2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Lexicus]

First of all, the concept of only "two sides," is an artificial and highly inaccurate concept engineered by a manipulative propaganda engine pushing absolutist, Neo-Manichaean, siege mentality, divide-and-conquer politics.

It's engineered by winner-take all districts with first-past-the-post elections, actually. This structure of US elections means that you must make your coalition as large as possible, hence US politics tends to coalesce around two relatively stable political coalitions, represented by the two parties.

 

[El_Machinae]

@Socrates99 seems to disagree though.

Those that don't hate him or love him are going to tolerate him (whether they like or dislike), so the flaws are noticed and known, but the flaws that people see aren't enough to drive all the way to 'hate' (or 'love'). They're brushing off the propensity to divide, the propensity towards hypocrisy, and propensity to falsehood. They see enough in the policies that "they don't mind", and I do admit that I have trouble with empathy there.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

First of all, the concept of only "two sides," is an artificial and highly inaccurate concept...

Ignoring realities of our political landscape that we dislike is unlikely to produce good effects.

Those that don't hate him or love him are going to tolerate him (whether they like or dislike), so the flaws are noticed and known, but the flaws that people see aren't enough to drive all the way to 'hate' (or 'love'). They're brushing off the propensity to divide, the propensity towards hypocrisy, and propensity to falsehood. They see enough in the policies that "they don't mind", and I do admit that I have trouble with empathy there.

"See enough in the policies..." is basically interchangeable with "drank his koolaid" at this point.

 

[Berzerker]

Someone may like this.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/202...-the-wreckage-of-trumps-gop?intcid=inline_amp

Not surprisingly, Stevens, an adviser to two George W. Bush presidential campaigns and a top strategist for Mitt Romney’s 2012 bid against Barack Obama, has become the latest apostate to his party, declaring in his best-selling book, It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump, that Republicans have sacrificed every last belief and principle they held dear on the bonfire of Trump’s vanity. And now, not even the catastrophically mismanaged coronavirus pandemic can wake them from their stupor.

Bush and Romney hate Trump but who sent infected old people back into nursing homes in NY? When Trump restricted travel from China the Democrats condemned him and spent the next few weeks dismissing the virus while encouraging mass gatherings. Now they're blaming a death toll they helped produce on him.

It is the combination of the anti-intellectualism, the anti-education elements of the Republican Party, and the anti-elite elements of the Republican Party, so-called, that have culminated in this toxic brew that is killing tens of thousands of Americans,” says Stevens, who recently joined the independent Never Trump organization the Lincoln Project. “I mean, more Americans are going to die because of this combination of political beliefs than major wars. This virus [is] attacking Americans. And Donald Trump is making it a lot worse, and we all know this. But Republicans won’t even stand up to defend America.”

How many Americans died in major wars? Biden's more pro war than Trump.

Consequently, Stevens calls Trump a “traitor” to his country. “I really think he is against America,” he says, blaming the Republican Party for “a complete collapse of responsibility that they had to defend democracy in America.” The following is an edited transcript of two conversations with Stevens conducted by Joe Hagan.

Trump didn't lie to a fisa court to overturn an election

 

[Patine]

It's engineered by winner-take all districts with first-past-the-post elections, actually. This structure of US elections means that you must make your coalition as large as possible, hence US politics tends to coalesce around two relatively stable political coalitions, represented by the two parties.

That was the foundational point, yes. But the rot set in, and the organized crime cartels solidified their turfs, and the soft tyranny and forced socio-political divide ripping apart the U.S. at the seams, began after the end of political realignment and more potentially open-ended period of the Progressive and WW2 eras.

 

[El_Machinae]

Tim: I don't think that's true. You might not be having enough conversations with people who tolerate-but-prefer-Trump to compare to people who drink his Kool-Aid.

 

[Gori the Grey]

This I ask you

This I ask you, Patine (for the third time): for what candidate would you like to see me vote this November?

 

[Lexicus]

That was the foundational point, yes. But the rot set in, and the organized crime cartels solidified their turfs, and the soft tyranny and forced socio-political divide ripping apart the U.S. at the seams, began after the end of political realignment and more potentially open-ended period of the Progressive and WW2 eras.

If the organized crime cartels solidifed their turfs please explain how Donald Trump won the 2016 Republican primary.

I don't think that's true. You might not be having enough conversations with people who tolerate-but-prefer-Trump to compare to people who drink his Kool-Aid.

There is no set of people who do tolerate-but-prefer Trump but aren't disgusting bestial Nazis.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I don't think that's true. You might not be having enough conversations with people who tolerate-but-prefer-Trump to compare to people who drink his Kool-Aid.

I think if you pursue those conversations you eventually reach the koolaid effect. Even the people who are "he is stacking the courts in our favor" purists are ignoring the fact that he and McConnell are being so hamfisted about it that there could very well be a massive backlash to undo even that "good effect."

 

[El_Machinae]

Here are many reasons, many of which can be teased out:
- believe in Trickle Down
- think the ACA is a bad idea
- worried about China
- pro-life tendencies
- anti-WTO
- think environmentalists go too far
- think that the rioters went too far
- etc.

I know CFC has a two-minutes of hate thing, and I'm on-board. But a centrist (R) can only be reasoned with, not bullied, into changing their minds.

There is no set of people who do tolerate-but-prefer Trump but aren't disgusting bestial Nazis.

Sure, fine, but that ends the conversation. You don't need to keep replying with this. In fact, if you do, please don't tag me.

 

[Socrates99]

@Socrates99 seems to disagree though.

Oh theres plenty of people holding their nose while voting for him just like you and I will when we make our mark next to Biden's.

 

[Patine]

If the organized crime cartels solidifed their turfs please explain how Donald Trump won the 2016 Republican primary.

He makes a good populist face, allowing the Republican Establishment to get away with things off of their normal platform ruts, but have plausible deniability in their own compliscency. And it gives the frustrated partisan masses the ability to vent some steam. That would be my analysis and prognosis. And, he IS a plutocrat, remember.

[QUOTE="Lexicus, post: 15909053, member: 125098"There is no set of people who do tolerate-but-prefer Trump but aren't disgusting bestial Nazis.[/QUOTE]

Although it's almost certain Fascists and Nazis support him - in lock step with David Duke, they aren't REMOTELY enough in number as a support base if they were the only ones supporting. As I've said many times, actual Nazis and Fascists are a tiny, tiny percentage of the U.S. population, and they tend to live in the middle of nowhere in tiny, crap rural towns, with a few leftover and aging "Skinheads," from the '70's and '80's still lurking in some suburban areas. The numbers are frankly pitiful. The LGBTQ lobby has, by far and wide, many more activist numbers behind their banner, for example, than actual Fascists and Nazis in the U.S. And Donald Trump, himself, is a far cry from any sort of "Fascist Leader," figure - he's not in the mold at all, remotely.

 

[Patine]

Here are many reasons, many of which can be teased out:
- believe in Trickle Down
- think the ACA is a bad idea
- worried about China
- pro-life tendencies
- anti-WTO
- think environmentalists go too far
- think that the rioters went too far
- etc.

I know CFC has a two-minutes of hate thing, and I'm on-board. But a centrist (R) can only be reasoned with, not bullied, into changing their minds.


Sure, fine, but that ends the conversation. You don't need to keep replying with this. In fact, if you do, please don't tag me.

I hope that's meant to be "registered trademark," beside "Centrist," and not a comment that shows your ignorant, base-level capabilities of political discourse and understanding, and subscribing to a braindead simplistic view on things.

 

[Lexicus]

Oh theres plenty of people holding their nose while voting for him just like you and I will when we make our mark next to Biden's.

Are they holding their nose to avoid the stench of the tens of thousands of American corpses Trump has piled up?
I have family on the West Coast who are stuck inside with air purifiers because the air outside is hazardous. Not just like, unhealthy, but hazardous. Remind me exactly why I care about whether someone voted for Trump enthusiastically or held their nose while they did it? They are all equally dangerous to the country. To quote that Republican strategist from upthread, they have all turned away fundamentally from what it means to be an American.

It's a bit like the Confederacy. Plenty of Confederates were reluctant to go along with the Confederacy - Lee famously was conflicted over this issue - but they still did. And those reluctant secessionists ended up causing just as much trouble for the country as the fanatical secessionists did.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Here are many reasons, many of which can be teased out:
- believe in Trickle Down
- think the ACA is a bad idea
- worried about China
- pro-life tendencies
- anti-WTO
- think environmentalists go too far
- think that the rioters went too far
- etc.

I know CFC has a two-minutes of hate thing, and I'm on-board. But a centrist (R) can only be reasoned with, not bullied, into changing their minds.

The "centrist (R)" has long since been bullied out of the party. Trump recognized they were gone and abandoned any lingering efforts at a pretense towards the "traditional Republican values." He has just gone straight to the bones that were always there under the meat; racism and general xenophobia.

People who claim to support the current GOP/Trump because they "believe in trickle down" have drunk the koolaid because Trump doesn't...he has no coherent economic policy.

People who claim to support the current GOP/Trump because they "think the ACA is a bad idea" have drunk the koolaid because Trump has no real opinion on the matter and no coherent policy on health care.

People who claim to support the current GOP/Trump because they "are worried about China" have drowned in the koolaid because they are the same people who used to worry about Russia and Trump has revitalized Russia beyond even Putin's wildest hopes.

Etc.

As I said, only the drinkers of the koolaid don't hate him being president.

 

[Lexicus]

He makes a good populist face, allowing the Republican Establishment to get away with things off of their normal platform ruts, but have plausible deniability in their own compliscency. And it gives the frustrated partisan masses the ability to vent some steam. That would be my analysis and prognosis. And, he IS a plutocrat, remember.

No, my question is specifically how did Trump win the nomination in the face of opposition from the entire Republican Establishment. If the parties are as all-powerful as you claim, with the ability to lock down the political process and prevent any challengers from emerging, why did the opposition of the entire institutional Republican Party fail to stop Trump from winning the nomination?

Sure, fine, but that ends the conversation. You don't need to keep replying with this. In fact, if you do, please don't tag me.

No, it just starts a new conversation you don't want to have which is: what do we actually do about living in a country where around 40% of the population want to, basically, destroy the country from the inside out?

 

[Socrates99]

I know it feels better to dehumanize them. I'd argue they're more stupid than evil.

 

[El_Machinae]

No, it just starts a new conversation you don't want to have which is: what do we actually do about living in a country where around 40% of the population want to, basically, destroy the country from the inside out?

Was unclear? Stop tagging me regarding this - we've both said our piece to each other. I'll do you the favour of not tagging you.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Was unclear? Stop tagging me regarding this - we've both said our piece to each other. I'll do you the favour of not tagging you.

I think it was fair to describe a new conversation there.

What do we do about having 40% of the population basically abandon the basic tenets of democracy (for whatever reasons and with whatever amount of enthusiasm)?

 

[Lexicus]

Was unclear? Stop tagging me regarding this - we've both said our piece to each other. I'll do you the favour of not tagging you.

I mean, I understand that it's a deeply unpleasant fact to confront, but ignoring it won't make it go away.