2024 Presidential Election Thread - Let's keep the party going.

[BamaATL 16592]

3 hours ago, wood said:

Yep I was born in FloriBama, i.e. the panhandle. Pensacola NAS. So I know where you're coming from on that. 

Not gonna lie, I initially read that you were born in the Floribama.  This lead me to draw many conclusions, none of them of good.  

[Js1 85041]

Vice President Kamala Harris has a significant lead over former President Donald Trump among Asian Americans, according to a poll conducted earlier this month. 

The poll showed that 66% of Asian American voters plan on backing Harris, while 28% say they’ll be voting for Trump. When he was still in the race, President Joe Biden had been losing Asian American voters, dropping roughly 8 points compared to the 2020 presidential election cycle, a previous poll showed.

66-28 Harris

46-31 Biden in May

Roughly the same as 2020. More large scale sampling showing little to no change from 2020 with black voters, Latino voters, Asian voters or young voters. 

[Js1 85041]

MIAMI – SEPTEMBER 24, 2024 – Noticias Univision today announced two town halls with Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The special “Los Latinos Preguntan … Donald Trump Responde” will air on Tuesday, Oct 8, at 10 p.m. ET from Miami, Fla. “Los Latinos Preguntan … Kamala Harris Responde” will air on Thursday, Oct 10, at 10 p.m. ET from Las Vegas, Nev. Both events will air coast-to-coast with Spanish-language translation on Univision and stream on ViX’s Noticias 24/7 channel and will also be available in English on Noticias Univision’s YouTube channel. 

[Chips O'Toole 1316]

Over/under on the number of times Trump mentions a Mexican food menu item?

I'm thinking 4.5.  

[OU Sucks 8743]

If you wonder how this race is even close, look at all the people in the comments who are still peddling the "immigrants are eating pets in Springfield" lie in an article from a blue state news outlet:

So just imagine how bad the misinformation is on all the red state news outlets, and even worse, on X.  If you're an average dumb American who somehow still hasn't picked a side, you read all this stuff that's slanted towards Trump good/Kamala bad, anywhere you go online.

[Js1 85041]

Internet comments are not votes. They’re trolls and bots. 

[OU Sucks 8743]

2 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Internet comments are not votes. They’re trolls and bots. 

Yes, but they influence real voters. And most of these people on this outlet's page are in fact, real people. Some I've seen commenting this crap have friends in common with me.

[C-Man 26967]

Nightly walk update — some new Harris/Walz signs up in neighborhood. Harris households now outnumber the orange shitstain on our two mile route, 12-5. (I am under no illusion that we are flipping Texas.)

[UTCzech III 2893]

Geeks and Nerds for Harris starting now on Lynda Carter’s YouTube channel, could be a train wreck but giving it a watch for now, just fyi

[BrickHorn 18142]

14 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Internet comments are not votes. They’re trolls and bots. 

Maybe. But my Facebook uncles are all too fucking real, and they post dumber MAGA shit than any bot. 

[TexArcher 37443]

CNN graphics right now:

63% of voters think Biden's presidency has been a failure.

49% of voters think Trump's presidency was a failure.

This is frightening, and not just for this election.

[Bojack 2073]

10 minutes ago, C-Man said:

Nightly walk update — some new Harris/Walz signs up in neighborhood. Harris households now outnumber the orange shitstain on our two mile route, 12-5. (I am under no illusion that we are flipping Texas.)

Did you live there in 2020? If so, how's that ratio compare?

[UTGrad98 2257]

5 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

CNN graphics right now:

63% of voters think Biden's presidency has been a failure.

49% of voters think Trump's presidency was a failure.

This is frightening, and not just for this election.

If this is true, we deserve everything we get moving forward

[Slacks 6791]

23 hours ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

It's infuriating.  For years I've been fascinated by WWII history, driven largely by my curiosity of how the world's most (arguably) advanced technological and educated society came to be ruled by a Charlie-Chaplin-lookalike-maniac and a bunch of odd-ball hinchmen.  Now I am living through the same threat in the United States of fucking America 90 years later.  

I might owe Germans an apology.  I always thought there was something in their national fabric that enabled Hitler.  I suppose that might still be the case.  But if it is, we Americans share that swath of cloth. 

Racism?

[Js1 85041]

16 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

CNN graphics right now:

63% of voters think Biden's presidency has been a failure.

49% of voters think Trump's presidency was a failure.

This is frightening, and not just for this election.

Recency bias and sane washing 2016-2020 bc the media need them profits of another Trump presidency 

[DigglerontheHoof 20998]

13 minutes ago, Slacks said:

Racism?

[DixonHur 11019]

1 hour ago, Chips O'Toole said:

Over/under on the number of times Trump mentions a Mexican food menu item?

I'm thinking 4.5.  

[TexArcher 37443]

3 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Recency bias and sane washing 2016-2020 bc the media need them profits of another Trump presidency 

Yeah, I keep hearing that here, and here only.  This is also the only place I keep hearing that Kamala's got it in the bag. 

Literally everywhere else what I hear is more like, fuck, this is too close to call and there are some concerning numbers, like Trump gaining ground in key places, Kamala not winning the black vote by as much as Biden did, and the numbers I posted above.

Plus, how much of Kamala's young polling will actually show up on election day?  And how much voter suppression and other chicanery will the GOP get away with?

Look, I hope you're right and I'm wrong, and I'm concerned for nothing, and she breaks 300 on his ass and we're all high fiving that night.  But I don't know, man.

[Francisco 2.0 32290]

Gift link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/24/us/politics/kamala-harris-laurene-powell-jobs.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NU4.psxD.akHSyKXgWMEP&smid=url-share

 

Quote

After Vice President Joe Biden swore in Kamala Harris as a United States senator in January 2017, they posed for a customary photo in the Capitol with her family. Then she asked her future boss for a favor: Would he indulge in one more photo?

“Come on, everybody,” Ms. Harris said, waving in a dozen others. “My extended family is here.”

The first member of Ms. Harris’s entourage to approach Mr. Biden just happened to be one of the richest people in the world: Laurene Powell Jobs.

 

Quote

Ms. Powell Jobs, the philanthropist who controls a fortune worth over $11 billion, stood just behind Mr. Biden’s right shoulder, joining Ms. Harris’s best friend from kindergarten and others in her inner circle. As the photo was snapped and the group broke up, Mr. Biden grabbed a coveted 60 seconds with Ms. Powell Jobs — asking about her son and talking about his ambitions for cancer research.

Few figures have cultivated a more consequential friendship with Ms. Harris, now the Democratic nominee for president, than Ms. Powell Jobs, who for decades was married to one of America’s most famous entrepreneurs, Steve Jobs.

 

Quote

Over the past 20 years, she has become one of Ms. Harris’s most essential confidantes, providing counsel and money, and helping to expand Ms. Harris’s public profile. Now, in this year’s presidential race, the wealthiest woman in Silicon Valley has emerged as a powerful player behind the scenes. She has quietly contributed millions of dollars to an organization backing Ms. Harris, according to three people briefed on the gifts.

She played a hidden but key role in helping usher Mr. Biden out of the race, which cleared the way for a Harris run.

And Ms. Powell Jobs, who is so close to the vice president that her staff refers to her simply as “L.P.J.,” is positioned to have extraordinary influence, or at least access, in a potential Harris administration.

 

Spoiler

“Laurene has a gift for friendship, especially old friends — she is tribally loyal,” said David Bradley, who sold The Atlantic magazine to Ms. Powell Jobs’s company, the Emerson Collective. “Kamala Harris falls within that ring of friends.”

Silicon Valley roots

Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation, found himself at an intimate dinner in Washington last fall, along with Ms. Powell Jobs, Ms. Harris and Doug Emhoff, Ms. Harris’s husband.

The women, he recalled, seemed especially at ease. “It was the vice president’s residence,” he said, “but they were sitting on the sofa like longtime girlfriends.”

Over fish and African vegetables, Mr. Walker said, they chatted about art and recounted stories of their recent travels to Africa.

“There was no mention of any political leaders,” he said. “No one mentioned Trump. No one mentioned the president.”

Politicians often use the word “friend’ to describe patrons who can power their campaigns and careers. Neither Ms. Harris nor Ms. Powell Jobs, who both zealously guard their privacy, would comment for this story. But in interviews, three dozen people with insight into their bond described a genuine friendship built on a shared political philosophy, an interest in art and culture and their mutual trials as women in the public spotlight.

Ms. Harris, 59, and Ms. Powell Jobs, 60, rose to prominence together in the Bay Area: Ms. Powell Jobs donated $500 to Ms. Harris’s first run for district attorney of San Francisco in 2003. The next year, they attended the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C., part of a “posse” of female leaders from the Bay Area, recalled Andrea Dew Steele, who organized the group.

“She was helpful early on in Kamala’s career,” Ms. Dew Steele recalled.

The women spent the next two decades traveling among the same Silicon Valley elite. They have attended each other’s family events: Ms. Powell Jobs was one of about 60 people to attend Ms. Harris’s wedding to Mr. Emhoff in 2014, and Ms. Powell Jobs invited Ms. Harris to the wedding of her son, Reed, this year in Hawaii, which Mr. Emhoff attended. They even shared the same celebrity dermatologist.

Even as Ms. Harris’s career took her to Sacramento and Washington, they have gone on personal trips together, with Ms. Harris at times flying on Ms. Powell Jobs’s private plane. They have prioritized one-on-one meals when they’ve found themselves in the same city: They have been spotted together at Quince, the San Francisco hot spot, and were once seen chatting with Rupert Murdoch at the high-end restaurant Nobu Malibu. 

Susie Tompkins Buell, a San Francisco philanthropist who is close to both women, recalled the look on Ms. Powell Jobs’s face as Ms. Harris spoke at her swearing-in as attorney general in 2011.

“I’ve watched them appreciate each other in a room full of a lot of people — Laurene looking so proudly at Kamala when she was speaking, and just seeing this great sense of appreciation and pride,” she said. She has texted with Ms. Powell Jobs in recent weeks about how to support Ms. Harris’s presidential bid. “I know she’s just besides herself with joy.”

‘I vote for her’

In 2017, Ms. Powell Jobs consented to a rare interview onstage at a tech conference hosted by the journalist Kara Swisher, who would become a New York Times opinion writer. She brought Ms. Harris along and made the interview a twofer.

It was the beginning of the Trump administration, but Ms. Swisher was already looking ahead to the next election. When she jokingly asked Ms. Powell Jobs if she was planning to run for president in 2020, Ms. Powell Jobs quickly turned the question into an opportunity to promote Ms. Harris, then a newly elected senator from California.

“Well, one of us should,” Ms. Powell Jobs replied. She pointed at Ms. Harris and said, “I vote for her.”

Ms. Powell Jobs’s re-emergence into public and political life in the years since her husband died of cancer, in 2011, has been cautious and deliberate. She began making bigger political donations and lobbying Washington, pressing President Barack Obama on education at a closed-door Q. and A. with other tech billionaires during his 2012 re-election campaign, according to a person who was in the room.

Ms. Powell Jobs was, like her late husband, an enigma — but she had sweeping ambitions. Politicians began to seek her out. Michelle Obama invited her to sit in her box during Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address in 2012. Hillary Clinton cultivated her, and Ms. Powell Jobs hosted a 20-person, $200,000-a-head event for Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. She struck up a friendship with Kevin McCarthy, the former Republican speaker of the House.

And as Ms. Harris sought higher office, Ms. Powell Jobs hosted a series of fund-raisers for her, including several at her house and one in 2014 with fellow Silicon Valley royalty like Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce; the investor Ron Conway, her closest political confidant; and Sean Parker, the early Facebook executive. In 2016, she spent election night taking selfies with Ms. Harris at a party in Los Angeles, celebrating Ms. Harris’s election to the Senate.

As a senator, Ms. Harris often visited Emerson Collective’s offices in Washington to speak with Ms. Powell Jobs, her staff and the billionaire’s friends like Yo-Yo Ma and the fashion designer Marc Ecko.

Still, the sprawl of Ms. Powell Jobs’s empire, vast even among ambitious Silicon Valley billionaires, sometimes gets in the way. Ms. Powell Jobs’s 2017 near-total purchase of The Atlantic has at times made her reluctant to jump more fully into politics. She has told other Democrats that as the de facto owner of a large media company — Ms. Powell Jobs has even tried her hand at journalism, interviewing Ms. Harris for an event hosted by The Atlantic — she should not be a full-fledged partisan actor, to the frustration of some on both her and Ms. Harris’s teams. She declined to significantly help Ms. Harris’s presidential bid in 2019.

The fateful debate

Ms. Powell Jobs has visited the Biden-Harris White House nine times, but she has not always loved the administration.

The first years of Ms. Harris’s tenure as vice president were especially difficult, as she drew criticism for her efforts on illegal immigration and reports of unhappiness among her staff. She frequently leaned on Ms. Powell Jobs, confiding in her about the toll that the public scrutiny was taking, according to a person briefed on the relationship, and Ms. Powell Jobs pushed other Democrats to defend her more vigorously.

But Ms. Powell Jobs’s relationship with Mr. Biden has been trickier. She has been a major shareholder in Apple and Disney, and has bristled at some Biden policy positions that she considers anti-tech. She expressed frustration over what she considered hostile rhetoric from the president about rich people and Silicon Valley.

Then came the June debate.

After Mr. Biden’s disastrous performance against former President Donald J. Trump, Ms. Powell Jobs expressed to other major Democratic donors her deep concerns about Mr. Biden’s ability to win the election. One of her top aides, David Simas, a former Obama staff member who oversees her political research, circulated focus-group and polling data to other donors that painted a dire portrait. Several said that Mr. Simas’s research was influential in encouraging them to mobilize against Mr. Biden.

As Mr. Biden insisted that he would not leave the race, Ms. Harris quietly tried to survey her options and navigate the sensitive politics of the moment. Among those she turned to for counsel was Ms. Powell Jobs.

Just weeks later, Ms. Powell Jobs was at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, sitting at times in Ms. Harris’s exclusive friends and family box and watching her companion formally accept the party’s nomination for president.

A Harris administration role?

Ms. Harris and Ms. Powell Jobs have talked for decades about the challenges of being women in the public eye — and now the billionaire could help elect the country’s first female president.

Ms. Powell Jobs was not particularly involved in Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign, but she has told friends recently that she was energized by Ms. Harris’s ascension. She has joined calls with Harris campaign officials in recent weeks and told them that she was eager to host an intimate, pricey event for her, similar to the one she threw for Mrs. Clinton, although with time short and money flooding in, officials are skeptical that an event will come together.

Ms. Powell Jobs has spoken with other female leaders in technology and encouraged them to publicly support Ms. Harris. And her team has circulated to other megadonors a list of 17 recommended pro-Harris organizations to which they can donate, including the super PAC Future Forward, where one of her senior political aides is working. Ms. Powell Jobs prefers to make undisclosed contributions, and she has donated millions to Future Forward’s dark-money vehicle, according to three people briefed on the donations.

Friends of Ms. Powell Jobs have long thought she might want to go into politics. Some have wondered whether, if Ms. Harris wins the election, Ms. Powell Jobs might want a formal role in the administration, such as secretary of education, one of her top issues. Others hope she will simply use her clout to try to influence Ms. Harris more informally, such as by pushing her to support tougher measures to fight climate change.

Either way, Marc Porter Magee, an education-reform advocate, predicted that Ms. Powell Jobs would emerge as an insider in a Harris administration.

“Laurene is one of a small number of philanthropists who has both made significant investments in educational innovation and is also actively engaged in Democratic politics,” he said. “If Harris wins, she and her staff could emerge as important players in an administration that has yet to define its K-12 agenda.”

Is the publicity-averse Ms. Powell Jobs even interested in a Washington career?

“I do live a life of service now, and I feel like I am getting good at it,” Ms. Powell Jobs told an interviewer in 2022. “It’s not my intention,” she said, “but I would not necessarily shy away from another opportunity.”

 

[Firemans4Horn 17790]

16 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

Yeah, I keep hearing that here, and here only.  This is also the only place I keep hearing that Kamala's got it in the bag. 

Literally everywhere else what I hear is more like, fuck, this is too close to call and there are some concerning numbers, like Trump gaining ground in key places, Kamala not winning the black vote by as much as Biden did, and the numbers I posted above.

Plus, how much of Kamala's young polling will actually show up on election day?  And how much voter suppression and other chicanery will the GOP get away with?

Look, I hope you're right and I'm wrong, and I'm concerned for nothing, and she breaks 300 on his ass and we're all high fiving that night.  But I don't know, man.

Not saying it’s not a close raise (because it is) but cable news and social media are designed to promote horse race politics, and get your dopamine levels up so you keep coming back and keep clicking on the bullshit their algorithm feeds you. They aren't there to call balls and strikes. 
 

Go read up on Cambridge Analytica. 

[Pancho 44293]

This is setting up to seriously be VEEP with both Pennsylvania and Nevada. 
 

 

Just need to find out on Election Day some magat hid votes at Ft. Dutton

[TexArcher 37443]

13 minutes ago, Firemans4Horn said:

Not saying it’s not a close raise (because it is) but cable news and social media are designed to promote horse race politics, and get your dopamine levels up so you keep coming back and keep clicking on the bullshit their algorithm feeds you. They aren't there to call balls and strikes. 
 

Go read up on Cambridge Analytica. 

Yeah, American media spins things to fit narratives that drive viewership or clicks.  We all know that.

That does not change the poll numbers (unless you think they're doctoring those?) or lessen any of the concerns I mentioned.

I just think the "Kamala's gonna win and any poll that suggests maybe she's not is being reported in bad faith" is a little too easy.  And when media pursues an agenda, it can use the truth to get there, too.

[heso 2748]

1 hour ago, TexArcher said:

CNN graphics right now:

63% of voters think Biden's presidency has been a failure.

49% of voters think Trump's presidency was a failure.

This is frightening, and not just for this election.

For the overwhelming majority of morons it boils down to nothing more than inflation. Inflation was bad during Biden, not during Trump. Clearly that’s all due to things Biden and Trump did. 

You guys give WAY WAY too much credit to the general population of this country. There are tens of millions of people in this country that are really fucking stupid. 

Go over to the Springfield thread and watch the interviews with the locals and then imagine every single small town in the country being filled with millions of people like that. 

Those are the people that decided Trump was the best the gop could offer.

We are living in idiocracy. 

[TexEx15 17419]

1 hour ago, C-Man said:

Nightly walk update — some new Harris/Walz signs up in neighborhood. Harris households now outnumber the orange shitstain on our two mile route, 12-5. (I am under no illusion that we are flipping Texas.)

My neighbor had a Cruz sign by not Trump. Probably means nothing but it caught my eye.

[Pancho 44293]

[Pancho 44293]

 

[Chad Fuck 17497]

Over/under on the number of times Trump mentions a Mexican food menu item?
I'm thinking 4.5.  

Taco salat!

[Slacks 6791]

3 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

Taco salat!

Dos nasty

[Pancho 44293]

[Chuckie Finster 22581]

1 minute ago, Pancho said:

LOL at making Rhode Island red and hoping nobody noticed.

[Js1 85041]

Nevada is not going red. Shut up, that is so stupid.

Trump couldn’t even win it in 2016. 

[Pancho 44293]

1 minute ago, Chuckie Finster said:

LOL at making Rhode Island red and hoping nobody noticed.

[Js1 85041]

 

[gmr548 16457]

38 minutes ago, Pancho said:

This is setting up to seriously be VEEP with both Pennsylvania and Nevada. 
 

 

Just need to find out on Election Day some magat hid votes at Ft. Dutton

I'm more worried about...

Spoiler

Succession

 

[Gil Bang 25857]

15 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

 

Sorta like that time when he was attempting to buy the Bills, and he needed to show he had more in assets, so he just conveniently had a "brand value" line added to a financial letter:

 

Jon Bon Jovi should have won that bidding, but  Trump spread a whole lot of lies about his group (shocking, I know). 

[gmr548 16457]

5 minutes ago, Js1 said:

 

That's cool but fuck Matt Barnes.

[Pancho 44293]

[Bullneck 18974]

10 hours ago, SubliminalHorn said:

So if we have an unsafe election because of magat dipshit traitors, then they won’t certify it?

He's going to make a calculated decision at that time.  If it's a blowout loss for Trump he'll certify and get on with life since Trump will be prison-bound.

If it's close (like 1 electoral vote from Omaha close) he'll be worried that Trump's goons will come after him and he'll crack.

Somewhere in all of this is the gloved hand of Hunter Biden holding a Walther PPK to his chest and mouthing the word "immunity." (Canecutter, am I doing this right?)

[Bullneck 18974]

1 hour ago, heso said:

For the overwhelming majority of morons it boils down to nothing more than inflation. Inflation was bad during Biden, not during Trump. Clearly that’s all due to things Biden and Trump did. 

You guys give WAY WAY too much credit to the general population of this country. There are tens of millions of people in this country that are really fucking stupid. 

Go over to the Springfield thread and watch the interviews with the locals and then imagine every single small town in the country being filled with millions of people like that. 

Those are the people that decided Trump was the best the gop could offer.

We are living in idiocracy. 

If there's anything I've learned in the last few months (from a guy who thinks he knows everything) it's that the average voter -- and the average undecided voter -- is a complete fucking idiot.  Gotdamn these people are stupid.

[TexasEd 8061]

1 hour ago, Chad Fuck said:

Taco salat!

 

1 hour ago, Slacks said:

Dos nasty

Naoch

[atomheartbevo 89332]

3 hours ago, Js1 said:

Internet comments are not votes. They’re trolls and bots. 

Yep, I had to re-start a twitter account that's tied to a website a friend is taking over - he wanted to put out a bunch of stuff about his other non-twitter social media accounts and basically get some traffic.

And holy shit, within days he started getting a ton of followers that had no posts or followers themselves, but that all followed thousands of accounts. It was fucking nuts and creepy to see.

If I get bored enough, I may start a new account and see what I can do with it in a week or two in terms of bringing bots in and pushing something up the algorithm chain.

 

[DixonHur 11019]

Holy shit, I've Been reading Plato's Republic and just finished a section that essentially predicts the rise of Trump.  No lie, he called this shit 2,500 years ago.  Obviously, the section is really long, but I found this summary from the mid-1800's for those who are interested.  I think it's worth the time, but I'm putting into a spoiler to avoid long catting the tread for those who aren't interested.

Spoiler

1. Timocracy (Feudal England) and the timocratical individual. 2 Oligarchy (18th Century England), and the oligarchical individual. Out of this timocracy, or timarchy, the city will next pass into an oligarchy, or government of wealth. The rich will here govern, to the exclusion of the poor.

Reason, in the timocracy, was under the dominion of energy or courage: in the oligarchy, it will be under the dominion of appetite. The love of wealth will become predominant, instead of the love of force and aggrandisement. Now the love of wealth is distinctly opposed to the love of virtue: virtue and wealth are like weights in opposite scales. The oligarchical city will lose all its unity, and will consist of a few rich with a multitude of discontented poor ready to rise against them. The character of the individual citizen will undergo a modification similar to that of the collective city. He will be under the rule of appetite: his reason will be only invoked as the servant of appetite, to teach him how he may best enrich himself. He will be frugal, — will abstain from all unnecessary expenditure, even for generous and liberal purposes — and will keep up a fair show of honesty, from the fear of losing what he has already got. 3. Democracy (American Revolution), and the democratical individual. The oligarchical city will presently be transformed into a democracy, mainly through the abuse and exaggeration of its own ruling impulse — the love of wealth. The rulers, anxious to enrich themselves, rather encourage than check the extravagance of young spendthrifts, to whom they lend money at high interest, or whose property they buy on advantageous terms. In this manner there arises a class of energetic men, with ruined fortunes and habits of indulgence. Such are the adventurers who put themselves at the head of the discontented poor, and overthrow the oligarchy. The ruling few being expelled or put down, a democracy is established with equal franchise, and generally with officers chosen by lot.

The characteristic of the democracy is equal freedom and open speech to all, with liberty to each man to shape his own life as he chooses. Hence there arises a great diversity of individual taste and character. Uniformity of pursuit or conduct is scarcely enforced: there is little restraint upon any one. A man offers himself for office whenever he chooses and not unless he chooses. He is at war or at peace, not by obedience to any public authority, but according to his own individual preference. If he be even condemned by a court of justice, he remains in the city careless of the sentence, which is never enforced against him. This democracy is an equal, agreeable, diversified, society, with little or no government: equal in regard to all — to the good, bad, and indifferent. So too the democratical individual. The son of one among these frugal and money-getting oligarchs, departing from the habits and disregarding the advice of his father, contracts a taste for expensive and varied indulgences. He loses sight of the distinction between what is necessary, and what is not necessary, in respect to desires and pleasures. If he be of a quiet temperament, not quite out of the reach of advice, he keeps clear of ruinous excess in any one direction; but he gives himself up to a great diversity of successive occupations and amusements, passing from one to the other without discrimination of good from bad, necessary from unnecessary. His life and character thus becomes an agreeable, unconstrained, changeful, comprehensive, miscellany, like the society to which he belongs. 4. Passage from democracy to despotism. Character of the despotic city. Democracy, like oligarchy, becomes ultimately subverted by an abuse of its own characteristic principle. Freedom is gradually pushed into extravagance and excess, while all other considerations are neglected. No obedience is practised: no authority is recognised. The son feels himself equal to his father, the disciple to his teacher, the metic to the citizen, the wife to her husband, the slave to his master. Nay, even horses, asses, and dogs, go free about, so that they run against you in the road, if you do not make way for them. The laws are not obeyed: every man is his own master. The subversion of such a democracy arises from the men who rise to be popular leaders in it: violent, ambitious, extravagant, men, who gain the favour of the people by distributing among them confiscations from the property of the rich. The rich, resisting these injustices, become enemies to the constitution: the people, in order to put them down, range themselves under the banners of the most energetic popular leader, who takes advantage of such a position to render himself a despot. He begins his rule by some acceptable measures, such as abolition of debts, and assignment of lands to the poorer citizens, until he has expelled or destroyed the parties opposed to him. He seeks pretences for foreign war, in order that the people may stand in need of a leader, and may be kept poor by the contributions necessary to sustain war. But presently he finds, or suspects, dissatisfaction among the more liberal spirits. He kills or banishes them as enemies: and to ensure the continuance of his rule, he is under the necessity of dispatching in like manner every citizen prominent either for magnanimity, intelligence, or wealth. Becoming thus odious to all the better citizens, he is obliged to seek support by enlisting a guard of mercenary foreigners and manumitted slaves. He cannot pay his guards, without plundering the temples, extorting perpetual contributions from the people, and grinding them down by severe oppression and suffering. Such is the government of the despot, which Euripides and other poets employ their genius in extolling.

 

[atomheartbevo 89332]

2 hours ago, TexArcher said:

CNN graphics right now:

63% of voters think Biden's presidency has been a failure.

49% of voters think Trump's presidency was a failure.

This is frightening, and not just for this election.

I am constantly seeing shit from CNN that belongs on The NY Times Pitchbot account. I look at the articles, and the headlines (and articles to an extent) were clearly written to make her look bad over this or that, and when you drill down, it's a non-issue, but they would have you believe it's critical to the nation's future.

I don't expect them to be cheerleaders, but they don't need to be doing Fox News' dirty work either.

 

[Loch Ness Monster 3533]

Trump is winning by around 11% on the economy.

Lots of young men believe he's a business genius.

[C-Man 26967]

4 hours ago, Bojack said:

Did you live there in 2020? If so, how's that ratio compare?

Yep, we were here but I honestly don’t remember.

[wood 11101]

2 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Yep, I had to re-start a twitter account that's tied to a website a friend is taking over - he wanted to put out a bunch of stuff about his other non-twitter social media accounts and basically get some traffic.

And holy shit, within days he started getting a ton of followers that had no posts or followers themselves, but that all followed thousands of accounts. It was fucking nuts and creepy to see.

If I get bored enough, I may start a new account and see what I can do with it in a week or two in terms of bringing bots in and pushing something up the algorithm chain.

 

Yeah I was pretty active on twitter until Elon bought it. Since then, even though my activity has dropped significantly, I still get new followers all the time, just like what you describe. Dude absolutely destroyed twitter.

[Francisco 2.0 32290]

Trump's "speech" on Tuesday about tariffs on cars coming from Mexico, etc had a familiar twist.  The only thing missing was tears:

 

https://jalopnik.com/donald-trump-doubles-down-on-200-percent-imported-car-t-1851656477

 

Quote

“A friend of mine who does auto plants, he does auto plants, that’s what he’s great at. He’s great. The biggest in the world. He said, ‘I want to see a plant.’ Pretty recently ago. ‘I want to see a plant, where would we go?,’ he said. Would we go to Detroit? Someplace in Michigan, ideally? He says, “No, you can’t go there, sir. You have to go to Mexico. The big ones are being built in Mexico.’ I said, ‘Why is that?’ He said, ‘Well they have a lot of tax reasons and China’s coming in big and they think they’re going to make their car and sell it in tax free into the United States. But the big ones, if you want to see a big modern plant, come with me to Mexico.’ I said, ‘I’m not interested in going to Mexico. I want those plants built here.’ And that’ll happen.”

 

 

[Bullneck 18974]

https://www.axios.com/2024/09/24/arizona-democrat-campaign-office-shot

 

[Pancho 44293]

 

[Js1 85041]

Was about to post that. Get out of my brain!