2020 US Presidential Election

I’m honestly surprised my thread here gained so much interest. I’m happy though, it’s nice to see people having a good time focused on something other than their conditions and see people concerned about the state of the country.

 

There have been more critical words said about Biden from people on the left than about Trump from people on the right on here. I mean, we're still in the intellectual territory of "you must have hate in your heart to criticize Donald Trump."

I woke up one day, unprovoked, and decided to hate on choir boy Donald Trump. He did nothing to antagonize me, divide my country. I'm just a hateful disabled person..

 

Also, I find it hilarious that right wingers think they have authority to speak on identity politics. Almost everyone who contributes to this thread makes a point to show us that they are coming from the oppressed right wing perspective and being crowded out by the scary, majority, tinnitus talk politics thread lefties. Meanwhile, if a person of color simply injects their minority experience, it's identity politics, race baiting, etc.

If you think it takes so much courage to say you anonymously support Trump on a Tinnitus Talk thread, how do you think a group representing ~15% of the population feels when discussing their problems and needing to put their actual face behind their cause to push for change?

Can right wingers please stop leaning on the identity politics crutch? They are supporting Trump almost solely because of identity politics. The left does not have a monopoly on echo chambers. On the other hand, the right does have a monopoly on projection.

 

What do you guys think about the eviction moratorium in the US? How many landlords are going to go bankrupt?

 

Like for real, It’s hilarious to me that people think Republicans are oppressed in America despite being an alleged “silent majority”. They complain that Christians are oppressed despite being 80% of the public. To them it seems oppression is not being allowed to discriminate against others.

 

Lol, probably. Then Trump’ll grab his pussy.

 

It’s necessary but without a bailout a lot of landlords are going to go bankrupt, I agree.

 

In this thread, I am seen slavery (slavery!! "we're all slaves") being downplayed, while the victimhood of being an oppressed Trump supporter being overhyped. The world would be a better place if Trump supporters just read about cognitive dissonance and received counseling. Many of these people are struggling, but they are under the sickness of Stockholm Syndrome.

 

Would you rather a corporation go bankrupt, and put people out of work? A "bailout" works both ways. It is not a handout, it's a loan. Every major banking corporation that has received federal help, has paid back the loan with substantial interest, within it's time frame, to the taxpayers who fund the government. There's no law that says that a corporation must not fail, it happens for various reasons. The only people who are hurt badly when a corporation fails, and goes under, are the employees on the bottom.

 

Just a mini stroke though, not a full one.

 

Biden’s ass is grass and Trump is the lawnmower.

 

"B- but Sleepy Joe Biden sniffs hair!"
(Trump assaults several women and then brags about it.)

"S-sleepy Joe's campaign is race based!"
(Trump refuses to condemn white nationalists and accepts their donations)

"Sleepy J-Joe is senile!"
(Trump literally struggling to drink water.)

If this post gets ten likes, I will change my profile pic from Bogie, to abolitionist and all around American badass John Brown.

 

This is what I'm referring to about mind games to defend the Trump vote. This is not an honest discussion, just a constant moving of goal posts. If Obama used bone spurs as an excuse to not serve, we would never hear the end of it. In fact, he would probably not only be excoriated and deemed unpatriotic, he would probably be accused of fighting for the other side as a traitor. Then, the person pushing that conspiracy would become the king of the Republican party. But when Trump does it, it's "clever." The goal is always start from the conclusion that Trump is good and work backwards.

 

@all to gain -- I think Russian interference was most certainly a factor to some degree. But I don't think anywhere near what the disclosure of the reopening of the investigation of the Hillary Clinton emails by FBI Directory Comey one week before the election had. Both the Trump and Clinton campaigns reported their internal polling shifted dramatically toward Trump after that (possibly illegal) disclosure.

I think the results were so definitive, I'll always think in terms of the 2016 election as the "Comey election". If it wasn't illegal, it was certainly ill-advised, unethical, and against long-standing policy at the FBI and Justice Dept. to never do anything even remotely similar to what he did.

@FGG -- I'm guessing most people are unaware that both McCarthy and Trump employed the same "character" Roy Cohn as their lawyer. Many consider him a major factor in some of the darker times in American history:

 

Hi Luman,

I think you have made some really compelling points about Vietnam and the hypocrisy concerning our foreign policy, of both parties... I found your knowledge about police unions enlightening and was glad to here you are an educator. I was a teacher before my acoustic trauma and subsequent ear and brain problems. I remember liking Kurt Vonnegut Jr.and Isaac Asimov as a teenager. I wasn't a book worm, but learned how wonderful and transformative reading can be.

I wonder what book Trump's read and found inspiring? He reminds me of Andrew Dice Clay. Honestly on a few occasions I laughed so hard at Trump's antics, mind you I live far away, for lots of people in the United States it wasn't funny. His foreign meetings with world leaders have been hilarious, bumping into people, shoving in line, and his straight up "pussy grabbing" conversation (the taped one) was pure debauchery.

"Forget about it; Ba Da Bing"

The above statement implying Ms. Harris was loose and not a good role model i.e. she fucked an older man and was rewarded for it. I didn't think anyone would go down this road with Trump at the helm, the guy straight up admits to exploiting his power and "grabbing pussy". When are Americans going to stop playing the puritanical game?
Can we elect somebody single, or gay. Are we gonna ask who so and so jerked off or french kissed when they were 20. Whose standards of sexual and moral uprightness, Jerry Falwell Jr? Certainly not Donald.

Anyhow, I know you are from NY and wanted to mention Dice Clay to you a while ago. If you are not a fan, my apologies.

 

The complete 180 on meeting with North Korea is a great example of this.

As you said, they start with the assumption that if Trump did it, it's suddenly fine now and there must be a good and strategic reason.

 

Besides Trump, these are reasons why other Presidents didn't serve in active military service.....

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Biden-deferred-disqualified-from-Vietnam-duty-3196927.php

https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Bar...military-After-all-neither-had-any-disability

 

What this man suggests, is impossible, because the unions would ALL be up in arms. Unionized cops have carefully worded legal job contracts, and the White House cannot override them.

The cop unions are usually members of larger, umbrella organizations, such as the AFL-CIO. The threat of a general strike would be very possible if a president did what is suggested in the video.

Teamsters, regarding the unionized police that they represent:

https://teamster.org/2019/05/teamsters-stand-law-enforcement-officers/

https://www.teamsterdefense.com/

 

Obama wasn't required at the time per your link.

Did Biden fake asthma? If so, I would put him in the same category as Trump (which means he's smart and to be praised per Trump supporters).

And it looks like Clinton found a loophole, which is consistent with my opinion of him.

 

Only part of the bailouts were loans.

 

I had no idea of the Roy Cohn connection and that makes so much sense.

 

I had no idea they were included in the Teamsters umbrella. What happened between last and this year where they gained a million members?

 

Andrew Dice Clay is not his real name, it's Andrew Clay Silverstein. He grew up in the middle class neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, very close to where I now live. Silverstein created a character, a parody, based on the stereotypical Brooklyn "greaser", a sort of darker version of Fonzie, played by Henry Winkler, from the program Happy Days. I don't really pay much attention to Clay, as he isn't that funny. Henry Winkler and Sylvester Stallone both became superstars in the 1970's, after appearing as 1950's gang members, in a forgettable film, The Lords Of Flatbush. Parts of this film were shot in my old neighborhood, and I saw members of the cast, in costume, having pizza in the now-famous Di Fara's on Ave. J. They were there to shoot a scene, in a seedy basement poolroom, which was on my block, just few doors from where I lived and grew up. Their "tough guys with a heart of gold" performances secured their careers. Stallone has said that if it had not been for Lords of Flatbush, he never would have made it to Hollywood, where he had his breakthrough role. as the title character of Rocky, a story which he wrote, in 1976.

Politics is a rough game. If women want true equality, they must have thick skin. The expression, "Grab him by the balls", is not a reference to sexual activity, it means to get somebody's attention. Trump's remark, which was very similar, but aimed toward women, basically expresses the same thought. Of course, most people are not familiar with rough sounding street and business language, as a New Yorker such as Trump is, and don't get it. He is much smarter than most people think, and he plays their ignorance to his advantage. While his detracrots, often with TDS are running around like little old ladies, saying, "OMG, did you hear the latest thing out of Trump's mouth?", he is busy planning his next move(s).

Kamala Harris, who was from a financially advantaged background, did not need a "sugar daddy" for money, although Willie Brown did gift her with a BMW. Far more importantly, he gave her two government appointments. Her goal was to rise to the top in politics, and she was successful at getting a nice head start, with this man, and she likely used other politically powerful men, in this manner, as well.

 

It has so much interest as the result has a major influence on world events, not just on internal US, and people are very divided on the issue and like to vent themselves and their, what they consider, more right views.

Personally I'm just in this thread for the giggles I don't really care one way or the other. As Private James Frazer would say, "We're all doomed" anyway. The US has dug itself into this hole and deserves either a Trump or a Biden.

I do find it funny how much people take things to heart though over what strangers say on the internet. People get so heated over what is pretty much out of their/our control, and for all they know the other person/people may be purposely winding them up.

Only one person @Luman answered my question of whether it would be better for the US to split into two parts. It's a desperate measure, but the US seems so divided over everything.

I hate politicians through and through, but it seems "we are all slaves" to them in one form or another.

 

It wouldn't work. The country is less divided North vs South and more Urban vs Rural. States with the largest share of rural voters (Which tends to be in the South but that is changing in some states) vote red and states with the largest share of urban voters vote blue (you can look for election results by county to see this).

And even within these areas, there is much more heterogeneity than you would expect. I mean look at this thread, for instance, you have two Southerners (me and @aot) with a more liberal perspective (and I'm originally from a town of 3000 people) and a New York and a Canadian arguing for the more conservative perspective.

 

I have watched some of the protests early on. Violence and provocation is not only to be expressed physically. A hallmark of these protests has been protesters invading the cops' personal space, basically stepping right up to them and yelling at them, namecalling, etc...

You can say cops should be so highly trained that nothing phases them, but it's only human nature that if you are verbally assaulted for hours and hours on end that you are liable to snap.

Protesters need to take ownership of the broad brush in which they paint all cops. When you find yourself demonized when you don't deserve it, eventually you give up trying to prove you're anything other than what they think you are, and you fall back into the default animalistic us vs. them stance.

BLM doesn't want to take ownership of it. I'd say that the left wing in general engages in this sort of rhetoric overall. The #MeToo movement was blended into militant feminism and became just a man-hating group, etc...

So what I see are some serious problems on both ideological extremes and an unwillingness to own up to them. Biden saying he doesn't want to disband the police places him above Trump's authoritarian posturing, but there was still a lot of blanket generalizing and demonizing going on at the Democratic convention.

 

I realise it would only really work if people uprooted, and that's not going to happen. It was a hypothetical, obviously.

Do you think it would be better if the federal government had control of all the states in the truest sense of the word?

 

Of course. If there was a leak that Biden said the things Trump supposedly said about fallen soldiers then you can damn well be sure the Republicans would be all over it.

Once you realize that humans are inherently tribal then it makes all the sense in the world.

And for the record, tribalism is part of why identity politics on the left has become a hydra. The left like to think of themselves as inherently more virtuous than the right but everyone is susceptible to tribal thinking.

The reason why MLK is more respected as a civil rights figure than Malcolm X is his rhetoric tried to be more holistic. He was more of an all lives matter type of guy than a black lives matter. That way of thinking is no longer in vogue in the left, and there's a lack of self-awareness of this.

Likewise, the right has crept farther and farther away from the party of Ronald Reagan in ways that have been analyzed to death.

This inherent tribalism is exactly why I think the utopian goals of the left, though admirable, are impossible to achieve. By extension you could say the ideal of America as a true melting pot are impossible to achieve. Wherever people exist, like gravitates towards like and tolerating difference will always be a challenge. Countries that seem to have the most social cohesion are those that are the most homogeneous. Before people became so mobile, that's how the world operated. Different ethnicity. Different cultures. Different languages. Different value-systems. There is so much celebration of diversity as an abstract virtue and yet diversity is the first casualty of globalism. Diversity requires isolation. That's true in nature and also in culture. A melting pot eventually melts down into one uniform mass.

America seems to be constantly dragged down with having to contend with the melting pot issues whereas other countries move in more lock-step. Not that there aren't dissidents elsewhere, but there is still more of a sense of collective ethno-national identity. We really haven't had a healthy amount of true patriotism in the US since WWII.

If we keep having to wrestle with these issues then we aren't going to get on with anything else. If the country were split into more homogeneous units then it would be a net gain. As Lincoln said, a house divided cannot stand. If it crumbles what you'll wind up with are separate houses rising up from the ashes as we've seen elsewhere (like the Balkans).

 

I agree.

What Obama said about not serving in the military is interesting per wanting to continue with his academics. He did send the military off to continue war, but this is a separate discussion. Maybe ethics is not.

Biden was a lifeguard, ran track and was going to play football, but met his future wife and decided not to.

I do think that the press is giving Biden a free pass to all his dishonest involvements and doings. Then again, I don't care.

 

Do you think having had military service is important for the post of president?

I was thinking about this the other day, specifically in relation to whether having a background in intelligence and security should be an essential requirement? Here (Russia) all the security services are considered military, but I'm not sure how things are in the US.