The General US Politics Thread

There's a whole lot of alt right websites (and supposedly progressive websites sadly) that spend all their time convincing their viewership that Trump is not a threat. As I mentioned before I had to unfollow one of my cousins on Facebook because he wouldn't stop posting racist, sexist, and above all else, pro-Trump BS from the heinously named "Disdain for Plebs" website.

I feel that with the new revelation that Trump is with the Russians it doesn't matter how white and male you are, you're gonna get fucked.

How are the Republicans in Congress responding to all this Russia stuff?

Mitch Mc Connel tried to wave off Trump's willingness to abandon NATO countries as "a rookie mistake" but that was a week ago.

Abandoning the countries we swore to protect and dismantling the most successful military alliance in human history, is just a "rookie mistake"

Party over country.

Disdain for Plebs etc: They aren't trying to paint Trump as a non-threat; they're actively recruiting for his efforts. Those meme pages are not designed to butter up anyone with doubts about Trump or neo-Nazis, their target audience is the Trump base and neo-Nazis. When people speak openly of how people with even the slightest differences in opinion of government policy are subhuman, and willingly rewrite history to fit their ideology, there leaves very little doubt as to who they are, what they want and what will happen should they get political power.

They know they can't march on the streets without the risk of incoming bricks and baseball bats, so they camp out on social media, the chans and Reddit all day.

I doubt Sam Harris would be very happy to discover that he and his fans would rank near the top of a list of people "to be eliminated for dangerous ideologies".

edited 27th Jul '16 11:35:50 AM by Krieger22

The NY Times take on the story does raise the point that no one knows (or no one's said) that the Russian hack had the specific intent of influencing the election or just the usual broad info gathering state sponsored hackers are usually up to. (No link because I've hit the paywall for the month.)

I remember that it was something of an unspoken rule that you didn't have these kinds of press conferences while the other party was having their convention. This isn't even smart of Trump, in the sense that "oh, he's taking the media attention back to him! He's showing up the Democrats!" This is just really fucking petty; even if he didn't outright say "I hope Russia finds more emails"-which, hilariously, only lends more support to the theory that Wiki Leaks are Russian proxies-it's pure classlessness.

And once again, Bill proves that he simply doesn't get it.

The Russians were the ones who gave the info to Wikileaks. They knew Assange would use it against Hillary.

Trump threw out the rulebook of "unspoken rules" from the start.

Despite the sheer number of Harris fans who make up parts of the bigoted left and alt right alike. About the only good thing about these people is the joy they take in eating their own.

The sad thing is that if Trump is charged over this it will just lead to people bitching about how it's unfair that Hillary got away with threatening national security while Trump gets the book thrown at him.

edited 27th Jul '16 11:46:00 AM by Kostya

Why Jill Stein is not the saviour the left is looking for.

Nice to see one of the left leaning publications actually point that out.

Jill Stein is not only a terrible candidate, but a leech and a terrible person on top of that.

She's a left wing Ron Paul. A total quack and she's either ignorant or a liar.

And here Trump goes again. He says something outrageous and now all attention is on him again when he should've otherwise been overshadowed by the DNC.

The best case scenario for his foreign policies is burning bridges with Europe for a much more dubious and ambitious ally against China. I don't even want to imagine what the worst case is.

edited 27th Jul '16 12:11:32 PM by CaptainCapsase

...We've been fooled again, haven't we?

Though this does give the Democrats an excellent national security issue.

Russia and China dominating Europe and Asia respectively. While Trump's trade policies isolate the US from its neighbors in the Western Hemisphere.

edited 27th Jul '16 12:14:11 PM by Rationalinsanity

So Trump can openly declare that Russia should hack Americans, but Hillary is still scum because she MIGHT not be too hard on Wall Street?

The fucking "same thing both sides" media bullshit. I swear.

Perhaps. As his campaign goes on and on without imploding, I can't help but wonder if he's actually a lot more intelligent than he pretends to be. I'm not sure what's more alarming honestly; the notion that he's been playing dumb to con the GOP into thinking they'll be able to control him or the idea that he really is that stupid.

edited 27th Jul '16 12:13:22 PM by CaptainCapsase

I just heard a coworker say "That's awesome" upon hearing the news so I'm unsure how much this would hurt him.

I'm convinced now the only thing that would hurt Trump amongst his supporters is if he came out as being in favor of Black Lives Matter

Trump's not just saying things for the media. He's got a long history of supporting the Russians. The timing is still something but his loyalties to them aren't insincere.

At this point, his Cult of Personality is entrenched enough that I imagine he'd gain support from doing that; his supporters would rationalize it as is customary for Black Shirts, and his opponents might be lulled into thinking "well maybe he's just pretending to be racist."

edited 27th Jul '16 12:16:04 PM by CaptainCapsase

Man, this "Trump is Russia's stooge" business is a delicious bit of Red Scare revivalism. Shame it won't pan out — strongmen like Putin are basically the Republican ideal.