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John Oliver on Trump. The section about Trump not knowing what the truth is or just not caring is the most terrifying part IMO. I don't want a guy who true believes whatever headcannon he creates being president.
On February 29 2016 22:06 puerk wrote: The issue is: who is the one deciding who can and who cannot, who wants and who wants not, who shows effort and who does not...
Meritocracies are measuring with monetary and/or societal (praise) success, they are entirely outcome based and not as you claim effort based.
And success is not in any objective way normalizable with some sort of apptitude level to extract their "effort". I am not sure why you think otherwise but there is no "meritocracy" in what you call a "real meritocracy".
I am not saying dignity justifies refusal to work, i say dignity informs us how to interact with people you consider lazy fucks.
To add to this, a respect for human dignity informs the manner in which we should judge (or, to be more specific, attempt to or refrain from judging) those with less than us. This notion that lazy people who leech off the system are somehow easy to identify given basic external observations flies directly in the face of just how incredibly large and internally differentiated our society is. Accordingly, when faced with ambiguous information and the welfare of other people in the balance, chalking up large portions of society as nothing more than "lazy" is itself quite lazy.
On February 29 2016 14:26 ticklishmusic wrote: I'm exceeded the recommended daily intake of salt so much that I'm at risk of suffering kidney failure at this point.
GH, let me put it this way: from the start is was a real uphill battle for Bernie, like climbing a mountain. If you fail or its hard, you don't blame the mountain for being too tall or too windy or whatever. Yes the DNC pulled some shit, but Hillary is an incredibly qualified candidate. It took Barack Obama to beat her, and he's the second most gifted politician in recent history after Bill Clinton, and he had a knack for organizing.
Actually, this is kind of a funny story-- back when I was a junior in college, I ran for VP in student government. I'd never been involved before, but basically I felt they'd been doing an ass job of managing finances, student organizations and everything else. A decent number of people shared that view. I figured that as an outsider I could attract some support, and I wasn't a complete unknown on campus-- involved in a couple pretty big orgs. I worked up a platform of reforms, got a ton of friends across campus to campaign for me, spammed all across social media and went door to door for two weeks. My alma mater is weird and we have basically 2 campuses-- one has about 500 students who are all freshmen/sophomore and they basically transfer to main campus after 2 years. It's an hour away, and I spent 2 days campaigning there (won the shit out of them b/c I was the only one who bothered visiting).
We had a debate which I crushed, but the newspaper characterized me as some guy new to the scene with no experience despite me knowing the student government regs better than the other two guys running. They also endorsed the eventual winner, who was VP ops or something (not me). I lost like 70-30, though I did get a shoutout from the winner about bringing attention to the messed up finances.
tl;dr Change is hard.
There's no point in arguing, you think what she's done is fine, I think it undermines democracy at it's core. As long as we're on the same page of her trying to rig the process, that's enough for me.
On February 29 2016 14:35 kwizach wrote:
On February 29 2016 14:26 GreenHorizons wrote:
On February 29 2016 14:14 kwizach wrote:
On February 29 2016 14:04 GreenHorizons wrote: Considering what Hillary has done so far to try to rig the nomination I don't think it would be a wise bet. I'll bet she doesn't win the presidency though.
What has she done to rig the nomination?
Seriously? Are you refuting she has?
Do tell me what she has done, according to you. Hillary specifically.
On February 29 2016 14:26 GreenHorizons wrote:
On February 29 2016 14:18 Sermokala wrote: As much as people say a bernie trump election would be crazy I think a hillary trump would be more of a crap shoot. It doesn't really matter if she wins her rigging the nomination will just be yet another bengazi.
Trump would make her rage/cry without a doubt. Call her marriage a political sham and just rip her to shreds.
How can you possibly be so ignorant about her? Hopefully you'll listen to Sanders when he tells you to support Hillary in a few days.
Yeah, no. I've posted several examples you can accept the reality or not but I'm not arguing about whether red looks the same to us.
While I in no way support Hillary, that wasn't a comment on her personally. That was the political reality that Trump is going to rip her to shreds because he'll have no boundaries. That will include things like calling her marriage a political sham as he hinted when she tried to call him sexist.
I haven't seen you talk about Hillary specifically. If you're going to claim that she rigged the nomination, the least you can do is back up that claim.
There's a difference between Trump not having boundaries and Trump ripping her to shreds. Clinton will make him look like the buffoon that he is and crush him in the general election.
If you are expecting an email chain showing her directing specific actions I obviously don't have that. You're fine to think she didn't or it was just her supporters or whatever you want, I don't really care. It's obvious to anyone willing to look at it imo and others can have their opinion.
So you've got absolutely nothing. Got it.
On February 29 2016 15:05 GreenHorizons wrote: You think Trump supporters aren't fully aware he has no idea what he's talking about politically? The pile of oppo that would be hurled at Clinton would make the 90's look like a dinner party.
As if it would be any different with Sanders. Again, Clinton will have no problem taking it and making Trump look like the fool he is, like RenSC2 said.
No matter what happens on Super Tuesday, it’s clear who the real losers will be on election night: The Democratic and Republican parties. An election season that began as a presumptive showdown between two inevitable dynastic front-runners—Jeb Bush vs. Hillary Clinton—has now devolved into an electoral dumpster fire. And it’s time to name the culprit: The dynasties themselves.
From the earliest stages of this election—the so-called invisible primary for funding and top-level staffers—the House of Bush and House of Clinton hoarded the race’s resources. So much so, that they broke the process and made room for outsider candidates who now pose existential threats to the parties themselves. Jeb is already out, and there’s an inclination to feel sorry for him—but the damage he wrought by vaporizing $150 million is a weakened establishment and a Trump juggernaut that will take a small miracle to defeat. On the Democratic side, it looks like Hillary will survive—but her party will have to live with a candidate who, voters have made clear, has the wrong message for its mood. Well into the spring, she’ll have to weather a crowdfunded socialist whose grass-roots campaign is bleeding young people and women from her base, while whacking her on her Wall Street ties. And she’ll head into the fall with a risky email scandal hanging over her head.
If this cycle teaches us anything, it’s that political dynasties are bad for parties the way monopolies are bad for business: They impede competition, and reward power rather than merit. Voters—both Republican and Democrat—have rejected the unassailability and inevitability of the Bush and Clinton dynasties. What’s troubling is that the parties didn’t—that they were blinded by the name on the packaging, not realizing how weakened both candidates had become.
Many of the two parties’ insiders, fundraisers, activists, elected officials and staffers are no more than one degree removed from the Clintons or Bushes. Many owe their jobs to the former presidents, or their networks. Equally as important, no GOP candidate without the Bush dynasty behind him would have been able to deny his rivals funding in the crucial, early primary states.
On February 29 2016 16:10 xDaunt wrote: Sanders was always going to be a longshot. He's not within the democrat mainstream, much less the American mainstream. Thought it may be too much to say that it was a foregone conclusion, the expectation always was that Bernie was going to struggle in the South and in conservative states during the primary. Though the DNC certainly worked to stack the deck in her favor, I haven't seen anything to suggest that Hillary's seemingly impending victory is largely a function of underhanded tactics. As exciting as Bernie may be to very liberal democrats, he simply isn't getting enough of them out to vote for him.
And this is what should be concerning to democrats overall: their low turnouts in the primaries so far. The hearts and minds of democrat and liberal voters aren't being moved like they were in 2008 and 2012. The Obama thrill is gone. Republicans, however, are very excited (for Donald Trump) and are turning out in record numbers. Presuming that Trump wins the nomination and is able to unite most of the Republican Party behind him (he's going to have very careful with his VP pick), Trump will be very well-positioned going into the general, without factoring in 1) his ability to appeal to many traditional democrat voters by moving to the left of Hillary on free trade and foreign policy, 2) any downturn in the US economy which will undoubtedly work to his advantage, and 3) any other catastrophe that may occur on Obama's watch, which will work against Democrats as a whole.
I'm not saying that any of this is going to happen, but the recipe for an electoral disaster for Hillary is right there for everyone to see. And simply dismissing Trump as a buffoon who will be exposed once he is beyond the relative safety of the Republican primary requires turning a blind eye to what has happened since Trump announced his candidacy. His demise has repeatedly been predicted -- and even announced -- by many over the past nine months.
It may be that a majority of American voters ultimately reject Trump and that his loss is already baked into the cake due to the undesirability of his person and platform. But presuming that this is not the case, I do promise you this: Hillary will not be the instrument of Trump's destruction, and any faith in her to be as such is greatly misplaced. She simply is not a skilled enough politician, and she certainly is not qualitatively better than those whom Trump has dispatched thus far.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but I do think you're missing a few key points.
1) Trump is going to bring out the votes For and Against. He is so bombastic that he will energize his opposition and I would suspect the voter turnout in a Trump vs Anyone general election will be enormous. The primaries are just the first example.
Is there an example of a presidential election where a candidate won because his voters were largely motivated to vote against the opposition?
2) Clinton has only lost one race in her entire life, right? That was to Obama in 08, who was a juggernaut that made McCain and Romney look pathetic. She may not be a great leader, but she's been a very good campaigner. She knows exactly what she needs to do to win an election and she's done it before. Recently, Sanders popped up as a challenger, so she consolidated the black vote in the south and smacked him back down. If she can smack him down once more on Tuesday, it's over. She knows how to campaign and has a real strategy that goes beyond the first two states. For the general, she'll know exactly which states she needs to target and she'll hit them exactly as hard as necessary to win. She could definitely lose the popular vote, but win the electoral college this election.
This is only Hillary's fourth election. She won two elections to be a New York senator, which isn't really saying much. Democrats own that state. Beating Sanders doesn't exactly constitute a victory over the A-team, either. History aside, Hillary simply doesn't pass the eye test when assessing whether she's a great politician. She's not Bill. She's not Obama. She's middling at best.
3) She can also handle herself quite well in a hostile debate. She has played nice with Sanders in the debates because he has been nice to her... but that's not really her element. She's already been able to smack down the witch-hunt that was Benghazi. She's quite good at venom when needed and her base and independents won't mind if she uses a little venom on Trump. She will get under his skin and make him look like an out of control maniac while she remains sociopathically cool. Then the mainstream media will consistently play select clips to reinforce the narrative that Trump is a maniac while Clinton is presidential.
Let me ask you this: what exactly is Hillary going to do differently than what Trump's Republican challengers have been doing? What's going to change? It's not like there's anything more to expose when it comes to Trump. Given Trump's dominance of the media over the past 8+ months, it's not like people haven't already seen all of his warts. Remember his campaign announcement video and how everyone laughed at it? He's the exact same dude now that he was back then. And this is the most fascinating part of Trump's campaign to me: none of his supporters cares about what he actually says. Moreover, his support is growing.
I'm not predicting Trump's demise in the general quite yet. He has done significantly better than almost anyone predicted in the primary and his opponents have already taken the gloves off. However, I think you completely underestimate Clinton and the anti-Trump movement that is happening inside and outside the Republican party. Clinton may not be energizing, but picking her over Trump will be.
You could be right. But again, this is shaping up to be a general election where 1) the republicans are energized and the democrats are not, and 2) the republican candidate has a platform that is specifically designed to attract democratic voting groups. That's a bad combination for Hillary.
John Oliver on Drumpf. The section about Drumpf not knowing what the truth is or just not caring is the most terrifying part IMO. I don't want a guy who true believes whatever headcannon he creates being president.
The part about the small hands and gold market is the best part. And he sends the photos for years. Years. People just need to comply stories like that one, followed by “Just think if this guy was in charge of the FBI, CIA, NSA.”
And more importantly, how limited the congress would be to stop him unless they all decided to work together. They don’t control the CIA, FBI or NSA directly. They confirm the director, but its not like the entire agencies just shut down if they don’t have a director. They can defund them, but that is about it. The courts can only stop them if someone brings a claim.
These are the discussions that I feel are going to come up when it comes down to just Trump. Viewing his behavior in the past and then asking the if he would abuse the power he had for personal grudges. Asking people if they are comfortable taking that risk.
Also, I wish Biden ran. He would have destroyed Trump. Burned him to the ground.
I can imagine Diamond Joe just calling out Trump on the most ridiculous things with that smile on his face, like "aww shucks I'm a simple working class guy and I can't believe a sophisticated and rich New York billionaire would say that about the American people".
Then during the intermission Biden would go behind Trump and whisper things in his ear, thereby asserting dominance.
On February 29 2016 22:06 puerk wrote: The issue is: who is the one deciding who can and who cannot, who wants and who wants not, who shows effort and who does not...
Meritocracies are measuring with monetary and/or societal (praise) success, they are entirely outcome based and not as you claim effort based.
And success is not in any objective way normalizable with some sort of apptitude level to extract their "effort". I am not sure why you think otherwise but there is no "meritocracy" in what you call a "real meritocracy".
I am not saying dignity justifies refusal to work, i say dignity informs us how to interact with people you consider lazy fucks.
I think you misunderstand me here, which is probably because I'm not being very clear. The measure of meritocracy is not success, as success is only the measure of success ; "true" meritocracy only means that society and the State have to do everything in order to guarantee equal opportunities, or more realistically the most equal opportunities possible, so that success becomes the product of merit and not of your family's money, your educational background, etc.
On March 01 2016 00:40 Plansix wrote: And more importantly, how limited the congress would be to stop him unless they all decided to work together. They don’t control the CIA, FBI or NSA directly. They confirm the director, but its not like the entire agencies just shut down if they don’t have a director. They can defund them, but that is about it. The courts can only stop them if someone brings a claim.
These are the discussions that I feel are going to come up when it comes down to just Trump. Viewing his behavior in the past and then asking the if he would abuse the power he had for personal grudges. Asking people if they are comfortable taking that risk.
Also, I wish Biden ran. He would have destroyed Trump. Burned him to the ground.
They can also impeach the officers.
This is the one potential upside to a Trump Presidency. Because of the fact that Congress has a tiny possibility of working together to stop him, he may end up limiting the office's power, and reversing a tiny bit of the imperial presidency. (McConnell has talked about a plan for Republican members of Congress to run Against Trump if he is the nominee.)
Its a very tiny possibility, but it is more likely that with any other President (~40-60% of the Congress will cooperate with any of the other contenders... maybe a bit lower for Cruz)
seems like i responded without reading otherworld's post and thus misunderstood the exchange.
the moralistic way of judging people on welfare as 'lazy fucks' is just garbage. however, welfare may not be structuring the right sort of environment for some people to develop, and in a sense it does harm them.
giving someone money is an easy, hands off way of getting rid of a problem, but it is not nearly enough in a lot of situations. you probably need a new deal style work program to provide the enterprise that can give some work opportunities and make the people fitter. the traditional welfare state is basically an opportunity lost to do better.
it is possible and necessary to do without prejudice in motivating this kind of an intervention. you don't even have to rely on self interest of the normal society. it's probably more fulfilling and productive for someone to have the economic freedom of being able to hold a job, rather than be a drug dealer.
I wonder how Trump would hold up in 1 1v1 debate in general. It seems to be he skates by just throwing jabs and watching the weak group of candidates implode. He didn't have to speak long and could get away with vague BS answers (too late did the other guys actually call him on it). Can he get away with the same tactics in general? I feel whoever he faces could easily draw him out and expose the fact he has 0 substance and is basically just meme generating.
On March 01 2016 00:40 Plansix wrote: And more importantly, how limited the congress would be to stop him unless they all decided to work together. They don’t control the CIA, FBI or NSA directly. They confirm the director, but its not like the entire agencies just shut down if they don’t have a director. They can defund them, but that is about it. The courts can only stop them if someone brings a claim.
These are the discussions that I feel are going to come up when it comes down to just Trump. Viewing his behavior in the past and then asking the if he would abuse the power he had for personal grudges. Asking people if they are comfortable taking that risk.
Also, I wish Biden ran. He would have destroyed Trump. Burned him to the ground.
They can also impeach the officers.
This is the one potential upside to a Trump Presidency. Because of the fact that Congress has a tiny possibility of working together to stop him, he may end up limiting the office's power, and reversing a tiny bit of the imperial presidency. (McConnell has talked about a plan for Republican members of Congress to run Against Trump if he is the nominee.)
Its a very tiny possibility, but it is more likely that with any other President (~40-60% of the Congress will cooperate with any of the other contenders... maybe a bit lower for Cruz)
Knowing congress and the political process, it will be a long time before they become that united. McCarthy was a buffoon that ruined lives for a long time before he was stopped. It could be years before they stopped the abuse and how many lives would be ruined before then? There is no upside to him being elected.
On March 01 2016 01:06 Slaughter wrote: I wonder how Trump would hold up in 1 1v1 debate in general. It seems to be he skates by just throwing jabs and watching the weak group of candidates implode. He didn't have to speak long and could get away with vague BS answers (too late did the other guys actually call him on it). Can he get away with the same tactics in general? I feel whoever he faces could easily draw him out and expose the fact he has 0 substance and is basically just meme generating.
I think it will be very different once he can’t dodge issues by just bowing out and waiting for the next zinger. He is incapable of holding a reasonable discussion without lying or making up shit. The key part is making everyone who isn’t already a super Trump supporter aware of that he lies almost every time he talks.
On March 01 2016 01:06 Slaughter wrote: I wonder how Trump would hold up in 1 1v1 debate in general. It seems to be he skates by just throwing jabs and watching the weak group of candidates implode. He didn't have to speak long and could get away with vague BS answers (too late did the other guys actually call him on it). Can he get away with the same tactics in general? I feel whoever he faces could easily draw him out and expose the fact he has 0 substance and is basically just meme generating.
I think the bigger question is if people would care. Its already painfully obvious he has nothing. Its not hurting him now, why would it hurt him later.
If Trump gets nominated or (heaven forbid) elected it will not because he was not attacked enough/wrong, or because he has such great plans. It will be because the voters simply don't care that he is unqualified in every single way.
On March 01 2016 01:06 Slaughter wrote: I wonder how Trump would hold up in 1 1v1 debate in general. It seems to be he skates by just throwing jabs and watching the weak group of candidates implode. He didn't have to speak long and could get away with vague BS answers (too late did the other guys actually call him on it). Can he get away with the same tactics in general? I feel whoever he faces could easily draw him out and expose the fact he has 0 substance and is basically just meme generating.
I think the bigger question is if people would care. Its already painfully obvious he has nothing. Its not hurting him now, why would it hurt him later.
If Trump gets nominated or (heaven forbid) elected it will not because he was not attacked enough/wrong, or because he has such great plans. It will be because the voters simply don't care that he is unqualified in every single way.
Currently he only has to win over a very small percentage of the total population against a fragmented GOP. They can’t dig into his numbers, which seem to have a floor, but they could have consolidated everyone else against him. But the GOP is unwilling to do that, because none of the other folks running care who is the nominee if it isn’t them.
None of that will be true in the general election.
On March 01 2016 01:06 Slaughter wrote: I wonder how Trump would hold up in 1 1v1 debate in general. It seems to be he skates by just throwing jabs and watching the weak group of candidates implode. He didn't have to speak long and could get away with vague BS answers (too late did the other guys actually call him on it). Can he get away with the same tactics in general? I feel whoever he faces could easily draw him out and expose the fact he has 0 substance and is basically just meme generating.
I think the bigger question is if people would care. Its already painfully obvious he has nothing. Its not hurting him now, why would it hurt him later.
If Trump gets nominated or (heaven forbid) elected it will not because he was not attacked enough/wrong, or because he has such great plans. It will be because the voters simply don't care that he is unqualified in every single way.
The problem is that for many voters having a detailed plan has become indistinguishable from having no plan at all. They've been burned too often by politicians that outline detailed plans and then simply don't follow through on them once elected. When voters perceive they're getting screwed by politicians with experience and qualifications, those attributes lose their value.
Get ready folks this could be the last gasp of today's GOP especially with Rubio now having to make dick jokes on the trail in hopes of making a comeback miracle on Super Tuesday:
i can see a path for a trump victory in the general, but it is contingent on him changing course.
this nativist populism of trump is a double edged blade, but it is possible for him to preserve much of its force with discontent whites while blunting the big negatives that rise to moral disgust. how likely that happens is up in the air. he does troll the gop base incredibly hard so it's not out of the question that he can change course drastically come the general.
people in this country voted in a guy like reagan with a super majority, and reagan was an insensitive fuck with plenty of appeal to class and racial prejudice.