Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did
You're right. We don't need the Hitler comparison. He does enough damage on his own.
Currently reading up My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours![]()
I’d argue that’s like saying 20 and 200 are the same number because they both start with 2. Look at what was going on in Nazi Germany in the run up to the holocaust. Sure, in the broadest-strokes sense that certain people are being put in camps somewhere there’s a similarity but that’s where the similarities end.
Things in the US today are nowhere near as dire as they were in Nazi Germany.
Edited by archonspeaks on Dec 19th 2018 at 7:26:03 AM
They should have sent a poet.Secret Experiment in Alabama Senate Race Imitated Russian Tactics
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/alabama-senate-roy-jones-russia.html
An excerpt:
The secret project, carried out on Facebook and Twitter, was likely too small to have a significant effect on the race, in which the Democratic candidate it was designed to help, Doug Jones, edged out the Republican, Roy S. Moore. But it was a sign that American political operatives of both parties have paid close attention to the Russian methods, which some fear may come to taint elections in the United States.
One participant in the Alabama project, Jonathon Morgan, is the chief executive of New Knowledge, a small cyber security firm that wrote a scathing account of Russia’s social media operations in the 2016 election that was released this week by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
An internal report on the Alabama effort, obtained by The New York Times, says explicitly that it “experimented with many of the tactics now understood to have influenced the 2016 elections.”
The project’s operators created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse a write-in candidate to draw votes from Mr. Moore. It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention.
“We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the report says.
Mr. Morgan said in an interview that the Russian botnet ruse “does not ring a bell,” adding that others had worked on the effort and had written the report. He said he saw the project as “a small experiment” designed to explore how certain online tactics worked, not to affect the election.
Mr. Morgan said he could not account for the claims in the report that the project sought to “enrage and energize Democrats” and “depress turnout” among Republicans, partly by emphasizing accusations that Mr. Moore had pursued teenage girls when he was a prosecutor in his 30s.
Edited by sgamer82 on Dec 19th 2018 at 11:15:18 AM
It's also worth noting (to the people fretting about civil wars and whatnot) that Germany didn't have a Civil War when a certain pencil-moustached Austrian colonel assumed power.
And no, he's still not Adolf Hitler. Mitch Mc Connel makes a pretty good case for being Paul von Hindenburg, but Trump's no Adolf Hitler.
x4 Not really. I mean, in the sense that you have a regime being backed by a world power (Russia), but US efforts haven't really been focused on removing Assad from power, they've been focusing on containing the breakaway state that's threatening their Iraqi regime's stability. US troops in Syria have mostly been there to back up the Iraqi forces and destabilizing IS forces in Syria. All plans to replace Assad by backing the rebels were discontinued when the whole 'Islamic State' thing happened.
This isn't the Spanish Civil War, is what I'm saying.
Edited by math792d on Dec 20th 2018 at 12:56:27 PM
Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.> Secret Experiment in Alabama Senate Race Imitated Russian Tactics
I can see why they're doing it,if you want to win badly you'll do anything to win,and when the other side is doing and rubbing it in your face constantly it's extremely tempting
Edited by Ultimatum on Dec 20th 2018 at 4:10:27 AM
have a listen and have a link to my discord serverI generally frown upon Nazi comparisons (barring of course calling things like actual Neo-Nazi and alt right marches out for being Nazis).
Besides, I think it'd be more apt to compare what's happening now to the internment of Japanese Americans which actually happened in the USA.
Disgusted, but not surprisedI don't think Hindenburg is a good comparator for the Kentucky Turtle as the latter has always acted like a calculating amoral chessmaster rather than like a conservative half-ideologue. Sure, Hindenburg also had some aspects of the former but only a few.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynmanvon Papen always struck me as a wannabe chessmaster who ended up being a chesspiece which I don't think is what happened to the Kentucky Turtle, he seems to be leveraging Trump well enough.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanHearing about Democrats imitating Russian tactics in Alabama is more than disappointing, especially since you know this just adds more fuel to the "BOTH SIDES!!!!" fire. And it's not like you need a lot - usually only a drop will suffice - but Alabama Dems have pretty much poured a whole can onto it.
i'm tired, my friendBoth of them have fulfilled the role of being the gravediggers of democracy. Democracy only works when people within the system act in general good faith, and when emergency powers designed for, well, emergencies, are confined to being used when the actual safety of the country is at stake rather than, essentially, as an authoritarian stalling tactic until you have a majority. Paul von Hindenburg abused every clause in the Weimar constitution to bring about the desired outcome of a return to German authoritarianism. Mitch Mc Connell abused every clause in the United States constitution to stonewall Obama until the Republicans couldn't be stopped.
I'm not comparing their personalities, I'm comparing the outcomes of their actions.
Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.Not the outcome, but the means (I mean thank God that Mc Connel hasnt been as successful as Ol' H was). Mc C is attempting to pull off more or less the same thing (for more or less the same class of people) but this is a different political context than Weimar Germany, so comparisons are always going to be indirect and weak.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.I think it is worth to study the Weimar Republic and the mechanism behind Nazism. I think it is important to point out the parallels, especially in terms of rhetoric and the systematic undermining of a state. But it will never be completely the same - if for no other reason that the people in the Weimar republic had no idea where this could lead to. We should know better.

It will go as far as extremist Trump supporters arming up if it even goes that far but no attempt at starting something in retaliation for what happens, but that's as far as it will go? I sincerely hope that is the case.
Hmm shutting down the government, trying to bring in state sec TV, internment camps for undesireables, trying to get rid of what is seen as the inferior races, I think we have all the boxes for Trump Bingo.
Edited by tsstevens on Dec 20th 2018 at 2:04:07 AM
Currently reading up My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours