Mega-Thread: 2020 United States General Election

[Endus]

Those are closer to the socialist values the liberals have imho.

There is literally nothing about socialist values that suggests nationalism is an appropriate path to take. If anything, those values push against nationalist sentiments, since nationalism fundamentally demands an inequitable, abusive, exploitative approach to dealing with immigrants and foreign relations.

Don't confuse your desire for fascism for having any connection to socialist thinking.

[Felya]

Those are closer to the socialist values the liberals have imho. Trump wants the country to be a new normal. A self sufficient country not relying on any other nation for anything. We can be. I dont know of one thing another country produces that we cannot. We also have more scientific advances due to our military spending than any other country.

“New normal” is an oxymoron...

Why does Trump have business all over the world? Are you sure he doesn’t want to remove trade deals, so that he can exploit trade more?

[YesImMrS]

It's weird how inconsistent they are about permabans for calling for death. I'm fine with Skroe getting a perma-ban, but certain other posters have called for death on multiple occasions, and are still here. Hell, one poster has done it at least twice, plagiarized multiple times, and even ran a burner account, and she's still running around. We've had another poster that said Hitler didn't go far enough, and what he did should have been done to every religion. She's also still running around.

Hi! Yes it's me Skroe. Another poster can verify here via email if you want. Or send me a forum PM to 'Skroe'.

No. It wasn't for the guillotine comment (that was just the last infraction). Especially since I pretty clearly said I didn't want to get to that point.

What it was, was the lifetime infraction ban. How many infractions does it take to get to the center of MMO-Champion's rule set? 15 pages worth of 5 and 10 point infractions. About 500 points. Funny thing though, back in November/December when a group of us were putting together an indictment of Thwart's time as moderator, I did the math and ~85% of my infractions were both since 2017 and from him.

Achievement unlocked! Do I get a mount? A title?

[YesImMrS]

It's weird how inconsistent they are about permabans for calling for death. I'm fine with Skroe getting a perma-ban, but certain other posters have called for death on multiple occasions, and are still here. Hell, one poster has done it at least twice, plagiarized multiple times, and even ran a burner account, and she's still running around. We've had another poster that said Hitler didn't go far enough, and what he did should have been done to every religion. She's also still running around.

Hi! Yes it's me Skroe. Another poster can verify here via email if you want. Or send me a forum PM to 'Skroe'.

No. It wasn't for the guillotine comment (that was just the last infraction). Especially since I pretty clearly said I didn't want to get to that point.

What it was, was the lifetime infraction ban. How many infractions does it take to get to the center of MMO-Champion's rule set? 15 pages worth of 5 and 10 point infractions. About 500 points. Funny thing though, back in November/December when a group of us were putting together an indictment of Thwart's time as moderator, I did the math and ~85% of my infractions were both since 2017 and from him.


Achievement unlocked! Do I get a mount? A title

Truth be told though, a lot of my infractions lately (post-Thwart) were from how I write, which as you know, is extremely aggressively toned. I even got a PM a while ago from a mod trying to warn me to take a softer tone. I ignored it. Fact is, politics is a brawl and this site is (even with the recent changes to titles I see) is living in a dreamland about how political discourse could be, and should be conducted. Why have a politics forum if you aren't willing to deal with relentless rhetoric and political mockings? A refused to be drawn into a game of posting this forum in the neutral tone of wikipedia. That shit is for the birds. And I happily took every infraction with it. I legitimately didn't give two fucks about those ones. If you believe something, You don't hold back. You never stop. This forum's management approach to how political poles should engage? Juvenile and naive. This is not 7th grade civics class.

I don't hold anything against the new mods for doing their jobs though. And I'm not going to be playing the burner account game. If anything I miss the ability to start threads on space, such as Wednesday's launch, which I encourage everyone to watch. I'm kind of glad I haven't been around to post about COVID-19. 100,000 dead as of today. Probably 250,000+ before it is all over. And Trump just twitter trolls. It is horrifying. I wouldn't have been able to control myself. I'm afraid for my family, sad for my country and beyond furious at Trump and his cult.

Really, it puts into perspective how decadent and depraved Trump and his troll base is. Never doubt how crimes against humanity happen in other countries. How one community stands by while another is killed. It happened here in a sense. It is still happening.

To be honest I don't want to argue with the trolls (and now that I'm doing a one-off burner for now, I will just call them that) like I have since 2016. This is so much greater than anything I've imagined our country would go through. This isn't a mere financial crisis or natural disaster. This is epoch defining. This is one tiny step below blood-in-the-streets level. Only severe political violence could be on the level of horror of this.

That is not a word we use enough but should in regards to this. "Horror".

I used to scoff at the Cold Civil War talk. I do believe it now. The mountain of corpses at the hands of Trump and the MAGATs has convinced me of that. We are living it. They're extremists. They're the greatest extent threat to the Constitution, national security and liberty itself. We have to win and they have to lose. So I'm much more interested in fighting that fight in the real world. Like many people I'm working from home. But I've left my part time job at the PAC I worked at and am planning on volunteering for Biden's campaign when they increase staff in the summer. He's our real life Obiwan Kenobi. And this is our "Galactic Civil War", so to speak.

Join the Rebel Alliance! Pardon me, flippancy is what little we have to grab onto in the middle of this ocean of death (I'm from Massachusetts, 3rd or 4th worst state for COVID-19 in the union).

You won't be seeing me around much, if at all. I realized with my permban that I've been posting continuously on one forum for another for almost 20 years and I'm kind of over it, as I think the increasing caustic nature of my posting last fall might have let on. Once it was TrekBBS. Then it was Newsarama. Then it was another place. And since 2011 it was here. I think I'm largely done with this format. I think our inability to get the site owners to treat this place as a site on the internet in 2020 versus a relic from the simpler times of 2008 has burned me out of it. But then again, I suppose the joke really is on them. Remember when MMO-Champ was the go-to place for WoW news? WoWhead made it irrelevant besides the OT forum. The site owners dropped the ball on the site's reason for being, just like everything else. It took Magicfind (who?) to rescue it from a shutdown (for now). I'm sure chaud is working on it though. Maybe he'll put him a gate against burner accounts sometime before 2024. I swear to god the dude couldn't program himself out of a wet paper bag. It's a fucking joke.

Anyway I just wanted to say a found farewell to my many friends here. I really enjoyed debating and arguing with you. For 11 years you were people whom I looked forward to reading and responding to. I'm sure I pissed a lot of you off. And some of you certainly did me. But you never failed to keep my interest and challenge me, and often educate me, and that was the fun. I learned a lot from you all and you folks made me reevaluate some things I held important. This was a good forum at its peak, and we had a lot interesting times. You all have my respect and I hope you stay healthy and your careers and ambitions work out for you. I'll be rooting for you.

Will you see me around? I might pop in around the election on a burner to say hi briefly, and of course to twist the knife into the eyeballs of the Trumphadis when Biden wins. But as George Lucas with regards to making movies said "I'm out of the game". I think I made my point and made it as well as I could and learned from excellent people and made excellent friends along the way. What more could anyone doing this sort of thing hope for?

Best of luck, amigos.

Also once more for old times sake:

-We're taking your President Away From you, Trumphadis.
-The wall is dead and is never coming back (and putting up Obama-style fencing isn't the wall, fuckheads).
-Donald Trump is a racist and if you support him, so are you.
-Trump's cult better hope they win forever, because the moment they don't, God help them, because nobody else will.
-Begun, the New Cold War with China has.

[Draco-Onis]

Those are closer to the socialist values the liberals have imho. Trump wants the country to be a new normal. A self sufficient country not relying on any other nation for anything. We can be. I dont know of one thing another country produces that we cannot. We also have more scientific advances due to our military spending than any other country.

We don't have every natural resource no country does so the notion that any country can be entirely self sufficient is delusional. Maybe if you went back a century or two you can have that.

[draynay]

Those are closer to the socialist values the liberals have imho. Trump wants the country to be a new normal. A self sufficient country not relying on any other nation for anything. We can be. I dont know of one thing another country produces that we cannot. We also have more scientific advances due to our military spending than any other country.

There's nothing new about mercantilism and imperialism.

[JohnBrown1917]

Those are closer to the socialist values the liberals have imho. Trump wants the country to be a new normal. A self sufficient country not relying on any other nation for anything. We can be. I dont know of one thing another country produces that we cannot. We also have more scientific advances due to our military spending than any other country.

Nationalist/fascism is a very different idealogy from socialism. Trump does not want anything of those things, he keeps up the same imprerial policies the other presidents supported.

And Russia.. socialist? I understand how China can be confusing.. but Russia? lol

[iWatcher]

Funny how articles like these never get posted here...

politico. com/news/2020/05/26/2020-election-democrats-281470

“We are about to see the best economic data we’ve seen in the history of this country."

[Machismo]

Funny how articles like these never get posted here...

politico. com/news/2020/05/26/2020-election-democrats-281470

How would you know? You literally just started your account.

[Endus]

Funny how articles like these never get posted here...

politico. com/news/2020/05/26/2020-election-democrats-281470

An article describing how the Trump campaign will lie about that data to present it as something other than what it is, in a propaganda campaign, is not the argument you apparently thought it was.

He freely admits that the likely pattern will be a deep "V", with the economic collapse and resurgence, if there is no second wave and lockdowns aren't reinstated. The bit in italics being kind of super important. But the problem is, it's only the "best economic data" if you only look at the upward part of the V. Trump is responsible for both, and the existence of that V is a failure of policy and an instance of economic instability and uncertainty.

The only way to present this as a positive is to lie your ass off and hope the rubes are too goddamned stupid and ovine to bother checking the facts.

[cubby]

Article over the weekend from WaPo: Can we stop pretending Trump is fit to be president?

The full text isn't really important, merely that a major world publication directly questioning, even as an opinion, the mental veracity of a sitting president.

[iWatcher]

An article describing how the Trump campaign will lie about that data to present it as something other than what it is, in a propaganda campaign, is not the argument you apparently thought it was.

He freely admits that the likely pattern will be a deep "V", with the economic collapse and resurgence, if there is no second wave and lockdowns aren't reinstated. The bit in italics being kind of super important. But the problem is, it's only the "best economic data" if you only look at the upward part of the V. Trump is responsible for both, and the existence of that V is a failure of policy and an instance of economic instability and uncertainty.

The only way to present this as a positive is to lie your ass off and hope the rubes are too goddamned stupid and ovine to bother checking the facts.

A former moderator (self proclaimed writer, educator, researcher) calling everybody with a different opinion a liar. How refreshing...
Maybe you should, as a researcher, read articles without your bias. You clearly skimmed the article only.

The thing is, the Biden Campaign thought to use the "collapse" as a strong point in their campaign. But maybe there isn't one. And some top democratics being afraid, nah that's too goddamned stupid...

[Machismo]

A former moderator (self proclaimed writer, educator, researcher) calling everybody with a different opinion a liar. How refreshing...
Maybe you should, as a researcher, read articles without your bias. You clearly skimmed the article only.

The thing is, the Biden Campaign thought to use the "collapse" as a strong point in their campaign. But maybe there isn't one. And some top democratics being afraid, nah that's too goddamned stupid...

How would you know? You just got here.

Thanks for admitting to being a burner account.

[Edge-]

Ignoring that the source is the Daily Fail, how has Biden only spent $8m? That said, I'm surprised Trump hasn't spent more.

Still kinda gross the amount of money spent on such a disgustingly long election cycle, though.

Biden doesn't have a massive war chest like Trump. While Democratic candidates were splitting up fundraising during their primary and unable to form joint-fundraising committee's with the DNC to allow for even larger contributions, Trump has been fundraising since January 2017 with the RNC. I forget the total, but he was fundraising at levels similar to the combined Democratic field for a while. And Biden's fundraising, especially until he took the lead, was pretty abysmal.

It mostly looks like a matter of scale, with Trump being able to massively outspend Biden even if they're both proportionally investing similar levels of their current campaign funds.

[Endus]

A former moderator (self proclaimed writer, educator, researcher) calling everybody with a different opinion a liar. How refreshing...
Maybe you should, as a researcher, read articles without your bias. You clearly skimmed the article only.

You haven't actually explained where I'm wrong. You just cast aspersions on my character as if my bio is somehow a brag, when nothing in there is brag-worthy.

The thing is, the Biden Campaign thought to use the "collapse" as a strong point in their campaign. But maybe there isn't one. And some top democratics being afraid, nah that's too goddamned stupid...

Your own article admits there's been a precipitous collapse. It just hypothesizes it might rebound, and that the Trump campaign might lie and pretend the collapse never occurred, trying to take the credit for the recovery without the blame for the collapse that precipitated it.

[cubby]

Trump definitely has the war chest - and he snagged an interesting buy early on; he will own the masthead (might have that phrase wrong) on Youtube on election day. So everyone on Youtube will see an add for Trump.

Interesting buy.

There is a TON of dark/pac money on the DNC side that is pushing some very good COVID-19-fucked-it-up ads. That first one nailed it - got everyone's attention and trolled Deplorable hard.

[Edge-]

Trump definitely has the war chest - and he snagged an interesting buy early on; he will own the masthead (might have that phrase wrong) on Youtube on election day. So everyone on Youtube will see an add for Trump.

Interesting buy.

There is a TON of dark/pac money on the DNC side that is pushing some very good COVID-19-fucked-it-up ads. That first one nailed it - got everyone's attention and trolled Deplorable hard.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/22/2...-2020-election

Accurate. And it appears to be both the front page and he's going to blast ads in videos. I can't blame his campaign, that's a smart play.

But I WILL blame Congress and Google for this kind of bullshit. Money has no place in politics, and all candidates should get the same airtime and ad budgets, letting the "best" candidates win rather than giving an edge to those that raise more money.

And what are those DNC ads? The only ones I've seen going after Trump have all been from conservative groups like the Lincoln Project, at least the ones good enough to remember.

[cubby]

Well Trump is a nationalist and I don't have any major policy disagreements with him. I've supported the majority, but not all, of his policy decisions so far. Democrats are more about liberalism which is also very good, I agree with most all liberal values as well. They both have some strengths and weaknesses IMO.

You have no major policy disagreements with Trump, and "supported...[most] of his policy decisions"? I mean... seriously? What policy decisions has Trump put forth that you agree with? Can you list 10 specific ones (not just "his position on immigration")?

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/22/2...-2020-election

Accurate. And it appears to be both the front page and he's going to blast ads in videos. I can't blame his campaign, that's a smart play.

But I WILL blame Congress and Google for this kind of bullshit. Money has no place in politics, and all candidates should get the same airtime and ad budgets, letting the "best" candidates win rather than giving an edge to those that raise more money.

And what are those DNC ads? The only ones I've seen going after Trump have all been from conservative groups like the Lincoln Project, at least the ones good enough to remember.

I don't know if that Youtube buy was the best idea - although he has so much money it won't matter. I'm not sure anyone is going to be swayed on the day of the election. HOWEVER - I can see a lot of misinformation about the election coming through that medium. I can see him using that to push killing election turnout.

[Edge-]

I don't know if that Youtube buy was the best idea - although he has so much money it won't matter. I'm not sure anyone is going to be swayed on the day of the election.

I haven't seen direct data on the effectiveness of YouTube ads, but given how widespread its use is and how there will likely be a ton of folks watching random political YT videos going into the election, it's gonna reach an absolutely massive domestic audience. Then again, as you say, he has so much money he can afford to do a few big buys like this and if one fails, meh. He's got backups.

And the ads appear like they'll start with November, so he'll get 2 days of full front-page ownership plus heavy in-video ads throughout the Sunday/Monday leading into election day. It's not a bad play at all.

HOWEVER - I can see a lot of misinformation about the election coming through that medium. I can see him using that to push killing election turnout.

There are still FEC ad guidelines/rules, and I believe Google has some as well when it comes to objectively false advertisements. So while they may host videos from folks saying that election day for Democrats is on November 5, Trump can't run an ad saying that. But you're right, he'll continue to try to mislead and misinform.

[Rasulis]

Those are closer to the socialist values the liberals have imho. Trump wants the country to be a new normal. A self sufficient country not relying on any other nation for anything. We can be. I dont know of one thing another country produces that we cannot. We also have more scientific advances due to our military spending than any other country.

All of the US megacap companies with the strongest balance sheets which are keeping the stock market afloat are all international companies. Once you open Pandora box, there is no going back.