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On August 02 2024 08:20 Jockmcplop wrote: I think I might have seriously misjudged Kamala's electability compared to Trump. Bookies have her as favourite to win right now.
The problem with any odds is that a new nominee usually has a positive chance compared to where they are later. There hasn't been time to throw dirt at the person for months (modern US politics) and thus reduce their chances.
Vice presidents is the classical case of this. Usually well received and then as they and their opponent campaign it usually drops. Vance was the opposite in that he was a negative from the start, we'll see if he can turn that around.
I think this is a different case. Kamala had weirdly unfavorable ratings, where it was basically established fact that she was unlikeable. So people with no exposure to her had a negative default opinion.
But then you hear her speak and juxtapose that with a Biden who was still likely to end up with half the popular vote and there’s no wonder she is likely to jump a couple percentage points: if you ever considered voting Biden but was reluctant because he was an incoherent mess not suited for being president, Kamala suddenly looks pretty amazing. It's like Biden's SOTU, the expectation was so low that reading a prompter without significant mishaps was a success. Now, all the people lamenting 'I can't fucking believe these two are our choices' are like, 'what? There's suddenly a competent candidate? '
I don't expect her to sway any Trump voters but I think she will continue to win over independent voters and galvanize democrats the more exposure she gets. If some real skeletons show up i can see things change but I definitely feel she is on an upward curve which can't merely be attributed to her being a new nominee. Giving her a small edge to win, now.
On August 02 2024 14:01 oBlade wrote: There's an issue conflating what people vote for here. Kamala was not voted to be running mate, nor was she voted to be vice president.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you cast your vote in a presidential election, aren't you voting for both the president and vice president?
On August 02 2024 14:01 oBlade wrote: Pence's religious convictions are not a part of his immutable identity.
Isn't it? Wasn't he chosen specifically because the opposite is true?
On August 02 2024 14:01 oBlade wrote: I have never in my life seen an unironic DEI identity politicker say "we need more Christians."
Don't they? Didn't Trump explicitly say that he wanted to stop people coming from shithole countries and that we needed more immigrants from Norway?
On August 02 2024 14:01 oBlade wrote: Nor did I see Drumpf's 2016 VP list saying "I've narrowed it down to 4 Evangelical Christians."
Didn't he? He stated that he needed to lock-in the evangelical vote because Trump's evangelical credentials were not good.
How would you imagine you'd go about locking in the evangelical vote if you are divorced, regularly cheat on your wives, etc.?
On August 02 2024 14:01 oBlade wrote: Many people keep throwing around this black box word "qualified." Thousands or millions of people are paper "qualified," but most of them are shit, and in fact voters repeatedly choose ones that are shit, even when they're purely trying to choose the best one per se, let alone when they're trying to pick one including reasons other than them not being shit. So they don't seem to need any help moving towards shit candidates.
Being qualified just means you meet a set of criteria which are deemed to be the bare minimum, i.e. essential, to carry out a particular job. This is relatively straightforward with something like 'chemistry laboratory technician' -- if they've finished their chemistry degree (or equivalent), they're 'qualified'.
It is harder with politicians. What would you say are the essential criteria for the job of 'president of the United States'?
On August 02 2024 08:20 Jockmcplop wrote: I think I might have seriously misjudged Kamala's electability compared to Trump. Bookies have her as favourite to win right now.
As much as I hope that she ends up favored to win, I put zero confidence in bookies and gambling sites that bet on these kinds of things.
It is important to remember what the bookies measure. They measure how much money is being put on the candidates by betting people. That may slightly correlate with how many votes they might get, but the correlation probably isn't that huge. It will correlate even less with the amount of votes they get by swing voters in the few states that matter.
On August 02 2024 07:51 NewSunshine wrote: It's not "promoting people for their skin color", and as long as you choose not to understand the difference, then yes, there's not much to discuss.
When someone says, for example, they are going to nominate a black woman to a vacant position, then yes, skin color is quite literally a prerequisite for the promotion. You can dress it up with all the feel good buzz words like diversity and inclusivity to obfuscate that blunt reality but at the end of the day if your melanin isn't at the right level you're shit out of luck. What part of that do you disagree with?
Why is that a problem but nominating a VP candidate who has a certain cachet with religious conservatives isn’t?
You’re ultimately just nominating a candidate who plays well with certain demographics right?
Yes, you are right. Pence was chosen by in part because he is an old white man to appeal to evangelical Christians.
Kamala Harris was chosen in part because of her race and gender.
I didn’t say one was okay and the other wasn’t. I’m just stating objectively true statements. If you’re looking for a double standard you should ask why one of those objectively true statements is considered racist and sexist and the other isn’t.
It entirely depends on framing. Qualified + given the gig due to demographic concerns, versus unqualified and given the gig solely due to demographic considerations are quite different.
For me I’ve no particular issue with the former observation.
If one focuses on demographic considerations as being undesirable, but primarily in the cases of it being a woman, or someone non-white, then one wonders why that might be. Speaking in generalities not regarding your own posts here.
Phraseology is also a thing, we’re humans after all. I encounter the phrase ‘DEI hire’ about 95% of the time used extremely derisively, by people I find pretty contemptible. Thus, there tends to be a generalised, instinctive reaction to that phrase when I encounter it, even in that other 5%.
This is just how humans work, and I imagine some pushback in this very thread is purely against the phrasing than the actual substantive points.
On August 02 2024 08:20 Jockmcplop wrote: I think I might have seriously misjudged Kamala's electability compared to Trump. Bookies have her as favourite to win right now.
As much as I hope that she ends up favored to win, I put zero confidence in bookies and gambling sites that bet on these kinds of things.
It is important to remember what the bookies measure. They measure how much money is being put on the candidates by betting people. That may slightly correlate with how many votes they might get, but the correlation probably isn't that huge. It will correlate even less with the amount of votes they get by swing voters in the few states that matter.
That's my understanding of the situation, too. Betting people don't necessarily understand math, and they may be betting in certain ways for a whole host of reasons (maybe good reasons, maybe bad reasons).
On a related note, some of you might remember that I made a bet with a friend of mine, on who'd win Texas in the upcoming November general election (Trump or Biden). The original bet was that my friend would pay me $100 if Trump won Texas, and that I'd pay him $200 if Biden won Texas. 2-to-1 odds that Trump would win. That doesn't mean that the true probabilities of the situation were that Trump was exactly twice as likely as Biden to win Texas (66.6% chance vs. 33.3% chance). Rather, our bet merely reflects a compromise between two people who are being influenced by a variety of factors, many of which aren't able to be accurately quantified.
My friend and I had preemptively agreed to end the bet if Biden or Trump dropped out before November, which obviously happened. I asked my friend if he'd consider a similar wager for Harris vs. Trump, and we agreed on 3-to-1 odds that Trump would win Texas. If Trump wins Texas, my friend still gives me $100. If Harris wins Texas, I give my friend $300. This doesn't mean that Harris truly has a 25% chance of winning Texas, nor that Trump truly has a 75% chance of winning Texas.
On August 02 2024 07:51 NewSunshine wrote: It's not "promoting people for their skin color", and as long as you choose not to understand the difference, then yes, there's not much to discuss.
When someone says, for example, they are going to nominate a black woman to a vacant position, then yes, skin color is quite literally a prerequisite for the promotion. You can dress it up with all the feel good buzz words like diversity and inclusivity to obfuscate that blunt reality but at the end of the day if your melanin isn't at the right level you're shit out of luck. What part of that do you disagree with?
Why is that a problem but nominating a VP candidate who has a certain cachet with religious conservatives isn’t?
You’re ultimately just nominating a candidate who plays well with certain demographics right?
Yes, you are right. Pence was chosen by in part because he is an old white man to appeal to evangelical Christians.
Kamala Harris was chosen in part because of her race and gender.
I didn’t say one was okay and the other wasn’t. I’m just stating objectively true statements. If you’re looking for a double standard you should ask why one of those objectively true statements is considered racist and sexist and the other isn’t.
I think its pretty clear than whenever someone like Elon Musk screams about DEI this and DEI that, there is an implicit (and nowadays not even implicit) impliction that anyone picked through so-called DEI initiatives is completely incompetent.
You could just be a normal person and say Biden picked Harris to be his VP to shore up support with black and female voters. Because whether you like it or not, the phrase has been so poisioned by nerds on the internet who scream those three letters the minute they see Princess Peach in pants or black men becoming airline pilots. You can't really use DEI as a phrase without everyone looking at you weird because the only people practically using these words nowadays are the same people who conducted online phrenology studies on black airline pilots on Twitter.
On August 02 2024 07:51 NewSunshine wrote: It's not "promoting people for their skin color", and as long as you choose not to understand the difference, then yes, there's not much to discuss.
When someone says, for example, they are going to nominate a black woman to a vacant position, then yes, skin color is quite literally a prerequisite for the promotion. You can dress it up with all the feel good buzz words like diversity and inclusivity to obfuscate that blunt reality but at the end of the day if your melanin isn't at the right level you're shit out of luck. What part of that do you disagree with?
Why is that a problem but nominating a VP candidate who has a certain cachet with religious conservatives isn’t?
You’re ultimately just nominating a candidate who plays well with certain demographics right?
Yes, you are right. Pence was chosen by in part because he is an old white man to appeal to evangelical Christians.
Kamala Harris was chosen in part because of her race and gender.
I didn’t say one was okay and the other wasn’t. I’m just stating objectively true statements. If you’re looking for a double standard you should ask why one of those objectively true statements is considered racist and sexist and the other isn’t.
I think its pretty clear than whenever someone like Elon Musk screams about DEI this and DEI that, there is an implicit (and nowadays not even implicit) impliction that anyone picked through so-called DEI initiatives is completely incompetent.
You could just be a normal person and say Biden picked Harris to be his VP to shore up support with black and female voters. Because whether you like it or not, the phrase has been so poisioned by nerds on the internet who scream those three letters the minute they see Princess Peach in pants or black men becoming airline pilots. You can't really use DEI as a phrase without everyone looking at you weird because the only people practically using these words nowadays are the same people who conducted online phrenology studies on black airline pilots on Twitter.
DEI might have a future in the garbage pile of weaponized terms. DEI would be in good company: incel, pick me girl, maga, fake news, sjw, woke... Even "racism", "feminism" and "truth" are in danger of going there.
I find it very interesting how the US political discourse is so tightly connected to the power of defining words. For some terms, their meanings change so much between different users, I think it is better to avoid them all together.
Another Biden-Harris win: This administration recently recovered even more American hostages from Russia, which of course angered Donald Trump. Both Biden and Harris were part of the successful negotiation processes, and therefore they both deserve credit. (The first half of this video elaborates more on this topic, while the second half of the video goes into more detail about how conservatives - even Fox News correspondents - admit that "Trump sabotaged the border bill" and that when it comes to perpetuating the border crisis, many Republicans realize "that's on Donald Trump, not Democrats".)
On August 02 2024 20:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Another Biden-Harris win: This administration recently recovered even more American hostages from Russia, which of course angered Donald Trump. Both Biden and Harris were part of the successful negotiation processes, and therefore they both deserve credit. (The first half of this video elaborates more on this topic, while the second half of the video goes into more detail about how conservatives - even Fox News correspondents - admit that "Trump sabotaged the border bill" and that when it comes to perpetuating the border crisis, many Republicans realize "that's on Donald Trump, not Democrats".)
On August 02 2024 20:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Another Biden-Harris win: This administration recently recovered even more American hostages from Russia, which of course angered Donald Trump. Both Biden and Harris were part of the successful negotiation processes, and therefore they both deserve credit. (The first half of this video elaborates more on this topic, while the second half of the video goes into more detail about how conservatives - even Fox News correspondents - admit that "Trump sabotaged the border bill" and that when it comes to perpetuating the border crisis, many Republicans realize "that's on Donald Trump, not Democrats".)
But they had to give up a known Russian spy/ murderer for it. Trump surely finds a way to turn that around
Yeah, the goalposts will always be moved. Trump went from "Biden and Harris could never do this" to "Okay they did this, but I toooootally could have done it better!" It's the usual unfalsifiable pivot.
On August 02 2024 20:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Another Biden-Harris win: This administration recently recovered even more American hostages from Russia, which of course angered Donald Trump. Both Biden and Harris were part of the successful negotiation processes, and therefore they both deserve credit. (The first half of this video elaborates more on this topic, while the second half of the video goes into more detail about how conservatives - even Fox News correspondents - admit that "Trump sabotaged the border bill" and that when it comes to perpetuating the border crisis, many Republicans realize "that's on Donald Trump, not Democrats".)
But they had to give up a known Russian spy/ murderer for it. Trump surely finds a way to turn that around
Yeah, the goalposts will always be moved. Trump went from "Biden and Harris could never do this" to "Okay they did this, but I toooootally could have done it better!" It's the usual unfalsifiable pivot.
He could have done it better. But he didn't. He was President for 4 years while a bunch of these were in prison and he didn't.
On August 02 2024 20:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Another Biden-Harris win: This administration recently recovered even more American hostages from Russia, which of course angered Donald Trump. Both Biden and Harris were part of the successful negotiation processes, and therefore they both deserve credit. (The first half of this video elaborates more on this topic, while the second half of the video goes into more detail about how conservatives - even Fox News correspondents - admit that "Trump sabotaged the border bill" and that when it comes to perpetuating the border crisis, many Republicans realize "that's on Donald Trump, not Democrats".)
But they had to give up a known Russian spy/ murderer for it. Trump surely finds a way to turn that around
Yeah, the goalposts will always be moved. Trump went from "Biden and Harris could never do this" to "Okay they did this, but I toooootally could have done it better!" It's the usual unfalsifiable pivot.
He could have done it better. But he didn't. He was President for 4 years while a bunch of these were in prison and he didn't.
Yeah, and I'm glad Biden gave that same answer during the first 12 seconds of the video.
On August 02 2024 20:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Another Biden-Harris win: This administration recently recovered even more American hostages from Russia, which of course angered Donald Trump.
i mean he does like people who DONT get captured. so this was the only way that could go.
On August 02 2024 20:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Another Biden-Harris win: This administration recently recovered even more American hostages from Russia, which of course angered Donald Trump.
i mean he does like people who DONT get captured. so this was the only way that could go.
Very true. Based on his comments about John McCain, it's consistent for Trump to not care about Americans who are held prisoner.
On August 02 2024 14:01 oBlade wrote: There's an issue conflating what people vote for here. Kamala was not voted to be running mate, nor was she voted to be vice president.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you cast your vote in a presidential election, aren't you voting for both the president and vice president?
No, you are voting for the combination, 99% of what matters actually being just the president. My mistake, I should have cleared up this confusion in the very next sentences or something before you asked it. For example, if you ask people to vote for soccer teams, and people vote for FC Barcelona, it doesn't mean Messi "got the same number of votes" as his teammate John Doe in any meaningful sense. Neither of them got any votes themselves, to be exact. The team got votes. But if one of them were to be considered the overwhelming motivator of votes, it wouldn't be John Doe. It would be Messi. Obviously.
On August 02 2024 14:01 oBlade wrote: I have never in my life seen an unironic DEI identity politicker say "we need more Christians."
Don't they? Didn't Trump explicitly say that he wanted to stop people coming from shithole countries and that we needed more immigrants from Norway?
I wouldn't consider Drumpf a DEI focused leader. That's already a non-starter. Nor would I consider immigrants from Norway like our dear own beloved Drone - presumably you're implying they're Christians? - coming to a majority Christian country, the US, to be more diverse than immigrants from shithole countries.
On August 02 2024 14:01 oBlade wrote: Nor did I see Drumpf's 2016 VP list saying "I've narrowed it down to 4 Evangelical Christians."
Didn't he? He stated that he needed to lock-in the evangelical vote because Trump's evangelical credentials were not good.
How would you imagine you'd go about locking in the evangelical vote if you are divorced, regularly cheat on your wives, etc.?
Where and when did he state that?
None of those are political issues any more than being black is a "credential" to get votes in Michigan. If I were a politician, I would do things that help the evangelicals or indeed anyvangelicals, on the assumption that they have to vote for somebody anyway, by simply being better than my opponent, and if they chose not to vote at all they could go fuck themselves because running a country should never be and hopefully still isn't a "vote for yourself" contest, or democracy is over.
You have pigeonholed how and why evangelicals vote, based on a meme characterization, I believe, as you probably aren't evangelical yourself. Maybe you or other groups you assume vote based on meaningless shit that doesn't matter like that, so you assume these nebulous "evangelicals" must do it also.
My understanding is Pence brought deeper social and basically bona fide conservatism, experience in government esp. Congress meaning he could help execute the president's agenda as president of the Senate. I don't think there was a significant group of people saying "I'm not gonna vote for this orange fucker unless there's at least one person on the ticket who hasn't been divorced." If you find someone who believes that, you can ask them about it yourself.
On August 02 2024 14:01 oBlade wrote: Many people keep throwing around this black box word "qualified." Thousands or millions of people are paper "qualified," but most of them are shit, and in fact voters repeatedly choose ones that are shit, even when they're purely trying to choose the best one per se, let alone when they're trying to pick one including reasons other than them not being shit. So they don't seem to need any help moving towards shit candidates.
Being qualified just means you meet a set of criteria which are deemed to be the bare minimum, i.e. essential, to carry out a particular job. This is relatively straightforward with something like 'chemistry laboratory technician' -- if they've finished their chemistry degree (or equivalent), they're 'qualified'.
It is harder with politicians. What would you say are the essential criteria for the job of 'president of the United States'?
If by essential you mean indispensable but basic, it would be something like one of either experience/familiarity managing large organization(s), familiarity/career in law, government, diplomacy, or other negotiation/business, or outstanding communication/leadership/charisma/intellect, or a unicorn like Harry Truman. Any of those would probably be sufficient to merit consideration.
But as you say and I agree with, this qualification business is obviously a moot point, this only lets you sort the first resumes, you then have to figure out who will be successful anyway. So if "look, qualified" isn't sufficient probably "look, qualified AND has an ethnicity" isn't sufficient either because the predicate goes without saying.
On August 02 2024 20:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Another Biden-Harris win: This administration recently recovered even more American hostages from Russia, which of course angered Donald Trump. Both Biden and Harris were part of the successful negotiation processes, and therefore they both deserve credit. (The first half of this video elaborates more on this topic, while the second half of the video goes into more detail about how conservatives - even Fox News correspondents - admit that "Trump sabotaged the border bill" and that when it comes to perpetuating the border crisis, many Republicans realize "that's on Donald Trump, not Democrats".)
But they had to give up a known Russian spy/ murderer for it. Trump surely finds a way to turn that around
Yeah, the goalposts will always be moved. Trump went from "Biden and Harris could never do this" to "Okay they did this, but I toooootally could have done it better!" It's the usual unfalsifiable pivot.
He could have done it better. But he didn't. He was President for 4 years while a bunch of these were in prison and he didn't.
Yeah, and I'm glad Biden gave that same answer during the first 12 seconds of the video.
He's probably already forgotten his administration prisoner swapped a basketball player for a Russian arms dealer the same year the Russia-Ukraine war broke out. Great move right?
I'm hopeful for the day when Trump isn't this big fucking orange stain on American politics anymore. Like, whether he dies at some point or whether he just goes and crawls into a golden nursing home and hops into a golden shower, I can't wait. How much toxicity is directly because of him, and people who are following his lead? What happens when those people no longer have his lead to go by? I bet a good number of them are cowards who will try to shrink back into normalcy and hope we don't remember what they did.
On August 02 2024 20:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Another Biden-Harris win: This administration recently recovered even more American hostages from Russia, which of course angered Donald Trump. Both Biden and Harris were part of the successful negotiation processes, and therefore they both deserve credit. (The first half of this video elaborates more on this topic, while the second half of the video goes into more detail about how conservatives - even Fox News correspondents - admit that "Trump sabotaged the border bill" and that when it comes to perpetuating the border crisis, many Republicans realize "that's on Donald Trump, not Democrats".)
But they had to give up a known Russian spy/ murderer for it. Trump surely finds a way to turn that around
Yeah, the goalposts will always be moved. Trump went from "Biden and Harris could never do this" to "Okay they did this, but I toooootally could have done it better!" It's the usual unfalsifiable pivot.
He could have done it better. But he didn't. He was President for 4 years while a bunch of these were in prison and he didn't.
Yeah, and I'm glad Biden gave that same answer during the first 12 seconds of the video.
He's probably already forgotten his administration prisoner swapped a basketball player for a Russian arms dealer the same year the Russia-Ukraine war broke out. Great move right?
Do we have any imprisoned Russian basketball players that would have been a more equitable exchange? Or would you prefer to let captured Americans rot in another country simply because they play sports?
On August 02 2024 20:40 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Another Biden-Harris win: This administration recently recovered even more American hostages from Russia, which of course angered Donald Trump. Both Biden and Harris were part of the successful negotiation processes, and therefore they both deserve credit. (The first half of this video elaborates more on this topic, while the second half of the video goes into more detail about how conservatives - even Fox News correspondents - admit that "Trump sabotaged the border bill" and that when it comes to perpetuating the border crisis, many Republicans realize "that's on Donald Trump, not Democrats".)
But they had to give up a known Russian spy/ murderer for it. Trump surely finds a way to turn that around
Yeah, the goalposts will always be moved. Trump went from "Biden and Harris could never do this" to "Okay they did this, but I toooootally could have done it better!" It's the usual unfalsifiable pivot.
He could have done it better. But he didn't. He was President for 4 years while a bunch of these were in prison and he didn't.
Yeah, and I'm glad Biden gave that same answer during the first 12 seconds of the video.
He's probably already forgotten his administration prisoner swapped a basketball player for a Russian arms dealer the same year the Russia-Ukraine war broke out. Great move right?
The arms dealer specialized in taking weapons out of Russian stockpiles and selling them to the highest bidder. You seem to be implying this would be helpful to Russia during a war.
On August 02 2024 22:37 NewSunshine wrote: I'm hopeful for the day when Trump isn't this big fucking orange stain on American politics anymore. Like, whether he dies at some point or whether he just goes and crawls into a golden nursing home and hops into a golden shower, I can't wait. How much toxicity is directly because of him, and people who are following his lead? What happens when those people no longer have his lead to go by? I bet a good number of them are cowards who will try to shrink back into normalcy and hope we don't remember what they did.
I know this is a bit of a non-sequitir. Carry on.
And stochastic terrorism, too.
I imagine that other Republicans (like Ron DeSantis and JD Vance) are going to attempt to fill that fascist void by trying to emulate Trump as closely as possible. That would certainly be an effective way to gain control of the Republican party, once Trump is gone.
EPT
