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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#184176: Apr 21st 2017 at 12:54:24 PM

Open interference by the US president in the democratic process of an allied nation.

Jesus Christ.

Granted, I doubt Donald is popular in France (outside of those who vote FN anyway), so this probably won't make a difference.

edited 21st Apr '17 12:55:34 PM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Luigisan98 A wandering user from Venezuelan Muscat Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: I <3 love!
A wandering user
#184177: Apr 21st 2017 at 12:57:07 PM

[up] I thought the Russians were acting by themselves.

The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
MorningStar1337 The Encounter that ended the Dogma from 🤔 Since: Nov, 2012
The Encounter that ended the Dogma
#184178: Apr 21st 2017 at 12:57:31 PM

Considering that Russia did the same to the US...[nja]

edited 21st Apr '17 12:58:01 PM by MorningStar1337

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#184179: Apr 21st 2017 at 12:59:28 PM

Even a not!endorsement is a blatant diplomatic faux pas. Its one of the conventions of politics, democracies stay out of other democracies' elections.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#184180: Apr 21st 2017 at 1:00:51 PM

And it's great he wasn't. Go ask in the Venezuela thread if they think a left wing populist is a good idea,

No, it's not a good thing. He set up people to put him on a pedestal and people were disappointed that he misled them. His actions are one of the factors that led Trump to winning.

The Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street Movement were in part a protest against Obama's actions.

I mean was it a good idea for Obama to hire some of the people responsible for the financial crisis into his government? Probably not, no.

edited 21st Apr '17 1:25:13 PM by MadSkillz

MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#184181: Apr 21st 2017 at 1:06:01 PM

That's not necessarily indicative of where his sympathies lay. He was, after all, chief politician, and probably wanted them kissing his feet rather than rallying opposition against him. Tis not like the anger against them lasted (in a meaningful sense). Eight years later they're back in the saddle.

That's just a difference in style. FDR got political mileage out of being a traitor to his class. Obama went with No-drama-Obama. Plus the issue of the country's different overton window from the 30s. Of course style has practical effect but, it doesn't mean there was a secret conspiracy in the works.

And that can be taken two ways. One the risk of any negotiation is that you lose out on potential gains, because no one can read minds. Or two, he gave them the impression he wanted, and these stakeholders were too busy relying on President Obama to keep armies of sans-culottes from their gates to rally opposition to what he did help reform.

He had both houses of Congress filled with Dems and he had the population on his side.

If his own party was opposing him then the Dems should get the blame too but you know he still could've rallied the population to put enormous pressure on his party. He didn't though. He wanted the anger to go away not be channeled.

This is Lofgren's account:

For six years running, Obama sought bipartisan compromise with the deluded persistence of Captain Ahab, despite abundant evidence that the GOP was in no mood for it. … After frittering away those six years when he had at least one house of Congress in Democratic hands, Obama emerged from the 2014 midterm debacle with an epiphany: now was the time to display the populist president that his supporters thought they had elected in 2008. … There was only one problem: how was a lame duck president going to get this agenda through the most numerically dominant Republican Congress since 1929? That absurd dilemma sums up the reality of his presidency. … Obama…may be, like Napoleon III, a sphinx without a riddle: merely an ambitious politician who tested well with focus groups, and who arrived at just the right moment, promising hope and change as a pretext to administer an entrenched system without any conviction.

It's hard for me not to agree with it.

edited 21st Apr '17 1:15:50 PM by MadSkillz

speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#184182: Apr 21st 2017 at 1:10:53 PM

Dammit Trump, STOP TALKING. First Brexit, now probably Frexit should Le Pen win. To use your own words, this world's "goin' down the tubers" thanks to all this isolationism.

edited 21st Apr '17 1:14:30 PM by speedyboris

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#184183: Apr 21st 2017 at 1:14:03 PM

Honestly, let him keep talking. He never damages himself now than when he speaks or tweets.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#184184: Apr 21st 2017 at 1:22:10 PM

Remember, Trump wants the EU destroyed (well, he sees it as a trade threat, Bannon and co see them as (((internationalists))) ).

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
math792d Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#184185: Apr 21st 2017 at 1:30:28 PM

Mussolini supports Vichy France. Cover me surprised.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#184186: Apr 21st 2017 at 1:32:10 PM

[up]So if Trump's Mussolini, who's Hitler in this particular analogy?

IFwanderer use political terms to describe, not insult from Earth Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
use political terms to describe, not insult
#184187: Apr 21st 2017 at 1:34:13 PM

[up]Putin?

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
math792d Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#184189: Apr 21st 2017 at 1:39:35 PM

[up][up][up] Nobody's started a genocide yet, so we're out an Adolf Hitler until someone hits that button first.

My money's on Erdogan.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.
MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#184190: Apr 21st 2017 at 1:44:01 PM

Putin should be Hitler.

Trump is Mussolini.

Erdogan is Francisco Franco (Spain).

And Le Pen is Petain (Vichy France)

kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#184191: Apr 21st 2017 at 1:45:49 PM

And just because why the hell not, who should be our Hirihito?

carbon-mantis Collector Of Fine Oddities from Trumpland Since: Mar, 2010 Relationship Status: Married to my murderer
Collector Of Fine Oddities
#184192: Apr 21st 2017 at 1:49:59 PM

We've got Duterte covering the pacific side's lunatics.

math792d Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#184193: Apr 21st 2017 at 1:58:44 PM

[up][up][up] Putin is far, far too competent to be Adolf Hitler.

Which is not so much an admittance of Putin's strengths as it is acknowledging the fact that Adolf Hitler was a disaster on a level almost unfathomable to us today.

edited 21st Apr '17 2:24:08 PM by math792d

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.
DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#184194: Apr 21st 2017 at 2:09:07 PM

[up] Yeah, but nobody else pulled a Sudetenland recently.

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
DrDougsh Since: Jan, 2001
#184195: Apr 21st 2017 at 2:13:41 PM

Does this mean ISIS is the Soviet Union in this allegory?

MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#184196: Apr 21st 2017 at 2:27:15 PM

The USSR would be today's China.

Both of them are state capitalist countries masquerading as socialist countries and in an uneasy relationship with their Hitler/Putin.

edited 21st Apr '17 2:29:28 PM by MadSkillz

math792d Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#184197: Apr 21st 2017 at 2:35:57 PM

[up] If by 'state capitalist' you mean 'authoritarian communist single-party dictatorship,' then yes.

Also, it depends on whether we're talking pre-Great Purge or post-Great Purge Soviet Union. After that one, suddenly the state didn't have as much in terms of misgivings towards Stalin.

Mostly because they didn't like the idea of getting their teeth pulled out.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.
CenturyEye Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign? from I don't know where the Yith sent me this time... Since: Jan, 2017 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
#184198: Apr 21st 2017 at 2:57:25 PM

You'd probably be better off comparing Trump to Mobutu if worse comes to worst. Tis not like he has any ideology besides cash and ego, not even the chaos inherent in fascism. Besides, tis too early to put Trump alongside the bywords for ultimate evil. Trump's just fine being a plain old national shame.

An Update:Bernie Sanders on Jon Ossoff: It’s ‘imperative’ he be elected

After making some puzzling remarks on Democrat Jon Ossoff, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders gave him his full-throated endorsement on Friday.

“Let me be very clear. It is imperative that Jon Ossoff be elected congressman from Georgia’s 6th District and that Democrats take back the U.S. House,” said Sanders, a one-time presidential candidate, in a statement. “I applaud the energy and grassroots activism in Jon’s campaign. His victory would be an important step forward in fighting back against Trump’s reactionary agenda.”

edited 21st Apr '17 3:03:13 PM by CenturyEye

Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives
IFwanderer use political terms to describe, not insult from Earth Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
use political terms to describe, not insult
#184199: Apr 21st 2017 at 2:58:14 PM

[up]Seems he realized he fucked up.

And since we're probably going to end up there anyway, The Atlantic has managed a feat I believed to be impossible: reporting on the "berniecrats" vs. "establishment Democrats" fight without using the entire articles to take potshots at the one side while insulting the other.

[down]Yeah, that's probably what's going on with Sanders. I would still like to understand how he defines people as progressives or not progressives.

edited 21st Apr '17 3:03:11 PM by IFwanderer

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#184200: Apr 21st 2017 at 2:58:53 PM

Yeah, Obama didn't want to throw bankers in jail. Yes, that's a bad thing and he could have done better there. But I understand why he didn't do it.

@MadSkillz, let me ask you a serious question. Do you think that choosing an attack dog as an AG and sending him to Wall Street with a mission would, A, have resulted in an appreciable number of convictions, or B, actually led to systematic change in the banking industry?

[up]That, plus I don't think he was speaking against Ossoff's candidacy in the first place. Tone-deafness is a Sanders staple, remember; he can literally not realize that "nah, he's not a progressive" could be taken to mean endorsing his enemy.

Problem with Sanders in general, there. He has a lot of good ideas program-wise, but politically speaking, he hasn't learned the concept of watching what he says. He's a gaffe machine.

edited 21st Apr '17 3:01:01 PM by Ramidel


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