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On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 12:12 Phyanketto wrote:On September 21 2025 11:38 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 11:00 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 08:33 Zambrah wrote:Yes.
No.
Not on this specific thing, I highly doubt it’s a straw that breaks even the camel with severe osteoporosis’ back, not in isolation.
As part of a continual pattern, yes it absolutely does have an impact. It’s uninspiring. It’s actively alienating if you are in one of the demographics Charlie Kirk shit on routinely to see those who are supposed to be in your camp gargling his balls. Democrats are dumb politicians with the smarter electorate and Republicans are smart politicians with the dumb electorate. Sucky position to be in, really relying a lot on the Democrats to be less moronic, but theyve shown such a low propensity for intelligent political calculus. The sad part is Republicans aren’t even particularly smart politicians. It’s not like they’re outmanoeuvring folks with fiendish alacrity. I mean, it’s effective, and yes there are some smart minds involved, but it’s only as effective as it is because the opposition is brainless. If my go-to thing is just rushing some off-meta muta build to exploit some tendency, that’s pretty smart stuff, sure. If I do nothing but my pocket muta build for literally like a decade and my opponents, who are all familiar with my style don’t build counters to it, or even units that shoot up, eventually it’s their idiocy that’s the problem, not how smart my build is. Yeah, I may be overestimating Republicans by virtue of how dumb Democrats seem. Really easy to look like geniuses when youre being compared to the people who keep stepping forward into rakes like Sideshow Bob in that episode of The Simpsons. I wish Democrats would acknowledge and accept that their voters arent as easy and braindead as the average Republican and actually work with that in mind instead of sitting around with their dicks in their hand bemoaning that the average Democrat voter actually has things they materially care about beyond the color blue. I think it's difficult for democrats to craft a message because they're obviously a coalition with completely more diverse factions than Republicans, who are broadly split into free-market pro-business anti-financial regulation types and the Christian right. The rich and those who harbor fantasies of becoming rich, and those who don't mind being poor because they believe they're in for a windfall upon death, and who have a cultural distaste for queer people/cultural minorities. Democrats are made up of irreligious educated professionals, urban poor, racial minorities, and more. Republicans have a far easier time selling literally any narrative. I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in. The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate. Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient. Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive.
I think Hillary/Bernie beat Trump, I think the progressive/left is infinitely less alienated and still actively pretty energized seeing Bernie on the ticket. All of the cynicism and negativity that the progressive/left has about the Democrats would have been pretty stymied with being thrown a Bernie-VP bone. It at least says they were listening and dont actively hate us.
I think with Trump losing, Republicans arent going to run him again and I think we probably see a slower rise of fascists, more a swing to "respectable" Republicans who are still continuously more and more far right, but arent as deranged and wholly incompetent like Trump.
Not sure that that a Hillary/Bernie ticket wins the next election due to Covid, they'd need to have a really positively impactful presidency and really handle Covid exceptionally well. I think its possible they win, but I wouldn't be placing any bets on them.
I think that the VP decision is fine as something you use to throw bones to certain demographics or what have you, I think leftists/progressives are going to be more receptive to anyone from anywhere if that person has the right policies and seems honest about holding the beliefs that brought them to those policies.
Tim Walz is a good example, everyone basically liked him, he got the Republicans with the "they're weird," shtick, his state has good policies that he supports. Hes an old white man midwesterner, but progressives/leftists still mostly seemed to be enthusiastic about him.
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On September 22 2025 02:48 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2025 22:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 12:12 Phyanketto wrote:On September 21 2025 11:38 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 11:00 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 08:33 Zambrah wrote:Yes.
No.
Not on this specific thing, I highly doubt it’s a straw that breaks even the camel with severe osteoporosis’ back, not in isolation.
As part of a continual pattern, yes it absolutely does have an impact. It’s uninspiring. It’s actively alienating if you are in one of the demographics Charlie Kirk shit on routinely to see those who are supposed to be in your camp gargling his balls. Democrats are dumb politicians with the smarter electorate and Republicans are smart politicians with the dumb electorate. Sucky position to be in, really relying a lot on the Democrats to be less moronic, but theyve shown such a low propensity for intelligent political calculus. The sad part is Republicans aren’t even particularly smart politicians. It’s not like they’re outmanoeuvring folks with fiendish alacrity. I mean, it’s effective, and yes there are some smart minds involved, but it’s only as effective as it is because the opposition is brainless. If my go-to thing is just rushing some off-meta muta build to exploit some tendency, that’s pretty smart stuff, sure. If I do nothing but my pocket muta build for literally like a decade and my opponents, who are all familiar with my style don’t build counters to it, or even units that shoot up, eventually it’s their idiocy that’s the problem, not how smart my build is. Yeah, I may be overestimating Republicans by virtue of how dumb Democrats seem. Really easy to look like geniuses when youre being compared to the people who keep stepping forward into rakes like Sideshow Bob in that episode of The Simpsons. I wish Democrats would acknowledge and accept that their voters arent as easy and braindead as the average Republican and actually work with that in mind instead of sitting around with their dicks in their hand bemoaning that the average Democrat voter actually has things they materially care about beyond the color blue. I think it's difficult for democrats to craft a message because they're obviously a coalition with completely more diverse factions than Republicans, who are broadly split into free-market pro-business anti-financial regulation types and the Christian right. The rich and those who harbor fantasies of becoming rich, and those who don't mind being poor because they believe they're in for a windfall upon death, and who have a cultural distaste for queer people/cultural minorities. Democrats are made up of irreligious educated professionals, urban poor, racial minorities, and more. Republicans have a far easier time selling literally any narrative. I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in. The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate. Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient. Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. Have you read GH posts? I think you get your answers no further than there. Also, Clinton was centre / centre right, Bernie is firmly left. I think the Clinton camp felt it would lose its moderates to Trump by getting a VP that made the “Socialist Revolution” its campaign slogan (which was dumb af, even though i agree with 99% of his positions). Then they decided to go full identity politics anyway rather than addressing inequalities and the struggles of the working class and the rest is history. + Show Spoiler +
Clinton had many policies to help the working class and unions and shift the tax burden onto the luxury class. Her platform was more to the left than Obama's. The idea that she went "full identity politics" is a lie straight from right-wing media, they specifically shifted the conversation into identity politics because any working class person with a brain could see that her platform was infinitely better than Trump's on an economic level.
We live in an overwhelmingly conservative country because the conservative-dominated media would rather people fight culture wars than class wars.
Even in this very thread the left-leaning people are more outraged over a Congressional resolution that affects nobody anywhere on the planet rather than the decimation of the working class Republicans are directly responsible for. A better world won't be possible until we stop letting the right turn ourselves into a circular firing squad.
Setting aside a core problem with your approach to the "circular firing squad" issue. Democrat leadership praising Charlie Kirk while refusing to support their own local party nominee is at the core of why Democrats are failing to stop the rise of fascism.
But you're just being intentionally oblivious. Republicans are fascists that are only going to be stopped by their own incompetence and/or a Maidan like event. Unfortunately, far too many folks like you are too lost in the sauce to recognize that reality.
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On September 21 2025 21:16 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2025 21:11 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On September 21 2025 08:47 Vivax wrote:
Good to know that influencers, social media and politicians have an opinion on the motivator for crimes before law enforcement does.
ya that's pretty bullshit. who is the shooter and who moved the camera? https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LrGha11vgmsCandace Owens offers a healthy level of skepticism regarding Kirk's death. I don't think this statement has ever been true, in any context, throughout her entire lifetime.
she offered great pushback against the rest of the DW crew on israel for years.
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On September 22 2025 04:28 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 02:48 LightSpectra wrote:On September 21 2025 22:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 12:12 Phyanketto wrote:On September 21 2025 11:38 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 11:00 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 08:33 Zambrah wrote:Yes.
No.
Not on this specific thing, I highly doubt it’s a straw that breaks even the camel with severe osteoporosis’ back, not in isolation.
As part of a continual pattern, yes it absolutely does have an impact. It’s uninspiring. It’s actively alienating if you are in one of the demographics Charlie Kirk shit on routinely to see those who are supposed to be in your camp gargling his balls. Democrats are dumb politicians with the smarter electorate and Republicans are smart politicians with the dumb electorate. Sucky position to be in, really relying a lot on the Democrats to be less moronic, but theyve shown such a low propensity for intelligent political calculus. The sad part is Republicans aren’t even particularly smart politicians. It’s not like they’re outmanoeuvring folks with fiendish alacrity. I mean, it’s effective, and yes there are some smart minds involved, but it’s only as effective as it is because the opposition is brainless. If my go-to thing is just rushing some off-meta muta build to exploit some tendency, that’s pretty smart stuff, sure. If I do nothing but my pocket muta build for literally like a decade and my opponents, who are all familiar with my style don’t build counters to it, or even units that shoot up, eventually it’s their idiocy that’s the problem, not how smart my build is. Yeah, I may be overestimating Republicans by virtue of how dumb Democrats seem. Really easy to look like geniuses when youre being compared to the people who keep stepping forward into rakes like Sideshow Bob in that episode of The Simpsons. I wish Democrats would acknowledge and accept that their voters arent as easy and braindead as the average Republican and actually work with that in mind instead of sitting around with their dicks in their hand bemoaning that the average Democrat voter actually has things they materially care about beyond the color blue. I think it's difficult for democrats to craft a message because they're obviously a coalition with completely more diverse factions than Republicans, who are broadly split into free-market pro-business anti-financial regulation types and the Christian right. The rich and those who harbor fantasies of becoming rich, and those who don't mind being poor because they believe they're in for a windfall upon death, and who have a cultural distaste for queer people/cultural minorities. Democrats are made up of irreligious educated professionals, urban poor, racial minorities, and more. Republicans have a far easier time selling literally any narrative. I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in. The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate. Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient. Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. Have you read GH posts? I think you get your answers no further than there. Also, Clinton was centre / centre right, Bernie is firmly left. I think the Clinton camp felt it would lose its moderates to Trump by getting a VP that made the “Socialist Revolution” its campaign slogan (which was dumb af, even though i agree with 99% of his positions). Then they decided to go full identity politics anyway rather than addressing inequalities and the struggles of the working class and the rest is history. + Show Spoiler +
Clinton had many policies to help the working class and unions and shift the tax burden onto the luxury class. Her platform was more to the left than Obama's. The idea that she went "full identity politics" is a lie straight from right-wing media, they specifically shifted the conversation into identity politics because any working class person with a brain could see that her platform was infinitely better than Trump's on an economic level.
We live in an overwhelmingly conservative country because the conservative-dominated media would rather people fight culture wars than class wars.
Even in this very thread the left-leaning people are more outraged over a Congressional resolution that affects nobody anywhere on the planet rather than the decimation of the working class Republicans are directly responsible for. A better world won't be possible until we stop letting the right turn ourselves into a circular firing squad. Setting aside a core problem with your approach to the "circular firing squad" issue. Democrat leadership praising Charlie Kirk while refusing to support their own local party nominee is at the core of why Democrats are failing to stop the rise of fascism.
The lack of self-awareness would be genuinely hilarious if I weren't already convinced you were trolling.
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On September 21 2025 22:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 12:12 Phyanketto wrote:On September 21 2025 11:38 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 11:00 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 08:33 Zambrah wrote:Yes.
No.
Not on this specific thing, I highly doubt it’s a straw that breaks even the camel with severe osteoporosis’ back, not in isolation.
As part of a continual pattern, yes it absolutely does have an impact. It’s uninspiring. It’s actively alienating if you are in one of the demographics Charlie Kirk shit on routinely to see those who are supposed to be in your camp gargling his balls. Democrats are dumb politicians with the smarter electorate and Republicans are smart politicians with the dumb electorate. Sucky position to be in, really relying a lot on the Democrats to be less moronic, but theyve shown such a low propensity for intelligent political calculus. The sad part is Republicans aren’t even particularly smart politicians. It’s not like they’re outmanoeuvring folks with fiendish alacrity. I mean, it’s effective, and yes there are some smart minds involved, but it’s only as effective as it is because the opposition is brainless. If my go-to thing is just rushing some off-meta muta build to exploit some tendency, that’s pretty smart stuff, sure. If I do nothing but my pocket muta build for literally like a decade and my opponents, who are all familiar with my style don’t build counters to it, or even units that shoot up, eventually it’s their idiocy that’s the problem, not how smart my build is. Yeah, I may be overestimating Republicans by virtue of how dumb Democrats seem. Really easy to look like geniuses when youre being compared to the people who keep stepping forward into rakes like Sideshow Bob in that episode of The Simpsons. I wish Democrats would acknowledge and accept that their voters arent as easy and braindead as the average Republican and actually work with that in mind instead of sitting around with their dicks in their hand bemoaning that the average Democrat voter actually has things they materially care about beyond the color blue. I think it's difficult for democrats to craft a message because they're obviously a coalition with completely more diverse factions than Republicans, who are broadly split into free-market pro-business anti-financial regulation types and the Christian right. The rich and those who harbor fantasies of becoming rich, and those who don't mind being poor because they believe they're in for a windfall upon death, and who have a cultural distaste for queer people/cultural minorities. Democrats are made up of irreligious educated professionals, urban poor, racial minorities, and more. Republicans have a far easier time selling literally any narrative. I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in. The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate. Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient. Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. Have you read GH posts? I think you get your answers no further than there. Also, Clinton was centre / centre right, Bernie is firmly left. I think the Clinton camp felt it would lose its moderates to Trump by getting a VP that made the “Socialist Revolution” its campaign slogan (which was dumb af, even though i agree with 99% of his positions). Then they decided to go full identity politics anyway rather than addressing inequalities and the struggles of the working class and the rest is history.
Like you, I also agree with most of Bernie Sanders's positions, though I don't remember him ever using the campaign slogan "Socialist Revolution". I think Clinton was center-left tbh, particularly on the American politics spectrum.
I'm confused when you say they went full identity politics instead of addressing inequalities. Politics that focus on different identities is precisely intended to call out injustice; that's the point. Pointing out inequity between races or between sexes, for example, is identity politics.
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On September 22 2025 04:05 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 03:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 21:54 Gorsameth wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 12:12 Phyanketto wrote:On September 21 2025 11:38 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 11:00 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 08:33 Zambrah wrote:Yes.
No.
Not on this specific thing, I highly doubt it’s a straw that breaks even the camel with severe osteoporosis’ back, not in isolation.
As part of a continual pattern, yes it absolutely does have an impact. It’s uninspiring. It’s actively alienating if you are in one of the demographics Charlie Kirk shit on routinely to see those who are supposed to be in your camp gargling his balls. Democrats are dumb politicians with the smarter electorate and Republicans are smart politicians with the dumb electorate. Sucky position to be in, really relying a lot on the Democrats to be less moronic, but theyve shown such a low propensity for intelligent political calculus. The sad part is Republicans aren’t even particularly smart politicians. It’s not like they’re outmanoeuvring folks with fiendish alacrity. I mean, it’s effective, and yes there are some smart minds involved, but it’s only as effective as it is because the opposition is brainless. If my go-to thing is just rushing some off-meta muta build to exploit some tendency, that’s pretty smart stuff, sure. If I do nothing but my pocket muta build for literally like a decade and my opponents, who are all familiar with my style don’t build counters to it, or even units that shoot up, eventually it’s their idiocy that’s the problem, not how smart my build is. Yeah, I may be overestimating Republicans by virtue of how dumb Democrats seem. Really easy to look like geniuses when youre being compared to the people who keep stepping forward into rakes like Sideshow Bob in that episode of The Simpsons. I wish Democrats would acknowledge and accept that their voters arent as easy and braindead as the average Republican and actually work with that in mind instead of sitting around with their dicks in their hand bemoaning that the average Democrat voter actually has things they materially care about beyond the color blue. I think it's difficult for democrats to craft a message because they're obviously a coalition with completely more diverse factions than Republicans, who are broadly split into free-market pro-business anti-financial regulation types and the Christian right. The rich and those who harbor fantasies of becoming rich, and those who don't mind being poor because they believe they're in for a windfall upon death, and who have a cultural distaste for queer people/cultural minorities. Democrats are made up of irreligious educated professionals, urban poor, racial minorities, and more. Republicans have a far easier time selling literally any narrative. I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in. The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate. Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient. Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. Literally anything could (and did) change the Trump/Clinton election because it simply was that close. Yeah that's fair. I don't even think Tim Kaine is a particularly bad person, and I wouldn't blame him for the 2016 loss. On September 21 2025 22:07 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 12:12 Phyanketto wrote:On September 21 2025 11:38 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 11:00 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 08:33 Zambrah wrote:Yes.
No.
Not on this specific thing, I highly doubt it’s a straw that breaks even the camel with severe osteoporosis’ back, not in isolation.
As part of a continual pattern, yes it absolutely does have an impact. It’s uninspiring. It’s actively alienating if you are in one of the demographics Charlie Kirk shit on routinely to see those who are supposed to be in your camp gargling his balls. Democrats are dumb politicians with the smarter electorate and Republicans are smart politicians with the dumb electorate. Sucky position to be in, really relying a lot on the Democrats to be less moronic, but theyve shown such a low propensity for intelligent political calculus. The sad part is Republicans aren’t even particularly smart politicians. It’s not like they’re outmanoeuvring folks with fiendish alacrity. I mean, it’s effective, and yes there are some smart minds involved, but it’s only as effective as it is because the opposition is brainless. If my go-to thing is just rushing some off-meta muta build to exploit some tendency, that’s pretty smart stuff, sure. If I do nothing but my pocket muta build for literally like a decade and my opponents, who are all familiar with my style don’t build counters to it, or even units that shoot up, eventually it’s their idiocy that’s the problem, not how smart my build is. Yeah, I may be overestimating Republicans by virtue of how dumb Democrats seem. Really easy to look like geniuses when youre being compared to the people who keep stepping forward into rakes like Sideshow Bob in that episode of The Simpsons. I wish Democrats would acknowledge and accept that their voters arent as easy and braindead as the average Republican and actually work with that in mind instead of sitting around with their dicks in their hand bemoaning that the average Democrat voter actually has things they materially care about beyond the color blue. I think it's difficult for democrats to craft a message because they're obviously a coalition with completely more diverse factions than Republicans, who are broadly split into free-market pro-business anti-financial regulation types and the Christian right. The rich and those who harbor fantasies of becoming rich, and those who don't mind being poor because they believe they're in for a windfall upon death, and who have a cultural distaste for queer people/cultural minorities. Democrats are made up of irreligious educated professionals, urban poor, racial minorities, and more. Republicans have a far easier time selling literally any narrative. I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in. The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate. Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient. Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. I guess there’s maybe an argument it also dilutes your messaging a bit? Like ‘hey I’m Ms competency and centrist stability, but if I die my deputy with completely different politics will have my job’ in the Clinton/Sanders I mean I still think it’s a good idea overall, just playing devil’s advocate for a second. It does confuse me they don’t do more of this kinda thing. Throw the auld bone out. I had suggested that, if not the VP ticket, why not promise to appoint Sanders (in this example) to a position they’re strong and have bona fides in. And have Sanders on the campaign trail, doing their thing there. Healthcare, could be one such area for Sanders, financial regulation for an Elizabeth Warren was another hypothetical one I think there are bonuses in such an approach, aside from broadening the church a bit, you also stick people in roles they’re known to be strong in, and ideally, where their stances are also popular. Bernie may be too left for many in totality, as a VP, next in line kinda guy. But damn, that boy speaks sense on (insert topic here) Some may not especially like Warren, or mock her as Pocahontas or whatever, but darn it if she doesn’t talk sense on banking. Obama did actually kind of do this in a notable case. He’s pretty inexperienced right? Let’s put his main primary rivalry in one of the big, important prestige diplomatic roles. That’s a good move as well. If it’s a broad church, reflect it in how you staff your administration. Although I myself rather notably skew left, I don’t think that’s the sole direction you go as the Democratic Party. Some areas, the more centrist positions will be more popular, or maybe you really need a greasy, seasoned operator to get shit done. Just pick accordingly, that’s fine! Obviously there are actual people involved, they may not want x position for whatever reason, that’s going to be a factor. Overall it seems absolutely blindingly obvious to moi to do something in that general spirit. I understand that it could dilute the nominee's message of having the best positions on issues, and maybe that's not the ideal message to begin with? Perhaps a better and more appealing message could be that you're willing to work with those who are in slight disagreement but still have the same overarching goals; this alternative message could be made more credible if a liberal/moderate nominee selected a progressive/left-wing runningmate (and vice-versa). As far as assigning Cabinet positions is concerned, I definitely agree with you that those with expertise in the field should be chosen. I think Democrats do a decent job of picking experienced members in that way (certainly better than the laughingstocks from both of Trump's presidencies). Regardless, the potential Cabinet appointees probably aren't super important for winning votes before the election is even decided. My rationale here is twofold. The VP pick is to round out a ticket, and the VP pick tends to be rather subservient and unobtrusive generally, they’re meant to dovetail with the main ticket, smooth out a few edges. Even though, yes if the President dies, they are the President. But they’re not really actually treated like that is the case. Aside from perhaps mixed messaging if you put a real prominent, popular politician as VP who’s quite different from you politically, so let’s go with Clinton/Sanders as the hypothetical, the alternative is kinda neutering the potency of Sanders, if he’s obviously the junior partner and doesn’t get to do his thing. So he’s less of an asset in a kinda generalised, junior partner role. I don’t think you have to go ‘here is my cabinet’ ahead of time, you can coordinate campaigning so that your envisaged cabinet, centre their assistance on their strong areas. Let’s take Sanders for example. Let’s completely arbitrarily say across 6 policy areas, the left of the country agree with him on 6, the centre left it’s maybe 4, the centre 2. The centre right, 1. If you have Sanders out campaigning, and on message in the 1 category that basically everyone agrees on, that’s a big asset. Especially if you rinse and repeat that process with other individuals. We saw illustrated in a non-ideal way with Luigi, or indeed consistent polling for years that healthcare reform is extremely popular among Americans. In a way perhaps the totality of Sander’s prescriptions are not across the board
I think those are fair points. If you have powerful and popular allies who want to support your candidacy, then you should definitely use them in whatever capacity would make them most effective on the campaign trail!
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On September 22 2025 04:14 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 12:12 Phyanketto wrote:On September 21 2025 11:38 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 11:00 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 08:33 Zambrah wrote:Yes.
No.
Not on this specific thing, I highly doubt it’s a straw that breaks even the camel with severe osteoporosis’ back, not in isolation.
As part of a continual pattern, yes it absolutely does have an impact. It’s uninspiring. It’s actively alienating if you are in one of the demographics Charlie Kirk shit on routinely to see those who are supposed to be in your camp gargling his balls. Democrats are dumb politicians with the smarter electorate and Republicans are smart politicians with the dumb electorate. Sucky position to be in, really relying a lot on the Democrats to be less moronic, but theyve shown such a low propensity for intelligent political calculus. The sad part is Republicans aren’t even particularly smart politicians. It’s not like they’re outmanoeuvring folks with fiendish alacrity. I mean, it’s effective, and yes there are some smart minds involved, but it’s only as effective as it is because the opposition is brainless. If my go-to thing is just rushing some off-meta muta build to exploit some tendency, that’s pretty smart stuff, sure. If I do nothing but my pocket muta build for literally like a decade and my opponents, who are all familiar with my style don’t build counters to it, or even units that shoot up, eventually it’s their idiocy that’s the problem, not how smart my build is. Yeah, I may be overestimating Republicans by virtue of how dumb Democrats seem. Really easy to look like geniuses when youre being compared to the people who keep stepping forward into rakes like Sideshow Bob in that episode of The Simpsons. I wish Democrats would acknowledge and accept that their voters arent as easy and braindead as the average Republican and actually work with that in mind instead of sitting around with their dicks in their hand bemoaning that the average Democrat voter actually has things they materially care about beyond the color blue. I think it's difficult for democrats to craft a message because they're obviously a coalition with completely more diverse factions than Republicans, who are broadly split into free-market pro-business anti-financial regulation types and the Christian right. The rich and those who harbor fantasies of becoming rich, and those who don't mind being poor because they believe they're in for a windfall upon death, and who have a cultural distaste for queer people/cultural minorities. Democrats are made up of irreligious educated professionals, urban poor, racial minorities, and more. Republicans have a far easier time selling literally any narrative. I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in. The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate. Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient. Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. I think Hillary/Bernie beat Trump, I think the progressive/left is infinitely less alienated and still actively pretty energized seeing Bernie on the ticket. All of the cynicism and negativity that the progressive/left has about the Democrats would have been pretty stymied with being thrown a Bernie-VP bone. It at least says they were listening and dont actively hate us.I think with Trump losing, Republicans arent going to run him again and I think we probably see a slower rise of fascists, more a swing to "respectable" Republicans who are still continuously more and more far right, but arent as deranged and wholly incompetent like Trump.
I agree with you on all of these points, and our country would have been in a much better position (to say nothing of having a left-leaning Supreme Court and other additional benefits).
Not sure that that a Hillary/Bernie ticket wins the next election due to Covid, they'd need to have a really positively impactful presidency and really handle Covid exceptionally well. I think its possible they win, but I wouldn't be placing any bets on them.
That's fair. With hindsight, we know that they would have handled covid better than Trump did, but voters wouldn't have had that knowledge come the 2020 election, so for all we know the voters still could have been so upset with how the hypothetical P/VP Clinton/Sanders handled things that the 2020 election could have swung for a Republican replacement (instead of Biden a second term for Clinton).
I think that the VP decision is fine as something you use to throw bones to certain demographics or what have you, I think leftists/progressives are going to be more receptive to anyone from anywhere if that person has the right policies and seems honest about holding the beliefs that brought them to those policies.
Tim Walz is a good example, everyone basically liked him, he got the Republicans with the "they're weird," shtick, his state has good policies that he supports. Hes an old white man midwesterner, but progressives/leftists still mostly seemed to be enthusiastic about him.
Yeah I liked Tim Walz. I also liked Kamala Harris.
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On September 22 2025 05:57 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 04:14 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 12:12 Phyanketto wrote:On September 21 2025 11:38 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 11:00 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 08:33 Zambrah wrote:Yes.
No.
Not on this specific thing, I highly doubt it’s a straw that breaks even the camel with severe osteoporosis’ back, not in isolation.
As part of a continual pattern, yes it absolutely does have an impact. It’s uninspiring. It’s actively alienating if you are in one of the demographics Charlie Kirk shit on routinely to see those who are supposed to be in your camp gargling his balls. Democrats are dumb politicians with the smarter electorate and Republicans are smart politicians with the dumb electorate. Sucky position to be in, really relying a lot on the Democrats to be less moronic, but theyve shown such a low propensity for intelligent political calculus. The sad part is Republicans aren’t even particularly smart politicians. It’s not like they’re outmanoeuvring folks with fiendish alacrity. I mean, it’s effective, and yes there are some smart minds involved, but it’s only as effective as it is because the opposition is brainless. If my go-to thing is just rushing some off-meta muta build to exploit some tendency, that’s pretty smart stuff, sure. If I do nothing but my pocket muta build for literally like a decade and my opponents, who are all familiar with my style don’t build counters to it, or even units that shoot up, eventually it’s their idiocy that’s the problem, not how smart my build is. Yeah, I may be overestimating Republicans by virtue of how dumb Democrats seem. Really easy to look like geniuses when youre being compared to the people who keep stepping forward into rakes like Sideshow Bob in that episode of The Simpsons. I wish Democrats would acknowledge and accept that their voters arent as easy and braindead as the average Republican and actually work with that in mind instead of sitting around with their dicks in their hand bemoaning that the average Democrat voter actually has things they materially care about beyond the color blue. I think it's difficult for democrats to craft a message because they're obviously a coalition with completely more diverse factions than Republicans, who are broadly split into free-market pro-business anti-financial regulation types and the Christian right. The rich and those who harbor fantasies of becoming rich, and those who don't mind being poor because they believe they're in for a windfall upon death, and who have a cultural distaste for queer people/cultural minorities. Democrats are made up of irreligious educated professionals, urban poor, racial minorities, and more. Republicans have a far easier time selling literally any narrative. I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in. The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate. Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient. Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. I think Hillary/Bernie beat Trump, I think the progressive/left is infinitely less alienated and still actively pretty energized seeing Bernie on the ticket. All of the cynicism and negativity that the progressive/left has about the Democrats would have been pretty stymied with being thrown a Bernie-VP bone. It at least says they were listening and dont actively hate us.I think with Trump losing, Republicans arent going to run him again and I think we probably see a slower rise of fascists, more a swing to "respectable" Republicans who are still continuously more and more far right, but arent as deranged and wholly incompetent like Trump. I agree with you on all of these points, and our country would have been in a much better position (to say nothing of having a left-leaning Supreme Court and other additional benefits). Show nested quote +Not sure that that a Hillary/Bernie ticket wins the next election due to Covid, they'd need to have a really positively impactful presidency and really handle Covid exceptionally well. I think its possible they win, but I wouldn't be placing any bets on them. That's fair. With hindsight, we know that they would have handled covid better than Trump did, but voters wouldn't have had that knowledge come the 2020 election, so for all we know the voters still could have been so upset with how the hypothetical P/VP Clinton/Sanders handled things that the 2020 election could have swung for a Republican replacement (instead of Biden a second term for Clinton). Show nested quote +I think that the VP decision is fine as something you use to throw bones to certain demographics or what have you, I think leftists/progressives are going to be more receptive to anyone from anywhere if that person has the right policies and seems honest about holding the beliefs that brought them to those policies.
Tim Walz is a good example, everyone basically liked him, he got the Republicans with the "they're weird," shtick, his state has good policies that he supports. Hes an old white man midwesterner, but progressives/leftists still mostly seemed to be enthusiastic about him. Yeah I liked Tim Walz. I also liked Kamala Harris.
Yeah Im not strictly sure anything but a truly stellar and minimally impactful covid response would prevent the presidential swing, its just kind of a crappy thing to have to deal with and obviously the right wind media ecosystem is just going to make up all sorts of random bullshit the whole time, so its not like theyd get unanimous credit for how they handle it even if its handled very well.
Tim Walz was a great choice, its almost funny how they make one great choice, watch it work well, and then immediately hit the brakes and throw it in reverse. Its like theyre the meme where the guy puts a stick in the spokes of his own bike.
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New Jersey's gubernatorial election is coming up on November 4th, and with the primaries having completed, my next governor is going to be either Mikie Sherrill (D) or Jack Ciattarelli (R). The first of two debates between Sherrill and Ciattarelli is tonight at 7 PM Eastern time: https://www.njspotlightnews.org/2025/09/nj-governors-race-where-to-watch-first-sherrill-ciattarelli-debate/
I'm pretty much fine with Sherrill's policies - she wasn't my first choice during the Democratic primary, but she was in my top three - and I'm extremely worried about Ciattarelli's vision for my state and his chances to win the election. Ciattarelli has much more name recognition, having fought a very close race against current governor Phil Murphy (D) in the 2021 election (Ciattarelli only lost 48% to 51%). Sherrill also didn't have stand-out performances during the recent primary debates; she was okay, but I don't think she'll be as polished tonight as Ciattarelli will be. With the 2024 presidential election revealing a lack of energy from potential Democratic voters (all across the country, including in New Jersey), Sherrill needs to find a way to mobilize her constituents.
Furthermore, I imagine Ciattarelli will attack Sherrill for anything he thinks Murphy has done poorly as the current governor of New Jersey - a vote for Sherrill is surely a vote for four more years of [insert failed Democratic policy here] - and Sherrill will need to figure out how best to navigate that. Will she be baited into defending Murphy on everything? Will she be able to explain how her positions are different from her predecessor's? Will she call out Ciattarelli for not knowing that he's running against Sherrill, not Murphy? Will Sherrill be able to clearly articulate her vision for New Jersey, and contrast it with Ciattarelli's worst ideas? I guess I'll find out in about 80 minutes.
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On September 21 2025 09:08 WombaT wrote:That’s a good move. Smart politics if I dare say. It’s not going to be popular amongst the ‘no humans are illegal’ or ‘I hate foreigners’ crowd, but realistically nothing Gavin Newsom is likely to do is going to appeal to either of those. He’s not giving illegal immigrants a free pass, which like it or not is obviously a big issue for many. I’d assume the average, middle of the road person is pro deporting illegal migrants, but not some of the processes we’ve seen lately. Anyone arguing against what Newsom’s bringing in has to make the argument that ICE need to be able to pick up people without warrants, and obscure their identity Outside of MAGA land, I don’t think that’s a winning argument, unless the US is even more fucked than I think it is. I mean I can see an argument for ICE agents obscuring themselves if they’re part of a raid on like a genuinely big, dangerous drug racket or something, but not for random immigration sweeps.
Oh ffs. In other and even more breaking news I signed the bill making California Polish colony...
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I think it's interesting that Trump went for a militarized response to immigration rather than going after the people who employ and house illegal immigrants. America sucks corporate cock and has since Reagan.
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Northern Ireland25763 Posts
On September 22 2025 05:48 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 04:05 WombaT wrote:On September 22 2025 03:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 21:54 Gorsameth wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 12:12 Phyanketto wrote:On September 21 2025 11:38 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 11:00 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 08:33 Zambrah wrote:
[quote]
Democrats are dumb politicians with the smarter electorate and Republicans are smart politicians with the dumb electorate.
Sucky position to be in, really relying a lot on the Democrats to be less moronic, but theyve shown such a low propensity for intelligent political calculus. The sad part is Republicans aren’t even particularly smart politicians. It’s not like they’re outmanoeuvring folks with fiendish alacrity. I mean, it’s effective, and yes there are some smart minds involved, but it’s only as effective as it is because the opposition is brainless. If my go-to thing is just rushing some off-meta muta build to exploit some tendency, that’s pretty smart stuff, sure. If I do nothing but my pocket muta build for literally like a decade and my opponents, who are all familiar with my style don’t build counters to it, or even units that shoot up, eventually it’s their idiocy that’s the problem, not how smart my build is. Yeah, I may be overestimating Republicans by virtue of how dumb Democrats seem. Really easy to look like geniuses when youre being compared to the people who keep stepping forward into rakes like Sideshow Bob in that episode of The Simpsons. I wish Democrats would acknowledge and accept that their voters arent as easy and braindead as the average Republican and actually work with that in mind instead of sitting around with their dicks in their hand bemoaning that the average Democrat voter actually has things they materially care about beyond the color blue. I think it's difficult for democrats to craft a message because they're obviously a coalition with completely more diverse factions than Republicans, who are broadly split into free-market pro-business anti-financial regulation types and the Christian right. The rich and those who harbor fantasies of becoming rich, and those who don't mind being poor because they believe they're in for a windfall upon death, and who have a cultural distaste for queer people/cultural minorities. Democrats are made up of irreligious educated professionals, urban poor, racial minorities, and more. Republicans have a far easier time selling literally any narrative. I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in. The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate. Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient. Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. Literally anything could (and did) change the Trump/Clinton election because it simply was that close. Yeah that's fair. I don't even think Tim Kaine is a particularly bad person, and I wouldn't blame him for the 2016 loss. On September 21 2025 22:07 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 12:12 Phyanketto wrote:On September 21 2025 11:38 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 11:00 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 08:33 Zambrah wrote:
[quote]
Democrats are dumb politicians with the smarter electorate and Republicans are smart politicians with the dumb electorate.
Sucky position to be in, really relying a lot on the Democrats to be less moronic, but theyve shown such a low propensity for intelligent political calculus. The sad part is Republicans aren’t even particularly smart politicians. It’s not like they’re outmanoeuvring folks with fiendish alacrity. I mean, it’s effective, and yes there are some smart minds involved, but it’s only as effective as it is because the opposition is brainless. If my go-to thing is just rushing some off-meta muta build to exploit some tendency, that’s pretty smart stuff, sure. If I do nothing but my pocket muta build for literally like a decade and my opponents, who are all familiar with my style don’t build counters to it, or even units that shoot up, eventually it’s their idiocy that’s the problem, not how smart my build is. Yeah, I may be overestimating Republicans by virtue of how dumb Democrats seem. Really easy to look like geniuses when youre being compared to the people who keep stepping forward into rakes like Sideshow Bob in that episode of The Simpsons. I wish Democrats would acknowledge and accept that their voters arent as easy and braindead as the average Republican and actually work with that in mind instead of sitting around with their dicks in their hand bemoaning that the average Democrat voter actually has things they materially care about beyond the color blue. I think it's difficult for democrats to craft a message because they're obviously a coalition with completely more diverse factions than Republicans, who are broadly split into free-market pro-business anti-financial regulation types and the Christian right. The rich and those who harbor fantasies of becoming rich, and those who don't mind being poor because they believe they're in for a windfall upon death, and who have a cultural distaste for queer people/cultural minorities. Democrats are made up of irreligious educated professionals, urban poor, racial minorities, and more. Republicans have a far easier time selling literally any narrative. I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in. The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate. Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient. Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. I guess there’s maybe an argument it also dilutes your messaging a bit? Like ‘hey I’m Ms competency and centrist stability, but if I die my deputy with completely different politics will have my job’ in the Clinton/Sanders I mean I still think it’s a good idea overall, just playing devil’s advocate for a second. It does confuse me they don’t do more of this kinda thing. Throw the auld bone out. I had suggested that, if not the VP ticket, why not promise to appoint Sanders (in this example) to a position they’re strong and have bona fides in. And have Sanders on the campaign trail, doing their thing there. Healthcare, could be one such area for Sanders, financial regulation for an Elizabeth Warren was another hypothetical one I think there are bonuses in such an approach, aside from broadening the church a bit, you also stick people in roles they’re known to be strong in, and ideally, where their stances are also popular. Bernie may be too left for many in totality, as a VP, next in line kinda guy. But damn, that boy speaks sense on (insert topic here) Some may not especially like Warren, or mock her as Pocahontas or whatever, but darn it if she doesn’t talk sense on banking. Obama did actually kind of do this in a notable case. He’s pretty inexperienced right? Let’s put his main primary rivalry in one of the big, important prestige diplomatic roles. That’s a good move as well. If it’s a broad church, reflect it in how you staff your administration. Although I myself rather notably skew left, I don’t think that’s the sole direction you go as the Democratic Party. Some areas, the more centrist positions will be more popular, or maybe you really need a greasy, seasoned operator to get shit done. Just pick accordingly, that’s fine! Obviously there are actual people involved, they may not want x position for whatever reason, that’s going to be a factor. Overall it seems absolutely blindingly obvious to moi to do something in that general spirit. I understand that it could dilute the nominee's message of having the best positions on issues, and maybe that's not the ideal message to begin with? Perhaps a better and more appealing message could be that you're willing to work with those who are in slight disagreement but still have the same overarching goals; this alternative message could be made more credible if a liberal/moderate nominee selected a progressive/left-wing runningmate (and vice-versa). As far as assigning Cabinet positions is concerned, I definitely agree with you that those with expertise in the field should be chosen. I think Democrats do a decent job of picking experienced members in that way (certainly better than the laughingstocks from both of Trump's presidencies). Regardless, the potential Cabinet appointees probably aren't super important for winning votes before the election is even decided. My rationale here is twofold. The VP pick is to round out a ticket, and the VP pick tends to be rather subservient and unobtrusive generally, they’re meant to dovetail with the main ticket, smooth out a few edges. Even though, yes if the President dies, they are the President. But they’re not really actually treated like that is the case. Aside from perhaps mixed messaging if you put a real prominent, popular politician as VP who’s quite different from you politically, so let’s go with Clinton/Sanders as the hypothetical, the alternative is kinda neutering the potency of Sanders, if he’s obviously the junior partner and doesn’t get to do his thing. So he’s less of an asset in a kinda generalised, junior partner role. I don’t think you have to go ‘here is my cabinet’ ahead of time, you can coordinate campaigning so that your envisaged cabinet, centre their assistance on their strong areas. Let’s take Sanders for example. Let’s completely arbitrarily say across 6 policy areas, the left of the country agree with him on 6, the centre left it’s maybe 4, the centre 2. The centre right, 1. If you have Sanders out campaigning, and on message in the 1 category that basically everyone agrees on, that’s a big asset. Especially if you rinse and repeat that process with other individuals. We saw illustrated in a non-ideal way with Luigi, or indeed consistent polling for years that healthcare reform is extremely popular among Americans. In a way perhaps the totality of Sander’s prescriptions are not across the board I think those are fair points. If you have powerful and popular allies who want to support your candidacy, then you should definitely use them in whatever capacity would make them most effective on the campaign trail!
Appalling analogy inc, unlike me.
Kid Wombat once competed in a Pokémon Red/Blue tournament/event. I grinded my Pokémon the fuck, I beat the Elite Four literally hundreds of times. To get like 8 legit level 100 Pokémon. I’m stubborn like that.
The first dude I played was like genuinely smirking at me (11), he was probably like late teens early 20. My (beloved) Articuno flapped around, breathed some ice and destroyed his entire roster solo. Not only was it a hard counter to like, 4 of his roster, because I’d skipped using steroids (the rare candy cheat to boost your level), doing it the legit way gave you better stat bonuses for every legit level up, so Artosisuno just outclassed the head to heads that were even on type.
Rest the time I had to dig deep, rely on a pretty balanced roster, but scraped a bunch of tight wins.
Barack Obama is my Articuno in the debut match. He just outclassed the opposition. Whether one likes his values, or approves of his tenure, as a politician (or at least candidate), as a likeable guy who could strike the right note, a very gifted politician,
If you lack such an individual, you gotta dig deep and smartly employ your roster, place them in matchups they’re good at. Bernie Sanders on healthcare … ‘it’s super effective!’
Even sidestepping the whole Biden farago, the last campaign was just kinda, not that. It was a bit odd to me.
Policy was clearly better than the alternative (I mean, not just to me, but to a hypothetical moderate).
Then they push Walz into VP, and I’m like not alone in going ‘who the fuck is that?’, but he does well almost out the blocks. He’s your decent, ‘average Joe’ type, hard to plausibly claim he’s some radical Marxist or whatever. Additionally, whether by genius political instinct, or complete fluke, he stumbles across a line of attack that works. Just call various GOP luminaries weird, which they are. For, whatever reason various folks would struggle to recognise racism or whatever outside literal Hitler returning, but there’s much less resistance to ‘hm that guy’s a bit weird’.
But then after that strong start, it felt Walz kinda got somewhat sidelined and wasn’t doing a huge amount in the latter stages.
You know what’s the strangest part of it? I’ve quite a high opinion of myself, as may sometimes come across, but I shouldn’t be right here. Or at least, have some plausible arguments. If one feels I’m full of shit, that is also allowed :p
This shouldn’t be the case. Even if I’m not an idiot and perhaps have some decent intuition on such things (again, dissenting opinions are allowed), I should be left in the dust by the Democratic machine. One of, if not the most well-funded, resourced political parties on the planet. That can grab shitloads of data, count on people who can crunch that, and a lot of talented, ambitious people working on these things.
In terms of the binary goal of winning an election, let’s exclude what we’d like to see politically, nobody here should have any ideas that even on face value sound you know, better than how the actual campaign was run.
It’s quite bizarre really
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Northern Ireland25763 Posts
On September 22 2025 06:57 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2025 09:08 WombaT wrote:That’s a good move. Smart politics if I dare say. It’s not going to be popular amongst the ‘no humans are illegal’ or ‘I hate foreigners’ crowd, but realistically nothing Gavin Newsom is likely to do is going to appeal to either of those. He’s not giving illegal immigrants a free pass, which like it or not is obviously a big issue for many. I’d assume the average, middle of the road person is pro deporting illegal migrants, but not some of the processes we’ve seen lately. Anyone arguing against what Newsom’s bringing in has to make the argument that ICE need to be able to pick up people without warrants, and obscure their identity Outside of MAGA land, I don’t think that’s a winning argument, unless the US is even more fucked than I think it is. I mean I can see an argument for ICE agents obscuring themselves if they’re part of a raid on like a genuinely big, dangerous drug racket or something, but not for random immigration sweeps. Oh ffs. In other and even more breaking news I signed the bill making California Polish colony...
What’s wrong with that?
Newsom hasn’t declared anything like sanctuary cities or anything like that. Hasn’t said illegal migrants have any kind of immunity from deportation, simply:
1. ICE can’t just hang around in various locales and scoop up non-white folks and sort their status after the fact. They need to do the paperwork and get warrants.
2. ICE can’t obscure their identity
Throw a bone to some who are concerned with how ICE is operating, for others who are concerned with illegal immigration, he’s also not ruling out enforcement.
People who oppose this move have to make the argument that ICE don’t need warrants or probable cause to operate, and also should be allowed to obscure their identity.
Which isn’t a winning argument for all but the further reaches of the right. Who aren’t going to vote for Newsom anyway, even if Jesus decided to pop back and endorse him.
I think it’s pretty smart politics from him. I think he’s also engaged in some dumb politics in recent times but not on this one IMO.
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On September 22 2025 07:04 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 05:48 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 22 2025 04:05 WombaT wrote:On September 22 2025 03:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 21:54 Gorsameth wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 12:12 Phyanketto wrote:On September 21 2025 11:38 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 11:00 WombaT wrote:
[quote]
The sad part is Republicans aren’t even particularly smart politicians. It’s not like they’re outmanoeuvring folks with fiendish alacrity.
I mean, it’s effective, and yes there are some smart minds involved, but it’s only as effective as it is because the opposition is brainless.
If my go-to thing is just rushing some off-meta muta build to exploit some tendency, that’s pretty smart stuff, sure.
If I do nothing but my pocket muta build for literally like a decade and my opponents, who are all familiar with my style don’t build counters to it, or even units that shoot up, eventually it’s their idiocy that’s the problem, not how smart my build is. Yeah, I may be overestimating Republicans by virtue of how dumb Democrats seem. Really easy to look like geniuses when youre being compared to the people who keep stepping forward into rakes like Sideshow Bob in that episode of The Simpsons. I wish Democrats would acknowledge and accept that their voters arent as easy and braindead as the average Republican and actually work with that in mind instead of sitting around with their dicks in their hand bemoaning that the average Democrat voter actually has things they materially care about beyond the color blue. I think it's difficult for democrats to craft a message because they're obviously a coalition with completely more diverse factions than Republicans, who are broadly split into free-market pro-business anti-financial regulation types and the Christian right. The rich and those who harbor fantasies of becoming rich, and those who don't mind being poor because they believe they're in for a windfall upon death, and who have a cultural distaste for queer people/cultural minorities. Democrats are made up of irreligious educated professionals, urban poor, racial minorities, and more. Republicans have a far easier time selling literally any narrative. I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in. The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate. Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient. Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. Literally anything could (and did) change the Trump/Clinton election because it simply was that close. Yeah that's fair. I don't even think Tim Kaine is a particularly bad person, and I wouldn't blame him for the 2016 loss. On September 21 2025 22:07 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 12:12 Phyanketto wrote:On September 21 2025 11:38 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 11:00 WombaT wrote:
[quote]
The sad part is Republicans aren’t even particularly smart politicians. It’s not like they’re outmanoeuvring folks with fiendish alacrity.
I mean, it’s effective, and yes there are some smart minds involved, but it’s only as effective as it is because the opposition is brainless.
If my go-to thing is just rushing some off-meta muta build to exploit some tendency, that’s pretty smart stuff, sure.
If I do nothing but my pocket muta build for literally like a decade and my opponents, who are all familiar with my style don’t build counters to it, or even units that shoot up, eventually it’s their idiocy that’s the problem, not how smart my build is. Yeah, I may be overestimating Republicans by virtue of how dumb Democrats seem. Really easy to look like geniuses when youre being compared to the people who keep stepping forward into rakes like Sideshow Bob in that episode of The Simpsons. I wish Democrats would acknowledge and accept that their voters arent as easy and braindead as the average Republican and actually work with that in mind instead of sitting around with their dicks in their hand bemoaning that the average Democrat voter actually has things they materially care about beyond the color blue. I think it's difficult for democrats to craft a message because they're obviously a coalition with completely more diverse factions than Republicans, who are broadly split into free-market pro-business anti-financial regulation types and the Christian right. The rich and those who harbor fantasies of becoming rich, and those who don't mind being poor because they believe they're in for a windfall upon death, and who have a cultural distaste for queer people/cultural minorities. Democrats are made up of irreligious educated professionals, urban poor, racial minorities, and more. Republicans have a far easier time selling literally any narrative. I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in. The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate. Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient. Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. I guess there’s maybe an argument it also dilutes your messaging a bit? Like ‘hey I’m Ms competency and centrist stability, but if I die my deputy with completely different politics will have my job’ in the Clinton/Sanders I mean I still think it’s a good idea overall, just playing devil’s advocate for a second. It does confuse me they don’t do more of this kinda thing. Throw the auld bone out. I had suggested that, if not the VP ticket, why not promise to appoint Sanders (in this example) to a position they’re strong and have bona fides in. And have Sanders on the campaign trail, doing their thing there. Healthcare, could be one such area for Sanders, financial regulation for an Elizabeth Warren was another hypothetical one I think there are bonuses in such an approach, aside from broadening the church a bit, you also stick people in roles they’re known to be strong in, and ideally, where their stances are also popular. Bernie may be too left for many in totality, as a VP, next in line kinda guy. But damn, that boy speaks sense on (insert topic here) Some may not especially like Warren, or mock her as Pocahontas or whatever, but darn it if she doesn’t talk sense on banking. Obama did actually kind of do this in a notable case. He’s pretty inexperienced right? Let’s put his main primary rivalry in one of the big, important prestige diplomatic roles. That’s a good move as well. If it’s a broad church, reflect it in how you staff your administration. Although I myself rather notably skew left, I don’t think that’s the sole direction you go as the Democratic Party. Some areas, the more centrist positions will be more popular, or maybe you really need a greasy, seasoned operator to get shit done. Just pick accordingly, that’s fine! Obviously there are actual people involved, they may not want x position for whatever reason, that’s going to be a factor. Overall it seems absolutely blindingly obvious to moi to do something in that general spirit. I understand that it could dilute the nominee's message of having the best positions on issues, and maybe that's not the ideal message to begin with? Perhaps a better and more appealing message could be that you're willing to work with those who are in slight disagreement but still have the same overarching goals; this alternative message could be made more credible if a liberal/moderate nominee selected a progressive/left-wing runningmate (and vice-versa). As far as assigning Cabinet positions is concerned, I definitely agree with you that those with expertise in the field should be chosen. I think Democrats do a decent job of picking experienced members in that way (certainly better than the laughingstocks from both of Trump's presidencies). Regardless, the potential Cabinet appointees probably aren't super important for winning votes before the election is even decided. My rationale here is twofold. The VP pick is to round out a ticket, and the VP pick tends to be rather subservient and unobtrusive generally, they’re meant to dovetail with the main ticket, smooth out a few edges. Even though, yes if the President dies, they are the President. But they’re not really actually treated like that is the case. Aside from perhaps mixed messaging if you put a real prominent, popular politician as VP who’s quite different from you politically, so let’s go with Clinton/Sanders as the hypothetical, the alternative is kinda neutering the potency of Sanders, if he’s obviously the junior partner and doesn’t get to do his thing. So he’s less of an asset in a kinda generalised, junior partner role. I don’t think you have to go ‘here is my cabinet’ ahead of time, you can coordinate campaigning so that your envisaged cabinet, centre their assistance on their strong areas. Let’s take Sanders for example. Let’s completely arbitrarily say across 6 policy areas, the left of the country agree with him on 6, the centre left it’s maybe 4, the centre 2. The centre right, 1. If you have Sanders out campaigning, and on message in the 1 category that basically everyone agrees on, that’s a big asset. Especially if you rinse and repeat that process with other individuals. We saw illustrated in a non-ideal way with Luigi, or indeed consistent polling for years that healthcare reform is extremely popular among Americans. In a way perhaps the totality of Sander’s prescriptions are not across the board I think those are fair points. If you have powerful and popular allies who want to support your candidacy, then you should definitely use them in whatever capacity would make them most effective on the campaign trail! Appalling analogy inc, unlike me. Kid Wombat once competed in a Pokémon Red/Blue tournament/event. I grinded my Pokémon the fuck, I beat the Elite Four literally hundreds of times. To get like 8 legit level 100 Pokémon. I’m stubborn like that. The first dude I played was like genuinely smirking at me (11), he was probably like late teens early 20. My (beloved) Articuno flapped around, breathed some ice and destroyed his entire roster solo. Not only was it a hard counter to like, 4 of his roster, because I’d skipped using steroids (the rare candy cheat to boost your level), doing it the legit way gave you better stat bonuses for every legit level up, so Artosisuno just outclassed the head to heads that were even on type. Rest the time I had to dig deep, rely on a pretty balanced roster, but scraped a bunch of tight wins. Barack Obama is my Articuno in the debut match. He just outclassed the opposition. Whether one likes his values, or approves of his tenure, as a politician (or at least candidate), as a likeable guy who could strike the right note, a very gifted politician, If you lack such an individual, you gotta dig deep and smartly employ your roster, place them in matchups they’re good at. Bernie Sanders on healthcare … ‘it’s super effective!’ Even sidestepping the whole Biden farago, the last campaign was just kinda, not that. It was a bit odd to me. Policy was clearly better than the alternative (I mean, not just to me, but to a hypothetical moderate). Then they push Walz into VP, and I’m like not alone in going ‘who the fuck is that?’, but he does well almost out the blocks. He’s your decent, ‘average Joe’ type, hard to plausibly claim he’s some radical Marxist or whatever. Additionally, whether by genius political instinct, or complete fluke, he stumbles across a line of attack that works. Just call various GOP luminaries weird, which they are. For, whatever reason various folks would struggle to recognise racism or whatever outside literal Hitler returning, but there’s much less resistance to ‘hm that guy’s a bit weird’. But then after that strong start, it felt Walz kinda got somewhat sidelined and wasn’t doing a huge amount in the latter stages. You know what’s the strangest part of it? I’ve quite a high opinion of myself, as may sometimes come across, but I shouldn’t be right here. Or at least, have some plausible arguments. If one feels I’m full of shit, that is also allowed :p This shouldn’t be the case. Even if I’m not an idiot and perhaps have some decent intuition on such things (again, dissenting opinions are allowed), I should be left in the dust by the Democratic machine. One of, if not the most well-funded, resourced political parties on the planet. That can grab shitloads of data, count on people who can crunch that, and a lot of talented, ambitious people working on these things. In terms of the binary goal of winning an election, let’s exclude what we’d like to see politically, nobody here should have any ideas that even on face value sound you know, better than how the actual campaign was run. It’s quite bizarre really
Yeah, Walz was criminally underused leading up to the final stretch of the election. I think Harris's campaign was more focused on reaching across the aisle and the optics of being supported by people like Liz Cheney. At the time, I wasn't necessarily against Harris trying to also appeal to moderates, but it turned out that time spent appealing to the center/right ended up being wasted, whereas it would have been better spent hyper-focused on using Walz and Sanders and AOC and everyone else who was left of - or at least in true solidarity with - Harris's positions.
Also, I very much am a fan of your Pokemon Gen 1 analogy 
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On September 22 2025 07:15 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 06:57 Razyda wrote:On September 21 2025 09:08 WombaT wrote:That’s a good move. Smart politics if I dare say. It’s not going to be popular amongst the ‘no humans are illegal’ or ‘I hate foreigners’ crowd, but realistically nothing Gavin Newsom is likely to do is going to appeal to either of those. He’s not giving illegal immigrants a free pass, which like it or not is obviously a big issue for many. I’d assume the average, middle of the road person is pro deporting illegal migrants, but not some of the processes we’ve seen lately. Anyone arguing against what Newsom’s bringing in has to make the argument that ICE need to be able to pick up people without warrants, and obscure their identity Outside of MAGA land, I don’t think that’s a winning argument, unless the US is even more fucked than I think it is. I mean I can see an argument for ICE agents obscuring themselves if they’re part of a raid on like a genuinely big, dangerous drug racket or something, but not for random immigration sweeps. Oh ffs. In other and even more breaking news I signed the bill making California Polish colony... What’s wrong with that? Newsom hasn’t declared anything like sanctuary cities or anything like that. Hasn’t said illegal migrants have any kind of immunity from deportation, simply: 1. ICE can’t just hang around in various locales and scoop up non-white folks and sort their status after the fact. They need to do the paperwork and get warrants. 2. ICE can’t obscure their identity Throw a bone to some who are concerned with how ICE is operating, for others who are concerned with illegal immigration, he’s also not ruling out enforcement. People who oppose this move have to make the argument that ICE don’t need warrants or probable cause to operate, and also should be allowed to obscure their identity. Which isn’t a winning argument for all but the further reaches of the right. Who aren’t going to vote for Newsom anyway, even if Jesus decided to pop back and endorse him. I think it’s pretty smart politics from him. I think he’s also engaged in some dumb politics in recent times but not on this one IMO.
From what I gather ICE is a "FEDERAL" law enforcement agency, hence Newsom may as well cede Russia to China and it will be of the same significance.
As for obscure identity - really?? Come on Wombat you are not stupid. Kirk had security team and I guess he was not a poor guy, how much did it help him? The only reason people want ICE agent to not wear masks is so they can dox them and threat them and their families. Why else would you want to see their faces?
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It's not doxing to know a LEO's name, that's literally why the badge exists. So you can report when they're caught abusing their authority?
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Northern Ireland25763 Posts
On September 22 2025 07:29 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 07:15 WombaT wrote:On September 22 2025 06:57 Razyda wrote:On September 21 2025 09:08 WombaT wrote:That’s a good move. Smart politics if I dare say. It’s not going to be popular amongst the ‘no humans are illegal’ or ‘I hate foreigners’ crowd, but realistically nothing Gavin Newsom is likely to do is going to appeal to either of those. He’s not giving illegal immigrants a free pass, which like it or not is obviously a big issue for many. I’d assume the average, middle of the road person is pro deporting illegal migrants, but not some of the processes we’ve seen lately. Anyone arguing against what Newsom’s bringing in has to make the argument that ICE need to be able to pick up people without warrants, and obscure their identity Outside of MAGA land, I don’t think that’s a winning argument, unless the US is even more fucked than I think it is. I mean I can see an argument for ICE agents obscuring themselves if they’re part of a raid on like a genuinely big, dangerous drug racket or something, but not for random immigration sweeps. Oh ffs. In other and even more breaking news I signed the bill making California Polish colony... What’s wrong with that? Newsom hasn’t declared anything like sanctuary cities or anything like that. Hasn’t said illegal migrants have any kind of immunity from deportation, simply: 1. ICE can’t just hang around in various locales and scoop up non-white folks and sort their status after the fact. They need to do the paperwork and get warrants. 2. ICE can’t obscure their identity Throw a bone to some who are concerned with how ICE is operating, for others who are concerned with illegal immigration, he’s also not ruling out enforcement. People who oppose this move have to make the argument that ICE don’t need warrants or probable cause to operate, and also should be allowed to obscure their identity. Which isn’t a winning argument for all but the further reaches of the right. Who aren’t going to vote for Newsom anyway, even if Jesus decided to pop back and endorse him. I think it’s pretty smart politics from him. I think he’s also engaged in some dumb politics in recent times but not on this one IMO. From what I gather ICE is a "FEDERAL" law enforcement agency, hence Newsom may as well cede Russia to China and it will be of the same significance. As for obscure identity - really?? Come on Wombat you are not stupid. Kirk had security team and I guess he was not a poor guy, how much did it help him? The only reason people want ICE agent to not wear masks is so they can dox them and threat them and their families. Why else would you want to see their faces?
Basic oversight and accountability?
Various arms of law enforcement have the unique role of being able to employ violence on behalf of the state. Domestically at least.
The flipside of that is, it has to be legitimately employed, and those who abuse those powers be open to censure.
How does that work if a bunch of folks are running around obscuring their identity?
I even said previously, on occasion it may be prudent. If you’re (legally, with a warrant) busting some operation of a dangerous drug cartel (and they are fucking dangerous folks), there may be some justification for participants to hide their identity for fear of reprisals.
For more regular policing? Nah.
The British Army (generally) didn’t obscure their faces while serving in Northern Ireland, even as the Troubles were at their worst. Plenty were killed, but that was the business they entered.
The British government recognised that in an inflamed state, sending in the military to keep the peace, but allowing folks who approx half the population considered a hostile force to run around completely anonymously was nae good for the overall optics and tenor of the situation.
Aside from anything else, aren’t the right supposed to be against unaccountable state power?
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On September 22 2025 07:51 WombaT wrote:
The British Army (generally) didn’t obscure their faces while serving in Northern Ireland, even as the Troubles were at their worst. Plenty were killed, but that was the business they entered.
The British government recognised that in an inflamed state, sending in the military to keep the peace, but allowing folks who approx half the population considered a hostile force to run around completely anonymously was nae good for the overall optics and tenor of the situation.
Remind me: where there smartphones? where there social media?
Revealing the identity of an RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) agent, particularly an informer, during the Northern Ireland conflict would have resulted in extreme, lethal penalties from the IRA,
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On September 22 2025 07:29 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 07:15 WombaT wrote:On September 22 2025 06:57 Razyda wrote:On September 21 2025 09:08 WombaT wrote:That’s a good move. Smart politics if I dare say. It’s not going to be popular amongst the ‘no humans are illegal’ or ‘I hate foreigners’ crowd, but realistically nothing Gavin Newsom is likely to do is going to appeal to either of those. He’s not giving illegal immigrants a free pass, which like it or not is obviously a big issue for many. I’d assume the average, middle of the road person is pro deporting illegal migrants, but not some of the processes we’ve seen lately. Anyone arguing against what Newsom’s bringing in has to make the argument that ICE need to be able to pick up people without warrants, and obscure their identity Outside of MAGA land, I don’t think that’s a winning argument, unless the US is even more fucked than I think it is. I mean I can see an argument for ICE agents obscuring themselves if they’re part of a raid on like a genuinely big, dangerous drug racket or something, but not for random immigration sweeps. Oh ffs. In other and even more breaking news I signed the bill making California Polish colony... What’s wrong with that? Newsom hasn’t declared anything like sanctuary cities or anything like that. Hasn’t said illegal migrants have any kind of immunity from deportation, simply: 1. ICE can’t just hang around in various locales and scoop up non-white folks and sort their status after the fact. They need to do the paperwork and get warrants. 2. ICE can’t obscure their identity Throw a bone to some who are concerned with how ICE is operating, for others who are concerned with illegal immigration, he’s also not ruling out enforcement. People who oppose this move have to make the argument that ICE don’t need warrants or probable cause to operate, and also should be allowed to obscure their identity. Which isn’t a winning argument for all but the further reaches of the right. Who aren’t going to vote for Newsom anyway, even if Jesus decided to pop back and endorse him. I think it’s pretty smart politics from him. I think he’s also engaged in some dumb politics in recent times but not on this one IMO. From what I gather ICE is a "FEDERAL" law enforcement agency, hence Newsom may as well cede Russia to China and it will be of the same significance. As for obscure identity - really?? Come on Wombat you are not stupid. Kirk had security team and I guess he was not a poor guy, how much did it help him? The only reason people want ICE agent to not wear masks is so they can dox them and threat them and their families. Why else would you want to see their faces?
Police and police adjacent organizations should be able to be held accountable. You cannot be held accountable if nobody knows who you are. Lovely to see you defend the new Gestapo though.
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EPT
