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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
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On March 05 2020 03:52 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 03:31 LegalLord wrote:On March 05 2020 03:18 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I don't think Biden is 0.01% better than Trump lol, I think he's approximately 94.35% better. So I entirely disagree with the premise. If people think he's virtually identical then whatever, but I really don't see how they are. That argument would resonate far better with me in a Hillary vs Jeb election than a Trump vs Biden one.
Could see it for Trump vs Bloomberg tho.
I suppose it depends on what metrics you use. In terms of policy, Trump has hardly differed much from the standard Bush-style conservative approach. Where he has differed, it's mostly been things like scrapping trade deals, which for the most part is a large net positive. He certainly does come off as far more of a clown than your average candidate, but I hope that's not the supposed difference between him and someone like Jeb. And I certainly doubt you meant that Clinton and Biden are significantly different candidates, because they hardly seem to be in any meaningful sense. I'm struggling to really see what materially different things Biden is supposedly going to do that are to be cheered on. He's notionally going to be more supportive of left-leaning things like climate policy, taxing the wealthy, and civil rights, but with the exception of perhaps the latter it's mostly going to indeed just be notional. Hardly a resounding win to be cheering on - or, in fact, a deep motivator for people who actually care about these issues to be desperate to replace Trump with this other highly questionable candidate for. Frankly the argument seems to be "we need to defeat Trump at all costs" among the rank-and-file Democrats. To what end, of course, is never particularly well explained. Stop Trump now, figure out why it was such a big deal to do so later. I think Trump's relationship with concepts like 'truth' and 'facts' actually deviate a lot from the republican norm (even if I saw a lot of the same from leading players during the buildup to the Iraq war, it was never to the same magnitude or abrasiveness), I am very negative towards the war on the press, and the building of a personal cult, increasing polarization to the degree where political supporters leaning one way end up genuinely wishing ill for political supporters on the other side coupled with claims (that end up being eaten up hook line and sinker) that climate change is a hoax is truly dangerous. I know that he has tapped into something already existing within the republican base, but these areas are all areas where he differs significantly from earlier republicans assumed electable for presidency. I also do believe the clownishness is of significance, but yea it's not the main reason for fearing another period. On economic policy and packing courts they're all much the same.
This is interesting to me, because as much as it’s the atmosphere around all of these discussions, I’m not sure questions like “why is Trump bad” are actually addressed directly all that much. It’s like everybody has already reached their conclusion, and figures it’s already a settled question so they might as well move on to talking about what to do about it.
One frustration is that I think people tend to make arguments based on what they think will be persuasive, not on what they actually believe. When I see people on the left arguing why someone shouldn’t vote for Trump, they tend to bring up his stupid tweets or something. “You’re really gonna vote for this idiot?” is the sort of vibe I get from it. I think this leads directly to what I hear from people on the right, often something like “Listen, I know he’s bad! You don’t have to tell me! But I really favor his [tax cuts/environmental deregulation/Supreme Court picks/whatever other hobby horse issue they have].”
To me, the clearest moral imperative for removing Trump, and the one people on the left seem to expect to be least persuasive, comes from his tolerance of, and in many cases enthusiastic support for, gross humanitarian abuse. There are thousands of people in nightmarish refugee camps on our Southern border as a direct result of his immigration policy. He frequently makes a point of putting the full weight of his administration behind defending US soldiers guilty of blatant and well-documented war crimes from getting any penalty whatsoever, when even our top military brass thinks those acts were inexcusable. If you want more domestic examples, his support for private prisons, pardoning of Joe Arpaio, banning of trans people in the military, and plenty of other examples come to mind.
I think his total lawlessness competes with that for priority level. Much of his immigration policy blatantly violates US and international law, and longstanding non-political government organizations have been subjugated by political appointees to oppose the goals those organizations are meant to achieve. When the administration fires or reassigns any bureaucrat who won’t assess the conditions in Haiti as improved because they want to remove it from TPS, or an asylum seeker wins their court case for asylum but ICE still stops them at the border and gives them a fake court date months in the future, it demonstrates what we should have realized all along: whatever “legal protections” we have are just promises, and anything the government does is presumptively legal until another part of the government is willing to enforce those promises.
This is where stuff like Trump’s court packing really matters: it’s not just that the courts will become more conservative, Roe v. wade might be overturned, etc. It’s that the courts are the only real barrier between Trump and the ability to basically rule by decree. If courts become willing to approve any policy he puts forward, or at least tie up challenges to it in years of appeals, it no longer matters what laws Congress passes, or what legal rights you think you have. I mean, Trump used the US foreign policy apparatus to pressure a foreign power into slandering a political opponent! He blatantly used his office to manipulate the outcome of his reelection!
But I’m not sure his lawlessness is people’s real objection to Trump is either. People seem more upset by the damage to America’s dignity. He drew on the hurricane map with a Sharpie! He served a bunch of McDonalds in the White House that one time! Covfefe! I don’t know if that sort of stuff is actually why liberals are most upset, but it does seem to be what they come up with when pressed for why Trump is unacceptable. I’d love to know what it is that actually offends them most about him and his presidency, because I get the feeling their arguments are usually rhetorical.
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On March 05 2020 08:02 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 03:52 Liquid`Drone wrote:On March 05 2020 03:31 LegalLord wrote:On March 05 2020 03:18 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I don't think Biden is 0.01% better than Trump lol, I think he's approximately 94.35% better. So I entirely disagree with the premise. If people think he's virtually identical then whatever, but I really don't see how they are. That argument would resonate far better with me in a Hillary vs Jeb election than a Trump vs Biden one.
Could see it for Trump vs Bloomberg tho.
I suppose it depends on what metrics you use. In terms of policy, Trump has hardly differed much from the standard Bush-style conservative approach. Where he has differed, it's mostly been things like scrapping trade deals, which for the most part is a large net positive. He certainly does come off as far more of a clown than your average candidate, but I hope that's not the supposed difference between him and someone like Jeb. And I certainly doubt you meant that Clinton and Biden are significantly different candidates, because they hardly seem to be in any meaningful sense. I'm struggling to really see what materially different things Biden is supposedly going to do that are to be cheered on. He's notionally going to be more supportive of left-leaning things like climate policy, taxing the wealthy, and civil rights, but with the exception of perhaps the latter it's mostly going to indeed just be notional. Hardly a resounding win to be cheering on - or, in fact, a deep motivator for people who actually care about these issues to be desperate to replace Trump with this other highly questionable candidate for. Frankly the argument seems to be "we need to defeat Trump at all costs" among the rank-and-file Democrats. To what end, of course, is never particularly well explained. Stop Trump now, figure out why it was such a big deal to do so later. I think Trump's relationship with concepts like 'truth' and 'facts' actually deviate a lot from the republican norm (even if I saw a lot of the same from leading players during the buildup to the Iraq war, it was never to the same magnitude or abrasiveness), I am very negative towards the war on the press, and the building of a personal cult, increasing polarization to the degree where political supporters leaning one way end up genuinely wishing ill for political supporters on the other side coupled with claims (that end up being eaten up hook line and sinker) that climate change is a hoax is truly dangerous. I know that he has tapped into something already existing within the republican base, but these areas are all areas where he differs significantly from earlier republicans assumed electable for presidency. I also do believe the clownishness is of significance, but yea it's not the main reason for fearing another period. On economic policy and packing courts they're all much the same. This is interesting to me, because as much as it’s the atmosphere around all of these discussions, I’m not sure questions like “why is Trump bad” are actually addressed directly all that much. It’s like everybody has already reached their conclusion, and figures it’s already a settled question so they might as well move on to talking about what to do about it. One frustration is that I think people tend to make arguments based on what they think will be persuasive, not on what they actually believe. When I see people on the left arguing why someone shouldn’t vote for Trump, they tend to bring up his stupid tweets or something. “You’re really gonna vote for this idiot?” is the sort of vibe I get from it. I think this leads directly to what I hear from people on the right, often something like “Listen, I know he’s bad! You don’t have to tell me! But I really favor his [tax cuts/environmental deregulation/Supreme Court picks/whatever other hobby horse issue they have].” To me, the clearest moral imperative for removing Trump, and the one people on the left seem to expect to be least persuasive, comes from his tolerance of, and in many cases enthusiastic support for, gross humanitarian abuse. There are thousands of people in nightmarish refugee camps on our Southern border as a direct result of his immigration policy. He frequently makes a point of putting the full weight of his administration behind defending US soldiers guilty of blatant and well-documented war crimes from getting any penalty whatsoever, when even our top military brass thinks those acts were inexcusable. If you want more domestic examples, his support for private prisons, pardoning of Joe Arpaio, banning of trans people in the military, and plenty of other examples come to mind. I think his total lawlessness competes with that for priority level. Much of his immigration policy blatantly violates US and international law, and longstanding non-political government organizations have been subjugated by political appointees to oppose the goals those organizations are meant to achieve. When the administration fires or reassigns any bureaucrat who won’t assess the conditions in Haiti as improved because they want to remove it from TPS, or an asylum seeker wins their court case for asylum but ICE still stops them at the border and gives them a fake court date months in the future, it demonstrates what we should have realized all along: whatever “legal protections” we have are just promises, and anything the government does is presumptively legal until another part of the government is willing to enforce those promises. This is where stuff like Trump’s court packing really matters: it’s not just that the courts will become more conservative, Roe v. wade might be overturned, etc. It’s that the courts are the only real barrier between Trump and the ability to basically rule by decree. If courts become willing to approve any policy he puts forward, or at least tie up challenges to it in years of appeals, it no longer matters what laws Congress passes, or what legal rights you think you have. I mean, Trump used the US foreign policy apparatus to pressure a foreign power into slandering a political opponent! He blatantly used his office to manipulate the outcome of his reelection! But I’m not sure his lawlessness is people’s real objection to Trump is either. People seem more upset by the damage to America’s dignity. He drew on the hurricane map with a Sharpie! He served a bunch of McDonalds in the White House that one time! Covfefe! I don’t know if that sort of stuff is actually why liberals are most upset, but it does seem to be what they come up with when pressed for why Trump is unacceptable. I’d love to know what it is that actually offends them most about him and his presidency, because I get the feeling their arguments are usually rhetorical.
To me, it is the sum of all of those things, and more.
He is corrupt, he is lawless, he actively fights to make the world a worse place, he is a buffoon, a schoolyard bully, he is a clown, he is very clearly bigotted in every possible way, he very clearly doesn't believe in the truth as a concept, he actively hinders any progress towards doing anything about climate change, he clearly despises democracy and separation of power and does his best to shift as far as possible towards authocracy, the most important principle to him is satisfying his ego, he actively produces a humanitarian catastrophe in his concentration camps, and many more.
Any one of those should be enough to not be president. I have a hard time naming a single positive thing about Trump. Throughout 2016, i was absolutely certain that there was no way that Trump would be president, because clearly no sane person would elect him. Nowadays, i just accept that US politics are really, really weird and half the country is insane.
Somehow, Trump manages to be both clownish and scary at the same time.
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On March 05 2020 07:58 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 06:51 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 06:44 JimmiC wrote:On March 05 2020 06:05 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 05:47 JimmiC wrote:On March 05 2020 05:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 05:37 JimmiC wrote:On March 05 2020 04:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 05 2020 04:51 Zambrah wrote:
Are we even sure Republicans will let any supreme court nominees through? Are we going to start presuming their scrupulous enough to stop doing that now, because I feel like they're still plenty capable of lobbying and all excuses to justify just not confirming anything whatsoever and noone doing anything about it Anyone that tells you they are sure we are even going to have a genuine election is lying to you and/or themselves Do genuine elections happen in your preferred form of government LM socialism? Can you explain what your criteria is for a genuine election? Can you give me some examples of genuine elections that I can look into? I have no idea what your "LM Socialism" whataboutism is for but I'm not interested in figuring it out either. marxism leninism socialism I could see how me mixing up the order of the two names involved in your preferred political system could throw you for such a loop that you would have no understanding of what I was saying. My apologies. edit: Here I will add your quote so my dyslexia doesn't offend you. On March 03 2020 22:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 03 2020 22:23 Geo.Rion wrote:On March 03 2020 19:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 03 2020 19:06 Geo.Rion wrote:On March 03 2020 19:03 GreenHorizons wrote:
Good news is if they do really nominate Biden it will radicalize a lot of people and why is that good news Each time less people are lulled into complacency we get a bit closer to the radical changes we need to bring the US into the 21st century. Losing to Trump (which Biden would do) would radicalize even more. I'm no accelerationist, but I can see the upside. Hmm, maybe you're right, but i see it as this: the progressive / social-democrat wing of the party has this going for them in 2020: 1. Bernie Sanders - an authentic, well known and willing champion of the cause, with super-consistent track-record going back decades. 2. Compared to 2016 where he was up against a united front of the establishment, against a candidate who was riding the "first female president" wave, this year the establishment didnt unite until Super Tuesday, and even now there still is Bloomberg. 3. Biden is just as old as him, has no "historic" thing going for him like 1st female /1st gay / 1st whatever candidate. Just a run of the mill, well known, kinda likable old white christian guy, who's fumbling and gaffing constantly. 4. Bloomberg is in the race, call him whatever you want oligarch/ plutocrat / billionaire with a mind set on using money to win a nomination. Former republican, controversial racial policies etc. It would be really really hard to come up with someone better to run against as a social-democrat/ progressive. Bernie couldnt win in 2016. If he cannot win in 2020 against Biden and Bloomberg, then i really really dont see who could win against the establishment Dem candidate in 2024. It's not gonna be him, he'll be a 82 and a two time runner-up. Whoever would come up as the new Sanders would have a much more uphill battle for the nomination. I really think this is the single best chance to move the Democratic party towards social-democracy, if Bernie cant do it this year, then i dont think anyone would be able to do it in the next couple of elections. I basically agree. I'm advocating for ML socialism though, not social democracy. That part wasn't confusing me (besides not knowing why you kept switching them, which had an innocent explanation), it was why you thought your whataboutisms were appropriate. But I'll leave it there. Well you seem to be constantly attacking Liberal democracies on the basis of things like Gitmo, so I thought it was reasonable to ask if the system you prefer is better? What I would prefer is you just stopped with it all together as well, but whataboutism on things like Gitmo or imperialism or anything is your main tool to attack dems. It only seems fair that you defend your preferred political system on the same grounds? If you don't think it is fair, and don't like defending in that way, stop attacking in that way. That's not what "whataboutism" means, but there's no sense in going over all this again. If no one else sees a problem with you doing it I'll just ignore it. That is your right as it is mine to ask you questions about your preferred political system when you are talking about how bad the current one is. I have no problem exposing why I prefer social democracy over what the USA has and provide examples to help with the understanding. I find it very confusing that you claim to be such a fan and are even willing to burn down the current system but seem to lack the ability to explain and give examples of why your system is better. With this style it seems unlikely that burning it down would lead to your preferred system. People tend to follow those with solutions, not those who can simply point out problems. I think it would be a good experience for you answer these types of questions about your preference and since you said that it was your preferred way the school system worked I thought you would be on board with it.
He's done this dozens of times, in conversations you were a part of. He both has the ability and has done so. He's just tired of reiterating it to people who clearly pay no attention when he bothers.
In addition, the presence of gitmo-like institutions in other political systems is no defense of their existence under the current one. 'but the Communists did it too' is at best an argument that the current system is no better than THE GREAT ENEMY.
Which isn't a great achievement.
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On March 05 2020 08:02 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 03:52 Liquid`Drone wrote:On March 05 2020 03:31 LegalLord wrote:On March 05 2020 03:18 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I don't think Biden is 0.01% better than Trump lol, I think he's approximately 94.35% better. So I entirely disagree with the premise. If people think he's virtually identical then whatever, but I really don't see how they are. That argument would resonate far better with me in a Hillary vs Jeb election than a Trump vs Biden one.
Could see it for Trump vs Bloomberg tho.
I suppose it depends on what metrics you use. In terms of policy, Trump has hardly differed much from the standard Bush-style conservative approach. Where he has differed, it's mostly been things like scrapping trade deals, which for the most part is a large net positive. He certainly does come off as far more of a clown than your average candidate, but I hope that's not the supposed difference between him and someone like Jeb. And I certainly doubt you meant that Clinton and Biden are significantly different candidates, because they hardly seem to be in any meaningful sense. I'm struggling to really see what materially different things Biden is supposedly going to do that are to be cheered on. He's notionally going to be more supportive of left-leaning things like climate policy, taxing the wealthy, and civil rights, but with the exception of perhaps the latter it's mostly going to indeed just be notional. Hardly a resounding win to be cheering on - or, in fact, a deep motivator for people who actually care about these issues to be desperate to replace Trump with this other highly questionable candidate for. Frankly the argument seems to be "we need to defeat Trump at all costs" among the rank-and-file Democrats. To what end, of course, is never particularly well explained. Stop Trump now, figure out why it was such a big deal to do so later. I think Trump's relationship with concepts like 'truth' and 'facts' actually deviate a lot from the republican norm (even if I saw a lot of the same from leading players during the buildup to the Iraq war, it was never to the same magnitude or abrasiveness), I am very negative towards the war on the press, and the building of a personal cult, increasing polarization to the degree where political supporters leaning one way end up genuinely wishing ill for political supporters on the other side coupled with claims (that end up being eaten up hook line and sinker) that climate change is a hoax is truly dangerous. I know that he has tapped into something already existing within the republican base, but these areas are all areas where he differs significantly from earlier republicans assumed electable for presidency. I also do believe the clownishness is of significance, but yea it's not the main reason for fearing another period. On economic policy and packing courts they're all much the same. This is interesting to me, because as much as it’s the atmosphere around all of these discussions, I’m not sure questions like “why is Trump bad” are actually addressed directly all that much. It’s like everybody has already reached their conclusion, and figures it’s already a settled question so they might as well move on to talking about what to do about it. One frustration is that I think people tend to make arguments based on what they think will be persuasive, not on what they actually believe. When I see people on the left arguing why someone shouldn’t vote for Trump, they tend to bring up his stupid tweets or something. “You’re really gonna vote for this idiot?” is the sort of vibe I get from it. I think this leads directly to what I hear from people on the right, often something like “Listen, I know he’s bad! You don’t have to tell me! But I really favor his [tax cuts/environmental deregulation/Supreme Court picks/whatever other hobby horse issue they have].” To me, the clearest moral imperative for removing Trump, and the one people on the left seem to expect to be least persuasive, comes from his tolerance of, and in many cases enthusiastic support for, gross humanitarian abuse. There are thousands of people in nightmarish refugee camps on our Southern border as a direct result of his immigration policy. He frequently makes a point of putting the full weight of his administration behind defending US soldiers guilty of blatant and well-documented war crimes from getting any penalty whatsoever, when even our top military brass thinks those acts were inexcusable. If you want more domestic examples, his support for private prisons, pardoning of Joe Arpaio, banning of trans people in the military, and plenty of other examples come to mind. I think his total lawlessness competes with that for priority level. Much of his immigration policy blatantly violates US and international law, and longstanding non-political government organizations have been subjugated by political appointees to oppose the goals those organizations are meant to achieve. When the administration fires or reassigns any bureaucrat who won’t assess the conditions in Haiti as improved because they want to remove it from TPS, or an asylum seeker wins their court case for asylum but ICE still stops them at the border and gives them a fake court date months in the future, it demonstrates what we should have realized all along: whatever “legal protections” we have are just promises, and anything the government does is presumptively legal until another part of the government is willing to enforce those promises. This is where stuff like Trump’s court packing really matters: it’s not just that the courts will become more conservative, Roe v. wade might be overturned, etc. It’s that the courts are the only real barrier between Trump and the ability to basically rule by decree. If courts become willing to approve any policy he puts forward, or at least tie up challenges to it in years of appeals, it no longer matters what laws Congress passes, or what legal rights you think you have. I mean, Trump used the US foreign policy apparatus to pressure a foreign power into slandering a political opponent! He blatantly used his office to manipulate the outcome of his reelection! But I’m not sure his lawlessness is people’s real objection to Trump is either. People seem more upset by the damage to America’s dignity. He drew on the hurricane map with a Sharpie! He served a bunch of McDonalds in the White House that one time! Covfefe! I don’t know if that sort of stuff is actually why liberals are most upset, but it does seem to be what they come up with when pressed for why Trump is unacceptable. I’d love to know what it is that actually offends them most about him and his presidency, because I get the feeling their arguments are usually rhetorical.
I dunno man, maybe that's sometimes been the case here, but I don't think I've had a single in-person conversation about Trump where his tweets were the primary subject, and the vast majority never regarded them at all. Naturally, that likely says more about me, the people I have these conversations with, and the circumstances under which these conversations took place, but I think it goes to show that it can be difficult to get a good sense of what people are talking about as a generalized concept, particularly with the distorting influence of the (social) mediascape.
As for why I'm against Trump, I more or less agree with Simberto's take, with the added sense of animosity that comes from being a part of the civil service. The damage he's doing to the background instruments of the federal government that inarguably benefit the population at large cannot be overstated.
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Northern Ireland23824 Posts
Trump has that many faults, just in general temperament and in his actions in office that I don’t really understand how someone can support him without being a simpleton, living in an informational bubble or having questionable moral character.
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On March 05 2020 06:46 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 06:09 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I have a bunch of friends who are hardcore Sanders supporters, and most of us are willing to unify behind the eventual Democratic candidate, whether it's Sanders or Biden. We don't like it, but we understand what's actually at stake here. The other few supporters are essentially having a super petty, bratty, emotional meltdown at the moment, insisting that they'd rather watch the country burn to the ground than support the lesser of two evils "on principle". I'll take acknowledging climate change (and "facts"), giving a shit about at least some level of healthcare, re-appointing credentialed individuals to influential departments like education and science, and dodging another one or two conservative Supreme Court Justices over... Trump, any day of the week. I would prefer sweeping progressive changes, but if it's between Trump and Biden, it's Biden. I think the relative merits of Biden and Trump have already been discussed, and whether or not they're significantly different or not is largely a matter of how you value certain things. But I do want to note the inherent disdain in this post for voting "on principle" against Biden. Seems pretty short-sighted, to be honest. It's true that sometimes it's necessary to vote for a candidate that is quite undesirable to prevent a significantly worse one from being elected. That'd be a reasonable assertion in the 2016 election, since things seemed to play out such that the two candidates on top were both... less than loved. But I will note that this: Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 06:09 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
but in the (very likely to happen in real life) hypothetical scenario of a Biden vs. Trump general election, the only question that matters is: Who would be even the slightest bit better for the country, the general population, and the world? That's the easiest question to answer ever, and as much as I dislike Biden, it's a super easy vote for me. is 100% bullshit. I'll reiterate a point I made two pages ago: Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 03:14 LegalLord wrote:
It's truly difficult to, in good conscience, let the party put down anything resembling a truly meaningful change to the status quo then let them take the voters hostage with the threat of "Trump will be even worse, so accept this candidate that's 0.01% better that we're going to ram down your throat." And it's downright foolish to do that a second time, after 2016 has shown it to be a clear losing strategy. Let's put aside whether he's 0.01% better or 99% better for the moment; that would definitely make a material difference, but the point was "even the slightest bit better" so even the 0.01% would be grounds to vote for Biden, seems to be the implication. I suppose you end up with a better candidate that way, in the short term. But the problem is that that is indeed a very short-sighted approach. Again, it might be necessary occasionally (say, 2016), but if it turns out to be just a pattern of forcing such candidates through the selection process (e.g. if the candidate who lost in 2016 is replaced by a carbon copy in 2020), then you're just agreeing to lose ground over time. Next time the DNC will prop up Bloomer, then it'll be Romney who just decided to join the Democratic party, and since you've already "bit the bullet" and gave up so much ground so willingly, why not Ted Cruz as the new Democratic nominee? Or, you could avoid supporting the DNC's shady behavior "on principle" and have a chance to stop it from going in that direction. Maybe for you, Biden is significantly better. That's not an unreasonable conclusion to come to; I certainly would have a much easier time seeing it that way if he was still his 2008-2012 self. But neither is it an unreasonable conclusion to decide that "falling in line" after getting screwed over is the wrong approach that should indeed be rejected on principle.
I don't see how anyone who's been following the last few years of politics can say with a straight face that there are no significant differences between Trump and Biden. If you're on the progressive side, you need to literally walk over Biden's position on the political spectrum (and then jog for a while) to get to Trump. Granted, if you only like Sanders because he's an anti-establishment candidate, then Trump may appeal to you as well as another anti-establishment candidate (and this was covered in 2016), but if we're speaking purely on the extent of liberal policies and liberal philosophies we're fans of (such as, again: acknowledging climate change (and "facts"), giving a shit about at least some level of healthcare, re-appointing credentialed individuals to influential departments like education and science, and dodging another one or two conservative Supreme Court Justices over), you simply can't equate Biden and Trump.
I don't quite understand your assertion about why voting for the better candidate is merely short-sighted. I feel like you're implying that, if the Democrats lose enough times with a moderate candidate, they'll fold and accept the truly progressive option, and that this is the long-term strategy worth fighting for. Is that a reasonably accurate inference? (Because I don't want to misunderstand you.)
Unfortunately, that's clearly not working in practice. Clinton lost in 2016 (although she could have won, it was a coinflip, and Sanders also could have won... that would have been a coinflip too, even if he was a few percentage points higher in the head-to-head against Trump). Let's suppose Biden becomes the nominee and then loses in 2020. It'll probably be a relatively even coinflip there too, and so would Sanders vs. Trump. People talk about electability as if one of these candidates has no shot and the other candidate is certain to win; given the current partisanship of our country, all of this talk (on all sides) is hyperbolic. It all comes down to a few key decisions and a few key states, and whichever way the wind blows. This is all common knowledge, and it's not hard to justify that a moderate could still win later elections with some better choices (starting with actually paying attention to the swing states during the general election, and ending with not choosing Tim Kaine as your fucking running mate). Moderates view the statement "Since Clinton lost the election, the only logical choice is to pick a progressive like Sanders next time" as a complete non sequitur. And they're partially right and partially wrong, but the point is that they're not necessarily going to be persuaded away from Biden, because moderates have pro-Biden arguments that they consider to be convincing and important. And this keeps going on and on, loss after loss, and at some point we have to realize that this "long-term strategy" of complicitly letting the world burn. instead of salvaging and fixing small pieces of it, is allowing Republicans to undo (or not do) everything we stand for, election after election.
I don't think making small, incremental progress is losing ground. I think it's not making as much ground as I would like, but it's certainly not the same as having a Republican in office. Also, to your point about the slippery slope of new, potential Democratic candidates for next time: we already laughed Bloomberg off the stage and out of the election, so while the majority of Democratic voters may still be moderate liberals and not progressives (by American standards), I don't think we're in any danger of effectively having two seriously conservative Americans in the general election (again, by American standards) who are going to be legitimately regressive from what Barack Obama and our later election discussions have established as new liberal precedents (e.g., improving our healthcare system, even if it's not as quickly as it should be).
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Canada5565 Posts
On March 05 2020 08:51 Wombat_NI wrote:
Trump has that many faults, just in general temperament and in his actions in office that I don’t really understand how someone can support him without being a simpleton, living in an informational bubble or having questionable moral character. Reminds me of Bannon: "The Democratic Party does not understand today, eight months from Election Day, why they lost 2016. They don't understand about managed decline of our elites. They don't understand why Donald Trump won. They don't understand the message of Donald Trump."
On the other side, I think a lot of people understand Bernie's message and disagree with it.
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United States24577 Posts
On March 05 2020 09:14 Xxio wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 08:51 Wombat_NI wrote:
Trump has that many faults, just in general temperament and in his actions in office that I don’t really understand how someone can support him without being a simpleton, living in an informational bubble or having questionable moral character. Reminds me of Bannon: "The Democratic Party does not understand today, eight months from Election Day, why they lost 2016. They don't understand about managed decline of our elites. They don't understand why Donald Trump won. They don't understand the message of Donald Trump."
Why don't you explain the problem with Wombat_NI's logic rather than referencing Bannon saying Wombat_NI's logic is wrong?
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On March 05 2020 08:51 Wombat_NI wrote:
Trump has that many faults, just in general temperament and in his actions in office that I don’t really understand how someone can support him without being a simpleton, living in an informational bubble or having questionable moral character.
I completely agree but I wonder how that's any different from your regular GOP congressman or recent presidential candidate. What exactly makes him particularly bad?
I feel like the complaints mentioned in the few posts before you could apply to a whole lot of elected republican politicians. Farvacola gave a specific issue particular to Trump about him in damaging the background instruments of the federal government but even that seems like something that would have wide support among republicans given their regular calls for less government.
I feel like I often see people stating that trump is the worst possible president but never see a detailed reasoning why. As a matter of fact, it seems like the norm is that this statement goes without any reasoning at all. For all the shit Trump does I personally fail to see how it beats Bush jr starting two wars and damning tens of millions of people to living hell (and a couple hundred thousands to death). And to add to the topic of questionable moral character: those two wars gifted Bush a second term.
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Northern Ireland23824 Posts
On March 05 2020 09:14 Xxio wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 08:51 Wombat_NI wrote:
Trump has that many faults, just in general temperament and in his actions in office that I don’t really understand how someone can support him without being a simpleton, living in an informational bubble or having questionable moral character. Reminds me of Bannon: "The Democratic Party does not understand today, eight months from Election Day, why they lost 2016. They don't understand about managed decline of our elites. They don't understand why Donald Trump won. They don't understand the message of Donald Trump." On the other side, I think a lot of people understand Bernie's message and disagree with it.
Bannon does love to obfuscate and throw in the word ‘elite’ every other sentence.
Which again goes back to my confusion really. Trump is by most metrics one of those very people but isn’t considered as such by some people for, some reason.
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On March 05 2020 09:32 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 09:14 Xxio wrote:On March 05 2020 08:51 Wombat_NI wrote:
Trump has that many faults, just in general temperament and in his actions in office that I don’t really understand how someone can support him without being a simpleton, living in an informational bubble or having questionable moral character. Reminds me of Bannon: "The Democratic Party does not understand today, eight months from Election Day, why they lost 2016. They don't understand about managed decline of our elites. They don't understand why Donald Trump won. They don't understand the message of Donald Trump." On the other side, I think a lot of people understand Bernie's message and disagree with it. Bannon does love to obfuscate and throw in the word ‘elite’ every other sentence. Which again goes back to my confusion really. Trump is by most metrics one of those very people but isn’t considered as such by some people for, some reason.
He speaks like he's uneducated and has a foul mouth. When you aren't educated, like, at all, it can be really nice to hear someone word topics the way you would.
People don't want to hear real solutions. People want to hear solutions that align with existing beliefs. Trump does that and basically tells people "hey, science is stupid as fuck, lets get rid of immigrants", which is a sentiment our education system has allowed to be very common.
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On March 05 2020 09:26 ggrrg wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 08:51 Wombat_NI wrote:
Trump has that many faults, just in general temperament and in his actions in office that I don’t really understand how someone can support him without being a simpleton, living in an informational bubble or having questionable moral character.
I completely agree but I wonder how that's any different from your regular GOP congressman or recent presidential candidate. What exactly makes him particularly bad? I feel like the complaints mentioned in the few posts before you could apply to a whole lot of elected republican politicians. Farvacola gave a specific issue particular to Trump about him in damaging the background instruments of the federal government but even that seems like something that would have wide support among republicans given their regular calls for less government. I feel like I often see people stating that trump is the worst possible president but never see a detailed reasoning why. As a matter of fact, it seems like the norm is that this statement goes without any reasoning at all. For all the shit Trump does I personally fail to see how it beats Bush jr starting two wars and damning tens of millions of people to living hell (and a couple hundred thousands to death). And to add to the topic of questionable moral character: those two wars gifted Bush a second term.
Basically agree with this. Summed up pretty well in the impeachment over Ukraine instead of caging children, our bombs being used to intentionally kill children in other countries, etc... because that's just standard issue US president stuff.
Bush Jr. is worse imo and Trump is indisputably better than Democrats/Hillary promised he would be (it was an extremely low bar tbf).
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On March 05 2020 08:47 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 08:02 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 03:52 Liquid`Drone wrote:On March 05 2020 03:31 LegalLord wrote:On March 05 2020 03:18 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I don't think Biden is 0.01% better than Trump lol, I think he's approximately 94.35% better. So I entirely disagree with the premise. If people think he's virtually identical then whatever, but I really don't see how they are. That argument would resonate far better with me in a Hillary vs Jeb election than a Trump vs Biden one.
Could see it for Trump vs Bloomberg tho.
I suppose it depends on what metrics you use. In terms of policy, Trump has hardly differed much from the standard Bush-style conservative approach. Where he has differed, it's mostly been things like scrapping trade deals, which for the most part is a large net positive. He certainly does come off as far more of a clown than your average candidate, but I hope that's not the supposed difference between him and someone like Jeb. And I certainly doubt you meant that Clinton and Biden are significantly different candidates, because they hardly seem to be in any meaningful sense. I'm struggling to really see what materially different things Biden is supposedly going to do that are to be cheered on. He's notionally going to be more supportive of left-leaning things like climate policy, taxing the wealthy, and civil rights, but with the exception of perhaps the latter it's mostly going to indeed just be notional. Hardly a resounding win to be cheering on - or, in fact, a deep motivator for people who actually care about these issues to be desperate to replace Trump with this other highly questionable candidate for. Frankly the argument seems to be "we need to defeat Trump at all costs" among the rank-and-file Democrats. To what end, of course, is never particularly well explained. Stop Trump now, figure out why it was such a big deal to do so later. I think Trump's relationship with concepts like 'truth' and 'facts' actually deviate a lot from the republican norm (even if I saw a lot of the same from leading players during the buildup to the Iraq war, it was never to the same magnitude or abrasiveness), I am very negative towards the war on the press, and the building of a personal cult, increasing polarization to the degree where political supporters leaning one way end up genuinely wishing ill for political supporters on the other side coupled with claims (that end up being eaten up hook line and sinker) that climate change is a hoax is truly dangerous. I know that he has tapped into something already existing within the republican base, but these areas are all areas where he differs significantly from earlier republicans assumed electable for presidency. I also do believe the clownishness is of significance, but yea it's not the main reason for fearing another period. On economic policy and packing courts they're all much the same. This is interesting to me, because as much as it’s the atmosphere around all of these discussions, I’m not sure questions like “why is Trump bad” are actually addressed directly all that much. It’s like everybody has already reached their conclusion, and figures it’s already a settled question so they might as well move on to talking about what to do about it. One frustration is that I think people tend to make arguments based on what they think will be persuasive, not on what they actually believe. When I see people on the left arguing why someone shouldn’t vote for Trump, they tend to bring up his stupid tweets or something. “You’re really gonna vote for this idiot?” is the sort of vibe I get from it. I think this leads directly to what I hear from people on the right, often something like “Listen, I know he’s bad! You don’t have to tell me! But I really favor his [tax cuts/environmental deregulation/Supreme Court picks/whatever other hobby horse issue they have].” To me, the clearest moral imperative for removing Trump, and the one people on the left seem to expect to be least persuasive, comes from his tolerance of, and in many cases enthusiastic support for, gross humanitarian abuse. There are thousands of people in nightmarish refugee camps on our Southern border as a direct result of his immigration policy. He frequently makes a point of putting the full weight of his administration behind defending US soldiers guilty of blatant and well-documented war crimes from getting any penalty whatsoever, when even our top military brass thinks those acts were inexcusable. If you want more domestic examples, his support for private prisons, pardoning of Joe Arpaio, banning of trans people in the military, and plenty of other examples come to mind. I think his total lawlessness competes with that for priority level. Much of his immigration policy blatantly violates US and international law, and longstanding non-political government organizations have been subjugated by political appointees to oppose the goals those organizations are meant to achieve. When the administration fires or reassigns any bureaucrat who won’t assess the conditions in Haiti as improved because they want to remove it from TPS, or an asylum seeker wins their court case for asylum but ICE still stops them at the border and gives them a fake court date months in the future, it demonstrates what we should have realized all along: whatever “legal protections” we have are just promises, and anything the government does is presumptively legal until another part of the government is willing to enforce those promises. This is where stuff like Trump’s court packing really matters: it’s not just that the courts will become more conservative, Roe v. wade might be overturned, etc. It’s that the courts are the only real barrier between Trump and the ability to basically rule by decree. If courts become willing to approve any policy he puts forward, or at least tie up challenges to it in years of appeals, it no longer matters what laws Congress passes, or what legal rights you think you have. I mean, Trump used the US foreign policy apparatus to pressure a foreign power into slandering a political opponent! He blatantly used his office to manipulate the outcome of his reelection! But I’m not sure his lawlessness is people’s real objection to Trump is either. People seem more upset by the damage to America’s dignity. He drew on the hurricane map with a Sharpie! He served a bunch of McDonalds in the White House that one time! Covfefe! I don’t know if that sort of stuff is actually why liberals are most upset, but it does seem to be what they come up with when pressed for why Trump is unacceptable. I’d love to know what it is that actually offends them most about him and his presidency, because I get the feeling their arguments are usually rhetorical. I dunno man, maybe that's sometimes been the case here, but I don't think I've had a single in-person conversation about Trump where his tweets were the primary subject, and the vast majority never regarded them at all. Naturally, that likely says more about me, the people I have these conversations with, and the circumstances under which these conversations took place, but I think it goes to show that it can be difficult to get a good sense of what people are talking about as a generalized concept, particularly with the distorting influence of the (social) mediascape. As for why I'm against Trump, I more or less agree with Simberto's take, with the added sense of animosity that comes from being a part of the civil service. The damage he's doing to the background instruments of the federal government that inarguably benefit the population at large cannot be overstated.
Sure, obviously my experiences with what “liberals tend to say” or “conservatives tend to say” is anecdotal. But for instance, I don’t remember the last time I saw MPP discussed in the thread. That seems like one of the larger and more blatant humanitarian atrocities this administration is unambiguously and wholly responsible for, and yet in arguing against his reelection, I hardly hear it mentioned.
Perhaps it’s because liberals know Americans don’t care about the lives of immigrants, so they search for another message they think Americans care more about? Or is it because the liberals don’t care that much about the immigrants either? Or am I overstating the importance of such humanitarian abuses relative to, say, his clownish behavior or schoolyard bully-like demeanor?
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Canada8988 Posts
On March 05 2020 09:44 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 09:32 Wombat_NI wrote:On March 05 2020 09:14 Xxio wrote:On March 05 2020 08:51 Wombat_NI wrote:
Trump has that many faults, just in general temperament and in his actions in office that I don’t really understand how someone can support him without being a simpleton, living in an informational bubble or having questionable moral character. Reminds me of Bannon: "The Democratic Party does not understand today, eight months from Election Day, why they lost 2016. They don't understand about managed decline of our elites. They don't understand why Donald Trump won. They don't understand the message of Donald Trump." On the other side, I think a lot of people understand Bernie's message and disagree with it. Bannon does love to obfuscate and throw in the word ‘elite’ every other sentence. Which again goes back to my confusion really. Trump is by most metrics one of those very people but isn’t considered as such by some people for, some reason. He speaks like he's uneducated and has a foul mouth. When you aren't educated, like, at all, it can be really nice to hear someone word topics the way you would. People don't want to hear real solutions. People want to hear solutions that align with existing beliefs. Trump does that and basically tells people "hey, science is stupid as fuck, lets get rid of immigrants", which is a sentiment our education system has allowed to be very common.
He's also a very original voice among politician and well suited to the Internet, I can very well imagine Trump doing pretty good shitpost about balance on TL if he knew Starcraft, I can't say that of any other politician. Of course I don't want a balance whiner to have the nuclear launch, or any kind of responsibility really, but you knows, I guess it work for some.
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On March 05 2020 10:09 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 08:47 farvacola wrote:On March 05 2020 08:02 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 03:52 Liquid`Drone wrote:On March 05 2020 03:31 LegalLord wrote:On March 05 2020 03:18 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I don't think Biden is 0.01% better than Trump lol, I think he's approximately 94.35% better. So I entirely disagree with the premise. If people think he's virtually identical then whatever, but I really don't see how they are. That argument would resonate far better with me in a Hillary vs Jeb election than a Trump vs Biden one.
Could see it for Trump vs Bloomberg tho.
I suppose it depends on what metrics you use. In terms of policy, Trump has hardly differed much from the standard Bush-style conservative approach. Where he has differed, it's mostly been things like scrapping trade deals, which for the most part is a large net positive. He certainly does come off as far more of a clown than your average candidate, but I hope that's not the supposed difference between him and someone like Jeb. And I certainly doubt you meant that Clinton and Biden are significantly different candidates, because they hardly seem to be in any meaningful sense. I'm struggling to really see what materially different things Biden is supposedly going to do that are to be cheered on. He's notionally going to be more supportive of left-leaning things like climate policy, taxing the wealthy, and civil rights, but with the exception of perhaps the latter it's mostly going to indeed just be notional. Hardly a resounding win to be cheering on - or, in fact, a deep motivator for people who actually care about these issues to be desperate to replace Trump with this other highly questionable candidate for. Frankly the argument seems to be "we need to defeat Trump at all costs" among the rank-and-file Democrats. To what end, of course, is never particularly well explained. Stop Trump now, figure out why it was such a big deal to do so later. I think Trump's relationship with concepts like 'truth' and 'facts' actually deviate a lot from the republican norm (even if I saw a lot of the same from leading players during the buildup to the Iraq war, it was never to the same magnitude or abrasiveness), I am very negative towards the war on the press, and the building of a personal cult, increasing polarization to the degree where political supporters leaning one way end up genuinely wishing ill for political supporters on the other side coupled with claims (that end up being eaten up hook line and sinker) that climate change is a hoax is truly dangerous. I know that he has tapped into something already existing within the republican base, but these areas are all areas where he differs significantly from earlier republicans assumed electable for presidency. I also do believe the clownishness is of significance, but yea it's not the main reason for fearing another period. On economic policy and packing courts they're all much the same. This is interesting to me, because as much as it’s the atmosphere around all of these discussions, I’m not sure questions like “why is Trump bad” are actually addressed directly all that much. It’s like everybody has already reached their conclusion, and figures it’s already a settled question so they might as well move on to talking about what to do about it. One frustration is that I think people tend to make arguments based on what they think will be persuasive, not on what they actually believe. When I see people on the left arguing why someone shouldn’t vote for Trump, they tend to bring up his stupid tweets or something. “You’re really gonna vote for this idiot?” is the sort of vibe I get from it. I think this leads directly to what I hear from people on the right, often something like “Listen, I know he’s bad! You don’t have to tell me! But I really favor his [tax cuts/environmental deregulation/Supreme Court picks/whatever other hobby horse issue they have].” To me, the clearest moral imperative for removing Trump, and the one people on the left seem to expect to be least persuasive, comes from his tolerance of, and in many cases enthusiastic support for, gross humanitarian abuse. There are thousands of people in nightmarish refugee camps on our Southern border as a direct result of his immigration policy. He frequently makes a point of putting the full weight of his administration behind defending US soldiers guilty of blatant and well-documented war crimes from getting any penalty whatsoever, when even our top military brass thinks those acts were inexcusable. If you want more domestic examples, his support for private prisons, pardoning of Joe Arpaio, banning of trans people in the military, and plenty of other examples come to mind. I think his total lawlessness competes with that for priority level. Much of his immigration policy blatantly violates US and international law, and longstanding non-political government organizations have been subjugated by political appointees to oppose the goals those organizations are meant to achieve. When the administration fires or reassigns any bureaucrat who won’t assess the conditions in Haiti as improved because they want to remove it from TPS, or an asylum seeker wins their court case for asylum but ICE still stops them at the border and gives them a fake court date months in the future, it demonstrates what we should have realized all along: whatever “legal protections” we have are just promises, and anything the government does is presumptively legal until another part of the government is willing to enforce those promises. This is where stuff like Trump’s court packing really matters: it’s not just that the courts will become more conservative, Roe v. wade might be overturned, etc. It’s that the courts are the only real barrier between Trump and the ability to basically rule by decree. If courts become willing to approve any policy he puts forward, or at least tie up challenges to it in years of appeals, it no longer matters what laws Congress passes, or what legal rights you think you have. I mean, Trump used the US foreign policy apparatus to pressure a foreign power into slandering a political opponent! He blatantly used his office to manipulate the outcome of his reelection! But I’m not sure his lawlessness is people’s real objection to Trump is either. People seem more upset by the damage to America’s dignity. He drew on the hurricane map with a Sharpie! He served a bunch of McDonalds in the White House that one time! Covfefe! I don’t know if that sort of stuff is actually why liberals are most upset, but it does seem to be what they come up with when pressed for why Trump is unacceptable. I’d love to know what it is that actually offends them most about him and his presidency, because I get the feeling their arguments are usually rhetorical. I dunno man, maybe that's sometimes been the case here, but I don't think I've had a single in-person conversation about Trump where his tweets were the primary subject, and the vast majority never regarded them at all. Naturally, that likely says more about me, the people I have these conversations with, and the circumstances under which these conversations took place, but I think it goes to show that it can be difficult to get a good sense of what people are talking about as a generalized concept, particularly with the distorting influence of the (social) mediascape. As for why I'm against Trump, I more or less agree with Simberto's take, with the added sense of animosity that comes from being a part of the civil service. The damage he's doing to the background instruments of the federal government that inarguably benefit the population at large cannot be overstated. Sure, obviously my experiences with what “liberals tend to say” or “conservatives tend to say” is anecdotal. But for instance, I don’t remember the last time I saw MPP discussed in the thread. That seems like one of the larger and more blatant humanitarian atrocities this administration is unambiguously and wholly responsible for, and yet in arguing against his reelection, I hardly hear it mentioned. Perhaps it’s because liberals know Americans don’t care about the lives of immigrants, so they search for another message they think Americans care more about? Or is it because the liberals don’t care that much about the immigrants either? Or am I overstating the importance of such humanitarian abuses relative to, say, his clownish behavior or schoolyard bully-like demeanor?
Shying away from the truly atrocious stuff is certainly commonplace as far as the Dem party line goes, and I think it likely relates to how little the hard "center" wants to deal with how similar its views are to the Republicans, at least far as indifference to atrocities is concerned.
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On March 05 2020 10:33 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2020 10:09 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 08:47 farvacola wrote:On March 05 2020 08:02 ChristianS wrote:On March 05 2020 03:52 Liquid`Drone wrote:On March 05 2020 03:31 LegalLord wrote:On March 05 2020 03:18 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I don't think Biden is 0.01% better than Trump lol, I think he's approximately 94.35% better. So I entirely disagree with the premise. If people think he's virtually identical then whatever, but I really don't see how they are. That argument would resonate far better with me in a Hillary vs Jeb election than a Trump vs Biden one.
Could see it for Trump vs Bloomberg tho.
I suppose it depends on what metrics you use. In terms of policy, Trump has hardly differed much from the standard Bush-style conservative approach. Where he has differed, it's mostly been things like scrapping trade deals, which for the most part is a large net positive. He certainly does come off as far more of a clown than your average candidate, but I hope that's not the supposed difference between him and someone like Jeb. And I certainly doubt you meant that Clinton and Biden are significantly different candidates, because they hardly seem to be in any meaningful sense. I'm struggling to really see what materially different things Biden is supposedly going to do that are to be cheered on. He's notionally going to be more supportive of left-leaning things like climate policy, taxing the wealthy, and civil rights, but with the exception of perhaps the latter it's mostly going to indeed just be notional. Hardly a resounding win to be cheering on - or, in fact, a deep motivator for people who actually care about these issues to be desperate to replace Trump with this other highly questionable candidate for. Frankly the argument seems to be "we need to defeat Trump at all costs" among the rank-and-file Democrats. To what end, of course, is never particularly well explained. Stop Trump now, figure out why it was such a big deal to do so later. I think Trump's relationship with concepts like 'truth' and 'facts' actually deviate a lot from the republican norm (even if I saw a lot of the same from leading players during the buildup to the Iraq war, it was never to the same magnitude or abrasiveness), I am very negative towards the war on the press, and the building of a personal cult, increasing polarization to the degree where political supporters leaning one way end up genuinely wishing ill for political supporters on the other side coupled with claims (that end up being eaten up hook line and sinker) that climate change is a hoax is truly dangerous. I know that he has tapped into something already existing within the republican base, but these areas are all areas where he differs significantly from earlier republicans assumed electable for presidency. I also do believe the clownishness is of significance, but yea it's not the main reason for fearing another period. On economic policy and packing courts they're all much the same. This is interesting to me, because as much as it’s the atmosphere around all of these discussions, I’m not sure questions like “why is Trump bad” are actually addressed directly all that much. It’s like everybody has already reached their conclusion, and figures it’s already a settled question so they might as well move on to talking about what to do about it. One frustration is that I think people tend to make arguments based on what they think will be persuasive, not on what they actually believe. When I see people on the left arguing why someone shouldn’t vote for Trump, they tend to bring up his stupid tweets or something. “You’re really gonna vote for this idiot?” is the sort of vibe I get from it. I think this leads directly to what I hear from people on the right, often something like “Listen, I know he’s bad! You don’t have to tell me! But I really favor his [tax cuts/environmental deregulation/Supreme Court picks/whatever other hobby horse issue they have].” To me, the clearest moral imperative for removing Trump, and the one people on the left seem to expect to be least persuasive, comes from his tolerance of, and in many cases enthusiastic support for, gross humanitarian abuse. There are thousands of people in nightmarish refugee camps on our Southern border as a direct result of his immigration policy. He frequently makes a point of putting the full weight of his administration behind defending US soldiers guilty of blatant and well-documented war crimes from getting any penalty whatsoever, when even our top military brass thinks those acts were inexcusable. If you want more domestic examples, his support for private prisons, pardoning of Joe Arpaio, banning of trans people in the military, and plenty of other examples come to mind. I think his total lawlessness competes with that for priority level. Much of his immigration policy blatantly violates US and international law, and longstanding non-political government organizations have been subjugated by political appointees to oppose the goals those organizations are meant to achieve. When the administration fires or reassigns any bureaucrat who won’t assess the conditions in Haiti as improved because they want to remove it from TPS, or an asylum seeker wins their court case for asylum but ICE still stops them at the border and gives them a fake court date months in the future, it demonstrates what we should have realized all along: whatever “legal protections” we have are just promises, and anything the government does is presumptively legal until another part of the government is willing to enforce those promises. This is where stuff like Trump’s court packing really matters: it’s not just that the courts will become more conservative, Roe v. wade might be overturned, etc. It’s that the courts are the only real barrier between Trump and the ability to basically rule by decree. If courts become willing to approve any policy he puts forward, or at least tie up challenges to it in years of appeals, it no longer matters what laws Congress passes, or what legal rights you think you have. I mean, Trump used the US foreign policy apparatus to pressure a foreign power into slandering a political opponent! He blatantly used his office to manipulate the outcome of his reelection! But I’m not sure his lawlessness is people’s real objection to Trump is either. People seem more upset by the damage to America’s dignity. He drew on the hurricane map with a Sharpie! He served a bunch of McDonalds in the White House that one time! Covfefe! I don’t know if that sort of stuff is actually why liberals are most upset, but it does seem to be what they come up with when pressed for why Trump is unacceptable. I’d love to know what it is that actually offends them most about him and his presidency, because I get the feeling their arguments are usually rhetorical. I dunno man, maybe that's sometimes been the case here, but I don't think I've had a single in-person conversation about Trump where his tweets were the primary subject, and the vast majority never regarded them at all. Naturally, that likely says more about me, the people I have these conversations with, and the circumstances under which these conversations took place, but I think it goes to show that it can be difficult to get a good sense of what people are talking about as a generalized concept, particularly with the distorting influence of the (social) mediascape. As for why I'm against Trump, I more or less agree with Simberto's take, with the added sense of animosity that comes from being a part of the civil service. The damage he's doing to the background instruments of the federal government that inarguably benefit the population at large cannot be overstated. Sure, obviously my experiences with what “liberals tend to say” or “conservatives tend to say” is anecdotal. But for instance, I don’t remember the last time I saw MPP discussed in the thread. That seems like one of the larger and more blatant humanitarian atrocities this administration is unambiguously and wholly responsible for, and yet in arguing against his reelection, I hardly hear it mentioned. Perhaps it’s because liberals know Americans don’t care about the lives of immigrants, so they search for another message they think Americans care more about? Or is it because the liberals don’t care that much about the immigrants either? Or am I overstating the importance of such humanitarian abuses relative to, say, his clownish behavior or schoolyard bully-like demeanor? Shying away from the truly atrocious stuff is certainly commonplace as far as the Dem party line goes, and I think it likely relates to how little the hard "center" wants to deal with how similar its views are to the Republicans, at least far as indifference to atrocities is concerned.
Sure, but I also don’t think Biden would commit many of the atrocities that Trump has, and would probably end them as president. That, to me, is the clearest rebuttal to “Trump and Biden are virtually identical.” More broadly, “how big is the difference between Biden and Trump” is surely a conversation that should be rooted in the human cost of the Trump administration compared to a hypothetical Biden one. What tends to happen instead is some abstract back-and-forth about the nature of compromise and “the lesser of two evils.”
Separately I’m not sure why everyone is talking about the primary as already over. I’m still hoping Sanders can take the nomination! But if he doesn’t, and people are deciding whether to support Biden, perhaps we ought to discuss a little more specifically what it is about a second Trump term we’re trying to prevent.
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EPT
