US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5917

On November 05 2016 02:05 ticklishmusic wrote:


this is when i mutter "democracy is the worst form of government except for all the rest" to myself.

On November 05 2016 02:12 biology]major wrote:


Being a woman is not a negative, but you are a moron if you think women in power don't face certain pressures that men don't. She can easily overcompensate in the face of such pressure and amplify her hawkishness.

On November 05 2016 01:43 BallinWitStalin wrote:


I never understood that perspective. Like, people really need to attempt to put themselves into other times. Right now, Americans live in the most objectively powerful and rich country/empire in the history of the world. They live with fantastic technology, live in a peaceful society that lacks war, low crime, lots of opportunity (although this could be better), etc. Corruption is definitely a legitimate issue, but this whole "ITS SO BAD FUCK IT LETS WATCH IT BURN" attitude is frankly bizarre; Americans have it really fucking good (for the most part) compared to most humans on the globe today and historically. There's lots of stuff you can improve on (what society is perfect?), but good lord living standards could get so much fucking worse.

Like, good god World war 1 and 2 were terrible times to be alive. The great depression, Vietnam, the Cuban missile crisis, the entire fucking cold war, literal segregation based on race -> these are all things people living today have experienced, and yet somehow young people nowadays think things are currently awful because of an e-mail scandal? There were literal genocidal purges of millions of people in developed countries, 25% unemployment, internment camps (in America!), and a high chance of a nuclear holocaust for like 50 years. How do these things even compare to what's going on today? And yet people act like it's the end of the world....

On November 05 2016 02:06 TheYango wrote:

The curious thing about conservatives that hold this position is that they have to recognize that their position is also irreconcilable with a large component of Trump's base--those who view Trump as an anti-establishment candidate and detest the GOP old guard. Getting what they want for the next 4 years isn't going to make those people go away, and they need to answer to those people in a better way than "suck up to Trump + business as usual".


Clinton is not stupid. She is hawkish, is inimical toward Russia, has something to prove, and has displayed poor judgment in complex FP scenarios in the past. But she also acts rationally and has sufficient knowledge of the risks.

I expect her to make mistakes again in complex FP scenarios. I do not expect her to do obviously stupid things because that's simply not within her range. Outright war with Russia falls in that category of "obviously stupid things".

On November 05 2016 02:17 oneofthem wrote:
she needs to put some substance behind the russia critique. make it about a positive vision for something.

without that positive vision it would look like a nationalist squabble, and that does look dangerous. but if she talks about upholding institutions and values, against kleptocracy and rent extracting institutions foreign and domestic, that is a message that is both appealing and also not overtly militaristic

putin has expressed admiration for hrc's ability and drive before. he just pissed that his coup got verbally condemned by hillary, and it should have

“One time, I was visiting with him in his dacha outside of Moscow, and
he was going on and on, you know, just listing all of the problems that he thinks are caused by
the United States. And I said, ‘Well, you know, Mr.’—at that time, he was still prime minister. I
said, ‘You know, Mr. Prime Minister, we actually have some things in common. We both want to
protect wildlife, and I know how committed you are to protecting the tiger.’ I mean, all of a
sudden, he sat up straight and his eyes got big and he goes, ‘You care about the tiger? I said, ‘I
care about the tiger, I care about the elephant, I care about the rhinoceros, I care about the
whale. I mean, yeah, I think we have a duty. You know, it’s an obligation that we as human
beings have to protect God’s creation.’ He goes, ‘Come with me.’ So we go down the
stairs, we go down this long hall, we go into this private inner sanctum. All of his, you know,
very beefy security guys are there, they all jump up at attention, you know, they punch a code,
he goes through a heavily-armed door. And then we’re in an inner, inner sanctum with, you
know, just this long, wooden table, and then further back, there’s a desk and the biggest map of
Russia I ever saw. And he starts talking to me about, you know, the habitat of the tigers
and the habitat of the seals and the whales. And it was quite something.”

On November 05 2016 02:26 WolfintheSheep wrote:
I love how contrary support and criticism of the candidates manages to be.

Drumpf will not be an issue because Congress will block him and he has no power. Drumpf is good because he will change everything up and destroy the status quo.

Hillary is evil and will start wars and assassinate leaders and Congress can't stop her. Hillary is so establishment will maintain the status quo and nothing will change under her.

On November 05 2016 02:26 Logo wrote:
What I don't get about the Russia strategy is why Hillary's camp is trying to pin the actions on a state backed actor (hard to prove) when pinning it on just foreign provocateurs is a lot more believable and can be better supported by evidence like Trump's twitter botnet, foreign fake news sites ( https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/24/facebook-clickbait-political-news-sites-us-election-trump ) and independently(?) motivated pro-Trump russian trolls: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/russian-online-troll-tells-samantha-bee-why-she-prefers-donald-trump_us_58184cafe4b0990edc3340d2 .

Like I guess it's not nearly as much of a narrative, but it's a whole lot more palatable.

On November 05 2016 02:30 WolfintheSheep wrote:

Well, you realize that early this year it was found that "Russian Troll" was a state-backed and well-funded industry? Not to say that non-state Russian trolls don't exist, but yeah...

On November 05 2016 01:52 biology]major wrote:
While you guys are drinking the 'trump is going to bring the apocalypse' kool aid, realize that clinton and Putin have a personal deep seated animosity towards each other. This combined with her poor judgement and having a chip on her shoulder for being a woman president and to be "strong", can easily result in war. This is before considering the alleged interference in the election by Russia, so you can bet she has a personal agenda on top of all of the above. Carry on

On November 05 2016 02:20 a_flayer wrote:
Can I ask if you think she might make the mistake of having certain foreign leaders that she doesn't agree with assassinated while she is in office, resulting in something she hadn't anticipated? Like, for example, killing Kim Yong Un or something (doesn't seem entirely out of the question) which somehow escalates into a war with China? Or killing Ahmadinejad (or his replacement, or the one after that) on behalf of the Saudis and thereby pulling Russia into it?

We know it only takes 5 weeks...

On November 05 2016 02:36 Plansix wrote:
I do enjoy the argument from Trump fans that he will "get along with Putin" as some selling point.