Page 5 of 11

Re: Politics

Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 1:40 pm
by Pandemonium
So here we go....

The sheer stupidity of having your (Trump's) agenda pounded for 2+ years by the opposition with collusion BS and then once more or less cleared to go out and even have the appearance of flirting in a grey area with a foreign government to go after another candidate and doubling down by illegally blocking a whistleblower complaint is insanely stupid. He's made so many enemies inside his own administration that even a super cautious, smarter President would easily be tripped up in something. It's just not good but I think on this he is too naïve to realize how this is vastly different than campaign issues. He gets strategy but not details and in this case details matter and the rules are explicit. At best he looks like a naïve fool and at worst he will be a disgraced, impeached President. I think it's worth investigating Biden (and his son) which is entirely a separate issue and has nothing to do with Trump's possible illegal actions. But whatever Biden facts have no bearing on Trump's liability which looks to be yet another critically unforced error on his part.

IMO, I feel that the Dems would have been much better served to at the very least waiting until Pelosi's Thursday deadline to formally announce impeachment proceedings. They should really be waiting for the transcript of the conversation before going nuclear. If the conversation is nothing, then it's just going to appear that they are moving ahead and working towards impeachment just because that's what they want to do (which has honestly been the case since he was elected). This could really bite the Dems in the ass if the transcripts definitively prove Trumps assertion that he had a "proper" dialog with the Ukrainian President.

If all of this goes down how I think it might, we are in for some real craziness in this country that will dwarf anything we've seen so far.

Re: Politics

Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 2:19 pm
by mockbee
Pandemonium wrote:
Tue Sep 24, 2019 1:40 pm

IMO, I feel that the Dems would have been much better served to at the very least waiting until Pelosi's Thursday deadline to formally announce impeachment proceedings. They should really be waiting for the transcript of the conversation before going nuclear. If the conversation is nothing, then it's just going to appear that they are moving ahead and working towards impeachment just because that's what they want to do (which has honestly been the case since he was elected). This could really bite the Dems in the ass if the transcripts definitively prove Trumps assertion that he had a "proper" dialog with the Ukrainian President.
This is where I give Trump way more credit than the media and hysterical liberal class can seem to muster. Trump is extremely manipulative. He MAKES himself look so guilty all over the place that Dems go bezerk and aim for the moon. Trump will punt on the transcript etc until election, make dems go down every ally, and then......it will be nothing. Trump knows this. It is the plan.
Pandemonium wrote:
Tue Sep 24, 2019 1:40 pm
If all of this goes down how I think it might, we are in for some real craziness in this country that will dwarf anything we've seen so far.
The next election, and the next president after Trumps additional 4 years in office will be really, really weird/crazy/ass-backwards. That is my prediction.....

Think Kanye/Oprah/Tucker Carlson/ etc...............

You have already heard of the next president, you just never in a million years would think that person would ever be president.

:aoa:

Re: Politics

Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 2:54 pm
by lollapaloser
The transcript is a distraction. Nobody was asking for it, they want the whistle blower report. So he offers the transcript, which could likely be edited or redacted by the White House.

Re: Politics

Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 4:50 pm
by mockbee
OH.... IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY APPROVED BY PELOSI?!

the end...

Democrats should just stop running for president. its over.

Unfortunately trump 4 more years..... yipeee.


:balls:

Re: Politics

Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 10:57 pm
by guysmiley
mockbee wrote:
Tue Sep 24, 2019 2:19 pm
Pandemonium wrote:
Tue Sep 24, 2019 1:40 pm

IMO, I feel that the Dems would have been much better served to at the very least waiting until Pelosi's Thursday deadline to formally announce impeachment proceedings. They should really be waiting for the transcript of the conversation before going nuclear. If the conversation is nothing, then it's just going to appear that they are moving ahead and working towards impeachment just because that's what they want to do (which has honestly been the case since he was elected). This could really bite the Dems in the ass if the transcripts definitively prove Trumps assertion that he had a "proper" dialog with the Ukrainian President.
This is where I give Trump way more credit than the media and hysterical liberal class can seem to muster. Trump is extremely manipulative. He MAKES himself look so guilty all over the place that Dems go bezerk and aim for the moon. Trump will punt on the transcript etc until election, make dems go down every ally, and then......it will be nothing. Trump knows this. It is the plan.
Pandemonium wrote:
Tue Sep 24, 2019 1:40 pm
If all of this goes down how I think it might, we are in for some real craziness in this country that will dwarf anything we've seen so far.
The next election, and the next president after Trumps additional 4 years in office will be really, really weird/crazy/ass-backwards. That is my prediction.....

Think Kanye/Oprah/Tucker Carlson/ etc...............

You have already heard of the next president, you just never in a million years would think that person would ever be president.

:aoa:
Sadly I thinking you're right.

Re: Politics

Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2019 10:58 pm
by guysmiley
Wow, great timing....This is going to be a shit show. :jasper:

Re: Politics

Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:17 am
by Hype
The next election, and the next president after Trumps additional 4 years in office will be really, really weird/crazy/ass-backwards. That is my prediction.....
Of course we now have to admit that this is possible. But I don't think it's likely. Don't forget, not even a plurality of Americans actually voted for Trump, let alone a majority. The vast majority of Americans are still sane, responsible-enough adults who understand that the President should be an intelligent, articulate, thoughtful person. The Democratic Party has its work cut out for it, but there are powerful, educated voices within it that have been working within the constraints of the system to try to make things work out for the best. It is still possible to fix at least some of the damage done by the last four years.

I think your preduction is not as likely as it feels. I give Trump maybe a 35% chance of reelection. What it will come down to is whether the voting patterns change (from 2016) while the overall vote-counts stay roughly the same. Given that the Democrats did rally in 2018, it still seems possible. Don't give up! You don't actually know the future!

Re: Politics

Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 9:22 am
by chaos
Hype wrote:
Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:17 am
The vast majority of Americans are still sane, responsible-enough adults who understand that the President should be an intelligent, articulate, thoughtful person.

I never pegged you as an optimist. :lol: :pat:

Re: Politics

Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 10:19 am
by Hype
chaos wrote:
Wed Sep 25, 2019 9:22 am
Hype wrote:
Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:17 am
The vast majority of Americans are still sane, responsible-enough adults who understand that the President should be an intelligent, articulate, thoughtful person.

I never pegged you as an optimist. :lol: :pat:
:lol: I'm not. I just think it's factual that there's some reliability and strength in very large numbers. What broke down in 2016 wasn't the majority of the American people, it was the system that allowed foreign interference and manipulation of the popular vote via targetting the electoral college.

Re: Politics

Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 1:47 pm
by mockbee
Hype wrote:
Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:17 am
The next election, and the next president after Trumps additional 4 years in office will be really, really weird/crazy/ass-backwards. That is my prediction.....
Of course we now have to admit that this is possible. But I don't think it's likely. Don't forget, not even a plurality of Americans actually voted for Trump, let alone a majority. The vast majority of Americans are still sane, responsible-enough adults who understand that the President should be an intelligent, articulate, thoughtful person. The Democratic Party has its work cut out for it, but there are powerful, educated voices within it that have been working within the constraints of the system to try to make things work out for the best. It is still possible to fix at least some of the damage done by the last four years.

I think your preduction is not as likely as it feels. I give Trump maybe a 35% chance of reelection. What it will come down to is whether the voting patterns change (from 2016) while the overall vote-counts stay roughly the same. Given that the Democrats did rally in 2018, it still seems possible. Don't give up! You don't actually know the future!
I think Bruni and Douthat had very good editorials that express why impeachment is such a hazard.
Not unwarranted, not unnecessary, not stupid....just a giant hazard, that if handled sloppily and dragged on forever, as expected by democrats, will likely lead to re-election.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/opin ... ment-.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/opin ... trump.html

Specifically, Douthat:
First, if the Democrats impeach him they will be doing something unpopular instead of something popular. Maybe the polls showing impeachment’s unpopularity will alter as the Ukraine story develops. Maybe public hearings will deliver a series of blows that persuades the large anti-Trump, anti-impeachment constituency that his expedited removal from office is desirable or necessary. But the current shape of public opinion is the boring, basic reason that Trump seems to want to be impeached more than Nancy Pelosi wants to impeach him: The Democratic agenda is more popular than the Republican agenda (whatever that is), the likely Democratic nominees are all more popular than Trump, and so anything that puts the Democrats on the wrong side of public opinion may look better, through Trump’s eyes, than the status quo.

Second, Trump is happy to pit his overt abuses of power against the soft corruption of his foes. This is an aspect of Trumpism that the president’s critics find particularly infuriating — the way he attacks his rivals for being corrupt swamp creatures while being so much more nakedly compromised himself. But whether the subject is the Clinton Foundation’s influence-peddling or now the Biden family’s variation on that theme, Trump has always sold himself as the candidate of a more honest form of graft — presenting his open cynicism as preferable to carefully legal self-dealing, exquisitely laundered self-enrichment, the spirit of “hey, it’s totally normal for the vice president’s son to get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Ukrainians or the Chinese so long as every disclosure form gets filled out and his dad doesn’t talk to him about the business.”


What we need is all the attention to go to AMERICANS in this election - health care, environment, taxes, jobs, jobs, jobs, foreign relations, jobs, infrastructure, jobs, corporate malfeasence, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.......and what a lousy, lousy deal they are getting with Trump. That's great that there are so many jobs, but why do you have to have three of them to stay afloat?!?!? That should be item number one on the list of Trump failures. Instead the focus for the next year will be on Trump, Trump and Trump and the whole cast of characters of the impeachment panel and and bunch of garbage that 3/4 of Americans don't give a shit about. It's not garbage, but people are tired of this crap. we have been through it for a couple years already with Mueller, now another year?! Trump will say, he didn't order it, the DEms did! The pig will be in heaven.....

Hardly anyone, outside of the died in the wool Dems, will know who the Dem candidate even is......

Trump has a 98% chance of reelection. I am only being realistic here, I gave you 2%.... :wink:

Re: Politics

Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:00 pm
by Hype
I don't think claims like this are warranted:
Trump has a 98% chance of reelection.
That's obvious hyperbole. It's a feeling you have that you base on a certain set of information you've seen. But it's just a feeling. Humans are notoriously bad at getting probabilities and fractions right.

Ask people how much sugar is healthy to eat in a day, or how much sugar they eat, or how many calories, and they'll be off by factors of 50, or more.

Ask people how many Syrians, or Mexicans, or immigrants in general, live in the United States and the same thing happens. They vastly overestimate.

Then ask people how many people are in the same position as they are, and they vastly underestimate.

Don't trust your gut. You don't know what it's been eating.

Re: Politics

Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:10 pm
by mockbee
Hype wrote:
Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:17 am
Don't forget, not even a plurality of Americans actually voted for Trump, let alone a majority.
Yes, but that was when it was completely unknown what would happen with an unhinged, unprepared, untested, unqualified, ignoramus for a president. Hillary made a lot of mistakes with her campaign, especially with her promotional slogans, campaign scheduling and the like. The one thing she did very well, was paint a picture of a dark, corrupt, and evil future with Trump. It still wasn't enough to prevent a sea of red districts to go for Trump and an ultimate defeat. People were still willing to take that chance. Yes, there was shenanigans, but she needed to win convincingly, and she obviously didn't. If she had Jill Stein's votes, she would have won.
Guess what, that future she painted is now, and the economy is still in tact, in fact even "better"; no new wars, the supreme court is packed with super conservative judges and taxes are swimmingly for the rich and the "don't tread on me" crowd. Trump has a lot of wind in his sails, no fear of dystopia in the future, just more of the same shit. A LOT of people are okay with that. The only way they jump ship is with an unabashed HERO CELEBRITY for the alternative, not just some dude or gal.......Kinda like what we got with Obama.
Hype wrote:
Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:17 am
The vast majority of Americans are still sane, responsible-enough adults who understand that the President should be an intelligent, articulate, thoughtful person.
Have you met many Americans................ :hs: :lol:
I think you are referring to the educated class, which is a minority. And I am no advocate of the educated class being "smart" when it comes to the needs of "ordinary" Americans. Ordinary Americans are not stupid. Well, some are stupid and some are definitely racists; just like some educated Americans are "stupid" and some are also most definitely racist. Ordinary, working class/poor americans, who will decide the next election are mostly....fed up. They are hurting and struggling, they don't care about policy. THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT POLICY. They just want somebody to fix it, don't explain it to me, just FIX IT! They need to have faith, a feeling in their heart, that the candidate they vote for will fix it. A lot of people have that feeling about Trump. Why? Because maybe first you need to break it. No politician seems to take any actions to help, so maybe first it needs to be smashed to smithereens...who could do that?

They, the good/non-racist ones, don't really want to smash it, but it is the only choice they see. All current Dem candidates seem like all the others with empty promises. Blah, blah, blah plan this, plan that, heard it all before....... they want someone to believe. Demonstrate you know exactly what the problems are, and say you will fix it in a convincing fashion. Demonstrate that you REALLY understand, they can see straight through the political PR crap. They want to feel something, not learn something. I would argue that all people vote based on a feeling, there is no logic involved.
Hype wrote:
Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:17 am
I think your preduction is not as likely as it feels. I give Trump maybe a 35% chance of reelection. What it will come down to is whether the voting patterns change (from 2016) while the overall vote-counts stay roughly the same. Given that the Democrats did rally in 2018, it still seems possible. Don't give up! You don't actually know the future!
Democrat rally in 2018 was pretty weak when it came down to it. Lost tons of races for the Senate/Governors they should have won.

I wouldn't say that I have given up, I would say I have acquiesced.....I would suggest the same in order to be prepared for the next stage..... :tiphat:

Re: Politics

Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:15 pm
by mockbee
Hype wrote:
Wed Sep 25, 2019 3:00 pm
I don't think claims like this are warranted:
Trump has a 98% chance of reelection.
That's obvious hyperbole. It's a feeling you have that you base on a certain set of information you've seen. But it's just a feeling. Humans are notoriously bad at getting probabilities and fractions right.

Ask people how much sugar is healthy to eat in a day, or how much sugar they eat, or how many calories, and they'll be off by factors of 50, or more.

Ask people how many Syrians, or Mexicans, or immigrants in general, live in the United States and the same thing happens. They vastly overestimate.

Then ask people how many people are in the same position as they are, and they vastly underestimate.

Don't trust your gut. You don't know what it's been eating.
Totally agree, probability is stupid and notoriously wrong. But what is right here, is making statements, decisions and VOTING is based on a feeling........
I give Trump maybe a 35% chance of reelection.
Same deal here.
:noclue:

Re: Politics

Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:45 pm
by chaos
It's not public yet but . . .

The DNI testifies tomorrow morning in an OPEN hearing before the House Intelligence Committee. :pop:

Re: Politics

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 10:16 am
by Pandemonium
chaos wrote:
Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:45 pm
It's not public yet but . . .

The DNI testifies tomorrow morning in an OPEN hearing before the House Intelligence Committee. :pop:
I can't believe they are giving a guy who has engaged a former Clinton/Shiff lawyer as representation and is basically repeating 2nd hand gossip much credence. If you read the complaint, it reads as if anyone who is partisan anti-Trump read the now published phone call transcript like any one of us and is putting their own spin on it.

Re: Politics

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 10:47 am
by mockbee
Pandemonium wrote:
Thu Sep 26, 2019 10:16 am
chaos wrote:
Wed Sep 25, 2019 8:45 pm
It's not public yet but . . .

The DNI testifies tomorrow morning in an OPEN hearing before the House Intelligence Committee. :pop:
I can't believe they are giving a guy who has engaged a former Clinton/Shiff lawyer as representation and is basically repeating 2nd hand gossip much credence. If you read the complaint, it reads as if anyone who is partisan anti-Trump read the now published phone call transcript like any one of us and is putting their own spin on it.
Yes, we will be examining this for a year.


And the public in July will be like.......looks like Trump is running unopposed for president....who is the Democrat running for president???....huh, never heard of that person....... :thumb:

I imagine Trump is in full glee mode today.


Chaos is zen.......... :mediate:

Re: Politics

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 11:07 am
by mockbee
Democrats need to get this impeachment business done quickly. Have some hearings, and get a vote done within a month or two. Well.......then it will be the Senate and McConnell's show, through next year.

I change my mind, this isn't just a hazard, this is really dumb........ I do agree that Pelosi didn't really have a choice. Trump was surprised he didn't get snagged with Mueller, so he and Giuliani mustered up this.....

:no:

Re: Politics

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 11:55 am
by chaos
I wouldn't categorize information in the WB's report as "gossip." This person works in the Intelligence Community and is upfront in the report that s/he is repeating what s/he has been told by other people who work in that community. The WB is essentially waving a SOS flag. I watched the last 1.5 hours of the open hearing. I had thought impeachment proceedings were a mistake prior to the hearing, but no longer. Maguire was put in an untenable position (like so many others in Trump's orbit), and I have a feeling he will not be the acting DNI for much longer.

Re: Politics

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 12:12 pm
by chaos




Re: Politics

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 12:36 pm
by mockbee
chaos wrote:
Thu Sep 26, 2019 11:55 am
I wouldn't categorize information in the WB's report as "gossip." This person works in the Intelligence Community and is upfront in the report that s/he is repeating what s/he has been told by other people who work in that community. The WB is essentially waving a SOS flag. I watched the last 1.5 hours of the open hearing. I had thought impeachment proceedings were a mistake prior to the hearing, but no longer. Maguire was put in an untenable position (like so many others in Trump's orbit), and I have a feeling he will not be the acting DNI for much longer.
I haven't watched any of this and don't keep up with specifics. I rely on rumor and 2nd hand analysis. I'd like to think I am just about, if not slightly more, informed as your average newswatching joe schmo out there.
I'd like to think that puts me in a decent position to understand what is generally playing out with the American public at large. :bored:

With that said, do you see any possibility that Giuliani/Trump engaged in seemingly nefarious activity regarding Ukraine to spur impeachment proceedings? Or is that absolutely impossible in your mind?

It seems to me from the facts so far and from past activity, that is their intent.

They are not flat out stupid.....they are just extremely manipulative with the intent to leverage chaos that revolves around them to their advantage. :noclue:

Re: Politics

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 12:55 pm
by chaos
With that said, do you see any possibility that Giuliani/Trump engaged in seemingly nefarious activity regarding Ukraine to spur impeachment proceedings?
Yes. If you look at a timeline of events, the intent is clear. I think this is going to be the beginning of the end, and it will be because of Trump's overconfidence in his ability to remain unchecked by wearing people down with his chaos and "unprecedented" actions.

Re: Politics

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 2:06 pm
by chaos
I thought this opinion piece in the Washington Post sums up the parts I saw of this morning's hearing.

Keep in mind Maguire was placed in his "acting" position 4 days before the complaint was filed; he attempted to figure out the protools.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... ration-is/

The acting director of national intelligence just showed how corrupt the Trump administration is

Paul Waldman
Opinion writer
September 26, 2019 at 1:22 p.m. EDT

“I believe that this matter is unprecedented,” said acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire in his opening statement to the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday. It’s hard to argue with that. And the testimony he gave made clear — perhaps unintentionally — just how thoroughly infected with corruption the entire executive branch has become under President Trump.

Precisely because Maguire does not appear to be like some of Trump’s other appointees — not an amoral conspiracy theorist like Michael Flynn, nor a loyalist willing to brazenly deceive the public and twist government to the president’s purposes like Attorney General William P. Barr — he showed how poisonous this president is.

You probably hadn’t heard of Maguire before today. I have no idea what his political views are, but by all accounts even Democrats were somewhat relieved when Trump made him acting DNI, because while Trump might have appointed some political hack or pathetic lickspittle to that post, Maguire has a long and distinguished career in the military and the government.

There are, without question, legitimate questions one can raise about some of the decisions Maguire made as he handled the extraordinary whistleblower complaint about Trump’s effort to get the government of Ukraine to dig up dirt on a potential 2020 opponent. But the picture that emerged from Maguire’s testimony was of a person of integrity who found himself at sea in a government where in every direction he turned, he confronted institutions Trump had corrupted.

As Maguire testified, when he received the whistleblower’s complaint from the inspector general of the intelligence community, it was like nothing he or anyone else had ever seen — “unprecedented,” as he said multiple times. One of the first questions he confronted was whether the conversation between Trump and the Ukrainian president would be protected by executive privilege and thus shouldn’t be passed to Congress.

“Such calls are typically subject to executive privilege,” Maguire said. “As a result we consulted with the White House Counsel’s Office and were advised that much of the information of the complaint was in fact subject to executive privilege.”

In other words, Maguire’s first stop, upon receiving a breathtaking set of accusations about Trump and his White House, was … Donald Trump’s White House.
But it goes even deeper than that. I want to point to this portion of the whistleblower’s complaint:

White House officials told me that they were ‘directed’ by White House lawyers to remove the electronic transcript from the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored [...] Instead, the transcript was loaded into a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature. One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.

This is an extraordinary allegation, that White House lawyers took steps to conceal Trump’s phone conversation from others in the government, going outside normal procedure to do so.


Upon seeing this complaint, Maguire felt that he had no choice but to find out if the president was going to invoke executive privilege. So to determine how to handle accusations against, among others, White House lawyers, he had to check with … White House lawyers.

Next, Maguire believed he had to determine whether, given the contents of the whistleblower complaint, the law did in fact require him to turn it over to Congress. Who would give him this answer? The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

The Justice Department is, of course, run by Attorney General William P. Barr. Who is mentioned in the whistleblower complaint, and whom Trump told the Ukrainian president he should work with in the project to get dirt on Joe Biden. In addition to the OLC decision that Maguire shouldn’t pass the whistleblower complaint to Congress, the question of whether Trump had violated campaign finance laws by seeking something of value from a foreign source was referred to the Justice Department’s criminal division. They quickly said no.

Maguire was questioned about this sequence of events repeatedly by Democratic members of the committee. Here’s what he said at one point:

Only the White House can determine or waive executive privilege. There is no one else to go to. And as far as a second opinion, my only avenue of that was to go to the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel.

Again, there are reasons to criticize Maguire’s decisions. But it seems clear that he was operating in good faith, trying to follow procedures and the law at least insofar as he understood it. Yet everywhere he turned, he faced offices and people who were partners in Trump’s degradation of the system’s integrity. It appears that, without any intent to be corrupt, Maguire was swallowed by Trump’s corruption.


In the end, some combination of public pressure and Trump’s own hubristic foolishness in thinking he can get way with anything led to the public release of both a rough transcript of Trump’s phone call and the whistleblower complaint itself. The substance of those two documents is devastating.

Watching Maguire testify, one got the sense that he knows it and is trying to somehow emerge from his service with his integrity and reputation intact. Perhaps he should have known that, when you agree to work for Donald Trump, that’s going to be next to impossible.


Re: Politics

Posted: Thu Sep 26, 2019 3:18 pm
by mockbee
chaos wrote:
Thu Sep 26, 2019 12:55 pm
With that said, do you see any possibility that Giuliani/Trump engaged in seemingly nefarious activity regarding Ukraine to spur impeachment proceedings?
Yes. If you look at a timeline of events, the intent is clear. I think this is going to be the beginning of the end, and it will be because of Trump's overconfidence in his ability to remain unchecked by wearing people down with his chaos and "unprecedented" actions.

Yeah, I admire your faith in the American public, because they are the final arbiter of this mess with the vote, but I just don't think they will be there.... This will ultimately be a bunch of annoying blah, blah, blah that Trump didn't invite (even though he obviously did) and there will be a collective, meh.

:noclue:

Re: Politics

Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2019 4:00 am
by Hype
Have you met many Americans................ :hs: :lol:
I think you are referring to the educated class, which is a minority. And I am no advocate of the educated class being "smart" when it comes to the needs of "ordinary" Americans. Ordinary Americans are not stupid. Well, some are stupid and some are definitely racists; just like some educated Americans are "stupid" and some are also most definitely racist. Ordinary, working class/poor americans, who will decide the next election are mostly....fed up. They are hurting and struggling, they don't care about policy. THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT POLICY. They just want somebody to fix it, don't explain it to me, just FIX IT! They need to have faith, a feeling in their heart, that the candidate they vote for will fix it. A lot of people have that feeling about Trump. Why? Because maybe first you need to break it. No politician seems to take any actions to help, so maybe first it needs to be smashed to smithereens...who could do that?

They, the good/non-racist ones, don't really want to smash it, but it is the only choice they see. All current Dem candidates seem like all the others with empty promises. Blah, blah, blah plan this, plan that, heard it all before....... they want someone to believe. Demonstrate you know exactly what the problems are, and say you will fix it in a convincing fashion. Demonstrate that you REALLY understand, they can see straight through the political PR crap. They want to feel something, not learn something. I would argue that all people vote based on a feeling, there is no logic involved.
I really think it's important to understand that it's just not correct that the only people who understand how fucked up Trump is are educated or "non-ordinary" people.

The biggest problem with the presidential vote is basically that New York and California combined have a major portion of the Democratic vote, which is weakened significantly by the electoral college. It's not that Americans aren't progressive, it's that most Americans live on the coasts and their votes aren't worth as much as the ones in the middle. It's a systemic issue, not an issue of the actual values of actual Americans.

Where the values question does come in to play is in the small number of people in those much smallers states whose political allegiance is fluid. That is a very, very small number of people, and that's who was targetted by Cambridge Analytica and others to get Trump elected.

Whoever the Democratic candidate is, they just need to figure out how to beat the Republican strategists and foreign interventions in convincing relatively few people across a well-recognized set of states to vote for them and against Trump. Consider that many people who supported Bernie Sanders flipped and supported Trump. There's no reason to believe that the reverse can't happen, precisely because the sort of people who could go from democratic socialist to ... Trump... are likely to be fairly easily manipulated. It's just a matter of good strategy and the right focus.

It's really a simple game at the bottom: most people are already settled. That's what Mitt Romney meant when he stupidly referred to the 47% who weren't going to be convinced to vote for him:
Mitt Romney wrote:There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That's an entitlement. The government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean the president starts off with 48, 49... he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. So he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. ... My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5–10% in the center that are independents, that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not.
His description isn't quite accurate, and it actually goes both ways. 94% of voters, broadly speaking, are always already largely decided (political affiliations in party-politics are basically tribal). Candidates have to convince that remaining six percent to go with them, or else figure out how to mobilize enough new support from the legions of non-voters (of which most are apolitical and thus exceedingly difficult to generate enthusiasm among).

So, again, I don't think this is a matter of the majority of Americans being stupid, or manipulated, or whatever. It's about who can figure out how to successfully work the system in their favour by courting a very small minority of voters in the right places.

Re: Politics

Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2019 4:37 am
by SR
Bee, you're rallying cry here that mirrors 16 is people are pissed. Many of those really "good" people who flocked to this empty hope have been fucked by him. Are you saying they'll remain with him?

Anyways, here's a fun table to play with. Interesting that trump has decreased by at least a 20% margin overall in every single state in net approval rating since he took office. He's dropped a bit from a consistent 90% approval of GOP to appx 85%, but I didn't expect much there. What is astounding is just how easy it was for the last GOP to be radicalized to the new GOP in such a short period of time...even with the understanding of the impact of AIles and the tea party's influence beginning in the 90's

https://morningconsult.com/tracking-trump-2/