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!
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On October 23 2020 05:28 Acrofales wrote: I dunno. Is it? I mean, it's been a clear, obvious and very visual slide from a fairly levelheaded central neoliberal poster to an off-the-chain propaganda repeater, but I thought that it started earlier than 2 years ago.
TBF, Doodsmack never was what I would have called "level-headed" even in his past incarnation. He got served multiple temp-bans for awful posting then too.
His posting is just as garbage as it was before, it's just more noticeable now because being pro-Trump goes against the grain of the thread, whereas he often slipped under the radar when he was a vehement neoliberal because it was mixed in with other people saying roughly similar things.
Yeah, exactly this. Being on the wrong side of the "consensus opinion" just makes the preexisting pattern look that much worse.
On October 23 2020 05:08 plasmidghost wrote: If anyone's curious about Texas numbers, we're tracking all vote totals and may end up surpassing 2016 early vote totals by Sunday
On October 23 2020 04:50 Biff The Understudy wrote: To be honest, as a voter, the fact that they tried to collude with Russia and managed to fuck it up is almost worse than if they had actually colluded. They are a bunch of unpatriotic crooks AND totally incompetent.
On October 23 2020 04:22 GreenHorizons wrote: The hysteria was definitely the almost daily "this is going to sink Trump... He's really in trouble now...etc." stuff. A lot of selective amnesia too when it comes to the FBI and their history with the truth.
True, though the actual story is just... so dumb that no one would have predicted it (that collusion was attempted by his campaign, but failed due to incompetence). It was never going to bring Trump down unless it were proven he was an actual Russian patsy, as if all he did was accept or solicit aid, Nixon and Reagan had done similar actions in the past.
I remember lots of people saying that at the start.
Trump jr & sr still demonstrated clear willingness to collude. The only question is whether they succeeded or were too incompetent to do so.
Would you guys believe that's a doodsmack quote from ~2 years ago?
The more we found out the less likely it seemed that they failed due to incompetence, but I do recall people being like "Really? Trump was able to competently hide something so big?" and shrugging off many of the first accusations of russian meddling due to who they came from, ie, Hillary and the DNC who were looking for anything to blame besides themselves. I was one of those people. The evidence they publicly gave for guccifer 2.0 being a russian GRU agent was extremely thin, at first, for instance.
I more meant, after things like the Trump tower meeting and Manafort's ties were known, few people predicted "tried and failed due to incompetence". I, personally, would have though the incompetence would have come in way before the "able to successfully arrange a back channel meeting" step.
Also, Trump's one area of competence does seem to be covering damaging things about himself up, so the initial reason to write it off is no longer quite as true.
There's the Glenn Greenwald liberals who always harboured skepticism about the Russia investigations into Trump and saw it as a dishonest media and Democratic collaboration to attack Trump. I would venture to guess Doodsmack fell into that bin over time. It's a bit bizarre because I thought he was a rather milquetoast centrist and not particularly receptive to that kind of message, but there's been stranger political shifts.
On October 23 2020 05:44 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On October 23 2020 05:08 plasmidghost wrote: If anyone's curious about Texas numbers, we're tracking all vote totals and may end up surpassing 2016 early vote totals by Sunday
So we are looking at a very high turnout basically? Or is it just the pandemic situation that changes people's habits?
I've been seeing lots of caution thrown around on trying to gauge too much from just early voting, especially from such unprecedented times with COVID. But Nate Silver believes it will be "154 million, with an 80th percentile range between 144 million and 165 million. In 2016, turnout was 137 million, by comparison." This is based off sky-high enthusiasm from both parties and expanded voting options.
But, but, but it's so hard to vote. Without a national holiday for voting we have crushing disenfranchisement. People are too poor and dumb to use the myriad ways that we have currently to have a legitimate election that doesn't benefit GOP (because we need excuses for Democrat losses). Voting is super simple and easy - no excuses from either side about fake fraud claims or disenfranchisement balogne.
On October 23 2020 07:28 Wegandi wrote: But, but, but it's so hard to vote. Without a national holiday for voting we have crushing disenfranchisement. People are too poor and dumb to use the myriad ways that we have currently to have a legitimate election that doesn't benefit GOP (because we need excuses for Democrat losses). Voting is super simple and easy - no excuses from either side about fake fraud claims or disenfranchisement balogne.
Wildly varies per state and per county. The problem isn't that no one has an easy time voting, Oregon is of course a very distinguished state in that regard. The issue is that some states are very bad about it. There should be ballot boxes all over every town in America and we should be able to vote for a full month ahead of time. And people should automatically be registered to vote and receive their ballot in the mail.
On October 23 2020 07:28 Wegandi wrote: But, but, but it's so hard to vote. Without a national holiday for voting we have crushing disenfranchisement. People are too poor and dumb to use the myriad ways that we have currently to have a legitimate election that doesn't benefit GOP (because we need excuses for Democrat losses). Voting is super simple and easy - no excuses from either side about fake fraud claims or disenfranchisement balogne.
Except Election Day still isn't a national holiday, voting in many states still takes several hours instead of several minutes, and many states still look for any excuse whatsoever to strip voting rights away from certain groups, and make it difficult to get them back, or just flat out impossible. Some states still don't allow early voting. Like... I literally don't even know what you think you're saying in light of that statistic. Turnout is up despite the difficulty for some to vote, not because of it.
If voting is easy for you, congratulations. Enjoy the privilege. Not everyone has it.
On October 23 2020 07:28 Wegandi wrote: But, but, but it's so hard to vote. Without a national holiday for voting we have crushing disenfranchisement. People are too poor and dumb to use the myriad ways that we have currently to have a legitimate election that doesn't benefit GOP (because we need excuses for Democrat losses). Voting is super simple and easy - no excuses from either side about fake fraud claims or disenfranchisement balogne.
Alternatively just make it as easy as possible without enabling fraud?
Trump campaign's last ditch effort is now to bring some dude Tony Bobulinski to the debate who can apparently tie Joe to being involved in Hunter's company . Tony held some weird press conference without answering questions and apparently has 3 phones that he'll give to the FBI (?)
I wonder if Trump will just hammer on about Hunter all night.
On October 23 2020 09:54 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote: Trump campaign's last ditch effort is now to bring some dude Tony Babulinski to the debate who can apparently tie Joe to being involved in Hunter's company . Tony held some weird press conference without answering questions and apparently has 3 phones that he'll give to the FBI (?)
I wonder if Trump will just hammer on about Hunter all night.
At this stage I’m just hoping Jerry Springer shows up and reveals that Hunter is actually Donald’s son.
On October 23 2020 07:28 Wegandi wrote: But, but, but it's so hard to vote. Without a national holiday for voting we have crushing disenfranchisement. People are too poor and dumb to use the myriad ways that we have currently to have a legitimate election that doesn't benefit GOP (because we need excuses for Democrat losses). Voting is super simple and easy - no excuses from either side about fake fraud claims or disenfranchisement balogne.
I favor the holiday option or absentee ballots given by request and without excuse.
Absentees without excuse are the law in 34 states already. In the rest, it's common to simply state that you'll be out of the county or working that day.
I too find the current statements of implied disenfranchisement to be worthy of mockery. But, then again, they have a trend of separating out the serious from the unserious people around, so I suppose they're of some use.