2020 US Election (Part One)

[Kyriakos]

Maybe instead of a less than impressive wall you could relocate a few military bases there? The training recruits etc could just walk the border part daily (?).

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If we could stop 99% of the drugs at ports of entry wont the traffickers just head in another direction?



No to both... Once we get good at plugging a hole they'll find another one - and the open desert is just waiting.

And do you really think you, or Dingbat D'ump, or anyone else is going to stop them if they go for that open desert? Do you really think that spending a few billions building a speed bump out there matters? Do you seriously believe that D'ump's endless yammering about that speed bump is because he actually believes it would make any difference to these redirected drug traffickers? For that matter, while he is yammering about this speed bump do you see any indication that he has any intention about creating this "stop 99% of the drugs at the ports" motivation that's supposed to send the drug traffickers out into the desert to start with?

Here's a clue...Dingbat D'ump is yammering about the wall, and has no interest in this 'stop the drags at the ports' business. Not 99%, not 9%, not any. He doesn't give a hot turd about drugs coming through ports, or anywhere else. He cares about getting people who are scared of brown people excited. That's what his great border monument project is about. It isn't even about stopping the brown people, since everyone knows that it won't. It's about getting those scared people excited, plain and simple.

 

[Traitorfish]

What if a similarly adroit line of questioning, and similar requests for hard-to-obtain information, were turned against your investment in the idea that Trump is not actually threatening any entrenched interests, despite the way these entrenched interests are openly at war with him?

This is a pretty pissweak response. You made an explicit claim, that Trump is challenging certain entrenched interests. I asked what reason we have to believe this is the case. That's not a terribly fiendish question, and I didn't ask for figures; you offered those, and I pointed out that they don't clearly support your claim. If you're not prepared for your argument to be subject to public interrogation, why voice it publicly?

Like I said, these concerns are out-of-date at this point. When Weissman tells the Current Narrative Network they're going to do a pre-dawn raid on some private home with an overwhelmingly huge armed force, and the cameramen follow the SWAT team gleefully, like loyal dogs, and the people onscreen at the network can't restrain their savage sense of Stalinist triumph, it means that we're beyond bias.

Surely you appreciate the irony of accusing an organisation of bias while also, in the same sentence, calling them "Stalinist"?

Trade war... All them businesses that spent decades moving jobs overseas only to export that production back to the USA have a vested interest in defeating Trump's trade agenda.

That's certainly plausible, but it doesn't immediately follow that the media and the "deep state" are going to pursue Trump on the behalf of these industries. Lobbyists are influential, but no so influential that they can pull of a coup. Certainly not when some of the most influential interests, like the automotive industry, have pretty mixed feelings about Trump's policy, because increased costs of off-shoring at least partially off-set by the increased cost of foreign-manufactured goods.

After all, Trump's policies haven't really succeeded in reversing decades of off-shoring, only making off-shored products more expensive, the same outcome of increased taxes or regulations we might reasonably expect under a Democratic administration. Are we to expect that any administration who did run an iron-clad neoliberal ship was going to get coup'd? And if so, why did it take the "deep state" the full length of the Clinton, Bush and Obama eras to decide on this?

 

[Tristan_C]

I support the press 110%, they don't go far enough, everything Republicans basically do now is detrimental to the long term health of the nation and its people. It only supports the top 10%, it has no concerns for our children or grandchildren. It has no concerns for minorities. It has no concern for ethics, the rule of law, or hell even decency in business. We are witnessing a blitzkrieg on the economic health of the nation because they and their donors know they will get rich off of it or they have such a severely misguided sense of social justice they will take us back to 1890 and their libertarian fever dream of "equality".

I realize the press still has loyalists. The left has had majority-control over the flow of information: education, entertainment, and the press, for many years, and it will take some time for these self-selecting systems to crumble and/or transform. The internet has upset media and entertainment. Declining cost-effectiveness (the tuition bubble) is poised to upset education.

When you say "Republicans," "it," and "they," it is unclear who or what you are describing from one statement to the next, and it is unclear whether you are trying to demonstrate some understanding of "their" thought process or simply describing "their" behavior from a long distance. The only thing I can really get out of the post is that in spite of all your good intentions, you have managed to nurture a hostility to people who are different from you. Don't worry, it happens to everyone. Like they say, reality has a liberal bias. That's why it's so cruel

This is a pretty pissweak response. You made an explicit claim, that Trump is challenging certain entrenched interests. I asked what reason we have to believe this is the case. That's not a terribly fiendish question, and I didn't ask for figures; you offered those, and I pointed out that they don't clearly support your claim. If you're not prepared for your argument to be subject to public interrogation, why voice it publicly?

You're just trying to stall. We don't have any reason to believe your claim that he's no threat to the bureaucracy, with the firings and the battle against him throughout the bureaucracy rendering that absurd on its face. I'm here claiming the sun is hot and you're obstinately demanding and denying evidence simply for the sake of contradiction. You're not making a case for anything. Empty suit.

Surely you appreciate the irony of accusing an organisation of bias while also, in the same sentence, calling them "Stalinist"?

I am not making pretensions of being a journalist.

The hacks having orgasms onscreen when the deep state takes political prisoners are making pretensions of not being Stalinists.

 

[Lexicus]

I'd like to see any citation of industry moving back because of Trump's trade war personally. I've not heard of anything formal.

To bring industry back home you need to actually force it to return by imposing capital controls on US-based companies. Some might genuinely try to move overseas in that case but the majority of "offshoring" measured in money terms is just accounting fraud (creating a subsidiary company in a tax haven and then "paying" that subsidiary a bunch of money for fictitious services is a common approach).

 

[cardgame]

The hacks having orgasms onscreen when the deep state takes political prisoners are making pretensions of not being Stalinists.

You're way too intelligent to be posting conspiracy theories in sincerity

 

[Lexicus]

You're way too intelligent to be posting conspiracy theories in sincerity

Actually his posts are doing us the useful public service of demonstrating just how little daylight there is between mainstream conservatism in the US and outright Nazism.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You're way too intelligent to be posting conspiracy theories in sincerity

[citation needed]

 

[Takhisis]

You made an explicit claim, <snipped> I asked what reason we have to believe this is the case. <snipped> you offered those, and I pointed out that they don't clearly support your claim. If you're not prepared for your argument to be subject to public interrogation, why voice it publicly?

This is, basically, a worryingly large part of the political discourse, as exemplified, of course, by this thread.

 

[metalhead]

You're way too intelligent to be posting conspiracy theories in sincerity

It's quite literally all they have left. There is no practical argument in defense of conservatism any more. That's why conservatives stopped trying to make any, and gravitated toward Trump, who doesn't pretend to have any. The only thing left is to claim that there is some vast conspiracy against conservatives and circle the wagons against an imagined foe.

Because they can't reasonably assert their beliefs are grounded in reality, the only option is to posit that the opposition is in the same boat. Then you at least avoid the uncomfortable truth that your entire worldview is built on lies.

The wall argument is the perfect example. The best Tristan came up with is, "if walls don't work than how come we have walls in some places?" The answer is so self-obvious that it's insane it even needs to be said, but that doesn't matter. Stripped from any attempt to analyze it, this question has a sheen of rationality to it. It is of course laughable, but it allows one to escape the discussion and talk more about the Deep State.

 

[Takhisis]

An article (no paywall) on how the teahadists and other people whose ideals I find deplorable have still managed to shift the window of political discourse further towards the extreme. A wall is necessary (a digital one, which will enrich tech companies, military contractors and the prison industry) but the humanitarian crisis is not resolved.

 

[Takhisis]

For what?

For more or less all your recent claims.

 

[Lexicus]

The wall argument is the perfect example. The best Tristan came up with is, "if walls don't work than how come we have walls in some places?" The answer is so self-obvious that it's insane it even needs to be said, but that doesn't matter. Stripped from any attempt to analyze it, this question has a sheen of rationality to it. It is of course laughable, but it allows one to escape the discussion and talk more about the Deep State.

I feel like I saw a screencap recently of someone saying something like "Oh you don't want the wall? Then why does your house have walls? Checkmate libs"

The fact that it was impossible to determine whether it was satire or not says something...

 

[Traitorfish]

You're just trying to stall. We don't have any reason to believe your claim that he's no threat to the bureaucracy, with the firings and the battle against him throughout the bureaucracy rendering that absurd on its face. I'm here claiming the sun is hot and you're obstinately demanding and denying evidence simply for the sake of contradiction. You're not making a case for anything. Empty suit.

If you'll look back, I haven't actually make the explicit claim that Trump is no threat to the- well, you're now saying "the bureaucracy", but I believe the original phrase was "unelected creeps"- I asked you why we should accept your claim that he is. I asked you what Trump has done to threaten "the bureaucracy", and so far you haven't given a clear answer. Your position is not simply assumed to be true until somebody else proves the inverse; that's just not how discussion works.

For what it's worth, I do think that Trump's administration runs contrary to the commonsense of the American political establishment, and that there has been a certain amount of resistance to him because of that. But that's mostly because he's a pompous, blundering jackass who doesn't know how to operate in any system that isn't a private autocracy. That would generate resistance anywhere. It's not proof of conspiracy.

 

[sophie]

I feel like I saw a screencap recently of someone saying something like "Oh you don't want the wall? Then why does your house have walls? Checkmate libs"

The fact that it was impossible to determine whether it was satire or not says something...

 

[Lexicus]

WTH is the Green Monster?

 

[Gori the Grey]

I feel like I saw a screencap recently of someone saying something like "Oh you don't want the wall? Then why does your house have walls? Checkmate libs"

The fact that it was impossible to determine whether it was satire or not says something...

Especially since Trump has used it as a serious argument.

Green monster is a wall at Fenway Park, Lex.

 

[sophie]

WTH is the Green Monster?

Left field wall for the Boston Red Sox' ballpark

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If you'll look back, I haven't actually make the explicit claim that Trump is no threat to the- well, you're now saying "the bureaucracy", but I believe the original phrase was "unelected creeps"- I asked you why we should accept your claim that he is. I asked you what Trump has done to threaten "the bureaucracy", and so far you haven't given a clear answer. Your position is not simply assumed to be true until somebody else proves the inverse; that's just not how discussion works.

I dunno. Most things you say I assume to be at least reasonably supportable if not outright true. That's called credibility, of course, and is irrelevant to your current statement, but I just had to point it out.

 

[Lexicus]

Green monster is a wall at Fenway Park, Lex.

Left field wall for the Boston Red Sox' ballpark

My response: "Mr. Walsh, tear down this wall!"