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Post by Cornflake on Mar 13, 2024 9:22:58 GMT -5
We're now in the realm of mythology. There isn't any cosmic steamroller doing evil things. There are just people who disagree with us, doing what they think is right. Lumping all those people together and treating them as a single malignant force turns them into an "it" that can be hated rather than a "they" who should be loved. That, in my book, is evil.
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Post by millring on Mar 13, 2024 9:57:50 GMT -5
We're now in the realm of mythology. There isn't any cosmic steamroller doing evil things. There are just people who disagree with us, doing what they think is right. Lumping all those people together and treating them as a single malignant force turns them into an "it" that can be hated rather than a "they" who should be loved. That, in my book, is evil. No, there isn't a cosmic steamroller. There is a philosophical one. No conspiracy. No need for one. Just a philosophical shift.
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Post by james on Mar 13, 2024 10:13:42 GMT -5
Gender dysphoria is a condition not "sexual dysphoria". The widely recognised and most helpful way of addressing the harm and distress it causes is through gender affirming health care. Health care that is being stripped away, along with other rights, from transgender people by Republican legislatures nationwide. Ignorance about transgender health issues is widespread and deep and its effects dangerous and cruel. Transgender people and their rights are under sustained and increasingly harmful attack. www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-research-reveals-how-the-nazis-targeted-transgender-people-180982931/
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Post by majorminor on Mar 13, 2024 10:41:44 GMT -5
I try not to think about this upcoming election or I get depressed. You have GOT to be kidding me these are our choices. I'll be sitting this one out which is easy for me in still red for a little while longer Montana. If it was a vote or die situation I'd vote for the candidate that was pro business, less taxes, smaller government, less involvement in foreign affairs.
I predicted awhile back that if Trump wasn't in prison and Biden was still alive Trump is winning this one. That would just be the cherry on the absurdity cake wouldn't it? After some deeper thought, though, Millring might be right. Trump needs to keep those non inspired, quietly embarrassed, tepid Biden voters home and bring in more of the swing voters and and older school Repubs who find him repulsive to his side. The way to accomplish that would be to SHUT YOUR PIEHOLE but alas. I'm starting to think his mouth and scorched earth approach to everything is going to energize an epic turn out against him. Again.
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Post by epaul on Mar 13, 2024 10:45:28 GMT -5
Biden got more votes in 2020 than Obama got in 2008. Nothing super-suspiciously strange there. There were 252 million people in this country over the age of 18 in 2020. There were 215 million people in this country over the age of 18 in 2008. That's 37 million more "over 18s" in the 2020 election than there were in the 2008 election. 37 million. 37,000,000. Yet some find it so super-suspiciously strange that Biden got 1 million more votes in 2020 than Obama got in 2008. So super-suspiciously strange that they call fraud and cheat as the only plausible explanation. As if 37 million more voting age people can't possibly account for an increase of 1 million in Biden's vote total over the 08 Obama. That electoral cheat and fraud is the true explanation. Not 37 million more people over the age of 18. But systemic cheat and fraud by "those other people"! That kind of logic is super-suspiciously strange. usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/democracy-and-society/elections/presidential-voting-age-population/(graph interactive. place curser on line to reveal year and total.)
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Post by Russell Letson on Mar 13, 2024 11:22:26 GMT -5
From what I see with my own lying eyes as well as through the reporting of a range of outlets, there is emphatically not "nothing left to elect Trump." Instead, there is a substantial (if not solely sufficient) portion of the electorate absolutely and immovably attached to him personally and to his vision of the world. Then there are the opportunists, political and otherwise, who see advantage in remaining allied with him. And, thanks to a range of economic and social disruptions and unrelated matters (Gaza, for one) there are those who might move in Trump's direction or (almost as effective) refuse to vote for Biden. Trump has always won via leverage, and that redistribution of political-social-economic interests might well prove effective enough to get him back in office. At which point we will enjoy the reign of King Stork.
I don't know how many legs the GOP/conservative stool had (even after Renn's pretty thoughtful explanation), but the MAGA platform--and the way it is promoted by Trump and his allies--had me thinking of Germany in the early 1930s. I'm not sure that it can't happen here, but "not sure" is enough to contribute to five-in-the-morning worry sessions.
As for the "how did we wind up here?" question: The roots of MAGA in my lifetime start with McCarthyism and run through the John Birch Society to Tea Party movement. And on the professional-politics side, MAGA is intertwined with the dirty-tricks/propaganda techniques developed and polished by the likes of Lee Atwater and the scorched-earth political strategies of Newt Gingrich. A third strand to the braid is the backing money controlled by right-wing individuals (e.g., the Kochs, Richard Scaife, Robert Mercer), who leverage their influence by direct contribution or the creation of think tanks and policy foundations--or, in the case of the Murdochs and the Smiths (Sinclair Broadcast Group), entire news-media operations.
Now, there's nothing new about dirty tricks, rabble-rousing, bloody-shirt-waving, or plutocrats throwing their weighty money around in the political environment--nor is the GOP the only party in American history to have behaved badly (insert obligatory pointing at Chicago, Kansas City, and Tammany Hall). Nevertheless, there is a point at which quantity becomes quality (none of the three classic American corruption machines controlled the whole nation), and there is also a point at which the combined effects of media, money, political opportunism, and civic culture (AKA the culture wars) do indeed amount to a threat to our mostly-stable, kinda-democratic, not-too-dysfunctional system of governance.
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Post by Marshall on Mar 13, 2024 11:34:23 GMT -5
(none of the three classic American corruption machines controlled the whole nation), Some people say Richard J Daley gave us John Kennedy.
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Post by Marshall on Mar 13, 2024 11:37:45 GMT -5
If it was a vote or die situation I'd vote for the candidate that was pro business, less taxes, smaller government, less involvement in foreign affairs. Yeah. That's the foundation of Republicanism. If they'd stick to that and stop throwing in sex and personal medical things, they'd do better.
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Post by theevan on Mar 13, 2024 11:43:03 GMT -5
To quote Doc Pomus: "But we only see what we want it to be."
(Great song..."The Real Me")
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Post by theevan on Mar 13, 2024 11:43:39 GMT -5
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 13, 2024 12:01:01 GMT -5
I still believe that June will bring the reversal of Chevron and the end to the 40 year progressive con that has destroyed what remained of a free and democratic society.
And that will be entirely Trump's fault.
November won't even be a contest after that.
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Post by majorminor on Mar 13, 2024 12:04:12 GMT -5
I still believe that June will bring the reversal of Chevron and the end to the 40 year progressive con that has destroyed what remained of a free and democratic society. And that will be entirely Trump's fault. November won't even be a contest after that. Do you think the average voter on either side will actually care or notice in the short time between that ruling and the election? I'm not questioning the importance of that decision - just the influence of it on an election just a few months later.
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Post by epaul on Mar 13, 2024 12:30:48 GMT -5
Biden, Trump, Trump, Biden...
Mark my addled words, come November, the ticket of Robert Kennedy Jr. and Aaron Rodgers will darn tough to pass up.
Finally, a ticket that will address the core issues this country faces, like the faked Moon landing and the Russian infiltration of our medical establishment.
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Post by Russell Letson on Mar 13, 2024 12:45:50 GMT -5
Some people say Richard J Daley gave us John Kennedy. But was Kennedy a tool of the Daly machine? Was Truman a tool of the Pendergast outfit? FWIW (and as I think I have mentioned before), one of my great-grandfathers was a bagman for the New York State GOP--he'd come back home with a satchel full of cash, which was distributed to prospective voters from the back porch of his Canajoharie house. Or so my father told me that his father-in-law told him.
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Post by epaul on Mar 13, 2024 12:47:13 GMT -5
Once the Chevron dust settles, it may well prove to be a measured decision that makes no one happy and effects only minor (and possibly even welcome?) changes. Outside Roe vs Wade, this court hasn't gone off the rails disruptively in its decisions.
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Post by millring on Mar 13, 2024 13:49:10 GMT -5
Biden got more votes in 2020 than Obama got in 2008. Nothing super-suspiciously strange there. There were 252 million people in this country over the age of 18 in 2020. There were 215 million people in this country over the age of 18 in 2008. That's 37 million more "over 18s" in the 2020 election than there were in the 2008 election. 37 million. 37,000,000. Yet some find it so super-suspiciously strange that Biden got 1 million more votes in 2020 than Obama got in 2008. So super-suspiciously strange that they call fraud and cheat as the only plausible explanation. As if 37 million more voting age people can't possibly account for an increase of 1 million in Biden's vote total over the 08 Obama. That electoral cheat and fraud is the true explanation. Not 37 million more people over the age of 18. But systemic cheat and fraud by "those other people"! That kind of logic is super-suspiciously strange. usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/democracy-and-society/elections/presidential-voting-age-population/(graph interactive. place curser on line to reveal year and total.) I suspect that you read what you thought I wrote instead of what I wrote, or your sarcasm wasn't in response to my pointing out that Biden is the most popularly elected president in history.
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Post by Marshall on Mar 13, 2024 13:54:07 GMT -5
I still believe that June will bring the reversal of Chevron and the end to the 40 year progressive con that has destroyed what remained of a free and democratic society. And that will be entirely Trump's fault. November won't even be a contest after that. Do you think the average voter on either side will actually care or notice in the short time between that ruling and the election? I'm not questioning the importance of that decision - just the influence of it on an election just a few months later. I agree the avg voter will go, "Huh?" Plus it might even motivate the people who prefer a Big Brother Protecting government to run out and vote. All that being said, it's only a handful of swing states that really matter in a modern election.
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 13, 2024 14:08:01 GMT -5
I still believe that June will bring the reversal of Chevron and the end to the 40 year progressive con that has destroyed what remained of a free and democratic society. And that will be entirely Trump's fault. November won't even be a contest after that. Do you think the average voter on either side will actually care or notice in the short time between that ruling and the election? I'm not questioning the importance of that decision - just the influence of it on an election just a few months later. Well, if the EPA instantly craters, liberals never so much as mention Dobbs again, the paperwork involved in your business suddenly decreases 75%, Tesla suddenly contemplates bankruptcy, Northern Virginia experiences its first ever unemployment driven recession, the US pulls out of the Paris Accords followed by a bunch of other countries deciding not to play if we're not going to play, and Joe Biden's dementia accelerates to a full permanent fetal position, I'd say that will be plenty of time to influence the election.
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Post by John B on Mar 13, 2024 15:22:04 GMT -5
Everyone knows there's no such thing as an October Surprise.
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Post by millring on Mar 13, 2024 15:28:12 GMT -5
As for the "how did we wind up here?" question: The roots of MAGA in my lifetime start with McCarthyism and run through the John Birch Society to Tea Party movement. And on the professional-politics side, MAGA is intertwined with the dirty-tricks/propaganda techniques developed and polished by the likes of Lee Atwater and the scorched-earth political strategies of Newt Gingrich. A third strand to the braid is the backing money controlled by right-wing individuals (e.g., the Kochs, Richard Scaife, Robert Mercer), who leverage their influence by direct contribution or the creation of think tanks and policy foundations--or, in the case of the Murdochs and the Smiths (Sinclair Broadcast Group), entire news-media operations.
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