US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1181

On March 05 2019 13:45 Danglars wrote:

It's not exactly rocket science to deduce all Democrats need is a moderate to win back the White House. Trump's approval ratings are still low. I detailed two policies and xDaunt detailed one that put candidates on the extremes. You and ThaddeusK can insist that I want Democrats to become Republicans and to lose to Republicans even as they become Republicans, but the reality is far more mundane. I suggest you not let your partisanship cloud your judgment.

On March 05 2019 13:41 xDaunt wrote:
The fact of the matter is that Trump will be the moderate candidate if the Democrats run a socialist or something close to one. The fact of the matter is that Trump’s conservative base is not going to abandon him. The fact of the matter is that Trump is going to be far less scary to moderates in 2020 than in 2016 because he is a known quantity.

But, hey, tell yourselves whatever fairy tales you want to comfort yourselves. It worked in 2016 until election night, right?

On March 05 2019 14:07 Nebuchad wrote:


You're right that a moderate is also supposed to beat Trump based on the numbers. If you look at it purely strategically, the polling indicates that the perfect candidate is probably someone who is very leftwing on economic issues and kind of mild/centrist on social issues. So basically the opposite of what the democrats call a moderate, which is someone very liberal on social issues and centrist to center right on economic issues. Note that I'm not advocating for a candidate that is centrist on social issues; I think any and all of these candidates have an excellent chance of beating Trump, and as such I think it's more important to stand for what's right.

Even though I'm not advocating for the strongest strategical choice in terms of political position alone, the strategy that you offer is exactly the opposite of a sound strategy, and it should be pointed out. I also struggle to think that it's a coincidence that opponents of the democratic party are giving them the exact opposite of sound strategical advice.

On March 05 2019 14:08 WolfintheSheep wrote:

Far right authoritarian becomes moderate because he's running against Socialist.

Socialist is always leftist no matter who they run against.

Math checks out.

On March 05 2019 14:23 Danglars wrote:

I guess that makes it a very good thing that I mentioned two social issues when introducing the topic. You should take your own advice even when it aligns with mine.

On March 05 2019 14:26 xDaunt wrote:

Check your presumptions and rerun the calculations. You might be surprised.

On March 05 2019 14:35 WolfintheSheep wrote:

Or we could just not pretend anything you said is based on actual analysis or statistics, and not pretend opinions are facts.

Yes, Trump's base will never move. That's the closest thing to a fact that you said.

If you like Trump and he fits your definition of moderate, feel free to just say as much.

On March 05 2019 14:33 Nebuchad wrote:


So the advice you were trying to give was that a brocialist was a better choice than a Clinton-type candidate? Cause that's definitely not how it came out.

On March 05 2019 13:41 xDaunt wrote:
The fact of the matter is
The fact of the matter is
The fact of the matter is

On March 05 2019 14:43 Sermokala wrote:
You were the one that pretended what [xDaunt] said was based on statistics or facts.

On March 05 2019 13:45 Danglars wrote:
It's not exactly rocket science to deduce all Democrats need is a moderate to win back the White House. Trump's approval ratings are still low. I detailed two policies and xDaunt detailed one that put candidates on the extremes. You and ThaddeusK can insist that I want Democrats to become Republicans and to lose to Republicans even as they become Republicans, but the reality is far more mundane. I suggest you not let your partisanship cloud your judgment.

On March 05 2019 14:54 patrick321 wrote:


This is some pretty obvious gas-lighting.

On March 05 2019 14:54 Danglars wrote:

You’re quite capable of staying on topic when you choose to. So if you’d be so kind as to agree with me on the two social issues I raised that you just generally considered to be strategically advisable for candidates, maybe I’ll be inclined to join in on Clinton-types, brocialists, and whatever related topics come to your mind. It’s just so difficult to follow you through to neighboring topics if I never heard you resolve the former ones.

On March 05 2019 14:54 patrick321 wrote:


This is some pretty obvious gas-lighting.

On March 05 2019 15:11 Nebuchad wrote:


Are we talking "infanticide" and "Ilhan Omar's antisemitism"? Both are complete nonsense charges. You are right that a winning candidate isn't pro-infanticide, congratulations. People generally aren't in favor of killing children, which is probably why the republicans are pretending that the democrats are in favor of doing that in order to score political points. And if we pretend that the accusations against Ilhan Omar aren't baseless crap, which they are, in order to be "less liberal on social issues" when it comes to that subject, one would have to be... more accepting of antisemitism? That's presumably the opposite of the advice that you were giving?

So no, as usual, you didn't raise sound advice. I'd still like to hear you on brocialist vs Clinton though, considering that xDaunt has very much been saying that the Democrats need someone who is very much not a socialist, it's "weird" that you never disagreed with him if we both agree on the right path.

On March 05 2019 15:24 Sermokala wrote:

"The fact of the matter is" Doesn't refer to any facts or actually asserts to any facts. Its a turn of phrase ment to clarify someone's opinion on something. Thats basic conversational english. You might as well just say everything xdaunt says is fake news.

On March 05 2019 15:31 Sermokala wrote:

They arn't nonsense charges. Ilhan omar comes from a somali immigrant community and killing a child after its been born is infanticide. Stretching these charges to include politicians is the same basic shit politics has been about from the time of Rome.

Stop making not responding to every little part of your post as a "weird" thing that people don't disagree with. You can't make up random arguments like "brocialist vs Clinton" and assume that everyone knows exactly what you mean by that without even the hint of explaining yourself.

On March 05 2019 15:24 Sermokala wrote:

"The fact of the matter is" Doesn't refer to any facts or actually asserts to any facts. Its a turn of phrase ment to clarify someone's opinion on something. Thats basic conversational english. You might as well just say everything xdaunt says is fake news.

On March 05 2019 15:09 xDaunt wrote:

I’m not trying to gaslight anyone. It’s not my fault that so many posters around here won’t rationally and cooly assess information that contradicts their worldview. Is it really too much to ask that people at least acknowledge and weigh risks rather than outright dismiss them?

On March 05 2019 14:35 WolfintheSheep wrote:

If you like Trump and he fits your definition of moderate, feel free to just say as much.

On March 04 2019 19:38 Nebuchad wrote:


Do you often watch John Oliver? Notice how this segment is built, and compare it to segments where he makes actual good points, like the one on psychics last week. Usually he presents the issue in a structured way that is compelling, with a presentation of his thesis in the beginning; everything is designed to get the point across. This time, talking about the issues that come with automation, he doesn't even genuinely bring up what these issues are until 10 minutes into the conversation, when he's already made all the points in favour of automation that he wants to make. For the first 10 minutes of the presentation, the theme is "automation is not as bad as they said, look!", and there is some misdirection involved (for example, talking about banking jobs being replaced before you mention truckers allows you to sidestep the fact that there is a 0% chance that enough jobs related to automatic driving will be created to replace all those truckers; and talking about how we used to have a bunch of farmers, but then we needed more workers so now we don't have all these farmers anymore ignores that the driving force that caused people to become something else than farmers, namely capitalists, is now the driving force that will drive the decrease in available jobs). Then after 10 minutes, the real issues with automation are finally brought up, and this part of the presentation is way less optimistic, as it should be. Then we end up with some Trump bashing to lift our spirits up because, well, Trump is doing bad things as usual, it's something that we can always feel reassured about isn't it.

This way of structuring the presentation is designed not for clarity, but to keep you from realizing that in this piece where he supposedly defends automation to some extent, the only solution that he has brought up for the actual problem of automation, reconversion, is kind of nonsense, as shown by the trucker that he quoted in his own segment talking about how that's just not going to happen for most of them. Not to mention that this ignores all of the second hand jobs, truck stop restaurants and the like, that are built around the trucking industry and are also doomed to disappear.

The reason why I'm bringing liberalism into this is because liberalism wants you to reach the conclusion that you have reached: "It sucks that some people and communities will have their life damaged badly by automation. But that’s the world changing, liberalism or not." This is sad, but there's nothing that we can do. It's actually not true that there's nothing that we can do, what's true is that liberalism can't do anything. If you don't worship the free market, there are lots of possible solutions that you can work towards, and lots of bandaids that you can apply in the meantime. You mentioned increasing the social security net, and that's an idea. Basic income is another. Also we could ditch capitalism but that's just you and me =) Anyway, none of these are liberal ideas, as they involve the government taking precedence over the free market, and as such, none of them made their way to John Oliver's segment. I will grant you that I wouldn't expect ditching capitalism to make it to the segment; but basic income should definitely be mentioned in any serious and unbiased analysis of automation made in today's situation.