831–840 of 871 posts
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It's a funny defense coming from the most corrupt administration since Nixon
I don’t see evidence of corruption all I see is a system already heavily steeped in corruption and regulatory capture that is using fake and ironic anti-establishment narratives to try and keep it.
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You are so correct in your first statement yet imply something in your second I think is so incorrect in a wider context that it strikes me like whiplash. Paying lip service but not addressing that friction was a significant part of what killed the Harris campaign, IMO.
well yes. That's the big issue. Trump didn't get more votes, Harris got drastically less than Biden. People didn't come out. She had a bad hand needing to start out 6 months into an election cycle, and she played it poorly to boot. That's why this "we need to appeal to moderates/right wing" narrative is so frustrating. That's exactly what Harris did by trying to downplay Palestine/defend Israel and refusing to talk a…
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well yes. That's the big issue. Trump didn't get more votes, Harris got drastically less than Biden. People didn't come out. She had a bad hand needing to start out 6 months into an election cycle, and she played it poorly to boot. That's why this "we need to appeal to moderates/right wing" narrative is so frustrating. That's exactly what Harris did by trying to downplay Palestine/defend Israel and refusing to talk a…
Where "the same" meant "who knows who's actually running the country". Let's at least be honest about that part.
Instead we have cartoon supervillains trying to pick fights with our allies in the open, and police openly shooting citizens. Pretty hard to defend that.
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What do you feel makes their support so unwavering? Are they fine with anything as long as they feel the "bad people" are hurt? Do they genuinely see themselves getting richer? Do they simply only watch Fox News and other conservative media and never consider what's happening in their neighborhood?
There are as many answers to that are there are Trump supporters I know. These aren't stupid or evil people, and I don't think its as nefarious the things you are suggesting, at least in most cases. On the other hand, as I sit here and try to answer your question, I can't come up with anything that paints anyone in a very good light and I just end up with more questions. Ultimately I think there is a common personali…
Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.
Robert A. Heinlein, Assignment in Eternity
Moreover, it's part of a core issue many in this society fall into (all across political spectrums) : it is shameful to be wrong. And apologizing makes you "weak". Even if you do change your mind, you can never admit it. And some people will be on their deathbed spouting a belief they changed on rather than "showing weakness".
I don't know how and if we can change that cultural element. That seems deeper than any billionaire regime.
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> There is ample ability to change events, but people must believe they can act and act together, as they have for centuries of democracy and for all human history. This is the political will of a plurality of American voters. They certainly can't claim they didn't know what they would get, and they seem unconcerned by any of these actions that many of us find terrifying. It is difficult to see how we can democracy o…
> This is the political will of a plurality of American voters. This fallacy gets repeated over and over, but it's obviously false. Have you really never voted for a candidate who went on to do things you didn't agree with? It's a quintessential fact of politics that voting for a candidate is not equivalent to an endorsement of everything that candidate does in the future. It's a premise that is obviously false when…
I personally haven’t, no. And I definitely have never voted for a candidate who claimed they’d do horrible things if elected. There is no one who voted for Trump the second time around who has the excuse of him “doing things I don’t agree with”. He told everyone what he was going to do, and people still voted for him. Either they agree with his actions or they’re stupid. If the former, they’re irredeemable; if the latter, they need to take responsibility and act. This was not an “oopsie” you can simply regret and vote better next time, irreparable damage is being caused to the world. Negative approval ratings mean nothing to a despot.
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He was the owner and CEO of a private company — essentially a dictator without even a board or the SEC keeping him in check. For decades he hasn’t had to tolerate “checks and balances”! Nobody could say “no” and retain their jobs under him. The American public decided to put this type of person in charge. The consequences were predicted.
I don’t think the main issue is that this type of person has been put in charge, it’s that the system can fail because of the will of one person. It kind of reveals that the guardrails were decorum and at its core Americans elects dictators that up until now chose to behave well. More generally I think in an age of social media democracies will have to evolve to prevent leadership cults. Maybe something like the head…
There was an interview with an otherwise “intelligent” person in 2024 who admitted he knew Trump is corrupt and would mercilessly abuse the position of President but decided to vote for him anyway because he thought that checks and balances would be sufficient.
This is like putting a fox in charge of the chicken coop and hoping the neighbour’s dog will stop it eating your chickens!
Maybe… just… don’t do that?
Don’t knowingly vote for evil?
From an institutional engineering POV (warning- I am a grouchy old former political scientist), it would be interesting to come up with institutional solutions for some of the problems America is facing right now. Specifically I think I'd remove the Attorney General role from the President's authority and give it to Senate, to nominate & confirm exclusively. Let's say 51 votes to confirm and 55 votes to impeach. Even…
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Your own sources show that Trump is more popular than Reagan among Republicans. Just because there was a moment in history where his numbers were better than Trump's doesn't undo the fact that over the long term, on average, Trump is more popular with Republicans than Reagan was. Demonstrably. Is there a conservative left in America willing to have an honest conversation?
I explained why I mentioned Reagan and acknowledged that Trump is more popular by some metrics, but he doesn't matter ultimately because GW Bush was more popular than Trump with Republicans more recently by absolute highest level of support, an average over basically any time period over his first term, or the lowest level of support, which is why I said you must only be talking about people born after 2004. You're j…
* Law enforcement should not wear masks.
* The military should not be used to police US citizens.
* The US should not threaten to invade peaceful allies. Canada. Greenland.
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We vote. That’s all we can do. 50.5% of the people voted for this insanity in 2024. We can only hope they see how this is going and vote differently in 2026 and beyond.
Was it not 49.9%?
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Who is "we"? I'm not doing nothing. Why are you doing nothing?
Nothing that effects real change. Evidence, the lack of change.
"Blaming" people for not being successful yet is very different than blaming them for not doing anything at all.