US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5849

On November 02 2016 00:30 KwarK wrote:

No. And furthermore if she said she was going to use her four years exclusively to roam the country and hunt people for sport while using that new sovereign immunity from prosecution I'd still vote for her over Trump.

Working the Refs

The cryptic letter James Comey, the F.B.I. director, sent to Congress on Friday looked bizarre at the time — seeming to hint at a major new Clinton scandal, but offering no substance. Given what we know now, however, it was worse than bizarre, it was outrageous. Mr. Comey apparently had no evidence suggesting any wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton; he violated longstanding rules about commenting on politically sensitive investigations close to an election; and he did so despite being warned by other officials that he was doing something terribly wrong.

So what happened? We may never know the full story, but the best guess is that Mr. Comey, like many others — media organizations, would-be nonpartisan advocacy groups, and more — let himself be bullied by the usual suspects. Working the refs — screaming about bias and unfair treatment, no matter how favorable the treatment actually is — has been a consistent, long-term political strategy on the right. And the reason it keeps happening is because it so often works.

You see this most obviously in news coverage. Reporters who find themselves shut up in pens at Trump rallies while the crowd shouts abuse shouldn’t be surprised: constant accusations of liberal media bias have been a staple of Republican rhetoric for decades. And why not? The pressure has been effective.

Part of this effectiveness comes through false equivalence: news organizations, afraid of being attacked for bias, give evenhanded treatment to lies and truth. Way back in 2000 I suggested that if a Republican candidate said that the earth was flat, headlines would read, “Views differ on shape of planet.” That still happens.

On November 02 2016 00:30 KwarK wrote:

No. And furthermore if she said she was going to use her four years exclusively to roam the country and hunt people for sport while using that new sovereign immunity from prosecution I'd still vote for her over Trump.

On November 02 2016 00:30 Evotroid wrote:
The problem with the what would it take question is that it is just too late. Trump got his chance, even in this topic, most people were like "ok, now he just needs to not be terrible in the debates and this could be a thing" and "oh, he just made faces for the stupid gop crowd, but he will pivot to reason any time now!".
That ship has now sailed, he had months, and didn't make dick of it, why would anyone who paid attention the whole season take seriously any miraculous revelation that came this last week?

On November 02 2016 00:37 biology]major wrote:


Wtf kwark

On November 02 2016 00:40 KwarK wrote:

Oh please. She's an old lady. Half the country has been arming themselves for years awaiting the day the government comes after them to force them into FEMA death camps. They'd leap at the chance to have Clinton coming after them in person. Hell, that's probably fan fiction for them at this point.

If Trump wins there's a genuine risk of there not being new elections in 2020. Clinton, even dressed up as a the predator with that shoulder laser cannon and hunting people for sport, can be voted out in four years.

On November 02 2016 00:44 oneofthem wrote:
i don't think a victory for trump means victory for fascism. it would mean victory for kleptocracy and general chaos.

trump will sell domestic policy and foreign policy. he would collapse the western position for the interests of plutocrats from russia/china, by completely undercutting existing rules against corruption and application of u.s. law to foreign business interests.

domestically, it will be a combination of the worst of both worlds. we'd have a big tax cut, for the rich of course, and especially on intergenerational wealth transfer and real estate. we would also have a pretty big recession generated by tremendous loss of faith in the dollar and stability of u.s., a position that had allowed low interest rate on treasury bonds. suddenly, the debt gets real and investment dives.

we'd probably also have a foreign policy crisis or two as weakening nato commitments would just embolden russia to do some stuff in the baltics. trump will get impeached during all this, and mr. pence declares some sort of war on russia.

On November 02 2016 00:46 KwarK wrote:

How do you reconcile that with his opposition to a free press if it criticizes him, his insistence that the electoral system cannot be trusted to create the "right" results and his total refusal to believe reality in the event of any personal failure? Does he look like a man who leaves office willingly to you?

On November 02 2016 00:51 oneofthem wrote:

well, it's not for lack of want on the part of trump.

i mean i can see a scenario in which congressional republicans accept a lot of trumpism in exchange for FAIR TAX etc. but to transition this country into fascism you'd have to overcome a lot of institutional resistance.

he's also pretty incompetent, so chances are there'd be a lot of impeachable crimes within the first three months.