• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Kamala Harris Election Campaign

JoeMorgue said:
Okay but this kind of "Every decision is really random" nihilism both strikes me as lazy and completely non-useful.

We're one step away from arguing free will and I like to hope we can improve the political environment of the US without getting that deep in esoteria.
Click to expand...

But Trump voters don't have free will. They follow the cult leader and will drink the koolaid.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
I know this is going to piss off a fair few trumpkins. Reminds me, by the way, of a woman I knew in Houston who wore a t-shirt saying "Danger: Educated Black Woman" :D .
Click to expand...

"She needs to learn her place" comes to mind. MAGA racism and mysoginy is gross.
 
theprestige said:
This is what the Kamala Harris election campaign really believes.
Click to expand...

It doesn't seem to be belief. More akin to reality. The guy lies almost as much as he breathes. He attacks others constantly. He is breathtakingly stupid and ignorant. Might just be the most self centered human being on the planet. He launched a violent coup.

The only things that he seems to be consistent about are his total lack of personal accountability, his personal greed, sexism and his racism. And it's not like he's hiding his awful side and people have the excuse of ignorance.

So I have been wondering for almost a decade when his supporters wake up to what is obvious. Which leads me to think they're just as awful as him.

Go back and look at Hitler's rise to power. He too led an insurrection and was incarcerated for it and then became chancellor. Just like Trump, Hitler made racist speech after racist speech and the Germans loved him.
 
Last edited:
acbytesla said:
It doesn't seem to be belief. More akin to reality. The guy lies almost as much as he breathes. He attacks others constantly. He is breathtaking stupid and ignorant. Might just be the most self centered human being on the planet. He launched a violent coup.

The only things that he seems to be consistent about are his total lack of personal accountability, his personal greed, sexism and his racism. And it's not like he's hiding his awful side and people have the excuse of ignorance.

So I have been wondering for almost a decade when his supporters wake up to what is obvious. Which leads me to think they're just as awful as him.

Go back and look at Hitler's rise to power. He too led an insurrection and was incarcerated for it and then became chancellor. Just like Trump, Hitler made racist speech after racist speech and the Germans loved him.
Click to expand...

That will never happen. They will go to their graves clinging to their belief in him.

Even after Germany was soundly defeated in WWII, many Germans clung to their belief that Hitler was right, and that Germany was the victim.
 
JoeMorgue said:
You're not wrong, but I don't think it's as simple as a pure "facts/feelings" dichotomy, although that's a big part of it.

This is brushing up against a broader topic, it's cultural level above even just politics, that's been on my mind for some time now.

(This is going to be very rambling and stream of consciousness, feel free to skip, it's mostly me talking stuff out that's been on my mind for a bit)

[SNIP]
Click to expand...
I'm not going to disagree with you as such, but I think you're conflating a couple of different concepts here. Which aren't completely unrelated, but they aren't the same thing, and imho the distinctions drawn between them by society more or less approximate what I'd want to see anyway.

The first, the guy crapping in the pool, is just a niche application of the tragedy of the commons. A public good which, through no particular fault of the part of people using it, becomes unusable by all. In this case it's one guy, but one guy that everyone else agrees ought to be able to use the pool. The solution is the same: dude just can't use the pool. "No crapping in the pool" is a good rule, and it's not his fault he can't abide by it, but he can't abide by it.

But, things are different when the offense isn't crapping in the pool, but "sharing the same water with a Black guy." That's just one of a significant and growing set of protected exceptions where society is saying "no, no matter how rustled you honkeys are having to rub elbows with those people, you do not get to exclude them." The closest that bleeds into politics is where it crossed over into the paradox of tolerance, where privileged jackholes feel oppressed at not being permitted to oppress and demand the freedom to deny others' freedoms.

Neither of those seem to have a whole lot to do with your concluding analogies, the business store and how it relates to political strategy. I'm not sure what you're going for there. Maybe rephrase that?
 
shemp said:
That will never happen. They will go to their graves clinging to their belief in him.

Even after Germany was soundly defeated in WWII, many Germans clung to their belief that Hitler was right, and that Germany was the victim.
Click to expand...

Yep. There are lots of Germans that deny the Holocaust. Say it was made up...etc..etc.
 
acbytesla said:
Yep. There are lots of Germans that deny the Holocaust. Say it was made up...etc..etc.
Click to expand...

About a decade ago, sheesh I'm old, I was in Germany and a "Hitler was right" person was drunk and urinated on the train we were riding. Seems about right for a wannabe Nazi.
 
acbytesla said:
Go back and look at Hitler's rise to power.
Click to expand...

Wasn't it Roger Scruton who observed that liberals think conservatives are evil while conservatives simpy feel that liberals are wrong? This habitual accuation by liberals that every conservative is actually the second coming of Hitler is just too on the nose.
 
Oh look it's a nihilist pretending he cares about something. Must be time to defend the worst possible people because that's the only time they do that.
 
Trausti said:
Wasn't it Roger Scruton who observed that liberals think conservatives are evil while conservatives simpy feel that liberals are wrong? This habitual accuation by liberals that every conservative is actually the second coming of Hitler is just too on the nose.
Click to expand...

I don't know about the highlighted part. But the rest is simply not true. I certainly didn't agree with the policies of Reagan or either Bush. But I never thought any of them were like Hitler in any way. Because they weren't. My degree was in Political Science at the University of Washington. My finals paper was on Hitler, his rise to power and how it could happen here. Not that I thought it would.

Trump is nothing like his Republican predecessors. He has never been conservative and he wasn't as President. You would describe Reagan today as a liberal or centrist. George H.W. Bush raised taxes.

You know who is conservative? Dick and Lynne Cheney. So is Judge Luttig.

The correlations between Trump and Hitler is staggering. Both are incredibly racist. Both practiced the big lie. Both lied to the public over and over. Trump has been making authoritarian promise after authoritarian promise. No Republican President or Presidential candidate has ever threatened our democracy.

Reagan made a couple of bigoted remarks. But he has never been a full blown racist making bigoted speech after bigoted speech. But I can't imagine Trump being as awful as Hitler. He's too old and lazy. Still, he wants to be a dictator and has said so.
 
What is more scary?

That Republicans can't help themselves from voting for Trump - or that they could, but won't?
 
Last edited:
acbytesla said:
I don't know about the highlighted part. But the rest is simply not true. I certainly didn't agree with the policies of Reagan or either Bush. But I never thought any of them were like Hitler in any way. Because they weren't. My degree was in Political Science at the University of Washington. My finals paper was on Hitler, his rise to power and how it could happen here. Not that I thought it would.

Trump is nothing like his Republican predecessors. He has never been conservative and he wasn't as President. You would describe Reagan today as a liberal or centrist. George H.W. Bush raised taxes.

You know who is conservative? Dick and Lynne Cheney. So is Judge Luttig.

The correlations between Trump and Hitler is staggering. Both are incredibly racist. Both practiced the big lie. Both lied to the public over and over. Trump has been making authoritarian promise after authoritarian promise. No Republican President or Presidential candidate has ever threatened our democracy.

Reagan made a couple of bigoted remarks. But he has never been a full blown racist making bigoted speech after bigoted speech. But I can't imagine Trump being as awful as Hitler. He's too old and lazy. Still, he wants to be a dictator and has said so.
Click to expand...

You're massively over-romanticising the republican party there. Reagan's campaign was chock full of racism, just of a coded variety, his regime used a stragegy of "we'll get the poor white guy to ignore the economic hurt we're doing to him by hurting the ************^ more" and I would say the last republican president not out for himself was Eisenhower and any republican politician not there for the main chance became vanishingly rare after Nixon.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
You're massively over-romanticising the republican party there. Reagan's campaign was chock full of racism, just of a coded variety, his regime used a stragegy of "we'll get the poor white guy to ignore the economic hurt we're doing to him by hurting the ************^ more" and I would say the last republican president not out for himself was Eisenhower and any republican politician not there for the main chance became vanishingly rare after Nixon.
Click to expand...

I have said before that the Republican party is no longer the party of Nixon.

And I chose Nixon for the reasons you allude to.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
You're massively over-romanticising the republican party there. Reagan's campaign was chock full of racism, just of a coded variety, his regime used a stragegy of "we'll get the poor white guy to ignore the economic hurt we're doing to him by hurting the ************^ more" and I would say the last republican president not out for himself was Eisenhower and any republican politician not there for the main chance became vanishingly rare after Nixon.
Click to expand...

Sure, and George H.W. Bush ran the Willie Horton ad. There were definitely dog whistles from all three. But still, it doesn't hold a candle to Trump's blatant bigotry.
 
Back in 2020 he was saying: "“We’re not supposed to have a socialist — look, we’re not going to be a socialist nation. We’re not going to have a socialist president, especially a female socialist president,”"

He really doesn't hide his bigotry.
 
Trausti said:
Wasn't it Roger Scruton who observed that liberals think conservatives are evil while conservatives simpy feel that liberals are wrong? This habitual accuation by liberals that every conservative is actually the second coming of Hitler is just too on the nose.
Click to expand...

The republicans never talk about the democrats as Marxist/socialists in a derogatory manner. They never claim that they are baby killers. Never claim that they want to mutilate teenagers. Never claim that they need god in their lives. Nope, conservatives never claim liberals are evil. Give me a break.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom