2020 US Election (Part One)

[Berzerker]

"We should be treating them (China) the way they treat us" - Joe Biden

The baby Jesus weeps

Joe's attempt at cutting into Trump's base on trade, he's not even talking about the other Democrats. But he's doing it without teleprompters this time and he handled a protester in style. I was wondering how old age was treating him, he rambled some like Trump but returned to his notes and got back on track. I think he had notes, overall a good performance.

Hehe, Biden left his podium and walked toward the audience and the MSNBC cameraman was sleeping at the wheel. Biden walked out of the camera shot and the person manning it had to pull it off the mount and try to do it manually. Then Biden was in and out of focus as he changed distances from the camera as he walked around. Just when I thought he'd escape unscathed MSNBC made it funny.

 

[Takhisis]

You mean when they were uneducated slaves? Read Huckleberry Finn to find out how white folks were talking back then.

I've actually recently located an unabridged edition of Mark Twain's works.

Lols. I own Alex Haley's Roots Tak... both the book and the entire miniseries, both volumes, on VHS. I've probably read most books written by a black person most people have even heard of... particularly the historic ones.

Yez, but I waz addrezzing hobbzyoyo, man.

In any case I'm not sure what that has to do with Biden or my joke about his comment. Are you trying to say Biden's comment was excusable because his expectations of black people was totally based on the book Roots?

Ehhh? I meant that hobbsyoyo could see an accessible depiction -by someone who is not a white rasist- of how differently different types of people speak and how they differentiate themselves from each other by speaking noticeably different varieties of English.
And also regarding the concept of blacks being ‘articulate’ there's the scenes in which black slaves are punished for learning how to read and write by their white masters. Telling, isn't it?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Yez, but I waz addrezzing hobbzyoyo, man.

Haha... I see that now... my bad. Not sure how I missed that... did you edit the post? Meh, I guess it doesn't matter. mea culpa

 

[Takhisis]

tua culpa vere.

 

[Zkribbler]

If Julian Castro ever had my vote, he'd have lost it on today's Fox town hall.


The first three questions he spun away to his nearest talking point--which was bashing Trump. 3 questions asked; 0 answers.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

At least he was on Fox. The echo chamber needs to be breached. They can spin things however they want but the candidates will still get their message out there. We'll never control the narrative if we don't go where the other side gets their infotainment.

Republicans go on left leaning shows and networks pretty frequently. I'd even say Trump himself has been an exception on that front as he prefers to feud with networks he doesn't like instead of go on them.

 

[Berzerker]

I watched Fox many moons ago occasionally, like more than a decade and switched to MSNBC largely because of the personalities. O'Reilly and Hannity were just too annoying with their smugnorance. But they did allow opposing views, MSNBC is largely an echo chamber.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Batmantis, but yes.

So you want BJ not to vote and onejayhawk to vote?

...in this primary

Smells like voter suppression.

 

[Takhisis]

Yes. That was my point.

 

[stinkubus]

At least he was on Fox. The echo chamber needs to be breached. They can spin things however they want but the candidates will still get their message out there. We'll never control the narrative if we don't go where the other side gets their infotainment.

Republicans go on left leaning shows and networks pretty frequently. I'd even say Trump himself has been an exception on that front as he prefers to feud with networks he doesn't like instead of go on them.

When milquetoast, center-right Democrats go on Fox they end up later getting maligned as left wing extremists. What was once uncontroversial, middle of the road policy stances end up turning into the one weird trick that's going to turn the US into Venezuela.

This is just one of the various means by which the Overton Window has been steadily shifting rightward.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

That's not a good argument to avoid Fox News though and that window will continue sliding if the Dems don't get in front of conservative eyeballs themselves.

 

[Socrates99]

When milquetoast, center-right Democrats go on Fox they end up later getting maligned as left wing extremists. What was once uncontroversial, middle of the road policy stances end up turning into the one weird trick that's going to turn the US into Venezuela.

This is just one of the various means by which the Overton Window has been steadily shifting rightward.

That's going to, or maybe already has, backfired on them. The nitwits on Fox call Pelosi, Schumer and Biden socialists. That is so absurd they're losing the ability to use it as a slur.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

They have inadvertantly turned AOC into a bit of a rock star by the same dent.

 

[Socrates99]

They have inadvertantly turned AOC into a bit of a rock star by the same dent.

Well, yeah, even rightwingers dont get why we're paying ridiculously stupid prices for pharmaceuticals either. The current US "free market" system is about as far from right wing free market ideals as you can get. If you believe in the free market why in the flying fudge would you oppose reimportation? AOC, Bernie and others support reimportation. A real free market.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, yeah, even rightwingers dont get why we're paying ridiculously stupid prices for pharmaceuticals either. The current US "free market" system is about as far from right wing free market ideals as you can get. If you believe in the free market why in the flying fudge would you oppose reimportation? AOC, Bernie and others support reimportation. A real free market.

I'm gonna do you one better and just state straight-out that the only way to achieve a free market is through socialism, people saying they are for capitalism are saying they are for a form of class rule that explicitly precludes the possibility of free markets.

 

[cardgame]

socialism means planned economy to a lot of people.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm gonna do you one better and just state straight-out that the only way to achieve a free market is through socialism, people saying they are for capitalism are saying they are for a form of class rule that explicitly precludes the possibility of free markets.

I suppose that socialists and libertarians have different conceptions of what "freedom" means: socialists think free means "nobody is a slave", libertarians think freedom means "nobody can take away my slaves".

edit: and i'm obviously being facetious, but i think this actually does skirt close to the truth of the matter, that the left tend to understand "freedom" in terms of the absence of hierarchy, while the right tend to understand "freedom" as the unimpeded functioning of what they perceive as natural hierarchies. this does tend to produce a shared scepticism towards large bureaucratic institutions, particularly in contexts where the "natural" hierarchies are imagined to operate on a more local and more personal level, but it does very quickly produce very different attitudes to things like wealth-redistribution. i don't imagine that most conservatives actually condone slavery, but i do think that it is harder for them to categorically reject slavery, to absolutely disown the idealised paternal master-slave relationship, and as a result, right-wing acknowledgements of the evils of slavery- or serfdom, or wage-slavery, or any other comparable institution- tend to be resolved as a focus on the way in which slavery distorts other, presumably more natural hierarchies of family and community around the overwhelming personality of the master. the idea that people telling other people what to do is just inherently morally dubious and requiring of case-by-case justification is not something which i think readily occurs to conservatives. conservatives can only successfully criticise existing institutions and distributions of power by retreating deeper into their commitment to "natural" hierarchies, towards a more perfect primordial social order.

 

[Lexicus]

socialism means planned economy to a lot of people.

And the whole idea that markets and planning are antithetical is absurd. Our actually-existing, so-called free market economy is today largely a planned economy - large, integrated corporations are devices for economic planning.

 

[Zkribbler]

The first debaters have beeb finalized:

Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.), former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, former Rep. John Delaney (Md.), Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif.), former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (Texas), Rep. Tim Ryan (Ohio), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), activist Marianne Williamson and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

 

[Lexicus]

The first debaters have beeb finalized:

Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.), former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, former Rep. John Delaney (Md.), Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif.), former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (Texas), Rep. Tim Ryan (Ohio), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), activist Marianne Williamson and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

Yeah, I can't believe that goddamn Marianne Williamson got in but Mike Gravel didn't