Theoretically each candidate can vote however they like for each vote.

The leaders of each party in each house of Congress can do things with committee assignments that increase or decrease a senator/representatives influence. Buck the party line too often and you can be neutered as far as influence over writing laws. Leadership is elected by the lawmakers of their party though, so if they lean too hard or force too many unpopular votes they can be removed from leadership.

In practice they tend to want to work with each other and get along. Inter party fights are embarrassing. Some lawmakers from states outside the norm ideologically can get away with voting against the party by pointing to their constituents and usually leadership takes this into account before deciding whether to hold a vote.

Joe manchin was a Democrat from West Virginia. He famously voted against several of Bidens environmental bills to favor coal mining. John Tester was a Democrat from Montana who neutered parts of the ACA under Obama. In both cases the Democratic president needed every single democratic senator to agree or the vote wouldn’t pass because their was no chance of Republicans crossing the isle.

Republicans allow much less ideological diversity through their primaries, so even a Republican like Scott Brown from Massachusetts was a solid conservative.

That’s definitely where my mind goes.

I thought it was native to wealthy families from Jersey/Virginia/Maryland. People that grew up in Martha’s vineyard.

I wasn’t intending to draw a distinction between intelligence and ignorance. I was just using repition for emphasis.

That’s just one possible suggestion on my part. I was reading a reddit thread yesterday where women were sharing their post partum depression. “I was so anxious that I couldn’t carry my baby through doorways. I thought I would smash their head against the doorframe. When hubby left for work we just stayed in whatever room he left us in. I had to lay my baby down and leave the door open to see them to use the toilette. I only changed him on the floor because I had visions of him falling off the coffee table and smashing his head open on the carpet.”

Like, I can see that kind of psychosis leaving a mark. Changing who you are and what you believe, if you left Fox news on while you were too anxious to walk through doorways and I am sure sleep deprived, maybe thats all it takes. Or your husband starts listening to talk radio and you don’t have the energy to argue.

Or maybe again it’s about money. People get their shit together because now they have a kid and then they have money and start voting to keep it and fuck everyone else.

Not everyone, certainly, not even most, most people don’t change their politics over time. but over time the drift goes to the right.

Sure, under the Soviet Union, or something like it. They weren’t a the arch villains I grew up being told they were, but the USSR had a long list of flaws and broken promises.

That is also horrible. The right’s view of human nature is that people are fundamentally violent, greedy, selfish and cruel. Life before governments was “and endless struggle of man against man for control of women, land, and wealth. It was nasty, brutish, and short.”

Governments provide a check on our natural impulses by centralizing power into a single authority. Capitalism harnesses greed and selfishness into mutually beneficial business deals. If you don’t work, you a deserve to starve. Big you can’t work, you live by the grace of Christian charity.

This is all nonsense of course, justifications post hoc by the powerful so of course they deserve their power. But if they are right… The mind recoils.

That talking tree in lord of the Rings was named Treebeard. He spoke about how the time of the ents was ending because the entwives had left and could not be found.

Focusing on economics is social justice. Black, indigenous, immigrant, LGBT, are all more likely to be poor. Make healthcare more affordable, raise wages, strengthen unions, and all those groups benefit.

Pretending that social justice is at odds with kitchen table economics is a psyop by the right. They want us fighting the culture war instead of making life better for the majority.

You stop paying attention to big things and focus on your child. “Think of the children” starts to work more because you think less about everything else.

Also women who are independent tend to be more liberal than men, but women who are dependant on their husband tend to be more conservative. Have a child, quit your job, adopt your husband’s political opinions because what’s good for him is good for you.

This is the story.

It’s also survivorship bias. Wealthy people live longer, and wealthy people are more conservative. As a cohort ages, the poor liberals die off and the wealthy assholes remain.

Calling our opponents dumb is being polite, or maybe a psychological defense mechanism against the horror of the alternative.

If you are dumb it’s not your fault. You didn’t, know better. If you are ignorant you can learn.

If you are smart and you still made the choices knowing the outcomes, then we have to go to other explanations: greed is the next least bad, and certainly it plays a part, but honestly that doesn’t usually follow. The vast majority of conservative supporters have no chance to benefit from their policies, so we have to go further to find an explanation.

Cruelty. They want the suffering, the death, the destruction of human potential. Or maybe sadism. They enjoy inflicting pain and deprivation.

The mind recoils, so we call them dumb, because the world in which the ignorant masses are being misled by nafarious elites is less soul crushing to contemplate than the world where the masses act out of cruelty and sadism.

And they will never be found because they don’t call themselves “entwives”

Possibly possible is redundant, but possibly doable might convey what you mean to say.

Necessarily needful might work as a synonym.

If you think your church is doing good work, you give.

The church I grew up in closed for lack of funds. The preacher never lived large, they weren’t taking more than people wanted to give.

I would never give money to a mega church, but I have donated to UU churches as an adult.

This is the answer. ICE is operating by the same rules the Ferguson police were during the 2014 riots, and the George Floyd protests in 2020. They can do whatever the my want up to and including break your door down in the middle of the night and shoot you while you sleep like they did to Breyonna Taylor.

The Constitution is clear, the house votes to impeach, the Senate votes to convict and needs a supermajority.

Nixon resigned because it was a done deal that he would be convicted. Trump remained and his party did a little jury nullification and voted not guilty regardless of the evidence.

The SC didn’t need to do anything to stop impeachment (and doesn’t have the legal authority to do anything about it regardless)

See a doctor and ask for a sleep study. You might have sleep apnea, or some other condition.

I grew up here, being white doesn’t mean it’s not my culture. I don’t know jack about Mexican cuisine, but Tex Mex is my culture.

I will attempt to say a person’s name how they say it. If they say “call me [simple anglicized name]” then I will do that.

Most people seem to appreciate the effort. I’m sure my American vocals butcher some pronouciations, but I don’t make a big deal out of it and my work gives me a lot of chances to practice. I will always make a good faith attempt at last names.

I live in Texas and will pronounce food names of Mexican origin with a Mexican accent. Burrito, taco, chalupa.