Election 2024 & Presidential Cage Match: Dark Brandon 46 vs Felonious Farty 45

[PleaseBlitz]

Except for the Christopher Cross interlude, the last page of this thread was brutal. 

Edited August 24, 2023 by PleaseBlitz

[88Comrade2000]

 

[tshile]

27 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

He said, and then proceeded to completely distort what I said.  

 

I'll try again.  

 

You've asserted that there are Republicans who have good intentions.  They just have "different opinions of right and wrong".  

 

My point is that if you have voted Republican, in the last 10 years, then you have stated that "Yep, I support those things happening".  

 

Maybe you don't support everything the GOP has done.  

 

But you are absolutely fine with it happening.  Because you knew, when you pulled that lever, that that was going to be the result of your action.  

 

So, my question is:  

 

This Republican with good intentions who voted for all of these things.  What was the "upside" that he saw, that made him willing to hand power to such obvious evil?  

No. It’s exactly what you said/did

 

you listed specific actions by the Republican Party and demand I explain the good motives behind it. 
 

you then asked me to explain the good side of the Republican Party. 
 

I correctly pointed out this means you didn’t understand what I said. I wasn’t trying to defend the party. And I’m certainly not interested in defending specific things people have done that I don’t agree with. It’s written in text. Go back and read it. Again. Or don’t. 🤷‍♂️ 

 

As for your new question - I think we have ample evidence people didn’t support these the way your trying to claim. The last election included trump losing while down ballot republicans did quite well. The only logical conclusion is people voted for some republicans that they did support (for whatever reason) but clearly didn’t support what trump was about. Additionally in 2016 both trump and Hillary performed poorly in the historical context of share of eligible voters in key states. Like near the bottom of the list for both parties. So clearly there were dems that didn’t want to vote for Clinton and didn’t, and republicans that didn’t want to vote for trump and didn’t. 

to add: we had lots of discussions in recent elections how trump-like candidates and trump-supported candidates did poorly, even when other republicans did well during the same cycle. 
 

additionally your question paints the entire thing as a monolith. You’d probably need to look at a specific voter to figure out why they did what they did. Or at least a specific combination of area/candidate/election cycle to see what happened. There are single issue voters. There are issues where some voters simply don’t care for whatever reason. Assuming that because you voted for a Republican in one context, you support all Republican ideas, is silly. 
 

also - “lesser of two evils” is unfortunately a prevalent mindset in voting. If you’re a conservative then you (likely) fundamentally disagree with the liberals stance on the role of government. That in and of itself doesn’t make you evil or stupid. That can create situations where you don’t vote at all, vote third party, or “hold your nose” and vote your party despite not actually liking what you’re voting for at any point in time. This is not new, nor is it unique to republicans/conservatives. 
 

All that is to say - your question is stupid and not answerable in any specific sense, and you seem to continue to demonstrate you are not understanding the question that was asked or what my response was. 🤷‍♂️ 

Edited August 24, 2023 by tshile

[tshile]

15 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Except for the Christopher Cross interlude, the last page of this thread was brutal. 

A place where most of the active posters in politics are liberals/progressives that spend most of their time declaring any and all republicans as stupid racists that want to destroy the government, cannot come to grips with the idea that there are republicans that are not stupid or racist that do not want to destroy the government. 
 

I know, it’s a shocking revelation. 

[Jumbo]

@tshile you're a little bit right, in general, on this matter, and a lot wrong in important ways, and the overall claim is one I try to attend to regularly in my life---especially in the context of today's reality. But I don't have the drive to do it here right now.

 

But I am way done with the way you're throwing the term "stupid" around and each post I overlook it in is soon followed by another incident. If you do it again I'll ban you for awhile for multiple rule five violations.

 

Maybe some other time I'll write a bit on the matter of "good, decent, intelligent people who label themselves republicans."

[Captain Wiggles]

16 minutes ago, 88Comrade2000 said:

Ride Like The Wind 

 

Cross came up with the lyrics to this song while driving to New Orleans spun out on LSD. 🤩

[Larry]

13 minutes ago, tshile said:

All that is to say - your question is stupid and not answerable in any specific sense, and you seem to continue to demonstrate you are not understanding the question that was asked or what my response was. 🤷‍♂️ 

Speaking as the only person in this thread who's attempting to actually respond to what you said, you might want to come up with a technique other than telling people that they're too far beneath you for you to speak to them. 

[Captain Wiggles]

Just now, Larry said:

Speaking as the only person in this thread who's attempting to actually respond to what you said, you might want to come up with a technique other than telling people that they're too far beneath you for you to speak to them. 

 

I literally asked him the simplest of questions. Name some of these "good Republicans " he himself brought up. Yet here we are. 🤣

[PeterMP]

I can't think of a case in history where a country has essentially shut out/ignored 30-40% of its not imprisoned population and long term been successful.  That it can happen in a modern democratic/republic style of government seems incredibly unlikely.

 

Taking the attitude that percent of the US voting populace is useless and can't be saved I strongly suspect is really dooming the US to a non-first world status.

 

I understand what at some level it is an attractive position because I don't have any answers how you recover that part of the population.  Saying they can't be recovered and the best we can do is ignore/shut them out is easy.  But I don't think if it works in terms of having a successful country/society.  And even globally from the perspective of the whole of human society a failed US with our military and nuclear arsenal is scary (to me).

 

To me, you start talking about potentially events that put the whole of human civilization back to a point that it can't really recover from.

 

Though, I don't have any answers I also don't think the attitude and approaches taken/voiced here often are very helpful.  When the odd MAGA does wonder in having 5 people and 20 post essentially shouting them down and insulting them, I think is unhelpful.  

 

 

[tshile]

8 minutes ago, Larry said:

Speaking as the only person in this thread who's attempting to actually respond to what you said, you might want to come up with a technique other than telling people that they're too far beneath you for you to speak to them. 

I clearly spoke to you. I put a bit of effort in. I wrote a lot. So I clearly am not telling you you’re too far beneath me to speak to… 🤷‍♂️ 

 

The question was stupid in how it’s not answerable. There’s tons of reasons people vote different ways and trying to wrap them all up on one ignores the context and creates an impossible ask. 
 

so instead I outlined how we have ample evidence that no, not every republican voted for the maga people and supported them, however they did vote for other republicans. 

we know some didn’t vote at all. I’m more conservative on the fundamentals of government - yet I voted for democrats if I didn’t like the GOP option going back to 2012. I’ve voted for a hell of a lot more democrats than republicans since then, and almost all the republicans I voted for were simply local level people not involved in any of it. 
 

I think at a minimum you’d have to drill down to area/election cycle/candidate options to even begin to discuss it. I’m not really sure either of us have the time or desire to do that. 
 

but I hate to break to you - there are absolutely people who identify as republicans, that don’t like the what is and has been going on for a while. They do exist. Who would have thought that was such a controversial statement to make 🙄

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by tshile

[PleaseBlitz]

3 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

I can't think of a case in history where a country has essentially shut out/ignored 30-40% of its not imprisoned population and long term been successful.  That it can happen in a modern democratic/republic style of government seems incredibly unlikely.

 

I can think of at least one off the top of my head. 

 

Quote

Three things you didn’t know about the American Revolution

 

1.  At no time did more than 45 percent of colonists support the war, and at least a third of colonists fought for the British. Unlike the Civil War, which pitted regions against each other, the war of independence pitted neighbor against neighbor. Americans were not only rebelling against the mother country, they were fighting each other.

 

https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/three-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-american-revolution/

 

I guess that third of the population wasn't "ignored," technically.  They certainly weren't listened to. 

Edited August 24, 2023 by PleaseBlitz

[The Evil Genius]

12 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

I can't think of a case in history where a country has essentially shut out/ignored 30-40% of its not imprisoned population and long term been successful.  That it can happen in a modern democratic/republic style of government seems incredibly unlikely.

 

Taking the attitude that percent of the US voting populace is useless and can't be saved I strongly suspect is really dooming the US to a non-first world status.

 

I understand what at some level it is an attractive position because I don't have any answers how you recover that part of the population.  Saying they can't be recovered and the best we can do is ignore/shut them out is easy.  But I don't think if it works in terms of having a successful country/society.  And even globally from the perspective of the whole of human society a failed US with our military and nuclear arsenal is scary (to me).

 

To me, you start talking about potentially events that put the whole of human civilization back to a point that it can't really recover from.

 

Though, I don't have any answers I also don't think the attitude and approaches taken/voiced here often are very helpful.  When the odd MAGA does wonder in having 5 people and 20 post essentially shouting them down and insulting them, I think is unhelpful.  

 

 

 

From my experiences with it, MAGA is deeply infected/rooted in racist and xenophobic viewpoints. Not shouting these bozos down every time would be a disservice here. 

 

As for the other point, one can hope that when Trump kicks the bucket, these people will go back under their rocks and allow the GOP to go back to being the fake Christian warriors they use to be. 

Edited August 24, 2023 by The Evil Genius

[tshile]

Just now, The Evil Genius said:

As for the other point, one can hope that when Trump kicks the bucket, these people will go back under their rocks and allow the GOP to go back to being the fake Christian warriors they use to be. 

That seems foolishly optimistic even if I too would like that to happen…

 

it really seems that what has been shown since 2016 is that we are going to get more candidates like this …

 

as I and others have said - the saving grace is probably that trump was not smart enough and too cowardly to actually make happen what he wanted to happen… and that the *real* fear is that someone who is smarter, more politically savvy and knowledgeable, plans better, and isn’t a coward… will try it and be successful. 

[PeterMP]

13 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

I can think of at least one off the top of my head. 

 

 

https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/three-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-american-revolution/

 

I guess that third of the population wasn't "ignored," technically.  They certainly weren't listened to. 

 

"long term"

 

Many of the people that fought for the British were successfully reincorporated into US society and government post-Revolutionary War and many of the others left (e.g. moved to Canada).

 

The percentage of Americans that supported the British didn't stay in that range.  If it did, I doubt the US would have been a successful country.

Edited August 24, 2023 by PeterMP

[skinsmarydu]

20 minutes ago, Captain Wiggles said:

 

Cross came up with the lyrics to this song while driving to New Orleans spun out on LSD. 🤩

I knew there was a reason I'd never been there. 

[PleaseBlitz]

1 minute ago, PeterMP said:

 

"long term"

 

Many of the people that fought for the British were successfully reincorporated into US society and government post-Revolutionary War and many of the others left (e.g. moved to Canada).

 

You don't think almost 250 years is long term?

[PeterMP]

5 minutes ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

From my experiences with it, MAGA is deeply infected/rooted in racist and xenophobic viewpoints. Not shouting these bozos down every time would be a disservice here. 

 

Why?

 

How do you think helps?

[tshile]

Just now, PleaseBlitz said:

 

You don't think almost 250 years is long term?

I think the idea is they were “ignored” for a very short period of time. 
 

they then left, or assimilated, once the war was over and were not ignored long term.

[The Evil Genius]

Just now, PeterMP said:

 

Why?

 

How do you think helps?

 

This board is 20x better now than when overtly racist former posters were here a decade+ ago. 

[PleaseBlitz]

Just now, tshile said:

I think the idea is they were “ignored” for a very short period of time. 
 

they then left, or assimilated, once the war was over and were not ignored long term.

 

Not sure you need more people to be arguing with at the moment.  

[PeterMP]

Just now, PleaseBlitz said:

 

You don't think almost 250 years is long term?

 

Yes.  But you ignored the part about the people leaving/being integrated back into US society.  It didn't stay that many people for that long.

 

If a large number of the harder core MAGA people are going to leave the US and move to Canada or Britain in the next few years, then yeah things will be okay.  But that doesn't seem likely at this point in time.

 

So your comparison is irrelevant.

[tshile]

Just now, The Evil Genius said:

 

This board is 20x better now than when overtly racist former posters were here a decade+ ago. 

I agree with that. Although I wasn’t real active during those days (and in some cases not a member) but I have an understanding. 
 

I think that’s different than the idea of what’s good for the country re: what do we do with the 30-40% conspiracy theorist/fascist/whatever stuff we currently have going on. 
 

personally, it makes tons of sense that ignoring them is not a good idea, and I think it’s pretty obvious lecturing them doesn’t work even if done nicely. But I have no ****ing idea what to do about it. 

 

 

[Captain Wiggles]

Yeah they 'assimilated' about as well as the Confederates after the civil war and now we're dealing with their offspring. 🤣

[tshile]

2 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

Not sure you need more people to be arguing with at the moment.  

Hey, I can’t help it there’s a communication problem. What he said seemed clear to me 🤷‍♂️ 

 

 

[PeterMP]

12 minutes ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

This board is 20x better now than when overtly racist former posters were here a decade+ ago. 

 

But in terms of larger society, it didn't do anything, right?

 

They MIGHT have left here because they were shouted down (MIGHT).  But did it really make anything that matters much better.

 

(Even if I concede that "shouting down" MAGA people makes them leave this board, I don't think that really helps the problem based on what I see as the problem.  Where I don't particularly give two hoots about the quality of this board.

 

If anything, it seems like it might have made things worse as they might have lost touch with people and views that were having a moderating influence on them.)

Edited August 24, 2023 by PeterMP