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On February 12 2024 13:27 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2024 08:34 BlackJack wrote:On February 12 2024 06:40 ChristianS wrote:
It’s worth noting that Trump isn’t really the same guy he was in 2020 either. I don’t mean in terms of cognitive decline (although yes, that) but there was a period where a lot of Republicans had kind of abandoned him, including just about everybody who worked in his administration. The only people that stuck with him were the white nationalists, and given how much he’s always cared about unwavering loyalty, those are now the people he surrounds himself with. I mean, his campaign surrogates are promising that as soon as he enters office, he’s going to mobilize red state national guards to round up immigrants across the country and put them in camps. Outlandish as his rhetoric has always been, this really is a different color.
I’m not saying this to counter the “Biden might lose/Trump might win” arguments. I’m bored of those. It’s been obvious for like a year that he’ll be the Republican nominee, and a major party candidate always has a significant chance of winning. Assigning a percentage to it now is stupid considering it’s contingent on a million other questions we’re not actually discussing (what will the economy be like by November? What will the situation in Gaza be by then? How dependent is American public opinion on either of those things, or a million other issues?). So yes, his chances are significant, maybe >50%, but it’s not useful or interesting to keep focusing on that.
Might be worth discussing the *implications* of a Trump or Biden win. The latter is easy to picture, since we’ve just had almost 4 years of it and it seems unlikely to dramatically change because Biden can’t draw a clock or whatever. Trump, on the other hand…
I mean, forget everything else and just take his recent statements about supporting Putin’s invasion. In recent years countries around the world that have been eyeing their neighbors’ territory for decades have been increasingly deciding that now is their moment. Russia, Azerbaijan, Israel all seem to think the “international community” can’t do much to stop them. But US opposition is the biggest reason Russia has struggled in Ukraine, and American tolerance or support are the only reason that Azerbaijan or Israel can conduct their invasions. And at least in the latter case, the only plausible check on their continued atrocities would be if the US took a firm stand against it; no other nation is in a position to put the brakes on it.
What’s gonna happen in a world order with a new Trump administration at the helm? One that’s spent the last 8 years studying every check and balance and legal hurdle that stopped them from seizing total control the first time? That’s openly endorsing conquests like Putin’s and putting US support up for sale? A lot of Americans’ minds jump to Taiwan, but there’s a ton of protracted land disputes across the world ready to ignite if one side or the other thinks they have an edge and the consequences aren’t too dire. Instability at the top would prompt everyone to seek mutual defense pacts to regain safety, but that increases the likelihood any given dispute would escalate to something truly catastrophic and global.
I don’t think Biden’s done a good enough job using American power to discourage atrocities, but it’s hard to overstate the enormity of suffering an unstable world order could unleash upon the planet right now. Given all that it’s hard for me to care that Robert Hur got a bit out of pocket with his Special Counsel report, or w/e got everyone on this topic to begin with. These types of arguments have been used ad nauseum for over 8 years now. Just look at this thread in the run up to the 2016 election and I'm sure you'll find no shortage of Trump to Hitler comparisons and how we are on the fast track to a fascist dictatorship, camps and all that. I don't know if I buy the argument that we can imagine what 4 more years of Biden will look like but not 4 more years of Trump because we just had 4 years of Biden. Well we just had 4 years of Trump too, no? 2016-2020 isn't exactly ancient history. People might have just been talking shit about where trump was going to go but this time its Trump that is saying he wants to start rounding up people putting them in camps and expelling them into some country. This isn't even a throwaway line hes been detailing how he imagines he will be able to get military resources and money to police to start picking them up and setting them into camps. Venezuela is building up its military on its border, we know what biden will do, but can anyone confidently predict what Trump will do about an extremely convenient possible ally in the Caribbean? We can easily tell what would happen with Biden, the guy has been in government for decades and decades now. He would just be going on with the same march of liberal gradual reform politics. Trade deals would get negotiated to make the economy better and I would bet more than not we see a comprehensive deal with Argentina to ensure its dollarization goes well in exchange for the lithium and oil reserves that they can't exploit currently.
"We were just talking shit all those other times we said Trump would be dictator but now we really mean it." Surely you can see why people would be fatigued by such an argument.
I suspect most people still don't believe the Trump will end democracy and make himself dictator if he gets reelected spiel. Sure it's easy for the people whose minds are pre-occupied with all-things-Trump to rant about on their social media accounts, but if I offered to bet them $€ that if Trump wins a 2nd term then he won't be in power after Inauguration Day 2029, I doubt I will get any takers.
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I didn’t even say “Trump’s going to round up immigrants and put them in camps,” which would be a prediction about how his administration would go. I said “Trump’s campaign is saying they’re going to round up immigrants and put them in camps,” which is verifiable truth about what they’re saying they’re going to do. Whether they actually *will* do what they’re claiming they’ll do is worth discussing, but it bodes ill for the productiveness of the conversation if you can’t even be bothered to respond to what was actually said.
I absolutely think the guy who tried everything in his power to avoid leaving office after losing an election is a threat to democracy. If a guy like that isn’t, who is? I wouldn’t take that bet though, especially because I’m not convinced he’ll live to 2029 anyway.
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Northern Ireland22946 Posts
On February 12 2024 15:04 ChristianS wrote:
I didn’t even say “Trump’s going to round up immigrants and put them in camps,” which would be a prediction about how his administration would go. I said “Trump’s campaign is saying they’re going to round up immigrants and put them in camps,” which is verifiable truth about what they’re saying they’re going to do. Whether they actually *will* do what they’re claiming they’ll do is worth discussing, but it bodes ill for the productiveness of the conversation if you can’t even be bothered to respond to what was actually said.
I absolutely think the guy who tried everything in his power to avoid leaving office after losing an election is a threat to democracy. If a guy like that isn’t, who is? I wouldn’t take that bet though, especially because I’m not convinced he’ll live to 2029 anyway.
It’s almost like there are graduating levels of concerning fascist-flavoured behaviour prior to actually destroying democracy and installing the American Fourth Reich or what have you.
Sure, there are certainly hysterical voices over-egging it, but amongst more sober ones, there’s plenty there that’s happened, or is being put forward rhetorically now to be rightly concerned.
Hell my expectations were pretty damn low moving in to the Trump Presidency, but even I hadn’t anticipated what happened when he was due to leave office.
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On February 12 2024 13:27 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2024 08:34 BlackJack wrote:On February 12 2024 06:40 ChristianS wrote:
It’s worth noting that Trump isn’t really the same guy he was in 2020 either. I don’t mean in terms of cognitive decline (although yes, that) but there was a period where a lot of Republicans had kind of abandoned him, including just about everybody who worked in his administration. The only people that stuck with him were the white nationalists, and given how much he’s always cared about unwavering loyalty, those are now the people he surrounds himself with. I mean, his campaign surrogates are promising that as soon as he enters office, he’s going to mobilize red state national guards to round up immigrants across the country and put them in camps. Outlandish as his rhetoric has always been, this really is a different color.
I’m not saying this to counter the “Biden might lose/Trump might win” arguments. I’m bored of those. It’s been obvious for like a year that he’ll be the Republican nominee, and a major party candidate always has a significant chance of winning. Assigning a percentage to it now is stupid considering it’s contingent on a million other questions we’re not actually discussing (what will the economy be like by November? What will the situation in Gaza be by then? How dependent is American public opinion on either of those things, or a million other issues?). So yes, his chances are significant, maybe >50%, but it’s not useful or interesting to keep focusing on that.
Might be worth discussing the *implications* of a Trump or Biden win. The latter is easy to picture, since we’ve just had almost 4 years of it and it seems unlikely to dramatically change because Biden can’t draw a clock or whatever. Trump, on the other hand…
I mean, forget everything else and just take his recent statements about supporting Putin’s invasion. In recent years countries around the world that have been eyeing their neighbors’ territory for decades have been increasingly deciding that now is their moment. Russia, Azerbaijan, Israel all seem to think the “international community” can’t do much to stop them. But US opposition is the biggest reason Russia has struggled in Ukraine, and American tolerance or support are the only reason that Azerbaijan or Israel can conduct their invasions. And at least in the latter case, the only plausible check on their continued atrocities would be if the US took a firm stand against it; no other nation is in a position to put the brakes on it.
What’s gonna happen in a world order with a new Trump administration at the helm? One that’s spent the last 8 years studying every check and balance and legal hurdle that stopped them from seizing total control the first time? That’s openly endorsing conquests like Putin’s and putting US support up for sale? A lot of Americans’ minds jump to Taiwan, but there’s a ton of protracted land disputes across the world ready to ignite if one side or the other thinks they have an edge and the consequences aren’t too dire. Instability at the top would prompt everyone to seek mutual defense pacts to regain safety, but that increases the likelihood any given dispute would escalate to something truly catastrophic and global.
I don’t think Biden’s done a good enough job using American power to discourage atrocities, but it’s hard to overstate the enormity of suffering an unstable world order could unleash upon the planet right now. Given all that it’s hard for me to care that Robert Hur got a bit out of pocket with his Special Counsel report, or w/e got everyone on this topic to begin with. These types of arguments have been used ad nauseum for over 8 years now. Just look at this thread in the run up to the 2016 election and I'm sure you'll find no shortage of Trump to Hitler comparisons and how we are on the fast track to a fascist dictatorship, camps and all that. I don't know if I buy the argument that we can imagine what 4 more years of Biden will look like but not 4 more years of Trump because we just had 4 years of Biden. Well we just had 4 years of Trump too, no? 2016-2020 isn't exactly ancient history. People might have just been talking shit about where trump was going to go but this time its Trump that is saying he wants to start rounding up people putting them in camps and expelling them into some country. This isn't even a throwaway line hes been detailing how he imagines he will be able to get military resources and money to police to start picking them up and setting them into camps. Venezuela is building up its military on its border, we know what biden will do, but can anyone confidently predict what Trump will do about an extremely convenient possible ally in the Caribbean? We can easily tell what would happen with Biden, the guy has been in government for decades and decades now. He would just be going on with the same march of liberal gradual reform politics. Trade deals would get negotiated to make the economy better and I would bet more than not we see a comprehensive deal with Argentina to ensure its dollarization goes well in exchange for the lithium and oil reserves that they can't exploit currently.
I find this line problematic. This, in a nutshell, is the problem. More of the same stuff that is not really working for the majority of Americans. To be frank, things have just been getting crappier since the mid-00's -- we pay more for worse services. I don't just mean government services, I mean every single service that we use has just seemed to get shittier over the last decade. We've also all taken a hit to our mental health -- do you know of anyone who isn't more stressed now than 5-10 years ago? Because every conversation I have with my colleagues, friends and family is how stressful everything is and how much worse our general outlook towards how things are going.
I am not making the argument to vote Trump, far from it. I just worry that this general disillusionment with how things are going will be enough to let him back in.
Edit: It is incredibly frustrating that at a time that we need bold solutions to address climate change and an aging, sicker population, we get to choose between doddering old man or old, narcissistic asshole.
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On February 12 2024 08:34 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2024 06:40 ChristianS wrote:
It’s worth noting that Trump isn’t really the same guy he was in 2020 either. I don’t mean in terms of cognitive decline (although yes, that) but there was a period where a lot of Republicans had kind of abandoned him, including just about everybody who worked in his administration. The only people that stuck with him were the white nationalists, and given how much he’s always cared about unwavering loyalty, those are now the people he surrounds himself with. I mean, his campaign surrogates are promising that as soon as he enters office, he’s going to mobilize red state national guards to round up immigrants across the country and put them in camps. Outlandish as his rhetoric has always been, this really is a different color.
I’m not saying this to counter the “Biden might lose/Trump might win” arguments. I’m bored of those. It’s been obvious for like a year that he’ll be the Republican nominee, and a major party candidate always has a significant chance of winning. Assigning a percentage to it now is stupid considering it’s contingent on a million other questions we’re not actually discussing (what will the economy be like by November? What will the situation in Gaza be by then? How dependent is American public opinion on either of those things, or a million other issues?). So yes, his chances are significant, maybe >50%, but it’s not useful or interesting to keep focusing on that.
Might be worth discussing the *implications* of a Trump or Biden win. The latter is easy to picture, since we’ve just had almost 4 years of it and it seems unlikely to dramatically change because Biden can’t draw a clock or whatever. Trump, on the other hand…
I mean, forget everything else and just take his recent statements about supporting Putin’s invasion. In recent years countries around the world that have been eyeing their neighbors’ territory for decades have been increasingly deciding that now is their moment. Russia, Azerbaijan, Israel all seem to think the “international community” can’t do much to stop them. But US opposition is the biggest reason Russia has struggled in Ukraine, and American tolerance or support are the only reason that Azerbaijan or Israel can conduct their invasions. And at least in the latter case, the only plausible check on their continued atrocities would be if the US took a firm stand against it; no other nation is in a position to put the brakes on it.
What’s gonna happen in a world order with a new Trump administration at the helm? One that’s spent the last 8 years studying every check and balance and legal hurdle that stopped them from seizing total control the first time? That’s openly endorsing conquests like Putin’s and putting US support up for sale? A lot of Americans’ minds jump to Taiwan, but there’s a ton of protracted land disputes across the world ready to ignite if one side or the other thinks they have an edge and the consequences aren’t too dire. Instability at the top would prompt everyone to seek mutual defense pacts to regain safety, but that increases the likelihood any given dispute would escalate to something truly catastrophic and global.
I don’t think Biden’s done a good enough job using American power to discourage atrocities, but it’s hard to overstate the enormity of suffering an unstable world order could unleash upon the planet right now. Given all that it’s hard for me to care that Robert Hur got a bit out of pocket with his Special Counsel report, or w/e got everyone on this topic to begin with. These types of arguments have been used ad nauseum for over 8 years now. Just look at this thread in the run up to the 2016 election and I'm sure you'll find no shortage of Trump to Hitler comparisons and how we are on the fast track to a fascist dictatorship, camps and all that. I don't know if I buy the argument that we can imagine what 4 more years of Biden will look like but not 4 more years of Trump because we just had 4 years of Biden. Well we just had 4 years of Trump too, no? 2016-2020 isn't exactly ancient history.
fast track to a fascist dictatorship, well we had an actual insurrection attempt...
camps an all. We had those to, right on the border with kids in cages pointed at the border to put them on display...
It feels like your saying people exaggerated and were hysterical over nothing, but that shit actually happened.
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On February 12 2024 17:54 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2024 13:27 Sermokala wrote:On February 12 2024 08:34 BlackJack wrote:On February 12 2024 06:40 ChristianS wrote:
It’s worth noting that Trump isn’t really the same guy he was in 2020 either. I don’t mean in terms of cognitive decline (although yes, that) but there was a period where a lot of Republicans had kind of abandoned him, including just about everybody who worked in his administration. The only people that stuck with him were the white nationalists, and given how much he’s always cared about unwavering loyalty, those are now the people he surrounds himself with. I mean, his campaign surrogates are promising that as soon as he enters office, he’s going to mobilize red state national guards to round up immigrants across the country and put them in camps. Outlandish as his rhetoric has always been, this really is a different color.
I’m not saying this to counter the “Biden might lose/Trump might win” arguments. I’m bored of those. It’s been obvious for like a year that he’ll be the Republican nominee, and a major party candidate always has a significant chance of winning. Assigning a percentage to it now is stupid considering it’s contingent on a million other questions we’re not actually discussing (what will the economy be like by November? What will the situation in Gaza be by then? How dependent is American public opinion on either of those things, or a million other issues?). So yes, his chances are significant, maybe >50%, but it’s not useful or interesting to keep focusing on that.
Might be worth discussing the *implications* of a Trump or Biden win. The latter is easy to picture, since we’ve just had almost 4 years of it and it seems unlikely to dramatically change because Biden can’t draw a clock or whatever. Trump, on the other hand…
I mean, forget everything else and just take his recent statements about supporting Putin’s invasion. In recent years countries around the world that have been eyeing their neighbors’ territory for decades have been increasingly deciding that now is their moment. Russia, Azerbaijan, Israel all seem to think the “international community” can’t do much to stop them. But US opposition is the biggest reason Russia has struggled in Ukraine, and American tolerance or support are the only reason that Azerbaijan or Israel can conduct their invasions. And at least in the latter case, the only plausible check on their continued atrocities would be if the US took a firm stand against it; no other nation is in a position to put the brakes on it.
What’s gonna happen in a world order with a new Trump administration at the helm? One that’s spent the last 8 years studying every check and balance and legal hurdle that stopped them from seizing total control the first time? That’s openly endorsing conquests like Putin’s and putting US support up for sale? A lot of Americans’ minds jump to Taiwan, but there’s a ton of protracted land disputes across the world ready to ignite if one side or the other thinks they have an edge and the consequences aren’t too dire. Instability at the top would prompt everyone to seek mutual defense pacts to regain safety, but that increases the likelihood any given dispute would escalate to something truly catastrophic and global.
I don’t think Biden’s done a good enough job using American power to discourage atrocities, but it’s hard to overstate the enormity of suffering an unstable world order could unleash upon the planet right now. Given all that it’s hard for me to care that Robert Hur got a bit out of pocket with his Special Counsel report, or w/e got everyone on this topic to begin with. These types of arguments have been used ad nauseum for over 8 years now. Just look at this thread in the run up to the 2016 election and I'm sure you'll find no shortage of Trump to Hitler comparisons and how we are on the fast track to a fascist dictatorship, camps and all that. I don't know if I buy the argument that we can imagine what 4 more years of Biden will look like but not 4 more years of Trump because we just had 4 years of Biden. Well we just had 4 years of Trump too, no? 2016-2020 isn't exactly ancient history. People might have just been talking shit about where trump was going to go but this time its Trump that is saying he wants to start rounding up people putting them in camps and expelling them into some country. This isn't even a throwaway line hes been detailing how he imagines he will be able to get military resources and money to police to start picking them up and setting them into camps. Venezuela is building up its military on its border, we know what biden will do, but can anyone confidently predict what Trump will do about an extremely convenient possible ally in the Caribbean? We can easily tell what would happen with Biden, the guy has been in government for decades and decades now. He would just be going on with the same march of liberal gradual reform politics. Trade deals would get negotiated to make the economy better and I would bet more than not we see a comprehensive deal with Argentina to ensure its dollarization goes well in exchange for the lithium and oil reserves that they can't exploit currently. I find this line problematic. This, in a nutshell, is the problem. More of the same stuff that is not really working for the majority of Americans. To be frank, things have just been getting crappier since the mid-00's -- we pay more for worse services. I don't just mean government services, I mean every single service that we use has just seemed to get shittier over the last decade. We've also all taken a hit to our mental health -- do you know of anyone who isn't more stressed now than 5-10 years ago? Because every conversation I have with my colleagues, friends and family is how stressful everything is and how much worse our general outlook towards how things are going. I am not making the argument to vote Trump, far from it. I just worry that this general disillusionment with how things are going will be enough to let him back in. Edit: It is incredibly frustrating that at a time that we need bold solutions to address climate change and an aging, sicker population, we get to choose between doddering old man or old, narcissistic asshole.
Just wanted to put in the reminder that many of Biden's presidential accomplishments are Bernie-levels-of-progressive - even when up against Republicans in Congress - not just minimalist liberal platforms, and that Biden's Inflation Reduction Act invested $783 billion in clean energy (the largest climate change investment in American history), among other things (like reducing medical costs for millions of Americans).
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On February 12 2024 14:29 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2024 13:27 Sermokala wrote:On February 12 2024 08:34 BlackJack wrote:On February 12 2024 06:40 ChristianS wrote:
It’s worth noting that Trump isn’t really the same guy he was in 2020 either. I don’t mean in terms of cognitive decline (although yes, that) but there was a period where a lot of Republicans had kind of abandoned him, including just about everybody who worked in his administration. The only people that stuck with him were the white nationalists, and given how much he’s always cared about unwavering loyalty, those are now the people he surrounds himself with. I mean, his campaign surrogates are promising that as soon as he enters office, he’s going to mobilize red state national guards to round up immigrants across the country and put them in camps. Outlandish as his rhetoric has always been, this really is a different color.
I’m not saying this to counter the “Biden might lose/Trump might win” arguments. I’m bored of those. It’s been obvious for like a year that he’ll be the Republican nominee, and a major party candidate always has a significant chance of winning. Assigning a percentage to it now is stupid considering it’s contingent on a million other questions we’re not actually discussing (what will the economy be like by November? What will the situation in Gaza be by then? How dependent is American public opinion on either of those things, or a million other issues?). So yes, his chances are significant, maybe >50%, but it’s not useful or interesting to keep focusing on that.
Might be worth discussing the *implications* of a Trump or Biden win. The latter is easy to picture, since we’ve just had almost 4 years of it and it seems unlikely to dramatically change because Biden can’t draw a clock or whatever. Trump, on the other hand…
I mean, forget everything else and just take his recent statements about supporting Putin’s invasion. In recent years countries around the world that have been eyeing their neighbors’ territory for decades have been increasingly deciding that now is their moment. Russia, Azerbaijan, Israel all seem to think the “international community” can’t do much to stop them. But US opposition is the biggest reason Russia has struggled in Ukraine, and American tolerance or support are the only reason that Azerbaijan or Israel can conduct their invasions. And at least in the latter case, the only plausible check on their continued atrocities would be if the US took a firm stand against it; no other nation is in a position to put the brakes on it.
What’s gonna happen in a world order with a new Trump administration at the helm? One that’s spent the last 8 years studying every check and balance and legal hurdle that stopped them from seizing total control the first time? That’s openly endorsing conquests like Putin’s and putting US support up for sale? A lot of Americans’ minds jump to Taiwan, but there’s a ton of protracted land disputes across the world ready to ignite if one side or the other thinks they have an edge and the consequences aren’t too dire. Instability at the top would prompt everyone to seek mutual defense pacts to regain safety, but that increases the likelihood any given dispute would escalate to something truly catastrophic and global.
I don’t think Biden’s done a good enough job using American power to discourage atrocities, but it’s hard to overstate the enormity of suffering an unstable world order could unleash upon the planet right now. Given all that it’s hard for me to care that Robert Hur got a bit out of pocket with his Special Counsel report, or w/e got everyone on this topic to begin with. These types of arguments have been used ad nauseum for over 8 years now. Just look at this thread in the run up to the 2016 election and I'm sure you'll find no shortage of Trump to Hitler comparisons and how we are on the fast track to a fascist dictatorship, camps and all that. I don't know if I buy the argument that we can imagine what 4 more years of Biden will look like but not 4 more years of Trump because we just had 4 years of Biden. Well we just had 4 years of Trump too, no? 2016-2020 isn't exactly ancient history. People might have just been talking shit about where trump was going to go but this time its Trump that is saying he wants to start rounding up people putting them in camps and expelling them into some country. This isn't even a throwaway line hes been detailing how he imagines he will be able to get military resources and money to police to start picking them up and setting them into camps. Venezuela is building up its military on its border, we know what biden will do, but can anyone confidently predict what Trump will do about an extremely convenient possible ally in the Caribbean? We can easily tell what would happen with Biden, the guy has been in government for decades and decades now. He would just be going on with the same march of liberal gradual reform politics. Trade deals would get negotiated to make the economy better and I would bet more than not we see a comprehensive deal with Argentina to ensure its dollarization goes well in exchange for the lithium and oil reserves that they can't exploit currently. "We were just talking shit all those other times we said Trump would be dictator but now we really mean it." Surely you can see why people would be fatigued by such an argument. I suspect most people still don't believe the Trump will end democracy and make himself dictator if he gets reelected spiel. Sure it's easy for the people whose minds are pre-occupied with all-things-Trump to rant about on their social media accounts, but if I offered to bet them $€ that if Trump wins a 2nd term then he won't be in power after Inauguration Day 2029, I doubt I will get any takers.
I don't believe that Trump will ultimately be successful in ending democracy, but I do believe he wants to (as evidenced by his rhetoric and actions during the last election, and his behavior since then). I think his plan will ultimately be thwarted, but that doesn't mean he isn't a serious threat or setting a dangerous precedent.
Sometimes, I get the feeling that a person approaches this topic like so: "I'm skeptical that Trump will succeed in doing all the bad things he promised and I'm skeptical that Biden will succeed in doing all the good things he promised, so therefore they're both pretty much going to have the same negligible impact as president next time", inferring that it doesn't matter who wins the election, which is a dangerously incorrect non sequitur.
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On February 12 2024 17:54 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2024 13:27 Sermokala wrote:On February 12 2024 08:34 BlackJack wrote:On February 12 2024 06:40 ChristianS wrote:
It’s worth noting that Trump isn’t really the same guy he was in 2020 either. I don’t mean in terms of cognitive decline (although yes, that) but there was a period where a lot of Republicans had kind of abandoned him, including just about everybody who worked in his administration. The only people that stuck with him were the white nationalists, and given how much he’s always cared about unwavering loyalty, those are now the people he surrounds himself with. I mean, his campaign surrogates are promising that as soon as he enters office, he’s going to mobilize red state national guards to round up immigrants across the country and put them in camps. Outlandish as his rhetoric has always been, this really is a different color.
I’m not saying this to counter the “Biden might lose/Trump might win” arguments. I’m bored of those. It’s been obvious for like a year that he’ll be the Republican nominee, and a major party candidate always has a significant chance of winning. Assigning a percentage to it now is stupid considering it’s contingent on a million other questions we’re not actually discussing (what will the economy be like by November? What will the situation in Gaza be by then? How dependent is American public opinion on either of those things, or a million other issues?). So yes, his chances are significant, maybe >50%, but it’s not useful or interesting to keep focusing on that.
Might be worth discussing the *implications* of a Trump or Biden win. The latter is easy to picture, since we’ve just had almost 4 years of it and it seems unlikely to dramatically change because Biden can’t draw a clock or whatever. Trump, on the other hand…
I mean, forget everything else and just take his recent statements about supporting Putin’s invasion. In recent years countries around the world that have been eyeing their neighbors’ territory for decades have been increasingly deciding that now is their moment. Russia, Azerbaijan, Israel all seem to think the “international community” can’t do much to stop them. But US opposition is the biggest reason Russia has struggled in Ukraine, and American tolerance or support are the only reason that Azerbaijan or Israel can conduct their invasions. And at least in the latter case, the only plausible check on their continued atrocities would be if the US took a firm stand against it; no other nation is in a position to put the brakes on it.
What’s gonna happen in a world order with a new Trump administration at the helm? One that’s spent the last 8 years studying every check and balance and legal hurdle that stopped them from seizing total control the first time? That’s openly endorsing conquests like Putin’s and putting US support up for sale? A lot of Americans’ minds jump to Taiwan, but there’s a ton of protracted land disputes across the world ready to ignite if one side or the other thinks they have an edge and the consequences aren’t too dire. Instability at the top would prompt everyone to seek mutual defense pacts to regain safety, but that increases the likelihood any given dispute would escalate to something truly catastrophic and global.
I don’t think Biden’s done a good enough job using American power to discourage atrocities, but it’s hard to overstate the enormity of suffering an unstable world order could unleash upon the planet right now. Given all that it’s hard for me to care that Robert Hur got a bit out of pocket with his Special Counsel report, or w/e got everyone on this topic to begin with. These types of arguments have been used ad nauseum for over 8 years now. Just look at this thread in the run up to the 2016 election and I'm sure you'll find no shortage of Trump to Hitler comparisons and how we are on the fast track to a fascist dictatorship, camps and all that. I don't know if I buy the argument that we can imagine what 4 more years of Biden will look like but not 4 more years of Trump because we just had 4 years of Biden. Well we just had 4 years of Trump too, no? 2016-2020 isn't exactly ancient history. People might have just been talking shit about where trump was going to go but this time its Trump that is saying he wants to start rounding up people putting them in camps and expelling them into some country. This isn't even a throwaway line hes been detailing how he imagines he will be able to get military resources and money to police to start picking them up and setting them into camps. Venezuela is building up its military on its border, we know what biden will do, but can anyone confidently predict what Trump will do about an extremely convenient possible ally in the Caribbean? We can easily tell what would happen with Biden, the guy has been in government for decades and decades now. He would just be going on with the same march of liberal gradual reform politics. Trade deals would get negotiated to make the economy better and I would bet more than not we see a comprehensive deal with Argentina to ensure its dollarization goes well in exchange for the lithium and oil reserves that they can't exploit currently. I find this line problematic. This, in a nutshell, is the problem. More of the same stuff that is not really working for the majority of Americans. To be frank, things have just been getting crappier since the mid-00's -- we pay more for worse services. I don't just mean government services, I mean every single service that we use has just seemed to get shittier over the last decade. We've also all taken a hit to our mental health -- do you know of anyone who isn't more stressed now than 5-10 years ago? Because every conversation I have with my colleagues, friends and family is how stressful everything is and how much worse our general outlook towards how things are going.I am not making the argument to vote Trump, far from it. I just worry that this general disillusionment with how things are going will be enough to let him back in. Edit: It is incredibly frustrating that at a time that we need bold solutions to address climate change and an aging, sicker population, we get to choose between doddering old man or old, narcissistic asshole.
Climate change is stressful on its own because at an individual level theres really nothing you can do. Ill keep that separate because its a unique problem.
All of the other stuff IMO is media/social media related as well as some type of Trauma we all experienced from Covid. I feel like social media/the media are just making all of this worse. I am considering staying off the internet for a few weeks to see how I feel and if it improves at all.
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On February 12 2024 17:17 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2024 15:04 ChristianS wrote:
I didn’t even say “Trump’s going to round up immigrants and put them in camps,” which would be a prediction about how his administration would go. I said “Trump’s campaign is saying they’re going to round up immigrants and put them in camps,” which is verifiable truth about what they’re saying they’re going to do. Whether they actually *will* do what they’re claiming they’ll do is worth discussing, but it bodes ill for the productiveness of the conversation if you can’t even be bothered to respond to what was actually said.
I absolutely think the guy who tried everything in his power to avoid leaving office after losing an election is a threat to democracy. If a guy like that isn’t, who is? I wouldn’t take that bet though, especially because I’m not convinced he’ll live to 2029 anyway. It’s almost like there are graduating levels of concerning fascist-flavoured behaviour prior to actually destroying democracy and installing the American Fourth Reich or what have you. Sure, there are certainly hysterical voices over-egging it, but amongst more sober ones, there’s plenty there that’s happened, or is being put forward rhetorically now to be rightly concerned. Hell my expectations were pretty damn low moving in to the Trump Presidency, but even I hadn’t anticipated what happened when he was due to leave office.
Yeah, and in many ways the story of his presidency was the administration trying tactic after tactic to do stuff he was told from the start was probably illegal to do. The initial Muslim ban got blocked, but they reformulated it and tried again and again and eventually got something the courts would allow. Same for immigration – they tried a million tactics to be able to unilaterally block asylum seekers (without giving them their day in court, if possible) before taking the pandemic as all the excuse they needed. Turns out HHS has broad authority to act unilaterally in the name of public health without much scrutiny from courts, even if the public health purpose is unclear or incoherent or not really served by the policy in question.
His administration was fantastic for exposing the ways in which our nominal protections and limitations on the government only exist on paper. Even now, with the 14th amendment ban on insurrectionists holding office, he’s forced the Supreme Court to answer: okay, when does that apply? Who can enforce it? And It looks increasingly like the answer will be “never and no one;” our constitution *says* they can’t hold office, but the only actual enforcement mechanism is if voters decide they don’t want to vote for an insurrectionist.
I think it was pretty clear in 2016-2020 that there wasn’t any tactic the administration *wouldn’t* do to achieve their ends, there were just a lot of legalistic hurdles they didn’t know how to clear. They’ve now spent the last 8 years brainstorming ways around those. Like, the plan they’re bragging about now involves mobilizing national guards to round up immigrants. Can he do that? I dunno, but he was able to deploy the military domestically on the border when he decided that was a good idea, and he discovered around the time of that big government shutdown that he has enormous power to declare an “emergency” and then just act unilaterally. I bet the legal restrictions on when the president can mobilize the national guard, and how he can use them once mobilized, are few and without clear enforcement mechanisms. Anyway, rounding up immigrants (even legal ones) and deporting them en masse with essentially zero due process has happened before so I’m having trouble believing either that Trump wouldn’t do it, or that it’s simply not possible to do.
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On February 12 2024 23:48 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2024 17:17 WombaT wrote:On February 12 2024 15:04 ChristianS wrote:
I didn’t even say “Trump’s going to round up immigrants and put them in camps,” which would be a prediction about how his administration would go. I said “Trump’s campaign is saying they’re going to round up immigrants and put them in camps,” which is verifiable truth about what they’re saying they’re going to do. Whether they actually *will* do what they’re claiming they’ll do is worth discussing, but it bodes ill for the productiveness of the conversation if you can’t even be bothered to respond to what was actually said.
I absolutely think the guy who tried everything in his power to avoid leaving office after losing an election is a threat to democracy. If a guy like that isn’t, who is? I wouldn’t take that bet though, especially because I’m not convinced he’ll live to 2029 anyway. It’s almost like there are graduating levels of concerning fascist-flavoured behaviour prior to actually destroying democracy and installing the American Fourth Reich or what have you. Sure, there are certainly hysterical voices over-egging it, but amongst more sober ones, there’s plenty there that’s happened, or is being put forward rhetorically now to be rightly concerned. Hell my expectations were pretty damn low moving in to the Trump Presidency, but even I hadn’t anticipated what happened when he was due to leave office. Yeah, and in many ways the story of his presidency was the administration trying tactic after tactic to do stuff he was told from the start was probably illegal to do. The initial Muslim ban got blocked, but they reformulated it and tried again and again and eventually got something the courts would allow. Same for immigration – they tried a million tactics to be able to unilaterally block asylum seekers (without giving them their day in court, if possible) before taking the pandemic as all the excuse they needed. Turns out HHS has broad authority to act unilaterally in the name of public health without much scrutiny from courts, even if the public health purpose is unclear or incoherent or not really served by the policy in question. His administration was fantastic for exposing the ways in which our nominal protections and limitations on the government only exist on paper. Even now, with the 14th amendment ban on insurrectionists holding office, he’s forced the Supreme Court to answer: okay, when does that apply? Who can enforce it? And It looks increasingly like the answer will be “never and no one;” our constitution *says* they can’t hold office, but the only actual enforcement mechanism is if voters decide they don’t want to vote for an insurrectionist. I think it was pretty clear in 2016-2020 that there wasn’t any tactic the administration *wouldn’t* do to achieve their ends, there were just a lot of legalistic hurdles they didn’t know how to clear. They’ve now spent the last 8 years brainstorming ways around those. Like, the plan they’re bragging about now involves mobilizing national guards to round up immigrants. Can he do that? I dunno, but he was able to deploy the military domestically on the border when he decided that was a good idea, and he discovered around the time of that big government shutdown that he has enormous power to declare an “emergency” and then just act unilaterally. I bet the legal restrictions on when the president can mobilize the national guard, and how he can use them once mobilized, are few and without clear enforcement mechanisms. Anyway, rounding up immigrants (even legal ones) and deporting them en masse with essentially zero due process has happened before so I’m having trouble believing either that Trump wouldn’t do it, or that it’s simply not possible to do.
I think this is an important thought.
Rights and words on paper are worthless. They are only valuable if there are systems which enforce them, and people in positions of power who want to enforce them.
The constitution does not protect anyone from anything. The constitution itself has no power. The only power it does have is the power of the people who believe it should have power.
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On February 12 2024 14:29 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2024 13:27 Sermokala wrote:On February 12 2024 08:34 BlackJack wrote:On February 12 2024 06:40 ChristianS wrote:
It’s worth noting that Trump isn’t really the same guy he was in 2020 either. I don’t mean in terms of cognitive decline (although yes, that) but there was a period where a lot of Republicans had kind of abandoned him, including just about everybody who worked in his administration. The only people that stuck with him were the white nationalists, and given how much he’s always cared about unwavering loyalty, those are now the people he surrounds himself with. I mean, his campaign surrogates are promising that as soon as he enters office, he’s going to mobilize red state national guards to round up immigrants across the country and put them in camps. Outlandish as his rhetoric has always been, this really is a different color.
I’m not saying this to counter the “Biden might lose/Trump might win” arguments. I’m bored of those. It’s been obvious for like a year that he’ll be the Republican nominee, and a major party candidate always has a significant chance of winning. Assigning a percentage to it now is stupid considering it’s contingent on a million other questions we’re not actually discussing (what will the economy be like by November? What will the situation in Gaza be by then? How dependent is American public opinion on either of those things, or a million other issues?). So yes, his chances are significant, maybe >50%, but it’s not useful or interesting to keep focusing on that.
Might be worth discussing the *implications* of a Trump or Biden win. The latter is easy to picture, since we’ve just had almost 4 years of it and it seems unlikely to dramatically change because Biden can’t draw a clock or whatever. Trump, on the other hand…
I mean, forget everything else and just take his recent statements about supporting Putin’s invasion. In recent years countries around the world that have been eyeing their neighbors’ territory for decades have been increasingly deciding that now is their moment. Russia, Azerbaijan, Israel all seem to think the “international community” can’t do much to stop them. But US opposition is the biggest reason Russia has struggled in Ukraine, and American tolerance or support are the only reason that Azerbaijan or Israel can conduct their invasions. And at least in the latter case, the only plausible check on their continued atrocities would be if the US took a firm stand against it; no other nation is in a position to put the brakes on it.
What’s gonna happen in a world order with a new Trump administration at the helm? One that’s spent the last 8 years studying every check and balance and legal hurdle that stopped them from seizing total control the first time? That’s openly endorsing conquests like Putin’s and putting US support up for sale? A lot of Americans’ minds jump to Taiwan, but there’s a ton of protracted land disputes across the world ready to ignite if one side or the other thinks they have an edge and the consequences aren’t too dire. Instability at the top would prompt everyone to seek mutual defense pacts to regain safety, but that increases the likelihood any given dispute would escalate to something truly catastrophic and global.
I don’t think Biden’s done a good enough job using American power to discourage atrocities, but it’s hard to overstate the enormity of suffering an unstable world order could unleash upon the planet right now. Given all that it’s hard for me to care that Robert Hur got a bit out of pocket with his Special Counsel report, or w/e got everyone on this topic to begin with. These types of arguments have been used ad nauseum for over 8 years now. Just look at this thread in the run up to the 2016 election and I'm sure you'll find no shortage of Trump to Hitler comparisons and how we are on the fast track to a fascist dictatorship, camps and all that. I don't know if I buy the argument that we can imagine what 4 more years of Biden will look like but not 4 more years of Trump because we just had 4 years of Biden. Well we just had 4 years of Trump too, no? 2016-2020 isn't exactly ancient history. People might have just been talking shit about where trump was going to go but this time its Trump that is saying he wants to start rounding up people putting them in camps and expelling them into some country. This isn't even a throwaway line hes been detailing how he imagines he will be able to get military resources and money to police to start picking them up and setting them into camps. Venezuela is building up its military on its border, we know what biden will do, but can anyone confidently predict what Trump will do about an extremely convenient possible ally in the Caribbean? We can easily tell what would happen with Biden, the guy has been in government for decades and decades now. He would just be going on with the same march of liberal gradual reform politics. Trade deals would get negotiated to make the economy better and I would bet more than not we see a comprehensive deal with Argentina to ensure its dollarization goes well in exchange for the lithium and oil reserves that they can't exploit currently. "We were just talking shit all those other times we said Trump would be dictator but now we really mean it." Surely you can see why people would be fatigued by such an argument. I suspect most people still don't believe the Trump will end democracy and make himself dictator if he gets reelected spiel. Sure it's easy for the people whose minds are pre-occupied with all-things-Trump to rant about on their social media accounts, but if I offered to bet them $€ that if Trump wins a 2nd term then he won't be in power after Inauguration Day 2029, I doubt I will get any takers.
I don't think that they would refuse to take you up on that bet because they aren't confident in it but that they would refuse to make a bet with a random on the internet. There are betting markets for elections already that have credibility to payout the result.
And again this isn't shit we're making up its things that Trump himself is saying. I remember seeing a video just the other day where someone asked women voters who were going to vote for trump if they blamed trump for ending roe and non of them said yes to that, despite Trump himself telling people he was responsible for it.
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United States41539 Posts
On February 12 2024 06:43 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2024 05:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 12 2024 04:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 12 2024 00:57 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 12 2024 00:44 WombaT wrote:
I’d be interested as to what’s causing that waning,
In the longer-term one would only expect that bleed to happen eventually. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of conservative black folks who are only really kept away from voting as such by the racism that still afflicts the GOP.
But that’s quite a swing in quite a short period of time. I'd be interested in hearing what's causing that waning too. I read some articles recently, where I tried to find specifics, but the best I could find was a general cooling attitude like this: "But for Woodbury, whose work focuses on Black Americans who are cynical about voting, the generation gap is the major concern. While younger Democrats of all races are more progressive and critical of Biden than their elders are, Woodbury says he's seen polling that shows it's "much more concentrated among Black voters." Part of the steep decline in young Black Americans' approval of Biden stems from the fact that their approval started out so high — it's "a higher bar to drop from," as Woodbury put it. "When I sit in focus groups with young Black voters and ask what [Democrats have] done to make their lives better, they're hard pressed to come up with an answer, despite this administration delivering on much of the Black agenda," Woodbury said. "That's the communication challenge that we have a year to overcome."" https://abcnews.go.com/538/biden-losing-support-people-color/story?id=105272263 That's just a focus group, so less useful than broader data, but articles like the above one make me think two general things: 1. Black support probably started artificially higher than usual, because Trump and conservatives were (are) so transparently, vocally racist (not caring about cops murdering Black victims, against kneeling for the National Anthem, denying that criminal justice inequity exists, trying to remove voting rights that disproportionately affect Black communities, etc.), and Biden's support has naturally decreased over time, now that the Black community is realizing that simply having Biden in the White House isn't enough to fix systemic racism in our country; 2. Biden either hasn't followed through on key issues for Black voters (in their opinion), or hasn't sufficiently communicated his accomplishments to Black voters to keep their support. Yikes. the Black community is realizing that simply having Biden in the White House isn't enough to fix systemic racism in our country Really? There's a lot of factors at play. Black communities are diverse, though Democrats rarely grant them this reality as a result of their perpetual sense of entitlement to their votes. That said, Biden's support for cops and Israel certainly isn't helping. Then on the other hand you have the undercurrent of hustle/grindset culture identifying that Democrats represent a peculiarly bastardized version of the US's underpinning capitalist mindset. So Biden's bleeding Black people that have consistently voted ~90-10 Democrat in presidential elections for decades from both his left and right. If I were to try to nail down the single biggest cause, it's the undeserved sense of entitlement from Democrats for Black voters' votes starting to catch up with the Democrat party. This is evident in the insistence from Democrats that it is a communication rather than substance issue. Thank you for sharing that extra context. Do you think if Democrats/Biden realized those core issues and improved their messaging on wanting to help, that would strengthen support from the Black community, even if Republicans stood in the way of passing meaningful legislation that could address those issues? Also, could you reference the ~90-10 split? I found this source that isn't quite as extreme, although it's still very significant: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/09/13/2-party-affiliation-among-voters-1992-2016/ It's not a messaging problem (and I find the insistence it is patronizing, like the "Biden didn't solve systemic racism" line), it's the sense of entitlement to Black votes with decades of variations on "what are you going to do, vote for the Republican!?" problem. This is 2000, but you can just change the year in the url.
Well what are they going to do? Let Trump in? If they do they deserve him.
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United States41539 Posts
On February 12 2024 08:34 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2024 06:40 ChristianS wrote:
It’s worth noting that Trump isn’t really the same guy he was in 2020 either. I don’t mean in terms of cognitive decline (although yes, that) but there was a period where a lot of Republicans had kind of abandoned him, including just about everybody who worked in his administration. The only people that stuck with him were the white nationalists, and given how much he’s always cared about unwavering loyalty, those are now the people he surrounds himself with. I mean, his campaign surrogates are promising that as soon as he enters office, he’s going to mobilize red state national guards to round up immigrants across the country and put them in camps. Outlandish as his rhetoric has always been, this really is a different color.
I’m not saying this to counter the “Biden might lose/Trump might win” arguments. I’m bored of those. It’s been obvious for like a year that he’ll be the Republican nominee, and a major party candidate always has a significant chance of winning. Assigning a percentage to it now is stupid considering it’s contingent on a million other questions we’re not actually discussing (what will the economy be like by November? What will the situation in Gaza be by then? How dependent is American public opinion on either of those things, or a million other issues?). So yes, his chances are significant, maybe >50%, but it’s not useful or interesting to keep focusing on that.
Might be worth discussing the *implications* of a Trump or Biden win. The latter is easy to picture, since we’ve just had almost 4 years of it and it seems unlikely to dramatically change because Biden can’t draw a clock or whatever. Trump, on the other hand…
I mean, forget everything else and just take his recent statements about supporting Putin’s invasion. In recent years countries around the world that have been eyeing their neighbors’ territory for decades have been increasingly deciding that now is their moment. Russia, Azerbaijan, Israel all seem to think the “international community” can’t do much to stop them. But US opposition is the biggest reason Russia has struggled in Ukraine, and American tolerance or support are the only reason that Azerbaijan or Israel can conduct their invasions. And at least in the latter case, the only plausible check on their continued atrocities would be if the US took a firm stand against it; no other nation is in a position to put the brakes on it.
What’s gonna happen in a world order with a new Trump administration at the helm? One that’s spent the last 8 years studying every check and balance and legal hurdle that stopped them from seizing total control the first time? That’s openly endorsing conquests like Putin’s and putting US support up for sale? A lot of Americans’ minds jump to Taiwan, but there’s a ton of protracted land disputes across the world ready to ignite if one side or the other thinks they have an edge and the consequences aren’t too dire. Instability at the top would prompt everyone to seek mutual defense pacts to regain safety, but that increases the likelihood any given dispute would escalate to something truly catastrophic and global.
I don’t think Biden’s done a good enough job using American power to discourage atrocities, but it’s hard to overstate the enormity of suffering an unstable world order could unleash upon the planet right now. Given all that it’s hard for me to care that Robert Hur got a bit out of pocket with his Special Counsel report, or w/e got everyone on this topic to begin with. These types of arguments have been used ad nauseum for over 8 years now. Just look at this thread in the run up to the 2016 election and I'm sure you'll find no shortage of Trump to Hitler comparisons and how we are on the fast track to a fascist dictatorship, camps and all that. I don't know if I buy the argument that we can imagine what 4 more years of Biden will look like but not 4 more years of Trump because we just had 4 years of Biden. Well we just had 4 years of Trump too, no? 2016-2020 isn't exactly ancient history.
And he staged a coup. I don’t get how people still say the hysteria over Trump wasn’t justified. In 2016 he vowed to only accept the election results if he won and a lot of people correctly identified that as a pretty huge red flag. Then when he lost he refused to accept the election results and threatened election officials in Georgia, arranged for fake electors to be sent to DC, commanded the Republicans in the Senate and the VP not to certify the election, and raised a mob to interrupt certification when they didn’t. People died.
Trump is openly vowing to use the powers of the state to persecute his enemies and stating that he thinks that he should get an unconstitutional third term due to the amount of opposition he faced. The hysteria was right.
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United States41539 Posts
On February 12 2024 13:30 JimmiC wrote:
I’d like to question any Republican on how tariffs will lower cost of living?
Keeping in mind that Trump’s trade war with China cost the taxpayer $23b in farm bailouts. Trump’s trade policies have always had an immediate and direct negative result on the American consumer and taxpayer. International trade is an incredibly complicated field that for decades has been dominated by career civil servants that understand American interests and the various levers available. Trump came in with his understanding that the balance of trade deficit was a check that the treasury wrote China each year and started writing policy.
+ Show Spoiler +The spending surge began in mid-2018 when USDA started writing checks to farmers and ranchers to pay for the damage from Trump’s trade war, which brought about higher tariffs that crushed agricultural exports and commodity prices. Farm sales to China plummeted from $19.5 billion in 2017 to just $9 billion the next year; as producers continued to hemorrhage profits in 2019, farm bankruptcies jumped nearly 20 percent last year.
The trade bailout has now spanned three years and surpassed $23 billion, even though it was never appropriated by Congress. Instead, the money was funneled through USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation, a Depression-era agency that can borrow from the U.S. Treasury to stabilize the farm economy.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/14/donald-trump-coronavirus-farmer-bailouts-359932
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On February 13 2024 00:32 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2024 06:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 12 2024 05:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 12 2024 04:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 12 2024 00:57 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 12 2024 00:44 WombaT wrote:
I’d be interested as to what’s causing that waning,
In the longer-term one would only expect that bleed to happen eventually. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of conservative black folks who are only really kept away from voting as such by the racism that still afflicts the GOP.
But that’s quite a swing in quite a short period of time. I'd be interested in hearing what's causing that waning too. I read some articles recently, where I tried to find specifics, but the best I could find was a general cooling attitude like this: "But for Woodbury, whose work focuses on Black Americans who are cynical about voting, the generation gap is the major concern. While younger Democrats of all races are more progressive and critical of Biden than their elders are, Woodbury says he's seen polling that shows it's "much more concentrated among Black voters." Part of the steep decline in young Black Americans' approval of Biden stems from the fact that their approval started out so high — it's "a higher bar to drop from," as Woodbury put it. "When I sit in focus groups with young Black voters and ask what [Democrats have] done to make their lives better, they're hard pressed to come up with an answer, despite this administration delivering on much of the Black agenda," Woodbury said. "That's the communication challenge that we have a year to overcome."" https://abcnews.go.com/538/biden-losing-support-people-color/story?id=105272263 That's just a focus group, so less useful than broader data, but articles like the above one make me think two general things: 1. Black support probably started artificially higher than usual, because Trump and conservatives were (are) so transparently, vocally racist (not caring about cops murdering Black victims, against kneeling for the National Anthem, denying that criminal justice inequity exists, trying to remove voting rights that disproportionately affect Black communities, etc.), and Biden's support has naturally decreased over time, now that the Black community is realizing that simply having Biden in the White House isn't enough to fix systemic racism in our country; 2. Biden either hasn't followed through on key issues for Black voters (in their opinion), or hasn't sufficiently communicated his accomplishments to Black voters to keep their support. Yikes. the Black community is realizing that simply having Biden in the White House isn't enough to fix systemic racism in our country Really? There's a lot of factors at play. Black communities are diverse, though Democrats rarely grant them this reality as a result of their perpetual sense of entitlement to their votes. That said, Biden's support for cops and Israel certainly isn't helping. Then on the other hand you have the undercurrent of hustle/grindset culture identifying that Democrats represent a peculiarly bastardized version of the US's underpinning capitalist mindset. So Biden's bleeding Black people that have consistently voted ~90-10 Democrat in presidential elections for decades from both his left and right. If I were to try to nail down the single biggest cause, it's the undeserved sense of entitlement from Democrats for Black voters' votes starting to catch up with the Democrat party. This is evident in the insistence from Democrats that it is a communication rather than substance issue. Thank you for sharing that extra context. Do you think if Democrats/Biden realized those core issues and improved their messaging on wanting to help, that would strengthen support from the Black community, even if Republicans stood in the way of passing meaningful legislation that could address those issues? Also, could you reference the ~90-10 split? I found this source that isn't quite as extreme, although it's still very significant: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/09/13/2-party-affiliation-among-voters-1992-2016/ It's not a messaging problem (and I find the insistence it is patronizing, like the "Biden didn't solve systemic racism" line), it's the sense of entitlement to Black votes with decades of variations on "what are you going to do, vote for the Republican!?" problem. This is 2000, but you can just change the year in the url. Well what are they going to do? Let Trump in? If they do they deserve him.
Case in point
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On February 13 2024 01:35 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2024 00:32 KwarK wrote:On February 12 2024 06:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 12 2024 05:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 12 2024 04:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 12 2024 00:57 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 12 2024 00:44 WombaT wrote:
I’d be interested as to what’s causing that waning,
In the longer-term one would only expect that bleed to happen eventually. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of conservative black folks who are only really kept away from voting as such by the racism that still afflicts the GOP.
But that’s quite a swing in quite a short period of time. I'd be interested in hearing what's causing that waning too. I read some articles recently, where I tried to find specifics, but the best I could find was a general cooling attitude like this: "But for Woodbury, whose work focuses on Black Americans who are cynical about voting, the generation gap is the major concern. While younger Democrats of all races are more progressive and critical of Biden than their elders are, Woodbury says he's seen polling that shows it's "much more concentrated among Black voters." Part of the steep decline in young Black Americans' approval of Biden stems from the fact that their approval started out so high — it's "a higher bar to drop from," as Woodbury put it. "When I sit in focus groups with young Black voters and ask what [Democrats have] done to make their lives better, they're hard pressed to come up with an answer, despite this administration delivering on much of the Black agenda," Woodbury said. "That's the communication challenge that we have a year to overcome."" https://abcnews.go.com/538/biden-losing-support-people-color/story?id=105272263 That's just a focus group, so less useful than broader data, but articles like the above one make me think two general things: 1. Black support probably started artificially higher than usual, because Trump and conservatives were (are) so transparently, vocally racist (not caring about cops murdering Black victims, against kneeling for the National Anthem, denying that criminal justice inequity exists, trying to remove voting rights that disproportionately affect Black communities, etc.), and Biden's support has naturally decreased over time, now that the Black community is realizing that simply having Biden in the White House isn't enough to fix systemic racism in our country; 2. Biden either hasn't followed through on key issues for Black voters (in their opinion), or hasn't sufficiently communicated his accomplishments to Black voters to keep their support. Yikes. the Black community is realizing that simply having Biden in the White House isn't enough to fix systemic racism in our country Really? There's a lot of factors at play. Black communities are diverse, though Democrats rarely grant them this reality as a result of their perpetual sense of entitlement to their votes. That said, Biden's support for cops and Israel certainly isn't helping. Then on the other hand you have the undercurrent of hustle/grindset culture identifying that Democrats represent a peculiarly bastardized version of the US's underpinning capitalist mindset. So Biden's bleeding Black people that have consistently voted ~90-10 Democrat in presidential elections for decades from both his left and right. If I were to try to nail down the single biggest cause, it's the undeserved sense of entitlement from Democrats for Black voters' votes starting to catch up with the Democrat party. This is evident in the insistence from Democrats that it is a communication rather than substance issue. Thank you for sharing that extra context. Do you think if Democrats/Biden realized those core issues and improved their messaging on wanting to help, that would strengthen support from the Black community, even if Republicans stood in the way of passing meaningful legislation that could address those issues? Also, could you reference the ~90-10 split? I found this source that isn't quite as extreme, although it's still very significant: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/09/13/2-party-affiliation-among-voters-1992-2016/ It's not a messaging problem (and I find the insistence it is patronizing, like the "Biden didn't solve systemic racism" line), it's the sense of entitlement to Black votes with decades of variations on "what are you going to do, vote for the Republican!?" problem. This is 2000, but you can just change the year in the url. Well what are they going to do? Let Trump in? If they do they deserve him. Case in point
Given the supremely shitty political system and institutions the US has, he is not wrong. How do you propose to avoid Trump coming to power if people in swing states don't vote for Biden?
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On February 13 2024 01:48 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2024 01:35 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 13 2024 00:32 KwarK wrote:On February 12 2024 06:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 12 2024 05:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 12 2024 04:48 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 12 2024 00:57 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 12 2024 00:44 WombaT wrote:
I’d be interested as to what’s causing that waning,
In the longer-term one would only expect that bleed to happen eventually. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of conservative black folks who are only really kept away from voting as such by the racism that still afflicts the GOP.
But that’s quite a swing in quite a short period of time. I'd be interested in hearing what's causing that waning too. I read some articles recently, where I tried to find specifics, but the best I could find was a general cooling attitude like this: "But for Woodbury, whose work focuses on Black Americans who are cynical about voting, the generation gap is the major concern. While younger Democrats of all races are more progressive and critical of Biden than their elders are, Woodbury says he's seen polling that shows it's "much more concentrated among Black voters." Part of the steep decline in young Black Americans' approval of Biden stems from the fact that their approval started out so high — it's "a higher bar to drop from," as Woodbury put it. "When I sit in focus groups with young Black voters and ask what [Democrats have] done to make their lives better, they're hard pressed to come up with an answer, despite this administration delivering on much of the Black agenda," Woodbury said. "That's the communication challenge that we have a year to overcome."" https://abcnews.go.com/538/biden-losing-support-people-color/story?id=105272263 That's just a focus group, so less useful than broader data, but articles like the above one make me think two general things: 1. Black support probably started artificially higher than usual, because Trump and conservatives were (are) so transparently, vocally racist (not caring about cops murdering Black victims, against kneeling for the National Anthem, denying that criminal justice inequity exists, trying to remove voting rights that disproportionately affect Black communities, etc.), and Biden's support has naturally decreased over time, now that the Black community is realizing that simply having Biden in the White House isn't enough to fix systemic racism in our country; 2. Biden either hasn't followed through on key issues for Black voters (in their opinion), or hasn't sufficiently communicated his accomplishments to Black voters to keep their support. Yikes. the Black community is realizing that simply having Biden in the White House isn't enough to fix systemic racism in our country Really? There's a lot of factors at play. Black communities are diverse, though Democrats rarely grant them this reality as a result of their perpetual sense of entitlement to their votes. That said, Biden's support for cops and Israel certainly isn't helping. Then on the other hand you have the undercurrent of hustle/grindset culture identifying that Democrats represent a peculiarly bastardized version of the US's underpinning capitalist mindset. So Biden's bleeding Black people that have consistently voted ~90-10 Democrat in presidential elections for decades from both his left and right. If I were to try to nail down the single biggest cause, it's the undeserved sense of entitlement from Democrats for Black voters' votes starting to catch up with the Democrat party. This is evident in the insistence from Democrats that it is a communication rather than substance issue. Thank you for sharing that extra context. Do you think if Democrats/Biden realized those core issues and improved their messaging on wanting to help, that would strengthen support from the Black community, even if Republicans stood in the way of passing meaningful legislation that could address those issues? Also, could you reference the ~90-10 split? I found this source that isn't quite as extreme, although it's still very significant: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/09/13/2-party-affiliation-among-voters-1992-2016/ It's not a messaging problem (and I find the insistence it is patronizing, like the "Biden didn't solve systemic racism" line), it's the sense of entitlement to Black votes with decades of variations on "what are you going to do, vote for the Republican!?" problem. This is 2000, but you can just change the year in the url. Well what are they going to do? Let Trump in? If they do they deserve him. Case in point Given the supremely shitty political system and institutions the US has, he is not wrong. How do you propose to avoid Trump coming to power if people in swing states don't vote for Biden?
Regardless of Trump the people that recognize the US has a supremely shitty political system and institutions need to change that.
The question is "how is Biden going to prevent Trump coming to power without enough votes in the swing states". He won't. The point is that threats, shaming, and bragging is a dangerously oblivious (and/or openly malicious) strategy to get those votes.
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People just want their votes to feel earned, not held hostage.
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United States41539 Posts
On February 13 2024 04:26 Gahlo wrote:
People just want their votes to feel earned, not held hostage.
People want unicorns too.
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On February 13 2024 04:26 Gahlo wrote:
People just want their votes to feel earned, not held hostage. that is not possible in a 2 party system where one party has gone insane.
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EPT
