**** Elections thread *****

[BananaStand]

Hate to rebut so many words with just one word, but: Yes. I don't know what sounds so far-fetched about someone going through a lot of trouble to consolidate and expand their money and power. As dry and caustic as your tone is in regards to this, it is raison d'etre of a significant number of people, both through history and contemporarily. I doubt Trump himself would dispute that a lot of his life has been dedicated toward acquiring more money and expanding his brand.

So what was his motivation in business, must also be his motivation in politics? Want fewer words to rebut? Here's just one: Glib. And it's glib to an extreme. It's akin to saying if I try to take your money at the poker table, we can't also be friends. It's possible for someone to be motivated by more than just one thing. And it's possible to call on those different motivations, at different times in your life, to achieve different goals.

Think about what would happen to you if you tried this same line of thinking in poker. "hey that guy just bet, and it was a bluff. So now every time he bets, I'm gonna call, cause its probably a bluff. Occam says so"

I don't think he cares much about exploiting the government to make more money.

Think about what you're saying here. You are saying that the man is motivated by greed, and doesn't care that he would be undermining democracy and tearing the fabric of society, just to make a few more bucks. That is a serious and vile accusation to be making. You are indicting the man's motivations as purely selfish, and largely evil since you so clearly believe that he has an inhuman and callous disregard for every other citizen in the country.

And just because you can't categorically disprove that.....you won't even entertain the notion that perhaps he's simply a driven patriot?

This is the guy who proudly said not paying taxes makes him smart (not that I disagree with him not paying taxes if he were carrying over a loss, but it's relevant to this point regardless), who has exploited many other small businesses' services, involved in pump and dump schemes, etc.

Invoking these things might make me sound like some libtard buying into HuffPo clickbait headlines or something, but there was a time like 18 months ago when you could say that Trump is a money and ego-motivated solipsistic billionaire and no one would think twice about it, much less accuse you of being politically biased and divisive.

LOL, this is the thinking that needs to go. No one is accusing you of being politically biased or divisive. there's plenty of that on both sides. The tax thing is a great example. The guy took deductions that were on the books, lawfully. Zeroing in on the phrasing of "didn't pay taxes", is biased, and divisive.

But what you're saying (that he's motivated solely by greed), goes beyond biased and divisive. It's incendiary, accusatory, and inflammatory.

And the way you are presenting and supporting your argument....

My post had nothing at all to do with knowing anything for sure. I said it's getting easier and easier to support one particular narrative and harder and harder to support other ones.

.... is infantile, glib, and frankly an extremely lazy line of thinking.

It's entirely possible some other possibility is true; I hope to god that they are. I'm just increasingly losing hope in other common explanations.

I wasn't using Occam's Razor as evidence. You're getting all upset about people talking down to and talking past other people, yet you're using the least generous interpretation of my point possible.

I don't at all think "the only logical conclusion" is that Trump's motivations are like Brain's from Pinky and the Brain. I'm saying as much as that--on its surface--sounds like a melodramatic and far-fetched theory, it's increasingly becoming the least far-fetched theory.

Again...lazy thinking. If it's "entirely possible" that something else is true, then why are you so insistent that yours (and apparently Occam's) conclusion is true? Why is yours "least far fetched theory?"

You'd be a fool to suggest that blatant personal ambition was not a driving force for the ascension of all 44 of our previous presidents. Why does the narrative change to 'maniacal material greed' now that it's Trump? Occam's razor would say that whoever is giving the narrative must have some extreme bias.

The sections you quoted both exclusively had to do with Trump. They had nothing at all to do with Republicans, Trump supporters, or whoever else you think is being oppressed here other than Trump himself. Neither section had even the faintest implications whatsoever of accusing anyone of being racist, misogynist, or nationalist pigs.

You could say that there is a potential implication of his supporters being idiots, but I think you have to have a pretty severe victim complex if you can't read a criticism of a political figure without immediately taking it as an implicit attack on all of his supporters.

It's possible I was making two points in one post. I agree, your words had to do exclusively with Trump. But even you sniffed out your own implication.

My separate point was that discourse in a tone similar to the one you and Bill have given in this thread, was a major driving factor in the election of Trump. You can hide behind the literal textual interpretation of your point if you want. I won't dispute it. But you are clearly exhibiting a common and repetitive pattern that has been present throughout the last year and a half of political discussion. And that is to jump to outrageous conclusions based on nothing but unproveable plausibility. Trump didn't disavow david duke fast enough, he must love the KKK. Trump said something nice about Putin, he must be working with Russia. Trump said something mean about those gold star parents...he must hate muslims.

I'm just letting you know, that kind of shit is tiring. I'm not saying you said that stuff. I am saying that your line of "trump just wants to be prez so he can sell more condos" is incredibly similar to all that other garbage. And I'm just letting you know, so that you can start being part of the solution, and not part of the problem.

[Poopadoop]

I'm just letting you know, that kind of shit is tiring. I'm not saying you said that stuff. I am saying that your line of "trump just wants to be prez so he can sell more condos" is incredibly similar to all that other garbage. And I'm just letting you know, so that you can start being part of the solution, and not part of the problem.

Perhaps it might be worth you considering that those kinds of thoughts are shared by a lot of people, I dare say the majority. It's not just a few people saying those things and poisoning the debate. Maybe if you took an objective look at Trump and what he does instead of just what he says you'd understand why he's so unpopular.

Also, just because you don't agree with someone else's point of view doesn't give you the right to go apeshit on them.

[surviva316]

So what was his motivation in business, must also be his motivation in politics?

[Emphasis added]

No, but it means that it might be. And as other explanations get harder to justify, it becomes the more likely explanation.

I'm not offended when people say that just because I'm a poker player means that me bullshitting is always at least one potential, simple explanation for the things I say--one that could potentially be the most likely explanation for me saying something as other explanations start to fail. W/r/t bluffing, this is actually quite a bit how putting someone on a range operates. If you've seen that I'm capable of bluffing before, and I'm not repping any obvious value hands with a certain line, then there's a good chance I'm bluffing.

We could maybe expand on this analogy and say that you're the guy in a HH who's like, "Oh, just because he's bluffed a few times means he HAS to be bluffing now," and I'm like, "No, I'm saying the fact that he bluffed before means he might be bluffing now, and as per my other posts, I can't think of what value hand he's repping."

And just because you can't categorically disprove that.....you won't even entertain the notion that perhaps he's simply a driven patriot?

Show where I invoked burden-of-proof or stop accusing me of this line of thinking. I can't imagine what you're referencing where I said that you have to disprove a positive assertion in order for it to not be true, and it's really hard for me to respond to it when it's so far outside of my point.

Also, here you say "I won't even entertain the notion that perhaps he's a driven patriot," and further down you base a criticism of me around the fact that I say it's entirely possible that this is his motivation. You're being intellectually dishonest ... and I don't mean that as an off-the-cuff hot-take; I mean that simultaneously using both interpretations of my post at moments where it most benefits you (or even better, is a detriment of me) is bald-faced intellectual dishonesty.

But what you're saying (that he's motivated solely by greed), goes beyond biased and divisive. It's incendiary, accusatory, and inflammatory.

This is the weird thing about Trump's career: he was very recently assumed to just be a solipsistic, power hungry, ego-driven billionaire. Very few people disputed this. This is an AC casino and real estate magnate we're talking about here FFS! Then he entered the political realm, and suddenly throwing personal attacks at him is considered incendiary, accusatory, and inflammatory. Talk about being politically correct and being forbidden from calling a spade a spade.

Let me put it on the public record right now to say that I think Sheldon Adelson is more than capable of exploiting politics to get what he wants. While I'm at it, I'll add the Koch brothers on there. This way if Adelson pursues a career in politics, then no one can accuse me of being toxic for political discussion, and I'm just calling it like I've always seen it.

You missed the point of the tax thing, and it's not worth hashing out and sidetracking the entire conversation. I myself said I agree with carrying forward losses. As a poker player this is probably the one thing I've been most passionately defending. What I was referencing was more nuanced than that, but it doesn't matter; don't want to sidetrack.

And the way you are presenting and supporting your argument

.... is infantile, glib, and frankly an extremely lazy line of thinking.

Again...lazy thinking.

For someone who's so concerned about the "tone" (rather than content) of posts, you're very fond of pejorative adjectives.

And now's maybe a good time to point out that your quote was taken from a purposely concise, quick-shot post as part of a series of posts worth thousands of words. If you're looking for something deep, nuanced, and thoroughly qualified and contextualized, then that isn't the place to get it.

If it's "entirely possible" that something else is true, then why are you so insistent that yours (and apparently Occam's) conclusion is true? Why is yours "least far fetched theory?"

You're responding to a post that's weeks old and is a short one-off that's somewhat oblique to a multitude of thousand-word-long posts on the general subject of Trump's appointments. In that post, I said I was "proposing" an "explanation." The person I was directly addressing replied with a: Yeah, maybe, but I don't think so, we'll see. My non-response to that was supposed to be a sort of: Okay, fair enough, agree to disagree. Especially given the stakes of the conversation at hand, I think that's pretty tame.

Even in this most recent post where I dedicated a lot of words to it, I said over-and-over again that I don't have "evidence" and I don't "know" anything and just think it's a scary-strong possibility (again, given the stakes of the discussion).

You are the only one to hitherto treat my theory as insistent or absolute.

You'd be a fool to suggest that blatant personal ambition was not a driving force for the ascension of all 44 of our previous presidents. Why does the narrative change to 'maniacal material greed' now that it's Trump? Occam's razor would say that whoever is giving the narrative must have some extreme bias.

Many people accused Clinton of various less-than-savory motivations, and I've been fine with many of them.

But there's also an extreme false equivalency here. Not all motivations of "personal ambition" are equally problematic for the office. No modern president has ever had an even remotely comparable level of conflicting interests. And this isn't just my biased perspective. Newt himself has used this unprecedented level of entanglements as a reason for using a more open interpretation of Emoluments Clause. At the risk of broaching conspiracy theories, the very direct influence of foreign powers on the election process (please don't strawman this part of my post) doesn't happen with all presidents.

We've always had to be vigilant against people scratching lobbyists' bellies, adding earmarks for their donors, etcetcetc. We've always had to worry about presidents pushing too hard for their pet-legislation to make their mark on the history books. These are not equivalent concerns as what I proposed.

I agree, your words had to do exclusively with Trump. But even you sniffed out your own implication.

To clarify my point there, I'm saying you can't possibly criticize a political figure without having at least the potential implication that their supporters are {some bad word} for supporting them. You could say every study that says that Bernie Sanders' economic policies don't add up is an implicit accusation that all of his supporters are star-gazing ideologues who need to move out of their parents' basements and get a job to pay some taxes so they know what it's like in the real world.

The most generous interpretation of those studies, though, is that they are just studies investigating the viability of economic policy.

You can hide behind the literal textual interpretation of your point if you want. I won't dispute it.

As someone who tries my best in internet discussions to maintain a stasis, and keeping things on topic and direct to the points that are made regardless of what barbs may be made along the way, I'll take this as a compliment.

I'm just letting you know, that kind of shit is tiring. I'm not saying you said that stuff. I am saying that your line of "trump just wants to be prez so he can sell more condos" is incredibly similar to all that other garbage. And I'm just letting you know, so that you can start being part of the solution, and not part of the problem.

Okay, here's the sitch: I'm worried that there is a quite good chance that Trump is a purely self-interested person whose main concern in office is to abuse his powers to consolidate as much power, money and influence around his family. In the interest of being constructive and allowing me to be part of the solution and not the problem: How do you suggest I express this in a way that doesn't--in your opinion--belittle his supporters?

Maybe you think I'm an asshole for so much as considering this in the first place, but if that's the case, I'd like for you to stop focusing on the tone of my posts and start comforting me by defeating some of the content of my posts.

And while we're on the subject of "being part of the solution," while you're busy squinting between the lines of my post, you have quite directly called me a retard who is making incendiary, accusatory and inflammatory points based on infantile, glib and extremely lazy lines of thinking. Not that I care in the slightest (I don't mind a little name calling and finger pointing so long as it's not ad hominem) but it does make me question how much you care about what you preach, or whether you're just grasping at reasons for why I can't say mean things about Trump on the internet.