Trump is not a conservative. Never was. The Republican Party, by marrying themselves to him, are no longer really conservative either. There is no conservative party in the ??...
The moderate wing of the Democrats, like Joe Biden, are conservatives.
One more thing about how trump was back in the 90s he was always bragging about the ladies begging him to go out with them. He acted like his own press agent saying crap like "That handsome guy donald trump has no problem with the ladies. All the ladies want him, (famous celebrity) called him to go out but he said he was too busy". So he was always this smarmy bragging asshole.
Damn, that brings back memories. As Viconia would say: "most unpleasant memories".
His follow-up role in "The Apprentice" during the 2000's was particularly hideous as well. "You're fired!" Remember that? Awful, absolutely awful...
We're talking about a guy who gets mad about some article in Vogue or Vanity Fair. We're talking about someone who thinks that taking a picture with a Taco Bowl is going to win him some solid Latino votes. And this is the guy who is supposed to represent conservatives? No wonder they don't feel represented by him.
I highly recommend this article. It's from 2016, and it's from a food review website, but it's priceless.
EDIT: An excerpt from the link (it's missing the first paragraph, don't know why, but I found a copy on another website):
"When the 68-story Trump Tower opened at 5th Avenue and 56th Street in 1983, the structure was already tainted by scandal. It replaced the Bonwit Teller department store, a limestone Beaux Arts structure distinguished by two semi-nude figures in bas relief dancing with scarves at the top of the façade. Trump had promised the pair to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but they were jackhammered as soon as demolition began, causing the Times to gripe, “Evidently, New York needs to make salvation of this kind of landmark mandatory and stop expecting that its developers will be good citizens and good sports.”
The demolition was largely accomplished by a crew of over 150 undocumented workers, who came to be known as the "Polish Brigade." They put in 12-hour shifts without construction helmets, and many camped out at the site for the duration of the months-long operation. In addition, the new building was erected by S & A Concrete, a firm owned by "Fat" Tony Salerno and "Big Paulie" Castellano, head of the Genovese and Gambino crime families, respectively, as reported by CNN.
In shades running from pink to dark red, 2,500 tons of gleaming Italian marble went into the tower’s 5-story lobby and atrium, making the soaring space seem like the mausoleum for some Renaissance prince. The sheets of marble scamper up a rear wall to form the uneven backsplash for a 60-foot waterfall that constitutes the atrium’s focal point, creating a muted babble in the background. A bridge spanning the chasm communicates with the Trump Bar — sporting a coruscated crimson awning that might have been ripped from the Renaissance Faire. Nick Solares and I stopped there for a drink, as part of a program to eat our way around Trump Tower to see what it revealed about the presidential candidate."
So, regarding Trump, feel free to take my opinion with a grain of salt, or not take it at all. He boasts about not being part of the establishment and not being a career politician. But this by itself doesn't say a lot about who he is. I remember when Trump was a trash celebrity back in the 90's, making cameo appearances on sitcoms like The Nanny. He didn't even portray a fictional character, his character was simply himself: Donald Trump, and the only thing he had to say was that he had a lot of money and that other millionaires didn't like him. It was cringy AF. Even beyond the scope of sitcoms, this is basically all there was to him: some rich guy who complained that other rich folks didn't like him.
Now how did this one-dimensional television personality become a hardcore republican politician who wants to "Make America great again"? Back in the 90's, it didn't seem like he gave a damn about his country, or politics, or anything other than his money. Of course you can argue that he has the right to develop an interest in politics at any stage of his life. Better late than never, right? Except for the fact that he reeks of opportunism. It seems to me that he could have easily joined the Democrats if he felt that he could get an edge by doing so. His only reason for joining the Republican party was based entirely on electoral strategy, not ideological conviction.
If being a republican or a conservative today is the same as being a "Trumpist", well, that's no surprise, seeing as how, conversely, the paradigm for the "far left" are no longer the Bolsheviks from the Russian Revolution, but (allegedly, since I don't buy this for a second) corporate giants like Google and Twitter instead.
And you wonder why I suggested that these terms have become increasingly meaningless...
I agree with you that, on a global scale, the terms are meaningless. To someone from Europe, the way Americans use "socialist" to mean "rabid communist" is bizarre. That does make it more difficult at first glance to interpret posts about the US.
However, my perception is that the terms are meaningful within the US, i.e. most people share a common view about what they mean. The trouble seems to me to be less about local interpretation and more that there is a split between the agreed theory and actual practice. To give an example from the earlier discussion I think you would find most people in the US agree with the theory that Republicans believe in a balanced budget - for many years though they've been worse in practice than Democrats at delivering that.
That doesn't mean though that there are no differences between the parties - and those differences are not just social and cultural. Climate change and the response to the pandemic have already been mentioned above as things with huge real-world impacts. Another issue is pollution, where Trump has spent years rolling back the (by European standards) relatively weak protections instituted by Democratic governments. The rationale behind that is that if business faces fewer regulations they will be more successful and more successful business will equate to a more successful country. That attitude has consequences though (see this particular case for instance), which I find very disturbing.
Now I'm not sure what kind of compromises are even possible, much less desirable. The Trump administration flat-out ignored the pandemic; Democrats want to send out checks to keep people safe at home until a vaccine is ready--what is the "middle ground" between these policies?
The larger the difference the greater the area for compromise. Biden is currently trying to encourage people to wear masks. In principle that should be something that most Republicans would accept. A message like "protect the NHS" that works well in the UK wouldn't be effective in the US, but I don't see any reason in principle why something like "protect your friends and family" should be a problem for Republicans. It's become a problem because it's been used as the basis for a culture war, but trying to defuse that and start taking science seriously again would be a worthwhile aim even before considering the benefit on Covid-19 cases.
Now I'm not sure what kind of compromises are even possible, much less desirable. The Trump administration flat-out ignored the pandemic; Democrats want to send out checks to keep people safe at home until a vaccine is ready--what is the "middle ground" between these policies?
The larger the difference the greater the area for compromise. Biden is currently trying to encourage people to wear masks. In principle that should be something that most Republicans would accept. A message like "protect the NHS" that works well in the UK wouldn't be effective in the US, but I don't see any reason in principle why something like "protect your friends and family" should be a problem for Republicans. It's become a problem because it's been used as the basis for a culture war, but trying to defuse that and start taking science seriously again would be a worthwhile aim even before considering the benefit on Covid-19 cases.
That's a nice sentiment over on Earth-2. Over in this country, we are dealing with the reality of a significant portion of voters who take it as an article of faith that Tom Hanks is the ring-leader of a cannibalistic pedophile cult. And, despite that, we on the left STILL don't advocate for anything other than them being able to cast their ballots like everyone else. Maybe we're being too idealistic, because that sentiment is certainly not returned. Understand again what these cries about "fraud" are really about:
That doesn't mean though that there are no differences between the parties - and those differences are not just social and cultural. Climate change and the response to the pandemic have already been mentioned above as things with huge real-world impacts. Another issue is pollution, where Trump has spent years rolling back the (by European standards) relatively weak protections instituted by Democratic governments.
Sure, but these concerns are relatively new. I'm not downplaying them, I fully agree that they are important and urgent issues. All I'm saying is that environmental activism, especially outside the US, only became a priority during the 70's and 80's among the left, and even then it was a fringe movement. Thankfully we know better today.
I'm reading the article about Cancer Alley that you posted. That is some highly disturbing stuff.
I feel like there's a lot of No True Scotsman fallacies being committed in this thread in defense of conservatives.
I'm sorry but the evidence seems pretty clear that the overwhelming majority of folks who supported Reagan, the Bushes, McCain and Romney now support Trump. An anecdotal test of this how many long time Republican politicians are standing by him, even now. What does that say about what the real core of American conservatism is? I think some people want to believe a pretty, and self-serving story, instead of facing harsh truths. I'm sorry but US conservatism is what the majority of people who self identify as conservatives say it is. And that's many of the ugliest parts of Trumpism.
A jj astutely noted, Trump has cried foul about elections being rigged since Iowa 2016 -- his very first contest. Republicans and media conservatives have been conjuring the specter of widespread voter fraud for decades while failing to produce any significant evidence.
Trump has demonized the media. The Republican and conservative project for decades has been to demonize the media. Trump denies climate change. Republicans and conservatives have denied it for decades. Trump has lambasted "socialized medicine". That's been a conservative talking point since at least Reagan. Trump has associated immigrants with crime. That's been the mainstream conservative argument before him.
Look, I'm sorry that Trump came in and made the ugliest parts of movement more prominent. But he didn't invent them.
This thread about families being broken apart due to Qanon is just........something else. We are going to have to reckon with this. It's happening in my extended family too. My only advice to my aunt and cousin so far has been "there is no point in engaging them anymore, they are too far gone." This isn't fringe stuff any longer, it went mainstream with the pandemic:
The question we have to face is what do you do when a significant portion of one party's base has purposefully divorced themselves from anything close to reality?? And what do you do when you have someone in power willing to take advantage of that??
Now I'm not sure what kind of compromises are even possible, much less desirable. The Trump administration flat-out ignored the pandemic; Democrats want to send out checks to keep people safe at home until a vaccine is ready--what is the "middle ground" between these policies?
The larger the difference the greater the area for compromise. Biden is currently trying to encourage people to wear masks. In principle that should be something that most Republicans would accept. A message like "protect the NHS" that works well in the UK wouldn't be effective in the US, but I don't see any reason in principle why something like "protect your friends and family" should be a problem for Republicans. It's become a problem because it's been used as the basis for a culture war, but trying to defuse that and start taking science seriously again would be a worthwhile aim even before considering the benefit on Covid-19 cases.
That's a nice sentiment over on Earth-2. Over in this country, we are dealing with the reality of a significant portion of voters who take it as an article of faith that Tom Hanks is the ring-leader of a cannibalistic pedophile cult. And, despite that, we on the left STILL don't advocate for anything other than them being able to cast their ballots like everyone else. Maybe we're being too idealistic, because that sentiment is certainly not returned. Understand again what these cries about "fraud" are really about:
I certainly agree that there will be no massive sudden shift in attitudes. However, it seems to me that an objective analysis would show clearly that on things like:
- the amount of misinformation being shared by government
- the division between parties
- the extent to which the government has been acting on behalf of their own party, not the country
things have got worse during the last 4 years. If you agree that's the case, then do you also believe things can only ever get worse and not better? If you don't, then it would seem to make sense to me to try and make them better rather than just accept attitudes are now so entrenched they will never change.
You clearly feel very cynical now, but for years on this forum you've worked hard to provide information and evidence aimed at changing minds - and I would say that has had some effect. I realize that persuasion and rational argument does not offer an easy or quick solution to divisions, but that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile when you consider the alternatives. Perhaps the situation here is analogous to Churchill's views on democracy ...
‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’
What the GOP is doing seems to be wildly dangerous from where I am standing. Those baseless allegations of voter fraud (and why the Hell did the Democrats not go all in and use it to take the Senate, too?) just further polarized the landscape and undermines confidence in Democracy. They are setting the tone for the next four years here.
I feel like there's a lot of No True Scotsman fallacies being committed in this thread in defense of conservatives.
I'm sorry but the evidence seems pretty clear that the overwhelming majority of folks who supported Reagan, the Bushes, McCain and Romney now support Trump. An anecdotal test of this how many long time Republican politicians are standing by him, even now. What does that say about what the real core of American conservatism is? I think some people want to believe a pretty, and self-serving story, instead of facing harsh truths. I'm sorry but US conservatism is what the majority of people who self identify as conservatives say it is. And that's many of the ugliest parts of Trumpism.
A jj astutely noted, Trump has cried foul about elections being rigged since Iowa 2016 -- his very first contest. Republicans and media conservatives have been conjuring the specter of widespread voter fraud for decades while failing to produce any significant evidence.
Trump has demonized the media. The Republican and conservative project for decades has been to demonize the media. Trump denies climate change. Republicans and conservatives have denied it for decades. Trump has lambasted "socialized medicine". That's been a conservative talking point since at least Reagan. Trump has associated immigrants with crime. That's been the mainstream conservative argument before him.
Look, I'm sorry that Trump came in and made the ugliest parts of movement more prominent. But he didn't invent them.
No I think the fallacy is America continuing to call Republicans conservatives.
Let’s start at Regan (since that is where you started) and look at Reganomics:
‘The four pillars of Reagan's economic policy were to reduce the growth of government spending, reduce the federal income tax and capital gains tax, reduce government regulation, and tighten the money supply in order to reduce inflation.’ (According to wiki)
Now reread Balrog’s definition!of being a conservative:
Conservatives stand for limited government, less control of the state over people's lives, balancing the budget, and less waste of taxpayer dollars on frivolous 'pork' projects. I can probably think of some more after I take another hit on my crack pipe...
That is what conservatism is supposed to be. Now it's just the tails side of the abortion coin. Seriously, that's about it...
Conservative alone does not get enough votes in the US so the Republican Party also embraced the Christian Theocrats and the racist south to carry governments. One of the issues with a two party system. They use ‘conservative’ to define themselves as a whole because it is the least offensive term under the tent.
Americans have allowed Republicans to continue to call themselves conservative in the same vein as allowing North Korea to call themselves Democratic People’s Republic. They’re not.
The GOP still do a better job of attracting conservatives due to their talk of the economy however, which I find perplexing, and I think is why Trump received that much support this time around.
What’s that Steve Cortes, lots more people voted than in previous years, fewer ballots were rejected this time AND doddering and lazy Biden outperformed Obama?!
In light of this conclusive evidence please do have the presidency
The election in 2016 was, without question, closer than this one, one any number of levels. You can crow all day about random Democratic voters not "accepting the results", but the only two people that mattered, Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, DID accept them, and they accepted them immediately:
@deltago The major conservative party in the US right now is Trumpism, 100%. Balrog has stated before that he no longer supports them. So no, I don't put him under that conservative blanket. He's closer to an independant from my estimation.
@deltago The major conservative party in the US right now is Trumpism, 100%. Balrog has stated before that he no longer supports them. So no, I don't put him under that conservative blanket. He's closer to an independant from my estimation.
I've been independent basically since '92 and my vote for Ross Perot. I've mostly voted for Republicans but I've voted for Democrats on numerous occasions (including first time ever for a Democrat President and Democrat Senator this year) and even Libertarian at times...
I feel like this entire discussion is missing the basic fact that conservatism is a very broad concept under which plenty of ideas fall. A Reagan Republican looks very differently than a Trump Republican, but they're both fundamentally conservative. The difference is that Reagan Republicans put a priority on Christian Values, Free Enterprise, Free Trade and small government. Trump Republicans put a priority on Christian Values, So-called Culture War issues and Anti-immigration.
Broadly speaking, those are all conservative ideas. One can be a conservative and not believe or agree with all of them.
Just the same way fascism is a right wing (ergo conservative) political ideology. It doesnt mean all conservatives are fascists.
Conservatives elected Donald Trump. You can argue he was the only conservative on the ballot, so they had to go that way (they didnt) - but they also put him through a large primary process. He was the preferred choice for conservative voters by every meaningful available metric in the years 2015-2020.
Conservatism has been molded to mimic Trump's ideology. Just as it had been molded into Reagan's in the 1980s and Eisenhower's in the 1950s. It will change again - but there's a reason why it was the GOP that went to Trump and not Democrats, and that is simply because Trump's ideology is far more compatible with Conservatism. (I'm not both-sidings this, but it should go without saying that the exact same thing could happen for Democrats with someone who's ideology is more compatible with liberalism or progressivism).
This twitter thread covers today's argument at the SCOTUS for/against the ACA. It's pretty interesting.
It sounds like there's a reasonable chance that Kavanaugh and Roberts will align with the liberal bloc on the cord to "sever" the individual mandate (Call it unconstitutional) without rendering the rest of the law unconstitutional.
That'd be tantamount to a win and let the ACA stay in place.
Of course, that requires trusting Kavanaugh - whom I trust about as far as I can throw. Based on his beer drinking habits, I probably cant throw him terribly far...
Just the same way fascism is a right wing (ergo conservative) political ideology. It doesnt mean all conservatives are fascists.
The same thing can be said about the left. Trotskyism and Stalinism are both left wing ideologies, but that doesn't mean that they're the same thing, nor does it mean that all leftwingers ascribe to either one of those.
I wonder how long they think they can ignore reality?
Unfortunately, the reality being talked about is not Covid-19 or something else from the natural world, but political reality. Trump has proved pretty successful in the past in making his own political reality using 'alternative facts' and it's clear he's trying that again. The sort of playbook they probably have in mind is:
- string together a series of dodgy depositions from poll observers.
- use anecdotal evidence of the oddities that happen in every election to create a picture of some sinister coordinated exercise.
- simply ignore all those saying there were no problems (like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Organization of American States). Alternative facts don't do well when debated, you just need to keep shouting them out and ignore questions.
- coerce Republicans responsible for election oversight to say there were problems.
- create a narrative of wrong-doing by Democrats responsible for election oversight and whip up a mob or two to threaten (or worse) civil unrest.
- take spurious cases to court. It doesn't really matter too much whether those win or lose, the purpose is primarily to give the impression there is a legal process going on.
- eventually, seek constitutional grounds for a chosen case to be considered by the Supreme Court. That shouldn't be done too early though (as in 2000, it needs to be clear there is time pressure to resolve the election process).
The hope of Republican conspirators would be that, faced with intimidation on the streets and the prospect of a vengeful Trump if they rule against him, SCOTUS would decide to back his case irrespective of the evidence. Personally I doubt they would do that even under severe pressure. In 2000 SCOTUS effectively gave Bush the presidency by ruling time had run out to recount votes - and as Bush had been ahead in the original count, that position stood. This time round, vote tallies are heavily against Trump so he needs SCOTUS not just to call a halt on election activity, but actually to rule that large numbers of perfectly legal votes are invalid. Quite apart from moral scruples, a desire to maintain the prestige of an institution and the trampling of states rights that would be involved, such an action would hugely increase the pressure on any future Democrat administration to take a hatchet to the court.
I wonder how long they think they can ignore reality?
Unfortunately, the reality being talked about is not Covid-19 or something else from the natural world, but political reality. Trump has proved pretty successful in the past in making his own political reality using 'alternative facts' and it's clear he's trying that again. The sort of playbook they probably have in mind is:
- string together a series of dodgy depositions from poll observers.
- use anecdotal evidence of the oddities that happen in every election to create a picture of some sinister coordinated exercise.
- simply ignore all those saying there were no problems (like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Organization of American States). Alternative facts don't do well when debated, you just need to keep shouting them out and ignore questions.
- coerce Republicans responsible for election oversight to say there were problems.
- create a narrative of wrong-doing by Democrats responsible for election oversight and whip up a mob or two to threaten (or worse) civil unrest.
- take spurious cases to court. It doesn't really matter too much whether those win or lose, the purpose is primarily to give the impression there is a legal process going on.
- eventually, seek constitutional grounds for a chosen case to be considered by the Supreme Court. That shouldn't be done too early though (as in 2000, it needs to be clear there is time pressure to resolve the election process).
The hope of Republican conspirators would be that, faced with intimidation on the streets and the prospect of a vengeful Trump if they rule against him, SCOTUS would decide to back his case irrespective of the evidence. Personally I doubt they would do that even under severe pressure. In 2000 SCOTUS effectively gave Bush the presidency by ruling time had run out to recount votes - and as Bush had been ahead in the original count, that position stood. This time round, vote tallies are heavily against Trump so he needs SCOTUS not just to call a halt on election activity, but actually to rule that large numbers of perfectly legal votes are invalid. Quite apart from moral scruples, a desire to maintain the prestige of an institution and the trampling of states rights that would be involved, such an action would hugely increase the pressure on any future Democrat administration to take a hatchet to the court.
Installing Trump after this election wouldn't just be taking a hatchet to the court, it would be taking a hatchet to democracy in the US. It would be over. I believe John Roberts is shrewd enough a political operator to know this would cause a fault-line that would be impossible to heal.
I'm seriously thinking about ordering a Four Seasons Landscaping sweatshirt (if they aren't selling clothing, they should be). That's the kind of subtle shade I can get behind actually outwardly displaying. It's the absolute funniest political story I've seen in years. The best line on Twitter the other day was "Trump campaign books press conference at landscaping company located between a crematorium and a dildo shop".
I heard what I think is the best theory so far as to why when Trump is on the ballot, he has hidden support. And it isn't necessarily people lying to pollsters. We saw a couple days ago that areas with high belief in Qanon were MORE likely to be off. The theory is that these people are so cut-off from society in general that they simply aren't on anyone's map or radar.
I recall talking to one of my aunt's who works the polls sometime after 2016, and she said she had a gut feeling Hilary was in trouble simply because she was seeing scores of who had never visited the polling site in 20 or 30 years coming out of the woodwork. And the description isn't so much an insult as reality. They were from a heavily rural areas, the type of people who don't even go into town unless it's absolutely necessary. Point being, alot of these people have only marginally been participating in society at all.
Comments
The moderate wing of the Democrats, like Joe Biden, are conservatives.
Damn, that brings back memories. As Viconia would say: "most unpleasant memories".
His follow-up role in "The Apprentice" during the 2000's was particularly hideous as well. "You're fired!" Remember that? Awful, absolutely awful...
We're talking about a guy who gets mad about some article in Vogue or Vanity Fair. We're talking about someone who thinks that taking a picture with a Taco Bowl is going to win him some solid Latino votes. And this is the guy who is supposed to represent conservatives? No wonder they don't feel represented by him.
I highly recommend this article. It's from 2016, and it's from a food review website, but it's priceless.
EDIT: An excerpt from the link (it's missing the first paragraph, don't know why, but I found a copy on another website):
"When the 68-story Trump Tower opened at 5th Avenue and 56th Street in 1983, the structure was already tainted by scandal. It replaced the Bonwit Teller department store, a limestone Beaux Arts structure distinguished by two semi-nude figures in bas relief dancing with scarves at the top of the façade. Trump had promised the pair to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but they were jackhammered as soon as demolition began, causing the Times to gripe, “Evidently, New York needs to make salvation of this kind of landmark mandatory and stop expecting that its developers will be good citizens and good sports.”
The demolition was largely accomplished by a crew of over 150 undocumented workers, who came to be known as the "Polish Brigade." They put in 12-hour shifts without construction helmets, and many camped out at the site for the duration of the months-long operation. In addition, the new building was erected by S & A Concrete, a firm owned by "Fat" Tony Salerno and "Big Paulie" Castellano, head of the Genovese and Gambino crime families, respectively, as reported by CNN.
In shades running from pink to dark red, 2,500 tons of gleaming Italian marble went into the tower’s 5-story lobby and atrium, making the soaring space seem like the mausoleum for some Renaissance prince. The sheets of marble scamper up a rear wall to form the uneven backsplash for a 60-foot waterfall that constitutes the atrium’s focal point, creating a muted babble in the background. A bridge spanning the chasm communicates with the Trump Bar — sporting a coruscated crimson awning that might have been ripped from the Renaissance Faire. Nick Solares and I stopped there for a drink, as part of a program to eat our way around Trump Tower to see what it revealed about the presidential candidate."
I agree with you that, on a global scale, the terms are meaningless. To someone from Europe, the way Americans use "socialist" to mean "rabid communist" is bizarre. That does make it more difficult at first glance to interpret posts about the US.
However, my perception is that the terms are meaningful within the US, i.e. most people share a common view about what they mean. The trouble seems to me to be less about local interpretation and more that there is a split between the agreed theory and actual practice. To give an example from the earlier discussion I think you would find most people in the US agree with the theory that Republicans believe in a balanced budget - for many years though they've been worse in practice than Democrats at delivering that.
That doesn't mean though that there are no differences between the parties - and those differences are not just social and cultural. Climate change and the response to the pandemic have already been mentioned above as things with huge real-world impacts. Another issue is pollution, where Trump has spent years rolling back the (by European standards) relatively weak protections instituted by Democratic governments. The rationale behind that is that if business faces fewer regulations they will be more successful and more successful business will equate to a more successful country. That attitude has consequences though (see this particular case for instance), which I find very disturbing.
The larger the difference the greater the area for compromise. Biden is currently trying to encourage people to wear masks. In principle that should be something that most Republicans would accept. A message like "protect the NHS" that works well in the UK wouldn't be effective in the US, but I don't see any reason in principle why something like "protect your friends and family" should be a problem for Republicans. It's become a problem because it's been used as the basis for a culture war, but trying to defuse that and start taking science seriously again would be a worthwhile aim even before considering the benefit on Covid-19 cases.
That's a nice sentiment over on Earth-2. Over in this country, we are dealing with the reality of a significant portion of voters who take it as an article of faith that Tom Hanks is the ring-leader of a cannibalistic pedophile cult. And, despite that, we on the left STILL don't advocate for anything other than them being able to cast their ballots like everyone else. Maybe we're being too idealistic, because that sentiment is certainly not returned. Understand again what these cries about "fraud" are really about:
Sure, but these concerns are relatively new. I'm not downplaying them, I fully agree that they are important and urgent issues. All I'm saying is that environmental activism, especially outside the US, only became a priority during the 70's and 80's among the left, and even then it was a fringe movement. Thankfully we know better today.
I'm reading the article about Cancer Alley that you posted. That is some highly disturbing stuff.
I'm sorry but the evidence seems pretty clear that the overwhelming majority of folks who supported Reagan, the Bushes, McCain and Romney now support Trump. An anecdotal test of this how many long time Republican politicians are standing by him, even now. What does that say about what the real core of American conservatism is? I think some people want to believe a pretty, and self-serving story, instead of facing harsh truths. I'm sorry but US conservatism is what the majority of people who self identify as conservatives say it is. And that's many of the ugliest parts of Trumpism.
A jj astutely noted, Trump has cried foul about elections being rigged since Iowa 2016 -- his very first contest. Republicans and media conservatives have been conjuring the specter of widespread voter fraud for decades while failing to produce any significant evidence.
Trump has demonized the media. The Republican and conservative project for decades has been to demonize the media. Trump denies climate change. Republicans and conservatives have denied it for decades. Trump has lambasted "socialized medicine". That's been a conservative talking point since at least Reagan. Trump has associated immigrants with crime. That's been the mainstream conservative argument before him.
Look, I'm sorry that Trump came in and made the ugliest parts of movement more prominent. But he didn't invent them.
The question we have to face is what do you do when a significant portion of one party's base has purposefully divorced themselves from anything close to reality?? And what do you do when you have someone in power willing to take advantage of that??
I certainly agree that there will be no massive sudden shift in attitudes. However, it seems to me that an objective analysis would show clearly that on things like:
- the amount of misinformation being shared by government
- the division between parties
- the extent to which the government has been acting on behalf of their own party, not the country
things have got worse during the last 4 years. If you agree that's the case, then do you also believe things can only ever get worse and not better? If you don't, then it would seem to make sense to me to try and make them better rather than just accept attitudes are now so entrenched they will never change.
You clearly feel very cynical now, but for years on this forum you've worked hard to provide information and evidence aimed at changing minds - and I would say that has had some effect. I realize that persuasion and rational argument does not offer an easy or quick solution to divisions, but that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile when you consider the alternatives. Perhaps the situation here is analogous to Churchill's views on democracy ...
No I think the fallacy is America continuing to call Republicans conservatives.
Let’s start at Regan (since that is where you started) and look at Reganomics:
‘The four pillars of Reagan's economic policy were to reduce the growth of government spending, reduce the federal income tax and capital gains tax, reduce government regulation, and tighten the money supply in order to reduce inflation.’ (According to wiki)
Now reread Balrog’s definition!of being a conservative:
Conservative alone does not get enough votes in the US so the Republican Party also embraced the Christian Theocrats and the racist south to carry governments. One of the issues with a two party system. They use ‘conservative’ to define themselves as a whole because it is the least offensive term under the tent.
Americans have allowed Republicans to continue to call themselves conservative in the same vein as allowing North Korea to call themselves Democratic People’s Republic. They’re not.
The GOP still do a better job of attracting conservatives due to their talk of the economy however, which I find perplexing, and I think is why Trump received that much support this time around.
In light of this conclusive evidence please do have the presidency
https://thenationalpulse.com/news/case-against-biden-win/
Actually, hold on, wait a minute, what’s that at the start of the article, oh yeah, the case is circumstantial and not conclusive ...
The election in 2016 was, without question, closer than this one, one any number of levels. You can crow all day about random Democratic voters not "accepting the results", but the only two people that mattered, Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, DID accept them, and they accepted them immediately:
I've been independent basically since '92 and my vote for Ross Perot. I've mostly voted for Republicans but I've voted for Democrats on numerous occasions (including first time ever for a Democrat President and Democrat Senator this year) and even Libertarian at times...
Starting to sound like a general in Nam film, but only losers serve their country
Broadly speaking, those are all conservative ideas. One can be a conservative and not believe or agree with all of them.
Just the same way fascism is a right wing (ergo conservative) political ideology. It doesnt mean all conservatives are fascists.
Conservatives elected Donald Trump. You can argue he was the only conservative on the ballot, so they had to go that way (they didnt) - but they also put him through a large primary process. He was the preferred choice for conservative voters by every meaningful available metric in the years 2015-2020.
Conservatism has been molded to mimic Trump's ideology. Just as it had been molded into Reagan's in the 1980s and Eisenhower's in the 1950s. It will change again - but there's a reason why it was the GOP that went to Trump and not Democrats, and that is simply because Trump's ideology is far more compatible with Conservatism. (I'm not both-sidings this, but it should go without saying that the exact same thing could happen for Democrats with someone who's ideology is more compatible with liberalism or progressivism).
This twitter thread covers today's argument at the SCOTUS for/against the ACA. It's pretty interesting.
It sounds like there's a reasonable chance that Kavanaugh and Roberts will align with the liberal bloc on the cord to "sever" the individual mandate (Call it unconstitutional) without rendering the rest of the law unconstitutional.
That'd be tantamount to a win and let the ACA stay in place.
Of course, that requires trusting Kavanaugh - whom I trust about as far as I can throw. Based on his beer drinking habits, I probably cant throw him terribly far...
The same thing can be said about the left. Trotskyism and Stalinism are both left wing ideologies, but that doesn't mean that they're the same thing, nor does it mean that all leftwingers ascribe to either one of those.
Unfortunately, the reality being talked about is not Covid-19 or something else from the natural world, but political reality. Trump has proved pretty successful in the past in making his own political reality using 'alternative facts' and it's clear he's trying that again. The sort of playbook they probably have in mind is:
- string together a series of dodgy depositions from poll observers.
- use anecdotal evidence of the oddities that happen in every election to create a picture of some sinister coordinated exercise.
- simply ignore all those saying there were no problems (like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Organization of American States). Alternative facts don't do well when debated, you just need to keep shouting them out and ignore questions.
- coerce Republicans responsible for election oversight to say there were problems.
- create a narrative of wrong-doing by Democrats responsible for election oversight and whip up a mob or two to threaten (or worse) civil unrest.
- take spurious cases to court. It doesn't really matter too much whether those win or lose, the purpose is primarily to give the impression there is a legal process going on.
- eventually, seek constitutional grounds for a chosen case to be considered by the Supreme Court. That shouldn't be done too early though (as in 2000, it needs to be clear there is time pressure to resolve the election process).
The hope of Republican conspirators would be that, faced with intimidation on the streets and the prospect of a vengeful Trump if they rule against him, SCOTUS would decide to back his case irrespective of the evidence. Personally I doubt they would do that even under severe pressure. In 2000 SCOTUS effectively gave Bush the presidency by ruling time had run out to recount votes - and as Bush had been ahead in the original count, that position stood. This time round, vote tallies are heavily against Trump so he needs SCOTUS not just to call a halt on election activity, but actually to rule that large numbers of perfectly legal votes are invalid. Quite apart from moral scruples, a desire to maintain the prestige of an institution and the trampling of states rights that would be involved, such an action would hugely increase the pressure on any future Democrat administration to take a hatchet to the court.
Installing Trump after this election wouldn't just be taking a hatchet to the court, it would be taking a hatchet to democracy in the US. It would be over. I believe John Roberts is shrewd enough a political operator to know this would cause a fault-line that would be impossible to heal.
I recall talking to one of my aunt's who works the polls sometime after 2016, and she said she had a gut feeling Hilary was in trouble simply because she was seeing scores of who had never visited the polling site in 20 or 30 years coming out of the woodwork. And the description isn't so much an insult as reality. They were from a heavily rural areas, the type of people who don't even go into town unless it's absolutely necessary. Point being, alot of these people have only marginally been participating in society at all.