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On 9/26/2020 at 12:16 AM, Lord Raven said:

  

yes he does lol

you make good takes but you can't even read a platform before saying this? If so, what do the people actually want then? It sounds like his platform matches it pretty well. He did poach policy guys from other D campaigns, after all. What more do you even want?

I'm not even a moderate and it's pretty easy to see Biden/Harris platform is ridiculously progressive, especially for the US.

You're still way off. You need to really read back up on that election, it's not how you remember it. For the record, I brought up Clinton because she was more recent; Kerry and Gore both were in close elections where they were the underdog and with vote fuckery in Ohio and Florida respectively.

Obama was not "much further to her left." https://www.vox.com/2015/6/15/8779449/hillary-clinton-populist-record first result on google. It was a toss-up in terms of their views, and they were very very close to one another in platform. You can find plenty, plenty more but Obama being far more of a leftist than Clinton is definitely far, far, FAR from the truth. The majority of non-foreign policy Obama was in favor of, Clinton was also in favor of in 2008. And then Clinton took up the mantle in 2016, and Biden took it in 2020.

Being vocally against the Iraq War in 2008 was the mainstream position. Not the moderate position. Fucking nobody liked the Iraq War after like 2005 or 2006. If being pro-Iraq War was mainstream, it doesn't explain Bush's 20% approval rating at the time in spite of Iraq. Iraq and Katrina both plummeted Bush's presidency and the Republican party for Obama to swoop in.

Biden and Clinton were much further left than Obama 2008 and 2012. The Clinton campaign was more progressive in 2016.

Regardless, my argument was that if Obama was progressive in 08 because of those platforms, then surely Clinton was also a progressive leftist. Those are very vague platforms and paradigms.

Obama's policies were never what you thought they were. You already really do need a refresher; if you think the Iraq War was popular in 2008, you really really really did not pay attention. I'm not meaning to insult your intelligence at all, since I genuinely am surprised to see you post and I remember liking a lot of your posts, but there's this chasm between us and I think you need to spend *a lot* of time looking over the 2008 primaries and the 2008 election in general.

In fact, Obama being painted as some sort of leftist in 2008 is definitely republican revisionism. Not calling you a republican, but you can go to more left-leaning and satirical media of the time (Boondocks comes to mind easily) and you can easily see that your perception is off the mark of the reality of the time.

Also, proof about the Iraq War's popularity: https://www.pewresearch.org/2008/03/19/public-attitudes-toward-the-war-in-iraq-20032008/

It was career suicide in the early 2000s (see: Dixie Chicks). By 2008 it was an anti-Republican wedge.

This has already gone on longer than I intended and I'll concede several of those points, but the only point I'll tackle right now is the Iraq War thing:

Again, I'm not saying being against the Iraq War wasn't a mainstream idea. But there are a number of mainstream ideas RIGHT NOW that democrats don't fully support, so we definitely shouldn't take the views of the democrat voter base as the same views that democrat politicians have. So what I AM saying is that a lot of the democratic heavy hitters that voted for the Iraq War were still big players in 2008, and both Clinton AND Biden voiced some support for it during the 2008 primaries.

Clinton infamously refused to acknowledge that her Iraq War vote was a mistake during the primaries despite saying the war was a mistake(She wanted to have her cake yadda yadda yadda), and Biden more or less argued "Yeah yeah, the Iraq War was a mistake... but hey, we're already there, so we might as well keep at it!"

Obama arguably got his big break during the primaries because of how much he hounded the other democrats(Clinton specifically) for their support of the Iraq War. And it was a talking point all throughout the primaries.

Edited by Slumber
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@Slumber keep in mind the Iraq war was at worst the president lying to the senate with phony intel and at best a massive intelligence failure (which probably involved a lot of lying from the Bush admin). I would bet that anyone would defend their vote at the time in 2008, but I would also bet that given the hellhole we've turned Iraq into it's extremely irresponsible to pull people out en masse. As was the view at the time.

Given how Obama still didn't pull us out of Iraq, I'm pretty confident that this ended up being an eternal quagmire that's the MIC's big wet dream, and that it was pretty much impossible to do it so quickly.

Even still, in 2008 Iraq was still a radioactive issue. The invasion and regime change. The unpopularity of the Iraq War mixed with the economic crash mixed with the incumbent party disadvantage of 2008 led to Obama destroying McCain.

Obama holding their feet to the fire about Iraq definitely won him the candidacy because of anti-Iraq War sentiments of the population. I took your post as implying it was brave to speak out against the Iraq War, when it really wasn't in the face of the populace and the media. It was braver in 2003, in 2008 it was mainstream.

8 hours ago, Excellen Browning said:

Trump angling to be president for life to sustain a life of luxury because he bankrupted himself makes a lot of sense to me, weirdly.

Yeah, he's bankrolling golf trips with government money, has his own security with government money, and shit like that. Dude's lizard brained and doesn't think about jack shit. Anyone who thinks he's ideological is a fucking idiot lol

At this point the presidency is all that keeps him from ruin. We need to keep shouting that from the rooftops to make sure people go out and vote. The NY AG is compiling a massive case against this cunt as we speak, that way he can't be federally pardoned.

Edited by Lord Raven
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1 hour ago, Armchair General said:

Why can't they both take it and get it over with?

That is what Biden's campaign is saying. They do not mind doing a urine drug test before the debate.

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On Trump's tax returns, well no wonder he didn't want anyone to see.  Sham president, sham businessman.  What is he good at?   Selling himself, but other than that he sucks at everything. 

I think a secret power he has though is how incredibly limited his vocabulary is as well as the strong Queens accent.  His incredible lack of intellect and not being good at academics works in his favor.  If he were like most trust fund babies who after attending the finest schools, have immense vocabularies and sound like an intellectual he would not appeal like he does.  He seems as 'one of the people' rather than an elitist.  A weakness in fact becomes a strength, at least in politics.  

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22 minutes ago, Lewyn said:

On Trump's tax returns, well no wonder he didn't want anyone to see.  Sham president, sham businessman.  What is he good at?   Selling himself, but other than that he sucks at everything. 

I think a secret power he has though is how incredibly limited his vocabulary is as well as the strong Queens accent.  His incredible lack of intellect and not being good at academics works in his favor.  If he were like most trust fund babies who after attending the finest schools, have immense vocabularies and sound like an intellectual he would not appeal like he does.  He seems as 'one of the people' rather than an elitist.  A weakness in fact becomes a strength, at least in politics.  

indeed. a personal favorite of mine is his description of various plots & graphs he has folks prop up as he attempts, in vain, to explain what the plots are saying and ultimately predict.

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So in Summation:

Trump got millions of dollars from daddy. Lost it all being a moron trustfund baby with no discipline or business sense.

Made a name for himself as something of a cartoon character during his bankruptcy proceedings, then scored the gig of a lifetime getting paid millions of dollars to play a billionaire business genius on "The Apprentice."

Used that money to try to become a real billionaire.

Lost it all again.

Ran for president using his billionaire business genius reality TV persona to try and rehabilitate his brand:  doing what no candidate before him had ever done and hiding his tax returns to conceal the fact that he was dirt broke, $400 million in debt, and hadn't reported any positive income or paid any taxes for 10 years. 

Then used his public office to try and prop up his failing businesses with government contracts and taxpayer money. 

Also: he probably committed criminal fraud by failing to report his real income for years when he didn't pay taxes + misreporting that he was taking deductions for "business expenses," when the reported income was in fact being spent on his own private lifestyle. 
 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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So the big debate is tonight. Does anyone have any expectations about it?

It airs on about 3 at night so I guess I'll hear how it all went when I wake up. I doubt much will happen. I don't think there's anyone who hasn't made their minds up at this point. 

I think the constant insistence that Biden is extremely senile could possibly backfire on the Republicans because it sets the bar so low. At this point all Biden must do is show up wearing pants to dispel the increasingly bizarre attacks on his cognitive abilities. In that sense this is an easy one for him to win. On the other hand he might still perform conventionally poorly in the debate itself. Its also possible Trump will be as ill prepared as in that infamous interview but he doesn't really need to be a good debater. He might have nothing more to offer than bluster but its exactly the bluster that his base finds appealing. 

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1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

So the big debate is tonight. Does anyone have any expectations about it?

It airs on about 3 at night so I guess I'll hear how it all went when I wake up. I doubt much will happen. I don't think there's anyone who hasn't made their minds up at this point. 

I think the constant insistence that Biden is extremely senile could possibly backfire on the Republicans because it sets the bar so low. At this point all Biden must do is show up wearing pants to dispel the increasingly bizarre attacks on his cognitive abilities. In that sense this is an easy one for him to win. On the other hand he might still perform conventionally poorly in the debate itself. Its also possible Trump will be as ill prepared as in that infamous interview but he doesn't really need to be a good debater. He might have nothing more to offer than bluster but its exactly the bluster that his base finds appealing. 


Generally: the debates don't matter unless one guy has a complete crash-and-burn moment on stage.

But I agree that Trump kind of stepped in shit here by making "Joe Biden has dementia and is mentally unfit to be president"  a cornerstone of his argument for reelection.

He's made it so that literally all Biden has to do to "win" the debate is show up and sound cognitive.

Because then thats a swing-and-a-miss for Trump.  (Its kind of the same mistake Carter made against Reagan going into the debates in 1980)
_____

I'll throw this out there as a prediction:

Highlight of the night that gets replayed on all the headline reels tomorrow is the exchange thats gonna happen when Trump's taxes come up. 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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12 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

I'll throw this out there as a prediction:

Highlight of the night that gets replayed on all the headline reels tomorrow is the exchange thats gonna happen when Trump's taxes come up. 

The only thing I hope is that Biden actually presses him on it when he inevitably says he's under audit and that's why he can't release them - a) it's been four years, no audit should last this long unless there is serious implications of wrongdoing and b) the IRS directly came out and said there was nothing stopping him from releasing them while under audit (Reagan released his while he was under audit).

Edited by Tryhard
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20 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

The only thing I hope is that Biden actually presses him on it when he inevitably says he's under audit and that's why he can't release them - a) it's been four years, no audit should last this long unless there is serious implications of wrongdoing and b) the IRS directly came out and said there was nothing stopping him from releasing them while under audit (Reagan released his while he was under audit).

Its such a lay-up if he plays his cards right.

[TRUMP]: "I did a tremendous job on COVID. The best job. The blue state governors didn't do their job."

[BIDEN]: "Yep. Thats right. Nothings ever your fault. Did the blue state governors make you not pay taxes for 10 years?"

(smack him just like that. every time.)

Edited by Shoblongoo
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1 hour ago, Excellen Browning said:

I'm not going to watch the debate, just not my style, and there's never substantive talk about policies. But I expect Trump to get crushed.

i only watch it for the shitflinging. the debates don't matter at all, they're just arguing platitudes and not policy

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what? Biden's was nowhere close to Trump.

I thought Biden had moments where he was sharp and moments where Trump would not shut the fuck up. He made some strong statements, but sadly undecided voters are fucking idiots and will probably go over to Trump briefly after that.

Trump said "stand back and stand by" to white supremacists instead of denouncing them. Sirius, no offense, but you're way better than this; doing anything resembling equivocating the bullshit we saw on TV.

Trump told his guys to stand by the polls too, whereas Biden said to trust the process and the ballots. And you're saying that they were both equal in any way, shape, or form? The only thing comparable about them is their age, race, and the fact that they're from the northeast.

EDIT:

The thing is that some undecideds will eat the Trump shit up.

Edited by Lord Raven
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Biden may not have had the best debate performance but Trump is up there ranting like a deranged authoritarian who doesn't even want to have a debate so he just interrupts every two seconds.

Edited by Tryhard
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20 minutes ago, XRay said:

I hope the moderators for the following debates can silence any speaker's mics.

Only for Trump to pull out a MAGAphone to screech into.

I’m honestly horrified about the moment where he told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”. I felt sick to my atomach.

Edited by Dai
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"Proud Boys, stand back and stand by" sounds more like an appeal to violence and intimidation to me. Especially since Wallace didn't even mention them. He just asked him directly to condemn white supremacy. Couldn't even bring himself to condemn "violence on many sides" this time around.

...an interpretation that is further backed up by the fact that he did at another point call for his followers to go to the polling stations and "watch very carefully".

This is utterly terrifying. These guys are completely unhinged at the best of days. Hard to imagine what's gonna happen should Trump lose. He seems determined to take the whole country down with him should if it come to that.

Edited by BrightBow
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It’s so baffling to see people cheer for Trump even after this display. Hell, I have a brother who claimed he ‘won’ the debate, then listed off a bunch of malarkey about TrumP’s “achievements” before capping it off with how he’s not a racist. Lo and behold, when I proved him wrong he simply called it a biased news source. Good lord, I hope he’s removed and soon.

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