The Many Faces of US Politics...

[sid waddell]

Sid

Directly from a member of the Clinton campaign

"Instead, Hillary kept pointing her finger at Comey and Russia. "She wants to make sure all these narratives get spun the right way," this person said. That strategy had been set within twenty-four hours of her concession speech. Mook and Podesta assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn't entirely on the up-and-up."

False equivalence again, not remotely in the same league as Trump

It's not just false equivalence - what Clinton did was what any actual patriotic citizen would do in the circumstance she found herself in

Her country was under attack and that attack tragically succeeded

Comey enabled that with his disgraceful performance, the guy was asleep at the wheel

America found itself landed with a monster

Time has proven her absolutely correct

She was correct with her basket of deplorables comment too, in fact she was far too conservative with those comments - Trump supporters are deplorable, every last one of them

There is one "side" to blame for America's descent into total madness and one side only - and that is the Republican party and its hordes of pseudo-academics and pseudo-scientists and pseudo-journalists and pseudo-"patriots"

Democrats fail like any other political party, they make wrong decisions and run with bad policies and have litanies of other failures - they consistently disappoint - but Democratic failings are always within normal parameters - they are not leading or participating in the charge to total madness

What right-wing America has unleashed is terrifying - it a wholesale rejection of objective reality

And right-wing politics across the world is descending into varying degrees of similar madness

As long as this is not understood by conservatives, it is totally impossible to debate with them

[blasmere]

Sid

Directly from a member of the Clinton campaign

"Instead, Hillary kept pointing her finger at Comey and Russia. "She wants to make sure all these narratives get spun the right way," this person said. That strategy had been set within twenty-four hours of her concession speech. Mook and Podesta assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn't entirely on the up-and-up."

False equivalence again, not remotely in the same league as Trump

Having half the country believe that Trump only got elected because of Russia and then spending 4 years undermining him ( a legitimately elected president) is on a par with what Trump has done IMHO

People no longer trust the media or the electoral process and that's down to the Democrats

How many people died as a result of what the Dems "did"?

[sid waddell]

Sid

Directly from a member of the Clinton campaign

"Instead, Hillary kept pointing her finger at Comey and Russia. "She wants to make sure all these narratives get spun the right way," this person said. That strategy had been set within twenty-four hours of her concession speech. Mook and Podesta assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn't entirely on the up-and-up."

And she was absolutely right to

To reiterate:
Russian interference in 2016 was real
The fantasy of a "stolen election" in 2020 was fake - not real

You have a terrible time deciphering reality from fantasy

You have chosen fantasy, like the entirety of right-wing America

Right-wing America has chosen fantasy because it cannot win a single argument on any issue honestly

It's entire worldview is a total crock

Debating you is like debating somebody who insists the earth is flat

You are living in a la la land

Don't think so

A member of Clintons own campaign called it "spin" that needed to be "engineered" by her communications team

But believe whatever you want

Awomen

Total projection

Your guiding life "philosophy" appears to be that of one off Simpsons character Brad Goodman, the "do what you feel" guy

That's the "intellectual underpinning" of the entirety of right-wing America now, a culture so stagnant, fetid, self-pitying and politically correct it is literally unbelievable

[J70]

Sid

Directly from a member of the Clinton campaign

"Instead, Hillary kept pointing her finger at Comey and Russia. "She wants to make sure all these narratives get spun the right way," this person said. That strategy had been set within twenty-four hours of her concession speech. Mook and Podesta assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn't entirely on the up-and-up."

False equivalence again, not remotely in the same league as Trump

Having half the country believe that Trump only got elected because of Russia and then spending 4 years undermining him ( a legitimately elected president) is on a par with what Trump has done IMHO

People no longer trust the media or the electoral process and that's down to the Democrats

Seriously.

After the past six months you blame the Dems for the lack of trust in the electoral process?

And in case you'd forgotten, the Dems had very little power for most of Trump's presidency. Basically a quarter of the Congress over four years. Trump's administration appointed the special prosecutor, and correctly so, to investigate the Russia allegations. GOP-led committees found that Russia HAD interfered in the election. And even when they did get the House, it took extreme circumstances for Pelosi to finally agree to launch an impeachment probe.

The Dems didn't make Trump refuse to condemn bigots and racists. They didn't make him encourage the same. They didn't make him target muslims. They didn't make him abuse the power of his office by trying to get a foreign country to announce bogus investigations of corruption on the part of his political opponent. They didn't make him alienate traditional US allies and cosy up, often at the expense of his own government, to strongmen and dictators. They didn't make him rip tiny children out of their desperate parents arms and ship them across the country. They didn't make him lie up and down about this, that and the other, each and every day. They didn't make him draw a ludicrous contour with a marker on a weather map. They didn't make him lie and distort and shirk his duties when a massive global pandemic appeared. They didn't make him try to use the George Floyd murder (which followed closely after two other killings of unarmed black people last spring) to inflame and incite the country. Finally, they didn't make him condition his constituency that the only way he could lose the election would be down to cheating, and then ride that claim all the way to a violent invasion of the Capitol building resulting in the death of five people, including a cop.

Either your judgement is extremely poor when it comes to weighing culpability, or you're just being argumentative for the sake of it.

[TabClear]

Any strategically minded Republicans should be begging Pelosi to impeach immediately and then vote to remove him from office, and lock the lot of the Trump crime family up quicksmart afterwards

And you call me a fascist?

Fascism is allowing criminals control the levers of government and continue to roam the streets

Convicting criminals is democracy

I am pro-democracy and pro-justice

I've read more than enough of your posts to know you are anti-democracy, pro-nihilism and pro-fascism

The point is not  whether Trump, his family and his cronies are criminal or not. In my opinion he was a dangerous, racist, bigotted and more than likely criminal bastard. However,  you dont get to decide that, its up to the proper processes. If you cannot see the irony in posting

, "and lock the lot of the Trump crime family up quicksmart " and "I am pro-democracy and pro-justice"

within minutes of each other then that's a mindset that is hard to debate with.

So you agree that he needs to be dealt with

If he's "more than likely a criminal bastard", the appropriate place for those is in prison

I agree he has questions to answer under the justice system. Then, if he is convicted of being criminal he should be dealt with as set out in law. And as I said, in my opinion he is without doubt one of the most hateful men on the planet and I would hope he can be prosecuted through the legal system. But no, i dont agree that he should be locked up because someone on a GAABoard who is such a vehement critic thinks so any more than I think Hilary Clinton should have been locked up because a dangerous, racist, bigotted and more than likely criminal bastard said so in 2016.

My point is more towards your style of "debate". You have had plenty of feuds with people on this Board and while I probably agree with your views on a lot of these issues, in terms of your approach  you are every bit as intolerant of opposing views as some of the Fox News morons. I know very little about USA politics and would be interested in how people form allegiances to various parties over there, how the election works etc. However, this thread has been a car crash throughout probably the most important election in recent memory and in my opinion a lot of that is down to the way you antagonise and polarise people who disagree with you. I'm not planning on entering into a debate with you here about the need for fascism, racism etc etc to be called out. If a  businessman in Iowa votes for Trump because his company is better placed to flourish under Trump's policies than Biden, this does not make him a Nazi, fascist, racist.   As I said I probably agree with you on most of your principles, my issue is with how you approach it and how inevitably it causes any chance of reasonable discussion to descend into a slagging match between you and one of your numerous foes.

[RedHand88]

Agree with the previous post. I got labelled a fascist by that clown because I had reservations about Biden. He is honestly best ignored.

[dec]

The Washington Post has a new video of the shooting of Ashli Babbit. It shows more of the leadup to it and is about 3 minutes long

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2021/01/08/ashli-babbitt-shooting-video-capitol/

[whitey]

J70

Joe kicked off his campaign with by repeating the "great people on both sides"  LIE and the media didn't pull him on it. Do you think that LIE was designed to unite or divide people?

Joe should have been hammered by the media on that-play the ENTIRE  clip for him on live TV and ask him if he wants to walk it back. The media didn't do it because they were repeating the same fvckin LIE. (or they were probably too busy asking him what flavor ice cream he ordered or some such nonsense)

[Jules]

Do us a favour and stick your head in an ice cream

[J70]

J70

Joe kicked off his campaign with by repeating the "great people on both sides"  LIE and the media didn't pull him on it. Do you think that LIE was designed to unite or divide people?

Joe should have been hammered by the media on that-play the ENTIRE  clip for him on live TV and ask him if he wants to walk it back. The media didn't do it because they were repeating the same fvckin LIE. (or they were probably too busy asking him what flavor ice cream he ordered or some such nonsense)

What was the lie he repeated?

You're saying there were "great" or "fine" people along for Richard Spencer's United The Right rally to bring together neonazis, white supremacists and the like to protest a Lee statue removal?

[J70]

The Washington Post has a new video of the shooting of Ashli Babbit. It shows more of the leadup to it and is about 3 minutes long

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2021/01/08/ashli-babbitt-shooting-video-capitol/

There's all sorts of wrong with that.

The cops abandoning their post 30 seconds before the shooting?

Then one of the rioters start shouting "there's a gun" and they keep trying to bust through??

[whitey]

J70

Joe kicked off his campaign with by repeating the "great people on both sides"  LIE and the media didn't pull him on it. Do you think that LIE was designed to unite or divide people?

Joe should have been hammered by the media on that-play the ENTIRE  clip for him on live TV and ask him if he wants to walk it back. The media didn't do it because they were repeating the same fvckin LIE. (or they were probably too busy asking him what flavor ice cream he ordered or some such nonsense)

What was the lie he repeated?

You're saying there were "great" or "fine" people along for Richard Spencer's United The Right rally to bring together neonazis, white supremacists and the like to protest a Lee statue removal?

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/03/21/trump_didnt_call_neo-nazis_fine_people_heres_proof_139815.html

[sid waddell]

Biden's speech yesterday
"The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect the true America.
This is not who we are"
"America is about honor, decency, respect, and tolerance.
That's who we are. That's who we've always been."

Eh Joe?  true America?  where the fck has Joe been all his life?  this is true America!  - that was white supremacy on parade.  It's the DNA  of America since the slaughter of native Americans  and the enslavement of Africans from post Civil War/Jim Crow, right through to this day,  exemplified by the red carpet treatment meted out to protestors  invading Congress, urged on by the president and hundreds of elected representatives. The protestors eventually were gently escorted out of the premises, not beaten black and blue, cable cuffed and dragged to a bus to jail.

I read that Trump announces he is going to snub the inauguration, Biden missed his golden opportunity to get his retaliation in first and  tell Trump he wasn't welcome, that his presence would dishonor the event.

What Biden did there is basically what Leo Strauss, the father of neo-conservatism, did

He is perpetuating the myth of American virtue that neo-conservatives believed was essential for a cohesive American nation

Neo-conservatism was ironically founded based on opposition to individualism - but individualism has always been something that the Republican party has preached

But that individualism was only open to those of a higher caste, and certainly only open to whites - society for whites, ghettoisation for minorities

Left-wing politics believes, or should believe, in society being achieved through real individual freedom at a micro level but societal solidarity at a macro level, and the questioning and exposing of historical myths and lies

Conservatism believes the opposite - that historical myths and lies should never be exposed - and that societal solidarity can come from the perpetuation of those myths, these lies - but this is clearly wrong

Grand virtuous myths tie in completely with what I say about right wing politics and the fantasy world it subscribes to

But in America, belief in grand virtuous myths is not something that is exclusive to conservatives - it is widespread, especially among white liberals, and even many minorities who have absorbed this propaganda - like if you watch Rachel Maddow's programme, the perpetuation of American virtue is also a theme

Yet conservatism also preaches against societal solidarity

Conservatism also depends on a mono-cultural, mono-ethnic society, which is exactly what America isn't

Only a mono-cultural, mono-ethnic society can sustain national myths about virtue

There are huge and ludicrous contradictions everywhere in that ideology, it doesn't make sense

Biden is trying to perform a balancing act - he is trying to keep alive the myth of American virtue so order is kept - but in the long run, these myths will have to be faced up to and completely demolished if America is ever to have a real chance of being a cohesive society

Perpetuating the myth of American virtue is political correctness - right wing political correctness - one could say it's right wing political correctness gone mad

I think the essential difference between the way conservatives and liberals portray American virtue is motive

For conservatives, it's a DUP style apartheid ideology of exclusivity - for them, America equals white people in the same way that Ulster equals Protestantism - and they need to justify their own virtue through a flagrant lie

For liberals, especially white liberals, it's naivety, they have a naive, saccharine belief in the idea of American virtue, it's quite similar to how Irish people have a naive believe in the virtue of Irishness based on our own national myth

But liberals are forced into coalition with left-wingers, who correctly want to smash this myth of American virtue - this is a real tension at the heart of the Democratic party

America's problem is it never had a catharsis - it never had a mass facing up by the defeated, ie. the confederates and racists, that they were wrong, that they believed in something that was evil - so the evil continued

They never had to repudiate what they were in the way they should have had to

Germany at least had some form of catharsis after the Nazis and World War II - it had to face up to the fact it had embraced a truly evil ideology and committed almost unspeakable evils, and while this catharsis was not perfect, it was a million miles better than what America had, it brought about a sort of official honesty in that country that does not exist in America, where saccharine sentimentality and delusion about national virtue still reigns

America needs a catharsis to get over Trump and to get over centuries of evil

It does not "need the country to come together" - it needs truth

It needs the 74 million people who are brainwashed to become unbrainwashed

And it needs the criminals who have perpetuated the last four years of shame to be punished

Biden is a lot better than Trump but it's unlikely he will be the man to provide a catharsis, indeed it's unlikely that the Democratic party as it currently exists is the party to do so - because the centrists are afraid of governing boldly, unapologetically and confrontationally for policies and truths that are righteous

[whitey]

Sid

Directly from a member of the Clinton campaign

"Instead, Hillary kept pointing her finger at Comey and Russia. "She wants to make sure all these narratives get spun the right way," this person said. That strategy had been set within twenty-four hours of her concession speech. Mook and Podesta assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn't entirely on the up-and-up."

False equivalence again, not remotely in the same league as Trump

Having half the country believe that Trump only got elected because of Russia and then spending 4 years undermining him ( a legitimately elected president) is on a par with what Trump has done IMHO

People no longer trust the media or the electoral process and that's down to the Democrats

How many people died as a result of what the Dems "did"?

LOL-well not for the lack of trying.  One of Bernie's supporters tried to blast a bunch of Republicans into Kingdom Come at a baseball game

Funny how no one was asking for Bernie to get kicked out of the Senate for inciting one of his supporters

[sid waddell]

Any strategically minded Republicans should be begging Pelosi to impeach immediately and then vote to remove him from office, and lock the lot of the Trump crime family up quicksmart afterwards

And you call me a fascist?

Fascism is allowing criminals control the levers of government and continue to roam the streets

Convicting criminals is democracy

I am pro-democracy and pro-justice

I've read more than enough of your posts to know you are anti-democracy, pro-nihilism and pro-fascism

The point is not  whether Trump, his family and his cronies are criminal or not. In my opinion he was a dangerous, racist, bigotted and more than likely criminal bastard. However,  you dont get to decide that, its up to the proper processes. If you cannot see the irony in posting

, "and lock the lot of the Trump crime family up quicksmart " and "I am pro-democracy and pro-justice"

within minutes of each other then that's a mindset that is hard to debate with.

So you agree that he needs to be dealt with

If he's "more than likely a criminal bastard", the appropriate place for those is in prison

I agree he has questions to answer under the justice system. Then, if he is convicted of being criminal he should be dealt with as set out in law. And as I said, in my opinion he is without doubt one of the most hateful men on the planet and I would hope he can be prosecuted through the legal system. But no, i dont agree that he should be locked up because someone on a GAABoard who is such a vehement critic thinks so any more than I think Hilary Clinton should have been locked up because a dangerous, racist, bigotted and more than likely criminal bastard said so in 2016.

My point is more towards your style of "debate". You have had plenty of feuds with people on this Board and while I probably agree with your views on a lot of these issues, in terms of your approach  you are every bit as intolerant of opposing views as some of the Fox News morons. I know very little about USA politics and would be interested in how people form allegiances to various parties over there, how the election works etc. However, this thread has been a car crash throughout probably the most important election in recent memory and in my opinion a lot of that is down to the way you antagonise and polarise people who disagree with you. I'm not planning on entering into a debate with you here about the need for fascism, racism etc etc to be called out. If a  businessman in Iowa votes for Trump because his company is better placed to flourish under Trump's policies than Biden, this does not make him a Nazi, fascist, racist.   As I said I probably agree with you on most of your principles, my issue is with how you approach it and how inevitably it causes any chance of reasonable discussion to descend into a slagging match between you and one of your numerous foes.

First of all, there's a thing called a trial - Trump is a part of criminal cabal - charge him, convict him, imprison him and his cronies

I am not a political candidate or strategising about how to persuade people to vote for me or anybody else

Debating these issues honestly requires antagonisation - it requires the exposing of people's real views - and we've more than enough evidence over the course of both today's posting and posting over the last five and half years of what people really think, and whose views are sound and whose views are deplorable

There are a lot of home truths that need to be told - if that antagonises people, good

I do not believe these issues can be debated in a respectful manner - because the other side is fundamentally about disrespect, about ending democracy, about ending truth, about ending rights

These are deadly serious issues - the American Nazi Party is a grave danger - Wednesday was only the latest example - Donald Trump seeking to annul the election he lost was rationalised by Ted Cruz on the basis of the so called 1877 Compromise - the "compromise" which enabled Jim Crow

And that was cited by Cruz as a good thing

You cannot have a respectful debate against fascists

If a businessman votes for Trump because of his taxes, yes, he is prepared to put up with racism and fascism and Nazism

And yes, that makes him a selfish, deplorable shit

As is every poster on this forum who voted for or supported Trump