ndawg

Moreover, Trump losing doesn't cause the needle to move from 10% back down to 1%. In fact, it doesn't move the needle back at all. Trump winning would move the needle upwards, so Trump losing merely pauses a disturbing trend. It's what comes next that determines whether there's hope for a return to normalcy.

We're about two weeks away from that ^^

People stay poor because they can't coerce themselves into conforming to societal expectations. And for all that rugged individualism that Republicans seem to love promoting, I always tend to find a rather contradictory expectation of conformity underneath. "Be whoever you want to be, after all, this isn't communism. But also be prepared to devote your entire existence to helping other people make money off of your hard work. If you can't do that, fuck you, because I bought into this system, and I'll be damned if I let you take the fruits of my hard work."

Are you okay?

I think they're connected, too. Conservatives have a hard time retaining power without compromising their principles because they tend to be ineffective at governing.

This poll has a strange TahoeHorn vibe to it. Weird. Could just be me. Anyways, I'll play along. I voted Biden, and I'd rather get a chance to meet Biden than throw a tomato at Trump. Meeting a former VP, and likely P, in person is a once in a lifetime event that you can hang your hat on for the rest of your life. I don't think the satisfaction from throwing a tomato at Trump would last more than a week.

There’s another component I’d throw in there: they make the very wrong assumption that inaction can sustain the status quo. They don’t realize that inaction is just failing to govern, which brings about regression as a consequence. I see people in the corporate world make this same simple-minded mistake all the time. They fail to strategize entirely, because they want to “stay the course.” They don’t get that staying on course requires constant action.

You've never seen a company bring on a big name to their board that isn't expected to do anything beyond bestow the company with prestige and legitimacy by association? Really? You've never seen that?

Thanks for the sincere response. I said I wouldn't pounce on your questions, and I won't, but if you wanted to discuss this further, I would ask where Trump's unrelenting challenge to the legitimacy of our elections ranks. To me, this seems to be one of those issues where you either have to buy in to Trump's alternate reality to accept it, or you have to otherwise be completely set against it. We cannot continue to have any form of democracy when it's normal to challenge our elections. If we assume hypothetically that Biden wins, we can foresee in the 2024 election that the next up-and-coming GOP candidates will be asked point blank whether they felt 2020 was rigged or not. Given how much of the Republican party buys in to Trump's alternate reality, I predict they will not consent to Biden's legitimacy. Therefore, as much of a bummer as it is to say this, it seems like a real possibility that we will never have a free and fair presidential election again, which would mean the end of the Great Experiment. I'm not saying that's the most likely outcome, but it's still on the table, and would have been unthinkable before Trump.

I promise I'm not asking this question just to pounce on your answers; I'm legitimately curious. In your mind, what are the three worst things that the DNC has done in the last four years? And since Trump also isn't your ideal candidate, what are the three worst things that Trump has done?

I figure "conservative Trump voter" is code for "I want to preserve the way I imagine America to be."

Last week when I landed my helicopter in the Dominion to play a few rounds of golf with George Strait and David Robinson, I noticed a lot of Biden signs littering the relatively (to me, at least) puny chattel houses strewn about the landscape.

Trump's style of corruption isn't conspiracies in dark alleyways. It's a public brand that is understood to be shameless and sleazy, protected by a thin film of mafia style plausible deniability. Here's an explanation for Ratcliffe being subserviant to Kremlin interests that doesn't involve any subterfuge or secret meetings. Trump doesn't hatch elaborate plans and instruct his minions to carry them out. He's much too stupid for that, and, frankly, in a weird way, he's also too smart for that, because he doesn't need to hatch risky plans that could land him in trouble if he were ratted out. By simply raging at the hint of any idea he wants his administration to steer clear of, and encouraging anyone who puts up distractions away from those verboten topics, he establishes a culture where everyone is complicit in his criminal activity, but appears from the outside to be acting more or less autonomously. Let's start with the premise that Ratcliffe, like all yes-men who Trump surrounds himself with, is a chicken shit stooge. Ratcliffe, being a chicken shit stooge, is therefore inclined to ignore or downplay Russia on his own volition because that's the path of least resistance in this administration. He also knows he gets brownie points for deflecting any intelligence about election interference (a topic that always seems to hover around Russia) towards any other nation. It doesn't take a massive, elaborate conspiracy here for it to be plausible that Ratcliffe's actions are indirectly yet strongly influenced by the Kremlin.

This is the intended effect of all the “both sides” nonsense. No matter how many arguments Trumpkins lose on here, they still in fact win the moment we accidentally agree to a double standard. Which is really hard to avoid doing, because even relatively logical humans are impressionable.

If you step back and consider that “I am the least racist person in the room” wasn’t a disaster for Trump, but “shut down oil production” was seen as a blunder for Biden, it’s really amazing how far apart the two standards we’ve set for these candidates really are.

"Will you remember that Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio" <-- three states Biden does not need to win.

Fucking this. It takes an order of magnitude more preparation and effort to refute bullshit than to refute it. I don't care how smart anyone here thinks they are. Biden is on an international stage fighting against a shameless bullshitter. He's doing better than we'd do.

"I'm the least racist person in the room. I can't even see the audience because it's so dark. I'm the least racist person in the room."

If Trump is the embodiment of America's id, Joe is the embodiment of our conscience.

I hate to sayyyeeeeeeeEEEEeeeeehhhhheeeee...... low IQ.

Man, seeing someone who has struggled with stuttering rattle off a heated argument is inspiring. Biden was near the bottom of my list, and that hits me hard in the feels.

Biden is wrecking him with a fire and brimstone stance. I didn't see that coming.

Trump is objectively doing terrible. His base evaluates him subjectively, so it doesn't matter. Dunno what else to say.

"Average contribution, $43."

Yeah, and the frustrating thing to me is that the goal intended by "trimming the fat" is such a self evident one that everybody should be on board with the idea. If Americans could have every benefit afforded by the government at a lower price, you could split the difference and give Americans even more using half the savings, and both conservatives and liberals would be happy. Unfortunately, liberals would be suspicious that American citizens would end up with less (which, to be fair, has merit; budget cuts always trickle down) and today's conservative politicians are just too fucking stupid to be capable of pulling off any kind of well-thought out plan. So, in reality, we're back where we started. It's a systems problem that can only be addressed with systems thinking.