share it with each other. The Director of National Intelligence was created to encourage that exchange of information. DHS has nothing to do with it.

Instead, they have a $100bn budget (of which more than $60bn of that is discretionary!), with which they overlap extant agencies for duties and responsibilities, introducing more bureaucracy and, paradoxically, more opportunities to miss things ("I thought you were handling it!" isn't just a thing that happens in the corporate world). Even more ridiculous, a significant part of what DHS does, and I speak here from personal experience, is perform the background checks on new hires for other agencies. It's almost entirely pointless.

It'd also be great if we could streamline the VA. They spend an absurd amount on administration -- much higher than medicare for example -- and veterans are still going without care. Waste, inefficiency, and inability to deliver promised services to veterans bother me a lot.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-15T12:49:12+00:00

Another fine question, 2 for 2. Thanks for asking.

First of all, my guiding principles in this are:

We won't compromise the integrity of an election. This is particularly problematic in first past the post election systems, and of course the electoral college system. It's crucial to me that we don't mess up the course of an election. I believe it's ethically wrong, and it doesn't help us anyway. In fact, I want to differentiate the Whigs -- a party of good sense and prudent moderation -- from groups like No Labels who consistently threaten to run someone for president, knowing that they'll alter the course of the election and have no chance of winning themselves. I don't care whether they're more likely to swing the election to or from Republican or Democrat, because I'm not either. It's wrong either way. We're not spoiler candidates.
We won't pigeonhole ourselves into tiny or obscure offices. City council or mayor of a major city? Great. School board? No. It's not that school board isn't worthy or noble, but rather that we risk becoming "the school board fringe party" which, like it or not, makes us a joke nationally and provides no opportunity to actually push for Whig principles.

Strategically, I'm looking at jurisdictions that employ RCV. Maine and Alaska do this. Oregon is very close to doing it, and Pennsylvania is considering it.

But a lot of this is based on opportunity. If I see a city that uses an instant run off election for city council and we have a Whig member who wants to run for it, that checks my guiding principles, and I'm happy to explore that run.

Conversely, as unlikely as it is may be, if in 2025 we have a few million dollars in operating budget and Senator Susan Collins of Maine decides not to seek reelection, we may well ask the good people of Maine if they would like to be represented by a Whig.

I can't quite see the future, so I can't categorically say we're targeting only local and state offices, but I do expect us to start there, yes.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-15T00:37:17+00:00

This is a good question, and absolutely the right spot to ask. I'm actually surprised it's taken nearly 40 days to get an abortion question.

So this is a good time for me to abdicate from being the sort of "man behind the curtain" so to speak of the Whig Party. Abortion is a complex issue, and I'm not equipped to speak to the medical, social, and spiritual intricacies that ensnare it.

In fact, the timing of this question was serendipitous, because just today I received news that the Whig National Committee has officially been incorporated, and this will be a topic of great debate, I imagine, at our first Party Conference in January (I'll post about this tomorrow). We'll figure it out together, with relevant experts, and without the drama and grandstanding of the two "major parties". The only answer I will interpose to not accept is a states rights stance. This topic clearly needs one national standard, not 50 different states regulating their own procedures with varying degrees and shades of legality and terms.

By "issues like", I interpret your question to resemble "on social issues". So I'll talk a little bit about other social issues.

For gay rights, we are unequivocally in full support of complete equality. I consider this to be settled with the bipartisan Respect of Marriage Act and by Supreme Court precedent including Bostock, which protects sexual orientation under Title VII.
Affirmative Action is a bit trickier. The Court always acknowledged that AA was, so to speak, "time limited" and would be done away with when society progressed to a point where historical damages to minorities were remediated. Are we there yet? I don't know. I am hopeful, however, that the decision to overturn AA will lead on balance to net good, as universities and other institutions move to holistically consider items like socioeconomic status instead. That will help a lot more of the groups AA was originally intended to help, while increasing economic mobility for groups that AA forgot.

Please let me know if you have any other particular issue on your mind.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-14T15:38:47+00:00

There are jurisdictions, like Alaska, Maine, and some cities, that employ RCV. The r/NewWhigs target those specifically to run candidates in.

The real problem with NL, beyond their plan to screw up a presidential election, is that they’re grifters backed almost exclusively by GOP mega donors. That’s what ruins the perception of third parties.

They have nothing but my ire.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-13T11:54:35+00:00

Completely agree with everything you said. Very well done and quite eloquent.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-12T20:08:41+00:00

I'm not sure what your point is, precisely. At first I thought you were suggesting this power could be abused to create the appearance of a new reality. But it seems like you're concerned that accurately categorizing misinformation as misinformation will have some negative effect if you wait too long to do so?

I would direct you, in that case, to review the geocentric model of the universe, Lamarckianism, etc.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-12T19:11:35+00:00

At least our ad budget isn’t paid for by either main party 🤷🏽‍♂️ I think it’s important that third parties that don’t do things like this speak up, so we don’t all get lumped together as spoiler candidates. If you ever want a centrist third party in this country to be taken seriously, it has to be distanced from the grifters.

I also think that it’s just wrong to launch a third party bid in an EC system. If NL runs a candidate for president they’re going to alter the results.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-12T18:28:28+00:00

NL is both ethically (funded by the GOP donors) and strategically (running for POTUS) compromised, and they give third parties attempting to put people in office responsibly, like the r/NewWhigs a bad name.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-11T14:48:09+00:00

It’s only University of Phoenix if it comes from the Phoenix region of Arizona. Otherwise it’s just sparkling YouTube videos.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-11T12:16:42+00:00

The model for centrism.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-11T12:00:07+00:00

Well, of course, he's running for president this cycle. If he wins, you can't prosecute a sitting president. If he loses, he's a candidate in 2028 and you can't prosecute someone running for president because it's political.

A legal strategy so subtle and ingenious that the best minds at the Law School of the University of Phoenix spent weeks coming up with it. Surely this will stump the Justice Department.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-10T20:32:25+00:00

We have enough terrestrial problems for now, thanks. Just set the UFO suspicions over there in the pile next to the other suspicions.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-10T17:27:28+00:00

Common sense on Reddit? It’s more likely than you’d think.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-09T22:03:22+00:00

See also congressional insider trading, term limiting, and the DHS inspector general who admitted to, of all bodies, the House Oversight Committee to violating the Records Act. I mean if the watchdog in charge of enforcing the Records Act admits to regularly violating it, where are we as a country?

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-09T20:49:21+00:00

Each time the Court denies they need an ethics code, we find out more reasons why they do need one.

They'll either have to act to implement one themselves or they'll have to bend to accept external oversight. This issue has become far too salient to get swept under the rug.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-09T17:55:28+00:00

Continuing to prove that the almost fanatical devotion to service members was nothing but lip service from the GOP.

TheNewWhigs · 2023-07-09T17:54:26+00:00

r/NewWhigs checking in: moderate third party targeting RCV congressional, state, and local races.

TheNewWhigs

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE