Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Gabriel]

This thread is such a microcosm of why Trump keeps winning elections and getting away with everything he does lmao.

Democrats keep infighting and refusing to vote for the lesser evil because it makes them feel icky, and the Republicans keep voting and supporting their candidate despite him being a convicted felon, rapist, serial liar and a pedophile lol.

You morons deserve Trump. I'm just angry for the rest of the planet.

[Fugus]

Clinton didn't run off her base. The GOP actively did a multi-year campaign to literally make her a toxic candidate. You could say it started back in the 90s when she was the First Lady.

The fact the people believed the GOP at the time when they were the same people complaining about Bush and the fact that they lied about Iraq having WMDs.

While I can understand where Endus is coming from. I just don't agree with it due to the simple fact that even if every single person who actually follows politics, even tangentially, all decided to just hold their nose and vote for her anyways, she still would have very likely lost. Most of her voters aren't steeped in this stuff, so when she wanted to fuck around with them thinking they had no choice, many of them chose to just stay home instead.

BUT, with Clinton not running off her base, that's just false. She very much did run off her base. Are you saying the interview where she flat out smiled when asked if she would give anything to Sander supporters for their vote and just said "No, because I'm winning", you saying that interview didn't ever take place and it was just AI before AI could convincingly pull it off? Because that was the one where I checked out on her ballot slot.

Now, the whole debate on how much blame the voters have compared to Clinton for her actions could honestly be a debate, but to claim she didn't run voters off with her ego is just cope and excuses, even a decade later, that fact hasn't changed.

[Malkiah]

This thread is such a microcosm of why Trump keeps winning elections and getting away with everything he does lmao.

Democrats keep infighting and refusing to vote for the lesser evil because it makes them feel icky, and the Republicans keep voting and supporting their candidate despite him being a convicted felon, rapist, serial liar and a pedophile lol.

You morons deserve Trump. I'm just angry for the rest of the planet.

not to sideline too much, but there's a lot of "do we blame democrats" or "do we blame democratic politicians" and a shockingly little amount of "do we blame the people who vote republican" - because as a reminder, that last demographic constitutes give or take half the voting age population of the US.

perhaps i'm simply too far into the weeds and lacking moral clarity but somehow i feel like the people who actually support this exact behavior and actively enact it and vote for it are more to blame for this behavior than the people didn't meet your purity test for masturbatory performative objection.

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@Muzjhath @Fugus

side bar and i don't want to get too into this but i gotta admit i am really fascinated - you're both posting in a way that seems to me to be very contrary to the absolute temper tantrums you two had at me 6 months ago when i was saying basically the exact same thing you're saying now and actually acting on it.
is this the result of simple evolution of thought? or were you two sandbagging me for entertainment?

[Fugus]

not to sideline too much, but there's a lot of "do we blame democrats" or "do we blame democratic politicians" and a shockingly little amount of "do we blame the people who vote republican" - because as a reminder, that last demographic constitutes give or take half the voting age population of the US.

perhaps i'm simply too far into the weeds and lacking moral clarity but somehow i feel like the people who actually support this exact behavior and actively enact it and vote for it are more to blame for this behavior than the people didn't meet your purity test for masturbatory performative objection.

Yeah, because we know which way they are going to vote. They hate brown people and facts more than they love their own children and would rather be fuck ups than fathers.

The whole Democratic Politicians versus Democratic Voters thing goes on because if the Democratic voters came out, the Democrats would win every single time. So, the debate is whether you blame the millions of voters who refuse to hold their nose and come out and vote even if they don't like the candidate or know how the stuff works or do you blame the Politicians for running off voters with ego and acting like they are entitled to the votes like Clinton or thinking they are all steeped in this stuff and you can win because the voters just know the facts because you put it out there in a way no one will be motivated to hear?

My view is the politician knows who the voters are and what they largely want and they can change at an individual level to portray that. You aren't going to get millions of Americans who don't have any desire to learn this stuff or most other things to hold their nose for what they hate just because the alternative is worse or they don't know how stuff works or believes lies because Republicans tell lies that sound like a movie plot while the Democrats can't even tell the truth convincingly when the facts are on their side.

At this point, the DNC needs John Oliver, John Stewart, Belle of the Ranch/Beau of the Fifth Column as their campaign managers and the candidates actually have to make attempts when/if they get in to keep momentum because every time they get power and try and compromise it away, they lose more voters who become jaded into thinking it doesn't matter because neither side wants to actually fix the stuff and have to decide between status quo and burn it down. Quite literally poisoning the well for future generations with that crap.

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side bar and i don't want to get too into this but i gotta admit i am really fascinated - you're both posting in a way that seems to me to be very contrary to the absolute temper tantrums you two had at me 6 months ago when i was saying basically the exact same thing you're saying now and actually acting on it.
is this the result of simple evolution of thought? or were you two sandbagging me for entertainment?

Don't recall that, I apologize. But I have been repeating this since that election took place. You sure that was me? What were you talking about?

Edit: If it was something about how Trump won because voters stayed home. I have been saying countless times in one way or another who Democrats would rather lose with a Harris than win with a Walz.

But did blame voters who voting based on stuff that was blatant lies that no one, not even those not steeped in this, could realistically believe. Like those who thought he wouldn't be racist give his last term and all the stuff he has said and did publicly. Or them claiming he wasn't a pedo even when he has been perving on his own daughter during national interviews since she was 14. You have a better chance of not knowing about Jared from subway than that stuff.

[Malkiah]

The whole Democratic Politicians versus Democratic Voters thing goes on because if the Democratic voters came out, the Democrats would win every single time.

i just want to check to be sure, but you know that this is only true if you add a second half to that statement which is that republicans don't come out, right?
like, you're aware that the only available data we have (which is sadly limited and not very thorough) shows that the numbers are split almost dead even, yes?
if you're not aware of this fact please look into it, because i think it kind of collapses your entire argument.

[Gabriel]

not to sideline too much, but there's a lot of "do we blame democrats" or "do we blame democratic politicians" and a shockingly little amount of "do we blame the people who vote republican" - because as a reminder, that last demographic constitutes give or take half the voting age population of the US.

perhaps i'm simply too far into the weeds and lacking moral clarity but somehow i feel like the people who actually support this exact behavior and actively enact it and vote for it are more to blame for this behavior than the people didn't meet your purity test for masturbatory performative objection.

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@Muzjhath @Fugus

side bar and i don't want to get too into this but i gotta admit i am really fascinated - you're both posting in a way that seems to me to be very contrary to the absolute temper tantrums you two had at me 6 months ago when i was saying basically the exact same thing you're saying now and actually acting on it.
is this the result of simple evolution of thought? or were you two sandbagging me for entertainment?

It's pretty clear at this point that the cure for racism isn't love and understanding, but to keep violently smacking it down every time it rears its ugly head, and then keep violently repressing it for several generations until a generation is born that didn't grow up into racism.

[Fugus]

i just want to check to be sure, but you know that this is only true if you add a second half to that statement which is that republicans don't come out, right?
like, you're aware that the only available data we have (which is sadly limited and not very thorough) shows that the numbers are split almost dead even, yes?
if you're not aware of this fact please look into it, because i think it kind of collapses your entire argument.

Last I had checked (Been a WHILE) Democrats were the second biggest party with around ~35% of registered voters, Republicans were literally the 3rd biggest party in a 2 party system with around ~25% of registered voters with the biggest group being Independents with the majority of them swinging left on issues on an issue by issue basis overall.

But like I said, I haven't checked those numbers in the past few years, so might have shifted.

[Malkiah]

Don't recall that, I apologize. But I have been repeating this since that election took place. You sure that was me? What were you talking about?

ha! ok that's honestly hilarious.
i don't expect you to remember every exchange you have here, and obviously it's more prominent in my mind because you're one of the reasons i almost entirely stopped posting here, so that is quite humorous to me you don't even remember it.

it's not an issue that warrants rehashing, so don't worry about it.

[Fugus]

ha! ok that's honestly hilarious.
i don't expect you to remember every exchange you have here, and obviously it's more prominent in my mind because you're one of the reasons i almost entirely stopped posting here, so that is quite humorous to me you don't even remember it.

it's not an issue that warrants rehashing, so don't worry about it.

Did add an edit to that post. To mention a few things I mentioned related to similar stuff in the past. You sure it was me?

[PfeffermintShake]

Lol this is comically stupid level of historical revisionism.

Hillary won the primaries because she won over more of the Democratic base. She did such a good job she locked it up by the end of March. She spent years building a relationship with the base.

Sanders spent years being aloof and trashing the base. Again, He launched his campaign by trashing Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Coalition as part of the "establishment". PP and HRC are orgs that are very important to the base. There's a lot of venn overlap between their activists and the base.

Bernie never planned to win more than 30% of the primary. His hair-brain plan both times was to force a Contested Convetion. Where he would give a West Wing style speech to magic beans a convention win.

Then there's the whole cynacism of reviving "the anti-establishment" bs from the 1970s. Reforging it to speficially attack the democratic base "the Dem establishment". It created a whole off-ramp for people to sit-out voting in the face of rising fascism.

[Malkiah]

Did add an edit to that post. To mention a few things I mentioned related to similar stuff in the past. You sure it was me?

yes it was you. you went off on a bender about an analogy of either letting someone shoot my hypothetical child or not and how that was evidence of a moral requirement to vote for democrats.
between that and darkzeratul accusing me of just wanting facts instead of having a debate when i asked him to provide evidence for his claims, which was quite frankly one of the stupidest things a human being has ever said to me, i just about gave up on attempting to have conversations.

page 14 of the johnson-thune congress thread by the way.
conveniently, muzjhath's posts are right around there as well.

[Fugus]

yes it was you. you went off on a bender about an analogy of either letting someone shoot my hypothetical child or not and how that was evidence of a moral requirement to vote for democrats.
between that and darkzeratul accusing me of just wanting facts instead of having a debate when i asked him to provide evidence for his claims, which was quite frankly one of the stupidest things a human being has ever said to me, i just about gave up on attempting to have conversations.

Ah, yeah, I have made that analogy before. I believe it was asking someone to choose between taking a shotgun blast to the foot or putting the barrel in their kids mouth. There was no good option, just different levels of bad.

My logic behind it was 2 fold compared to this.

1) The democratic candidate never actively snubbed her base like Clinton did. Not having any enthusiasm for them is hard enough, but when you had Clinton going on interviews saying how she wasn't going to do anything you were hoping for because "I'm winning" much harder to justify it when they are pulling crap like that.

2) When it came to Trump this time, you didn't have to get into the weeds at all to see his crap. Not only was his stupidity on full display which many people still won't see because they avoid watching anything like it, they still had Trumps whole first term to go on. So it took them not only avoiding the news for 2 terms on him, but also memory holing his ENTIRE first term as well.

-Clinton vs Trump: Trump was an unknown in the realm of politics and while he had his shows giving him fake credibility, his actual record was horrible but the jokes of him wanting to bang his daughter even then was well known. So while educated people flocked to Clinton, authoritarians gravitated to Trump.

Then in the primaries the Republicans were all trying out Trump everyone going further and further to the right. While the Democrats had Sanders pulling to the left with the rest pulling to the right. The Republicans were going to fall in line behind whoever won even if they had to lie on their way out of the ballot box after doing so, there was no real debate on that side. While in the Democrats side you had imagery of them doing everything they could to avoid him getting traction (Real or imagined the impression was there) and while that might have left a lot of people with a bad taste in their mouths, most would have still fallen in line till they had wall to wall coverage of Clinton smiling and telling the how she wasn't giving them anything because she was winning. And it wasn't even taken out of context, it was pulled from her own interview.


As opposed to Harris vs Trump: You had Trumps entire first term damage to go by, plus you had all the other stuff he had down over the years since, plus all his dementia moments and his own complaints about age and his actual Hitler quotes. As opposed to Harris and while she squandered enthusiasm trying to do a post primary pivot to the right trying court them, she never acted entitled and snubbed her left flank trying to run them off.


So, not entirely the same situation between the two. First one was unliked and well known who snubbed their base against unliked and unknown and famous. The second was was unliked and well known first term failure who also had known close ties to a world famous child trafficker and going more deranged by the day as well as racist history and dog whistles for days against a well known VP from an administration that just spent 4 years cleaning up the other guys mess. Someone claiming they didn't know Trump was a fuckup this time around was about as small as those who didn't know who Epstein was at all or know the subway guy was a pedo as well.

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Off to bed, can read more tomorrow, later and have a good one.

[Muzjhath]

[MENTION=759090]Muzjhath[/MENON] [MENTION=746870]Fugus[/MENTN]

side bar and i don't want to get too into this but i gotta admit i am really fascinated - you're both posting in a way that seems to me to be very contrary to the absolute temper tantrums you two had at me 6 months ago when i was saying basically the exact same thing you're saying now and actually acting on it.
is this the result of simple evolution of thought? or were you two sandbagging me for entertainment?

So, i am angry at people in the US who do not vote.

They are idiots and morons.
Can I empathise with some segments who do not vote because of historical disenfranchisement? 100%

Doesn't change the fact that they're idiots not to politically organise and vote. Shit won't get better if they don't vote.

[Flarelaine]

There have been multiple warnings to keep debate on previous elections in their own threads. There is even one for debating the structural problems of the Democratic Party. This one is for Trump and his administration.

[En Sabah Nur]

This thread is such a microcosm of why Trump keeps winning elections and getting away with everything he does lmao.

Democrats keep infighting and refusing to vote for the lesser evil because it makes them feel icky, and the Republicans keep voting and supporting their candidate despite him being a convicted felon, rapist, serial liar and a pedophile lol.

You morons deserve Trump. I'm just angry for the rest of the planet.

What, you don't like watching the same few people go in the same circle once a week about Bernie/Clinton/2016?!

As for Trump, looks like they changed Truth Social to forcing you to make an account just to view a person's profile. What a shame that I refuse to do that in order to see the freshest Trump bullshit.

[Kathandira]

Endus believes that it's every voter's obligation to vote for the least evil candidate that can win - even if said candidate is only marginally less evil than their counterpart.

That in itself is illogical, because if every voter did that, it would only reward the group of evil leaders because they can continue pushing increasingly evil candidates and shifting the needle every election as long as they offered up a candidate that is, say, 1% less evil.

Change from within a system cannot occur when it offers only two options: 1) make the system worse 2) make the system worse, but only slightly less than 1).
The end result is entirely identical, just a matter of speed.

Now go out and do the work to get 70 million voters to all vote third party. You can do it! You can make a change! Come back and lets us know how it goes.

[Draco-Onis]

FEMA’s response to Texas flood slowed by Noem’s cost controls

s monstrous floodwaters surged across central Texas late last week, officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency leapt into action, preparing to deploy critical search and rescue teams and life-saving resources, like they have in countless past disasters.

But almost instantly, FEMA ran into bureaucratic obstacles, four officials inside the agency told CNN.

As CNN has previously reported, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — whose department oversees FEMA — recently enacted a sweeping rule aimed at cutting spending: Every contract and grant over $100,000 now requires her personal sign-off before any funds can be released.

For FEMA, where disaster response costs routinely soar into the billions as the agency contracts with on-the-ground crews, officials say that threshold is essentially “pennies,” requiring sign-off for relatively small expenditures.

In essence, they say the order has stripped the agency of much of its autonomy at the very moment its help is needed most.

“We were operating under a clear set of guidance: lean forward, be prepared, anticipate what the state needs, and be ready to deliver it,” a longtime FEMA official told CNN. “That is not as clear of an intent for us at the moment.”

For example, as central Texas towns were submerged in rising waters, FEMA officials realized they couldn’t pre-position Urban Search and Rescue crews from a network of teams stationed regionally across the country.

In the past, FEMA would have swiftly staged these teams, which are specifically trained for situations including catastrophic floods, closer to a disaster zone in anticipation of urgent requests, multiple agency sources told CNN.

But even as Texas rescue crews raced to save lives, FEMA officials realized they needed Noem’s approval before sending those additional assets. Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began, multiple sources told CNN.

Also keep in mind several former leaders and members of FEMA and NOA have issued a public warning that we cannot handle a major hurricane hitting the US. We are literally relying on luck if a category 4 or higher hits the US shit will hit the fan. The agencies were underfunded and understaffed even before Trump came and gutted them.

[Mayhem]

So a crumbling infrastructure, underfunded offices that handle levee inspection and oil rigs, and no disaster funding when inevitably shit hits the fan.

Is Trump just guessing someone will bail out the US, like his failing businesses?

[Edge-]

FEMA’s response to Texas flood slowed by Noem’s cost controls



Also keep in mind several former leaders and members of FEMA and NOA have issued a public warning that we cannot handle a major hurricane hitting the US. We are literally relying on luck if a category 4 or higher hits the US shit will hit the fan. The agencies were underfunded and understaffed even before Trump came and gutted them.

oh no

republicans suffering the consequences of what they voted for

don't vote for rapists who appoint puppykillers mmmkay

[Tech614]

I wish they would withhold but so far they’ve been gutless.

The problem is the state can't really withhold.

They could pass a law requiring employers to stop sending it, but that would probably get quickly killed in court.

The state itself is not sending any money to the federal government, that money go's either directly from employer to the IRS or directly from the tax payer to the IRS. The state is not a middle man for it.