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On November 14 2024 12:58 Husyelt wrote:
Due to these recent picks... It appears Project 2025 will be relegated to the background as a checklist rather than a driving engine of the administration. Slightly less doomer than before. Trumps picks show pure sycophancy as the top priority rather than efficient grown ups to burn political and monetary capital to accomplish something really scary.
Basically they will further erode our institutions, but to benefit themselves rather than going full dictatorship. The pull of fascism will no doubt be there, but yeah, good news for undocumented immigrants who will now have to fear less capable politicians who will flounder at carrying out "mass deportations".
If there's a silver lining to the shit-cloud...
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On November 14 2024 12:26 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 14 2024 11:51 Introvert wrote:On November 14 2024 11:39 KwarK wrote:On November 14 2024 11:17 Introvert wrote:
He wasn't so much worried about zealots taking over the government as the church becoming corrupted with political power and losing it' moral authority. Which again, is arguably what happened over on your continent. You have it backwards, politics didn't corrupt the church, it sanctified it. The Church of England is explicitly apolitical because it has to be because it is part of the sovereign power of Britain which is by tradition a theocracy in which the monarch is not permitted to rule. If the Church of England started taking stances on political things that would be constitutionally very tricky and would likely necessitate some kind of revolution to remove the status of the government serving the divinely anointed monarch. The constitutional status of the church has essentially neutered it. Meanwhile American churches hold political rallies and tell their congregations how to vote without getting shit from the IRS about their nonprofit status. They wield enormous political power. I'm not sure we're quite disagreeing? Wombat was asking me why I think the Church here is different and I'm saying that one reason is because it doesn't have to play games with the state. In Europe, as I said, it lost its moral authority because it had to be everything to all people or worry about the monarch. Meanwhile here there was no state Church to begin with (or hasn't been for a long time, and there was never a national church), so if you had a different set of beliefs, including those that manifest themselves politically, you could find what you were looking for. Things have changed since AdT days, that's true, and like I said I'm not even sure that last bit was ever right. I think you gave a decent answer to that particularly question. It wasn’t actually my question, so to somewhat rephrase. If divergent interpretation within the Christian faith is absolutely possible, why does it seem to almost overwhelmingly manifest in one direction? At least as per a legitimate organising political force versus individuals or small, uninfluential congregations. Within the US context In other countries it may not be a dominant tradition, there are recognisable left wing, or at least somewhat left-leaning Christian traditions that have some political cachet. Bit of a fucker to even attempt to theorise on, much less answer with any conclusiveness. But that was the intended line of inquiry
The Christians really pivoted right during the Reagan era in terms of being a voting block. America was religious and split pretty evenly until the 70s and 80s. Reagan embraced "colorful" evangelical figures as his administration progressed, and abortion became the issue that is now. Until then "pro life" had only minor traction in the Republican party. Roe V Wade was pretty settled. Check out Phyllis Stewart Schlafly, shes the answer to sooooooo many trends towards the right. "Anti ERA" psycho, but was incredibly gifted and popular.
Joan Williams argues, "ERA was defeated when Schlafly turned it into a war among women over gender roles."[39] Historian Judith Glazer-Raymo argues:
As moderates, we thought we represented the forces of reason and goodwill but failed to take seriously the power of the family values argument and the single-mindedness of Schlafly and her followers. The ERA's defeat seriously damaged the women's movement, destroying its momentum and its potential to foment social change ...
illuminating parallels to this election
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On November 14 2024 10:05 Falling wrote:
A true rogues gallery of appointees thus far.
Seems pretty transparent that the being a loyal Yesman is the qualifying criteria rather than any relevant experience. Perhaps relevant experience is a detriment.
"That's right. You're an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office and we'll call you when there's an oil spill." Donahue on Jeff Clark's attempt to become the AG. But now Anybody who is anybody is being appointed so long as are unfailingly loyal.
Read this observation recently:
Trump is draining the swamp... and is filling it with toxic waste.
Donaghue opposed Clark for lack of relevant experience to begin with in the first term despite a career in law. Gaetz is also a lawyer and has been on the Judiciary Committee so if the central point was there is some kind of central sky is falling collapse in appointment integrity I don't see it.
"Yesman" is so reality-warpingly pejorative. No president fills their cabinet with people who hate their guts and oppose them. Nor should they or be expected to. You're talking about AG so I assume this is in allusion to Gaetz but Gaetz literally got McCarthy thrown out of Washington despite that Blumpf supported him as Speaker. These are not really personalities who avert disagreement.
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On November 14 2024 12:26 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 14 2024 11:51 Introvert wrote:On November 14 2024 11:39 KwarK wrote:On November 14 2024 11:17 Introvert wrote:
He wasn't so much worried about zealots taking over the government as the church becoming corrupted with political power and losing it' moral authority. Which again, is arguably what happened over on your continent. You have it backwards, politics didn't corrupt the church, it sanctified it. The Church of England is explicitly apolitical because it has to be because it is part of the sovereign power of Britain which is by tradition a theocracy in which the monarch is not permitted to rule. If the Church of England started taking stances on political things that would be constitutionally very tricky and would likely necessitate some kind of revolution to remove the status of the government serving the divinely anointed monarch. The constitutional status of the church has essentially neutered it. Meanwhile American churches hold political rallies and tell their congregations how to vote without getting shit from the IRS about their nonprofit status. They wield enormous political power. I'm not sure we're quite disagreeing? Wombat was asking me why I think the Church here is different and I'm saying that one reason is because it doesn't have to play games with the state. In Europe, as I said, it lost its moral authority because it had to be everything to all people or worry about the monarch. Meanwhile here there was no state Church to begin with (or hasn't been for a long time, and there was never a national church), so if you had a different set of beliefs, including those that manifest themselves politically, you could find what you were looking for. Things have changed since AdT days, that's true, and like I said I'm not even sure that last bit was ever right. I think you gave a decent answer to that particularly question. It wasn’t actually my question, so to somewhat rephrase. If divergent interpretation within the Christian faith is absolutely possible, why does it seem to almost overwhelmingly manifest in one direction? At least as per a legitimate organising political force versus individuals or small, uninfluential congregations. Within the US context In other countries it may not be a dominant tradition, there are recognisable left wing, or at least somewhat left-leaning Christian traditions that have some political cachet. Bit of a fucker to even attempt to theorise on, much less answer with any conclusiveness. But that was the intended line of inquiry
I would say part of it is a media perception.
Self-identified Evangelicals have moved become more Republican and so they've become kind of an always useful foil. It's a little late now but I'm pretty sure if you go back in history they were not always that way.
There are still mainline denominations that have moved leftward but at the same time they've had shrinking membership. And it's funny you talk about organization because Evangelicals in particular are perhaps the least organized, at least churchwise. There is no accepted organization that speaks for it, like say the different Methodist denominations. The denominations that today we see as more conservative are just the ones that are still around, the other WASP-y ones are dying. Why is a furiously debated question. I'm also not sure if churches in America, if they are more conservative, are because of the people or if the churches make them more conservative.
After all, you said from your perspective that the Democrats are moderate centrists or something like that. Do you think that maybe a similar spectrum mismatch is happening when looking at the religious make up of America? Maybe the left-leaning identity of more secular Americans has moved both sides in their own direction.
All that being said, it's true that some of the socially conservative denominations used to be less obviously Republican aligned. I would also argue the Dems move to the left has something to do with that. But MLK was a Baptist and GHWB was a Methodist. But now Baptists are still around and Methodists less so.
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Norway28670 Posts
Honestly don't care about cheating history for my politicians. I mean 'all else being equal', sure, but it's def not a disqualifying factor on its own, to me.
Mostly just wanna chime in on more of a 'left strategy' point, actually.
I remember a professor I had - whom I was greatly fond of - dedicated a couple classes to a theory - that the 'economic cycles' economists observe also tend to replicate themselves - with some delay - for social issues. Essentially, periods of economic prosperity allows for more focus on social issues - and more progress - while periods of economic hardships tend to similarly result in regressive social policies. Not that this was a 1:1 ratio, but that there was a pretty clear historically observable tendency (even if single countries could be exceptions).
If this is due to some type of scapegoat-instinct or some type of society-wide maslowian pyramid dictating that we gotta take care of basic needs before people can be expected to realize their inner selves without opposition, I dunno.
Anyway, a friend of my wife recently theorized, and I thought it was a bit alluring, but more for Europe than for the US because of different electoral systems, that the best tactic might be running an economically left but socially more conservative (not like, anti-abortion, just not vocally woke) platform - but then, to achieve parliamentary majority, ally yourself with some socially liberal party and give them all the wins they desire on social issues as long as they concede the economy, and suddenly you have both things you actually want. 
I mean I don't want to be all sorry, minorities, but I need to make this omelette - but I think realistically, it's probably better to spend time on avoiding socially regressive policies while focusing on redistributive policies that improve the economy for all - so that the future might be more permissive for socially progressive policies. Make the leftward pendulum swings larger and lessen the impact of the pendulum swings to the right - rather than try to make it continuously go left, because that's more likely to lead to a greater backlash.
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On November 14 2024 10:47 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 14 2024 10:39 Introvert wrote:
Eh, the mainline churches developed different sensibilities, and they used to be quite important. As I've said before most people who criticize Christians for not really knowing who Jesus was or whatever only like the parts they can interpret to say one can do whatever one wants. Everyone likes "let him who has not sinned throw the first stone" no one likes "go and sin no more." Some of the best folk I know are big Christians, some of the worst also are. Why do you think more egalitarian interpretations are by far in the minority, if not on an individual level at least institutionally, and especially in the US?
..> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism
The core idea is, that wealth is a proof for your character directly from god himself, because wealth can only be obtained by working hard, and don't spent money on luxuries..or the poor.
To me this is half true, since working hard can get you far, and enduring hard work, should be rewarded.
But come on.. in this world most income is generated by inheritence and passive investments. So hard work will make you usefull to others..who can play golf and watch tv... or shitpost and play eldenring..while making $1M/hour from people dumping their hard earned money in shares of their company.
I'd subscribe to the regulatory idea that it would be god that bless the hard working person with wealth, if there was a 100% inheritence/gift tax, and once kids are done with school, their status is "Poor - in need of some blessing through hard work"
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On November 14 2024 16:51 Liquid`Drone wrote:Honestly don't care about cheating history for my politicians. I mean 'all else being equal', sure, but it's def not a disqualifying factor on its own, to me. Mostly just wanna chime in on more of a 'left strategy' point, actually. I remember a professor I had - whom I was greatly fond of - dedicated a couple classes to a theory - that the 'economic cycles' economists observe also tend to replicate themselves - with some delay - for social issues. Essentially, periods of economic prosperity allows for more focus on social issues - and more progress - while periods of economic hardships tend to similarly result in regressive social policies. Not that this was a 1:1 ratio, but that there was a pretty clear historically observable tendency (even if single countries could be exceptions). If this is due to some type of scapegoat-instinct or some type of society-wide maslowian pyramid dictating that we gotta take care of basic needs before people can be expected to realize their inner selves without opposition, I dunno. Anyway, a friend of my wife recently theorized, and I thought it was a bit alluring, but more for Europe than for the US because of different electoral systems, that the best tactic might be running an economically left but socially more conservative (not like, anti-abortion, just not vocally woke) platform - but then, to achieve parliamentary majority, ally yourself with some socially liberal party and give them all the wins they desire on social issues as long as they concede the economy, and suddenly you have both things you actually want. I mean I don't want to be all sorry, minorities, but I need to make this omelette - but I think realistically, it's probably better to spend time on avoiding socially regressive policies while focusing on redistributive policies that improve the economy for all - so that the future might be more permissive for socially progressive policies. Make the leftward pendulum swings larger and lessen the impact of the pendulum swings to the right - rather than try to make it continuously go left, because that's more likely to lead to a greater backlash.
The problem is finding that coalition partner, right? If electoral victory is generally guaranteed by socialist economics and regressive social policies, where are you finding a political party that is socially progressive but doesn't agree with you economically.
And if all you found was a bunch of real socialists, created a coalition and governed as true socialists, how are you going to tell your constituents that you got everything you wanted, when they voted for you for the socially regressive policies: if they wanted socially progressive policies they would've voted for your coalition partner!
That said, the socialist party in the Netherlands had a period of considerable success when they attacked the labor party on their complicity in creating the problems with immigration and advocated a stricter border and deportation policy. Then Pim Fortuyn came and stole their talking points on that issue, and didn't have the "filthy communist" baggage. In fact, the succession of populist parties have paid lip service to this idea of economic progression mixed with social repression in the Netherlands for roughly 20 years now. It's just that they instantly forget about the economic progressive part when they get anywhere near power. Wilders repeatedly promised lowering the pension age, expanding national healthcare and guaranteeing affordable housing. However, those are the first policies to go when they get a chance to govern. The ones he insists on upholding no matter what are the anti-immigrant, anti-green (pro-corporate) and anti-woke policies.
So if you're thinking of voting for such a progressive economy, repressive social party, in order to get the socialism, beware: you'll more likely get a mix of regressive policies from that vote than a mix of progressive ones!
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Norway28670 Posts
To be clear I'm not arguing for socially regressive policies! But rather putting a moratorium on some, if they are unpopular, until there's a point where you might have the necessary support to implement them.
Basically - I've thought Obama was too late with the gay marriage. But what if being an open supporter in 2007 would've lost him the election? In that case, delaying support is definitely a net positive, and ended up leading to faster social progress than being supportive faster would have. Of course, if he had been an open supporter in 2007 and he would've won the election anyway, then progress would've been faster.
And then my line of thinking is that the economy seems to be the deciding factor on what is achievable, because if it's booming, you're in a good spot to fight for those causes, but when the economy isn't doing well (and here, 'how most people perceive it' is the metric), the economy is going to be the focus of the election. Then, I'm not an economist, but it seems like there's some agreement, even if you can't find a consensus, that there's to some degree an expansion - stagnation - recession cycle. Push progressive social issues during expansion cycles, fight regressive social policies during recessions.
And yeah that bit about finding the right coalition partner is very country-specific. The guy who mentioned the idea is from Poland, where left-leaning economics but right-leaning social politics has been quite popular.
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The socially progressive (woke) policies were already increasingly unpopular before the election due to people preferring to receive information from alternative news sources, twitter, Rogan etc who are generally against them.
Old mainstream media that has generally pushed those policies forward is in absolute freefall collapse at this point.More job losses at CNN announced yesterday, Much made of Washington Post losing 250,000 subscribers for failing to endorse Harris but they already lost 50% of their audience between 2020 and May 2024 with a $77 million loss last year.
https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2024/washington-post-new-strategy-build-it/
Washington Post publisher Will Lewis and other Post executives met with staff on Wednesday and laid out a strategy for the future. That’s because the recent past has been bleak for one of America’s best newspapers, at least financially.
Lewis, who was named publisher just late last year, pointed out in the meeting that the Post had lost $77 million over the past year, and had a 50% drop off in audience since 2020.
Similar thing happening at LA Times, no Harris endorsement.Also scrapping old editorial board and bringing in new one that is more 'Fair and balanced'.Basically they are losing money hand over fist and are attempting to rebrand because they can't see those liberal views having a large enough audience and being profitable.
Anyway regarding RFK Jr, likely one of the first things he would try to do is ban pharmaceutical advertising on TV, Which would probably be the final death knell for some of these news channels.
Democrats need to adapt to the changing media landscape.
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On November 14 2024 09:40 KwarK wrote:
It makes more sense if you remember just how much the average American Christian hates Christianity, or at least the kind embodied by Christ. They hate sharing, humility, forgiving, foreigners, people from the Middle East, and pacifism. They love money, judging people, weapons, the death penalty, and deciding who is going to heaven on behalf of God.
It’s easy to see why they love Trump despite him being about as far as you can get from Christ. They’re about as far as you can get from Christianity. It’s all perfectly consistent.
The USA shares the longest undefended border on planet earth with a helpless country that has no military. An evil military empire takes it over in a day without a second thought.
I find Italian-Catholics living in NA the easiest to get along with out of all major religious groups. So, I think you are oversimplifying.
The "foreigner" thing in the list is a red herring. All people possess own group bias. My view of God is almost anathema to both the Catholic and Muslim view of God. So, I do not expect the red carpet to be rolled out by the Italian Catholics in New York when I arrive. I properly expect suspicion. All that said, I get along great with Italian Catholics.
Knowing I'm amongst a tiny minority I chose a different path from just screaming antisemitism. My path to a happy life in the USA: I assimilated into Italian-Catholic culture. So , pro wrestling, Al Pacino, Vince Lombardi, Sylvester Stallone, foosball, and Lieutenant Columbo are topics of which I am intimately familiar. According to my italian sports buddies i am "an honourary wop". We have a lot of silly stupid fun together. Similarly in Canada, my path to assimilation included: Phil Esposito, Lou Lamoriello, and the of course the 1982 and 2006 WOrld Cup Wins.
I want to thank every American, including every Christian, for allowing me in your great country. My quality of life is far higher than anything I've ever earned.
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On November 14 2024 18:33 Liquid`Drone wrote:
To be clear I'm not arguing for socially regressive policies! But rather putting a moratorium on some, if they are unpopular, until there's a point where you might have the necessary support to implement them.
Basically - I've thought Obama was too late with the gay marriage. But what if being an open supporter in 2007 would've lost him the election? In that case, delaying support is definitely a net positive, and ended up leading to faster social progress than being supportive faster would have. Of course, if he had been an open supporter in 2007 and he would've won the election anyway, then progress would've been faster.
And then my line of thinking is that the economy seems to be the deciding factor on what is achievable, because if it's booming, you're in a good spot to fight for those causes, but when the economy isn't doing well (and here, 'how most people perceive it' is the metric), the economy is going to be the focus of the election. Then, I'm not an economist, but it seems like there's some agreement, even if you can't find a consensus, that there's to some degree an expansion - stagnation - recession cycle. Push progressive social issues during expansion cycles, fight regressive social policies during recessions.
And yeah that bit about finding the right coalition partner is very country-specific. The guy who mentioned the idea is from Poland, where left-leaning economics but right-leaning social politics has been quite popular. If we're specifically talking about the US then I think the perception of the economy, and more specifically the individual voters own perceived impact on themselves by the economy, is the single most important thing. Trump, in my eyes, won this election because of the increase in inflation and cost of living. That its a global phenomena where the US is doing better then its peers didn't matter. People felt worse off, therefor they voted for the other candidate.
But by the same notion I also don't think the economic policy you have actually matters, it didn't matter that all of Trumps plans are non-existent or stupid so long as he was perceived as doing something.
So the best way to win a Presidential election, in the US, is for the opposing party to be in charge and for the spending power of the average working American to be down.
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I think we have to start acknowledging that stats don't translate to culture and you can explain with your hand and feet that on the grand scale, you don't have a bad economy at all, but if the person barely has anything left at the end of the month to buy food, what good does that do him?
Stats are a very bad way to convince people. Trump has shown this. I suggest Dems also get off the "but look how it actually is" train and find a way to resonate with those people. Those people that don't understand inflation and tariffs and GDP and all those things because who cares when at the end of the day the price of bread and eggs at the supermarket is what it is and what are you going to do about it?
Did Trump have a coherent plan? No. Did he have the persuasion of having a concept of a plan to maybe eventually (probably not) tackle it? Absolutely. He's a good salesman and it completely seems like that's what people latch on to now.
And one more thing: people overestimate the average voter greatly. They vote on vibes and I thibk it's very large percentage of the population really.
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Norway28670 Posts
On November 14 2024 19:18 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:The socially progressive (woke) policies were already increasingly unpopular before the election due to people preferring to receive information from alternative news sources, twitter, Rogan etc who are generally against them. Old mainstream media that has generally pushed those policies forward is in absolute freefall collapse at this point.More job losses at CNN announced yesterday, Much made of Washington Post losing 250,000 subscribers for failing to endorse Harris but they already lost 50% of their audience between 2020 and May 2024 with a $77 million loss last year. https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2024/washington-post-new-strategy-build-it/Show nested quote +Washington Post publisher Will Lewis and other Post executives met with staff on Wednesday and laid out a strategy for the future. That’s because the recent past has been bleak for one of America’s best newspapers, at least financially.
Lewis, who was named publisher just late last year, pointed out in the meeting that the Post had lost $77 million over the past year, and had a 50% drop off in audience since 2020. Similar thing happening at LA Times, no Harris endorsement.Also scrapping old editorial board and bringing in new one that is more 'Fair and balanced'.Basically they are losing money hand over fist and are attempting to rebrand because they can't see those liberal views having a large enough audience and being profitable. Anyway regarding RFK Jr, likely one of the first things he would try to do is ban pharmaceutical advertising on TV, Which would probably be the final death knell for some of these news channels. Democrats need to adapt to the changing media landscape.
Banning pharmaceutical advertising sounds great. We had a general ban on all pharmaceutical product advertisement until 2015, but still have one for pharmaceutical products requiring a perscription. I've always noticed that when I watch TV from other countries it's just constant advertisement for pain relief and other drugs. I also saw some statistics showing that in 2012, Norway used the least amount of painkillers among all the nordic countries, but there was an increase of 33% between 2012 and 2021 - not that I can definitely state that this correlates with easing up the regulations for commercials.
Anyway I suspect that this might be a trend with RFK. He will occasionally do some things I really agree with. Just, his reasoning is likely to be suspect, and I expect him to also do some things I really disagree with. As long as we avoid a new pandemic during his tenure, he might actually be decent - at least he seems really concerned with exercise, and if he somehow incentivizes the american population towards a less sedentiary lifestyle, that'd be awesome.
Of course, if this is something he does to hurt the media channels dependent on income from pharmaceutical companies, that's much more questionable.
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On November 14 2024 20:18 Uldridge wrote:
He's a good salesman and it completely seems like that's what people latch on to now.
I do not think this phenomenon is a current day thing. Ronald Reagan was a great salesman as well. It was a big factor in his 1980 and 1984 wins. Americans worship and admire the salesman in a way most other cultures can not relate.
Jimmy Carter was perceived as a very smart guy due to graduating in the top 5% of his class earning a 4 year Bachelor of Science degree. DUring those years a B.Sc. meant a lot. Reagan was "just a dumb Hollywood Actor".
Reagan crushed Carter partly because he was a better salesman.
For the words of the profits
Were written on the studio wall
Concert hall
Echoes with the sounds of salesmen
Of salesman, of salesmen
The Spirit of Radio, Rush, 1980.
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United States42695 Posts
On November 14 2024 19:37 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Knowing I'm amongst a tiny minority I chose a different path from just screaming antisemitism. My path to a happy life in the USA: I assimilated into Italian-Catholic culture. So , pro wrestling, Al Pacino, Vince Lombardi, Sylvester Stallone, foosball, and Lieutenant Columbo are topics of which I am intimately familiar. According to my italian sports buddies i am "an honourary wop". We have a lot of silly stupid fun together. Similarly in Canada, my path to assimilation included: Phil Esposito, Lou Lamoriello, and the of course the 1982 and 2006 WOrld Cup Wins.
I want to thank every American, including every Christian, for allowing me in your great country. My quality of life is far higher than anything I've ever earned.
What a profoundly weird thing to both do and then openly talk about on the internet without any kind of self awareness.
As a fellow immigrant to the United States I made somewhat different choices.
Knowing I'm amongst a tiny minority I chose a different path from just screaming medical malpractice. My path to a happy life in the USA: I assimilated into the blacks. So I'm pro rap music, basketball, BLM, drugs, dog fighting, and bizarre racial stereotypes. We get together and talk endlessly about Mr T, Obama, Morgan Freeman, the character played by Morgan Freeman in that movie about Nelson Mandela, and the black lady in Star Trek. I'm intimately familiar with all of those. According to my codefendants I am "an honourary nigga". We have a lot of silly stupid fun together.
Also as an American citizen I want you to let you know, you're welcome. I'm glad that I allowed you into my great country.
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On November 14 2024 16:51 Liquid`Drone wrote:Honestly don't care about cheating history for my politicians. I mean 'all else being equal', sure, but it's def not a disqualifying factor on its own, to me. Mostly just wanna chime in on more of a 'left strategy' point, actually. I remember a professor I had - whom I was greatly fond of - dedicated a couple classes to a theory - that the 'economic cycles' economists observe also tend to replicate themselves - with some delay - for social issues. Essentially, periods of economic prosperity allows for more focus on social issues - and more progress - while periods of economic hardships tend to similarly result in regressive social policies. Not that this was a 1:1 ratio, but that there was a pretty clear historically observable tendency (even if single countries could be exceptions). If this is due to some type of scapegoat-instinct or some type of society-wide maslowian pyramid dictating that we gotta take care of basic needs before people can be expected to realize their inner selves without opposition, I dunno. Anyway, a friend of my wife recently theorized, and I thought it was a bit alluring, but more for Europe than for the US because of different electoral systems, that the best tactic might be running an economically left but socially more conservative (not like, anti-abortion, just not vocally woke) platform - but then, to achieve parliamentary majority, ally yourself with some socially liberal party and give them all the wins they desire on social issues as long as they concede the economy, and suddenly you have both things you actually want. I mean I don't want to be all sorry, minorities, but I need to make this omelette - but I think realistically, it's probably better to spend time on avoiding socially regressive policies while focusing on redistributive policies that improve the economy for all - so that the future might be more permissive for socially progressive policies. Make the leftward pendulum swings larger and lessen the impact of the pendulum swings to the right - rather than try to make it continuously go left, because that's more likely to lead to a greater backlash.
I do like this analysis. Although personally I come to a different conclusion, because I think there are three other factors that heavily determined this election.
1) Biden's extremely late dropout. I think literally everyone agrees on that. In my opinion this is what cost Harris so many more voters than Trump, because she never actually "owned" them to begin with. She had to work for her support, while Trump only had to stabilize existing support.
2) Widespread propaganda efforts. Right-wingers relied on a huge amount of lies and false narratives to keep voters engaged with their cause. People liked the narrative and they didn't mind the lies. What was the narrative? People don't have enough money. What was the lie? Biden is responsible for it and Democrats have no solution. Regarding immigration and other matters they used the same method.
People bought the lie because of the third reason.
3) Many people are politically highly illiterate. There's no better than a 50% chance that a random voter knows what they're talking about, could just as well be a coin flip. The more I see people reveal about their political insight, the more I understand why democracy is only the best of all the worst systems (instead of being good in and of itself). This makes any political race a gamble even when it's obvious which candidate is better/worse, like in this election.
So I think it's not so much reality itself that determines elections. It's not about the facts on the ground. It's about attention, sensation, hatred, etc. None of these things require people to live in reality.
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On November 14 2024 22:30 KwarK wrote:
I assimilated into the blacks.
were they Christians? The Italians i hung out with were hard working, blue collar Catholics. They are no where near the level of evil you ascribe in your comments about American Christians.
Generally speaking, I think American Christians are alright. Very specifically, I think Italian-Catholics are decent.
On November 14 2024 22:30 KwarK wrote:
Also as an American citizen I want you to let you know, you're welcome. I'm glad that I allowed you into my great country.
thanks man! In conclusion, it is unfortunate that Canada is no longer a credible alternative to the USA.
I do not foresee many Americans making good on their claims to move to Canada.
A record-breaking number of Americans are searching for Canadian real estate after the U.S. presidential election.
https://nowtoronto.com/real-estate/americans-searching-for-canadian-real-estate-skyrockets-after-trump-announced-president/
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These are levels of corrosive sarcasm I can appreciate yet I'm not sure if they're looping all the way around back to sincerity.
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On November 15 2024 00:06 Uldridge wrote:
These are levels of corrosive sarcasm I can appreciate yet I'm not sure if they're looping all the way around back to sincerity.
Hahaha dude I was thinking the same thing, you just managed to word it perfectly 
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EPT
