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Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

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Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#891

Post by baumandm »

throwaway201103 wrote: post #411

To me what this election (as well as the 2016 election) illustrates, is what a poor set of choices we have had. In no sane world should it have been difficult for the Democrats to defeat Donald Trump in 2016. He had no history in political office, and he lost the popular vote to just about the worst candidate the Democrats could have put up. Had the Democrats put up anyone who was less divisive than Hillary Clinton t…

> Had the Democrats put up anyone who was less divisive than Hillary Clinton then we are not where we are today.

Fun fact I recently learned, but a 2013 Quinnipiac University poll found Hillary Clinton to be the most popular US politician with 61% approval.

I was shocked when I learned this, but it makes me wonder if the idea that Clinton is broadly unpopular is mostly just a meme?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-politics-clinton-idUS...

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#892

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

Trump and the MAGA crowd are absolutely fine with things like separating kids from their parents, forced sterilization, intense racism, celebrating and stimulating police violence, attempting to steal elections, open corruption by a sitting president and much much more. And yet you go “gosh darn that foreign interference is causing leftist ideas”. Maybe you should take a series look at your media consumption because it sounds like you’re a stereotypical Fox News viewer.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#894

Post by asdfk-12 »

Media and political institutions have been attempting to bury the current president with the tired Russia narrative and other gambits since he walked down the escalator.

Joe's appeal today to "let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end here and now!" seems disingenous given the past 4 years, but I do hope that our public discourse improves, for everyone's sake.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#895

Post by titzer »

dchichkov wrote: post #820

What saddens me, is that by the standards of corporate world Trump didn't do anything extraordinary. He was running a country in a style of a mediocre corporate executive. Same type of an executive that, for example, resulted in The Boeing Company suffering losses and having fleets grounded. But nothing special, really. Think "Uber" type of a corporate culture. Or "WeWork". Used to run a country. It is no wonder, the…

Trump would not have lasted as CEO more than a few months. Such blatant lying and bullshitting just does not fly in a corporation with a board. He only sat atop Trump empire for so long because there was no one but him running the show.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#896

Post by johngalt »

mqrs wrote: post #856
dorkwood wrote: post #819

There's a famous optical illusion with a spinning silhouette of a dancer. When you look at it, you'll swear it's spinning in one direction -- say, counter-clockwise. In fact, you'll be so sure it's spinning counter-clockwise, that the idea it could be spinning in the opposite direction will seem impossible to you. But if you stare at it long enough, and intently enough, you can make it spin the other way. I've notice…

> we're all under the same spell Isn't this an oversimplification of politics, though--that our political opinions are nothing more than preferences around which we form tribes, and that there is not one single tribe that is objectively correct when it comes to matter of policy when, in fact, there are correct ways of deciding on policy. Take vaccines, for example, or the matter of wearing masks. If I am for vaccines…

> one single tribe that is objectively correct

There are conclusions that are more true than others, but it gets messy when people start talking policy. Ground level facts have regularly led to horrible policy decisions despite being 'correct' according to the science.

> am I not, objectively speaking, correct, because my opinion on those matters are backed by science?

It is true that shutdowns, distancing, masking are all evidence based methods to contain the pandemic. However, politics is not only about selecting what methods work, but where they are applied, and who bears the cost. There is rarely an objective 'backed by the science' answer across the board.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#897

Post by blub »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #892

Trump and the MAGA crowd are absolutely fine with things like separating kids from their parents, forced sterilization, intense racism, celebrating and stimulating police violence, attempting to steal elections, open corruption by a sitting president and much much more. And yet you go “gosh darn that foreign interference is causing leftist ideas”. Maybe you should take a series look at your media consumption because…

You've read right past everything the parent comment said and wrote a generic comment demonizing the "MAGA crowd". This is not what a dialogue looks like and until people start controlling their fanaticism - especially the American left - the USA will make no progress on healing the divisions that have been building up for decades.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#898

Post by bendmorris »

not_a_moth wrote: post #855

This title is actually wrong because networks don't decide who wins. If Biden wins, let it be because all due process was followed so that the 71MM who voted for Trump can get behind the new president. There are close and contested elections in various states, with mandatory recounts set, as well as lawsuits underway with affidavits of blocked observers and allegations of fraud. For the sake of not dividing the count…

Do you really think there's an amount of "due process" that will convince all Trump supporters to get behind Biden? Trump has clearly been planning to call the election illegitimate since long before it happened - casting doubt on mail-in ballots, etc. He hypocritically advocated continuing counts in some states and stopping them in others depending on whether he was ahead. He claimed without evidence that dead people had voted, late cast ballots had been counted, etc. And he falsely claimed that only votes counted by election night were legitimate.

Do you honestly think once his claims relating to poll observers go through due process, everyone will be satisfied?

Pragmatically, there is such a slim chance that any of his challenges change the outcome of the election, that it's reasonable to consider Biden President-elect at this point.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#899

Post by roenxi »

namuol wrote: post #885
dorkwood wrote: post #819

There's a famous optical illusion with a spinning silhouette of a dancer. When you look at it, you'll swear it's spinning in one direction -- say, counter-clockwise. In fact, you'll be so sure it's spinning counter-clockwise, that the idea it could be spinning in the opposite direction will seem impossible to you. But if you stare at it long enough, and intently enough, you can make it spin the other way. I've notice…

The difference is that with the spinning dancer optical illusion, there's never a "wrong" way to view it. This isn't always the case with politics, or any kind of view for that matter. It's important to empathize with people you disagree with, but it's just as important that we start with a foundation of agreed upon facts. In other words, reality isn't a point of view.

Apologies in advance if this sounds snappy, this hits an issue I feel strongly about.

My local supermarket has precisely no empathy for me and the only thing I expect to agree on with the local store manager is price. Yet it is by far the most effective conduit for getting me cheap food. Effective systems simply are not very good at empathy and agreement on non-core issues is unimportant. Empathy in particular recommended at a personal level but not especially useful in politics. The critical tool is the ability to comprehend, negotiate, compromise and articulate why things are necessary.

Having "empathy" for "the left"/"the right" isn't possible. The groups are too large and diverse. Ditto for major components of the left or right like "the black vote", "the evangelicals", "people in cities", "people from Detroit", "the wealthy", etc, etc. Entities that you can have empathy for or agree on facts with are too small to be politically important like individuals or families. Politics is done by large groups who's beliefs are too nebulous to align.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#900

Post by ghthor »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #854

There are facts here. Things like Covid 19 and climate change are both real and current or impending disasters. The "left" has solutions and the "right" pretends they don't exist. The US right has slipped further and further from understanding of what is actually happening around them and under trump specifically fell into a disinformation black hole. I hope that future repoublican leaders are more based in reality.

I believe in climate change. But were also seeing major changes on the rest of the planets in the solar system as well and last time I checked, we weren't burning fossil fuels on Mars the past century.

The sun is the shared interface we have with the other planets, and I think its the main driver of climate change we are seeing. And above that the galactic magnetic sheet is likely driving the sun and driving the magnetic fields changes were seeing.

Pollution isnt cool, but co2 is the least of our concerns right now. The 12000 year cycle here and it's going to be a rough ride.

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