2020 Election Thread!!!!!!!!!

[onejayhawk]

J, you were the one missing the point. As you demonstrate once again.

Thanks withdrawn then.

Since you ask me to demonstrate, here you go.

If you wanted a real WW II comparison, the bombing of Dresden or the London blitz would have been better.

J

Comparing like to like is the point. You hadn't.

J

 

[tuckerkao]

Voter turnout was not lower. Voter suppression was higher.

The Democratic black voter turnout was lower and the Republican white voter turnout was higher, these averaged out. It has been the pollsters' problems not finding those hidden Trump voters in the Rust Belt states. The Midwest region will be so important again in 2020 and the democrats need a new face to appeal to the young voters.

 

[Lexicus]

Comparing like to like is the point. You hadn't.

No J, the point is that saying something is 'effective' elides the question of whether it should be done in the first place.

 

[sophie]

Exactly backwards. Gassing Jews was not working. It was getting the way of the war effort.

So, uh. Are we going to just ignore this post where J kind of implies that the Holocaust was bad (only) because it was sucking resources away from the German war machine?

 

[Hygro]

But they don't know that trump throws people. And McGuire in super double dragon always does.

well if that's the model, then props for sticking to your allusorary guns

 

[Martin Alvito]

I'm not sure why anyone would believe that we can reasonably predict the opposition candidate four years out, given the history.

You might have seen Dole coming in 1992. Before that, you have to go back to Mondale and the only reason that he was the nominee was that no one of greater stature wanted to take on Reagan. If you go back further, Reagan himself wasn't a great bet in 1976 and no one saw Carter coming in 1972. If you'd have suggested that Nixon would get the nomination in 1964, you'd have been labeled a lunatic.

If you claim to have seen Bill coming in 1988, you're lying. Ditto for George W. in 1996, Dukakis in 1984 or Kerry in 2000. Any reasonable bet in 2004 would have been on Hillary. Not sure who you would have bet on in 2012, but I guarantee it wasn't Trump. You might have bet on Romney in 2008 but there were good reasons not to.

If you put a gun to my head today then I take Warren, but I also fully expect to get my brains blown out. About all that I'm willing to say is that it won't be Kaine.

 

[Mouthwash]

Plus, even Trump couldn't attack her for being unattractive.

This is not something you can criticize a man who has been called an orange clown by every single comedian in America for. Sorry.

I've listened to Gabbard speak, and I'm pretty confident she'd be a good pick. Her speaking style appears quite sincere, which was one of Clinton's biggest flaws - Clinton seemed like she was lying even when she was being completely honest. Gabbard's resignation of her DNC position and support of Sanders helps boost her anti-establishment credentials. Her stances on Islam and terrorism are fairly aggressive, shielding her from one of Trump's favorite lines of attack, but she checks all the other boxes that liberal Democrats like to see (including of course the "woman" and "minority" diversity boxes). Her labor credentials are very strong, and she's a veteran with positions on the military that are both reasonably strong and anti-interventionist - both of these stances would play quite well in the Rust Belt. I can't think of a more promising candidate at this time.

Has anyone even mentioned that Gabbard is a Hindu yet?

 

[onejayhawk]

No J, the point is that saying something is 'effective' elides the question of whether it should be done in the first place.

Still missing the point. False comparisons are no answer.

So, uh. Are we going to just ignore this post where J kind of implies that the Holocaust was bad (only) because it was sucking resources away from the German war machine?

Try again. The impact on the war effort is the only relevance to the question.

J

 

[Lexicus]

This is not something you can criticize a man who has been called an orange clown by every single comedian in America for. Sorry.

Yes it is. It's kind of funny how you don't get the difference between Trump's obvious valuation of women by how physically attractive they are and people jokingly calling Trump orange because the CHOICES he's made about his appearance (the orange tint of his skin is not natural, Mouthwash, no one looks like that naturally- it's a spray tan or from a tanning booth - and so is the toupe, it suggests he's vastly insecure about losing his hair) clearly reflect on his character.

Still missing the point. False comparisons are no answer.

J, I was the one who made the point. I couldn't have missed it. You just didn't understand what I was getting at, which is fine because I wasn't really that clear about it.

 

[Mouthwash]

Yes it is. It's kind of funny how you don't get the difference between Trump's obvious valuation of women by how physically attractive they are and people jokingly calling Trump orange because the CHOICES he's made about his appearance (the orange tint of his skin is not natural, Mouthwash, no one looks like that naturally- it's a spray tan or from a tanning booth - and so is the toupe, it suggests he's vastly insecure about losing his hair) clearly reflect on his character.

I'd like to see where all this is explicitly said by those mocking his appearance.

 

[Lexicus]

I don't know whether it is or not. Probably not, since most discourse seems to be pretty shallow. Personally I see no point in mocking his appearance, I don't care about it and consider it a non-issue.

 

[Ferocitus]

Exactly backwards. Gassing Jews was not working. It was getting the way of the war effort. Bombing in Vietnam was helping the war and saving American lives.

Sure, it saved a relatively small number of American soldiers' lives in the short term.
They could have saved more lives by not going, or getting out earlier, i.e. well before there was overwhelming opposition at home.
As you know, "Vietnam Vet" became a sad term for the casualties that kept on giving sad consequences in the long-term.

Nixon should be praised for the decisions and actions that improved the lot of the people he was elected to represent and lead, and condemned for those policies, and actions that deserve it.

From 50 years in the future, you should be able to see more clearly.

IOW, you claim to have the equivalent of a crystal ball that not only sees into the future, but also allows you to look back in time from that future.

Maybe in 50 years he will be seen as something else than a lying, dissembling politician who continued to bomb innocent civilians for political purposes.
The apotheosis you predict for him by then will make for interesting discussions on his wiki page when some people try to rewrite history!

You take the position that war is criminal, which makes no sense. If you cannot see the difference between nations in combat and police abusing civilians, there is little hope of understanding any time soon.

I take the position that the Vietnam War was criminal, and many participants at the political level and on the ground were criminals. (Police abusing citizens is completely irrelevant here.)
The US made up phony reasons to invade Vietnam, and lied to its own people about the numbers of troops and where they were operational.
They gave wrist slaps to the likes of William Calley.
There were war crimes that were not prosecuted to the full extent that they should have been, if at all. On both sides.

 

[Mouthwash]

I don't know whether it is or not. Probably not, since most discourse seems to be pretty shallow. Personally I see no point in mocking his appearance, I don't care about it and consider it a non-issue.

There are plenty of Trump voters who also don't care about Hillary's/insert female politician here's appearance, but that doesn't stop the left from talking about it.

 

[onejayhawk]

I take the position that the Vietnam War was criminal

That is not a normal position and it should have been stated up front. It keeps people from comparing apples to oranges. In this case, that's comparing Democrats to Nazis.

J

 

[Lexicus]

There are plenty of Trump voters who also don't care about Hillary's/insert female politician here's appearance, but that doesn't stop the left from talking about it.

As I said before the issue is that Trump pretty clearly values women based on their physical appearance...

 

[Mouthwash]

As I said before the issue is that Trump pretty clearly values women based on their physical appearance...

It's one thing to judge beauty contestants or potential hookups by their attractiveness, quite another to judge politicians. Did he at any point say that Hillary Clinton was ugly/overweight?

 

[Sommerswerd]

It's one thing to judge beauty contestants or potential hookups by their attractiveness, quite another to judge politicians. Did he at any point say that Hillary Clinton was ugly/overweight?

He said "she doesn't have the look" and "she doesn't have a presidential look". When challenged on it, he tried to change the subject to "stamina". I choose not to buy that weak-sauce misdirection. I choose to believe that by saying "she dosen't have the look" to be President, he meant "she's too old, fat, ugly, unattractive" to be President. He said by "looks" he meant "stamina"... I say BS and believe that by "looks" he meant looks, but I'd seriously love to hear (and maybe mock, a little) any apologist rebuttals folks might be able to muster...

More on-topic, I will add that attacking Trump on feminist grounds was an utter failure and shouldn't be repeated. I have mentioned that I have anecdotally noticed that husbands in particular seem to be alienated by the feminism angle, and it didn't remotely resonate with women as much as Democrats needed it to. I would abandon that tactic entirely in 2020.

 

[Ferocitus]

That is not a normal position and it should have been stated up front. It keeps people from comparing apples to oranges. In this case, that's comparing Democrats to Nazis.

J

No, it's comparing the actions of some Nazis with the actions of some Democrats and Republicans who instigated and continued the many invasions the US has been involved in.

 

[Ferocitus]

There are plenty of Trump voters who also don't care about Hillary's/insert female politician here's appearance, but that doesn't stop the left from talking about it.

If those pathetic exchanges about appearance played a significant role in the election,
they deserve Trump, Clinton and all of the electoral fallout.

 

[Bootstoots]

More on-topic, I will add that attacking Trump on feminist grounds was an utter failure and shouldn't be repeated. I have mentioned that I have anecdotally noticed that husbands in particular seem to be alienated by the feminism angle, and it didn't remotely resonate with women as much as Democrats needed it to. I would abandon that tactic entirely in 2020.

Yeah - despite the fact that Trump is quite clearly misogynistic, feminism itself is just not popular among any groups except politically engaged liberals, and not even all of them. It's also clear that nearly all voters would be perfectly willing to vote for women who agree with them - I bet people would have a hard time finding anyone at a Trump rally who wouldn't vote for Ann Coulter.

We crossed that line sometime in the 1990s and haven't looked back, and Hillary Clinton was instrumental in this back when she was First Lady. I think she was the single most important politician in getting even conservatives to go from "I won't vote for a woman" to "I won't vote for that particular woman". She really was one of the most powerful politicians in the country, so much so that she was (and still is) the embodiment of the Democratic Party establishment. The "real" breaking of the glass ceiling at this point will be more or less just a formality and could happen from either party - Clinton has more or less broken it already.