Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
On July 27 2024 09:01 WombaT wrote: I mean saying as I only ever was familiarised with the DEI acronym (if not the concept) was in comment sections complaining about blacks ruined muh Star Wars or vidya was ruined by womenz, that tracks
Its pretty obvious why most people pointed out to be DEI hires would be non-white. It's because that's almost the very definition of "diverse." It's an odd thing to point out because presumably the entire group of, say, straight white males, cannot be diverse or inclusive by definition. So it isn't really that surprising, it's the whole point of the diversity exercise. we could say (and indeed much of left-wing discuss says this either explicity or implicitly) that a white man doing a crappy job failed upwards and may have his race and gender to thank for his station above his ability. It's the same thing from a different angle.
Edit: this doesn't have much to do with what random morons say on social media, we could nutpick both sides to death with that.
Edit2: ultimately I think oBlade and BlackJack are right. If you don't want your VP called a DEI hire, don't say something like "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion begins at the top--with the Vice President." Thats a pretty hard statement to spin, though it hasn't stopped some from trying.
Yeah I don’t think the common vernacular use of ‘DEI’ being as a pseudo-slur like ‘social justice warrior’ or ‘woke’ before it precludes it being discussed reasonably in this particular context.
On the flipside it’s not really a fringe, random morons on social media, as with the use of the aforementioned. It’s pretty front and centre in terms of even mainstream media output and editorial currently, and not just in the States.
That wider issue is basically brought out every time someone who isn’t white is given some position of prominence in all sorts of fields.
However just because the majority of times it’s invoked spuriously doesn’t mean it’s every time, and I agree with you here. I think there definitely is an (understandable) tendency to just dismiss certain lines of argumentation if it’s couched in language that one frequently encounters to augment bullshit, even if it’s a legitimate one. Certainly something I’m guilty of as much as the next person.
On July 27 2024 21:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Can someone please provide the best-faith, least-fascist, steelman interpretation of what Trump meant when he said this:
Also, I can't tell if he said "I'm a Christian" or "I'm not Christian". I assume he meant to clearly say the former, but to me it sounded a lot like the latter.
My best-faith, least fascist interpretation is:
"If you vote for me now, in 4 years, I will fix everything, everything will be awesome, and there will be no more problems. So it won't be as important to vote then."
On July 27 2024 21:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Can someone please provide the best-faith, least-fascist, steelman interpretation of what Trump meant when he said this:
Also, I can't tell if he said "I'm a Christian" or "I'm not Christian". I assume he meant to clearly say the former, but to me it sounded a lot like the latter.
My best-faith, least fascist interpretation is:
"If you vote for me now, in 4 years, I will fix everything, everything will be awesome, and there will be no more problems. So it won't be as important to vote then."
That's my best-faith, least-fascist, strongman take of the clip too, thanks
"We'll have it fixed so good you're not gonna have to vote."
Charitable: The abuses by the Democrats will be corrected such that all victories will be GOP landslides, even if a portion of you stay home in the future.
Not so Charitable: If you want to win every election by default from now on, you only need to ensure I win this one time. After that, we'll ensure it's impossible for the Democrats to win the election by subverting the democratic process.
On July 27 2024 23:19 micronesia wrote: "We'll have it fixed so good you're not gonna have to vote."
Charitable: The abuses by the Democrats will be corrected such that all victories will be GOP landslides, even if a portion of you stay home in the future.
Not so Charitable: If you want to win every election by default from now on, you only need to ensure I win this one time. After that, we'll ensure it's impossible for the Democrats to win the election by subverting the democratic process.
Yeah, those two different interpretations depend on what he means by "fix": repair vs. rig.
His track record suggests that he'll try to do the latter while telling everyone that he's doing the former.
On July 27 2024 03:30 Introvert wrote: Also seems like one should able to point to some sort of demonstrated competence. What has she achieved in her role? The media is busy pretending she was never made "border czar" at the moment so I'm curious to find out what she had managed to do. Being senator and AG not quite the same, at least Pence was a governor. Other VPs are picked because they can be legislative liaisons. But she hasn't taken that role either.
I think asking if Kamala Harris has helped to address the illegal immigration situation is a legitimate question. I think that's a good-faith, policy-based question that doesn't just make fun of her laugh or her stepfamily or her sex or her race.
Here's the information I was able to find on that topic, which firmly establishes what her role actually was, and explains that she was never chosen as a "border czar":
This second source adds a little more context: "In 2021, President Biden did task the vice president with a diplomatic role to address the causes of migration from Mexico and Central America – such as violence and political instability – and to work with those countries to strengthen migration enforcement at their own borders. The assignment was similar to one Mr. Biden received as vice president in the Obama White House. At the time, President Biden said he asked the vice president “to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that help – are going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border.”" https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2024/0726/kamala-harris-border-czar-axios-biden#:~:text=Mr. Biden tasked the vice,. Harris “border czar.”
As a third source, CBS corroborates Harris's role and dispels the myth of Harris being chosen as a "border czar": "In March 2021, when the Biden administration faced the early stages of an influx in illegal crossings at the U.S. southern border, Mr. Biden tasked Harris with leading the administration's diplomatic campaign to address the "root causes" of migration from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, including poverty, corruption, and violence. The region, known as Central America's Northern Triangle, has been one of the main sources of migration to the U.S.-Mexico border over the past decade. Harris was not asked to be the administration's "border czar" or to oversee immigration policy and enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border. That has mainly been the responsibility of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and his department, which oversees the country's main three immigration agencies, including Customs and Border Protection." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kamala-harris-immigration-biden-administration-border/
So it seems that Harris's specific role was not to shut down our southern border or prevent illegal immigrants from passing through our gates - a description frequently assumed by those who give her the misnomer of "border czar" - but rather to work with other countries and figure out why their residents are leaving in the first place, and how best to address those underlying issues.
From a humanitarian perspective, I think Harris's assignment was a noble one. If progress were made, then it could proactively address the reasons people had for leaving their own countries, and could possibly figure out ways for those families to be happy and prosperous in their own homes before they decide to leave and travel north to us, rather than just reactively turning away desperate, destitute families at our own border.
Was any progress actually made, though? Did Harris manage to move the needle, even a little, when it comes to working with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, to address their people leaving their homes for our southern border? And if so, did it help our illegal immigration issue at all?
This TIME article, with the headline of "Kamala Harris Was Never Biden’s ‘Border Czar.’ Here’s What She Really Did", states the following about Harris and what she accomplished in her humanitarian role:
"Her mandate was much narrower: to focus on examining and improving the underlying conditions in the Northern Triangle of Central America—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—which has been racked by decades of poverty, war, chronic violence, and political instability. The strategy relied on allocating billions for economic programs and stimulating private-sector investment in the region in hopes that these programs would ultimately lead fewer migrants to make the dangerous journey north. ...
The so-called "root causes strategy" focused on improving economic and security conditions by creating jobs, combating corruption, improving human and labor rights, and reducing violence. Harris allocated funds for humanitarian relief from natural disasters, and directed more than 10 million COVID-19 vaccines to the Northern Triangle countries. She held bilateral meetings with the region's leaders, as well as meetings with NGOs, business executives and human rights advocates. She worked with the U.S. Justice Department to launch an Anti-Corruption task force focused on prosecuting corruption cases with ties to the region, as well as Anti-Migrant Smuggling task forces in Mexico and Guatemala.
Most importantly, Harris spearheaded a public-private partnership that, as of March 2024, had secured commitments from major U.S. and multi-national companies to invest more than $5 billion in the region. The Vice President "put her name on the line with very serious senior CEOs and kind of created a brand appeal for Central America that didn't exist," says Ricardo Zúniga, who until recently served as the U.S. special envoy to Central America.
Harris also spent time in Washington communicating with regional leaders. One tangible result, according to two former U.S. officials, was that it gave the U.S. the standing and relationships to help prevent Guatemalan prosecutors from overturning the results of last year’s presidential election, which was won by anti-corruption outsider Bernardo Arévalo. While delayed, the ultimately peaceful transition of power avoided the political instability that Biden Administration officials feared could cause a spike in migration. The U.S. applied public pressure through sanctions and visa restrictions on officials they accused of undermining the democratic process, as well as behind the scenes. Harris's team was directly involved, especially her national security adviser Philip Gordon, who traveled to the region to push for a peaceful democratic transfer of power, according to the two former U.S. officials. ...
Much of Harris’s work failed to break through back home. Instead, she became the target of Republican broadsides about the border crisis and was repeatedly criticized for not visiting the U.S.-Mexico border. "She's dealing with a narrative problem," says Zuniga. With immigration topping the list of Americans’ concerns, according to recent Gallup polls, an ongoing humanitarian crisis at the border, and political deadlock on immigration reform and funding, Harris emerged as the most visible scapegoat."
As you can see from the above article, Harris did quite a bit to assist the Northern Triangle's emigration issues. And, thankfully, all of her hard work resulted in a reduction of their emigration towards the United States: "illegal crossings along the U.S. southern border by migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador have decreased significantly every year since 2021." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kamala-harris-immigration-biden-administration-border/
What about on a broader scale - not just the Northern Triangle countries? Well, for that, we can see how both Biden and Harris deserve plenty of credit in regards to addressing overall illegal immigration and unlawful border crossings: "As the second-highest ranking member of the Biden administration, Harris will also likely face questions over the all-time levels of unlawful border crossings reported in 2021, 2022, and 2023. Those crossings, however, have plunged this year, reaching a three-year low in June, after Mr. Biden issued an executive order banning most migrants from asylum." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kamala-harris-immigration-biden-administration-border/
If I remember correctly, Biden's executive order was issued in retaliation to Republicans pulling out of the bipartisan border security bill due to Trump's clarion call. That means that both Biden and Harris deserve significant credit for making some progress in addressing the illegal immigration issue over the past few years, despite Trump and Congressional Republicans' best efforts to worsen the border crisis just so Trump can reference it during his presidential run.
I've said before but I will say again I almost admire your ability to just swallow whatever has become DNC taking points and repeat them without even the slightest hesitation or skepticism. It's really shining through with this and the DEI thing. The "Biden-Harris" administration, as some have styled it, has overseen the worst border crisis in our history, and even now some of it is only being mitigated by the administration's abuse of the parole provisions in the law to make the numbers go down without actually stopping ad many people as it appears.
Notably, no where in what you quoted was any actual causal chain linking what she did to any sort of success.
I love how any list of accomplishments by any source is so easily dismissed as "DNC talking points". That's just ridiculous. 10 million covid vaccines is causally assisting their humanitarian issues. So is leading international coalitions that give money and other aid to those countries. So is working with the leaders of those countries to solve other problems that were well documented in my post. CBS isn't run by Nancy Pelosi. TIME isn't run by Hillary Clinton. Harris did some stuff and it worked: the Northern Triangle countries became better off, and emigration to our border significantly decreased as a result.
It's so weird that you asked a question and then just explicitly denied the list of factual answers, just because you didn't like the reality of the situation. You know you're allowed to recognize when Harris does something good, right? Trump isn't going to find out, I promise. Give credit where credit is due. I hated Chris Christie when he was the governor of New Jersey, but I still acknowledged and respected how seriously he took Hurricane Sandy (both before - he worked extremely hard to warn everyone over and over again not to fuck around and find out - and after, when he worked hard to clean up a good amount of the destruction).
You seem to be in such massive denial, that I wouldn't be surprised if you still end up incorrectly referring to Harris as a "border czar", despite her job explicitly not being that.
the results are...inconclusive to put it nicely
Nicely... or Incorrectly... Same thing, I guess. Sigh.
most of your sources were telling me what she was *tasked* with doing. Not what she actually accomplished (I guess she passed out some money?) You are free to attribute the slowing of flow from some of those countries to her I suppose
Your first excuse was that all of the corroborating sources and facts could be dismissed because they were nothing more than "DNC talking points". You didn't actually look into this, as these sources were independent, but you asserted that it was all fake news anyway.
Your second excuse was to write off everything as merely correlational, not causal, because surely Harris did those things but since there isn't a scientific study using randomized control trials to prove cause-and-effect, Harris shouldn't receive credit for those things. Maybe it's just a huuuge coincidence that all of those helpful things happened right before and during the beneficial outcome.
And now your third excuse is that Harris probably didn't even do the things that the sources said she did. Like when you read "Harris allocated funds for humanitarian relief from natural disasters, and directed more than 10 million COVID-19 vaccines to the Northern Triangle countries", you're interpreting it to mean "Harris was *told* to do all that... but maybe she didn't", which is clearly *not* what is written.
I'm not interested in a fourth set of excuses, so maybe just learn how to Google her accomplishments on your own, if you ever become interested in sincerely learning about what Harris has done as vice president.
A person can learn a lot about the accuracy of their research by seeing how other people with other agendas react to it. The fact that you're so anti-Harris, yet presented such weak counters to what I found, increases my confidence in Harris. It's just disappointing to learn that your original question, which sounded reasonable at first, was secretly rhetorical, because you were never going to accept reality if it meant learning that Harris actually did something positive as vice president.
Thr first point about DNC talking points was actually not an attempt to dismiss your point, it was an aside to try and prevent this exact thing from happening. Most of the time I find it almost charming, in its own way.
Do you think because they were in a news article thst makes them true? I did Google. The very first article I found was the one I quoted to you, saying most immigration experts were skeptical what she did had any help. You have steadfastly refused to engage with any counter argument instead handwavinf them away as weak. The frustrating thing is, that I know if the situation were reversed you would have making exactly the points I'm making. I quoted one thing in exactly the same way you did with all the other links. You pretended it doesn't exist, and oBlade pointed out something similar. You are free to believe she actually helped stop *as many* migrants coming from those countries, but if my skepticism is rooted in deep dislike for Harris, then your credulity can reasonably be attributed to the opposite.
And one reson I'm anti-Harris is that she was my AG and Senator as well, and an uber-leftwing one at that. She's terrible. But I suppose on this one unfortunately we won't be able to find any common ground.
On July 27 2024 09:01 WombaT wrote: I mean saying as I only ever was familiarised with the DEI acronym (if not the concept) was in comment sections complaining about blacks ruined muh Star Wars or vidya was ruined by womenz, that tracks
Its pretty obvious why most people pointed out to be DEI hires would be non-white. It's because that's almost the very definition of "diverse." It's an odd thing to point out because presumably the entire group of, say, straight white males, cannot be diverse or inclusive by definition. So it isn't really that surprising, it's the whole point of the diversity exercise. we could say (and indeed much of left-wing discuss says this either explicity or implicitly) that a white man doing a crappy job failed upwards and may have his race and gender to thank for his station above his ability. It's the same thing from a different angle.
Edit: this doesn't have much to do with what random morons say on social media, we could nutpick both sides to death with that.
Edit2: ultimately I think oBlade and BlackJack are right. If you don't want your VP called a DEI hire, don't say something like "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion begins at the top--with the Vice President." Thats a pretty hard statement to spin, though it hasn't stopped some from trying.
Yeah I don’t think the common vernacular use of ‘DEI’ being as a pseudo-slur like ‘social justice warrior’ or ‘woke’ before it precludes it being discussed reasonably in this particular context.
On the flipside it’s not really a fringe, random morons on social media, as with the use of the aforementioned. It’s pretty front and centre in terms of even mainstream media output and editorial currently, and not just in the States.
That wider issue is basically brought out every time someone who isn’t white is given some position of prominence in all sorts of fields.
However just because the majority of times it’s invoked spuriously doesn’t mean it’s every time, and I agree with you here. I think there definitely is an (understandable) tendency to just dismiss certain lines of argumentation if it’s couched in language that one frequently encounters to augment bullshit, even if it’s a legitimate one. Certainly something I’m guilty of as much as the next person.
It's certainly not wrong that people can use phrases in an underhanded way, but blanket statements are usually just an attempt at ad hominem with some guilt-by-association thrown in. And calling it a slur has the extra effect of basically shutting down a conversation. If it's a slur because of who used it then some people can talk about it and some can't. It's obviously dishonest. And if we are going to presume thst almost every Trump voter is is a bigot and try preclude them from the discussion because they can't use certain words...then yeah. It's bad. And in this example is especially silly considering we have the president's very words.
On July 27 2024 23:19 micronesia wrote: "We'll have it fixed so good you're not gonna have to vote."
Charitable: The abuses by the Democrats will be corrected such that all victories will be GOP landslides, even if a portion of you stay home in the future.
This is exactly right as if we Google the actual speech (a trend that seems all the rage these two pages) instead of digesting what the talking head clipped for us, towards the end of his TPAC speech where it happens, about 30 seconds before he specifically says he is going to "fix" what problems with the voting. It's a way of emphasizing the urgency of this election, which is always the election that politicians have to emphasize as the most urgent.
On July 27 2024 20:01 Slydie wrote: Even "the wall" was is at least something concrete he wanted to do.
Thank you, I appeciate the healthy across the aisle corroboration here.
On July 27 2024 20:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Your second excuse was to write off everything as merely correlational, not causal, because surely Harris did those things but since there isn't a scientific study using randomized control trials to prove cause-and-effect, Harris shouldn't receive credit for those things. Maybe it's just a huuuge coincidence that all of those helpful things happened right before and during the beneficial outcome.
That is called post hoc ergo propter hoc, it happens all the time, and you know it. There are other ways to establish inductive confidence despite the inability to run a controlled experiment. 1) Look for other countries with people fleeing to the US illegally (even removed in time) that received similar leadership like free vaccines and disaster relief and economic partnerships, and see whether there was inverse correlation to the fleeing. Look at each cause separately. 2) Compare it to the effect of a confluence of causes. Ex. a few countries got vaccines and some less people came, a few countries got disaster relief and some less people came, certain countries got vaccines AND disaster relief and noticeably more, less people, came. (If at this point your data points are showing mixed signals, it's probably random and your causes had no real effect) 3) Look for similar countries in a similar situation (ex. Venezuela) that did NOT receive similar leadership, and see how their illegal fleeing fared in the same time frame (this establishes whether we should look for other factors, which obviously they exist) 4) Compare the INTENSITY of the "cause" to the intensity of the effect. If there is a sensitivity to where more covid vaccines in El Salvador results in proportionally fewer illegal crossings from El Salvador, we are getting hot. Compare that to a decrease in the cause. Did countries without covid vaccines send more people to the US? 5) Look for common causes that explain correlations as simultaneous effects of something else - for example the fact that the covid crisis was ending, could explain both that fewer people are migrating AND that there are vaccines available to be distributed abroad 6) Look for cause/effect reversals that test our assumptions - ex. a country like El Salvador that starts behaving now gets access to big boy economic partnerships. 7) Look for confounding factors like the interior policy of Mexico and elections of Bukeles. 8) Look for a detailed causal mechanism that you can rationally use to explain the alleged causal relationship (ex. how the fuck in the dead, risen, and living Christ would 10 million free covid vaccines weigh in on whether people smuggle themselves illegally to other countries or not)
The last part is usually necessary, and it's usually preliminary before you even bother with all the other steps, but not always, like in the case of miracle drug examples where the evidence that it works is so strong, that the how takes a second fiddle, which is not the kind of certainty I see here.
The lack of depth to which your analysis has gone is almost a picture perfect example of the culture responsible for US government waste.
On July 27 2024 17:30 EnDeR_ wrote: This whole conversation about Harris' qualifications and competence is deeply weird. The main opposition standard-bearer had no prior qualifications, has the attention span of a toddler, famously won't read documents longer than a few bullet points, is easily distracted and can't make a coherent argument, ran an administration where a disturbing number of people he hired were convicted of crimes, etc. The fact that he is still popular with more than half of America (according to polls) implies that qualifications and competence are not essential criteria for this position.
There is an operative "had" you slipped in because you have to now kind of represent that presidents aren't "qualified" to be presidents but any other bloodsucking politician would be which sounds weird. But that aside. The problem with what you're saying, even if you believe all of that about Drumpf, and even if the people you're talking about it, believe it, voters are not going to be swayed by "The same, but a blue and black woman." Politics is a process of deciding what's important, if everyone was defeatest then we would unironically never have progress. "B is shit so there's no reason to care what A is or change it or make it any better." "A is shit but people want A so let's also give them A, so we won. Oops, now we are A."
I think one of the major democratic problems with the US is that Christian Conservatives are so used to their unfair amount of influence and power based on the voting system. That they are in fact a minority does not matter, they are entitled to their power because they are "right". Moving from that stance to the removal of democracy all together is not a very far step, and Trump is abusing this to his advantage.
On July 28 2024 00:08 oBlade wrote: There are other ways to establish inductive confidence despite the inability to run a controlled experiment.
I agree. Understanding the push factors for immigrants is incredibly important to establish that.
Push factors - why people feel the need to leave their country in the first place - tend to include things like poverty, political corruption, lack of opportunity, lack of access to medical care, lack of jobs, and persecution. Kamala Harris was tasked with learning about the push factors for people leaving El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, and to work with those countries' leaders to reduce those push factors. As previously cited, Harris made significant impacts in these spaces. Fewer reasons to leave the country would suggest fewer people leaving the country, and that's precisely what we saw.
On July 27 2024 17:30 EnDeR_ wrote: This whole conversation about Harris' qualifications and competence is deeply weird. The main opposition standard-bearer had no prior qualifications, has the attention span of a toddler, famously won't read documents longer than a few bullet points, is easily distracted and can't make a coherent argument, ran an administration where a disturbing number of people he hired were convicted of crimes, etc. The fact that he is still popular with more than half of America (according to polls) implies that qualifications and competence are not essential criteria for this position.
There is an operative "had" you slipped in because you have to now kind of represent that presidents aren't "qualified" to be presidents but any other bloodsucking politician would be which sounds weird. But that aside. The problem with what you're saying, even if you believe all of that about Drumpf, and even if the people you're talking about it, believe it, voters are not going to be swayed by "The same, but a blue and black woman." Politics is a process of deciding what's important, if everyone was defeatest then we would unironically never have progress. "B is shit so there's no reason to care what A is or change it or make it any better." "A is shit but people want A so let's also give them A, so we won. Oops, now we are A."
What do you mean if someone has to believe all that? The dude is even proud of it, he bragged about it on live TV saying that it makes him a genius.
The point is that people who are considering voting for trump don't actually care about qualifications or competency - Trump does not have a legacy of a competent administration. If you recall, he had massive staff turnover and positions were left unfilled all the time, he gave top jobs to unqualified family members. It was so hilariously bad that multiple employees got rich after writing about their experience working for trump.
Talking about Harris' qualifications or competency as if they actually mattered to Trump voters is absurd.
On July 28 2024 00:40 Slydie wrote: I think one of the major democratic problems with the US is that Christian Conservatives are so used to their unfair amount of influence and power based on the voting system. That they are in fact a minority does not matter, they are entitled to their power because they are "right". Moving from that stance to the removal of democracy all together is not a very far step, and Trump is abusing this to his advantage.
As the old adage goes, if you’re used to privilege, equality feels like persecution. And I think in a broad brush sense this is a big political motivator for Trumpism, or comparable wings worldwide
Thank you, I appeciate the healthy across the aisle corroboration here.
I’m not sure that barbed wire fences between Texas and New Mexico really count as independently securing the state border. Seems more like a performative waste of taxpayer funds for conservative virtue signaling than any kind of actual plan.
On July 27 2024 21:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Can someone please provide the best-faith, least-fascist, steelman interpretation of what Trump meant when he said this:
Also, I can't tell if he said "I'm a Christian" or "I'm not Christian". I assume he meant to clearly say the former, but to me it sounded a lot like the latter.
My best-faith, least fascist interpretation is:
"If you vote for me now, in 4 years, I will fix everything, everything will be awesome, and there will be no more problems. So it won't be as important to vote then."
I’m literally never one to pass on an opportunity to negatively interpret Trump, but contextually this read/sounded exactly as you outlined and not some omen of future authoritarian dominance.
Trump does or says something egregious basically every other day, there’s no need to twist his words on the odd scenario where he’s not doing that.
I especially enjoyed him slamming Kamala Harris for her Israel stance and saying he didn’t see how any Jew could vote for her (to paraphrase). Despite her having a Jewish husband and a pretty darn consistent pro-Israel history in rhetoric and action. Indeed the further left elements of the Democrat caucus and further left again are critical of Harris precisely because she’s viewed as too pro-Israel
Trump will do something like that almost every news cycle, there’s no need to get the microscope out in finding dirt on x pronouncement when the guy is just dripping with dirt perpetually.
On July 27 2024 21:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Can someone please provide the best-faith, least-fascist, steelman interpretation of what Trump meant when he said this:
Also, I can't tell if he said "I'm a Christian" or "I'm not Christian". I assume he meant to clearly say the former, but to me it sounded a lot like the latter.
My best-faith, least fascist interpretation is:
"If you vote for me now, in 4 years, I will fix everything, everything will be awesome, and there will be no more problems. So it won't be as important to vote then."
I’m literally never one to pass on an opportunity to negatively interpret Trump, but contextually this read/sounded exactly as you outlined and not some omen of future authoritarian dominance.
Trump does or says something egregious basically every other day, there’s no need to twist his words on the odd scenario where he’s not doing that.
I especially enjoyed him slamming Kamala Harris for her Israel stance and saying he didn’t see how any Jew could vote for her (to paraphrase). Despite her having a Jewish husband and a pretty darn consistent pro-Israel history in rhetoric and action. Indeed the further left elements of the Democrat caucus and further left again are critical of Harris precisely because she’s viewed as too pro-Israel
Trump will do something like that almost every news cycle, there’s no need to get the microscope out in finding dirt on x pronouncement when the guy is just dripping with dirt perpetually.
While I generally agree I'll also point out that, even given the generous interpretation of what Trump said in that clip, you don't exactly need a microscope to find dirt on the claim that the GOP will always win elections overwhelmingly when Democrats don't cheat.
On July 27 2024 23:19 micronesia wrote: "We'll have it fixed so good you're not gonna have to vote."
Charitable: The abuses by the Democrats will be corrected such that all victories will be GOP landslides, even if a portion of you stay home in the future.
This is exactly right as if we Google the actual speech (a trend that seems all the rage these two pages) instead of digesting what the talking head clipped for us, towards the end of his TPAC speech where it happens, about 30 seconds before he specifically says he is going to "fix" what problems with the voting. It's a way of emphasizing the urgency of this election, which is always the election that politicians have to emphasize as the most urgent.
On July 27 2024 20:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Your second excuse was to write off everything as merely correlational, not causal, because surely Harris did those things but since there isn't a scientific study using randomized control trials to prove cause-and-effect, Harris shouldn't receive credit for those things. Maybe it's just a huuuge coincidence that all of those helpful things happened right before and during the beneficial outcome.
That is called post hoc ergo propter hoc, it happens all the time, and you know it. There are other ways to establish inductive confidence despite the inability to run a controlled experiment. 1) Look for other countries with people fleeing to the US illegally (even removed in time) that received similar leadership like free vaccines and disaster relief and economic partnerships, and see whether there was inverse correlation to the fleeing. Look at each cause separately. 2) Compare it to the effect of a confluence of causes. Ex. a few countries got vaccines and some less people came, a few countries got disaster relief and some less people came, certain countries got vaccines AND disaster relief and noticeably more, less people, came. (If at this point your data points are showing mixed signals, it's probably random and your causes had no real effect) 3) Look for similar countries in a similar situation (ex. Venezuela) that did NOT receive similar leadership, and see how their illegal fleeing fared in the same time frame (this establishes whether we should look for other factors, which obviously they exist) 4) Compare the INTENSITY of the "cause" to the intensity of the effect. If there is a sensitivity to where more covid vaccines in El Salvador results in proportionally fewer illegal crossings from El Salvador, we are getting hot. Compare that to a decrease in the cause. Did countries without covid vaccines send more people to the US? 5) Look for common causes that explain correlations as simultaneous effects of something else - for example the fact that the covid crisis was ending, could explain both that fewer people are migrating AND that there are vaccines available to be distributed abroad 6) Look for cause/effect reversals that test our assumptions - ex. a country like El Salvador that starts behaving now gets access to big boy economic partnerships. 7) Look for confounding factors like the interior policy of Mexico and elections of Bukeles. 8) Look for a detailed causal mechanism that you can rationally use to explain the alleged causal relationship (ex. how the fuck in the dead, risen, and living Christ would 10 million free covid vaccines weigh in on whether people smuggle themselves illegally to other countries or not)
The last part is usually necessary, and it's usually preliminary before you even bother with all the other steps, but not always, like in the case of miracle drug examples where the evidence that it works is so strong, that the how takes a second fiddle, which is not the kind of certainty I see here.
The lack of depth to which your analysis has gone is almost a picture perfect example of the culture responsible for US government waste.
On July 27 2024 17:30 EnDeR_ wrote: This whole conversation about Harris' qualifications and competence is deeply weird. The main opposition standard-bearer had no prior qualifications, has the attention span of a toddler, famously won't read documents longer than a few bullet points, is easily distracted and can't make a coherent argument, ran an administration where a disturbing number of people he hired were convicted of crimes, etc. The fact that he is still popular with more than half of America (according to polls) implies that qualifications and competence are not essential criteria for this position.
There is an operative "had" you slipped in because you have to now kind of represent that presidents aren't "qualified" to be presidents but any other bloodsucking politician would be which sounds weird. But that aside. The problem with what you're saying, even if you believe all of that about Drumpf, and even if the people you're talking about it, believe it, voters are not going to be swayed by "The same, but a blue and black woman." Politics is a process of deciding what's important, if everyone was defeatest then we would unironically never have progress. "B is shit so there's no reason to care what A is or change it or make it any better." "A is shit but people want A so let's also give them A, so we won. Oops, now we are A."
I assume you ever heard of the expression ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it too?’
If folks want to throw out that Kamala Harris is an unqualified DEI candidate, then naturally that will bring the lens on Trump’s qualifications for candidacy. Which are sorely lacking if we compare him to his peers.
Unless, is as closer to reality IMO the only qualification is really if you can get votes. It’s not a technocrat’s role. I wish it were more the latter personally, equally I personally believe it’s very much the former, in whatever form that takes.
But you can’t have one from one column and one from the other and be extolling any kind of serious position
Ok let’s analyse Kamala Harris’ performance on border issues through an 8 point assessment framework, fair enough. I think that looks like a reasonable lens to assess it, or indeed policy in general. I don’t even think it’s thorough enough, there are no concrete goals established, why they exist and various thresholds, so let’s expand it out!
Sure that’s fair enough, how did Trump’s border policy go under a similar microscope?
He’s certainly been rhetorically stronger, and that may be where it ultimately counts. But then compare rhetoric, or compare policy goals and outcomes.
Comparing Kamala Harris’ performance under Donald Trump’s rhetoric is patent nonsense, of course she’ll fail that test.
On July 27 2024 21:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Can someone please provide the best-faith, least-fascist, steelman interpretation of what Trump meant when he said this:
Also, I can't tell if he said "I'm a Christian" or "I'm not Christian". I assume he meant to clearly say the former, but to me it sounded a lot like the latter.
My best-faith, least fascist interpretation is:
"If you vote for me now, in 4 years, I will fix everything, everything will be awesome, and there will be no more problems. So it won't be as important to vote then."
I’m literally never one to pass on an opportunity to negatively interpret Trump, but contextually this read/sounded exactly as you outlined and not some omen of future authoritarian dominance.
Trump does or says something egregious basically every other day, there’s no need to twist his words on the odd scenario where he’s not doing that.
I especially enjoyed him slamming Kamala Harris for her Israel stance and saying he didn’t see how any Jew could vote for her (to paraphrase). Despite her having a Jewish husband and a pretty darn consistent pro-Israel history in rhetoric and action. Indeed the further left elements of the Democrat caucus and further left again are critical of Harris precisely because she’s viewed as too pro-Israel
Trump will do something like that almost every news cycle, there’s no need to get the microscope out in finding dirt on x pronouncement when the guy is just dripping with dirt perpetually.
While I generally agree I'll also point out that, even given the generous interpretation of what Trump said in that clip, you don't exactly need a microscope to find dirt on the claim that the GOP will always win elections overwhelmingly when Democrats don't cheat.
Sure, so go with that!
It’s like if I was caught red-handed in flagrante with various ladies by my partner, but for her to only get really angry if one evening she caught me making suggestive eye contact with some lass.
I mean maybe that’s indicative of something, and a certain pattern but if you’ve walked in on me banging someone multiple times it’s really probably not the thing to focus on
Or alternatively her friend goes ‘why are you angry about WombaT giving the eyes when you have 7 prior examples of you walking in to find him fucking someone else?’
Look I’m not Kwark, he’s better at this! Going outside of tortuous analogy mode I do think that hyper-focusing on Trump’s let’s say ‘borderline’ utterances can actively backfire, and I’m not sure how politically useful they are.
Sure but when someone has a demonstrated disposition to flagrantly violate the law, has stacked the Supreme Court in a way which has drawn a conclusion that the president has incredibly amounts of criminal immunity, and then says ambiguous things which by one obvious interpretation implies he will destroy our democracy, we certainly have a right to worried, whether or not it's politically effective to bring those concerns up with likely Trump voters.
edit: And things we are politically worried about we tend to discuss in this thread
On July 28 2024 07:41 micronesia wrote: Sure but when someone has a demonstrated disposition to flagrantly violate the law, has stacked the Supreme Court in a way which has drawn a conclusion that the president has incredibly amounts of criminal immunity, and then says ambiguous things which by one obvious interpretation implies he will destroy our democracy, we certainly have a right to worried, whether or not it's politically effective to bring those concerns up with likely Trump voters.
edit: And things we are politically worried about we tend to discuss in this thread
Well yeah, those things already happened. Trump already (IMO) tried to engender circumstances where he’d steal an election, at least in his own mind.
There’s no need to fixate on an (IMO ambiguous) quote if one is concerned on such things, given the former exists.
If in column A they’ve already done the thing that they might be implying they might do in column B, I think it’s prudent to focus on column A is all.
In an alternate reality where 2016 candidate Trump is talking in such a manner I think it would have been prudent to consider that at the time as well. Or indeed many did on the occasions he did stray into such rhetoric
EPT
