Is the 2020 General Election a Referedum on Trump?

As Election Day 2020 nears, the national and state polls soar in favor of the Democrats running for POTUS and US Senate. Many voters, former and even existing life-long Republicans, and Swing-State Republicans are going on record, expressing their opinions that Trump's non-stop general campaign promise failures, but especially his failure to effectively respond to the coronavirus pandemic, are in the forefront of the electorate's mind. In a word, their mood can be described as, Basta!

Add to his failures that Trump has offered voters nothing by way of reasons to vote for him -- no tax cut, no healthcare plan, no action plan to put an end to increasing incidents of right wing violence, and no substantive reforms addressing police brutality. Obama hasn't been president for nearly four years, yet Trump keeps blaming 44 for all the failures of 45. When the incumbent's favorability is as low as his has been and is, the prognosis for a second term is grave.

Historically, all incumbents with an approval rating of 50% or higher have won reelection, and presidents with approval ratings much lower than 50% have lost.

Clinton's popularity stood at 54% at his reelection bid; Obama's was 52%. They easily won second terms.

Bush won a second term in 2004 when his approval rating was 48% in the final Gallup poll taken before the election. However, he did register multiple approval ratings of 50% or higher in the weeks leading up to the election, a level Trump has yet to reach in his presidency.

Normally, an incumbent's favorability numbers sustain a post-convention rise, but we are not living in normal times. Chances are that more than any Republican convention's influence producing an uptick in a political statistic, the rising number of Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations, ICU beds occupancy, and possibly even deaths, are likely to cause Trump's numbers to spiral evermore downward.

With each passing day of increasing chaos in government and each additional Covid-19 positive test in the population, Trump's chances at reelection recede. Voters of all persuasions and demographics (except under-educated -- high school only -- white males) seem increasingly inclined to tell this particular presidential apprentice wannabe, "You're fired!"

Maybe someone can offer a positive reason for why DJT deserves four more years occupying an office he's derided, demonstrated disrespect for, and treats like it's a "reality TV" show. While Trump has "repeatedly bragged about high TV ratings for his daily coronavirus press briefings" recently, he has no accomplishments he can point to that verifiably have made America great again. Looks like the clown show isn't going to be renewed nor produce any reruns.

BREAKING NEWS!!

Stand by, folks. This diary may be irrelevant. Judging by tonight's Hannity interview, it sounds like Trump just conceded to Joe Biden ahead of the election.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1276324780472442881

Aaron Rupar
@atrupar
·1h
"He's gonna be your president because some people don't love me, maybe" -- Trump sure sounds resigned to losing to Joe Biden

Sure, it's a throwaway line. . .but is it also a Freudian slip?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE -- by way of corroboration my contention Trump has given voters no reason to vote for his reelection.

Sean Hannity asked Trump about his “top priority items for a second term.”

But Trump could not answer.

Instead, he talked about talent being more important than experience, how he had not spent much time in Washington, DC before being elected president and called former National Secrurity Advisor John Bolton an “idiot.”

It's very much a referendum on Trump. I don't think a lot of people who are going to vote for Biden even have an idea of what he intends to do about so many things including the virus and including on the economy. Fact is Biden hasn't had to work hardly at all---even give a real stump speech once in a while. He's gaining votes without making a peep all the while that Trump is self destructing in front of our eyes. It's like Joe is just an afterthought---someone to think about only after we get rid of the Donald.

Trump had a real shot at returning pre-virus. His intellectual incuriosity--the lies about the nature of the pandemic heading our way before the reality of the pandemic actually took hold--his failure to take responsibility for anything--his failure to ever coordinate a national response has absolutely turned a disaster into a multi-level catastrophe that keeps on feeding off of his ineptitude to handle any kind of crisis at all. His failures are on full display and as even the worst hit countries have figured out strategies to bring the virus under some control and containment and keep their economies from going belly up--we're still fucking around here--no national strategy---with about 30 to 35 of our 50 governors just winging shit--many of whom value the economy over the health and safety of their populations. In this race we've really not even gotten out of the gate whereas some other countries are in the home stretch.

.......and then because he's a racist (and we've known this for a long time) he completely fucks up the George Floyd protests. Makes that about 100 times worse than necessary. He's crashed the economy while giving trillions to his corporate friends.

So yeah November's election is all about saying fuck you to Donald.

Tammy Duckworth Is Battle Tested. Could She Help Joe Biden in His Biggest Mission? (NYT)

The Biden campaign is vetting Ms. Duckworth, a senator and a veteran with a compelling life story, as a potential running mate. “I can push back against Trump in a way others can’t,” she says...

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) Twitter account refers readers to today's WSJ editorial, "The Trump Referendum."

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Friday openly pleaded with White House officials to stage an intervention with President Donald Trump and make clear to him that he is going to lose badly unless he changes course.

Maybe we should all do what he urges. (Subscribers)
The Trump Referendum
He still has no second term message beyond his own grievances.

'A matter of life and death': a top immigrant advocate on the US election (Guardian)

When things are going bad for Donald Trump, immigrant advocates like Marielena Hincapié brace themselves for what could come next.

A constant in his chaotic presidency is how immigration is used as a cudgel, through rhetoric or policy, when nothing else seems to be working out...

“Every time that he’s under attack or he feels he’s been cornered or may be blamed for something, we can expect that he’s going to default to attacking immigrants,” said Hincapié, the executive director of the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), one of the nation’s top immigrant advocacy groups.

Hincapié continued: “Our expectation is that over the next month, as the election gets closer, if the economy continues to be in this downward spiral, if we have another surge in the public health crisis because of the reopening, etc, that’s what we’ll continue to see”...

Pick a Torch

New approval ratings for the month of June show President Trump dipping below 40 percent for the first time since 2017, as pressures of the pandemic, economy and protests continue to mount. With the election just five months away, June approval ratings have been key indicators for whether past presidents get reelected or are kicked out after one term. -- Statista

Currently:

"Is the 2020 General Election a Referendum on Trump?"

Coming Attractions

Next (week of July 6-12):

"What Your Afternoon Tea's Leaves Reveal About the Democratic Party's Impending Presidential Victory in November, 2020"
____________

(week of July 13-19):

"Peoples of Color: Love Them & Their Roots, Hate Yourself & Yours-- On The Evils of White culture, history & heritage"
____________

(week of July20 -26):

"Thinking of Voting For Trump? You May Be a Racist. You Are Almost Certainly a Racist"
____________

(week of July 27- August 2)

"Learning to Recognize Racism & the Racist (White people) All Around You"
____________

(week of August 3 - 9)

"So You've Learned That You're a Racist (Democrats Told You). What To Do Next: A Step-By-Step Recovery Program For Adults or Children" (First Steps Toward Learning to Vote For Democrats)
____________

(week of August 10 - 16)

"Hey!, Trump-sters!: Love Is the Answer, Don't Hate Us Because We Hate You; All We Need Is (Your) Love"

:^)

Yes! The only plus of his administration has been the high DOW.
The marketeers are responsible for that. The DOW is not the
economy. The very rich have gotten much richer. In the near
future, robots are going to be performing the jobs people in
Trump's base are doing now. Their gains, if there have been any,
are going to be very short-lived. AI is not anywhere on his radar
screen.

Pointing to the stock market as a leading economic indicator is how we get to the logic of neo-lib/con trickle down economics. The economy is a lot more than just the stock market. Convincing political legislators particularly in the republican party but also many democrats of this has often proven to be impossible and these politicians need to be replaced ASAP. Hopefully the next time Schumer runs for Senate AOC primaries him.

Speaking of that though Charles Booker--the populist Dem IMO will take McConnell's Senate seat in Kentucky if he is the democratic contender and Amy McGrath the corporatist dem probably won't.

The Referendum is Now Over Russian military intelligence has been offering “bounties” for the killing of American forces stationed in Afghanistan, and Donald Trump has known about it since March.

NYT reporter covering Russia’s bounty on US troops gives analysis VIDEO

Chris Hayes Says What We Are All Thinking: It Is Time For Donald Trump To Resign

No real agenda to run on': Supporters question Trump's campaign as election approaches VIDEO

The polls in battleground states are getting worse for President Trump.

Trump's job disapproval reaches all-time high in new poll

Trump’s reality TV presidency is being crushed by reality

Trump’s war on mail-in ballots is blowing up in his face and hurting Republicans

Carville: There is no chance Trump will be re-elected VIDEO

#TraitorTrump and ‘TRE45ON’ trend nationwide as outrage grows: ‘The biggest scandal Trump has faced’

A dereliction of duty: Bombshell NYT report reveals the Trump-Russia story is far from over

The more white and the less educated you are, the more likely you are to support Trump

The Alternative Biden slams Trump over reported bounties placed on US troops

From Republican lawmakers and Trump supporters? *^*^-- crickets --^*^*

"Crickets"? LOL!

That's what comments of such clowns as those merit in a response.

The New York Times, Chris Hayes, MS-NBC, James Carville, "margd", "Limelite",

their accounts at The First National Bank of Credibility are, alas, over-drawn and now marked, "NSF"-- "not sufficient funds."

>13 proximity1:

While Trumpty-Dumbpty supporters put all their "ass-ets" in the Bank of Incredibility.

I'll take your comment as an admission that you're like all the other silent Trumpty-Dumbpty supporters and RWNJ enabler politicians and are just fine with Trump ibeing exposed as a traitor. This time I won't insult crickets.

Clown! That reminds me. Who's this "hero" who's your president? Oh yes, McDonald Cheeseburger Trump.

Donald Trump’s re-election playbook: 25 ways he'll lie, cheat and abuse his power (Guardian)

From now until November, opponents of the most lawless president in history face a fight for democracy itself...

the GOP’s internal polling shows him heading for electoral wipeout, with even safely red states in doubt. Including Georgia!

>1 Limelite: - >8 Limelite:,
>10 Molly3028: - >12 Limelite:,
>14 Limelite: - >16 Limelite:

So say the people who casually repudiate elections the outcomes of which don't suit them.

And so say the people whose contempt for democracy and its institutions is demonstrated as so clearly definitive that they've abandoned all faith in elections and in reasoned persuasion itself--abandoned them in favor of their simple exhortations on their hoped-for outcome as a foregone conclusion. Their predicted conclusion --regarding an election-result they already fear as utterly untrustworthy, if against their desired result--now posited and repeated as if and in the hope that it precludes even bothering to hold an actual vote.

So say such people.

YES ~

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink ~

The U.S. pays billions to provide its presidents with the best intel
the world has to offer, but Trump can't be forced to read it.

As far as real Republicans are concerned, the referendum on Trump is decided: It’s Time for a Declaration of Independence from Trump

According to the author, Bill Kristol, "Republicans understand that Donald Trump is a danger to America." He cites various examples of why Trump has got to go. But, interestingly, he fails, to list the #1 reason -- Trump is Putin's puppet and has repeatedly betrayed America to our Russian adversary. The worst instance being his ignorance and ignoring the $100,000 bounty the GRU offers to Taliban who kill American soldiers.

Because this has surely become perfectly clear in recent months to patriotic and thoughtful men and women who have been Trump supporters: Donald Trump is not up to the job of president; he is particularly unsuited to lead the nation in a context of twin public health and economic crises; he can’t be trusted not to throw the country into a crisis of democracy and legitimacy during the forthcoming election campaign; and he shouldn’t be entrusted with the powers of the presidency for another four years.

Sadly, Kristol's "solution" is to replace one inadequate man on the head of the ticket with another who bears the added deplorable quality of being a crackpot Evangelical who can't bear being alone in a room with a female for fear of jumping her bones.

Sorry, Bill, your idea isn't gonna fly. No one who wants to vote for Trump is going to be bought off with that particular sacrificial lamb. And Democrats will fight such a move by turning out in record numbers out of sheer anger for being deprived of the joy of humiliating Trump in the election. Might as well save all the sturm and drang and let Trump go to his ballot box execution. That, or let Republicans quietly concede. You know, show graciousness in defeat. That's the only road to regaining some quantum of honor for your Party.

Too funny.

Now "it's time"? I seem to recall that, for Kristol, it was "time" to break from Trump back well before Trump was in the running, then, in the lead, and, then, in the White House.

For Kristol was never "for" Trump before deciding that the time has become ripe to "declare 'independence' from Trump."

In other words,

Pundit Bill Kristol, never an admirer of Trump and always a detractor of Trump is---wait for it: still not an admirer and still a detractor.

I have another breaking story for you:

"Man, found dead a week ago, still dead seven days later. Baffled authorities are investigating."

Yeah, totally agree. It's always weird when someone who has taken a position on some topic continues to advocate for that position.

Spot on as always, proxy.

‘Benedict Donald’: New ad from veterans’ group compares Trump to America’s greatest traitor over Russia bounties (Independent)

Veterans’ group VoteVets has released a new attack ad that criticises president Donald Trump over reports that he was briefed about Russia putting bounties on American military personnel in Afghanistan and failed to act.

The group, whose Twitter description states “blocked by Donald Trump”, has compared the president to Benedict Arnold, who infamously defected from the US Continental Army to the British side in the Revolutionary War...

Fourth of July: Trump vows to defeat 'radical left' in Independence Day speech (BBC)

Once again creating a narrative that there is such a thing as a "radical left" in the USA. There isn't. While there may be a small radical left movement which has gained very little political leverage, what the far right is referring to as a "radical left" is what would be considered centrist or at most slightly left of centre in most of the world.

#23--that narrative was already there before Donald came along---even before AOC. The tea party was all about that but even before that the moral majority. People of the law and order hard right who are 99.9% white conservatives. It's part of their playbook after a major republican defeat and their forces are in disarray--the moral majority after Bill Clinton came into power.....the tea party with its racist overtones after Barack Obama.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama weren't and never were (at least as politicians) radical leftists. Clinton wasn't at all into undoing Ronald Reagan's legacy and/or achievements (if that's what anyone wants to call them) and Barack Obama codified Bush's tax cuts and if anything strengthened the Patriot Act and never ever really pulled out of Afghanistan or Iraq. But they more than anyone (including Bernie Sanders) became the radical leftists and Antifa are their stepchildren. Donald Trump might be dumb enough to believe this but for most right wingy pols it's just a way to manipulate the base.

It's all about Trump's racism and his white supremacy cult following.

For black women voters, the most consistent and persistent voters among the electorate, "racism is on the ballot" for them. And they're out to get the political power owed to them. That translates to a huge wave of support among the most reliable voters who most effect who gets elected for Joe Biden.

Racism, police brutality top issue among AfAm voters

Older black voters have a 2020 dream: Huge turnout, new president

Black women are looking forward to the 2020 elections

The 2020 election will be decided in black women’s hair salons. Here’s why.
Black women are the most reliable base of the Democratic Party

>23 John5918:, >24 lriley:

I know you know this, but seeing ludicrous trumpoidal sewage treated defensively is just too revolting. Might be funny if I didn't see so many liberal lapdogs regurgitate this crap.

There's nothing wrong with radicalism to begin with. Jesus was a radical. Buddha was a radical. Gandhi was a radical. Anyone who ever wanted, preached, worked for deep change, whether in private or public life, was and is a "radical".

As for the "far left", the global tragedy is that it doesn't exist. Oh FOR a "far left" party, vision, organisation! We and the planet are dying as we are because we don't have an effective counter to the ongoing capitalist rape of the world--exactly the combat only the "far left" could undertake.

But at this late hour people are just waking up to this necessity. The alter-globalisation efforts of the noughties had failed to replace the void left after the crisis of the traditional left. The working class has been fragmented, unmoored from the parties that traditionally spoke in its interest, the parties themselves destroyed in the crowing about the "death of communism".

And yet here we are in 2020, working toward the fever pitch that made communism attractive in 1920.

The situation is not "reformable" by any kind of pro-capitalist visions. And, worst of all (if the question weren't purely theoretical anyway), the situation may not be salvageable at this hour even through radical change. I'm afraid that not millions, but hundreds of millions of people will yet die who ought to have lived if we had decent societies, people who will be killed by other people's sheer greed and hatred of the other.

Except the fachos and the liberals won't talk of these deaths as murders by greed and hatred. It's "disease", "climate change", "war"... tough luck being born in Honduras. Better you than me, mate.

>26 LolaWalser: As for the "far left", the global tragedy is that it doesn't exist.

Indeed. I wish it did.

#26--it's been like baby steps to build an approximate left which electorally is Sanders, AOC, Omar etc. We will probably add three or four more to that group but that's far from any kind of real power. Things like Occupy and Black Lives Matter show real potential but Occupy was easily outmaneuvered by the democratic establishment and he Black Lives Matter protests are too late to the game at least for the 2020 election---it's Biden who is not what is needed. Events drive things and create movements--a pandemic shows how woeful a health care system is that leaves a large part of the population out in the cold--it also shows capitalism as a farce--out came the money printing press but first we satisfy corporations and the super wealthy. 4 trillion dollars appear out of nowhere. The wealth is there....the willingness to share it is not. They can find it for wars though....for billionaire tax cuts or for bailing out corporate excess. The Black Lives Matter thing is aimed at not only defunding the police but at a biased criminal justice system and the country's historical legacy of enslavement that has worked to diminish the lives of black, brown and red people to this day. From generation to generation they have no real wealth to pass along which is also a legacy of impoverishment and theirs is really the more culturally innovative heritages that this country has to offer and not given nearly enough respect.

At 62 there's no telling what I'm going to be around to see. I suspect in the years ahead there will be more pandemics though--increasing numbers of natural disasters. The dog eat dog world of capitalism does a lot to fuel events like these--those who rape and exploit the earth have no compunctions about raping and exploiting those who work for them. Our politics intent on preserving power at all cost has continually compromised its values and ethics and so we've ended up with shit leaders and a thoroughly disgusted, disillusioned and divided population. This is how we've ended up with this racist orange shaded blowhard and the corrective wannabe who wants to reinvent the 1990's is not much of a correction.

Election Referendum Confirmed by WH: It's going to be a racist campaign by Trump because he sees that as his road to victory. Other than fomenting the racist hatred among the cultist followers who have been responding to his message with ever more violent outbursts against non-whites, Republican leaders see no other political motive for Trump's reelection. He has no platform other than a desire to be the President of the Confederacy and Redneck Bubbas.

No one is fooled into believing otherwise. This is no "Make America Great Again" dog whistle campaign, we're seeing a straight "America for White People Only" message and nothing else.

Reporter, Robert Costa, says

“But they’re hearing from the top advisers (that) this is driven by the president; the president personally is driving this message, this focus on race,” he added.

Greg Sargent, also of WaPo

“Trump and his propagandists are actively trying to engineer violent civil conflict, by signaling to white Americans that they are under siege in a race war that they’re losing.”

According to Michelle Goldberg, NYT

". . .Trump does indeed have a reelection message, a stark and obvious one. It is ‘white power.’”

Pollster Cornell Belcher states

“Without white resentment, there is no rationale for Donald Trump. Without that, what reason do his supporters have to be with Donald Trump if he’s not going to be your tribal strong man? He started there and will end there.”

Presidential historian, Douglas Brinkley notes

"“History will look at the Trump years as being a reactionary right-wing movement that saw America was becoming 60% nonwhite and panicked."

Columnist, Max Boost, headlines

“Trump is Running an Openly Racist Campaign. Trump is running an openly racist campaign at odds with public opinion that has shifted against Confederate monuments and in favor of Black Lives Matter. So he prefers to pretend that he is battling against the unreasonable demands of ‘cancel culture’ — and his supporters pretend to believe him. But everyone knows that what he is really defending is not ‘our freedom’ or ‘our history,’ as he said on Friday, but, rather, ‘white power.’”

And columnist E. J. Dionne headlines

“A Vicious Culture War is All Trump Has Left”

Jennifer Rubin writes

“It is all froth, anger and white resentment at this point. His enemies are other Americans; his understanding of American greatness is utterly defective. Reform, progress and inclusion are threats to his base, oozing with white grievance.”

>29 Limelite: His enemies are other Americans

Just wanted to call this out. This has always been true, it's now becoming the dominant theme. Trump is and always has been the anti-American candidate.

>29 Limelite: & >30 kiparsky:

Cynically dishonest, and, as the French say, "False! archly false!"

They are the national "mainstream" news-media who set and frame the national election's terms of debate and they've done this, placing and keeping Trump in the position of being obliged to fight on this ground--a ground which is ugly in its blatantly racist and bigoted media-given trappings.

Thus, Trump is fighting his re-election campaign on the only grounds and over the only issues which his opponents, with their powerful news-media, are willing and interested to allow him.

Despite that fact, it is nothing short of stunning, the opportunities these same have left open to Trump.

They're now openly exposed to the view of millions as race-baiting bigots and racists; as the nearest things to Mao-or-Stalin-like intolerant ideologues and thugs, ready to trample the most basic tenets of American civil rights and liberties to libel, slander and heap undeserved calumny upon their opponents.

They've shown themselves as Junior Robespierres, little reprisers of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror.

People who spit upon and burn the flag, topple, break and deface centuries-old statues and other monuments.

Invited and given no choice, Trump is going to run against these freakish fools on the grounds and by the terms they've left to him.

>31 proximity1: Oh, I see. It's the Left's fault - or maybe the Media's - that Trump is a bigot?

Wow, you might just be the only person in this country who has more contempt for Trump than I do, if you think he's actually so weak and pathetic that, on being (correctly) accused of bigotry, his only possible response is to embrace the charge and become even more of a bigot.

It's unfortunate for you, though, having to choose between supporting someone who is openly advocating the white power agenda - and therefore being yourself a bigot, openly and without any hope of wriggling out of it - or finally coming to your senses and rejecting Trump and rejoining humanity.

I look forward to watching you squirm on that hook for a few months. Your boy Dickless Donald is not going to make this easy for you, you know.

Have to ask why so many conservatives (including our own on LT) are only able to emphasize the disrespect for abstract and direct symbols of being American that are symbolically valuable to whites than they ever worry about the disrespect for abstract and direct symbols of being American that are symbolically valuable to AfAms than to whites?

I must conclude that those conservatives believe ONLY white symbolism of Americanism has any value. It reminds me of their insistence that "white culture" is more valuable than any other culture simply because whites have made it the dominant culture. Shamefully, usually by demeaning any other.

That's what systemic racism is. It's an attitude derived from the vanity of a weak character. That's where neo-Nazi white-supremacy arises -- from choosing deliberate delusional myths about one's tribe in order to assuage deep personal inadequacy. Trump being Trumpism.

>33 Limelite:

Cite me an example and we can discuss. Complaints have been made about Frederick Douglass statues, otherwise nobody is ripping down anything but Aunt Jemima.

As far as I'm concerned, anything symbolically to do with freedom is good for all citizens. It is Liberal tendency to assume blacks do not deserve to share in anything that isn't black, and wish to perpetrate segregation by assuming anything outside of things directly issued by a black person is not of their making and means they are undeserving of treatment as simply American citizens.

>34 Cubby.R.S.:

Bullsh!t

It is Liberal tendency to assume blacks do not deserve to share in anything that isn't black, and wish to perpetrate segregation by assuming anything outside of things directly issued by a black person is not of their making and means they are undeserving of treatment as simply American citizens.

What an expression of smug arrogance.

>35 Limelite:

Well explain to me why everything that comes from white hands is part of systemic racism? Tell me why black people must have their own and not partake? They have just as much right to American history as anyone and yet they are told they don't own it and it's holding them back. Ergo, Progressives think their color excludes them from anything they didn't specifically make.

>36 Cubby.R.S.: I wonder if you might benefit from reading up on what is actually meant by "systemic racism". I only say this because everything you say on the subject comes across as... well, not word salad exactly, but certainly confused.

>37 kiparsky:

Everything is part of systemic racism. Literally everything is labelled as a contributing factor. I suppose the definition of something that was so recently created may be loose, but literally everything is part of it at any given moment. Trust me, it is a salad.

The Democratic party enjoys using special interest and blacks particularly. Why do you think nothing changes? It's all bullshi# and they know it. The same people have been in the Senate since John Quincy started fighting slavery.

I actually think that the upcoming election will be a referendum on the Lieberal media, and they are the reason this country is so upside down. They are the reason Trump is President. They will be the reason he gets a second term. They will ultimately be the reason the nation will become irreparably divided.

#38 Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean that it's incomprehensible. Try harder.

>40 jjwilson61:

Try taking your own advice.

(The Daily Express, (London)) "Trump SHOCK election poll: Black Lives Matter protests will get Trump re-elected" |
THE FALLOUT from the 'Black Lives Matter' protests in the US offers Donald Trump his best chance of winning the Presidential election, a shock poll for the Sunday Express has revealed. |
By David Maddox, Sunday Express Political Editor | 07:01, Tue, Jul 7, 2020 | UPDATED: 09:51, Tue, Jul 7, 2020

>36 Cubby.R.S.: Tell me why black people must have their own and not partake? They have just as much right to American history as anyone and yet they are told they don't own it and it's holding them back

Difficult to explain to you something which is not actually the case. You're right that black people have as much right to American history as anyone, but the point is that the dominant narrative of American history is, to put it charitably, flawed and incomplete precisely because it omits/ignores/excludes/misrepresents/twists the history and experience of a significant part of the US population (and their ancestors). I don't believe they are asking for their own separate history, only that the generally acknowledged history should be more accurate, complete and inclusive, something which they can feel they own and partake in.

Tucker Carlson might have just handed Tammy Duckworth the vice presidency (Independent)

If Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth eventually becomes Joe Biden’s vice presidential nominee, pundits and historians will look back to Independence Day weekend for the moment when her campaign jumped from insider gossip to mainstream appeal...

Carlson... {called} Duckworth an “unimpressive person” and openly questioning her patriotism...

What had Duckworth done to get Tucker so riled up? She suggested having a “national dialogue” about removing controversial statues from public spaces. That’s it. Tammy Duckworth dared to suggest we talk to each other...

>36 Cubby.R.S.:

Nobody needs to tell you "why" when you're asking about something that exists only in your tidy whitey imagination. Stop making crap up.

So far you've only been able to express yourself in loaded sentences that are Faux News and RWNJ radio hosts' bullsh!t or Ayn Rand claptrap. Learn to listen to the people who are discriminated against, denied equal opportunity, and punished because they're pigmented by unpigmented supremacists instead. Your refusal to believe the experienced and the experts on the subject only confirms your defensiveness about your own bigotry. Take the me-me-pacifier out of your mouth and maybe sensible utterances will come out of it.

You and that deliberately ignorant pal of yours, >41 proximity1:, who couldn't cite a credible media source if someone promised him a Donald Trump autograph (yeah, I know they're worthless), need to emerge out from under your tinfoil hats. It ain't a "whites only because we're superior" world anymore. Like. It. Or. Not. There's a whole beautiful real world out here that doesn't give a snap about your white child grievance syndrome. Get over yourself.

Nobody's out to take your guns away from you. Nobody's out to take your non-existent Caucasian "culture "away from you. Nobody's out to "git your wimmin.'" Recognize that this country isn't for you and your kind alone to swan about in. You're in the minority now. That's all. Today's white kids under 18 are going to be the generation overwhelmed by the numbers of non-white Americans. The minority numbers of the deplorable and deluded white folks that you represent who think its only about what the white man does that makes America great are just going to have to adjust. You're wrong. You lost the argument. You lost the majority. And your god-in-a-diaper-destruct-o buffoon is going to lose the election.

>44 Limelite: ..."your god-in-a-diaper-destruct-o buffoon is going to lose the election."

LOL!

"Limelite"'s going to find it stunning and inexplicable when Trump is re-elected.

But there'll be no mystery:

Millions of Americans shall have read and heard from people like "Limelite" and voted according to the reactions that information inspired in them.

But that result shall neither "settle" anything nor make any difference whatever to "Limelite" because, in this case, nothing could.

Trump has 91% chance of winning second term, professor’s model predicts (Independent)

President Donald Trump has a 91 per cent chance of winning the November 2020 election, according to a political science professor who has correctly predicted five out of six elections since 1996.

“The Primary Model gives Trump a 91 percent chance of winning in November,” Stony Brook professor Helmut Norpoth told Mediaite on Tuesday.

Mr Norpoth told the outlet that his model, which he curated in 1996, would have correctly predicted the outcome for 25 of the 27 elections since 1912, when primaries were introduced...

>46 John5918:

Article discussing an interview for print in "Mediaite," fer gawd's sake. Can't get more RWNJ than that, unless it's OAN TV. 1) Prof. tells audience what it wants to hear; 2) Prof "claims" all sorts of accuracy w/o shred of support; 3) prediction protocol unrevealed; 4) previous results not reported.

I can go on TV and say that i can "guarantee" Trump will win -- as long as I'm booked on Faux News -- and be welcomed, hailed, praised, and affirmed another genius by all the Trumpty-Dumbpties out there. Or, I can say the opposite and be as credible but a lot less popular with that audience. Neither position is verifiable, not is either supported by evidence. Both are nonsense.

Facts don't care what the prof says; his blithering is no more than that.

>47 Limelite:

Indeed. I'm always suspicious of anything which predicts a result in the 90% range. But I thought Proximity, Carnophile and Cubby might appreciate it.

The Trump supporters who changed their minds: 'I'd rather vote for a tuna fish sandwich' (Guardian)

The anti-Trumpers are at it again – only this time, they’re Republicans.

Kevin, a lifelong Republican voter and pastor from Arizona, says he voted for Trump in 2016 “with high hopes for the future”. He knew that Trump didn’t have the same political experience as the other contenders, but he was optimistic he could grow into his new role.

Now he says: “I’ve seen how he has tried to divide our country and that is not something I want, nor what our country should have … This man is an absolute danger to our country.”

Kevin’s experience – of voting for Trump and then quickly realizing he’d made a mistake – is one of many being used by Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT), which wants to boot Trump out of office later this year. The group is seeking testimony from former Trump voters through its website, which displays the best quotes so far with pride. (“I’d vote for a tuna fish sandwich before I vote for Donald Trump again,” reads one)...

>49 John5918:

Enjoy their personal short videos here.

You're getting Trump in the White House for another four years, and God, how you deserve that!

Attorney General William Barr comes with him and so does John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, and the probe he is directing into the scandalous "Crossfire Hurricane" plot to undermine Trump's campaign and, later, his entire administration's capacity to work at all.

And so, too, in due course— by law, with its rights, which, were it up to people like you, you'd deny to those you _hate_ —shall come criminal indictments of those whose criminal conspiracy to undermine a legally-elected president you and others like you have approved, excused and cheered on.

You think you have the majority-opinion of the American electorate on your side. You'll discover, in the only way your delusional and closed-minds will allow, that you're wrong about that.

__________________

You have an indication of the kind of trouble to which you've made yourselves blind when your partisan-allies can't even keep good relations with people such as this :

Bari Weiss resignation-letter to the The New York Times' executive editors.

>51 proximity1: Ah, of course. Because as we all know, the comings and goings at the Times are absolutely top-of-mind issues for the voting public.

I mean, on the one hand you have corruption at a scale never before seen in this country, manifest incompetence leading to the exposure of US intelligence secrets to our enemies and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, weakening of America diplomatically, militarily, and in our trade relations, and his face looks like a plastic surgery experiment gone horribly wrong... on the other hand, the Times.

Totally see your point, and you should totally continue to believe that Dickless Donald will win all the marbles come November.
A-plus analysis.

Alabama Republican voters prefer the Trump-endorsed candidate for the Republican party's U.S. Senate seat nomination, handing Jeff Sessions a defeat in the race for the seat of Democrat Doug Jones. His seat is indicated by some observers as the most vulnerable of any in the 2020 races which concern the Democratic Party's incumbents.

_________________

"The walls are closing in on President Trump"

LMFAO!!!!!

>53 proximity1: William Sessions wasn't running, and is dead.

LMFAO!

Also, it hardly seems newsworthy to find out that Republicans in Klan country support Trump. I mean, I'm going out on a limb here, but I want to say most of us had sort of worked that out already.

The problem with Bari Weiss is she actually is what she says others are. She is about as anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian as it gets. When she was at Columbia U. she campaigned to get all its Muslim professors terminated. She calls Tulsi Gabbard an 'Assad toadie' which I've always found pretty questionable and rich coming from someone who is a Netanyahu toadie. Wonder what Prox thinks of that? as he was so pro-Tulsi for a while. Maybe he's discarded Tulsi for now though.

What Bari is really after IMO is her own show on Fox News.

>56 kiparsky:

Memo to Alabamans:

for some of Biden's partisans, the majority of y'all are either Klansmen or, if not, might as well be Klansmen for all the difference what you're doing and thinking makes.

Another sure-fire vote-winning strategy.

>53 proximity1: and >58 proximity1:
I’m afraid you don’t understand politics and culture in Alabama. College Football is God there; it’s even more important to Alabamians than church. It colors most conversations; it’s the basis of a lot of informal but pervasive tribalism is the state. Of course they voted for Tommy Tuberville.

Alabama ranks dead last in any survey of education by state. It ranks 46th in average annual income. The citizens of Alabama are some of the kindest and funniest people I’ve ever met.

I lived there for ten years, so I speak from direct observation.

>59 Matke:

LOL!

I know you can spell, form words, sound them out, and so forth.

But how's your reading comprehension in complex matters such as reading and parsing meanings in such
"very challenging stuff" (LOL!) as that of the author of >56 kiparsky:?

I have nothing against the state or the people of Alabama. And there's nothing in my posted comments to suggest otherwise. I guess you know that, however, since you can read. So your comment is calculated, in all probability, just to attempt a snide dig—perhaps premised on the idea that I harbor some prejudice against Southerners.

Well, I don't. My mother and father were both southerners; they married each other in Alabama and saw their first child, my elder sibling, born there (on the 4th of July!)

Brisket, Beer, Football, watermelon and fireflies.

"Roll!, Tide!" :^)

"Sweet Home!, Alabama!"¹ (Lynyrd Skynyrd)

"Alabama," Neil Young, from the album, "Harvest"²(1971/72)
_____________________

(1) "Watergate," of course, does "bother me." Which is why the Steele-dossier/Fusion GPS scandal, far, far worse than ever was the Watergate scandal, the unfolding of which I followed day to day, week to week and month to month, "bothers me" even more.

It was then (during the Watergate scandal's revelation, and later hearings) that, for the first time to my knowledge, my family starting receiving both The New York Times and The Washington Post dailies every day by the U.S. mail.

(2) one of my favorite albums.

I’ve never seen anyone misread simple sentences in quite this way.

And again, rather than read the plain sense of a post, you choose to denigrate the poster, to be snide, to be supercilious as you (perhaps deliberately? We can only guess) misconstrue the clear sense of a post.

This thread asks if the 2020 election is a referendum on Mr. Trump.

So this:

Don’t presume that a beloved football coach winning in an Alabama primary is tantamount to a nationwide referendum on Mr. Trump. It is no such thing.

>61 Matke:

His specialty. Deny, deny, deny. But I'm growing more concerned because his posts are getting crazier and crazier.
____________________________________________

In TX, the Democratic primary runoff turned out nearly 1 million voters.

Latest national polling has Trump down to Biden by whopping 15 pts., the widest national polling gap in decades. In latest poll conducted by YouGov both likely voters and general adult population groups surveyed disapprove of Trump by 12 pts. In generic Democrat vs. Republican candidate running for office polls this month, the Democratic beats the Republican blank name candidate by double digits every time.

What's telling is how rapidly the gap between the two presidential candidates has expanded in favor of Biden. Since Dems have supported Biden since he won the election, the evidence points to the growth source as new voters, unaffilliateds affiliating with Biden, former supporters of Trump in '16 abandoning him -- that would be suburban white women, primarily, and more white men adding their numbers than in the past election to the Democratic candidate.

Evidence abounds in anti-Trump Republican circles that their efforts are paying off in converting disgruntled former Trump voters in their ranks. Also, the money is going into Biden's and down ticket Democrats war chests, outpacing Trump and Republicans, especially those running for re-election to the Senate. Thirdly, traditional big Republican donors aren't coming across. Adding to the very strong evidence of looming defeat for Trump was his OK rally non-attendance, his cancellation of a rally in NH last week, and now we learn that many Republican politicians have no intention of attending the outdoor RNC convention in Jax, and not many grassroots Repubs are forking over for tickets, either.

No wonder our local RWNJs are sounding increasingly shrill and desperate, running for comfort to biased opinion pieces, and running away from evidence, statistics, factual reporting and all the indications of madness and implosion emerging from the WH and Trump's so-called campaign.

>61 Matke:
So you think everyone in Alabama is dumb... I think that Tuberville isn't getting all of the Roll Tide votes. Big Rivalry might even cost him altogether?

>63 Cubby.R.S.: I didn’t say everyone in Alabama is dumb.

The football rivalry would cost him votes only if he were running against Nick Sabin. Alabama is a red state, vehemently so. I can assure that Alabamians would far rather vote for Tuberville against any and all Democrats.

Clearly you know nothing about Alabama citizens.

>64 Matke:

You must not be a football fan. There's no way I'm voting for Tuberville if he was my team's rival just because he coached football. So either you think Alabama is full of idiots or you don't know the back story of Trump and Sessions.

>64 Matke: & >65 Cubby.R.S.:

"I didn’t say everyone in Alabama is dumb."

Right—not, at any rate, in so many words.

These are very clever people, Cubby. You have to watch them.

Bohemi never exactly contended that Alabamans were "dumb"—as in stupid; rather, Bohemi merely implied that (White-only, of course) Alabamans are Klan-like racist bigots who, on that account, are so morally retarded as to be Trump's natural political allies, no more able to leave Trump's orbit than the Earth can leave the Sun's orbit.

As the saying goes,

"No harm, no foul."

LOL!

(Aren't we fortunate to have seen the U.S. political culture evolve to such an advanced state!? It's an advance given us by the racially-advanced "Liberals." I don't know how we'd gotten along without this hellish idiocy.)

>65 Cubby.R.S.: I don’t think Alabama is full of idiots. It would, instead, be idiotic to vote *against* the candidate of your party, endorsed by your president, simply based on your football prejudice.

I do in fact know the backstory of Mr. Trump and Mr. Sessions. I know Alabamians. I know how committed they are to Republicans. Clearly you don’t.

>65 Cubby.R.S.: and >66 proximity1: Please explain how you get to

“Bohemima merely implied that (White-only) Alabamans are Klan-like racist bigots, who, on that account, are so morally retarded as to be Trump’s natural political allies, no more able to leave Trump’s orbit than the earth can leave the sun’s orbit.”

from >59 Matke: and >64 Matke:?
I cited two statistical facts, neither of which are race-skewed. I said that Alabama is a Red State and that its citizens would vote for a beloved football coach over any Democrat. A college football coach, who is educated and extremely popular, isn’t necessarily a candidate who would only be voted for “by idiots”. That’s your interpretation; it isn’t mine.

Can you deny any of that? You two will twist and spin any flat and simple sentence to fit your delusional belief that anyone who is against Mr. Trump is a stupid, illiterate (I’ll reference Proximity1’s repeated jibes that I can’t read or reason, that I’m at best a knuckle-dragging dragging semi-literate >60 proximity1: ).

I post plainly. If I mean to say something I’ll say it. I don’t speak some absurd code that you two have made up to suit your own prejudices and condemn anyone who has a different opinion. If you have a question, if I’m not clear, ask. Don’t go off on these manic rants which have no basis in reality.

Please stop putting your ridiculous interpretations on my words. You’re embarrassing yourselves.

>67 Matke:

So in part I can agree. Pointing out that Alabama is full of uneducated football lovers that may or may not vote for anyone with a football background before anyone else, seems a bit degrading. I'm only trying to say; it is not likely that a State would be so attached to their team and vote for their rival's coach, just because. I think it's more likely that Sessions alienated himself from the Republican Party voting base, and Tuberville could've won had he been only relatively sane.

Really, you’re missing my point, although there’s some validity to yours.

In a survey, about half those surveyed identified as Alabama fan, with a third identifying as Auburn fans. And football holding the position it does in Alabama would dramatically increase the chances for Tuberville to be chosen.

My husband went to college in Alabama and was a die-hard Tide fan. But he was equally a fan of Auburn—except in the Iron Bowl. So yes, I do believe I have quite a bit of experience with football, fans, and attitudes in Alabama.

I freely admit that Mr. Tuberville’s chances were considerably increased by Mr. Trump’s repudiation of Mr. Sessions. What I think about that particular issue is another matter entirely.

My point is this: at >53 proximity1:, proximity1 was apparently saying, given this thread topic, that Mr. Sessions’ defeat by Mr. Tuberville is indicative of a referendum approving of Mr. Trump, and that it is pointing to such a result in the national election in November. I say it is no such thing, but pointing rather specifically to Alabama’s results in the national election.

>68 Matke:

"I said that Alabama is a Red State and that its citizens would vote for a beloved football coach over any Democrat."

Right. And your comment followed right on the heels of of my comment, >58 proximity1: , about this

..."it hardly seems newsworthy to find out that Republicans in Klan country support Trump. I mean, I'm going out on a limb here, but I want to say most of us had sort of worked that out already" (Kiparsky @ 56)

about which you saw fit to write nothing as an objection.

writing, instead of that,

..."Alabama is a Red State and that its citizens would vote for a beloved football coach over any Democrat." ...

what you don't expressly state are, apparently, by all evidence, both subtle and not-so-subtle, your beliefs about why "Alabama is a Red State," why "its citizens would vote for a beloved football coach over any Democrat," etc.

I'm confused. You weren't shy about jumping on the band-wagon from which the epithet "racist" trips easily from the tongues of Leftists, directed at virtually anyone and everyone they find objectionable.

But you now balk at designating the (White) people of Alabama as, categorically, and ipso facto, a bunch of racists?

That's progress, I guess.

You can't be shamed by facts but you can be cowed by them into walking-back your views as these are clearly indicated from the sub-text of your posts?

It's a start.

Here's what I find amusing:

in a state-party primary race for the nomination of a U.S. senate seat (Sessions vs. Tuberville), Alabama voters preferred Jeff Sessions' opponent who, incidentally, was also the candidate publicly endorsed
by Trump. And, your experience as an Alabama resident, present or former, tells you (and you assure us) that Sessions' loss in the primary tells us little or nothing about Alabama's voters' potential inclinations to vote for Trump in November. We're to understand that this is because, according to you, it was virtually a foregone conclusion that the voters would (and, apparently shall again, in November) prefer the candidate who'd made his name as Auburn University's ("Tigers") football-coach. (Sessions, by that theory, hardly need have bothered to run, hmm?)

Apparently, by this same logic, the incumbent, a lawyer, Senator Doug Jones (D.), who it seems has never coached any university's football team in or outside of Alabama, doesn't therefore stand a chance of beating Tuberville--but Tuberville's virtually certain victory, of course, shall be in spite of, rather than due to any help or endorsement from President Trump, if I understand Alabama culture correctly.

>71 proximity1: You choose to ignore my direct citing of >53 proximity1: in my post.

You certainly are confused. For heavens’ sake, stop imputing beliefs and statements to me that are totally without foundation. You are the one repeatedly bringing up the word “racist” with reference to the citizens of Alabama. Apparently you are incapable of understanding that people may have opinions different from yours.

I’ll object to and post about precisely what I choose, just as you do. You are the last person to object to that (back to sentence one here). And don’t presume to lecture me in that condescending way. Respond to what I actually say, not what you think I say, what you want others to think I said, or to some twisted version of what I said.

My >70 Matke: should clear up any doubts for you. Read the last paragraph, where it’s very clearly stated that I think the Alabama primary is indicative of how Alabama will vote in November. I don’t think it’s indicative of how the country will vote. Do you? If so,why?

ETA citing actual acts of racism is hardly jumping on a bandwagon to denounce all whites as racist. It is simply stating facts...none of which you could deny as truthful, by the way.

>72 Matke: "I’ll object to and post about precisely what I choose, just as you do."

Exactly. And you found nothing to object to when Kiparsky "went out on a limb" "to say most of us had sort of worked that out already", "that" meaning "worked (figured) out" :

..."that Republicans in Klan country support Trump."

"Klan-country" in the context of the comment is a direct reference to the voters of Alabama—and exclusively to the White voters of Alabama, I'm sure we're to understand—since Kiparsky would never suggest that Black voters of Alabama were or ever could be either part of that Klan-country or be voting to re-elect Trump in November.

For Kiparsky, White Alabama voters are going to favor Trump, just as they favored Tuberville over Jeff Sessions, because that's apparently how we roll down there in "Klan-country."

You, while not expressly rejecting that logic, contend that Tuberville's football-coaching past is entirely sufficient to explain his selection over Sessions'.

... "citing actual acts of racism is hardly jumping on a bandwagon to denounce all whites as racist."

True, they aren't necessarily the same things at all. But they might sometimes be virtually, if not, indeed, literally, the same things. And this is one of them. Definitely one of them.

Again, this is odd. Until quite recently, denouncing virtually anyone, for whatever reason or even no reason at all, as a racist, was one of the Leftists' Virtue-Signalers' surest cards.

What happened?

>70 Matke:

I have in the past rooted for my rivals, to be sure. Most do not and I think your husband may be more rare than you think, especially considering the partisan attitude of the country today. I am de facto Republican, because my vote for any Independent candidate is null and void (although in 2016 I voted for the Constitutional Party -- which garnered a whopping 106 votes, I think, in my State). I think it is of the utmost importance that I vote for Trump this time, considering the alternative I'm being given. I believe Trump is probably the most central candidate since Bill Clinton. That same Bill Clinton is almost identical to Trump in nearly every way, both good and bad qualities.

To be sure, I didn't like Clinton and I don't like Trump. But Leftist are very dangerous and their governments become driven by blood-thirsty raving maniacs in a very short period of time. Although the Far Right, which is essentially the same level of lunatic, seems to support Trump; they have no credibility in the Republican Party. That is the difference for me. The Far Left is not just credible in the Democrat Party, but driving most policy.

>74 Cubby.R.S.: The Far Left is not just credible in the Democrat Party, but driving most policy.

You continue to repeat the falsehood that there is a significant "far left" (or is it "Far Left"?) in the USA. There isn't. The people that the far right label as "far left" are generally centrists, moderates, nearer to the centre than the far right, sightly less right wing than the Republican Party, call it what you will, but they are certainly not left wing by anybody's standards... except the standards of the far right. Yes, there are people who are "far left" in just about any country, but in the USA they do not represent a significant nor influential movement.

This appears to be a common right wing tactic at the moment, to keep repeating something so often that it becomes normalised and starts to be accepted as the new norm, even if it is patently false.

>75 John5918:

Socialism and Socialist policy is very common. If you'd like me to generate a laundry list of things, I will.
I'm here to tell you that just because you agree with a large government does not make it a centered position. It is not even close to a falsehood, by any remote standard of falsehoods.

>73 proximity1: Completely off the wall.

You again misinterpreted (perhaps deliberately? We can only guess.) my words.

It’s a shame that you can’t deal in facts, rather than wild and unsubstantiated misreading of what I say. You persistently drag in unrelated topics. I am replying to you directly, not to to anyone else’s posts. Try to stick to it.

“True, they aren’t necessarily the same things at all. But they might sometimes be virtually, if not literally, the same things. And this is one of them. Definitely one of them.”

Why? Because you say so? Because you can’t engage n a fact-based discussion without putting a wild-eyed spin on something that clearly doesn’t say what you want to believe it says?

That’s all in your head, not mine.

You continue to embarrass yourself with this sort of nonsense response.

Again, you are apparently incapable of dealing with anyone or anything who disagrees with you.

I’ll refer you again to >70 Matke:. Respond to the plain language of that post, if you can, without dragging in your mistaken perceptions of what you think are liberals.

>77 Matke:

"Why? Because you say so? Because you can’t engage n a fact-based discussion without putting a wild-eyed spin on something that clearly doesn’t say what you want to believe it says?

"That’s all in your head, not mine. "

And this "wild-eyed spin" you claim I put on everything that deviates from my own view of things—that's all in your head.

I can indeed engage in fact-based discussions. But it's completely clear that nothing of the kind is possible for me to engage in where, on the other side of the discussion, I have nothing except others like yourself.

Trump's critics haven't hesitated to condemn him for any act, "X" and its opposite.

Should he appoint someone, he's condemned for his choice. Later, should he dismiss this person, no matter the circumstances, he's condemned for his decision.

Of the two of us, it is you who are the absolutely thorough and unrelieved ideologue.

Our politics today is pure poison. I'm old enough to have known different times.

Some Democrats today match and exceed all of the worst Republican party fanatical conservatives I've ever seen.

>75 John5918:

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/07/08/the-democrats-are-the-sociali...

Even if you do not agree with the National Review, take this into consideration.

>78 proximity1:
Oh, I love this. You again drag in extraneous material.

And again, you completely disregard my plain explanation of facts. >70 Matke:

I may disagree with Mr. trump’s behavior toward Jeff Sessions. That doesn’t construe to my disagreeing with his every appointment. Just wanted to make that clear, in case you were actually responding to something I said, rather than your usual vehement, if illogical and irrelevant posts about things not being discussed.

>78 proximity1: I’ll ask you this:

Have you ever, in any LT thread, ever, admitted that you were wrong, that you mis-spoke, that you misinterpreted someone’s remarks?

Ever?

Or have all your posts been vain attempts to dig into your positions further, to insult those who disagree, to change the subject, to grind anyone who has the temerity to hold a different opinion into the figurative dirt?

Ideologue, heal thyself.

>79 Cubby.R.S.:

You reinforce my point. You quote an opinion piece from a self-proclaimed conservative magazine to reinforce your narrative.

>80 Matke:

I doubt you could name anything of genuine significance to you which is also something you'd feel obliged to give Trump credit for doing or trying to do—something of a positive nature rather than "he's not the worst liar" you've ever heard of.

I doubt that you could cite a single significant positive feature without grudging, without having to reach to invent it out of thin air and desperation, let alone a redeeming feature of some kind.

Trump isn't merely disapproved of, disliked on minor grounds, by many of his critics. They utterly hate, loathe and despise him and everything about him. Read Lola Walser's posts in these fora for a good idea of what I mean.

>83 proximity1: I doubt you could name anything of genuine significance to you which is also something you'd feel obliged to give Trump credit for doing or trying to do—something of a positive nature

Can you name any things "of a positive nature" that Trump has done?

And of course people's opinions of "something of a positive nature" will vary. For some, stopping immigration might seem like a positive thing; for others, it is abhorrent.

>83 proximity1: Reply to >81 Matke: I am not Lola Walser, nor Kiparsky, nor anyone else, and yet you simply lump me into a huge group of which you disapprove. Don’t deny it; you e done it over and over, a d continue to do it.

You are unwilling to consider any discussion to be about anything except Mr. Trump.

Contrary to your belief, there are other things and people at stake.

Some cross posting here. I’m replying only to proximity1 here.

The Republicans went from nominating a known and unrepentant pedophile jurist to a college football coach bypassing one of their longest serving and most conservative political icons who helped set up their shittier than shit immigration policy just because their amoral political novice of a POTUS developed a hard on for him. Lord knows they'll probably win that seat back but it is bizarre.

It's been so long since I gave a rat's ass about football. I'm not going to be upset if there isn't any for a year.

>81 Matke:

of course I have. An error, a mistaken idea, a transitory false impression, a misinterpretation of another's point or intent—in ten years of participation here, I've done all these things—and I've retracted or apologized for them or done both of those in recognition of my mistakes.

They're of an entirely different character than one's ideological orientations. But those have altered to an extent for me. The changes are in degree and have occurred gradually. It's much less a matter of my own views having altered as it is a sea-change in the way abstract terms are seen, interpreted and defined.


I want the nation to prosper no matter the person or the party which creates, or gets and promotes this prosperity. I look for people to have a fair opportunity to succeed in whatever is not antithetical to a good and just society, but not that they, because they happen to have been born rich or poor, were born male or female, black, white or any other thing which comes by chance, to be given a guaranteed place ahead of others who are supposedly responsible for having to repay some debt to history's tragedies or outrages done in another time by other people. To place artificial barriers in the way of some or to artificially remove natural barriers which no one makes, in order to bring about a contrived outcome which is the product of undue favor is not acceptable where it can be recognized and avoided.

An ideologue won't—because he cannot—countenance any credit to his opposition's people or their ideas for ever doing any good. Such things will always be rationalized away as the result of other people, other things, which aren't creditable to one's opposition. He'd sooner see the nation ruined, utterly lost, destroyed, than to have to bear the sight of its success being due, even partly to people or ideas which he hates. And this is exactly the way Trump's opposition show themselves to be and to think. For them, there is nothing to distinguish a Trump success from utter ruin for the country.

And that accounts for how and why these people who've pursued Trump with the fervor of a lynch-mob are unalterably opposed to anything less than the utter repudiation of the legitimacy of Trump's election.

They refuse to accept that such a choice on the part of the electorate was or ever could be deemed legitimate or binding upon them, one obligating their respect by some conceivable ground of law or fairness, for they admit no such thing.

>87 proximity1: Indeed

>85 Matke:

"I am not Lola Walser, nor Kiparsky, nor anyone else, and yet you simply lump me into a huge group of which you disapprove. Don’t deny it; ..."

That, like the one before it, is a lame attempt to dodge the question. As I expected.

You don't have to be them. You're no different from them in your complete inability to concede a single positive and significantly useful, valuable point to Trump's credit.

That was my point in mentioning them in this context and you've confirmed it.

So, as I predicted: not a single positive thing to say about Trump. And nothing of the kind is coming from you later, either.

Q.E.D.

>75 John5918:

You had no point, only that mine is an untenable one. I'm telling you that there's no way to achieve the Democrat platform without Socialist policy. Socialism is: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

If you want the government to regulate everything from business to education, if you want universal health care, and hell in general if you want to police thought, you are already a Socialist before you define yourself as one. There's really no debate, Democrats want to control everything. Maybe you think the control is for the better, but that's not how these things end, ever, ever in freaking history.

Other News:
Even Democrats think they're headed toward Socialism,

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/446747-socialism-debate-roils-democratic-p...

>90 Cubby.R.S.: If you want the government to regulate everything from business to education

Any government, including your current Trump regime, regulates all sorts of things. It's not a question of principle, only of detail as to what is regulated and how.

if you want universal health care

I've always struggled to understand why anybody should be against universal health care. Could you enlighten me?

if you want to police thought

No thank you, I don't. That seems to be what a lot of right wing governments are doing.

>91 John5918:

The point is John, the U.S. in general is tumbling toward larger government. The Democrats intend to speed this process up. Universal health care is fine on its face. Have you heard the stories that come from the VA system? Just imagine a grander scale, and more people. It's not feasible. Socialism never works, because you are dealing with people and not a document. It's not sustainable. To your credit, I will say that your positions could easily hold me if I did not know for a fact that the end result is utter collapse.

Which right wing government is policing thought? You mean China, Russia? Iran might be extreme right, but then again, you are the one here that likes more government control, not me. Your ideal government has more in common with extreme right wing policy than my ideal government.

>90 Cubby.R.S.:

A fool's errand is still a fool's errand, no matter the method or the means of running it.

I think your concerns about socialism versus some other version of social arrangements of a political order and political arrangements of a social order—capitalism, a barter-economy, feudalism, etc.—are akin to focusing solely on what sort of vehicle one (and others) travels in while giving very little or too little care or attention to the matter of where the vehicle is going and where it might go and why the differences in direction and how they're determined and chosen could and should matter at least as much or more than the type of vehicle that conveys one.

Both have some importance. But to focus on one to the complete exclusion of the other isn't necessary or a good idea.

Let's not travel in a Rolls Royce to some place devoid of value or interest. Let's not discover the optimum course and direction, only to go there by a cart drawn by snails and sea-slugs.

There are vital needs which no private/capitalist economy can adequately provide for within its inherent limitations—a profit-seeking outcome.

There are other equally-vital things which are much less well or efficiently obtained by non-profit means.

To arbitrarily exclude one or the other approach on ideological grounds just because history has shown that complete reliance on one or the other works poorly— isn't a great idea.

We could have as easily set, taken and stayed this insanely stupid course on which we now find ourselves in one partisan way as in another, via one political party as easily as by another, with the same horribly misbegotten obsession over "race" and its supposed virtues or vices; whether via a capitalist or a socialist program of government, the same blunders may be undertaken if the people deciding are sufficiently stupid and incompetent.

I would no more prefer to achieve the present-day "liberals' " notions on proper race relations and equality by socialism than by capitalism.

Either way, the destination, or the course, is a disaster, premised on idiots' ideas of what people are actually like or ought to and could be like.

Our present madness is in its insane obsession with imposing and insisting upon any ideologically-derived purity-tests. The particulars of the type of purity required and how and why are just details. The horrible part is inherent in the impossibly severe purity being thought necessary and proper, not the superficial aspects of them.

We could substitute light or dark chocolate for light or dark skin and have these same culture wars.

>93 proximity1:

I mostly agree. I am under the assumption, that any Capitalism can become and ultimately is as corrupt as Socialism if a population is corrupt. Our Capitalism is crony and corrupt to a very large degree. Many large businesses have extreme power in the U.S. and they use it to buy government influence and push regulations that small businesses cannot adhere to. The imminent danger is Socialism though. Because our government has a large foothold on small business through regulations, the disparity of wealth has become more and more noticeable. The cost of living has also increased at a disproportionate rate, which makes it more difficult to achieve financial freedom. Employees of large companies tend to feel less worth, especially if they are not intellectually curious. Suicide rates are going way up already, imagine crushing further small business.

Insert Socialism: most, if not all examples of human life require some degree of reward for work. My argument is not that Socialism has a bad premise, it's that you're taking the same corrupt people and giving them absolute power. Furthermore, it is a poor show whenever government operates an agency or department, a few examples:

DOT: inefficient and costly
VA: inefficient and costly, oh and life costing
SS: costly and robbed by the government

>89 proximity1:
Surprise!
1. Mr. Trump signed the First Step Act, which enacted modest changes to the federal prison system.
2. He has secured the release of 19 people from foreign captivity.

I’ve not dodged the question. I’ve answered it.

Sorry to disappoint.

Alabama isn't going to save Trump. Alabama will choose Tubby, a man of no governing qualifications and another typical candidate favored by Republicans -- white male actor/celebrity figure, i.e. Reagan, Arnold, Donald, next Tubby.

As for the crass inability of Trump in the "role" of president, evidentiary behavior mounts. The referendum in Nov. is on exactly this issue the voters of America have with Trump. "I, and I alone, can 'fix' it," is responsible for the corruption and chaos that has overtakien us at greater cost to every individual. Voters haven't forgotten those words. They will remember them well 4 months from now.

The consequences of electing a malignant narcissist and racist white supremacist criminal fraudster POTUS:

-- Young physicians in short supply in American hospitals -- trump anti-immigration policy
-- Trump stupidity in face of Covid-19 is the crowning example of "I, and I alone." Rejects the "help" of science.
-- Veto threat of any Covid-19 bill that doesn't cut Social Security.
-- Bribing the rich for financial support with tax handouts and PPP funds.
-- Law-flouting pardons of convicted criminals, military and civilian; packing the Pentagon with no-nothing loyalists (who are given loyalty tests). Trump plotting to stay in office when vote says he lost?
-- Fanning flames of racial hatred with ever increasing strident calls to incite violence against peaceful protestors and ordinary minority citizens; extending the behavior to mask-wearing. In short, inciting civic division and insurrection, not a presidential duty. Only the "I, and I alone" cult leadership principle.
-- Betraying the oath of office, soliciting foreign interference into our elections from antagonistic states.
-- Giving away America's democratic leadership world standing by aggressive behavior to time honored allies, treaties, and organizations in favor of groveling before tyrannical rulers.
-- Crippling the economy with damaging tariff wars. Destroying it through science denial.
-- Ruling rather than governing fully motivated by two personal purposes -- 1) to wreak vengeance on perceived enemies and 2) to enrich himself and his family through mostly illegal means.

"I, and I alone, can fix it," are the words that will destroy him in November.

>95 Matke:

Yes, you have answered it. And I'm certainly not disappointed.

Why wouldn't I much prefer that you prove my expectation mistaken when that expectation was that you weren't going to find yourself capable of citing a single favorable act to President Trump's credit?

Do you seriously think I prefer to be right merely for the sake of being right?

There are circumstances in which I'm pleased to have been mistaken and this is an example of one of them.

I wanted to know if you could credit something, anything, sincerely and without begrudging it, to the president. I was hoping you could but, frankly, not expecting it and certainly not counting on it.

Surprised?--yes. Pleased?--yes. Disappointed? Certainly not.

I don't hope to see my opponents miss the mark. I hope to see them demonstrate something I can recognize as good sense.

You have. Thank you.

ETA: More impressive still would be your doing that more than just once and not simply on "a dare." But, for score-keeping purposes, if that interests you, this point is yours.

We are fellow-citizens and this is not, after all, a 'Zero-sum' contest. That can either be seen and seized on for its value and virtue and to mutual benefit or missed and lost to mutual detriment in a pointless combat of ideas.

>90 Cubby.R.S.: If you want the government to regulate everything from business to education, if you want universal health care, and hell in general if you want to police thought, you are already a Socialist before you define yourself as one.

Arguably one out of three. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Universal_Healthcare_by_Country_20191229.svg is interesting; I'd say that doesn't put us in good company, but if you want to define most of the world as socialist, sure. (It looks like Trump likes immigration from socialist countries and not from non-socialist countries, which he used a different s word for.)

As for the government regulating everything from business to education, the latter is generally either run by them or a business, so I'm not sure where you're going with that. That is indeed what governments do, and what they've done for time eternal. Hammurabi's laws regulate various mercantile actions. In the Slaughter-House Cases (1873), the Supreme Court ruled the states had huge power to regulate businesses, including giving a monopoly in animal slaughter to one company. This is nothing new, in the US or the world.

So was the House Unamerican Activities Committee socialist? I'm pretty sure they'd object loudly to that, as well as the people they persecuted for their political opinions who actually were socialist. When Tucker Carlson demanded that some people be deported because of the photograph showing them flipping off Mount Rushmore, does that make Tucker Carlson (pundit on Fox News, right wing even for that channel) socialist? Thought police are all over the place, hardly on one side of the political position.

>>97 proximity1: And here one more:
The Veterans’ Choice Act, which allows veterans to access care at public hospitals if adequate care isn’t available to them at a VA facility.

I’ve tried to explain to you that I am an individual. I can, shockingly enough, think for myself and form my own conclusions, based on the facts.

Can you name one thing Mr. Trump has done that you think is wrong?

>98 prosfilaes:

Up until Obamacare, we had the top healthcare industry in the world. Insert more government control and we now have an unstable system. I guess the best system still is in the U.S.. We also don't have the surgery wait times that those countries do and our death panels deciding who gets what surgery aren't quite here yet. We also have the best doctors in the world :

https://myvessyl.com/top-10-countries-with-the-best-doctors-in-the-world/

I specifically mean excessive regulation. But, ya know, I deserve the statement.

I keep thinking that all Trump would have done to win reelection is to have followed the guidance of the CDC. He had a bump in approval near the start of the pandemic in the US, which was probably a "rally around the flag" result. Most presidents would have followed the scientific advice, done the simple things to minimize the effects of the virus, and had enough of a positive blowback to take the election. Not Trump; hopefully that will be his downfall, instead of him killing thousands of citizens and then getting reelected.

>46 John5918: Five out of six is 83%. 25 out of 27 is only 92%, and it's generally not considered reasonable to include your training data in the results. Any idiot can predict what already happened, after all. There's no magic bullets, but asking a lot of people who they're going to vote for is the best way for figuring out who a bunch of people are going to vote for. Lots of factors, and you've got to figure in the Electoral System, but anyone claiming to have a better system by ignoring polls is a fool.

>99 Matke:

RE: "Can you name one thing Mr. Trump has done that you think is wrong?"

_______________

Of course I can (given time to think on it). On the other hand, I make no habit of keeping a list of these things.

And, quite honestly, there isn't one which is so present in mind that, asked that question, it springs immediately to mind.

By the way, this question is important to get right in the sense in which it is meant.

By this, I mean we ought to expect and accept that the president, whoever he or she may be, is going to make mistakes of various kinds--mistakes of judgment, mistakes of a factual matter, etc.

So the term "wrong" has to be rightly understood and used.

Ex.: Nixon, throughout the Watergate scandal wasn't just "in error" about many things, judgments as well as facts; he was wrong, criminally culpable in being morally and legally wrong; wrong to have lied, to have deliberately misled both allies and opponents about his own official acts as president--and all of that concerned unquestionably serious matters. Nearly all of them come under a criminal law's qualifier of "attempted". He attempted to subvert the Constitution, to commit electoral misdemeanors or felonies. Those qualified in certain cases as criminal. To attempt to subvert a legal inquiry, to tamper with or destroy evidence of one's part in a criminal act or conspiracy--these are crimes whether they succeed or not. And they're serious. Nixon did other criminal acts which went beyond an "attempt". He abused his office and authority to punish political opponents.

As for Trump, there are surely policy matters which were divisive and debated within his own administration's personnel but they were practically bound to be and should have remained so no matter how he'd decided them.

I can't say that, had I been there and seen and heard all the evidence and arguments presented, I'd have always come down on his side of the matter--as defined by what he actually ended up doing (but I suspect it's possible that I might have). But I can say that, among all of these debated and debatable policy matters, there isn't a single one which I could say is so one-sided that I find no way at all to square his choice with some kind of reasonable view of the facts as probably known at the time.

Thus, on every major policy of national importance that I can think of off the top of my head, there isn't one which sticks out in my mind for which I could say, "That decision simply can't be squared with any sane concept of what's reasonable, no matter how hard one stretches to get there."

And, if there'd been anything remotely like a criminal conspiracy that resembled Nixon's Watergate scandal, that I was aware of, I'd have already denounced him for it. So, Russia/Ukraine collusion for electoral or any other improper or hidden purposes? Claimed, yes, but, as I saw the facts and evidence, this stuff wouldn't stand an hour's examination in a court of law.

A "racist," Trump? Not what I call a racist. Though I think that we are all inclined to have and hold views which are inextricably mixed up with matters of what is called "race", I don't believe that we all qualify as the worst of an idea of what constitutes a racist person--of which some number no doubt exist but nothing anywhere near what it seems to me some people expect in racists' numbers.

It's much easier to cite Trump's faults since he has virtually all of the faults which are practically universal in people--and, in a president of the United States, to expect that there'd be no arrogance, no egotism, no selfishness, no politically-calculated use of facts, no self-interested presentation of one's case and views--to expect this is just not living in reality. No Democrat has ever achieved that either. We elect people, not angels and that is a good thing since the world is full of people, not angels.

I need more time to think in order to come up with the sort of answer you are looking for since, in my opinion, Trump does not qualify as "evil" by any stretch of the term as I understand it.

Your question is challenging in no small part for me because of what we've been through and what I've seen Trump's adversaries do in an effort to destroy him personally and politically.

In Trump, we have a man who, from the word "go," faced one of the most organized and determined efforts to undermine and ruin him of any holder of high elective office in U.S. that I've ever seen. And one of the most undeserved and unwarranted of such efforts.

As a judge of others, of people in general, as a person who is charged with hearing and weighing facts about matters for which there is often no clear-cut and easy choice to be made, I think Trump is not only blessed with skill and talent in these, he acquits himself far better than the great majority of the people around him. If I was in trouble and I had to put my case, a hard and controversial one, calling for much in judgment from one who had to render a decision, into the hands of someone, I'd be entirely willing to place that decision in Trump's hand and feel confident that I would be given a fair hearing and a fair decision on the merits.

If I believed in God, there are many occasions over the past three years in which I'd have said, referring to the nation's welfare in general, "By God, Thank God! we (i.e., this nation) have Trump in the White House!" and never once should I have said, "Dear God! We're cursed to have this man! What in Heaven's name have we done to deserve this!?"

And I come from a family generations-long of Democrats. My grand-parents certainly would have voted for Alton Parker and Henry Davis in 1904 and their parents would have voted for Grover Cleveland in 1888 and 1892 and William Jennings Bryan in 1896. And their parents I suppose would have voted for Seymour and Blair in 1868.

>100 Cubby.R.S.: Up until Obamacare, we had the top healthcare industry in the world.

Why do I want the "top healthcare industry" in the world? I want the best medical care in the world.

We also don't have the surgery wait times that those countries do

I read a book by a doctor who worked in Cook County Hospital for forty years. He recounted taking twelve years to get one patient affordable knee replacement.

and our death panels deciding who gets what surgery aren't quite here yet.

One of Kerry Hamm's books had a story by an ambulance EMT; he arrived at the site of a gunshot wound to find the patient googling how to treat gunshot wound, because it was better than paying for a hospital to treat an abdominal gunshot wound. People are forgoing proper medical care all the time in the US because they can't afford it. Not to mention all the complaints about what insurance will and won't cover effectively acting as death panels.

We also have the best doctors in the world :

Did you look at that link before you posted it? Here's what I'm concerned about; that me and my family and most Americans can get decent medical care when they need it. A few world-class doctors don't change that one bit.

I specifically mean excessive regulation.

The only example I can think of people who want "excessive regulation" in the US is from Republicans, most notably in passing excessive regulation of abortion clinics that they know is excessive, because they want to shut them down. The Republicans are arguably also providing excessive regulation of the Postal Service, because they know the public won't stand for it being shut down, but they can make it more unprofitable and blame that for shutting it down.

Nobody acting honestly wants excessive anything. To argue that the Democrats are Socialists because they want excessive regulation is one of the most unhelpful definitions I've ever seen. From their perspective, they don't want excessive regulation; from your perspective they do, but defining everyone who wants more regulation than you as a socialist strikes me as more as using words as weapons than an honestly useful definition.

>103 prosfilaes:

Okay. I don't have enough time to support any of these arguments. It seems like we may see the same problems but are both generalizing too much to agree on anything.

1. We also have the best medical care.
2. Anomalous to the U.S., standard elsewhere. Was it VA?
3. Likely due to Obamacare.
4. Okay, likely not better elsewhere though.
5. I'm not buying any of this. Our government is already gross and the Democrats are going to stiffen regulations on all industries and the rich will continue to get richer. Just like they did for Health Insurance.

>104 Cubby.R.S.: I'm not buying any of this. Our government is already gross and the Democrats are going to stiffen regulations on all industries and the rich will continue to get richer. Just like they did for Health Insurance.

You're not buying any of what? Are you claiming that Democrats want regulations they believe are excessive?

>105 prosfilaes:

You say that to make fun of me, but I wouldn't put it passed any politician to pass a law they felt excessive. They might do it for money or political pressure.

I do think that you misconstrued what I said on purpose.

>99 Matke: and >102 proximity1:

I think our responses show who we are, quite clearly. That is, I think each of our responses here demonstrate our beliefs, our willingness to see the other side of an argument, our desire to debate honestly and in good faith, nd our ability to stay on topic.

>106 Cubby.R.S.: You say that to make fun of me

Or maybe you're not communicating as clearly as you could. You put a bunch of numbers before >104 Cubby.R.S.: referring to a post that was unnumbered. So I took it to mean that you were responding to

The only example I can think of people who want "excessive regulation" in the US is from Republicans, most notably in passing excessive regulation of abortion clinics that they know is excessive, because they want to shut them down. The Republicans are arguably also providing excessive regulation of the Postal Service, because they know the public won't stand for it being shut down, but they can make it more unprofitable and blame that for shutting it down.

Nobody acting honestly wants excessive anything. To argue that the Democrats are Socialists because they want excessive regulation is one of the most unhelpful definitions I've ever seen. From their perspective, they don't want excessive regulation; from your perspective they do, but defining everyone who wants more regulation than you as a socialist strikes me as more as using words as weapons than an honestly useful definition.

with

5. I'm not buying any of this. Our government is already gross and the Democrats are going to stiffen regulations on all industries and the rich will continue to get richer. Just like they did for Health Insurance.

Which is largely non-responsive. It was a serious, if frustrated, question.

I do think that you misconstrued what I said on purpose.

Then you're mistaken. Assumptions like that make it hard to communicate. Take the responsibility to communicate as clear as you can, and clarify if you were misunderstood.

>100 Cubby.R.S.:

You'll note that in your list of the top ten countries with the best doctors in the world, most of them make those doctors accessible to the entire population, unlike the USA. The UK comes second, and has free universal high-quality healthcare (or at least it did until recent right wing governments began tampering with it). So even if the USA is better by one place (which is a dubious claim from a non-scientific website which also has topics like The Best 21 Hotel Pillows and The 8 Best Projectors for Golf Simulators), countries with universal healthcare are right up there with the USA. Universal healthcare is not the disaster you make it out to be. It is a system that works well for most modern western democracies.

Incidentally, in the UK and most other countries with universal healthcare, there are still private hospitals, and if you can afford to pay either directly or by buying a private health insurance policy, you can still access private healthcare if that is what you wish and if you think it is better than the nationalised one. Your capitalist freedoms are not infringed upon simply because poor people can also access healthcare.

Even Donald Trump knows he is in deep, deep trouble in the 2020 race (CNN)

During his rambling speech in the Rose Garden Tuesday, President Donald Trump pushed back on the idea that his campaign was flailing. "I think we have really good poll numbers," he said.

Twenty-four hours later, Trump removed his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, and replaced him with Bill Stepien, a longtime political hand with ties to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie So, yeah.

While there's long been a massive disconnect between Trump's public bluster and private worries, anger and anxiety, the demotion of Parscale is a shining example of that chasm. The truth that any politician knows is that you don't get rid of your campaign manager unless things are not going well. And you especially don't get rid of your campaign manager 111 days before the election -- unless things are going REALLY badly. Which, for Trump, they are. Remarkably so...

>92 Cubby.R.S.: Which right wing government is policing thought? You mean China, Russia? Iran might be extreme right,

Well, first of all "policing thought" is a term which would need a lot of unpacking. But yes, China, Russia (an ally of your current right wing US government) and Iran are good examples of governments trying to prevent freedom of speech and political views.

My thanks to >98 prosfilaes: for reminding us of the McCarthy era in the USA. Right wing governments which sprang to my mind include Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece which all suffered right wing dictatorships during the 20th century, and of course many South American nations whose right wing dictatorships were supported by the USA. Apartheid South Africa and present day Israel also spring to mind, again both of which were supported by the USA. But your current president also seems to have a penchant for suppressing freedom of information, including his refusal to release documents, retaliations against whistleblowers, dismissing people whose opinions he objects to, and attacking the freedom of the press.

but then again, you are the one here that likes more government control, not me. Your ideal government has more in common with extreme right wing policy than my ideal government.

No, you misrepresent the case. Regulation by government is, as I and others have said elsewhere, done by every government; indeed it is part of the purpose of government. Right wingers seem happy to believe that the government should regulate immigration, for example, or abortion, or the prison system, or the law enforcement system. They seem to have no problem with the government regulating which side of the road cars should drive on, or whether you can drive a car under the influence of alcohol. They certainly have no objection to regulating narcotics. Apparently it's also OK to send federal agents to abduct people off the streets in a place like Portland where local authorities believe in negotiating and compromising with their citizens rather than applying force. A left of centre democracy would apply a lighter touch to many of these issues, but would regulate a different set of issues, eg nationalisation of some essential services and utilities, an emphasis on human rights and the common good, workers' rights, health and safety, the environment, legal protections, etc. Don't try to pretend that right wing governments such as in the USA are any less regulatory than left of centre governments such as we have seen in parts of northern Europe, or New Zealand or Canada, for example. They just regulate different things.

>100 Cubby.R.S.: Up until Obamacare, we had the top healthcare industry in the world.

I guess the best system still is in the U.S.

By what metrics? Where are your numbers coming from? The link you supply does not actually talk about health care, it is just a list of countries that have been home to some particularly famous doctors.

Trump will cling to power. To get him out, Biden will have to win big (Guardian)

The danger is that Trump will lose – and refuse to go.

He’s already laid out his rationale. “Rigged 2020 election,” he tweeted last month. “Millions of mail-in ballots will be printed by foreign countries, and others. It will be the scandal of our times!” Here’s the scenario Trump is planning for. On the evening of 3 November, he loses the popular vote by a margin even greater than the 3 million votes by which Hillary beat him in 2016 – but the count of votes cast on the day puts him narrowly ahead in one or two key states. He promptly declares victory, claiming that the millions of votes that were cast as absentee ballots – by voters anxious to avoid polling stations because of Covid-19 – should be disqualified as fraudulent. He has a motive to do that, since mail-in votes often skew Democratic. And he has a precedent for it: in a tight senate race in Florida in 2018, Trump urged the state to stop counting the votes and go with the election night results, which favoured Republicans.

Let’s say he makes that same move in the three midwestern battlegrounds in November. Republicans are in charge of the state legislatures in all three. Now here’s where it gets nerdily arcane, but bear with me. Those Republican legislatures could refuse both to certify their state results and to send a slate of representatives to the electoral college, which has to meet by 14 December. Biden’s lawyers would plead his case all the way to the supreme court, but that court likes to stay out of elections. It could plausibly instruct the electoral college to meet on 14 December, with or without the disputed states. If it meets without them, and neither Trump nor Biden can reach the 270 electoral college votes required to win, then the constitution throws the question to the House of Representatives. Democrats control that body, but here’s the thing. Under the rules, the house would make its decision state-by-state, with one vote per state – so that tiny Republican Wyoming would have as much say as populous, Democratic California. By that count, Republican states would outvote Democratic ones by 26 to 24 – and Trump would remain president...

Granted, these are nightmare scenarios, but if these past four years have taught us anything, it’s that nightmares can come true. There’s only one guaranteed defence against such a possibility, and that is for Biden to win a blowout victory...

>107 Matke:

Thank you. It cheered me to read this kind of ready openess to someone accepted as a political opponent.

At the same time, and mixed with this cheer, is the fact that it pains me to think that such could be felt as such an "advance" on relations between people who share a nation, a heritage, who are fellow citizens.

For most of my life, through the very worst of times, it wouldn't have occurred to me that some Americans could actually rule out as too-far-fetched-a-fantasy the idea that their fellow-citizen political-adversaries could be imagined to be motivated by sincerely and justifiably held differences of opinion. Or that the electoral choices of those same were not even conceivably legitimate, being just well beyond the pale of that.

So, this is progress. But it is also a rather sad statement on our circumstances that it is just that, progress.

There is an enormous number of things degraded and, no one quite knows, lost or seemingly so. Their recovery, if that's possible, is going to require a degree of imagination and the beginnings of commonly held trust which right now, to see and hear the major news media tell it, are so rare as to be nearly non-existent.

For the sake of the country and its future, we, living today, have to find ways to do better than has been the recent norm in inter-party relations.

If youth continue to grow up in this kind of hostile, take-no-prisoners mentality, their political maturity is bound to be stunted, inadequate to meeting tough challenges, and, thus, the country's future shall remain what it is right now unless things change: at best, somber, and at worst, very bleak, very dark. To leave this unrepaired would be an unspeakably terrible failing in our duties to ourselves and to each other and to those who come after we are gone.

We have to start helping each other and seeing the others' choices in policy and candidate differences as probably legitimate, however unlike one's own, however the extent of the disagreement about their wisdom or desirability.

I suspect that a great many of our fellow Americans have allowed themselves to gradually and lazily accept the easy assumption that there is really nothing important that we can and should be undertaking in the care and maintenance of the nation's political soul.

That's a huge mistake. There is a great deal to be done in that and we're all implicated in it. That has to be recognized and understood before it can resume its proper place in our lives.

There must be more in common between people than a shared sense of victimization, than a shared chip-on-thep-shoulder view of the world around us.

My political opponents look in horror upon Trump and his chosen slogan, "Make America Great Again," as an invitation, an exhortation, to return to days and to ways they see as, well, horrible and unbearable.

Others interpret that same slogan as something more like,

"Let's stop feeling sorry for ourselves; let's get that chip off our shoulder, look around at the enormous task of remaking a nation in which we can have a shared and justified, rather than undue, pride, then, together, roll up our sleeves and start on that work."

YES

The GOP/Trump/QAnon are joining forces on the march to
November. Trump's Gestapo-like agents are rounding up people
in Portland. Trump would prefer that Americans remain out-of-
the-loop when it comes to the C-Virus ramifications. The
despicable Trump-era saga continues.

>112 kiparsky:
>111 John5918:

There's no way that I'm going through extensive research here to defend my position. A few links below demonstrate some of your preferred systems. You can believe what you want. The VA system in the U.S. is all I need to prove to myself, I don't want your Socialist crap. If government was honest, it might work. But instead of many competing ideas, you get one system and it always gets corrupted. Then you're stuck with it and millions die before it changes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2019/04/01/britains-version-of-medicare-...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/11/french-medics-health-service-colla...

https://www.magazine.medicaltourism.com/article/collapse-of-the-canadian-healthc...

Trend, wait for it. No really, wait.

>111 John5918:

You are left, you want more government. I may be right of you, but I want less government. The difference between our thinking in this matter is you seem to think of government form in a straight line. The reality is, it should be a circle, where total control aligns on one quadrant and total anarchy on the other.

You are all attempting to deflate my position by saying regulation in the simplest sense is required. That should be a given. The fact that everyone believes I'm an idiot here, should remind me to be more explicit, but I constantly allow trust that we could get past the obvious.

You are living in a dream if you think government is any less corrupt than business. If a nation has any moral spine, it can force business to change or create new business. If a government becomes corrupt, it generally ends in mass slaughter. You need to stop pretending that conservatism in the U.S. has anything to do with Fascism. Constitutionalist ideals are not conducive to Trump. Fascism is, like Socialism, a tumor-like form of government.

Socialism might work, in a nation where citizens are hard working, morally even keel and intellectually curious, but so doesn't every other form of government. Trump is a Democrat, in fact - Reagan was a Democrat. Most people calling themselves Conservatives are Democrats pre 2000, that is where the problem is, there's no yang for the yin. There's just two pissed off yins. Trump just wants someone to love him. But, Biden is quite literally evil.

>116 Cubby.R.S.:
“There’s no way I’m going through extensive research here to defend my position.”

That pretty much says it all. There’s an old saying which applies to this: My mind is made up; don’t confuse me with facts.”

>117 Cubby.R.S.: When people ask for evidence of your statements, they are not saying or fen remotely implying that you are an idiot. They are asking you to supply evidence for your statements. When you’re not willing to do that, the reader might think that you can’t do it, because such research, from reliable sources, doesn’t exist. That doesn’t make you an idiot; it makes you someon who spouts off rigidly-held beliefs without foundation.

And I’ll challenge right now: back up your statement that “Biden is quite literally evil.”
And please start with how you determine what is evil.

bohemima

Nobody reads it and I just get a bunch of, ya but. Until I get honest conversation and not half assed jabs of disapproval, there's really nothing to improve with research. You didn't read the links I put in the berated post either? They defend my position without much work.

Now all you have done is simply given fodder to those that do not want to defend Socialism but love it. Now they will point to you and say, see the right winger doesn't research.

Your comment is death to the conversation. But honestly, it was dead from the beginning. Because Socialists aren't interested in anything but killing those with differing opinions.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/100-years-of-communismand-100-million-dead-15100118...

https://reason.com/2018/07/27/sorry-if-youre-offended-but-socialism-le/

>119 Cubby.R.S.: Cubby:
Oh, Honey. You’re the one slinging half-assed opinions without foundation. Sorry to be so blunt, but come on. If you take a position, be prepared to back it up. Otherwise it’s just hot air.

>120 Matke:

I did back it up, but I'm not doing intensive research. See also >119 Cubby.R.S.:

Biden is evil because he has a desire for power. He has no guiding principal or ideal, simply the desire to be President. Biden literally will change any opinion to get elected.

Here is a few other fun things, he just does.

https://calcoastnews.com/2020/05/joe-bidens-problem-with-the-truth/

https://newsthud.com/watch-biden-busted-blatantly-plagiarizing-speeches-earlier-...

https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-biden-allegations-women-2020-campaign-2019-6

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/499065-lies-damned-lies-and-the-truth-about...

LOL!

All the older ones with their Social Security and Medicare hating on socialism when it's the fucking thing that's keeping so many of them going at all. Millions of them would be lost without those programs and yet again so many of them can and will perorate endlessly on the glories of capitalism (the more unfettered the better!) even if it's an economic system that would bury them a thousand feet under without a second thought whilst in the meantime they demonize the thing that's keeping their heads above water. Stupid?--I would say so. But we also hear their excuses--we worked for it!....we earned it! That makes it okay for me but not these others, no. Their excuses are just pathetic.

Fire departments, public schools, the post office, infrastructure of all kinds--all the commons--even police departments and the military if you want to go that far. Anything meant for public (not private) benefit paid from taxes is linked to socialist (not capitalist) ideology. Capitalism is pretty much all about exploitation--turning something into private profit. It's never ever been about common good or society at all. It's an ideology of dog eat dog selfishness.

>122 Cubby.R.S.:
If you think “Trump just wants to be loved” and that he doesn’t also want power, and that he has a guiding principle or ideal (other than self-love) you just aren’t keeping up with the news.

>123 lriley:
So much this.

Thank you for posting it.

>123 lriley:

I'm in my mid thirties, I am unlikely to retire with Social Security.

>124 Matke:

The problem you have here is, assuming that I like Trump. I have repeatedly stated that I am being forced to vote for Trump. I hope it goes well and an actual Conservative can then get elected. However, I do think we are more likely to vote in the Progessives and repeat the war and depression of 1930s and 40s. Yay!

>127 Cubby.R.S.:
I didn’t say, or even privately assume, that you like Mr. Trump. I quoted exactly what you said in >122 Cubby.R.S.:. Were you being sarcastic there?

>128 Matke:

Trump believes and always has believed that he could do pretty much whatever he wants. The reason he backslashes so fiercely against his opponents is due to his narcissism. As horrendous as he is, I think he has become a better person since he has become President. I actually think that President Trump is presented to the public with the intent of vilifying him. All that said, and as horrible as he may be, Trump will be getting my vote. My wife will be voting for him, the first vote she will bother to register for in 16 years. My in laws, lifelong Democrats, will also be voting for Trump. 21 of my 26 co-workers Will vote for him. Almost all of us, because we have to. Because the alternative will continue to demolish what little is left of the Constitution. We can only hope that there is a brighter choice on the other side, but the path seems a little too skewed with Biden.

Indeed. I see you and your circle do not, in fact, follow Mr. Trump’s actual actions.

I wish you good luck.

>103 prosfilaes: I read a book by a doctor who worked in Cook County Hospital for forty years. He recounted taking twelve years to get one patient affordable knee replacement.

One of Kerry Hamm's books had a story by an ambulance EMT; he arrived at the site of a gunshot wound to find the patient googling how to treat gunshot wound, because it was better than paying for a hospital to treat an abdominal gunshot wound. People are forgoing proper medical care all the time in the US because they can't afford it. Not to mention all the complaints about what insurance will and won't cover effectively acting as death panels.

>104 Cubby.R.S.: 2. Anomalous to the U.S., standard elsewhere. Was it VA?
3. Likely due to Obamacare.

The inherent properties of a private healthcare system imply that it's going to be relatively expensive. You have to pay for all this skilled treatment. What makes you think that someone terrified of getting a bill in the ten thousand dollar range is because of ObamaCare? Why do you assume that everyone can afford full-priced knee replacement?

>117 Cubby.R.S.: You are all attempting to deflate my position by saying regulation in the simplest sense is required. That should be a given.

"I don't believe in punishment for children" and "I don't believe in excessive punishment for children" are two very different statements. Are you telling me you'd accept them as synonyms? I'm complaining about your position because you said we're socialist if we believe in government regulation, then changed it to excessive government regulation, where excessive government regulation is defined by you. You've taken a marginally interesting definitional claim and stripped it of any real interest.

If a government becomes corrupt, it generally ends in mass slaughter.

Opens other tab, copies title: At least 135,000 people have died from coronavirus in the U.S.

You need to stop pretending that conservatism in the U.S. has anything to do with Fascism.

You need to stop pretending that telling us what we should do or not is a useful way of discussing. Fascism is complex, but glorification of violence, nationalism, racism, and extreme patriotism are all commonly defined as parts of it, and are all aspects of conservatism in the US.

>116 Cubby.R.S.: Trend, wait for it. No really, wait.

Socialized healthcare has been around in the UK since 1948. You're telling me that something that existed for my father's entire lifespan is going to collapse if we just wait for it. It's arguable that modern medicine hasn't been around much longer; among other things, penicillin use started in 1942.

>117 Cubby.R.S.: Fascism is, like Socialism, a tumor-like form of government.

This is meaningless. It's literally conveys no meaning.

>119 Cubby.R.S.: https://reason.com/2018/07/27/sorry-if-youre-offended-but-socialism-le/

Not that I support that article, but "But if all you really champion are some higher taxes and more generous social welfare, stop associating yourself with a philosophy that usually brings destitution and death. Call it something else." I.e. you don't get to tell us we're socialists and then paint us with all the worst of socialism.

#126--I'm 62 and I do get social security. Not that I really need it but I know plenty of older people who can't work anymore and that's all they've got and it ain't a lot--it's pretty much a $1000 a month for the majority of its recipients but that's also a life preserver.....and older folks need their medicare too. You can't just let people die when they need help even if they can't afford much. I've had the opportunity as well to look about a variety of nursing and assisted living homes. Even if they can no longer work--older people do benefit a society--often they are its memory that broaden us as people and that's invaluable.

But the political party that gets tagged with taking these programs away IMO is going to get buried in a landslide. Tantamount to political suicide and curiously neither Biden nor Trump as party leaders are entirely trustworthy in that regard which tells you a lot about how shitty their political instincts are. I am by no means a Biden fan--he's a third way neo-liberal corporate happy hack with more than his fair share of bad legislation and shady shit in his background and IMO is cognitively challenged enough where he's half a step away from a dementia diagnosis and I believe what Tara Reade said about his assaulting her (which is a crime). 'Working Class Joe' who never worked a working class job is a joke but comparatively speaking to Trump who IMO is cognitively challenged himself he still comes out well ahead when you consider numerous complaints about sexual assaults against Donald---when you look at his response to racism while in office--from Muslim bans to Hispanic hating to Charlottesville to the Floyd protests today and when you look at his non-response to a pandemic that's killed over 130,000 already and probably will at least double by inauguration day and every day that we wake up there's some new dumb shit that he's done like the crap going on in Portland Oregon. People are sick and tired of his act---that's why Biden's ahead. It's not because Biden is any way a good candidate---he is fucking awful in fact. A person who wants to be POTUS should understand right off the bat that shit's going to land on his/her plate and that people are going to hate him/her. It comes with the job. Crying about this person or entity doesn't love me---that person or entity is out to get me is a bunch of crap. If you can't take the heat that comes with the job....that has always come with that job then don't bother running. His job is to govern and his Covid response tells us all we need to know about that. What we have is no national response and 50 different governors trying to wing things 50 different ways. It's insane---there's no way to get ahead of this pandemic and get the economy righted without coordinating the entire country into the same effort and the virus has to get knocked down before the economy can come back.

It's been a great chat. We all agree that our government is corrupt. Your solution is to give it more power. The most profitable businesses are in bed with our government, your solution is to give the government more power. When the government grows inflated and further corrupted, slaughter happens. When business grows corrupt and the Socialists take over, the government... Well, you got it, slaughter happens. Same old story, same religious aspirations and then the same slaughter. We aren't Switzerland, we are a very diverse nation with diverse needs. We have to stop trying to use analytics and box everyone up.

If the only response is; stop trying box all Socialist policy up, well par for the course. History says a nation this size can't make it to the end game of Communism without a lot of death. Address why you think more government policy and control will suddenly work. I mean, you think over half the country is a bunch of ignorant fascists.

>130 Matke:
I am worried about what you believe, quite earnestly. I do know about Trump, and honestly do not like him. But you actually trust the news you read. I have to look and see the reality that has occurred. Trump sucks, but more government power will crush this nation. Over half of the people I know, voted for Obama. He lied, Trump lies, and the solution is to grow government.

As if all this bullshit didn't happen before Trump. This is where I grow frustrated at the fucking ridiculousness. The government abuse has been going on since Wilson. Right after workers started getting help from the government, the government started wielding power against its citizens. Let's give them more power, really? What the fuck.

>133 lriley: Thank you, Iriley. Biden’s a hack, yes. But he’s the better alternative.

>134 Cubby.R.S.: Under the Republicans we have socialism for the rich and for corporate interests. Revisit the last “tax reform” and check out the fine print.

Additionally, check out the astronomical growth of the National Debt in the last four years. That’s under Republican auspices, and it’s not because social programs are expanding into socialism. Who do you think will pay for that? It won’t be the corporations unless we get some more progressive government.

Capitalism cannot and will not regulate itself. It has polluted and despoiled the planet; it has run over small businesses. I can assure you that Walmart, for example, did not drive small local stores out of business because of regulations. That was because of greed. And untrammeled capitalism is simply greed writ large.

>134 Cubby.R.S.: the Socialists take over, the government... Well, you got it, slaughter happens

Seems to me slaughter happens whether under capitalism or socialism.

Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Chile, etc became right wing fascist regimes, and slaughter happened, just as it did in socialist regimes such as China and USSR. I don't recall what the regime was in Turkey when they slaughtered the Armenians in 1915 or the Kurds in the 1980s, but I don't think it was socialism. Britain was certainly under a capitalist system when we slaughtered Africans during colonialism, as was Belgium when they slaughtered people in the Congo and Germany when they slaughtered the Herero and Namaqua. Most of the protagonists who slaughtered each other between 1914 and 1918 were capitalist countries, and indeed when Russia became socialist it pulled out of that particular slaughterous episode, although it more than made up for it later. Most of the protagonists in World War II were also of the right wing capitalist persuasion.

>135 Matke:

I'm accused of espousing right-wing dogma, but the reality is our sides are too divided. I understand that the tenets of Socialism sound effective, but you have to remember that people corrupt everything alike. Government or business will be corrupted, so private corporations can be replaced or reprimanded if people care. The problem is, most people do not care enough.

You're wrong. Many small businesses are forced into red tape and guidelines that are too expensive so that small stores are weakened.

By the way, I'm more interested in manufacturing and craftsmanship than the mercantile.

You have to get beyond Trump. Obama did more damage than anyone and Trump is continuing it. The government isn't getting better, we can't give them more power.

See also >94 Cubby.R.S.:

>136 John5918:

National Socialists are not Fascists.

Go back to the circle, not the straight line diagram.

>131 prosfilaes:

Pre Obama, free insurance through the firm I work for, for the entire family. Post Obama, 1100 dollars per month for the family, 950 for spouse.

The private insurance market competed and prices were low. It would have been in fact cheaper to pay cash for those who could not afford insurance than to work the deal Obama illegally did. All for what? The rich got richer and we're one step closer to the apparently beloved Socialism.

Since there has been a lot of talk in this thread about national health systems, here's a quote from the UN Secretary General today:

The health crisis had revealed the world’s fragility and “laid bare risks we have ignored for decades: inadequate health systems; gaps in social protection; structural inequalities; environmental degradation; the climate crisis”, he said. He said the pandemic was exposing “fallacies and falsehoods everywhere: the lie that free markets can deliver healthcare for all. The fiction that unpaid care work is not work, the delusion that we live in a post-racist world, the myth that we are all in the same boat.”

"the lie that free markets can deliver healthcare for all"

From UN chief slams 'myths, delusions and falsehoods' around inequality (Guardian)

#140--I think our health system in the United States--not having a system that covers all is particularly exposed to this kind of pandemic. We again are subject to being forced to adapt to different state and national interpretations of how to effectively deal with a myriad of health care issues that are unresolved on a national level and only fuels the spread of the virus. What we have is no coherent national strategy and a virus that effortlessly crosses over borders. A lot of people as well are afraid to deal with a health system that might bankrupt them for the rest of their lives--they either don't get help or are very slow in getting it. To me it's been an argument all along for M4A and when this pandemic is over or run its course we should prepare ourselves for the next pandemic because a next one likely will come.

As for 'free markets can deliver health care for all'--that's never been the goal of free markets. It's more like delivering health care only for those who can afford (deserve) it. They are into it for profit--that is the main goal. Even the democrats vaunted ACA otherwise known as Obamacare did not and recognized it did not and recognized it couldn't cover everyone. It is structured really so that a % of the population goes uninsured and another % goes underinsured. Again in a pandemic the virus has no boundaries as to who to attach to though it circulates much easier amongst the poor or those who can't afford health insurance. Florida over 10,000 new cases yesterday, California just under 10,000, Texas about 15,000 new cases yesterday. These numbers are pretty much what is expected now day to day. We watched a long steady rise of case in New York and a very, very gradual decline and still doing around 700/800 a day here. When Texas Gov. Abbott tells Texans to rise to the occasion and they can beat it in a month--it's probably going to take 2 or 3 months anyway for Texas to get to where New York is. I've been noting deaths ticking up too--I don't think they are ever going to get near to what New York was dealing with in March or April or what Italy and Spain dealt with but there are still a lot of people who are going to die not just in those states but all over the country and most of this is needless---the lack of a national response adds greatly to the numbers.

>116 Cubby.R.S.: You won't even say what metrics matter to you? I'm not asking you to do the research, I'm asking what metrics you think matter when it comes to comparing health care across nations.

If you don't have those metrics at hand, how can you possibly say that the US is "the best"?

>122 Cubby.R.S.: Biden is evil because he has a desire for power. He has no guiding principal or ideal, simply the desire to be President. Biden literally will change any opinion to get elected

So you'd agree that Trump is evil as well?

deleted - realized that I was snapping at troll bait

Yeah, even with the blocking one can tell there's an orgy of jerking people around in this thread with Trumpian routines.

It's getting to be almost conceptual-arty, like some deranged political theatre. (To add to Trumpo's list of crimes: MURDERING Dada and surrealism. Ain't nobody gonna want artistically subvert order and perceptions of reality for a long time to come after this...)

>138 Cubby.R.S.: National Socialists are not Fascists.

Nazis are the prototypical fascists. And the way certain people keep emphasizing "socialist" in that name is silly; do you believe the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" (aka North Korea) is a Democratic Republic?

Go back to the circle, not the straight line diagram.

Models are models, not reality. No one-dimensional model of politics is going to perfectly represent world government. Federal police have been yanking people off streets in Portland into unmarked cars; however you cut the model, that's bad. When you let your model blind you to stuff like that, it's a problem.

>139 Cubby.R.S.: Pre Obama, free insurance through the firm I work for, for the entire family. Post Obama, 1100 dollars per month for the family, 950 for spouse.

My cousin had a blood disease that needed regular transfusions. He had free insurance through the small business his father worked for. Then his boss missed one payment, and the insurance was canceled, and no insurance company would cover the company with my cousin for a reasonable price. All this pre-Obama.

It would have been in fact cheaper to pay cash for those who could not afford insurance

Huh? I don't know what we're implying here.

to work the deal Obama illegally did.

The Supreme Court ruled it wasn't illegal, and you wouldn't be fussing about the argued violation of federalism if it was a deal you liked.

we're one step closer to the apparently beloved Socialism.

I've read claims that the Republicans are driving the support of Socialism among the younger population. When Mitch McConnell says that a national voting holiday is socialism, many people say socialism is starting to sound pretty good. Certainly in a large part of this particular forum, socialism doesn't sound scary. In general, "we're one step closer to X" is a lazy argument, especially in political arguments. You can always say something like "we're one step closer to" fascism/socialism/communism/anarchy/totalitarianism, and at least one of those is almost certainly true.

It's Confirmed Again -- 2020 Election Referendum on Trump pure and simple.

Voters don't have to "love" Biden to vote for him. Evidence continues to mount that all voters have to do is remember how much they despise Trump. Latest poll from WaPo published last night shows Biden with a 15 point lead over Trump among registered voters. In May, Biden's lead broke into double digits and by July, it has increased 50%.

Anyone still clinging to the myth that Trumpbty-Dumbpty voters are lying about their presidential preference when polled in some kind of gigantic conspiracy to make it appear he's losing big are as crazy as the Orange Shitegibbon. Polls don't escalate like they have in the past 45 days for a false cause. There's no conspiracy here, dear readers. It's an ever-building tsunami repudiating Trump and Trumpism which will break across the country Nov. 3rd.

The report goes on to note that November’s election is now a referendum of the president’s three-plus years in office and voters do not like what they have seen.

140,000 dead Americans are voting from the grave.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/ is the raw numbers, no commentary. They're giving Biden a 8.8 point lead. They also have state polls. Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election and going down to "Results by state", sorting by the margin of Trump's win in 2016, Michigan, Penn., Wis., Florida, NE-2, Ariz., N.C., Georgia and Ohio voted for Trump in 2016 and are now polling for Biden. He won the 2016 election by 35 electoral votes; 136 EVs Trump won in 2016 look to be moving to Biden. Unless something weird happens, the Democratic candidate (almost certainly Biden) is going to win.

>146 prosfilaes:

It is fashionable to link Hitler to Fascism, especially because many want Trump labelled as such. But Fascism is essentially a tactic to gain control, almost all Socialist countries have used it. I realize you may disagree, but the tenets of big government are closer together than a Constitutional Republic. Whether by revolution or by vote, a common moral good is instilled by government rather than from the population and Fascism simply quiets the dissent.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/hitler-and-the-socialist-dream-...

My wife and I did not have insurance coverage when we had our second child. Many, if not all of our bills were reduced at the time, by about 50 plus percent. It cost us less than 7,000 from beginning to post check up to have our little fella. Those bills were close to double that of our daughter, whom my wife had insurance for, but only 4 years earlier. I understand where you're coming from, but millions have been added to free health insurance that were getting it from work. The policy cost more now than having a baby every year and paying cash. I'm certain for every person in your cousin's shoes, we could have paid cash for, instead of insuring 10 more with expensive policies.

The Republicans do suck. They have broken every promise they have made by their inability to actually give a crap. Imagine the excruciating pain in my brain when Dillhole Mitch is called a Conservative. He's a twit, that stomps Conservatives on the neck at every turn. All that said, I went to a small birthday party, I'm taking notes, I note 8 Biden voters and 2 further Trump from my list above. I just hope if Liberals win, they just slit my wrists rather than put me in one of their education camps. Note. >150 LolaWalser:

Tell me an angry Liberal with power doesn't want to ring my neck, for just failing to worship their opinions. This is how it starts. You just say people are worthless and then they are. Why a Constitution? Because everyone deserves freedom, not just those who play a certain way.

I'm amazed that this country has been destroyed so quickly. Obama promised it, gotta hand it to the Democrats, they are ambitious. I won't give up on all of you. As someone who works in Architecture and travels to many different States, works a small farm, dabbles in art and loves history, my diversity let's me accept quite the variety. I'll bring some further info to you in the coming days/weeks. Until then, try and examine Socialism from a Libertarian/Constitutionalist perspective.

I'm also curious. My life is notably better pre Covid, during Trump's presidency. During Obama, we struggled paycheck to paycheck and worked inconsistent hours. I'm on the cusp of so much and I know another era of small business crushing is on the way with Biden. So I wonder, is everyone here doing worse?

>143 kiparsky:

Trump was most certainly evil. I would also say, Obama was once evil as well. But both of those men have have undergone significant change and I think that they both are better than they were before their terms started.

Trump was and is still at times, a bit like a skid mark. Obama was a bit like a snake. I can't judge them from my perspective with any true knowledge of their intent, but I would guess they are no longer evil.

>150 LolaWalser:

I do feel bad for some on this board. I'm pretty sure, someone had a rough childhood, perhaps it made them question themselves, certainly made them an Atheist. But, they no longer need to hate themselves, they can just hate me.

It is remarkable to see someone trying to argue for the American health care system using price as an argument.

This is certainly not an argument worth engaging with, since everyone who is interested in health care already is aware that

The U.S. spends more on health care as a share of the economy — nearly twice as much as the average OECD country — yet has the lowest life expectancy and highest suicide rates among the 11 nations. citation (if you don't like this reference, there are plenty more, these figures are not in dispute)

This is why I asked for, and still eagerly await, some discussion of the metrics on which the US has "the best" health care system in the world, according to >100 Cubby.R.S.:

Without having some basis of comparison, this is nothing more than a slogan - a moron in a crowd shouting "USA! USA!". Since I know that Cubby.R.S. is not a moron, I assume that the metrics will be forthcoming.

Clearly we are not going to be comparing on price or outcomes, since the US lags behind most developed nations on those metrics and has done for decades - as we all are well aware, the US pays more for less than any comparable nation.

I would love to know what metrics could support the claim that the US has the "best" health care system. And I know we'll be getting an answer on that, any day now.

>153 kiparsky:

Post Obamacare, the U.S. healthcare system has certainly regressed, especially the cost. But, those other countries are not doing wondrous things. The only systems the government do operate are bankrupt or as the VA does, quite literally costing lives.

See also >116 Cubby.R.S.:

I believe our suicide rate is a reflection on a gross materialistic society losing touch with meaning and our lifespan is (notably during Obama) declining because of eating habit and lifestyle, not healthcare.

I will try and address the overwhelming amount of backlash and questioning, but it was a busy week here and I got a lot of project work at the office.

>149 Cubby.R.S.: It is fashionable to link Hitler to Fascism,

Fascism is practically defined as what Hitler did.

But Fascism is essentially a tactic to gain control, almost all Socialist countries have used it.

For senses of fascism and socialist that have nothing to do with the way political scientists or anyone else uses the words.

I'm certain for every person in your cousin's shoes, we could have paid cash for,

Who could have paid cash for? That makes no sense outside the context of socialized medicine.

Tell me an angry Liberal with power doesn't want to ring my neck, for just failing to worship their opinions. This is how it starts.

You make up some strawmonsters and blame us for them. There's a lot of liberals actually getting death threats, but those death threats don't matter to you, but liberals gets pissed off at certain things, and boom, that's all you can talk about.

You just say people are worthless and then they are.

What are you talking about? Is it

>134 Cubby.R.S.: The government abuse has been going on since Wilson. Right after workers started getting help from the government, the government started wielding power against its citizens.

where somehow decades of violence against Indians, slavery, and Jim Crow don't count as "government abuse" or "the government starting wielding power against its citizens."

Until then, try and examine Socialism from a Libertarian/Constitutionalist perspective.

Which one? Constitutionally, the federal government has the ability to tax and distribute the money, thus socialized medicine is perfectly constitutional. More generally, that and the ability to regulate interstate commerce would give the federal government broad rights to implement socialism.

Note that a Constitutionalist perspective opposes you. We the people formed a more perfect Union to promote the general welfare, or so sayeth the preamble to the Constitution.

>154 Cubby.R.S.: Metrics? Or are you just going to keep spouting talking points?

Also, just out of curiosity, in your opinion, how many times does someone have to dodge a simple question before you can safely assume they have no idea what they're talking about and they're just stalling in the hopes that the question will go away?

>156 kiparsky:

Metrics -

Rare disease treatment
Research
Chronic disease treatment
Cancer survival

If you're talking about cost, no. But there again, that was a tremendous issue heightened by Obamacare. But all of those Socialist countries continue to cut the healthcare budget, because they can't afford it. We already carry massive debt and cannot manage the VA. What do you think our government insurance would look like? The US also has 4 times the population of most nations with reasonable healthcare. The US healthcare system is broken, but I don't think those other European countries are cutting costs for any benefit, only out of necessity.

>155 prosfilaes:
?

>157 Cubby.R.S.: Rare disease treatment
Research
Chronic disease treatment
Cancer survival

You wouldn't include the following as metrics to be considered?

Accessibility of quality health care for all
Primary and preventive health care
Community health
Mental health

>159 John5918:

Any and all countries provide those, I don't think you can deny anyone service in the U.S. in emergency situations. Naturally everyone assumes that because it's free in a Socialist environment, and they get it, that it's better. Those things are relatively cheap as well in the U.S.. But, since they are conducive to the argument of Socialized medicine, I figure why the hell would I want to include them?

I was told to choose any metric I wanted.

>160 Cubby.R.S.: Any and all countries provide those, free of charge

Really? Quality health care is accessible to all, regardless of income, in the USA or South Sudan? Adequate quality mental health care is provided to all who need it in the USA or Kenya?

I think that's why people are asking for metrics. Having some first class doctors and medical researchers is not a very useful measure of judging a nation's health services if many people don't realistically have access to basic health care.

>161 John5918:

See above >160 Cubby.R.S.:, I was not finished typing, I posted it from my phone and hadn't finished the edit. I would also like to point out, that in the U.S., if you don't have insurance, you can still get service. If you cannot pay for it, and can prove you cannot pay for it, then they will set up a repayment plan.

However, in the U.K., because Atheism is the religion, there's a unique scenario. A quote from a Vox article:

"There is, in the UK, a government agency that decides which treatments are worth covering, and for whom. It is an agency that has even decided, from the government’s perspective, how much a life is worth in hard currency. It has made the UK system uniquely centralized, transparent, and equitable."

Just because people are okay with who gets to live and die (obviously the living aren't as concerned), doesn't mean it's a great charitable situation. That same article blames the U.S. pricing for death, but in reality many in the U.S. that fall into that category waited to get treatment.

Another quote from the Vox article:
https://www.vox.com/2020/1/28/21074386/health-care-rationing-britain-nhs-nice-me...

And this, ladies and gentlemen and all you other people, is why I don't want Socialized medicine in the U.S., right here. My largest argument summed up:

The late Uwe Reinhardt, the famed health economist who helped set up Taiwan’s single-payer system (read my colleague Dylan Scott for more on that), once told me that he feared American politics was too captured to properly construct a single-payer system.

“I have not advocated the single-payer model here,” he said, “because our government is too corrupt. Medicare is a large insurance company whose board of directors — Ways and Means and Senate Finance — accept payments from vendors to the company...

But let's take the politicians at their word -- they'll fix us.

>157 Cubby.R.S.: Thank you for that answer. To me, that seems a pretty idiosyncratic list - I can see why you say America has the "top health-care industry" rather than something like "America has the best health care in the world". I can see that there's a pretty fundamental disconnect between us in terms of what we're looking for in health care, and that means it's probably not worth spending a lot of time trying to come to an agreement on this.

>If you're talking about cost, no. But there again, that was a tremendous issue heightened by Obamacare.

I can see why you would find it convenient at this point to pivot to bashing Obama, but this is simply not true. Perhaps anecdotally, you know someone whose insurance spend went up after the AHA went into effect, but if you look at the per-capita cost of health care in the US, for example in the chart here you'll see that US health care spending (in constant dollars) goes from $2K to $11K from 1970 to 2018, and about $7.5K of that happens before 2010. So the problem of health care costs in the US cannot be explained by pointing to the AHA, since it precedes that bill.

But what I'm interested in is actually outcomes compared to cost. Cost on its own is not interesting: we can cut cost very simply, by killing people. That is the proposed conservative solution. Outcomes on their own are also not super helpful: if we have infinite dollars we can optimize outcomes, but we do not have infinite dollars.

And what's embarrassing for the so-called conservative who wants to argue for the status quo is that we're failing both ways. We're getting worse outcomes than comparable countries, and we're not saving any money doing it.

Outcomes are summarized here.

For cost, this simple chart summarizes the data for recent years. Note that you can sort by columns. You can check for yourself that in each of the years listed the US is the top spender.

>164 kiparsky:

Most of the problems and things such as denial of service are still very noteworthy in the NHS. Most of the other countries with a single-payer, still utilize supplemental insurance in order to further cover their needs. Obamacare is directly linked to cost, where it actually adds people like me and my family into financial distress categories, when I had insurance through my work.

https://news.ehealthinsurance.com/news/average-individual-health-insurance-premi...

see also:

However, in the U.K., because Atheism is the religion, there's a unique scenario. A quote from a Vox article:

"There is, in the UK, a government agency that decides which treatments are worth covering, and for whom. It is an agency that has even decided, from the government’s perspective, how much a life is worth in hard currency. It has made the UK system uniquely centralized, transparent, and equitable."

Just because people are okay with who gets to live and die (obviously the living aren't as concerned), doesn't mean it's a great charitable situation. That same article blames the U.S. pricing for death, but in reality many in the U.S. that fall into that category waited to get treatment.

and >163 Cubby.R.S.:

As you can see, your death panel comment is quite a common thing with Socialized medicine. I have no desire to have people killed for the sake of cost. However, that's exactly what Socialized medicine does.

I actually believe the biggest reason why the U.S. Healthcare system is getting worse, has something to do with capitalism, to be sure. Part of the reason why our results are worse is because we are in general eating from trash cans. Because we live pampered and slothful lifestyles. That puts a very large burden on the system, that otherwise wouldn't exist. When you have this much obesity by pct.

https://obesity.procon.org/global-obesity-levels/

In comparison to much smaller nations, our number of critical cases grows. Imagine the U.S. now in a Socialized system, in which they are forced to make cuts. How many people are going to have to die in order to level off the cost?

>165 Cubby.R.S.: To start with, I have not said anything about "death panels", so please do not put words in my mouth. Particularly when they're the words of a screaming moron from Alaska who has thankfully gone off and got eaten by a bear or something - I don't care what, as long as I never have to hear her idiocy again.

Obamacare is directly linked to cost, where it actually adds people like me and my family into financial distress categories, when I had insurance through my work.

Again, if you want an apples-to-apples comparison we need to use per-cap cost. Anecdotal scenarios are not particularly helpful in discussing policy.

It is an agency that has even decided, from the government’s perspective, how much a life is worth in hard currency.

Do you somehow think that the US does not place an economic value on preventing deaths? If so, once again you really are not equipped to have this conversation.

Please review this summary and come back and rejoin us when you're ready to participate.

>167 kiparsky:

You really shouldn't be dismissing the links in >165 Cubby.R.S.: and or comments >166 Cubby.R.S.:

I've tried to address many things here. I think you are being too dismissive. In the end, I'm content to let this drop. If Trump loses, you'll likely get your way.

>168 Cubby.R.S.: I'm certainly dismissing the idea that I've said anything about "death panels". It's kind of important to me that you not attempt to speak for me, since when you do try to put words in my mouth, it derails the conversation.

If you have a question about interpreting what I say, you might try asking about it. I promise I'll be a lot quicker to answer those questions than you or any of the self-identified so-called "conservatives" in this group.

I also dismiss argument by anecdote. What happened to someone you know personally is important to you, but we need useful numbers if we're going to come to any agreement, or even a civilized disagreement, on policy.

Frankly, the fact that your family, or anyone at all, is in "distress" because of the out-of-pocket costs of health insurance is nothing more or less than an argument for scrapping the American model entirely. The American requirement of employer-provided health insurance as a barrier to care is not anything sacred, it's not even something anyone ever wanted. It's the result of a WWII-era general pay freeze, and some perverse tax incentives. There's no good reason for it to continue. If there were, someone else in the world would be doing it - and nobody is.
And it is the reason why people end up in distress paying for health care.

This is not rocket surgery, dude. It's pretty simple: we should do what works. And the only reason we don't do what works is because what we do now
has advantages for some people who have the money to be influential: it is extremely profitable for the entities that run insurance companies and hospitals, and it serves as a barrier to employee mobility, which helps to depress wages.

If Trump loses, you'll likely get your way.

You think so? I don't expect comprehensive health care reform in Biden's first (and possibly only) term. I expect him to be spending most of his time putting the country back together after this manic, under the instruction of his handlers, went in and smashed most of it.

Progress - for example, getting families like yours out of the distress that our foolishness has caused them - will depend on us keeping the Nihilist Anarchist Party from getting control of any branch of the government. So basically, if out-of-pocket cost of health care is an issue for you, you can best serve your own interests by ensuring that people who think like you never vote under any circumstances.

Keeping the anarchists at home on election day can be your contribution to the welfare of families like yours.

>169 kiparsky:

You said: But what I'm interested in is actually outcomes compared to cost. Cost on its own is not interesting: we can cut cost very simply, by killing people. That is the proposed conservative solution.

Deciding who lives and dies seems to be a common trend in all Socialized medicine, something you can decide to call a death panel or not.

My wife and I no longer carry insurance, we use a high deductible share plan. Our kids meet the criteria based on income for the State Insurance program with reduced cost. Because my wife decided to stay home with our children, we do get decreased cost for their insurance. Ultimately, we would have been in bigger trouble had she continued to work. This is not by any stretch of the imagination a rare case. Quite standard.

see costs in this link. Notice the surge.

https://news.ehealthinsurance.com/news/average-individual-health-insurance-premi...

>170 Cubby.R.S.: Deciding who lives and dies seems to be a common trend in all Socialized medicine, something you can decide to call a death panel or not.

In the end, any system of health care operating in a world of finite resources will "decide who lives and who dies". The obvious question is, how is that decision made? The more subtle question is, what choices can we make to affect the level of need for that sort of triage?

To answer the first question, under the American health care system, we ration health care by wealth and status: certain people have access to regular visits to a physician who takes a longitudinal view of their health, and works with them to improve it - ie, real health care. Those people are the ones who have been lucky enough to wind up in a position where they can pay for this care on their own, or more likely, to have found themselves in a job which provides this sort of health care as a sort of add-on to their salary.
People who are not so fortunate have to make do with what they can get, which is generally a lot of nothing until neglect festers into crisis, and then they get emergency care to put the crisis back into "impending" mode, plus a ruinous bill.

If you were to ask people in any country with real health care whether they would want the American model, they would laugh at you, and then they would invite you to take advantage of their excellent, and free, mental health services.

As for the second question, in America we choose to devote a large portion of our "health care" dollars to subsidizing insurance companies. Every dollar you're complaining about is going to those insurance companies, who have no reason at all to be in this business. They do nothing to facilitate care or treatment, they exist only to block your access to treatment until you pay them their blood money.

We could be rid of them, and of the premiums that you're talking about, very easily. All it would take is to move to one of the well-tested and highly functioning socialized health care models. But there's no sense at all in you complaining about premium costs in one breath and then arguing for increasing them in the next.

>171 kiparsky:

If I thought for one minute, that your fantasy was possible, I'd be on board. The corruption in government is still a massive problem. You are talking about a magical solution that has quite literally never been achieved. Then, you want to take a sick population, that abuses their current coverage with prescriptions out the rear, and expect a government run healthcare system to cope with it. It can't happen in the U.S., the population is grossly spoiled and simply pulling the plug will have a very negative impact.

I do agree that insurance companies are a major issue. It is a difficult problem to solve, because we have too many people that fear life without it. Share plans, similar to a socialized health care system, might be a solution. But I just don't see how the government can make this work. All of the countries with socialized healthcare are constantly making cuts and facing budget issues.

>172 Cubby.R.S.: a magical solution that has quite literally never been achieved

It involves no magic and it has been achieved many times in many ways. You have all sorts of models to choose from, all of which have shown that they work much better, for much less money, than the one we're using now.

I don't understand your current line of argument. Are you suggesting that Americans are by their nature unable to cope with proper health care? Is this some sort of weird inversion of "American exceptionalism"?
I really don't follow you.

a sick population, that abuses their current coverage with prescriptions out the rear

This does not sound like an argument that I would be making in favor of keeping what we have now. If you believe that Americans are "sick" and that our current system leads to abuse of meds, then clearly you believe that our current system is not fit for purpose. Why would you want to keep doing this?

>173 kiparsky:

See also >166 Cubby.R.S.:

I know plenty of people, that when given the choice, choose to take pills rather than exercise and eat right.

>172 Cubby.R.S.: l agree with you that the transition would be difficult. The insurance companies would resist it with all means. And they would probably also resist any change however small that could lead to real health care. So maybe that's also the answer. Take over the health care part of the insurance companies (of course paying them a fair price for it).

(I live in Denmark which has mostly "Socialized health care" but also privately run hospitals and dentists are privately run but with caps on prices, ownership and advertising. So it doesn't have to be all or nothing.) You are also correct about the constant cuts and budget issues. But that's a large part of why the "Socialized health care" is much cheaper than your current model. The Danish politicians can't let the health care costs drain the total budget.

The irony in all this could overfill the Grand Canyon.

Joe Biden, supposedly the candidate faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, the champion of truth, justice and the American way--you know--that guy?

Well, he couldn't possibly be more totally owned and operated by the major U.S. and multinational corporate healthcare and insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

In fact, I regard his close ties to these as the single most important reason he's the Democrat's candidate and not some other. There were lots of people contending for nomination but none of them could beat Uncle Joe B. for being the lifetime achiever as bought-and-paid-for puppet of these industries.

The idea that there'd ever be anything seriously approaching any challenge to their crushing dominance in their domain as long as people like Biden, the Clintons, the Obamas, are in there calling the shots--well that's really the funniest damn thing I've ever heard.

It isn't that universal health, single payer, isn't affordable. It's been shown over and over that it would save a fortune. But that fortune would come directly out the pockets of the big health, pharma and insurance agencies' pockets and its from those same pockets that the national Democratic party establishment gets the blood that goes into its blood-sucking funnel.

Nor is there any reason to stop with health-care and drugs and insurance when it comes to examining the extent to which money and earnings determine how resources are allocated.

You could have just as well taken anything else and shown the same thing.

Choices and superior products and performance go to those who have the means to purchase the more expensive things on offer commercially.

Money rules and it rules the Democrats just as it does anyone and anything else. Or, actually, and again, ironically, Trump, being only a nominal Republican, is less "owned" by corporate wealth if only because, as a player in his own right, he's used to inter-family wealth battles; that is, he's rich because he's born wealthy and has always had to argue, bargain, trade, threaten, bluff and use all the best known tactics of getting the better of one's commercial competition. In short, bargaining, deal-making, getting as much as he could for as little as possible in return was Mother's-milk to him.

Now, having done that, he can use these skills in public life and choose to apply the benefits to the good of the nation, outside a commercial, business-and-profit point of view. Why would he do that? Because, unlike what is the case for his Democrat opponents, whose only commercial aspect of their political skill is the price at which they sell themselves out to superior wealth, for Trump, this is a new and interesting way of measuring success; this novel approach, is just that: refreshingly different from what he'd been used to in the business world.

In the presence of wealth, Trump doesn't gush, grovel or fawn--because he doesn't need to. He looks at the silverware with a critical eye. He critiques the property, the furnishings, the bank balances and just isn't so Wowed by other extremely wealthy people. So, when it becomes necessary, and, otherwise, whenever he's so inclined, he can and does drive a hard bargain and, to do that, he knows how to and when to say "No, no deal on those terms," walk off and wait for his counter-parties to mull over what he's proposing.

Not that he always shall drrive the best and hardest bargain on behalf of those whose misfortunes mean they really need him in their corner, but, whenever he's so inclined, he can do that.

The Democrats have lately (fifteen years and counting) only distinguished themselves in their being, compared to Trump, amazingly incompetent chumps who, despite themselves, actually consistently make Trump look good compared to the Clown-figure they cut.

>176 proximity1: Am I to understand from that post that you would actually prefer to have a single-payer universal coverage health care system in the US?

I'm trying, really trying to keep an open-mind about the theoretical possibility that Trump could lose the November re-election bid.

But it's really a challenge to do that.

His political opponents, whether Democrats or anti-Trump Republicans have so thoroughly and consistently lived in a pure fantasy-world when it comes to assessing their own or their opponents' strengths and weaknesses that I find it next to impossible to see how they're going to escape the bubble of comforting self-delusions in which they've hidden for so long now--escape, that is, in order to venture out into the world of reality long enough to actually win the election. I just don't see any evidence of their either wanting to do that or being capable of it even they wanted to do it. And they apparently don't want to do it.

They don't even venture out on Groundhog Day.

They never leave their bubble of make-believe because, having corrupted much of the national press corps, which is now heavily invested in this same work of self-delusion, they simply never have to leave it.

Trump, by contrast, gets up every morning and goes to bed every evening knowing, assuming, that he's got to re-set all the clocks at night and once again in the morning, since, in the meantime, they've been adjusted while he sleeps to Democrat-Fantasy-Time and so much of his audience takes this for granted.

Trump knows that he cannot afford that error. I can well imagine him paying someone to do nothing but remind him that he's skating on thin ice. (and the Dem's own mass news-media are happy to join in telling him that all day every day).

>158 Cubby.R.S.: I see. Too much for you to read? Then let's focus on one thing.

>149 Cubby.R.S.: Tell me an angry Liberal with power doesn't want to ring my neck, for just failing to worship their opinions. This is how it starts.

On September 15, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama, Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14), and Carol Denise McNair (11) were killed when the church they were in was blown up by right-wing domestic terrorists.
On April 19, 1995, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 168 people were killed by right-wing domestic terrorists when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was blown up.
On June 8, 2014, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Igor Soldo, Alyn Beck and Joseph Robert Wilcox were shot by right-wing domestic terrorists.
On August 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia, Heather Heyer was killed by a right-wing domestic terrorist.

This is but a small sample of killings by right-wing domestic terrorists. But no, you imagine that there's an angry liberal who wants to ring your neck, and you think that's an argument that liberals will eventually kill anyone who disagrees with them. You're demonizing your enemies, for no reason at all.

>165 Cubby.R.S.: However, in the U.K., because Atheism is the religion, there's a unique scenario.

The Church of England is the established church in England. In no part of the UK is atheism the established religion. The 2011 census gives the UK 60% Christians and 25% "no religion"; other ways of asking the question give 52% "no religion", a bare majority.

Just because people are okay with who gets to live and die (obviously the living aren't as concerned), doesn't mean it's a great charitable situation.

The US government puts a value of 8 to 10 million on a human life; see https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-value-of-life/ . What type of pollutants can industry put out? That's deciding who gets to live and die. No one likes the cold hard decisions, but trying to act like we escape them is absurd.

>179 prosfilaes:

The conversation in its totality needs to be read at this point, and your replying to very small portions.

-- That list and a much bigger one has been used with Democrats on it.

Liberals are not my enemies, they are my fellow countrymen and women that are driving the country off a cliff.

As far as the Liberal that wants to ring my neck; that Liberal blocks anyone that dares differ in opinion. The same Communist posts a degrading and hate-filled rant, essentially saying how worthless Americans are. I'm not demonizing anybody who doesn't appreciate being considered a demon.

>180 prosfilaes:

United Kingdom Religion, Economy and Politics
49% of the UK population is irreligious (or has no particular affiliation with any religion), 17% is affiliated with an Anglican Christian, 17% with a non-Anglican Christian faith, 8% Roman Catholic, 5% Islamic, and 4% other beliefs. An interesting side-note of religion and the UK is that only Protestants may gain the crown of king or queen, and those eligible for the crown have only recently been allowed to marry those of the Catholic faith without losing their eligibility.

and another:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/11/uk-secularism-on-rise-as-more-than...

Just want to jump in and point out that the idion is "to wring someone's neck" (like wringing out a wet towel).
Not "to ring someone's neck".

Thank you, I now return you to your disputation already in progress.

>181 Cubby.R.S.: -- That list and a much bigger one has been used with Democrats on it.

That's a blatant falsehood. The Alfred P. Murrah bombing is the worst act of domestic terrorism in American history; there is no left-wing equivalent in the US. The only killings I can recall, in the US in that time range linked to left-wing terrorism, are

On October 20, 1981, Peter Paige, Edward O'Grady and Waverly Brown were killed by left-wing terrorists in the course of an armored truck robbery.

that Liberal blocks anyone that dares differ in opinion.

Because that's violent and kills people, and is so totally not something that conservatives ever do. The Communist Control Act of 1954 explicitly outlaws the Communist Party of the US; that is vast magnitudes of blocking beyond personal blocks on social media.

The same Communist posts a degrading and hate-filled rant, essentially saying how worthless Americans are.

The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest (self-identified) socialist group in the US, and claims 70,000 members. The Communist Party USA, the largest communist group in the US claims 10,000. Wow, you've found a bizarre relic of the past, but I believe the Communists in the US are outnumbered by the number of slavery proponents in the US.

There certainly are some assholes on the left, but you're ignoring a lot of hate-filled rants on the right, and probably dismissing a lot of real problems as "saying how worthless Americans are".

>182 Cubby.R.S.: And if you just ask them their religion, as on the census, 60% will say Christian. Any way you cut it, atheism is not the religion of the UK. There's a massive distinction between "has no particular affiliation with any religion", and is an atheist, and even if there wasn't, saying a plurality or bare majority of the population is atheist would still not make the country with an established Anglican church have atheism as its religion.

>184 prosfilaes:

Snopes has a whole list that was circulated, they fact checked and said most of it was unproven. These lists are all over the place and they just switch political affiliation as needed. Mass murderers and terror acts abound.

The point was, the Communist that posted the video likes to take jabs at me, and blocks everyone that they deem irrelevant and it's a bit irritating.

How many deaths has Socialism caused?

https://www.eagleobserver.com/news/2019/sep/25/opinion-death-by-socialism-look-a...

>183 kiparsky:

Thanks, I never payed a bit of attention to it.

>184 prosfilaes:

You might also work on your preamble to the Constitution.

Some of the vague responses that you are offering are removed from the context, I have not had time to address them. I am reading everything that is being given to me, I don't think you have. My concern is, that you are responding to things that are being built since >74 Cubby.R.S.: and taking a serious toll on my life, because the next Liberal is going to see the claim and say WTF.

I'm just saying, you can't expect me to argue with four or five people and have time to answer for some of these things.

>185 prosfilaes:

Did you read the link in >182 Cubby.R.S.:?

>186 Cubby.R.S.: Snopes has a whole list that was circulated, they fact checked and said most of it was unproven. These lists are all over the place and they just switch political affiliation as needed. Mass murderers and terror acts abound.

Again, you dodge the question and avoid the point. Liberals are getting murdered by right-wing figures, but some liberal blocks you and "This is how it starts." If "Mass murderers and terror acts abound", then why is someone who wants to wring your neck important?

How about this: take my list and look up every event I mentioned. They're not unproven events.

The point was, the Communist that posted the video likes to take jabs at me, and blocks everyone that they deem irrelevant and it's a bit irritating.

So what?

How many deaths has Socialism caused?

https://www.eagleobserver.com/news/2019/sep/25/opinion-death-by-socialism-look-a....

First, why on Earth would you use such a trashy source? An opinion piece in a newspaper? That's well below Wikipedia.
Secondly, this is standard equivocation. We're talking about socialized health care, as all of Europe has, like the allies we gave nuclear weapons in the Cold War have, and you bring up the Soviet Union and China.

>189 Cubby.R.S.: The one that says "The non-religious are increasingly atheist. One in four members of the public stated: “I do not believe in God,” compared with one in 10 in 1998.", which resoundingly disproves that atheism is the religion of the UK? Did you read it?

>188 Cubby.R.S.: You might also work on your preamble to the Constitution.

>155 prosfilaes: Note that a Constitutionalist perspective opposes you. We the people formed a more perfect Union to promote the general welfare, or so sayeth the preamble to the Constitution.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

ugh...

>190 prosfilaes:

prosfilaes, I know you know it's not nice to hold discussions by proxy. There is zero reason why you should discuss with this person posts by someone who is not engaged in your conversation. Even worse, by going along with this side of his posts you are compounding the personal insults which led me to block him, and as it were amplifying them.

If there's something YOU'd like to say to me, go ahead. But please don't make comments about me and my posts to him, at least in public.

For the record, every single person I blocked in this forum had made direct, clear, flaggable personal attacks on me and other people. I used to have more patience with such abuse but not anymore.

(Besides, I find this Trumpodadaist performance the fucking BORINGEST troll routine ever--JMO... of course)

As for Carlin's video, I think it should play 24/7 until the election is over because the referendum isn't only on Trumpo but the sort, the mentality, the culture of those who voted for him.

In short, is this assclown to stamp his likeness on American society for generations to come?



Just a millisecond of staring at that sight proves Carlin right in every way.

>191 LolaWalser: Just looking at that picture, I can see the strain. He's cracking up, look at those eyes and that sickly grin.

And man, who let him in front of a camera wearing a tie that he'd slept in?

>190 prosfilaes:

Would you just ask me the question, whatever it is, I'll answer. But I don't see what you're asking?

The point is, terrorism and mass killing happens from both sides. You are really stuck on this. Just know that the U.S. has even placed citizens in special camps, a Progressive to be sure. But it was really an arbitrary point, that was meant as a response to you know who now.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-08-07/what-role-does-ideology-pl...

You are quite the literal person. Atheism is in the deep seated heart of Great Britain. Make no mistake. It is perhaps not declared their religion, of course not, but that really isn't a necessary position to take now is it.

Take what you will from it this. Means to an end.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes#Estimates

https://freethepeople.org/how-many-people-has-socialism-killed/

Now does Liberty mean to you, all you own and all you do is the property of everyone? Is that Liberty? Your mind and body, your business and hell your dog is property of the government.

>193 Cubby.R.S.: You are quite the literal person. Atheism is in the deep seated heart of Great Britain. Make no mistake. It is perhaps not declared their religion, of course not, but that really isn't a necessary position to take now is it.

And you make up whatever truth you want. A nation that has been Christian for well over a millennia, has an established church, but when you want it, you can call them atheism. There's no evidence that could convince you otherwise.

Now does Liberty mean to you, all you own and all you do is the property of everyone?

"You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store."

Mark 12:30-31 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”"

Yep, your push for absolute liberty is so, so Christian and conflating the American left and Communism and not thinking about company stores and people effectively owned by their bosses is entirely fair.

I must be talking to the wrong "liberals" and "progressves". Far from wanting to wring anybody's necks, most of my US friends and colleagues are looking for a better life for everybody, and many are longing for some form of reconciliation rather than a pyrrhic "victory". Yes, they would like to see Trump replaced by a more acceptable president through constitutional means, but no, they're not looking for revenge and they would like to see a reduction in polarised and polemical identity politics and culture wars, and a move towards a nonviolent society, not an escalation. Some sort of truth and reconciliation process would be nice, perhaps looking back as far as your Civil War. As I say, maybe I have the wrong US friends.