Pre-match: Can't believe it took this long for this thread, the 2024 Presidential election thread!

... if you think rape is bad, you will already oppose Trump. If you don't, what could I possibly say to reach you? I don't understand your moral universe, your basic precepts. We are different in a way so fundamental that I literally don't know how to speak to you.

— David Roberts (@drvolts) October 31, 2024

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/trump-2024-campaign-lewandowski-conway/680456/

 

Just was on Twitter and happened to come across Obama doing a campaign even in Milwaukee. I had forgotten how good he was at them

 

"This guy walks like Hitler, talks like Hitler, kind of acts like Hitler, we think he wants to govern like Hitler. Politically, his ideology is a lot like Hitler's. And he's hosting an event that we think is very, very similar to, and actually a direct equivalent of, the one in 1939, hosted by Hitler. And the things said at that event were just like the things Hitler said, and his guests were like Hitler's. Actually, we think that rally was more of a re-enactment of that 1939 event, hosted by Hitler...but we aren't calling him Hitler. We will draw the comparison literally every chance we get, but we aren't saying that he is Hitler at all. No, that's not the same."

You are the one being dishonest here. There is no strawman - you're playing semantics, and nobody is buying it.

I did that in here and in the Crew thread directly to you. You didn't like my answer - that is not the same as "you didn't address it".

That's not even worth addressing. He's an asshole people don't like working for and people he fired and talked **** about after the fact don't like him. Shocking. I do not care.

You are welcome to go back through the thread and read my discussion on various policies. They have been thought out, as have my reactions to them.

Every engagement I have had with you has begun with you talking down to me, unprovoked from the get go. I had spoken all of 3 or 4 sentences to you in the Crew thread before you began taking digs at my intellect and character. That's an experience I've had with a lot of people like you, online and offline.

The audacity of someone who engages the way you do to talk about "smugness" is at once absurdly audacious and actually quite expected - how else would someone with this level of unearned sense of supremacy engage with other people? You are what you are, and I accept it. But I do find you and the way you engage to be insufferable (same goes for everyone like you), and if that disagreement means I remain consistently on the other side of wherever you are, I'm good with that.

 

Watch this

Damn.. the truth is hitting him..
no pretense, no more act.. Trumps speaks how he feels clearly. The sham and the falseness he shows on the trail has him burn out..

thats the final campaign ad right there “Trump is too old too tired.. hear it in his own words”

https://bsky.app/profile/nickaf.bsky.social/post/3l7z7ksdhpi2s

 

I appreciate this post, and I agree with the overall premise that there's just a fundamental gap here that can't really be closed. That disagreement here appears to be the premise underlying the options as written. What Trump "is" is presented as an objective reality, which I think is inaccurate. That is an opinion, one that is very strongly held by most people here, but an opinion nonetheless. I don't think your characterization is accurate, and when you alter that underlying premise as to what Trump "is" and what that means, the optionality changes.

But, again, that's a gap that can't really close. And I am increasingly coming around to the view that it will not close after Trump either. It is what it is.

Instead of trying to lecture me on how to speak English, why not consider the situation here and the complexity of what we are attempting to describe, and maybe we can come to terms on a better way to do it.

Our current reality, which involves the following occurrences existing at the same time:

1. Strong technical economic indicators (no actual technical recession)
2. Record low buying power, record low affordability and record rates of financial distress at the individual level for most people (mimicking the distress levels typical to an actual recession).

I call this a "functional recession" - a technically good economy in which a few do very well, but most people's day to day economic experience involves the reduced affordability/buying power and heightened financial distress typical of a recessionary environment. If you have a better way to describe this dynamic (one which very clearly exists and is being experienced by the majority of Americans on both sides of the political aisle, as I have very clearly established), then please be my guest. Come up with a better term. I'm not wedded to the term "functional recession", you can call it something else as long as you don't ask me to pretend it doesn't exist at all.

 

I asked you earlier for specific names and instead you gave me a link that explicitly says:

"Trump himself falsely claimed Monday night that Vice President Kamala Harris and her presidential campaign have explicitly referred to him as Hitler or a Nazi."

"But Harris and her campaign have not explicitly used that language, although they have drawn comparisons between Trump's rally and the Nazi event and criticized his policies and rhetoric as dangerous and authoritarian."


I might add that he started calling Kamala a fascist long before she told Anderson Cooper last week that yes, she does think he is, given his former Chief of Staff said he was.

And there is plenty of evidence that term is appropriate for the orange Hitler-loving felon. He admires autocrats, from Putin to Orban and Kim, He quotes Hitler, admitted to owning a copy of Mein Kampf, had a book of Hitler speeches by his bedside, had relatives who were literal Nazis, dines with neo-Nazis and white supremacists, etc. His behavior, beliefs and actions are consistent with fascists.

But, contrary to what you said, no one called him Hitler except JD Vance. Finally, if he doesn't want people drawing comparisons between him and Nazis, then he should stop acting like a ********ing Nazi, stop essentially quoting Hitler and stop aligning himself with neo-Nazis.

 

I said several pages back that Trump voters only want one thing: blood
Doesn't matter what kind of long-winded semi-coherent gibberish he said or wrote to deflect from that fact, he just wants blood.

Some of you guys here are clearly still in denial that half of your fellow citizens are deplorable bloodlusted people. Or you guys just like to waste your weekend debating a wall

 

I hate that fücking wall!

 

If anyone is interested, here is an interview with Selzer about the poll. One of the interesting things she mentions is that 2 of the House districts in Iowa are also in play because of the 6-week abortion ban that became law in the Summer.

 

I want to ask you why this is important. Do you just have a philosophical position of wanting criminals to suffer more, or do you think being tougher on crime has some larger benefit like reducing the amount of crime.

Because being "lax on crime" doesn't mean there is more crime. The crime rate has been falling under Biden. It's generally been falling for a long time except during corona-v when we were cooped up in our homes with the roommate that would not stop cutting their toenails in front of the TV and don't worry about me they will never find the body. But the idea that a President is going to have an outsized (or really any) impact on the crime rate by having longer or shorter prison sentences isn't supported by the evidence.

But there's a another thing that cause crime, a more important one to me. And that is having criminals in charge of the United States. And I don't mean those felony convictions - I mean Trump's a con artist. And as my favorite song lyric goes "nothing is more contagious than sin". When people see Trump doing cons like promoting NFTs and such, they are going to think it's ok. Trump has basically normalized trying to scam the right-wing population. In fact he pardoned a man who was doing it. I don't want to see old white folks losing their homes to these scams no matter how funny it is.

 

A large portion of the Trump base want a reckoning against those they hate..

Trump primarily just needs the office to protect himself from the law, then for the power, then for the profits..

People in the Party: some hate him but are stuck with him… others see him as the useful idiot, a gateway into more power..If Trump died a second after winning theyd be happier to have Vance lead their agenda

Is Trump elitist and hate the classes below him? absolutely… would he be ok with his followers ransacking the nation in his name to save his ass? absolutely.

Do I f’n hate him and his MAGAts, yeah… their malice and cruelty has killed Americans

 

And Mexico didn’t even pay for it!

 

I am a Metrostars fan. I don't know how the computer got we out of maybe. However, I do agree the league creating Barca Florida is disgusting. I really hope Atl can create the greatest moment in MLS history.

 

So, I drove through the Trumpiest ungated precinct in 2020 within Reno proper.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html

Here's what I saw. One Trump sign. Two Harris signs. All clustered together at three houses either next door or across the street from one another.

So, obviously this is in the bag!

One serious observation, other than the Trump shrine I talked about a few days ago, there isn't as much serious signage anywhere in Reno. And this is a place with a really intense political sign culture in recent years - especially for local candidates. I was all over Reno today. There's not much sign presence anywhere. The whole atmosphere is kind of muted compared to previous years.

 

There's next to no signage where I live. It's shockingly sparse for all candidates compared to past years.

 

Until I see the league prevent/disrupt another team from doing the same type of roster moves that Miami has done.. I have no gripes for the on-the field product.. (hell LAFC stands for LA French Club atm)…now as far as Messi and Co. bringing the elitist eurosnbos with him.. yeah, that I hate

 

Did my part to make Florida look not too ridiculous and one of these groups was making the round to the poll at the time. Very, very cool.

I really hope the MJ and abortion pass, but I know Congress will find ways to screw it over just like they did with the voting rights a couple years ago.

 

1. Yes, I do believe philosophically that criminals should pay more for most crimes (I'm not talking about throwing folks in jail for weed).
2. Yes, I believe it is better to be tougher on crime, generally (acknowledging that there are effective and less effective ways to be "tougher" on crime).

I think the picture is clearer if you adjust the input on the link above to include items other than murder. Property crime, for example, is up in 4 years (Burglaries down but significant spikes in vehicle thefts and other thefts pushing the overall rate up). Violent crimes are slightly down relative to Jan. 2021, but nearly all categories experienced significant spikes during the 4 years of the Biden term and remain above 2019 and 2018 averages.

And this is just one source. See below for several others:

https://time.com/6904210/america-suburban-crime-problem-essay/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comm...-law-and-order-new-york-violence-us-election/

Crime is an issue, and I just don't have any inclination to support policies designed to make it easier for those who still commit it to get away with it and continue committing it, especially living in one of the many urban areas that has not done well with crime (every major crime category in my city is up relative to 2019, and overall violent crime is at its highest rates here in about 2 decades).

I don't agree with that - the federal government has the power to influence how we interact and deal with crime across the country. But beyond that, I don't want a president who takes a passive stance on the issue, and I've seen little evidence Kamala will be anything other than that.

I don't love some of the seedier scams/programs Trump tacitly enables and that many of his supporters big up endlessly, but I like activist prosecutors and bail reform handing criminals free passes a lot less.

 

This dude speaks for me.....100%

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DB4uY03h1M0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

 

You just want a President who has been convicted of 34 felonies (and counting).

As if he would be tough on crime!