[RD] The threat to American Democracy

[Sommerswerd]

If you know the context of the reference it makes more sense. In the original show Jesse tells the cops that because they arrogantly believe they can easily deal with Walt; what instead ends up happening is that Walt goes free while the cops both are killed by a gang of Nazis. I'm not using the quote to refer to the level of evil that Trump has, but rather to his evident dark powers that he uses to bamboozle his political enemies.

The Democrats have some chance against it because they appeal to completely different values. Trump's republican rivals have to play on the same field he plays on, and so they end up seeming like lame versions of him.

Yeah I missed that show, although I've heard it was very good, but anyway, OK I think I get it. You seem to be clarifying that its not your view that Trump is worse (or better from the perspective of his supporters) than the other Republicans. You think he's the same level of bad, but Republican voters and/or Trump supporters think that Trump is better (ie worse from the Democratic/progressive perspective).

If that's right, then it seems like the reason you believe Trump's supporters think he is awesome and the other Republicans are lame wannabes, is because of Trump's superior ability to court them through his schtick and antics and less dog-whistle'y, more direct appeals to their prejudices, biases, fears, bigotry, etc.

If that's also right, then I will suggest to you that this is precisely one of the reasons that Trump is in-fact worse. As @Gori the Grey points out, there are millions of Republican voters that will only show up to the polls for Trump. Now of course as Gori also touched upon, there is the converse question of how much Trump's absence from the election might depress Democratic turnout. But then we're drifting into the "hoping the worse opposing candidate wins so we can beat them" mentality, which is trash.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Yes, me too, exactly. And I'm sure I've been a worse person than you ever were.

That's very flattering, thanks, but its almost certainly not the case, sadly.

C'mon, you can figure it out have a guess.

Lincoln

 

[EnglishEdward]

... there are millions of Republican voters that will only show up to the polls for Trump ...

Evidence ?

I dare say that if asked, they may say that.

But when Donald Trump finally spins off his mortal coil as we all
must do, are they really going to abstain en masse from voting?

 

[El_Machinae]

It's definitely a hard calculus. I think Biden gets stomped by any sane-seeming Republican. But we'll find out if the only Republican that can beat Trump is a saner-seeming Trumpster. Do people remember how confused the Republican debaters were in 2016, when Trump kept going off script on what a 'true conservative' was? That version of (R) might be dead as a politician, but Trump has pulled the Overton window over completely on what they consider acceptable. Obama debated Romney on budgets by saying the government need a scalpel. We'll see if (R) says the same thing about the population.

 

[Farm Boy]

If a Republican wins the primary in 2024 by appealing to different values rather than just attacking Trump personally, your point will have been made.

So let's see. The point is Republicans aren't all Trumpy the same and the test you come up with is both a primary victory in the American political system and a stipulation the the method can't be criticizing the primary problem, the measure of victory, instead it must be on a values measure tbd?

just nah.

 

[Lexicus]

If that's right, then it seems like the reason you believe Trump's supporters think he is awesome and the other Republicans are lame wannabes, is because of Trump's superior ability to court them through his schtick and antics and less dog-whistle'y, more direct appeals to their prejudices, biases, fears, bigotry, etc.

Essentially, yes, though there's more to it than that: Trump has a certain wit, an ability to think on his feet, to be funny, especially when insulting his rivals, that I've never seen in any other politician. Slick Willy probably comes closest to it but his was more standard charisma.

What Trump has is, I feel, best illustrated by this tweet:


Who else, R or D, could come up with fire like this? No one.

Lincoln

Bingo

That's very flattering, thanks, but its almost certainly not the case, sadly.

I assure you, I was once a bad hombre and still am pretty pathetic.

 

[Lexicus]

So let's see. The point is Republicans aren't all Trumpy the same and the test you come up with is both a primary victory in the American political system and a stipulation the the method can't be criticizing the primary problem, the measure of victory, instead it must be on a values measure tbd?

This is largely incomprehensible to me; my view is that who wins the election gives useful information about the values of the people who vote in the election. For example, democrats voted for Joe biden in 2020 and not Bernie because they mostly agree with Biden and not Bernie.

You disagree? Tbh I think the Republican primary is more "democratic" than the Democratic primary...

 

[EnglishEdward]

On the other hand many democrats might have voted for Jo Biden rather than Bernie Sanders not because they agreed with Jo Biden
more than they agreed with Bernie Sanders, but merely because they thought Joe Biden was a better candidate to beat Donald Trump.

Being very cynical, both Dems and Reps are playing the same game.

Let the other party select their candidate, and then we select a candidate to beat that candidate.

And there is a who will blink first game, covered up at the moment by two too elderly contenders.

 

[Farm Boy]

This is largely incomprehensible to me; my view is that who wins the election gives useful information about the values of the people who vote in the election. For example, democrats voted for Joe biden in 2020 and not Bernie because they mostly agree with Biden and not Bernie.

You disagree? Tbh I think the Republican primary is more "democratic" than the Democratic primary...

Good lord that's an argument deeply rooted in a majority mindset. Gonna take me a while to chew on. But it makes sense in thread context. After all:

Obama debated Romney on budgets by saying the government need a scalpel. We'll see if (R) says the same thing about the population.

this is actually a literal adversarial party plank in the Republican opposition that the Rs are getting to deciding how much to absorb. But that's not the deployment here, because of the warp.

 

[El_Machinae]

Can you describe what you mean a bit more? It has been awhile since I've listened to them give a talk, I'll grant. A LOT of my listening time is debunking stuff people send me haha.

 

[Gori the Grey]

You forgot to add *to Ludacris' song "Move **** (Get Out The Way)"*

I did not forget to say that. I was counting on the cognoscenti to recognize the reference without my saying it. You're in.

The answer to the other question is Newsom.

 

[schlaufuchs]

In the time since leaving office Obama has revealed himself to be a cynical, fame-obsessed narcissist. I don’t think anybody who was known to brag in private about how great of a killer he was deserves anything like the moniker: “a decent person”

I think Chapo had the most accurate characterization of the man as someone who sought the presidency not out of a desire to effect change, nor out of any deeply held political or moral convictions, but rather simply so that he could get to watch himself being president. And it’s not like this should come as a surprise, it was apparent to Adolph Reed who observed him in his Hyde Park days.

He is, in this sense, the mirror image of Trump: identical motivations, and fundamental character, but cloaked in different aesthetic trappings

 

[Lexicus]

Good lord that's an argument deeply rooted in a majority mindset. Gonna take me a while to chew on. But it makes sense in thread context. After all:

The majority is "mostly". This seems fairly trivial to me.

 

[Lexicus]

In the time since leaving office Obama has revealed himself to be a cynical, fame-obsessed narcissist.

Mostly agree.

 

[Farm Boy]

The majority is "mostly". This seems fairly trivial to me.

Then using mostly to describe a group as relatively homogeneous, while using(qualified!)victory in a radicalizing aspect of the election process as the sample... is bumpkis conclusion.

Either way, to pull it back to the 70s being an age of relative non polarization compared to today:

 

[Takhisis]

The Carter administration armed the Indonesian government in its campaign of genocide against East Timor. Almost a million dead.

It was Carter, not Reagan, who started the deregulation craze and opened a new salvo in the war against organized labor.

Carter appointed Volcker as Fed Chairman. Volcker's prolonged regime of high interest rates broke the back of this country's heavy industries and there are thousands of communities strewn across the land which have never recovered.

It infuriates me that this man has been able to rehab his image.

Yes.

Hence why I say that if Carter was the closest a US president got to decent within living memory, then that's an indictment of the US government.

 

[stinkubus]

What's actually decent about him tho? He's every bit as awful as Reagan and I don't understand how that gets mitigated by his "aw shucks I'm just a gawd fearin' peanut farmer" routine.

 

[r16]

somehow must have irritated the Washington , as deduced from the rumours that once go around . That ı have a Russian mistress who poisons me against the world with pillow talk . Everytime ı deny this , everytime they claim that ı lie and so on . Today , apparently she is a pilot ... Oh please God , put some mercy in Uncle Sam's heart , so that the State Department will have mercy on me to tell she shot down that Ukranians BEFORE !

thread wise , of course ı checked some unsavoury place and learned something amazing or whatever . We of course are always brought up with the example of the 1936 , to teach us the evil aspects of Racism and stuff , at least ı was in high school and stuff . Right there Adolf with a belief in the Aryans and totally crushed by Jesse Owens . So that he would not talk with the Black Guy . Except Owens (reportedly) says he nodded to the Führer and while he kept sitting in his seat , he gave a Nazi salute back . As in Adolf might have been angry at a Black guy routing his best but he would at least respond with a funny reminder of his ideology and he was not defeated or anything . If you can't bring yourself to think he liked the trolling and trolled back or whatever . Owens then (reportedly) says Roosevelt didn't do even that . No messages and certainly no trophies in a ceremony in the White House , because not one of the Black athletes of the 1936 US Olympic Team were invited to the White House where all the Whites went ...

as in , you know , reinforcing the claim that the camps would be not in Occupied Europe or Germany proper . Like it still impresses to read the first time Americans fired their weapons in Europe , it was the American Military Police trying to stop their Black construction troops drinking in British pubs while mingled with Whites .

finally figured out the Thunderbolts some pages back , they are most probably painted that way with fake canopy segments for a movie about the Berlin Airlift ı certainly remember having seen on TV ... Actually ı only remember seeing them ...

 

[r16]

carter ? While he really ambushed the Russians to invade Afghanistan with the mutiny in Herat ; the savagery of which was made worse by the Iranian Revolution which succeeded because Carter stopped the Iranian Military as it still had a chance to stop it with a bloodbath and all that ... Yet , as already referenced , he wouldn't let the plague gain traction with a brilliant idea that it was evil Chinese trying to backstab the US . Even when he did , he would still try to do the best to fight it in the US , instead of telling people to drink various disinfectant things .

 

[Lexicus]

What's actually decent about him tho?

Basically, that he came after Nixon/Ford and before Reagan