Printable View
Trump now tweeting how great the electoral college is. Guess he forgot how much of a 'disaster' he said it was before he won.
Also says he would have campaigned differently if it were about popular vote. Guess he forgets the other guys would have done the same thing.
The FBI director broke the rules by making an investigation public days before the election. Turned out he had nothing. So he should resign too right?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Not saying what she said wasn't inappropriate, I'm saying it's not enough to force her to resign.
One example is that there are laws or common practices in sanctuary cities that don't consider immigration status relevant, so illegal alien criminals don't get identified and deported. These cities can be penalized for breaking federal law.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
FBI is not a judge. These are two totally different arenas of ethics.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
That doesn't answer my question. What do they do with an illegal alien caught committing a crime?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
I've been on both sides of the issue too. It's almost like looking at what people say on the surface doesn't tell us much.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Indeed, and given that he won the popular votes in the states they both campaigned in, we'd be wise to predict a national popular vote win in his favor had this been a national popular vote election.Quote:
Also says he would have campaigned differently if it were about popular vote. Guess he forgets the other guys would have done the same thing.
You're making a different set of rules for one area of law versus another.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Regardless, why should she be forcibly muted as a judge? Are we expected to believe SCJs are apolitical? It's not like she made these statements and then had to try a case with Trump as the defendant.
Also, I don't believe you would be upset had Clinton won and a SCJ had come out against her. Comey's obvious bias (one that actually affected the outcome of the election in a very real and possibly decisive way) and your defending of it are a case in point.
I don't know what your history is, but as far as Trump is concerned, it's very difficult to see it as anything but hypocrisyQuote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Not at all. The more time he spends in NY, CA, etc., the less time he spends in FL, OH, etc., You can't have him gaining votes by campaigning in some places without losing votes by not campaigning in other places.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
The illegal isn't "caught" because the authorities either de jure or de facto do not account for that information.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
There are other things, but frankly this is not my area of expertise. I have seen many reports of illegals being in custody for crime and authorities having the legal obligation to deport them yet them not being deported.
Huh? This doesn't follow from you premise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
He can't be everywhere at once. If he's out campaigning and winning over voters in one state, he can't be doing it in another at the same time. So if he spends the whole campaign in CA, NY, and IL and gains 10m votes in those places, he won't have been gaining those 10m votes from campaigning in FL, OH, NC.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Law scholars, not me. This is such an important ethical consideration that in WA, on the ballots, candidates for court positions are not even allowed to provide political opinion. Ginsburg did something law scholars tend to think of in ethically disqualifying ways.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
She'll give ruling on many pieces of legislation he signed.Quote:
Regardless, why should she be forcibly muted as a judge? Are we expected to believe SCJs are apolitical? It's not like she made these statements and then had to try a case with Trump as the defendant.
My opinion is irrelevant. And you can't know that. Even if it was my all time favorite jurist who said that, I still think the damage done to the legal system by allowing such partiality would be immense.Quote:
Also, I don't believe you would be upset had Clinton won and a SCJ had come out against her.
Comey's not a judge. Two different sets of ethics.Quote:
Comey's obvious bias (one that actually affected the outcome of the election in a very real and possibly decisive way) and your defending of it are a case in point.
Your premise was that the opposition would campaign differently too for a national election. Since Trump beat her where they campaigned, your premise is not a counter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Maybe so. Still can't force her to resign for it whether scholars think she should or not. Just like you can't make Comey resign for what he did.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Ya, that's correct. Ok let's start over.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Let's assume his campaigning advantage over Clinton is what won him the vote in certain states, and not something else. So when campaigning, Trump always won over more voters each day than Clinton did when she campaigned.
Let's oversimplify and say that for every day Trump spends in a particular state, 25k more people decide to vote for him. Let's say Clinton is much less effective, and only gets 10k more voters for every day she spends. So if they both spend a day in the same state Trump is making 15k votes profit (25k-10k). If Trump spends a day in one state and Clinton spends it in another he makes a 25k profit in one state and a 10k loss in the other. But in terms of popular vote, he still made 15k profit.
Make sense now? It doesn't matter whether he's gaining a 15k profit every day in CA or in OH. It's still 15k.
Edit: It's also not necessarily the case that because they both campaigned in close states and he won them, it was because he had a campaigning advantage. He might have been winning those states already and still have won them if neither candidate had campaigned in them.
Ya, hard to read what he meant after the election in 2012.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Quote:
He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!
The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy
The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation
The profit would be larger in larger and more dense regions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
National campaigns would change so much. Areas of focus, messages, etc., all would undergo major changes.
All the campaigning was done in dense regions. No-one holds a rally on a farm in Wyoming.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Also, all the evidence shows he won the rural areas and got crushed in the cities. Density would hurt him more than help him.
Here's to hoping he disbands the White House Press Corps. And to hoping that he never again goes on any of the shows that shilled for the DNC. And to hoping the only debates he agrees to in 2020 are online and on non-shill networks. Wallace can moderate one.
If we are to stand a chance against the virus of identity politics, it will take a strong stance against media corruption.
Apparently there's more going on with the "lobbyists in his transition team" thing than it seems. A whole bunch have been purged. It appears even Christie has been dumped. Good riddance. Here's to hoping it's true.
I'm putting Sanders at a smallish favorite to take the nomination next cycle. Then lose the general. He could have won this time, but next time Trump will have so much credibility on some of Sanders' key issues and the media shills won't be as pronounced and a ton of moderate and values-conservatives who normally vote Republican but didnt this time will be swayed to Trump. It would take somebody like Warren or Booker to beat Trump. You know, because of how they can get the "identity politics" vote.
If the White House Press Corps is kept, the Press Secretary should be a tag team of Katrina Pierson and Sheriff Clarke.
I'd watch Sheriff Clarke stomp the media over new episodes of Game of Thrones any day (kidding).
Ugh. This thread is like werewolf. I don't have enough time or internet access to keep up. Bigred posts incoming. Recognize I won't be available to quick responses.
I'd wager Trump is out after 4 years.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Wager?
I removed some of the quote for minimizing size.Quote:
Originally Posted by JimmyS1985
I agree with your first paragraph. It has become clear to me in my last week's research (such as listening to the WSJ opinion podcasts and reading other slightly conservative news sources) that the definition of racism is not consistent across the country and there is a large part in America that only considers and/or understands overt racism. Anything less than calling someone the n-word or directly coming out and saying you hate a race is not racism and often a tool of the "biased media." It saddens me that people hear phrases from Trump like "I love the Hispanics. The Hispanics are going to get great jobs." and thinks it's not racist. When you add a modifier of the to groups, you're creating a divide. You're implying an us and a they and you're perpetuating less overt racism.
I struggle with many other points you make in this post. I was taught to treat all people equal regardless of race, sex, religion, etc. As a consequence, I was taught not to use the n-word because it treats a specific race as less than and has a lot of implied hatred.
I would encourage you to challenge the statement you made, " I still haven't rooted it out entirely, I think deep down were all racist in some way or another." To me this feels like a cop out. It feels you're making the statement, I've removed the overt racism and as much of the more subtle racism. Nothing left to do. I realize you're not directly saying this but it's implied.
I've learned through exposure, experience, and travel across the world that regardless of where you're from, your socioeconomic standing, your gender, etc, etc that people are generally good and they want the same things in life. They want to be treated fairly, pursue happiness, love and be loved, and provide these opportunities to future generations. However, typically through fear, they lash out when they feel these values are threatened. Until we can recognize we're the same, truly the same with no hint of an us vs a them, although I will acknowledge people are dealt different cards in life, we cannot progress as a society.
After some research, I can't disagree on the economy part. I still want to continue to research this but I've seen a lot of blame put on the Dodd-Frank regulations in 2010. However, I do want to acknowledge that much of this is speculative given changing global parameters so comparing business cycles historically feels not quite apples to oranges but maybe green apples to fuji apples? I think you get my point.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Do you have specific Scott Adams posts that point out how Trump is not divisive when it comes to race, anti-Muslim, misogyny, etc? It seems very clear that while Trump hasn't come out and said I hate Muslims or I hate black people (overt racism), the language he uses (e.g.: the Hispanics love me), the desire to build a registry of Muslims, spews subversive hatred and divisiveness. I'm going to stop using racism as a term, and instead use divisive, given that my concerns are larger than race. It is a blatant disregard for many different groups of people spanning religion, gender, and race.
Wuf,
What's your thoughts on Steve Bannon?
Thoughts on Muslim registry?
But we're not all the same. I'm not the same as a Muslim, or hispanic, or Chineseman. I'm also not the same as my white British next door neighbour. He's gay for a start. He also doesn't have long hair. He's older than me. I really don't tink there's another person on the planet that I'm the same as. I'm fucking special, me.Quote:
Until we can recognize we're the same, truly the same with no hint of an us vs a them, although I will acknowledge people are dealt different cards in life, we cannot progress as a society.
Until we recognise that we are ALL DIFFERENT, in spite of race, gender, dick size, hair colour, smoking habits etc, we cannot progress as a society.
The problem is this isn't being done. People are being lumped into groups based on one category (e.g., religion, race) which is divisive. Talking about how there's often a greater overall difference between you and your white neighbour than between you and a random Muslim who lives in a different town would be unifying. But that's not the language being used.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Trump isn't alone in doing this. Clinton is equally as guilty. So is pretty much every politician. So too for the average person. It's ingrained in our culture.Quote:
People are being lumped into groups based on one category (e.g., religion, race) which is divisive.
Our culture is divisive. It's no good pointing at individuals, that only serves to further the divide.
He's not exactly strong on keeping any of his promises so far.Quote:
Originally Posted by BankItDrew
Another possibility though is that he has some success by bombing ISIS or limiting immigration and he uses that to ride to re-election. Also quite possible the Ds nominate another dud.
All too far away to really speculate about imo. Lots can happen in four years.
There are different degrees to which different people do this. Hard to argue Trump isn't further towards the divisive end of the spectrum than most with his language. Clinton never railed against mexicans, muslims or whatever did she?Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
There's different degrees of subtlety. It's there in us all because it's indoctrinated into us. Most of us are guilty of what could be called positive racism. But it's still racism, it's still divisive because it compartmentalises people. (I don't often get to use that word!)
He's not prez yet. And to be quite honest, the only promise I give a fuck about is foreign policy. If that doesn't change once he's in a position to force his will, then I'll be anti-Trump pretty quickly.Quote:
He's not exactly strong on keeping any of his promises so far.
No, but she tried to manipulate them by playing the racism card every time Trump said something that could be conceived as divisive. She did her best to ensure that every woman, black person, hispanic and homosexual should hate Trump and everything he stands for.Quote:
Clinton never railed against mexicans, muslims or whatever did she?
Hillary should have focussed entirely on her own affairs, and ignored Trump. Had she done that, she might well have won. However, she just came across as a huge fucking hypocrite, because that's exactly what she is. Trump came across as someone who will speak his mind, regardless of how it makes him look. People respect that from politicians, it's a break from the norm.
Maybe he's a hypocrite too, time will tell.
Poor choice of words on my part. I think a better phrase would be we're all human. Celebrate our differences!Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
We're hard-wired to think in terms of 'us' and 'them'. It's a psychological fact. The way to unite a nation is therefore to make the nation the 'us' and someone else the 'them'. The 'them' can be terrorists or communists or whatever you want, it really doesn't matter too much for the sake of national unity as long as they're outside the country.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
What divides people is to make part of the nation 'us' and another part 'them'. That's where American politics has gone wrong imo. It's always one faction vs. another, be it whites vs. browns, protestant vs. catholic (or Christian vs. muslim), natives vs. immigrants, republican vs. democrat, etc..
A real uniter would work to point out the similarities that all Americans have - call it American values or whatever you want. I believe that Americans are in large part, against outright racism, for example, and for things like freedom of speech.
It's one thing to exploit differences as an election ploy. But when you're president, you've already won. You don't need to then hire people like Bannon to make the differences even more evident. He doesn't actually represent the values of the people as a whole, only a fringe element. That's divisive.
I agree. She ran about the worst campaign you could possibly run. She didn't have rallies and when she did, no-one showed up. Her campaign was all about bashing Trump, never about anything positive she would do. The fact that she still almost won shows just how badly Trump is viewed by Joe Average American. When the best thing most people can say about one candidate is 'Theother guy is even worse', it's not a happy situation.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
You do realise these are in conflict with one another?Quote:
I believe that Americans are in large part, against outright racism, for example, and for things like freedom of speech.
You're saying the right to free speech keeps people from expressing views that are against outright racism?Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
No. I'm saying if you believe in free speech, you have to respect another person's right to say racist things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
The idea we can have free speech with limitations is dumb. It's either on or off, one or zero, free speech or limited speech. There is no middle ground.
Why is there no middle ground? In fact we all live in the middle ground.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
There obviously has to be limits where one right conflicts with another. Society can't allow a black person to follow you around all day shouting 'honky' in your ear, for example, even if stopping him from doing it means limiting free speech. Because it conflicts with your right to go about your life without being harassed and/or subjected to hate.
Racism is when you say "I love Hispanics because they're Hispanic."Quote:
Originally Posted by bigred
Trump's statement reflects the type of thing people say normally. How many millions of white men have said "I love Asians" or "Asians are so hot"? When they say this, they're not being racist and nobody gives them a hard time for it. It's when the reason you "love Asians" is "because they're Asian" that you're being racist. I'll continue this below...
This is correct, and it is different than racism. Divisiveness is bad news, and sometimes creating divides is more negative than positive. I would not argue that saying "I love Hispanics" is the bad kind, but saying what he said about tracking Muslims is. There's more to that though, which I'll address below...Quote:
When you add a modifier of the to groups, you're creating a divide.
It's a bad idea and I don't disagree that his words could have some negative impact. I disagree with what he said (as I think he does too), and I don't fault anybody for pointing out why it was a bad idea. The reason I think he said it is the "pacing and leading" thing. It's a persuasion tactic he has used many times. He paces the group of people who really don't like Muslims, which gets that group of people to say "hey I like this guy, he agrees with me", and then at a later point Trump "evolves" to a less extreme position and those people he paced say "well, he's got a good point." He did this with the Muslim thing. He started with a registry and total ban on Muslim immigration, and then within a few weeks or so, he shifted to "extreme vetting." By the end, this tactic can be argued to making things less divisive because the leading portion tracks people away from their previously divisive stance.Quote:
Originally Posted by bigred
Adversaries of Trump may say he does this is because he's dumb and knows nothing or because his innate hate got him in trouble with the public so he had to backtrack. Advocates of Trump say it's a negotiation tactic he's used many times in the past and that the evidence suggests he used it again here.
There isn't a perfect piece he's put together, but this is a good place to start.Quote:
Originally Posted by bigred
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1461570...d-anti-trumper
I have very little opinion on him. I know he's been getting smeared as "alt-right" and "white nationalist" lately, which are both on the order of absurd. "Alt-right" is more or less a useless label. Not that many people identify as alt-right. Most of what we hear about "alt-right" is the media applying a label to Trump supporters ex post facto.Quote:
What's your thoughts on Steve Bannon?
The "white nationalist" thing smells too much of race-baiting to me. As somebody who hangs out in pro-Trump, pro-Bannon circles, let me tell you that these people don't give a flying fuck about race. They care about culture and law and patriotism. What they don't like is how illegal immigration undermines these.
Total side point, off the beaten path, different topic: "whiteness" didn't always mean skin color. Historically, it has been integrated with culture. To be "white" was to embrace particular ethics, like the work ethic, nuclear family ethic, and the respectable-ness ethic. This used to be something "non-whites" aspired to. These "non-whites" included the Irish, Italian, Jews, Greeks, and other European immigrants. Some, like the Irish, were even considered worse than negro on the race scale. Each of the groups mentioned all "became" white by adopting "white" ethics, and today we think of them as racially white even though 150 years ago they were not.
So when we think of "white nationalism", it's important to acknowledge the ethic components. Even though there is a race component, that isn't the only part of the story. A lot of people who denounce the race component and embrace the ethic component still get labeled as racist.
I suspect you'll think that in 3 years time, so I'll wait till then to wager.Quote:
Originally Posted by BankItDrew
It should be noted that the incentive for why the media would attack Bannon so hard is that he is their worst enemy. He is direct competition to them and he has been beating them. The icing of the cake is that he has Trump's ear, and the signs are that they will drain the swamp, which includes exposing the corrupt media for shills they are. They want Bannon gone because he's bad for their business. It is unlikely to have much to do with any of Bannon's actual stances on anything relevant to the people of the country.
I don't think poop really understands what "free" means.
I appreciate your input and think you have some, definitely valid points, on what I said earlier.Quote:
Originally Posted by bigred
What made me self-reflect on my own racism in my past as a White, was just doing lots of research if you will, on the racist history of this country.
Two of the books in my personal library reflect this, "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander for one, which outlines a Criminal Justice system which may not be overtly racist and is thus more covert in it's very nature, but still extremely racist at it's very heart.
I love racist jokes, one racist joke I've told is "What did the Black guy do after sex? 15 to life" This is outlined in Michelle Alexander's book, that we have an inherently racist Criminal Justice system. Meanwhile we got White Brock Turner serving a mere 3 months in jail for the exact same crime, and Sam Dubose's killer, simply for the virtue of being a White cop, getting a mistrial in what is pretty much a cut and dry case of 1st degree murder at least for an ordinary civilian, and prosecutors are stymied to only charging him with manslaughter simply because he's White and a Police Officer.
The other book that influenced my belief system today is "Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse". I honestly would LIKE to believe that White Lawmakers had NOTHING but the NOBLEST of intentions when they passed Mass Incarceration laws over the past 2 generations of American History, but it wound up, at face value, being an extremely racist policy of mass incarcerating Blacks. The War on Drugs, based on who's been incarcerated, charged, and imprisoned under these policies, can easily be called "The War on Blacks".
Part of why I had such a hard time voting for HRC in the first place, as well as probably her lackluster performance among Blacks too in the election, was because of how inherently racist the 1994 Crime Bill was. That single bill destroyed probably over a million Black families, when much more productive ways to handle with substance abuse were at her husband's disposal in 1994, namely, legalizing illicit drugs.
Another book that influenced my thought on how I have contributed to the racism in this country, was a book in my library called "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces".
The people who have bore the brunt of this militarization, weren't the Al Queda terrorists who had started sleeper cells within our nation, but a major component was in fact the Black community.
I've tried to deal with my own racism, and actually study the racist history of this country. In light of Trump's victory, I read up on the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, it was a race riot in the wealthiest Black neighborhood in the entire country at the time. And I think it basically boiled down to the concept of Blacks having things as nice as Whites, Whites found deeply offensive and a privilege that should be relegated to Whites and Whites only. The Whites wanted to carry out a lynching in the wealthy Black neighborhood, regardless if they had very loose evidence, as by today's standards there is absolutely no evidence the Black teenager that sparked the riot, did in fact rape a White female teenager.
Because the Whites couldn't carry out their lynching without facing an armed uprising from the Blacks in Tulsa, they massacred them and destroyed their wealthy neighborhood in retaliation.
This country does in fact have a deeply racist, double standard history, in regards of Whites vs People of color, based on my readings.
What the media is very bad at is presenting nuance. They treat racism as an all-or-nothing proposition. Anyone who does anything that's racially insensitive is a racist, and racists are necessarily terrible people, and terrible people should be witch hunted.Quote:
Originally Posted by bigred
First of all, this necessarily contradicts a central tenet of intersectionality, which is that anyone from a privileged perspective necessarily has blind spots in seeing things from an oppressed perspective, and being brought up in a society that systemically represents those people in negative light gives us a slanted perspective on them that we have to work to get past. Regardless of whether or not I'm a progressive or try my best to stand on the right side of history or virtue signal on social media, I am still not perfectly enlightened and am still somewhere on the spectrum of being ignorant on various nuances of various minority perspectives.
Of course, this is the "cop out" you were referring to. The fact that we are all ignorant shouldn't normalize ignorance to the point that we throw our hands up and say there's nothing to be done about it. But that's only if you go into it with the perspective that you only want to be non-racist-enough that you don't feel like a piece of shit. It's like learning poker (or any other self-improvement endeavor); no one who's interested in getting better finds a leak and is like, "Oh yeah, sure, I suck in that particular way, but everyone sucks some way or another, so I'm not going to try and plug that leak."
As for reacting to others who show less overt kinds of racism, I think the public response should be in proportion to the incident. When that football player's wife compared Richard Sherman to a steer that needed to be castrated, it was at the very very least racially insensitive. It should be pointed out that when you're talking about someone from a certain group that has been often dehumanized by society and who a few generations ago was actually bred and sired like cattle, you may potentially offend them in a very deep and visceral way, and any decent human should be sensitive to that. Also, it's possible that both your seething level of hatred and your givenness to compare him to an animal is racially motivated, but I'm not a psychologist so I'll leave you to investigate those feelings within yourself. ... and that's it. That should be the response.
People go so far to virtue signal and (ironically enough) illegitimize and dehumanize people they perceive to be "other" that they turn it into an Us vs Them and nobody learns anything. Often, the person who said the offensive thing just comes out of it feeling like, "Well, these people think that me not being choosy enough with my words makes me a shit smear, and I think I'm more than a shit smear, so they must just be wrong and overly sensitive." Again, this isn't to "defend" people who say insensitive things or to normalize not being self-reflective and honest enough to learn something from a shitstorm like that; I'm just saying that "We" could certainly do a much better job in honestly representing the complexities of racial relations.
Virtue signaling in the intellectual/academic realms can be extremely problematic as well. There is a central tenet in critical thinking that you have to give a certain level of credence to things you're not disposed to believing. I'll try to keep this brief, but basically there's a give-and-take that's necessary in intellectual debate that doesn't work when you're always trying to unilaterally move in one direction. You have to try out potentially dangerous ideas and not just prove them wrong, but really investigate what about it makes it wrong (and, actually very often, what subtleties within it actually prove to be accurate and rework that into the framework you've already built up from other investigations) in order to really learn anything.
If we just white-washed everything all the time, we'd all be like that joke Stephen Colbert always makes where he pretends he's totally blind to race. To get to a place where we recognize differences and explained why certain crimes are more prevalent in certain communities, etc, we had to get through some touchy investigations of issues.
I might take you up on this at 1.5:1 odds.Quote:
Originally Posted by BankItDrew
Of course, I don't think Trump has a good chance to be reelected because he's going to be awesome like wuf thinks, I just think we're kidding ourselves when we just assume that he's already lost his reelection. Have we already forgotten the lessons we should have learned from the election that took place just a week ago?
Very good points.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
The point about racial insensitivity should be well considered. Tons of what people call racism is really just insensitivity to peoples' feelings on ideas about race, not racism, not "a person of this color is a certain way because of his color".
To that, however, I'll add that I'm not the biggest fan of promoting the idea that being insensitive is wrong. If I got upset at people for being insensitive about things about me, it would make my life worse because I would be giving them power to harm me that I should not let them have. If I were to get up in arms over others' insensitivity, it would probably provoke them to become even more insensitive. I'm not prescribing a solution here, just perceiving things. I don't know the best way for people to react would be. It would probably be a balance between letting insensitive speech roll off our backs and penalizing it. But I really can't say how that could be achieved. The zeitgeist tends to sway like a pendulum, extreme on one end to extreme on the other end.
Here's my prediction: Trump is going to be very presidential, moderated, and normal for 3 years as president. He will have eliminated all doubt that he has bad temperament or is unfit. The "values conservatives" evangelical NeverTrumpers will get on his side and the "barely conservative" Republicans will too. If he had these folks he would have won Minnesota, New Hampshire, and probably Virginia. He'll probably get more women and Hispanics too, since it will become clear that non-violent illegals are not being targeted.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
And when the election cycle comes around, he's gonna return to the gutter. Yet this time it won't provoke people into thinking he's unhinged. They'll just say "that's how Trump campaigns; it even seems to work." If this comes to pass, the Democrat opponent will have a much harder time than Clinton did. He would still be beatable by Warren or Booker, but to be honest, I don't think they would run. Trump punishes and demoralizes his opposition. They probably won't want to be subject to that and will wait til 2024. Trump, Christie, and Bush all had the grounds to run in 2012 but waited for 2016 for similar reasons.
Trump's first actions as President-Elect have been going on a "confidence tour". Many major world country leaders are saying how they have the utmost confidence in him after their first meetings/talks. This is the best thing he could be doing right now and their statements are very good for the world economy.
In case anybody has doubts about how important confidence is to the economy, I'm doing my capstone on the idea that in mid-October 2008, the Federal Reserve lost credibility to maintain its implicit nominal GDP target, which resulted in a collapse of confidence, which resulted in the financial crisis and began the Great Recession. So, yeah, it's a big deal.
And tons of it is feeling a certain way about someone because of their color, and tons of it is hard to determine one way or another. Notice that even in my example, there is absolutely the possibility that she made the comments that she did because she's given to thinking of people of a certain color acting a certain way as less-than-human. My only point is that we--the virtue signaling social media members--can only take the horse to the water by elucidating certain perspectives; we can't force them to drink by going as extreme as possible with over-stigmatizing certain modes of speech.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
The very very first thing to recognize is that you don't know dick about dick. This tends to really ruffle the feathers of a lot of straight, white males, but I don't know why. For example, gay people generally have a difficult time coming out of the closet, especially people raised in certain environments. There's a reason for this. Can you really say you'd know how you'd feel in a situation where everyone around you called things they don't like "faggots," which not only denigrates every man who enjoys sex with a man but also equates them to kindling for a lynch pyre?Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
(This is just one example for one downtrodden social group because it's one of the few where deniability is broadly possible, much less evident.)
Even if no one incident will alone cause depression, self-hate, denial and whatever else, the toll of an entire consistent narrative against a certain group can be severe and not really comparable to anything you've likely experienced. Or maybe they're all a bunch of oversensitive pansies who should take it like the Jews always seem to and just be all dry and self-depreciative. Who knows. The most important point is that you and I sure as fuck don't.
Putting the high school lunchroom/4chan logic aside, this isn't really that complicated. If what you do makes others feel bad about themselves, then you--as a decent human--should strive not to do it. If others feeling bad about comments you make empowers you to say even more hateful things, then you're an asshole. Probably worse, actually, more like antisocial.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
There might be ways that the person on the other side could--from a utilitarian standpoint--handle it in a way that will have better results for them in certain crowds, but you yourself shouldn't think that someone's "asking for it" by being upset by certain comments. Worry about your own house and stop telling other people how they should feel when you don't really know anything.
Trump didn't underperform in these areas. He won Conservatives and Republicans by similar margins that 2000 Bush did and 2012 Romney did (went with one for a comparable election cycle, and the other for the most recent one), and these are according to exit polls which proved to skew heavily toward Clinton.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
But again, I don't really disagree that whoever runs against him will have an uphill battle. His awfulness is going to be most apparent to people who already voted against him, and while some other will be worse off, it won't be immediately apparent why especially in the first 4 years. Any regression we experience on the international stage will (historically speaking) only make it harder for the incumbent to be unseated.
I also don't have full faith in the man who refused to promise a peaceful transfer of power when he was some nobody candidate is going to run things perfectly straight up when he has executive powers. Not trying to be a conspiracy theorist or anything, but for those who like to throw around that Trump is literally Hitler, you should actually be the ones who are most concerned.
This probably isn't a post worth clicking "Post" on, but whatever, I'll probably just self-ban from whatever replies I get :P
Who wins the bet if Trump never runs?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MWOHjt_3ms
This is pretty much it. If you're actions offend someone you can't blame that person for getting upset and say 'it's your fault for letting it get to you'. That's just not taking responsibility for your actions.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
There's a lot of times in life we don't understand why people feel or react in a negative way to something. Anyone who's been in relationship knows that. If your attitude to your partner is 'well it shouldn't bother you so I'm going to keep doing it', then yeah, you're the knob, not them.
3rd party turnout was atypically high. McMullin pulled mostly from "values conservative" Republican support. His votes were enough in Minnesota to keep Trump from winning it.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
Since we're talking about divisiveness, this theme has been knocked into us for decades and it is divisive. Trump probably wouldn't be president without it either. If I posted every video I saw of Trump supporters being beaten to a pulp due to being Trump supporters, this thread would be nothing but videos of Trump supporters getting beaten to a pulp. If I posted every example I've seen of gay people claiming that they are more afraid of coming out as Trump supporters than they were of coming out as gay, this thread would be nothing but posting about gay people who are afraid of people harming them because they supported Trump.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
My life has included some of the worst shit that can happen to a person, but because I'm a straight white middle class male, I don't understand pain and oppression. I am told that I don't get it and that my back should be like a duck's back. Then the non-straight-white-male is told that whatever grievance they feel, if they can claim it is unique to how they were born or where they grew up, is important and special and tragic and it makes them more understanding of pain and oppression.
Funny story (or not funny): I've witnessed far more racism against whites than against non-whites over the years. I discussed an element of this with a friend, and he just laughed. His rationale for why the examples I gave weren't racism is because he doesn't care if somebody does that stuff to him. The irony is that he cares very much when people do that to non-whites. This is part of the media and intelligentsia hoax. They've hoaxed us into thinking whites don't experience racism because whites are "above it" or members of the faux "first class citizenry", and they've hoaxed us into thinking that non-whites are all oppressed by racism and they need saving. We've been hoaxed into white guilt, which makes us feel like we are the problem; and we've been hoaxed into the white savior complex, which is that it's up to us grand whites to save the poor, unsophisticated non-whites.
Note that I meant "up in arms" instead of "feeling bad". The provocation that being up in arms over being offended is reasonable. I understand why people don't respond well to crybullying. I doubt the Trump phenomenon happens if not for all the crybullying of late.Quote:
Putting the high school lunchroom/4chan logic aside, this isn't really that complicated. If what you do makes others feel bad about themselves, then you--as a decent human--should strive not to do it. If others feeling bad about comments you make empowers you to say even more hateful things, then you're an asshole. Probably worse, actually, more like antisocial.
btw im not calling you a crybully. you're smart and just explaining things as you see them.
I don't know why this needs to be divisive. I don't know what it's like to be a woman. When an issue comes up that concerns women, I open my ears to women because they have a special perspective on the discussion. I don't take this as an insult to my intelligence.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
As an example that isn't directly relevant to intersectionality, I've way too often seen people have extremely strong opinions on what rape victims would "logically" do in certain situations or how it should be handled. These are opinions that I've almost never seen shared by victims of sexual assault and that isn't borne out by any research on the issue. If these self-proclaimed "rationals" would shut up for a second on their completely inane speculation, they would learn a thing or two about what it's like to be a rape victim--perspectives that aren't much likely to be gained by sitting in an echo chamber with fellow non-rape victims.
This is an extreme example, but just trying to illustrate that it's extremely reasonable to recognize blind spots in your own perspective and listen to people who have a special insight into that particular topic. White males very often get offended by this perceived accusation of ignorance or feel censored by being shut out of the conversation, but it's just a fact of life: if you're not black, the best way you can learn about what it's like to be black is to shut up and listen, and so on for being gay, a woman, a religious minority or anything else. This perspective on the issue shouldn't divide us. If you want to enter the conversation, just listen for a bit.
I wouldn't necessarily say this. First-of-all, pain or hardship or even victimhood aren't sufficient for this conversation.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Oppression is, but how widely are you defining it? I know ong has shared stories about being a "spazz" at his school, and I've welcomed his perspective on this. I don't know how much it extended beyond schoolyard stigmatization and into every aspect of life, quite like being a black guy named Jamar can, but it is something that I would consider at least a moderate form of oppression.
I'm sure there are any number of genres of oppression for straight, white males (eg: dwarfism, being a male DV victim) and I would of course have open ears about these things too. Of course these things will almost certainly come with their own differences and being able to appreciate that and hear out others on seemingly similar issues will always be a gainful exercise.
Again, almost everything in this conversation is nuanced and almost none of it should be treated as an all-or-nothing proposition. If it seems that I am guilty of putting things under too big of umbrellas, there's a good chance it's because I'm simplifying ideas to convey them clearly and succinctly without having endless qualifiers and parenthetical asides.
Instances of legitimate oppression are much rarer going one way than the other because one group is in power and the other isn't (talk about being dangerously reductive with my wording, yikes!). I'm part Irish and part Italian (essentially 0% Anglo). In history class, I learned about the shit "my people" went through in Boston and New York and Philadelphia at the turn of the century and saw racist (or ethnicist) cartoons and caricatures that were published in papers, and I laughed them off. Hell, I even had to stop drinking due to personal problems with alcohol, and I don't bat an eye at people making Irish drinking jokes.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
It's not because I have enviably thick skin; it's because it's so alien and silly to me. No one actually thinks less of Irish people these days, no one actually passes over my resume because I have a lot of vowels in my name, I don't actually feel like I need to hide the fact that I had a drinking problem lest it legitimize hurtful stereotypes about "my people," etc. I just scoff it off with my typical white-male "Like you could fucking say anything that could hurt me" hubris. Same for when I was a white dude living in Harlem. I got angrily called a cracker once or twice; nothing more than a funny story for me to share. It's not a double standard for me to expect otherwise the other way around.
Again, there are exceptions to this. Let's take a divorced male who gets <50% custody with his kids for no reason other than he's not the mom. If he were to get upset about people saying that dads suck, I'd understand. There have been white people who have been the victim of hate crimes at the hands of black people. The list could go on, I'm sure. It's just by default, the people who make up whatever percentage of hiring positions and whatever percentage of legislative positions, etc, are not going to be the ones being oppressed.
Are there black people who have shitty views about white people? Same for women about men? Of course! But not a whole lot of sane people condone this (even if maybe, from some removed perspective, some "understand it," whatever that might mean for whatever individual case).
Agree. For obvious reasons, it's important to hear each side.Quote:
Originally Posted by surviva316
Adjunct: I think people from the "non-victim" side have been wrongly shutdown in their opinions. Regarding rape, it has gotten to the point where it is "wrong" to say that women are more likely to get raped if they get blackout drunk around nothing but horny teenagers. We're allowed to have the conversation about how men who rape are bad, but we're not allowed to have the conversation that women are in part responsible for keeping themselves safe.
History has shown us one way for oppressed groups (like the Irish once were) to become no longer oppressed groups (like the Irish are today): regardless of the oppression, take personal responsibility, stop being a victim, and start embracing the values that lead to a better life. The Irish, Italian, and Jews have done this at large. A small proportion of blacks have done this. I would argue that it is MUCH harder for blacks to do it, because racism against them has been more institutionalized*, but that doesn't change the fact that we only know of one way out of this hole. That which digs the hole even further is the cult of victimization. We should listen to grievances and try to end grievances, but we've gone way beyond that when it comes to a handful of non-white, non-male demographics.Quote:
Instances of legitimate oppression are much rarer going one way than the other because one group is in power and the other isn't (talk about being dangerously reductive with my wording, yikes!). I'm part Irish and part Italian (essentially 0% Anglo). In history class, I learned about the shit "my people" went through in Boston and New York and Philadelphia at the turn of the century and saw racist (or ethnicist) cartoons and caricatures that were published in papers, and I laughed them off. Hell, I even had to stop drinking due to personal problems with alcohol, and I don't bat an eye at people making Irish drinking jokes.
It's not because I have enviably thick skin; it's because it's so alien and silly to me. No one actually thinks less of Irish people these days, no one actually passes over my resume because I have a lot of vowels in my name, I don't actually feel like I need to hide the fact that I had a drinking problem lest it legitimize hurtful stereotypes about "my people," etc. I just scoff it off with my typical white-male "Like you could fucking say anything that could hurt me" hubris. Same for when I was a white dude living in Harlem. I got angrily called a cracker once or twice; nothing more than a funny story for me to share. It's not a double standard for me to expect otherwise the other way around.
Here's an example for how out to lunch we've gotten: I once worked with a black guy and we had no issues with each other. He misheard something I said and thought I was being racist. What was his reaction? He threw a fit. He contacted several bosses and threatened to quit if I wasn't fired. I was in a whole heap of trouble at first. But I explained things to my bosses (who were also black) and they agreed that I was misheard and that I didn't say anything racist. Of course, from the beginning I knew that the only thing that mattered was what the offended person thought and that I would be fired if he remained mad, so as soon as I heard he was mad, I pulled down my pants and apologized profusely. I hadn't done anything wrong, but I ended up virtually apologizing for him having wrongly heard me and explicitly that I didn't understand what it was like being black in such a racist world. It was nonsense, but at the time I believed it.
Anyways, the reason I'm telling you this story is because it is an example of why black communities continue to have it so hard. His behavior was very standard where he grew up. His starting point was that whenever there is a question, he is the victim of racial oppression. A sign that his community was climbing itself out of this hole would be if he did not throw a fit and did not blame others, and instead tried to prove that racism has no merit. It's the Booker T Washington thing, more or less. But of course his name is heresy in some circles.
I actually feel sorry for the black guy I worked with, because he was a nice guy and he and I became better friends after the incident. He didn't mean any harm and he was very pleased when things resolved nicely. Even though I was a victim of the cultural norms of victimization that were knocked into him all his life since I very nearly lost my job over it, he was probably even more of a victim of it since it probably clouds his every social interaction.
It would be totally fine if the standard was to express grievances. But the standard today for way too many is to be perpetual victims. This hurts us all. It hurts those it's trying to help the most.
*The institutionalization is thought to be from racist white southern types, but it's not. It hasn't been from that demographic for many decades. The institutional racism that harms blacks so intensely these days is the same that Thomas Sowell discusses turned his safe and rapidly growing in prosperity Harlem home of his youth into the gangland it is today: the welfare state directed at keeping blacks dependent and the drug war.
Ain't gonna happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Actually, you know what, I think that Trump never loses 2020. I'll take any bet anybody wants to make (given reasonable odds), as long as it's not money (that shit makes it too stressful).
There's a secret to why he will win. I know the secret.
Jeff Sessions named AG. Sanctuary cities dead.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Irish, Italians, and Jews blend in with society a lot better because they're White. Blacks have no such camouflage, they stick out like a damned sore thumb. You see a Black guy, first thing you know about him is he's Black before you know anything else about him. You see an Italian, Irishman, or Jew, it's hard to really tell that they are any of these ethnicity's, because their White skin allows them to blend in much easier.
This camouflage has heavily aided them in blending in with the rest of society, unlike Blacks.
I agree. However, it is not a complete limiting factor. Notice how blacks who adopt mainstream values are ridiculed for "acting white" and are Uncle Toms. Lots of blacks have integrated into mainstream customs, but since the majority haven't, it has deterred "blacks" as a group from being considered integrated.Quote:
Originally Posted by JimmyS1985
Another way of looking at it is that whenever a member of an "oppressed" group does not agree with the claims of that group, they are considered to not be a "real" member of that group. It's how Peter Thiel was labeled "not a gay man" because he supported Trump, how Jenner went from hero to villain in a split second because she supported Cruz, and how the first Hispanic in US history to win a primary was not blasted wall to wall on the news (Ted Cruz).
I don't want to understate that it is harder for blacks to integrate simply due to appearance. I think it is MUCH harder for them for that reason.
But I also think the same rules apply. Victimization will not yield positive results. No matter how hard it is, the route for blacks to overcome is the Booker T Washington route.
^^Adding: we've tried the other route. It hasn't worked. Things are so bad for black communities today that the gains won since slavery have virtually all evaporated.
^^Actually, I should word that differently, because it's not true that the gains since slavery have evaporated. What has happened is that some gains have been made while other things are even worse than during slavery. One example is how the black family survived everything, survived slavery, survived Jim Crow, but did not survive welfare and the drug war and more indirectly victimization politics. Also, there certainly have been gains since slavery, but many of those have been lost. An example is how many black areas got a whole lot better after slavery yet are today ghettos. Harlem, for example.
Sadly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K8bf6dbYt4&feature=youtu.be&t=72
My wish was to live in boring times.
I don't think that's gonna pan out.
The "bankerism" that is causing the economic doldrums that Dore discusses is not corruption so much as it's the failure of central banks to keep up the nominal growth trend. It's a failure of the Fed, ECB, and the BoJ to correctly diagnose their contractionary monetary policy. There are other issues as well, but they're all pretty small beans compared to monetary policy. Money is king. No kind of fiscal or regulatory policy can do much of anything to boost nominal growth if monetary policy does not allow/drive it. This was the same problem that created and deepened the Great Depression. It took many decades after the GD was finished for economists to begin correctly diagnosing it as a "monetary mechanism gone wrong" (Bernanke 2002). One may think that the lesson was learned and that central banks are held to task on monetary policy, but that is not the case. Nobody knows quite why they're let off the hook, but it probably has to do with fear of stagflation, political desires for fiscal and regulatory solutions, and relying on interest rates as a measure of monetary policy (they're not reliable).Quote:
Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
The problem appears to be many other things, like trade and labor and banks, because that's what happens when money goes wrong. It's like if you have a bridge and you add more and more weight until it breaks. It will break at a specific point on the bridge first. This doesn't mean the bridge collapsed because it was faulty at that point. The bridge collapsed because too much weight was put on it. Money is like that weight in the economy. It affects everything, and that which breaks will appear faulty on its own, but the truth is that it wouldn't have broken if bad monetary policy wasn't crushing it.
I'm not looking too much into it, but if the Comet Ping Pong pizza James Alefantis DC child molestation ring thing ends up having legs, I wouldn't be surprised.
It's actually clever of the alt-right to come up with something both remotely plausible and unfalsifiable. Usually they're good at the latter but not so much at the former. Shows they're getting smarter - good for them.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
What exactly is alt-right? I heard it mentioned on TV the other day and for TV to be culturally ahead of me was pretty upsetting.
Short for 'alternative right'. My understanding is it's people who don't think mainstream Republicanism is far enough right. They also seem to be good at finding conspiracies everywhere.
So like the tea party?Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Some of it is pretty entertaining actually:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy0VvIUi27A
My favourite part is when he 'accidentally gives himself away' by mentioning the reptilian side of the brain lol.
Think so, but not really knowledgeable on the topic. Someone else must know.Quote:
Originally Posted by ImSavy
Here's what the alt-right is: nothing.
"It" is an ex post facto pejorative created by the media to explain both Trump support and why Trump supporters suck at the same time. Nobody in this non-existent group thinks of themselves as alt-right (except for Milo and a couple others selling a product). I would be considered "alt-right" according to the most sophisticated answer about what it is you can get, yet I am not alt-right. The sophisticated answer can't even explain much about it in the first place.
The "alt" part of the "alt-right" comes more the media trying to make sense of internet shitposters from /pol/ and r/the_donald. They're pretty left on lots of stuff. The people pushing the idea of an "alt-right' are the same people who think Pepe is a Nazi frog.
Milo probably might not even use the word anymore. As somebody who is neck deep in "alt-right" communities and leading personalities, trust me, you're not missing out on any knowledge by not knowing what it is. It's nothing but more crappy journalism.
Lol, yeah not gonna happen Donnykins. Sorry mate.Quote:
Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!
Maybe not that specific title, but statements by British political leaders suggest that they view Farage as a quality liaison to Trump.
About the alt-right thing. It's confusing and nobody knows what "it" is. I dislike the term because it explains nothing and is misapplied.
If you find circles of people that call themselves alt-right, they are pretty white nationalist and their communities are tiny. These people make up probably <5% of those the media calls the alt-right. The tea party connection is through Andrew Breitbart and Bannon, since they probably in part identified with the tea party and their site is one of the main collections of Trump supporters. There is no coalition of people that makes up an alt-right. The term is mostly useless and probably as soon as Trump is gone it will too be gone. The irony of this is that Trump support and the alt-right don't overlap as much as the media wants to think.
One reason the media calls it the alt-right is because it's not Christian right and it's not moderate right. So they think it must be some other rising force of the right. But it's not. Lots of those said to be in this group are Democrats and Sanders supporters, a lot are not conservative. If Trump ran as a Democrat he would have a similar coalition of voters. The funny thing is that Trump's stated agenda for the beginning of his term is very similar to what a lot of Sanders people want: ethics reform on lobby, America-first trade changes, no tax reform, no dissolving of agencies.
Even though his agenda for the first part of his term is not my ideal all around philosophy, it's very consistent with Trump's stated goal of doubling (or even tripling) real gdp growth rate. He probably intends to get to tax and more in depth legislative reform on regulations and healthcare after the economy is growing much better than it has under Obama. Even though those things grow the economy, in the very very short term it is better to focus on other things that don't involve any reduction in government spending.
First of all, it's not his place to tell the UK who to appoint as an ambassador. He's either too stupid to realise he's totally out of line or he doesn't care or both.Quote:
Originally Posted by wufwugy
Second, no UK political leader thinks Farage would be a good ambassador to anything, apart from Farage himself. The man has ran for parliament (UK equivalent of congress) seven times, and lost every time. So the public doesn't even think he belongs in the government, never mind a key post and definitely NOT as the face of the UK in the US.Quote:
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to Washington, said he was baffled by the tweet. “UK ambassador in DC exists to defend UK interests in US, not US interests in UK,” he tweeted. “Can’t have foreign presidents deciding who our [ambassador] should be.”
When Nigel met Donald.
Man of the people. And it only gets better:Quote:
At the meeting, Farage spoke to the new president-elect about putting the bust of Winston Churchill back in the Oval Office, while Trump encouraged Farage to oppose wind farms, which he felt marred the views from his Scottish golf courses.
Quote:
Andy Wigmore, a communications officer for one of the groups campaigning to leave the EU who was at the meeting alongside Farage, told the Daily Express: “We covered a lot of ground during the hour-long meeting we had.
“But one thing Mr Trump kept returning to was the issue of wind farms.
This is a flawed conclusion for many reasons. First of all, he got voted into the EU Parliament, which shows the public do see him as someone capable of holding a key post. Secondly, Farage was the leader of a right-wing party that a great many people couldn't stomach a vote for. I like Farage a great deal but he was never getting my vote as leader of UKIP.Quote:
So the public doesn't even think he belongs in the government, never mind a key post and definitely NOT as the face of the UK in the US.
Farage certainly has a role to play in British politics. I would definitely approve of him becoming UK ambassdor to USA.
The second reason you mention is a perfect argument in favour of my conclusion, not against it.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
The first reason though is a valid one, and so I need to qualify what I said. He was useful to have in the EU. But this isn't a job at the EU, it's an ambassador post. Two completely different things. Add to that the fact that he's like a puppy to Donald and he wouldn't be effective imo.
Basically it's one far right guy saying 'send me your far right guy because we agree on lots of things. Never mind your country largely isn't oriented that way, it's what i want'.
Either way, it ain't gonna happen.
Edit: It also shows how much of an amateur Donald is when it comes for foreign affairs. The fact that he even makes the suggestion shows he's clueless about the UK, and about how international diplomacy works in general.
Well it isn't going to happen because he's not a Conservative.
The second point I made, it shows that his party was the problem, not him. Certainly that's my point of view. To vote for UKIP isn't just to vote for Farage, it's a vote for some rather unsavoury members and policies. Just because I wouldn't vote for Farage as leader of UKIP, doesn't mean I can't ever vote for him as leader of another party, or as an independant.
I'll say this... if he were leader of the Conservative party, he'd win by a landslide.
Again, you're jumping to conclusions. He might not be being clueless, he could be being smart. Have you any idea what motivated Trump to make those comments? Surely he knows it's not his decision. Equally he knows that Farage is disliked by the ruling party here in the UK.Quote:
Edit: It also shows how much of an amateur Donald is when it comes for foreign affairs. The fact that he even makes the suggestion shows he's clueless about the UK.
What Trump has done is raised the profile further of someone who the British leaders do not like. I have no idea why he's done that, but I'm not defaulting to "he's stupid", because he's shown over the last year or so that he isn't stupid. He knows exactly what he's doing.
That's one reason. Another is he has no experience. A third is he doesn't represent what the country as a whole stands for. A fourth is that making him ambassador would be putting us in a subservient position to Trump, and that would be a dumb move diplomatically. I can probably think of about ten more good reasons if i spent the time on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Well, no it doesn't work that way. If you're leader of a party you're meant to be steering that ship. You don't get to just dissociate yourself from some of the unsavoury characters in your party while keeping them in your party. By allowing such people in your party, your tacitly endorsing their expressed views.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
There's plenty of examples of him saying and doing things that hurt him politically. You can try to fanboysplain all of them as somehow being clever on some higher level, but they're not.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Don't forget he only won the election because he was running against someone who was completely hopeless as a candidate, and someone anyone else would have almost certainly stomped, all while losing the popular vote at the same time. So before you sing his praises too much, keep that in mind.
Why would you assume he knows that?Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga
Experience? Who has experience of being an ambassador? Not many ambassadors when they get the job. He has experience in European government, and as a well-known British politician, which incidentally is a lot more experience that Trump himself. He has enough experience for the job, considering there is only a handful of people who are better qualified. This is a ridiculous point to make.
He doesn't represent what you think the country stands for, or what the ruling Conservative party think the country stands for, but I think you'd be surprised at how much popular appeal he has. He certainly represents the views of a lot of people. The fact UKIP have demoted the Lib Dems into the realm of minor party shows just how much appeal he has.
Do you really think that Farage is a man who would become subservient to anybody? I can argue equally that the reverse would happen, that Trump would become subservient to farage, and it would be an equally ridiculous thing to claim.Quote:
A fourth is that making him ambassador would be putting us in a subservient position to Trump, and that would be a dumb move diplomatically.
Please do.Quote:
I can probably think of about ten more good reasons if i spent the time on it.
This is a fair point. But you have to get inside Farage's head to say that he is responsible for the unsavoury views of his party. His only goal was to get the UK out of the EU. That was his sole political ambition. He realised that he needed to turn the cheek regarding some of UKIP's members and their comments and actions in order to focus on his ambition. Once we voted to leave the EU, he quit UKIP.Quote:
Well, no it doesn't work that way. If you're leader of a party you're meant to be steering that ship. You don't get to just dissociate yourself from some of the unsavoury characters in your party while keeping them in your party. By allowing such people in your party, your tacitly endorsing their expressed views.
It can also be argued that if you hold this view, then every leader of any party therefore is responsible for the actions and views of the party's members. There are racists in the Conservative party. Does that make May a racist? No, of course not. Her actions determine that, not the opinions of people in her party.
Well he won, so he is smarter than everyone thought he was a year ago when people said he was a joke.Quote:
There's plenty of examples of him saying and doing things that hurt him politically. You can try to fanboysplain all of them as somehow being clever on some higher level, but they're not.
Because even I know it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Well I'm just still glad that Hillary didn't get the job. I'm still of the opinion that this is the better of two evils. My mood hasn't shifted from hope to despair yet. It probably will.Quote:
Originally Posted by Poopadoop
Not a good reason. And I bet you never actually thought about it until today for that matter. Just like Trump.Quote:
Originally Posted by OngBonga