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

[Rimbo 27,088]

55 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

My parents would give up their lives in a second for those that they love.

Giving up all you have for those you love is just basic. Good means you'll help even those who are outside of your family, peer group, company, etc.

[Brisketexan 107,008]

1 hour ago, Chuckie Finster said:

This is something I've really grappled with over the last year or two.

I think there's a desire to create simple "good" and "bad" labels for everyone and it's just not that simple.

I have friends who would drop everything at a moment's notice to help me, no questions asked.  They are generous, donate to charities, and are raising what seem to be solid, well-adjusted children.  They are also almost assuredly voting for Trump.  Does this make them "bad?"

My parents would give up their lives in a second for those that they love.  The household we grew up in was full of warmth and love and is the example I am trying to replicate for my family.  They are also almost assuredly voting for Trump.  Does this make them "bad?"

I have brilliant co-workers who are phenomenal at building up a team, always make sure to share credit, and thrive in a culturally diverse work environment.  They are also almost assuredly voting for Trump.  Does this make them "bad?"

Meanwhile, I know plenty of rude, self-centered Biden-voters who couldn't care less about those around them and take no responsibility for their actions.  Just because they pull the same lever as me in November, does that make them "good?"

The closest rationalization I've been able to conclude is that some people are able to treat politics kind of like sports.  There's a team they root for and they'll continue to root for that team, regardless of the players involved.  I obviously don't agree with this and wish they saw what I see, but simply labeling all Trump voters as bad people oversimplifies the issue to a degree that ensures it will never get fixed.

But... on the other hand, how can a "good" person look at Trump and not be immediately repulsed?  Even given what I said in the paragraph above, this still seems unbelievable to me.

I don't have a solution, just a rant from someone who has struggled with this since he realized that the list of people who my wife and I would trust to raise our children if something happened to us is almost exclusively comprised of (likely?) Trump voters.

 

28 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

If you replaced "Trump" with "Hitler" how do you feel about your statements? Honest Question. 

This.

Make the phrase even more pointedly accurate: "They are also almost assuredly voting for the man/party that has promised to deliver a 'final solution' to the 'jewish problem.'"

Yes.  It makes them bad.  In fact, if the point is that they aren't REALLY for mass extermination of the jews, they just like the other things the nazis are for, so they're willing to put the nazis in power (where they will commit genocide) because hey, lower taxes.....that is actually fucking WORSE.

If you kill me because you think you HAVE to in order to protect your family and way of life, I can at least UNDERSTAND that.  It's wrong, and super-bad, but I can at least grasp it.

If you kill me because your income will go up 2%....Jesus Tapdancing Christ, that's some sick fucking shit.

And if you 're willing to do the above....foolishly thinking that they won't eventually turn on you (for being too close to jews/mexicans...for being a secret jew/mexican, as they alone decide....for being insufficiently loyal to the regime...for pissing off the Supreme Leader by failing to deliver his coffee hot enough, etc.)....you're sick, evil, AND breathtakingly stupid.

Evil and stupid.  That's what Trump supporters are.  All of them.  Yes, including your family.  

There's plenty of stories of nazis commiting acts of kindness....Mengele was a decorated combat medic.  He was outwardly kind to many children in the camps.  Before he conducted horrific medical experiments on them, of course.  We grade people in the balance, and there are some things that cannot be overcome.  Supporting Trumpism and fascism, specifically this Trumpist regime that is built on a proud foundation of who all it is going to hurt, punish, and exact retribution on, is one of those things.  I don't give a fuck if Rudolf Hess went out in the cold rain to save puppies, was scrupulously honest in all of his business dealings, treated all women he dated and married with respect and decency, was a prince to his household staff, regularly stopped to help strangers change a tire, donated lots of money to charity, etc.....he fucking commanded a goddamned death camp.  He facilitated pure evil.  If you knowingly facilitate pure evil, your personal balance sheet will ALWAYS end up in the red.

Edited May 23 by Brisketexan

[chainsaw 10,307]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Evil and stupid.  That's what Trump supporters are.  All of them.  Yes, including your family.  

Understand this and you figure out how it came to be so many people around the world hate America.

Throw in some poverty and a belief that God conquers all and baby you got yourself a movement.

Throw in some Saudi money and baby you got yourself an existential threat.

[Chuckie Finster 23,095]

4 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

Giving up all you have for those you love is just basic. Good means you'll help even those who are outside of your family, peer group, company, etc.

Agree, and there are plenty of Trump voters who are exemplary in that arena, as uncomfortable and contradicting as it may seem.

 

18 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

If you replaced "Trump" with "Hitler" how do you feel about your statements? Honest Question. 

i think this is basically the entire premise of "The Zone of Interest."  Obviously the main characters in that movie were legitimately running Auschwitz so not comparing apples to apples here, but there were absolutely individuals in Germany who checked all the boxes of a stereotypical "good" person (helped families in need, rescued stray animals, donated blood).... and also voted for Hitler.  I'm in no way saying those are "good" people, but I think painting a caricature of "evil" oversimplifies the situation to a dangerous degree.

To be very clear, I'm in no way trying to defend a Trump (or Hitler) vote, nor the people who cast them.  And I'm sure there will be replies that state that a vote for Trump outweighs any other good deeds a person may do, which is probably something I agree with more than I don't.  These are merely the confused ramblings of a man who is trying to understand how most of the people who he loves most in the world are able to see the world so differently.  

 

 

[SydneyCarton 49,532]

4 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

Agree, and there are plenty of Trump voters who are exemplary in that arena, as uncomfortable and contradicting as it may seem.

 

i think this is basically the entire premise of "The Zone of Interest."  Obviously the main characters in that movie were legitimately running Auschwitz so not comparing apples to apples here, but there were absolutely individuals in Germany who checked all the boxes of a stereotypical "good" person (helped families in need, rescued stray animals, donated blood).... and also voted for Hitler.  I'm in no way saying those are "good" people, but I think painting a caricature of "evil" oversimplifies the situation to a dangerous degree.

To be very clear, I'm in no way trying to defend a Trump (or Hitler) vote, nor the people who cast them.  And I'm sure there will be replies that state that a vote for Trump outweighs any other good deeds a person may do, which is probably something I agree with more than I don't.  These are merely the confused ramblings of a man who is trying to understand how most of the people who he loves most in the world are able to see the world so differently.  

 

 

I understand, and I wasn't trying to be critical of you or how you view the people you've grown to care about. 

What I was attempting to do was simply to color the situation with a comparison to one in which we 100% have the advantage of hindisght. Becaue we do. Another way to look at it is, if 20 years down the road, where the country is a shitshow and women, non white people, and certainly LGBTQ+ rights have taken massive steps back, as well as a move towards a theocratic autocracy...if all of those worst fears come true, will look back with such understanding of those who facilitated and allowed those changes to be ushered in? 

Or would you curse their names becuase you had a daughter who died because of an easily preventable medical procedure?

[Brisketexan 107,008]

14 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

Agree, and there are plenty of Trump voters who are exemplary in that arena, as uncomfortable and contradicting as it may seem.

i think this is basically the entire premise of "The Zone of Interest."  Obviously the main characters in that movie were legitimately running Auschwitz so not comparing apples to apples here, but there were absolutely individuals in Germany who checked all the boxes of a stereotypical "good" person (helped families in need, rescued stray animals, donated blood).... and also voted for Hitler.  I'm in no way saying those are "good" people, but I think painting a caricature of "evil" oversimplifies the situation to a dangerous degree.

To be very clear, I'm in no way trying to defend a Trump (or Hitler) vote, nor the people who cast them.  And I'm sure there will be replies that state that a vote for Trump outweighs any other good deeds a person may do, which is probably something I agree with more than I don't.  These are merely the confused ramblings of a man who is trying to understand how most of the people who he loves most in the world are able to see the world so differently.  

I hear you, and feel you.  And it's really hard.  It's REALLY fucking hard.

The hardest part is reaching that final conclusion: that on balance, these people have chosen evil.  For whatever the reason, they have chosen it.  And that is, in the end, unacceptable and unforgivable.

6 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I understand, and I wasn't trying to be critical of you or how you view the people you've grown to care about. 

What I was attempting to do was simply to color the situation with a comparison to one in which we 100% have the advantage of hindisght. Becaue we do. Another way to look at it is, if 20 years down the road, where the country is a shitshow and women, non white people, and certainly LGBTQ+ rights have taken massive steps back, as well as a move towards a theocratic autocracy...if all of those worst fears come true, will look back with such understanding of those who facilitated and allowed those changes to be ushered in? 

Or would you curse their names becuase you had a daughter who died because of an easily preventable medical procedure?

Great post.  And yeah, the bolded -- or 1,000 questions like it, like "when your child's spouse, who is tainted with minority blood, is rounded up and deported to a country they've never even been to even though they are a natural born US citizen but the future regime has abolished that retroactively and a crooked SCOTUS happily went along with it, how will you feel?" or "when the man who gunned down your child and her entire family when he went hunting 'invaders' at the local Wal-Mart is pardoned by the Regime because he was doing God's Work, how will you feel?"  And on and on and on.

Evil shit like the Holocaust didn't happen because Hitler and a few dozen bad dudes had some really shitty ideas.  These things happen because millions of people EMPOWER, EXCUSE, AND PROTECT those evil fuckers, so that they can do their evil unimpeded.

Edited May 23 by Brisketexan

[GreenspointTexas 9,991]

One thing Trumpism/Maga movement has definitely done over the past decade is pull the curtain back on just how many people in America are dumb/racist/sexist/ignorant etc

 

 

To vote for Trump, you definitely have to be one of those things, if not all

[chainsaw 10,307]

27 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

just how many people in America are dumb/racist/sexist/ignorant etc

It still surprises me that people hadn't figured this out during the W years.

[wildcat09 29,600]

2 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:

This is something I've really grappled with over the last year or two.

I think there's a desire to create simple "good" and "bad" labels for everyone and it's just not that simple.

I have friends who would drop everything at a moment's notice to help me, no questions asked.  They are generous, donate to charities, and are raising what seem to be solid, well-adjusted children.  They are also almost assuredly voting for Trump.  Does this make them "bad?"

My parents would give up their lives in a second for those that they love.  The household we grew up in was full of warmth and love and is the example I am trying to replicate for my family.  They are also almost assuredly voting for Trump.  Does this make them "bad?"

I have brilliant co-workers who are phenomenal at building up a team, always make sure to share credit, and thrive in a culturally diverse work environment.  They are also almost assuredly voting for Trump.  Does this make them "bad?"

Meanwhile, I know plenty of rude, self-centered Biden-voters who couldn't care less about those around them and take no responsibility for their actions.  Just because they pull the same lever as me in November, does that make them "good?"

The closest rationalization I've been able to conclude is that some people are able to treat politics kind of like sports.  There's a team they root for and they'll continue to root for that team, regardless of the players involved.  I obviously don't agree with this and wish they saw what I see, but simply labeling all Trump voters as bad people oversimplifies the issue to a degree that ensures it will never get fixed.

But... on the other hand, how can a "good" person look at Trump and not be immediately repulsed?  Even given what I said in the paragraph above, this still seems unbelievable to me.

I don't have a solution, just a rant from someone who has struggled with this since he realized that the list of people who my wife and I would trust to raise our children if something happened to us is almost exclusively comprised of (likely?) Trump voters.

It is indeed not as simple as "good" and "bad" people. But I do think there's reason to argue that anyone who supports Trump at this point can't be "good," regardless of the best elements of their character.  The difference between your "good" friends and co-workers who will nevertheless vote for Trump and truly good people is that the "good" people you're thinking about at a very fundamental level don't regard people who aren't like them as fully human. It may not even be an entirely conscious belief system, but they don't regard a black woman or an hispanic man or a white atheist as deserving of the same fundamental rights and dignities as they are (and usually they don't think white women are either).  

Even when it's not just blatant racism, there's some evolutionary tribal component to this. We all prioritize families and friends over strangers. Some of us are conscious of that bias and view it as a failing and try to push back against it (and often fail).  Others embrace it as, in their view, a fundamental part of human nature (and tend to view this as ordained by God).

As I and many other posters have noted here countless times the past few years, the nazis themselves weren't all comic book villains, most were normal, decent-seeming people who loved their families, helped out friends, etc. That's the lesson we should've learned from WW2. Instead we mythologized them as some sort of unique, ultimate evil that the world would never see again.  But they weren't, they were just regular people who tended to lean reactionary in their politics and personality, who had they been born in another time and place could've been Rockefeller Republicans.

Many/most Trump voters today (at least the ones who aren't consciously proudly racist) are similar, though they have less excuse. Fascism was new to the world in the 1930s and nobody understood the horrible harm it would inflict on the world. We know better now, but it seems a lot of "good" people don't care. 

[TwiceHorn 32,103]

9 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

It is indeed not as simple as "good" and "bad" people. But I do think there's reason to argue that anyone who supports Trump at this point can't be "good," regardless of the best elements of their character.  The difference between your "good" friends and co-workers who will nevertheless vote for Trump and truly good people is that the "good" people you're thinking about at a very fundamental level don't regard people who aren't like them as fully human. It may not even be an entirely conscious belief system, but they don't regard a black woman or an hispanic man or a white atheist as deserving of the same fundamental rights and dignities as they are (and usually they don't think white women are either).  

Even when it's not just blatant racism, there's some evolutionary tribal component to this. We all prioritize families and friends over strangers. Some of us are conscious of that bias and view it as a failing and try to push back against it (and often fail).  Others embrace it as, in their view, a fundamental part of human nature (and tend to view this as ordained by God).

As I and many other posters have noted here countless times the past few years, the nazis themselves weren't all comic book villains, most were normal, decent-seeming people who loved their families, helped out friends, etc. That's the lesson we should've learned from WW2. Instead we mythologized them as some sort of unique, ultimate evil that the world would never see again.  But they weren't, they were just regular people who tended to lean reactionary in their politics and personality, who had they been born in another time and place could've been Rockefeller Republicans.

Many/most Trump voters today (at least the ones who aren't consciously proudly racist) are similar, though they have less excuse. Fascism was new to the world in the 1930s and nobody understood the horrible harm it would inflict on the world. We know better now, but it seems a lot of "good" people don't care. 

Arendt's banality of evil.

[Brisketexan 107,008]

15 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

The difference between your "good" friends and co-workers who will nevertheless vote for Trump and truly good people is that the "good" people you're thinking about at a very fundamental level don't regard people who aren't like them as fully human. It may not even be an entirely conscious belief system, but they don't regard a black woman or an hispanic man or a white atheist as deserving of the same fundamental rights and dignities as they are (and usually they don't think white women are either).  

 

15 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

As I and many other posters have noted here countless times the past few years, the nazis themselves weren't all comic book villains, most were normal, decent-seeming people who loved their families, helped out friends, etc. That's the lesson we should've learned from WW2. Instead we mythologized them as some sort of unique, ultimate evil that the world would never see again.  But they weren't, they were just regular people who tended to lean reactionary in their politics and personality, who had they been born in another time and place could've been Rockefeller Republicans.

Bolded the killer takeaways.

As just one example, people with a last name like mine aren't...you know.... "real Americans."  And with that judgment/decision, we can be cast to the depths of hell without a second thought.

Hannah Arendt's observation of "the banality of evil," and how evil outcomes were made possible by a lack of empathy, was and remains dead-on, balls accurate (EDIT: Twice even beat me to the Arendt reference by a second):

Quote

Arendt found Eichmann an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat, who in her words, was ‘neither perverted nor sadistic’, but ‘terrifyingly normal’. He acted without any motive other than to diligently advance his career in the Nazi bureaucracy. Eichmann was not an amoral monster, she concluded in her study of the case, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). Instead, he performed evil deeds without evil intentions, a fact connected to his ‘thoughtlessness’, a disengagement from the reality of his evil acts. Eichmann ‘never realised what he was doing’ due to an ‘inability… to think from the standpoint of somebody else’. Lacking this particular cognitive ability, he ‘commit[ted] crimes under circumstances that made it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he [was] doing wrong’.

Arendt dubbed these collective characteristics of Eichmann ‘the banality of evil’: he was not inherently evil, but merely shallow and clueless, a ‘joiner’, in the words of one contemporary interpreter of Arendt’s thesis: he was a man who drifted into the Nazi Party, in search of purpose and direction, not out of deep ideological belief.

A dehumanizing lack of empathy for our fellow humans who don't look exactly like us, or don't think or worship God exactly like us, is absolutely how we have ended up where we are, and it's why we are inexorably heading towards an inhuman hell that none of us can or want to imagine.

In the end, we are going to implement and empower a movement that will do inhuman things to other humans because they simply don't believe that those other humans are actually human.  A tale as old as humanity itself, and we are doomed to repeat it on a loop.  Oh, and that those fucktards DARE to stand on "antisemitism is wrong!" as some supposed principled stance they take (as members of their own movement actively attack jews and (((globalists))) and the like) is the fucking cherry on top.

Edited May 23 by Brisketexan

[Zonahorn 8,079]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/is-the-biden-campaign-running-on-false-hope

Some very based poll denying from the Biden team here. The only poll that matters is the one in November. Make sure you're registered and vote.

Edited May 23 by Zonahorn

[Red Five 41,780]

I’m ending the interview. I’m ending the interview because what you’re doing is ridiculous.

Wait, wait—why?

Because I have definitive proof that what you’re saying is not true. And I don’t care. I know what FiveThirtyEight wrote. I live this every day. And so, the point is what you’re saying is wrong. I am on record saying that what FiveThirtyEight has written is incorrect, and I’ve given you definitive proof otherwise. So if you want to keep coming back at this, do it. But this has become one of the most ridiculous interviews that I’ve ever done my entire professional career.

Oh, O.K. Sorry.

[BevoAbyss 2,186]

Some great posts above. 

Sometimes it does not take a huge intellectual grasp of history or fascism. Sometimes, common sense and decency will be enough for a person to make a good decision.

Witness my mom, a lifelong Republican. (RIP 2018, my dad passed in 2002).

— Grew up on farm in Central Texas, a very poor family. She and siblings worked the cotton fields, sometimes with migrant labor from south of the border. She knew they were honest, hard-working people, looking for a better life. After high school, she left the farm for a better life in Dallas. Married my dad (UT grad), worked very hard to get an associate's degree, and among several jobs, handled insurance/billing in a doctor’s clinic for 20+ years and saw firsthand the needs for Medicare for aging people, for young women to access reproductive care, assistance for poor people, etc.

— Mom was not an intellectual and had flaws, like all of us, but had a lot of common sense and was often perceptive about people, including some of my UT friends/girlfriends. For example, she was highly disapproving of a male friend from UT, said he was a smug jerk and not to trust him. Turns out he tried to score my girlfriend in Austin when I was out of town. He avoided me for years. Now he’s a Trumper big-time. A full-on fascist.

She always voted R and revered George W. But when Trump appeared on the scene, she said: NO!  

— She emphatically said: "I am not voting for a man who talks about women like he does.”  “He’s vulgar and uncouth, I am not voting for a crook and con man.” Said she would not vote for Biden or the D nominee, but did not vote for Trump in 2016 (Passed in late 2018). 

Just some common sense and decency. That’s all it takes to say no to Trump. 

[ Now don’t get me started on my Oil & Gas brother who is voting for Trump “to save the oil industry in Texas." Grrrrrrrr….. ]

Edited May 23 by BevoAbyss

[TexEx15 17,959]

 

[atomheartbevo 90,670]

4 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:

I have friends who would drop everything at a moment's notice to help me, no questions asked.  They are generous, donate to charities, and are raising what seem to be solid, well-adjusted children.  They are also almost assuredly voting for Trump.  Does this make them "bad?"

My parents would give up their lives in a second for those that they love.  The household we grew up in was full of warmth and love and is the example I am trying to replicate for my family.  They are also almost assuredly voting for Trump.  Does this make them "bad?"

I have brilliant co-workers who are phenomenal at building up a team, always make sure to share credit, and thrive in a culturally diverse work environment.  They are also almost assuredly voting for Trump.  Does this make them "bad?"

3 hours ago, David Dennison said:

What if we replace "bad" with "idoit" -  does that work?

"Dangerously ignorant" is the term I would use (and have done so).  People will argue (and rightfully so) that these types who vote for Trump, who are normally good/generous, are just as bad as the "bad" Trump voters because the end result is the same - a vote for Trump is still a vote for Trump.

[David Dennison 19,569]

1 hour ago, Zonahorn said:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/is-the-biden-campaign-running-on-false-hope

Some very based poll denying from the Biden team here. The only poll that matters is the one in November. Make sure you're registered and vote.

Is there any reason to believe the polls are accurate?

[hobbes2702 13,505]

1 hour ago, Red Five said:

I’m ending the interview. I’m ending the interview because what you’re doing is ridiculous.

Wait, wait—why?

Because I have definitive proof that what you’re saying is not true. And I don’t care. I know what FiveThirtyEight wrote. I live this every day. And so, the point is what you’re saying is wrong. I am on record saying that what FiveThirtyEight has written is incorrect, and I’ve given you definitive proof otherwise. So if you want to keep coming back at this, do it. But this has become one of the most ridiculous interviews that I’ve ever done my entire professional career.

Oh, O.K. Sorry.

Can someone post the whole article 

[Js1 87,281]

 

[Zonahorn 8,079]

3 hours ago, David Dennison said:

Is there any reason to believe the polls are accurate?

Nope

[HenryJames 67,464]

On 5/22/2024 at 1:57 PM, HenryJames said:

He's going to be on the ballot. 

 

3 hours ago, TexEx15 said:

 

 

[Bullneck 19,560]

 

 

[pacman 7,511]

11 hours ago, mdmost said:

The messaging from the Democrats is beyond awful if this poll is accurate. You have millions of dollars in the bank. Start spending it to shift the message before it is too late. Maybe it doesn't make a bit of difference but do what Republicans do. Flood the fucking zone. 

I was thinking about this today, sitting in a traditional Greek restaurant. They had Fox news on their one TV. I recalled the hotel also had Fox. Then, I try to remember a public place with the news on that wasn't playing Fox. I still haven't come up one.

[Bullneck 19,560]

 

 

[The Original Greaser Bob 2,901]

6 minutes ago, pacman said:

I was thinking about this today, sitting in a traditional Greek restaurant. They had Fox news on their one TV. I recalled the hotel also had Fox. Then, I try to remember a public place with the news on that wasn't playing Fox.

I'm not saying you need to pick up your game in terms of restaurants and hotels but have you recently been compelled to go into low company?

 

[lucious leftfoot 126]

On 5/22/2024 at 4:51 PM, Goredho said:

What I don't think people fully appreciate is that while yeah, there are some dumb fucking voters out there, there are a lot of voters who aren't dumb but love Trump.  I know a few of these, and they have kind of given up all pretenses if they trust you.  They think the federal government is fatally flawed and needs to be broken and rebuilt no matter the cost.  They know completely well that Trump has some horrific traits competing for dominance -- narcissism, sociopathy, stupidity and criminality.  They do not care.  They view his hatchet-man governance as the opportunity to remake the federal government to be something from before the New Deal and all the progressive measures enacted in the last half of the 20th century (civil rights, gay marriage, etc...).

That is their vision of a better America.  And they don't sport swastikas tattoos or shaved heads.  They are directors or VPs at companies whose names you would recognize in Austin, Dallas and Denver.  They are some of the parents of the kids that your kids are friends with.  You've sat next to them at little league games, maybe even laughed together at a (non-political) joke among the circle of dad's at the neighbor kid's birthday party.

Most of these people don't want to go back to before civil rights or gay marriage. That's bs. 

Maybe they just prefer the country how it was in the recent past. Progressives are very open about wanting to change and make drastic change to this country.  And they dominate the administrative state. 

Maybe they've seen a senile, frail man as President and realize he's not even running things. So who is? No one that's been elected. There is a massive deep state/adminstrative state/bureaucracy that essentially runs public policy and anyone on the Right that pays any attention has to realize they have almost representation in that. 

I think the CR crew should really think about that last point.  Imagine if the right controlled 90% of the bureaucracy and used it to push around the other side at all levels? Would you be surprised if people became apathetic, or worse, towards that system?

 

Shit, look how y'all act towards the Supreme Court? And that's only a 6-3 split, not 90-10.

Anyway, my time is almost past. I won’t be able to respond, but be assured that all your arguments are worthless and weak.

Vaya con Dios, CR. 

 

[Rex Kramer 1,539]

On 5/22/2024 at 5:29 PM, Surly Bevo said:

What's astounding is that it has never been easier to get information.  

The simple fact is that for greedy and sometimes downright evil people Americans by virtue of the phone in their pocket should be more connected and educated to the state of all of those things mentioned in that poll than ever before in history.....alas propagandists going to propaganda.  

Obtaining truth is difficult unless you’re a voracious reader. It’s never been easier to access information THAT YOU WANT. 

[Goredho 17,663]

7 minutes ago, lucious leftfoot said:

Most of these people don't want to go back to before civil rights or gay marriage. That's bs. 

Maybe they just prefer the country how it was in the recent past. Progressives are very open about wanting to change and make drastic change to this country.  And they dominate the administrative state. 

Maybe they've seen a senile, frail man as President and realize he's not even running things. So who is? No one that's been elected. There is a massive deep state/adminstrative state/bureaucracy that essentially runs public policy and anyone on the Right that pays any attention has to realize they have almost representation in that. 

I think the CR crew should really think about that last point.  Imagine if the right controlled 90% of the bureaucracy and used it to push around the other side at all levels? Would you be surprised if people became apathetic, or worse, towards that system?

 

Shit, look how y'all act towards the Supreme Court? And that's only a 6-3 split, not 90-10.

Anyway, my time is almost past. I won’t be able to respond, but be assured that all your arguments are worthless and weak.

Vaya con Dios, CR. 

 

You can speak for yourself, but you can't speak for the people I know and that you don't.

Vaya con Satán, dipshit.

[Goredho 17,663]

8 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

Obtaining truth is difficult unless you’re a voracious reader. It’s never been easier to access information THAT YOU WANT. 

This is 100% true, and the people who I put the least faith in are those that believe that the information they want is the only shred of truth in a sea of bullshit.

[Rimbo 27,088]

[Biff Tannen 46,200]

1 hour ago, lucious leftfoot said:

Maybe they've seen a senile, frail man as President and realize he's not even running things. So who is? No one that's been elected. There is a massive deep state/adminstrative state/bureaucracy that essentially runs public policy and anyone on the Right that pays any attention has to realize they have almost representation in that. 

I think the CR crew should really think about that last point.  Imagine if the right controlled 90% of the bureaucracy and used it to push around the other side at all levels? Would you be surprised if people became apathetic, or worse, towards that system?

Maybe everything you believe is a lie.  I think you should really think about that last point.

[Biff Tannen 46,200]

10 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:

My parents would give up their lives in a second for those that they love.  The household we grew up in was full of warmth and love and is the example I am trying to replicate for my family.  They are also almost assuredly voting for Trump.  Does this make them "bad?"

This is how I would describe my in-laws.  Yes, it does make them bad.  "Those that they love" is where their "love" stops.  I feel this is one of the major problems we are seeing.  It falls into the "us against them" mentality.  Oh, MY family is all that matters.  Fuck every other human. 

Well, sorry, that's not how society works.  Sure, family can matter MORE, but that doesn't mean it's a zero sum game.  You can take care of your family (whatever that means) and also do good by other people.

[Pancho 46,370]

They are sticking to their radical anti American talking points

 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,742]

21 hours ago, StassneyHorn said:

You won’t believe the  percentage of Border crossings that are down. Click the spoiler to find this one shocking secret

  Hide contents

40%
 

Illegal crossings along the U.S. southern border have dropped by more than 40% this year since soaring to record levels in December.

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/immigration-us-mexico-border-migrants-illegal-crossings/

 

 

That's because they know that Trump is becoming the President. According to Trump.

[tx 3 putt 78,736]

18 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I hear you, and feel you.  And it's really hard.  It's REALLY fucking hard.

The hardest part is reaching that final conclusion: that on balance, these people have chosen evil.  For whatever the reason, they have chosen it.  And that is, in the end, unacceptable and unforgivable.

Great post.  And yeah, the bolded -- or 1,000 questions like it, like "when your child's spouse, who is tainted with minority blood, is rounded up and deported to a country they've never even been to even though they are a natural born US citizen but the future regime has abolished that retroactively and a crooked SCOTUS happily went along with it, how will you feel?" or "when the man who gunned down your child and her entire family when he went hunting 'invaders' at the local Wal-Mart is pardoned by the Regime because he was doing God's Work, how will you feel?"  And on and on and on.

Evil shit like the Holocaust didn't happen because Hitler and a few dozen bad dudes had some really shitty ideas.  These things happen because millions of people EMPOWER, EXCUSE, AND PROTECT those evil fuckers, so that they can do their evil unimpeded.

This should be mandatory viewing ….

[David Dennison 19,569]

7 minutes ago, Pancho said:

They are sticking to their radical anti American talking points

 

Crybabies, the lot of them.

[tx 3 putt 78,736]

11 hours ago, lucious leftfoot said:

Most of these people don't want to go back to before civil rights or gay marriage. That's bs. 

Maybe they just prefer the country how it was in the recent past. Progressives are very open about wanting to change and make drastic change to this country.  And they dominate the administrative state. 

Maybe they've seen a senile, frail man as President and realize he's not even running things. So who is? No one that's been elected. There is a massive deep state/adminstrative state/bureaucracy that essentially runs public policy and anyone on the Right that pays any attention has to realize they have almost representation in that. 

I think the CR crew should really think about that last point.  Imagine if the right controlled 90% of the bureaucracy and used it to push around the other side at all levels? Would you be surprised if people became apathetic, or worse, towards that system?

 

Shit, look how y'all act towards the Supreme Court? And that's only a 6-3 split, not 90-10.

Anyway, my time is almost past. I won’t be able to respond, but be assured that all your arguments are worthless and weak.

Vaya con Dios, CR. 

 

 

you should name your butt plug ‘deep state’ and move to North Korea

and go fuck yourself 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,742]

21 minutes ago, Pancho said:

They are sticking to their radical anti American talking points

 

Once again they use the "fact" that so many people are skeptical of 2020 as evidence of voting irregularity.

[Longhorn_Fan68 34,108]

why won't these fuckers press them? what irregularities? please show direct examples. please point to specific cases. oh, nothing, then shut the fuck up about it. the irregularities were you didn't get to cheat like you did last time. that's the irregularity

[C-Man 27,820]

Elon putting his thumb on the Twitter scale for Dotard.

https://dnyuz.com/2024/05/24/elon-musk-ramps-up-anti-biden-posts-on-x/

Quote

Last month, Elon Musk posted on X that President Biden “obviously barely knows what’s going on.”

“He is just a tragic front for a far left political machine,” Mr. Musk wrote. It was the 29th time this year that he had posted about the president on X, formerly known as Twitter, which Mr. Musk bought in 2022.

Mr. Musk has steadily ramped up his criticism of Mr. Biden as the campaign season heats up before the November presidential election. Mr. Musk has posted about Mr. Biden on X at least seven times a month since January, attacking the president for everything from his age to his policies on immigration and health. Before that, he posted about Mr. Biden twice in December and not at all in November, according to a New York Times analysis. In all, Mr. Musk had posted nearly 40 times about Mr. Biden this year, compared with about 30 times for all of last year.

In contrast, Mr. Musk had posted more than 20 times on X this year about former President Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. In those posts, Mr. Musk defended Mr. Trump, arguing that he is a victim of media and prosecutorial bias in the criminal cases that the former president faces.

Mr. Musk’s posts about this year’s presidential race stand out because he is signaling a willingness to tip the political scales as the owner of an influential social media platform, something that no other leader of a social media firm has done. And Mr. Musk exerts outsize influence over the political discourse on X, where he regularly posts to his 184 million followers.

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder, has shied away from endorsing candidates and rarely posts political content on Facebook or Instagram. Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief, and Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief, have also not posted political commentary on their companies’ social media platforms, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Bhaskar Chakravorti, the dean of global business at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, said Mr. Musk’s outspokenness on his political views could have consequences.

“He has ownership and the largest follower base, and he is a much-larger-than-life character with almost godlike status” on one of the largest platforms for political discussion, Mr. Chakravorti said. “If he was to really come out and support a candidate and put his weight against it, it could have an impact.”

The White House, the Biden campaign, Mr. Musk and X did not respond to requests for comment.

By bringing an ideological bent to X, Mr. Musk mirrors what media moguls like Rupert Murdoch, whose empire includes Fox News and The New York Post, have done by helping shape their outlets’ coverage and broader political discourse, said Sarah Kreps, a professor and director of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University.

Mr. Murdoch “has a particular ideological valence and most people know what that is, and that permeates through his different media outlets,” she said. “People can opt into those or opt out,” similar to X. Some users — put off by Mr. Musk’s ideological bent — have migrated to competing social media platforms, she said.

Still, Mr. Musk is unlikely to tip November’s vote, social media experts said. Many of his followers already agree with his political stance, they said, and the platform has shifted right since his acquisition.

Mr. Musk has become more publicly supportive of right-wing candidates and views in recent years. As recently as 2022, he described himself as a centrist and a reluctant Democrat. He said he voted for Mr. Biden hesitantly in 2020. Political giving records show that Mr. Musk has not made national campaign contributions since 2020, when he gave to Republican and Democratic Senate candidates.

But in June 2022, Mr. Musk said he had voted for a Republican candidate for the first time in a special election for Texas’ 34th Congressional District. In the national midterm elections that November, he urged voters to vote Republican in congressional races since a Democrat was in the White House.

That evolution continued last May when Mr. Musk hosted a buggy audio stream on X to announce and endorse Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, for the Republican presidential nomination. Mr. Musk has not made another endorsement.

Mr. Musk has also repeatedly used X to vocally support right-wing politicians around the world, including Javier Milei, the president of Argentina; Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil; and Narendra Modi of India. He has then tried to use that good will to lobby for advantages in those countries for his other businesses, including SpaceX, a rocket company, and Tesla, which makes electric cars.

Mr. Musk has courted Mr. Trump, who was booted from X when it was still known as Twitter, after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. After buying Twitter in 2022, Mr. Musk moved quickly to restore Mr. Trump’s account, although the former president has posted only once on the platform since then.

Even though Mr. Musk has not endorsed Mr. Trump, he has had several conversations with the former president. In March, Mr. Musk and Republican donors met with Mr. Trump in Palm Beach, Fla., as the former president sought election donations.

Afterward, Mr. Musk posted on X that he was “not donating money to either candidate for US President.”

Mr. Musk has been sympathetic to Mr. Trump in his posts. “The more unfair the attacks on Trump seem to the public, the higher he will rise in the polls,” Mr. Musk wrote last week.

Mr. Musk has long been critical of Mr. Biden. In 2021, the billionaire slammed Mr. Biden for his decisions on electric vehicle promotion and subsidies, most of which favored unionized U.S. auto manufacturers. Tesla, where Mr. Musk is chief executive, has resisted efforts to unionize its manufacturing.

“My preference for the 2024 presidency is someone sensible and centrist,” Mr. Musk posted in November 2022, weeks after buying Twitter — and just as he brought Mr. Trump back onto the platform. He added that he had been hopeful about the Biden administration, but was “disappointed so far.”

In January, Mr. Musk ramped up his critiques of Mr. Biden. He posted seven times about the president that month, primarily regarding immigration policies, just as the Biden administration sued Texas over a law that allowed local law enforcement to arrest migrants.

“I cannot see myself voting for Biden,” Mr. Musk said, accusing the president of “facilitating illegal immigration.”

In February, Mr. Musk said Mr. Biden supported lax immigration restrictions because they would give him and the Democratic Party an advantage in the November election.

“Biden’s strategy is very simple: 1. Get as many illegals in the country as possible. 2. Legalize them to create a permanent majority — a one-party state,” Mr. Musk wrote. As the number of people crossing into the United States has reached record levels, Mr. Biden has called for a stricter crackdown on immigration and accused Republicans of stymieing his efforts.

Since then, Mr. Musk has escalated his commentary on Mr. Biden, posting 12 times in March and complaining the media is a “Biden cheering squad.”

Last month, at a dinner party in Los Angeles, Mr. Musk along with other billionaires, including Mr. Murdoch and the venture capitalist Peter Thiel, discussed how to oppose Mr. Biden’s re-election, according to a person familiar with the event, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. The dinner was earlier reported by Puck.

During an interview with the former CNN host Don Lemon in March, Mr. Musk said that he would continue voicing his opinion but didn’t want “to put a thumb on the scale monetarily that is significant,” and that he might endorse a candidate during “the final stretch.”

”I’m leaning away from Biden,” he said, laughing.

The post Elon Musk Ramps Up Anti-Biden Posts on X appeared first on New York Times.

 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,742]

5 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

why won't these fuckers press them? what irregularities? please show direct examples. please point to specific cases. oh, nothing, then shut the fuck up about it. the irregularities were you didn't get to cheat like you did last time. that's the irregularity

It’s petty but I wish that Carson would be presented with the “fact” that X% of Americans do not believe or know that he’s a medical doctor so therefore he should no longer be referred to as doctor until there can be a consensus on that fact. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,742]

7 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

why won't these fuckers press them? what irregularities? please show direct examples. please point to specific cases. oh, nothing, then shut the fuck up about it. the irregularities were you didn't get to cheat like you did last time. that's the irregularity

The right political commentators have somehow all agreed that they only need to state that peoples beliefs in voting irregularity is proof and they refuse to engage in reasonable conversations about the irregularities. They know they have zero evidence but their base doesn’t want to hear that.

[Biff Tannen 46,200]

12 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Once again they use the "fact" that so many people are skeptical of 2020 as evidence of voting irregularity.

"A lot of people are saying...because we told them"

[David Dennison 19,569]

10 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

why won't these fuckers press them? what irregularities? please show direct examples. please point to specific cases. oh, nothing, then shut the fuck up about it. the irregularities were you didn't get to cheat like you did last time. that's the irregularity

Or just stop giving them air time.

[Pancho 46,370]

11 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

why won't these fuckers press them? what irregularities? please show direct examples. please point to specific cases. oh, nothing, then shut the fuck up about it. the irregularities were you didn't get to cheat like you did last time. that's the irregularity

 

All of the VP hopefuls have been on CNN within the last week or 2. It’s really odd, unless their talking points include infiltrating the CNN audience with the idea to brainwash voters on “irregularities.”

 

And the NYT is reporting Tom Cotton as a sleeper VP pick for Sleepy Don.

[TwiceHorn 32,103]

They can always cite to something.  Polling 300 million people is a massive undertaking (even if it isn't the full 300M).  There are always "irregularities."  But whether those irregularities affect the outcome is a different question.  Entirely.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,742]

2 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Or just stop giving them air time.

Outrage sells. CNN or MSNBC is ok if their interviewees piss off the viewers. We're sharing links and videos of Carson and Cruz refusing to be reasonable.

[mdmost 44,110]

So once again the Republicans absolutely hand Biden an issue he can run on, that they really don't care about Border Security and it's only a wedge issue they are using to enrage their base. So I'm sure any day now we'll see ad after ad about how Republicans yet again killed the border security bill they negotiated. Because Biden's team have the media messaging completely under control. 

[Biff Tannen 46,200]

5 minutes ago, mdmost said:

So once again the Republicans absolutely hand Biden an issue he can run on, that they really don't care about Border Security and it's only a wedge issue they are using to enrage their base. So I'm sure any day now we'll see ad after ad about how Republicans yet again killed the border security bill they negotiated. Because Biden's team have the media messaging completely under control. 

I do think they've been doing pretty well.  They jumped on the reich bullshit immediately.

[mdmost 44,110]

8 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

I do think they've been doing pretty well.  They jumped on the reich bullshit immediately.

But no one cares about that who might vote for Trump. What they claim to care about is immigration and border security. So go non-stop on how the Republicans are failing on this because of Trump. Link the two. Maybe it resonates with some, probably it won't. But stop wasting time when this is the moment to seize on things. Otherwise, it's taking your timeouts into halftime with you. To me, this is 2016 all over again. It should be an f'ing layup to beat Trump. Don't assume people are going to do the right thing again. 

Edited May 24 by mdmost