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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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If we get to the point where it's Kanye or Trump, we really are in a position where "whoever wins, we lose."
And what if he's running against a modern Stalin? The literal anti-christ? At what point is it so bad that either outcome really is unacceptable? Does it not occur to you that the thought process you're engaging in to normalize a hypothetical Kanye candidacy is the very same as the one the Republican constituency went through to rationalize voting for Trump?
edited 27th Dec '16 4:53:58 PM by CaptainCapsase
@Captain: A modern Stalin would be far more right wing than Trump. Anti-Christ isn't real. It is acceptable when we aren't fighting against Neo Nazis who cheer when people get beat up at their support rallies and want internment camps.
I'm tired of this game of "playing nice" it's time we called them what they are. I'd rather anyone then have another extreamist wingnut than Trump in office. If you care and wish me to prove it isn't the same, I would vote for John Mc Cain or Mitt Romney if he was against the orange hobgoblin. Not a complete partisan deal.
edited 27th Dec '16 4:57:30 PM by Wildcard
One would have to see what kind of campaign Kanye runs. I can think of a few choice insults to apply to the man, but most of them also apply to Trump, and Trump has many faults that Kanye, to the best of my knowledge, does not.
Like, I feel confident that he wouldn't be a good candidate, but the jury's still out on whether or not he'd bad enough to not be able to claim himself as the lesser of two evils against Trump.
I mean, I'd absolutely vote third party faced with that choice, but I have the luxury of living in a country where third parties actually have a realistic chance of winning.
edited 27th Dec '16 5:00:14 PM by Gilphon
@Le Garcon: The previous head of the Democratic Party, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, at least, came across as a woman who was only interested in power and got irritated whenever someone disagreed with her.
American politics would have a hard time being viewed seriously again if such a thing happened. But it won't, because Kanye already supports Trump, so no one would vote for him in 2020.
edited 27th Dec '16 4:58:03 PM by Grafite
Life is unfair...@Wildcard: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
If you put in Trump's place someone who will continue his great work of dismantling liberal democracy in America and further entrenching an illiberal managed democracy, in the long term you have gained nothing, and changed only the official justification for the boot stamping on your face forever.
edited 27th Dec '16 5:00:29 PM by CaptainCapsase
@Grafite: Don't overestimate the American voter. A huge portion of them voted for Trump after all.
@Captain: Thanks but I don't think the American founders are gods. The man who said that owned slaves after all. Plus you seem to be implying things I never said. Never said I would undermine democracy to do it, not gonna make sure certain people can't vote. Saying if it has to be a celebrity or someone I'd normally despise to get the current Republican party out of office then yes I would do it.
edited 27th Dec '16 5:02:51 PM by Wildcard
I don't after this election, but most people still keep things in mind, and Kanye voicing his suport for Trump would almost automatically make him unfit to be Trump's adversary and Democrats already dislike him, let alone for him to be the next President.
Life is unfair...![]()
They aren't, but the liberal enlightenment philosophers that the American founders aped would have said more or less the same thing. There is nothing more precious than the right to vote in a free and open election. Without that, there's no recourse for oppression other than violent revolution, and that almost always ends up putting someone just as bad in power.
Trump got the nomination with an exceedingly small plurality due to the crowded field. If the celebrity floodgates open, the same could happen in the democrat's primaries.
edited 27th Dec '16 5:05:47 PM by CaptainCapsase
Saying you'd prefer literally anyone other than Trump. Assuming his administration sticks merely to relatively mundane systemic corruption that could be and more or less uses the alt-right as useful idiots to support that end, Trump might very well be the lesser evil to a candidate openly running against democracy in favor of a technocratic oligarchy.
Of course, in such a scenario, neither candidate would be acceptable.
edited 27th Dec '16 5:10:52 PM by CaptainCapsase
@164,324: I think what this shows is partisan tribalism. That may also be behind the mental gymnastics some people are doing to defend Clinton, such as accusing Sanders and/or his supporters of being racist or sexist.
@164,366: The Democrats share the Republicans' war hawk ways, their willingness to use drones even though 90 % of the people killed by them are not the intended targets (in other words, the Democrats are just as pro-manslaughter as the Republicans), their willingness to chip away at our civil liberties ( Obama extended the Patriot Act ) and their willingness to take legal bribes campaign contributions.
edited 27th Dec '16 5:34:03 PM by SeriesOfNumbers
Yes, Captain. It seems like out of a desire to feel superior to everyone else in this thread you keep accusing posters in this thread of supporting positions which are in no way implied by their posts. And likewise of course asserting no evidence besides some vaguely articulated political philosophy that the Democratic Party itself is evil.
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I'm not asserting the democrats are evil, because I don't consider that sort of morality to have any real meaning. But politicians are not good people, and never will be, no matter what cause they allegedly support; the selection pressures and the incentives of power are strongly against people with principles and empathy, and strongly in favor of sociopaths and egomaniacs.
edited 27th Dec '16 5:14:06 PM by CaptainCapsase
@Captain: You're right, I'd prefer anyone I could see actually see running in 2020. But I should have phrased it better/thought about it more.
Though I do admit in my darker moments I almost wished Canada did a full military takeover of the U.S. , because they can run a government at least a little better than us.
edited 27th Dec '16 5:13:44 PM by Wildcard
@Capsase- You aren't providing any evidence to support your claims other than a philosophy. And until you actually produce evidence that's not just you strawmanning other posters, you should drop the assertions of moral superiority over other posters and bothsidesism against Democratic politicians.
Edit- Especially because when posters have talked about not playing nice, it's generally been in terms of calling Republicans on bigotry and not wanting to pander to bigoted voters. Which doesn't seem like a bad thing (which goes back to my theory that anti-bigotry is being treated as a good thing when expressed by Sanders and a bad thing when expressed by any Democrat).
edited 27th Dec '16 5:20:14 PM by Hodor2
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Here's
a book you should really read, it's a good layman's explanation of the realist school of political science. If you don't care to actually read that, you can take a look at CCP Gray's The Rules for Rulers
for a tl;dr of the Dictator's Handbook.
The realist school of thought isn't perfect by any means, but I definitely think it's closer to modeling the reality of politics, both international and domestic, than any of its competitors.
edited 27th Dec '16 5:20:33 PM by CaptainCapsase
Thank you for the rec. Still though, you have continued to provide no evidence in this discussion of positions you have attributed to posters (nor for that matter the Democratic Party itself). You should probably stop doing that.
edited 27th Dec '16 5:21:39 PM by Hodor2
@Hodor 2: Yes, that's a good point. Call Racism what it is and never pander to people who would throw everyone else under the bus given an inch. I will respect the next democrat if he is willing to say "Trump won on a tide of white supremecists lifted up by rich men who want to take all the money they can and leave everyone else with nothing. And a huge portion of the country for this obviously awful person!"
Maybe that's because you've shown yourself to have such a deep person hatred of Sanders that nobody takes anything you say about him as fact anymore?
You seem to not understand that it's possible to reach out to voters without pandering. That it's possible to win someone over not by going "you're right, I'll do everything you say" but instead by explaining that they're wrong, why they're wrong and why their interests are better served by backing a different candidate from the one they just backed.
Yes we could win a narrow victory without going after any Trump voters, hell we could probably manage a small one, we'd have had a narrow victory this year if Trump hadn't had a perfect storm.
I don't want a small or narrow victory, I don't want to play for half the cake.
I want it all, I want a mandate, I want a victory so resounding that it's talked about for decades as the great return of the Democrats to power across the US. I want a full scale rejection of Trump, his ideals and his backers and for that we do have to win over Trump voters, maybe more than the ones we lost.
You'd respect them right into four more years of Trump with that rhetoric. I don't consider four more years of Trump to be worth that feeling of moral superiority, I'd hope that you don't either.
edited 27th Dec '16 5:25:42 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

@Captain: I could deal with a man with bad morals if he isn't so bad and is willing to help others. Even accidentally. If he ran as a democrat and had people who were good and new what they were doing behind him it still wouldn't be worse than Trump and his enamored Neo-Nazi base.
In a normal election I'd rather have a politician who knew what they were doing. Going against Trump though. Literally anyone who isn't as far right as him has to be better.