Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Malkiah]

The Tea Party showed how a minority group can force themselves upon a party. They handed progressives a clear blueprint of how to operate, problem is progressives can't be arsed to go out and vote.

not sure i follow this, because the Democrats are a conservative party... so why do they care about progressives in the first place?
(i don't mean "conservative" in a pejorative sense, but in a classic definition of conservative government - staid, status-quo, responds to current events but cautiously, deals with social issues but slowly, etc)

"progressives" in the strictest sense have no voice in US politics, no representation, and also little to no relevance as either a cultural force or as a voting bloc.
what the last 50 years has taught us is that if you identify a group of people that are almost entirely apolitical (as the religious right was prior to the late 70s) and make a political party based solely on catering to that subgroup of people, that subgroup of people will end up shaping the policy and political actions of that party.

why would the democrats be interested in learning that lesson or caring?
sure, they could pivot to actively courting progressive interests, but there's waaaaaaaaaaaay less people who are aggressively liberal to the point of becoming apolitical that you can sway to vote for you than there are people who are aggressively religious to the point of becoming apolitical that you can sway to vote for you.
the US is a fundamentally regressive country, it's baked into the core of the cultural zeitgeist so deep it'll probably never come out without a drastic redefinition of the country via something like a huge ground war or complete economic and social collapse.
there is currently no research that i'm aware of to suggest that there is an untapped voting bloc of progressive idealists large enough to enable a political shift.

[Elegiac]

not sure i follow this, because the Democrats are a conservative party... so why do they care about progressives in the first place?
(i don't mean "conservative" in a pejorative sense, but in a classic definition of conservative government - staid, status-quo, responds to current events but cautiously, deals with social issues but slowly, etc)

"progressives" in the strictest sense have no voice in US politics, no representation, and also little to no relevance as either a cultural force or as a voting bloc.
what the last 50 years has taught us is that if you identify a group of people that are almost entirely apolitical (as the religious right was prior to the late 70s) and make a political party based solely on catering to that subgroup of people, that subgroup of people will end up shaping the policy and political actions of that party.

why would the democrats be interested in learning that lesson or caring?
sure, they could pivot to actively courting progressive interests, but there's waaaaaaaaaaaay less people who are aggressively liberal to the point of becoming apolitical that you can sway to vote for you than there are people who are aggressively religious to the point of becoming apolitical that you can sway to vote for you.
the US is a fundamentally regressive country, it's baked into the core of the cultural zeitgeist so deep it'll probably never come out without a drastic redefinition of the country via something like a huge ground war or complete economic and social collapse.
there is currently no research that i'm aware of to suggest that there is an untapped voting bloc of progressive idealists large enough to enable a political shift.

Say you don’t know what a big tent party is without saying it, lmao.

[Malkiah]

So is not voting the only power these groups have? I mean a big critique is the Democrats still have to much money interest of helping the rich, corporation than the middle class. The policies pitched by Harris have been the bare minimum and I'm not yelling some Communist Manifesto here, just taxing rich, workers rights, housing w/o neo-lib policies, etc.

It's an interesting conundrum from a political/philosophical sense, and how it all ties into voting and what is 'owed' or expected.

Like, suppose you're someone who has very strong beliefs and morals that housing should be a basic human right of existence, that the concept of "earning a living" is inherently disgusting, and that the human addiction to food and shelter should not be weaponized against them for profit.
Say for example that is the highest level moral imperative to your mind, and that sure you care about other things in the abstract (gay rights, abortion, minorities, equality, etc etc) but none of that actually impacts you personally or anyone you know, and on the whole you consider these things to be secondary social problems compared to the greater fundamental issue of the core basics of the human condition.

On that scenario, which US political party do you turn to?
(hint: neither)

All you're left with are self-satisfied dickheads bloviating on how you are a "moral evil" is you don't vote for democrats, and despite what some idiots think that isn't a terribly compelling antic.

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Say you don’t know what a big tent party is without saying it, lmao.

... what?
i'm not entirely certain you understand either of the posts that you're responding to, since my entire point is literally that "big tent" is why the whole tea party tactic won't work on democrats.

[Shadowferal]

not sure i follow this, because the Democrats are a conservative party... so why do they care about progressives in the first place?

That depends on the country you live in.
The conservative party is represented by Republicans under Donald Trump. Refer to "Project 2025."

[Malkiah]

That depends on the country you live in.
The conservative party is represented by Republicans under Donald Trump. Refer to "Project 2025."

i disagree, but that's a matter of semantics.
republicans are a regressive party, and the term "conservative" is as misused in describing republicans as the term "woke" is misused in describing anything other than black folks being aware of themselves within the broader context of US society... i mean, if one is inclined to get technical about definitions, but again this is semantics here.
i guess you could say republicans are Conservatives (US-specific term) while democrats are conservatives (political-general term).

by the classical definition of conservatism, a political party is one that opts for a conservative approach to governance, and that is precisely what democrats are.
it's not a bad thing, like i said i'm not using that in a pejorative sense. democrats are IMO a legit awesome conservative party, they are precisely what any country should hope for in a conservative party: they address real issues in a timely manner, but are slow to propose radical change and try to implement fixes for social problems in the most minimal way possible. that's a good thing for society to have, so long as the other half of the political structure is an attempt to make radical changes to the way things work in order to make large scale improvements to civilization.

the problem in the US is that you have a good and proper conservative party, and a radical activist regressive party.

[Gorsameth]

not sure i follow this, because the Democrats are a conservative party... so why do they care about progressives in the first place?
(i don't mean "conservative" in a pejorative sense, but in a classic definition of conservative government - staid, status-quo, responds to current events but cautiously, deals with social issues but slowly, etc)

"progressives" in the strictest sense have no voice in US politics, no representation, and also little to no relevance as either a cultural force or as a voting bloc.
what the last 50 years has taught us is that if you identify a group of people that are almost entirely apolitical (as the religious right was prior to the late 70s) and make a political party based solely on catering to that subgroup of people, that subgroup of people will end up shaping the policy and political actions of that party.

why would the democrats be interested in learning that lesson or caring?
sure, they could pivot to actively courting progressive interests, but there's waaaaaaaaaaaay less people who are aggressively liberal to the point of becoming apolitical that you can sway to vote for you than there are people who are aggressively religious to the point of becoming apolitical that you can sway to vote for you.
the US is a fundamentally regressive country, it's baked into the core of the cultural zeitgeist so deep it'll probably never come out without a drastic redefinition of the country via something like a huge ground war or complete economic and social collapse.
there is currently no research that i'm aware of to suggest that there is an untapped voting bloc of progressive idealists large enough to enable a political shift.

The Democratic party doesn't have to care, you force them to deal with it by voting in your own candidates.

The GOP didn't care about the far right beyond lip service until they forced themselves into power via the tea party and now the freedom caucus. They actually got off their ass and voted and forced the party to shift to the right (so far right they are now openly fascist...). Progressive voters could, in theory, do the same tot he Democratic party. But it requires them to get off their ass and vote in progressive candidates. That the Democratic party doesn't care about progressives has no bearing on this, they have no control over who enters their primaries.

[Malkiah]

The Democratic party doesn't have to care, you force them to deal with it by voting in your own candidates.

The GOP didn't care about the far right beyond lip service until they forced themselves into power via the tea party and now the freedom caucus. They actually got off their ass and voted and forced the party to shift to the right (so far right they are now openly fascist...). Progressive voters could, in theory, do the same tot he Democratic party. But it requires them to get off their ass and vote in progressive candidates. That the Democratic party doesn't care about progressives has no bearing on this, they have no control over who enters their primaries.

well yes, that isn't in question - at issue is whether or not there are enough "progressive" people in that category in the US to have the numbers required to be able to enact such a thing, which is something i think is very much in doubt.
that's why i talked about the US cultural landscape, i legit don't know that there is a sufficient amount of otherwise apolitical progressive idealists who could in theory band together to shape the democratic party.

[Jastall]

The Democratic party doesn't have to care, you force them to deal with it by voting in your own candidates.

The GOP didn't care about the far right beyond lip service until they forced themselves into power via the tea party and now the freedom caucus. They actually got off their ass and voted and forced the party to shift to the right (so far right they are now openly fascist...). Progressive voters could, in theory, do the same tot he Democratic party. But it requires them to get off their ass and vote in progressive candidates. That the Democratic party doesn't care about progressives has no bearing on this, they have no control over who enters their primaries.

There are far more far right-people in the US than there are far-left ones, tho. That's a big reason why it won't happen.

[Captain N]

There are far more far right-people in the US than there are far-left ones, tho. That's a big reason why it won't happen.

I once had that very comparison laid out like this. The United States has more people willing to kill women for the sake of a fetus than it does in making sure everyone can go to the doctor. The modern Republican Party just keeps making that seem more and more truthful.

[PhaelixWW]

I once had that very comparison laid out like this. The United States has more people willing to kill women for the sake of a fetus than it does in making sure everyone can go to the doctor.

I mean... that's not true.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

I understand your pragmatism here, but most people are going to vote for self interest.

Except they don't actually vote for self-interest. They will sometimes vote for what they think is their self-interest....but that isn't necessarily the same thing.

They will vote vote for someone that will cut taxes without considering what those taxes are paying for.

They will vote because they've been told to be afraid of something that isn't actually a real problem.

They will vote to deny or remove the rights of others even though it doesn't affect them at all.

[Woodtable]

This kind of edgelordy doomerism is endlessly and stupidly naive. Will it matter in the macro sense? No, it's hardly going to shift the needle.

But this is an election, where "barely shifting the needle" can still have a massive impact on a close race.

I shouldn't have to keep posting examples of where a shift of even 1%, and even just from voting to not voting, or from not voting to voting, would have changed the result of an election.

Every bit helps, and this bit is "free", no pandering to undecideds involved. If you think I'm not going to cheer an unforced error by the fascist shitstain who's threatening to be our next President, you should probably think again.

Buddy, its been over a decade of this nonsense with Trump. The fact its this close after everything he did leaves me a loss for words.

[Benggaul]

Buddy, its been over a decade of this nonsense with Trump. The fact its this close after everything he did leaves me a loss for words.

The dirty little secret is that it's almost always close if you want to dive into the numbers and cherry pick for as far back as you care to. The caveat to that that some people seem to enjoy ignoring is that the notion of "if only this candidate had catered more to these people, they would have swung that 1% and won!" is a fucking fiction. The needle is almost never "barely moving". It isn't moving at all. People aren't changing their minds on who to vote for in the months before the election; they've known for at least a year. They know every election long before Election Day comes around. There is, however, a subsection who are changing their minds on whether to vote at all--and quite frankly fuck them if they couldn't be bothered until this point.

Voter registration is picking up! Great! Where the fuck were they before Harris took the nom or Swift finally opened her mouth? They weren't all underage. The answer is simple and it's stupid and they don't deserve even a fucking "I voted!" sticker for finally doing the bare minimum. The answer is: they didn't think it affected them personally so they didn't care.

[PhaelixWW]

The needle is almost never "barely moving". It isn't moving at all.

Doubling down on the ignorance. Weird flex, but okay.

People aren't changing their minds on who to vote for in the months before the election; they've known for at least a year.

People in general. A majority of people. Most people. Almost all people, probably.

But not all people.

Again, I get that you want to parade your current edgelord flair by waxing hyperbolic, but your "absolute"... isn't.

But it sure sounds nice when stated with a strident voice in an online political forum, right?

There is, however, a subsection who are changing their minds on whether to vote at all--and quite frankly fuck them if they couldn't be bothered until this point.

Or maybe "fuck all of us" if we ignore them completely. I'm not suggesting that we should pander to the borderline voters, but refusing to acknowledge the potential impact and turning up your nose at basic outreach measures is just fucking stupidly myopic.

Voter registration is picking up! Great! Where the fuck were they before Harris took the nom or Swift finally opened her mouth? They weren't all underage. The answer is simple and it's stupid and they don't deserve even a fucking "I voted!" sticker for finally doing the bare minimum. The answer is: they didn't think it affected them personally so they didn't care.

As long as they educate themselves and face that realization before the election, who the fuck cares? Your attitude is the same elitism that makes people say "I was a fan of that band when nobody knew who they were!" like they deserve a fucking prize and everyone else should be ashamed.

If you're not willing to actually fight for a better future, then at least stop standing in the way of those who will.

Just grow up.

[Fugus]

I'm TRYING to be cautiously optimistic but damn if it's not rough trying to.

My niece SAYS she is going to vote but not holding my breath and she seems to be against Trump after I had to get her to understand that it wasn't Biden that had overturned her right to her own body but the Supreme Court that was completely dominated by Republicans with Trump appointing a full third of them and bragged about overturning it. I hope she does but she isn't the most motivated to do anything. But one of her best friends is gay and is very much paying attention and is going to vote and is trying to make sure she does for both their sake. Also because they both like to smoke and know one party is trying to legalize it and one party is trying to execute people for it.

Then on the other hand I got one of my nephews who is in the Trump cult and evidently both him and his dad gets mad when you talk crap on Trump. My dad found that out when he said something negative about Trump and he got mad and left.

Then I have friends my age (~40 years old) who are also deep in the cult and one of them even said he didn't mind if Trump became a dictator when talking about it and then quickly pivoted to how "Education is indoctrinating our children" when he realized he said that part out loud. Told him he was fucking up and selling out his own kids at that point. And if he didn't believe me I fully encouraged him to fact check anything I told him.

Then I have my dad who supports Harris and plans to vote, which is good. But then when it comes to Isreal and their conflicts, he keeps pretending they are the good guys on it and all. Have gone over the history of the region with him repeatedly and he acts like he never was told it and when I called him out for me telling him the history of it repeatedly he said he didn't believe my sources at which point I told him my sources were the BBC and the Council on Foreign Relations at which point he said they might have been hacked and I had to tell him that hadn't been or at the very least not had a consecutive hack lasting months without every being fixed. He doesn't know the history of the region and is going out of his way NOT to know the history of the region. Says he hasn't heard anything about what I told him but at the same time refuses to actually look for the information claiming if it were true, the Fayetteville Observer would cover it like they would just randomly give a history lesson.

Seriously...... Why are people so damn dense that they refuse to listen and actively avoid learning?..... They don't care if they are right, they just want to THINK they are right.


Honestly, at this point, I really just want to travel and get out of this country for a while and see what the world is like outside of here in the places I have read about that rank better than us on the metrics. And maybe move eventually just to not have to deal with this crap anymore. Main thing keeping me from trying is my disabled dad would end up in a home if I tried right now and he sure as shit isn't trying to travel too. Genuinely sucks feeling like you are the smartest man in the room on subjects you really shouldn't be with others at least in the same ballpark of knowledge. But instead I am surrounded by a bunch of people too stubborn to listen and too willfully stupid to learn and would rather sell out themselves and their family pretending their right then hurting their feelings admitting they are not.

They can be a genius when it comes to telling you about sports, NASCAR, automobiles, or getting high/drunk but when it comes to important stuff they don't know, don't want to know but still want to have some heartfelt belief based on what they pretend to be instead of what is.

Edit: Sorry, just needed to vent a little bit.

[Benggaul]

Then I have my dad who supports Harris and plans to vote, which is good. But then when it comes to Isreal and their conflicts, he keeps pretending they are the good guys on it and all.
...
Seriously...... Why are people so damn dense that they refuse to listen and actively avoid learning?..... They don't care if they are right, they just want to THINK they are right.

Because the bulk of Americans--including a great deal of Democrats, though that may finally be shifting below 50% by now--still find it nigh impossible to blame Israel for anything given the decades upon decades of close ties the US has had with them. We're fighting against a lot of indoctrination and propaganda on this subject and, quite frankly, it's not really an issue worth pushing (in general) as far as the election is concerned. For anyone not a Republican it alienates just as many people as it attracts. It was a no-win scenario for Biden when he was running and it continues to be a no-win scenario for Harris.

Trump has no such problems because the vast majority of the GOP are behind giving Israel everything they want. It's purely an issue for Democrats, which means only they have anything to win or lose and as I've already stated, the sentiment within the moderate-to-left-leaning voting public is pretty split making it a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation.

[Fugus]

@Benggaul

Can definitely see that, my dad keeps defaulting to what happened to the Jews under Hitler and keeps talking about them defending themselves but then ignores all the evidence of their crimes and the stuff they were doing before they were attacked.

More news with the suspected assassination attempt yesterday.

Evidently he was found with a loaded shotgun, a handgun with an extended clip in an unregistered car with fake plates multiple IDs and passports under different names.

He claims he is 100% a Trump supporter with no intention to harm him and was released on $5,000 bond.

Not sure what to think on that one, whether he was trying to or not shouldn’t negate the fake plates, multiple IDs and passports under different names and all that too.

Source:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/10/13/p...y-man-arrested

[PACOX]

Because the bulk of Americans--including a great deal of Democrats, though that may finally be shifting below 50% by now--still find it nigh impossible to blame Israel for anything given the decades upon decades of close ties the US has had with them. We're fighting against a lot of indoctrination and propaganda on this subject and, quite frankly, it's not really an issue worth pushing (in general) as far as the election is concerned. For anyone not a Republican it alienates just as many people as it attracts. It was a no-win scenario for Biden when he was running and it continues to be a no-win scenario for Harris.

Trump has no such problems because the vast majority of the GOP are behind giving Israel everything they want. It's purely an issue for Democrats, which means only they have anything to win or lose and as I've already stated, the sentiment within the moderate-to-left-leaning voting public is pretty split making it a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation.

I think the main issue that that, once again, the Democrats have to define a platform thats distinct against the Republicans apart for wedge issues that never really matter anyway. Kamala Harris has spent a lot of her time appeasing Republicans embrassed over Trump than to defining an alternative to conservatism. She assumed Biden's positions even though people loathed and settled for Biden at the height of a (hopefully) one in the life time pandemic. No wonder people are still hanging on to the populist candidate or the appeasement one when their platforms are too far from one another.


And I know people who post here understand the nuance, they understand the differences in policy, they understand the history of the candidates, the average vote does not though. The average registered voter can barely be bothered to show up to the polls. Coincidently, the average voter is also tired of the Democratic party appear soft and propping up conservatives? Did propping up the Cheny's move needles? People are losing faith in the upper levels of the government and the "left" party consistently kissing the ass of the right on makes the people lose more faith. Beating Trump should be a lay up but its not when you let him pull you to the Right where you just validate conservative views and they say "well I might as well just vote for the actual conservative then"


On stuff like Israel, most people don't know the naunces of the conflict. What they can see its "billions of dollars have been given to Israel" while they see their own local infrastructure, social programs, safety nets, etc, underfunded. They aren't being to flock to the candidate that is preaching the status quo even if they are slightly less hitlarian. Neither candidate is talking about redistributing the money towards domestic issues. One candidate is part of an administration that is overseeing the current genocide and the other will accelerate it, nothing really changes but the timetable. Kamala Harris has decided to make the election conservative vs diet conservative, so it comes down to who is more populist, Trump is populist enough to keep the race tied.


The voters do cast the votes but its based on whats presented (and their votes are only suggestions for the electors). I'll never left absolve the candidates for not putting forth agendas that energize voters versus "well my opponent is worse than me, so I guess you have to vote for me then". People don't care if you throw in another match if they already believe/know their house is going to burn down.

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@Benggaul

Can definitely see that, my dad keeps defaulting to what happened to the Jews under Hitler and keeps talking about them defending themselves but then ignores all the evidence of their crimes and the stuff they were doing before they were attacked.

More news with the suspected assassination attempt yesterday.

Evidently he was found with a loaded shotgun, a handgun with an extended clip in an unregistered car with fake plates multiple IDs and passports under different names.

He claims he is 100% a Trump supporter with no intention to harm him and was released on $5,000 bond.

Not sure what to think on that one, whether he was trying to or not shouldn’t negate the fake plates, multiple IDs and passports under different names and all that too.

Source:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/10/13/p...y-man-arrested

Harris hasn't signaled a change in course in the Middle East so the norman will say, "well I guess the current trajectory is correct, might as well go with the candidate who seems like they will end it sooner".

[DarkTZeratul]

More news with the suspected assassination attempt yesterday.

Evidently he was found with a loaded shotgun, a handgun with an extended clip in an unregistered car with fake plates multiple IDs and passports under different names.

He claims he is 100% a Trump supporter with no intention to harm him and was released on $5,000 bond.

Not sure what to think on that one, whether he was trying to or not shouldn’t negate the fake plates, multiple IDs and passports under different names and all that too.

On the one hand, the FBI pretty quickly dismissed the idea that he was a would-be assassin. On the other hand, the sheriff who swears that he prevented an assassination by arresting this guy apparently didn't do anything to stop his bond from being set so ridiculously low it was paid almost immediately. It's worth noting that if he WAS going to assassinate Trump, that makes it a federal matter and the FBI would have jurisdiction over him rather than the local sheriff's department.

Anyway, it feels really weird that the sheriff who really really thinks he was an assassin let him go for what is basically chump change, and also that the FBI who would be responsible for him if he were decided he wasn't, but I think I'm ultimately gonna have to trust that the FBI had good reasons for making the choice they did.

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On stuff like Israel, most people don't know the naunces of the conflict. What they can see its "billions of dollars have been given to Israel" while they see their own local infrastructure, social programs, safety nets, etc, underfunded. They aren't being to flock to the candidate that is preaching the status quo even if they are slightly less hitlarian. Neither candidate is talking about redistributing the money towards domestic issues. One candidate is part of an administration that is overseeing the current genocide and the other will accelerate it, nothing really changes but the timetable.

I guarantee you most people don't even put that much thought into it. It's foreign policy shit, happening a world away and affecting us not at all, so most people really don't think about it enough to care except when politicians make it a funding issue (like the Republicans did with Ukraine). This goes doubly so for Israel, given that they're our allies and the general perception is that they're the scrappy underdog trying to survive in a region that wants them dead. There are a relatively small number of mostly young and/or very online people who care deeply about the genocide. For everyone else, it's very much a losing issue for Kamala to spend much time on.

[PhaelixWW]

Anyway, it feels really weird that the sheriff who really really thinks he was an assassin let him go for what is basically chump change

Sheriffs don't set bail amounts.