Mojo Hand

He's a typical borrow-and-spend Republican, only more self-righteous than most.

The U.S. is in a significantly worse position today with respect to North Korea and Iran than the day Obama left office. Trump's policies have been a significant factor in that decline.

I think it's a great idea to offset this new spending. Let's tack on a total repeal of the Trump tax bill, which will easily pay for the 9/11 responders and much more! Can I get an amen, deficit hawks?

When most of us talk about writing off Trump supporters, we typically mean people who still support him today, not Trump voters like you who realize they made a mistake in 2016. As I see it, your category breaks down into (1) people who will definitely vote Dem one time only in 2020 to save the country, regardless of policy, and (2) people who will definitely not vote for Trump, but will either go third party or stay home unless there is a Dem they can swallow from a policy standpoint. There are two general strategies for group 2: move them toward us by persuading them to join group 1, or move us toward them by moderating policy to get them to vote D. I think the first strategy is worthwhile. The only practical alternative to Trump will be a Democrat. The problems with Trump go beyond partisan policy differences. Some of group 2 can be persuaded to hold their nose and vote D out of patriotism and moral duty. I think the second strategy is self-destructive. Moderating policy to get disenchanted conservative Trump voters will alienate voters on the left and in the working class. And any success will be short-lived: Biden will be light-years better than Trump, but IMO Trumpism will remain and return if the Dems don't provide a principled progressive alternative. Our country doesn't need (and can't survive) a moderate Dem party and a proto-fascist Republican party. What we need is a progressive Dem party and a conservative Republican party (and maybe a moderate third party, which is a separate discussion). IMO it was the moderation of the Dem party that led to this mess, with right-wing populism filling the void left vacant by Dems trying to appeal to voters in the ideological middle. And it will be a return to progressivism that both gets our country back on track and forces the GOP to fix itself to compete.

To the extent "racist" has been generally broadened, it's been to include other similarly despicable forms of bigotry and discrimination, like based on religion, ethnicity, or national origin. But unless the conversation is one in which race is relevant in a distinct way, it's a mere semantic argument that misses the point. Sure, there are always people who misuse any term, but for the most part the complaints about misusing this one are disingenuous. Of course, that is all beside the point with respect to Trump, as his comments were racist within the commonly accepted meaning of the term.

Dems don't have to rely on non-voters. They are way ahead among voters and will stay that way as long as they don't drop the ball by chasing windmills. And a strategy that focuses on them is mutually reinforcing with turning out less reliable voters, like young people, who also hate Trump. Overall it is a winning strategy. The totally disengaged voters who still don't get that Trump is an abomination by now are just irrational actors who shouldn't be the basis for campaign strategy. Resources are zero-sum: focusing on uniformed coin-flip voters will take away from a more productive focus elsewhere. And it's not clear that it will do any good; if they don't get it by now, why do you think more engagement will stop them from making an essentially random decision in 2020 anyway?

It's like some of y'all don't realize that you are arguing with the mental illness version of Dunning-Kruger.

It's because they take it personally. Which, in turn, is because they believe the same racist things that Trump is saying.

Since you don't appear to be capable of making more than the most superficial of arguments, what rationale other than race do you propose for Trump's professed belief that AOC, Tlaib, and Pressley were born in foreign countries? Keeping in mind that Trump did not offer any in his repeated comments on this topic since then.

The top tier of Dem candidates can and will win with the people who are already disgusted with Trump. Any effort to reach out to people who are still with Trump or even on the fence about Trump will backfire by alienating or demotivating the group already on the Dems's side. And to the extent some Trump supporters are reachable, we're just as likely to pick them up without trying, merely by providing a good alternative and Trump continuing to fuck up almost everything he touches. No, the Dems shouldn't go around insulting Trump supporters. They should speak positively about Americans as a whole, and when some Trump supporters migrate to that positive vision, great. But don't moderate a single policy to make it more appealing to Trump voters as a specific group. Don't waste a single breath talking about how some Trump supporters are really good people at heart who have been left behind. Don't waste a single moment of time trying to persuade a Trump supporter into seeing the error of his or her ways. I mean, you can do that at home with someone you know, but I mean campaign resources. The only risk of the Dems losing in 2020, aside from Trump cheating, comes from losing turnout or voters from the people already against Trump. And the only way that happens is if Dems fall into the trap of trying to tap into Trump's support.

We can explain it for you, as we have, but we can't understand it for you. I'm really not sure what you aren't getting about it being racist to tell native-born U.S. citizens of three different non-white ethnicities to "go back" to the countries "from which they came" (but did not). I mean, it's racist for multiple reasons, including the implicit notion that non-white citizens cannot be true Americans, and the long, history of the phrase being used with racial animus to target minorities. And that includes Omar, even though she wasn't born here. But even at the most superficial, semantic level, the definition of racism includes "racial prejudice or discrimination" (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism). Trump's false assumption and assertion that 3 native-born women of color "originally came" from other countries is racial prejudice in its most literal sense. I know Republicans have made their bones on using sophistry to hide racism under pretext, but sometimes a particularly stupid Republican goes so far that you can't hide behind the disingenuous claim that, "durr, you can't prove to a certainty that he thinks whites are superior to other races or that he was prejudging someone based on their race!!!" But Trump is particularly stupid and said the quiet part loud this time.

"I'm not a Trump supporter, I merely voted for him and justify his every misdeed by finding a Democrat in the last hundred years who did something remotely similar!" The only thing worse that a Trump supporter is a Trump supporter who pretends he isn't a Trump supporter. A shameless Trump supporter at least doesn't get, for whatever reason, that he should be ashamed. A Trump supporter who is ashamed to admit it knows it's shameful but supports him anyway.

That's just locker-room grabass.

Ah, well, nevertheless...

Both, actually. His mom was from Scotland. And he pretends his klansman father was born in Germany for some reason.

Well, yeah, that's the point.

The Trump supporters here and Republicans in Congress are worse people than the Mooch. Let that sink in.

It's not a waste at all for people who support her agenda. First, it sends a message to Dems across the nation as to what kind of grassroots support there is for those who speak out strongly on progressive issues. That makes other Dems more likely to join her. Second, it gives her more power within the party. Anyone who can raise that kind of money so easily can do so for others or the party itself. AOC isn't the one worried about being primaried; moderate Dems are worried about being primaried by someone backed by AOC. And the better she can fundraise without compromising her message, the stronger her position is to threaten moderate Dems.

Or Melania's racist birther attack on the last president. But it's ok for an unelected white immigrant to trash the president.

You lie!

It's up for streaming on HBO Go. Just watched the first episode.

That's not fair. If you were slorch, would you respect yourself?

That's all true, though I'd bet that Trump does actually assume that at least AOC and Tlaib are foreign-born.

Ah, I see. So why did Trump claim that AOC, Pressley, and Tlaib are from another country?