2020 US Election (Part One)

[rah]

In all honesty, he's had many memorable verbal moments.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yeah, I mean after all there's no way Biden could have realized in 2003 that heaping effusive praise on one of the most prominent segregationists in the 20th century United States might be a bad idea.

Speaking ill of the dead used to be considered poor form, believe it or not. In the post Trump world that seems...quaint...I suppose.

 

[Lexicus]

Speaking ill of the dead used to be considered poor form, believe it or not. In the post Trump world that seems...quaint...I suppose.

Seems like there might be some space between "effusive praise" and "speaking ill" like, for example, declining to speak at his funeral at all? Idk maybe not. But by all accounts Joe really was friends with Strom, which is just one more example of the illustrious high-minded tradition of American whites agreeing to disagree about whether black people are actually human.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Seems like there might be some space between "effusive praise" and "speaking ill" like, for example, declining to speak at his funeral at all? Idk maybe not. But by all accounts Joe really was friends with Strom, which is just one more example of the illustrious high-minded tradition of American whites agreeing to disagree about whether black people are actually human.

Well, it also hearkens back to the day when the legislature actually worked as designed and bills got compromised on in a bipartisan fashion every day.

 

[Berzerker]

Trump's latest tirade against McCain apparently was inspired by recent confirmation he sent the Steele dossier to the FBI

 

[Zardnaar]

Bad comments won't kill a candidates viability. Trump for example.

Biden has the best numbers vs Trump in the mid west apparently. And that's where you need to win. Beto seems popular as well.

 

[Imaus]

Speaking ill of the dead used to be considered poor form, believe it or not. In the post Trump world that seems...quaint...I suppose.

The dead deserve to be exhumed and dragged through the mud, especially if their policies and actions are still affecting us today; even if they were on 'our side'. McCain's effective spinelessness against Trump and opposition to modernizing America's welfare state does not dissipate because he's a corpse. Storm deserves little to no mercy either for being a trash human being.

As well, all these 'B's. Is Harris DOA or not? Cause she seems to be somewhere less radical than the Reparations party but not Bluedog either. Again, that may be her undoing - people want more than Debt Free College, they want Universal Tertiary Education; for example.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

And as I said; I can never be forgiven for participating in systemic racism as a teenager since it is being constantly pointed out on Twitter and therefore I should have seen it myself.

 

[Lexicus]

And as I said; I can never be forgiven for participating in systemic racism as a teenager since it is being constantly pointed out on Twitter and therefore I should have seen it myself.

Well, if you were a Presidential candidate it would be more understandable for people - voters - to consider it a deal-breaker

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, if you were a Presidential candidate it would be more understandable for people - voters - to consider it a deal-breaker

Perhaps. Of course that results in having to revoke the minimum age limit on presidents.

 

[Imaus]

And as I said; I can never be forgiven for participating in systemic racism as a teenager since it is being constantly pointed out on Twitter and therefore I should have seen it myself.

You can if you change, meaningfully, and act with and on that change. There were plenty of mid-century racists who changed their tone, and most importantly, voted to enact change on the congress floor, weren't there?

But one does not get kudos for speaking and not acting, is all.

 

[Lexicus]

Ah, well I assumed that "participating in structural racism" was being defined in such a way as to leave some people who actually didn't do it, but...

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You can if you change, meaningfully, and act with and on that change.

Really? Al Franken got run out of the senate because a decade earlier he had done some off color joking around while he was a comedian. The basis of that was completely rooted in "you should have conducted yourself then as if you know what we know now." And that kind of crap happens every day.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Ah, well I assumed that "participating in structural racism" was being defined in such a way as to leave some people who actually didn't do it, but...

Nope. That's sort of the point. What is looked back on from the comfortable viewing stand of 2019 and condemned as so horrifically shocking as to be unimaginable and unforgivable is viewed by the people who lived through it as "well, yeah, that's just what was happening at the time."

I just had this conversation with my sister, that at some point came to how a friend of hers in college, who was black, took her to a...not really a party, but the thing that happens when a few people show up at someone else's dorm room. The two girls whose room this was in told her straight out to leave, or more accurately not to come through the door in the first place, and got hard with her friend about having brought some white girl around. In the course of telling this story my sister said "but they were from Texas, so..." and my sister went to college in Texas and there is an inherent belief among people our age who grew up in California that that makes all things different.

And it was hard to use most facts to shake her, because most facts would indicate that it was different. The girls who unceremoniously kicked her out of their dorm room had, indeed, attended an all black high school after attending an all black elementary school, where my sister had gone to integrated schools in California. The dorm they lived in had been built using a donation from a benefactor who had specified that it would always be an all white dorm, who was undoubtedly rolling in his grave at the idea that the government had superseded his wishes, and I cannot say that I ever saw such a thing on any campus in California even back then...but there may have been for all I know really.

However, I did tell her about a friend I have now, who is basically my age, who went to 'church school' when he was elementary school age because the area he lived in was east of one school district, north of another school district, and southwest of a third school district and all three districts were claiming that "they" belonged in one of the other districts..."they" being the kids growing up in one of the only local areas where black people were allowed to buy property. She was astounded to hear that my friend didn't grow up in Texas, but about ten miles from where we grew up. And that when we were growing up the real estate agents in our city, and the neighboring city, operated from an agreement that was even then illegal, but had not been for long and wasn't encountering any enforcement, that designated two areas out in the county, one to the east of one city and the other to the west of the other city, as acceptable for blacks to purchase property.

"But, we had next door neighbors"...who were renters. "But, there were black kids in my high school"...because the high school district stretched for miles in every direction, and included where my friend grew up...though they tried to keep him out since he didn't go to a 'real' elementary school, as if that was his fault...until they realized what a good wide receiver he was, at which point two of the high schools started fighting over exactly where the line was as to which school he should go to. And I've told him that when I was in high school I said many times "sure there's black kids in my school...about forty of them...they're our football team." A joke at the time that seems not the tiniest bit funny knowing what I know now, but was in fact part of the same "well, it's better in California than Texas" fantasy that my sister had to be disabused of. He isn't mad at me for it, because frankly he didn't know himself why he had gone to church school until he was somewhere around thirty and it just sort of came up in a conversation with his parents.

But I'm sure there is someone, somewhere, who could quote me on that one if I were to be running for office. And plenty of people who would find it to be obscenely insensitive, at best. And unforgivable.

 

[onejayhawk]

You can if you change, meaningfully, and act with and on that change. There were plenty of mid-century racists who changed their tone, and most importantly, voted to enact change on the congress floor, weren't there?

But one does not get kudos for speaking and not acting, is all.

That's been Trump's secret. Everyone knows he said. It still caught most by surprise when he actually did it. He has convinced a lot of never-Trumpers on the Republican side of the aisle.

It's also Beto's weakness--no skins on the wall.

J

 

[Takhisis]

Ah, well I assumed that "participating in structural racism" was being defined in such a way as to leave some people who actually didn't do it, but...

So basically you should leave out the entire world population (barring a few tribes deep in Amazonian jungles who remain uncontacted by global civilisation) then.

Actually this might not be that bad an idea…?!

 

[onejayhawk]

UVa has done an article covering voting trends since 2000. No big surprises that I can see.
http://crystalball.centerforpolitic...icles/this-centurys-electoral-college-trends/

J

 

[onejayhawk]

Sen. Tom Udall in New Mexico is retiring. This gives the Democrats one more seat to worry about. Udall was a sure thing. Now, it's merely likely that the seat stays blue.

J

 

[Berzerker]

Really? Al Franken got run out of the senate because a decade earlier he had done some off color joking around while he was a comedian. The basis of that was completely rooted in "you should have conducted yourself then as if you know what we know now." And that kind of crap happens every day.

He was grabbing women at campaign events before and after becoming a senator

 

[Berzerker]

Franken, not Udall