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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
@Imca: Fair enough, China is very much a 1000 pound gorilla in the history of eastern and southern Asia that can't really be ignored. With that said, in terms of direct territorial ambitions (as opposed to hegemonic ambitions), I do think Taiwan the extent of what China wants. Out of the remaining territories of the Qing Dynasty that modern China doesn't control, Mongolia is mostly empty grassland (hence the countries continued existence between Russia and China), and outer Manchuria is owned and largely populated by Russians who in contrast to Uighurs have a major state to advocate their interests even if China somehow managed to take it. Hegemonic intentions are another story, because.
@protagonist: If If we're looking at precedents of peer/near peer states in a state of total war (which is what a high level of commitment by the US would amount to), we have to go back to World War 2 since there's been no great power wars since. Back then, the losers built their strategies around being able to win a lightning war against enemies with vastly larger industrial and population bases, and ended up being ground down in bloody wars of attrition when it turned out their enemies didn't roll over and capitulate as easily as their initial projections. That's not encouraging in the slightest since the US is on the wrong side of that comparison in the present day.
Now, a modern great power war probably wouldn't resemble World War 2 any more than World War I resembled the Franco-Prussian war, which is another issue; we have at best a rough approximation of what this kind of conflict in the modern era would look like, all we can really say is that it would prove ruinous for both sides, and end either with a stalemate or Armageddon, since nukes will start flying the moment one party side does something that threatens the territorial integrity of the other.
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Sep 5th 2020 at 7:41:26 AM
My sense of dread was tremendous when George W. Bush made it clear that the war was not on destroying Al-Qaeda but all terrorists everywhere. It's a tactic and his measures created far more than its killed.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.I apologize in advance if this is too provocative/controversial for this thread, but Anita Hill has endorsed Biden.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/05/politics/anita-hill-joe-biden-voting/index.html
She believes he has evolved since 1991 (where he lost control of the Senate hearing and let the Republicans harass the hell of out her and basically do everything that you shouldn't do to a sexual harassment victim) and would listen to her and other victims on gender issues. Whereas Trump wouldn't give her the time of day.
Edited by Rationalinsanity on Sep 5th 2020 at 9:20:27 AM
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.![]()
Historically in most eras the Chinese tributaries were de facto independent, and in many cases "paying tribute" to China was more a diplomatic ritual and a pretense for trade relations that was inoffensive to Confucian values versus a reflection of any real political control by China. The extent to which Chinese officials understood the actual state of affairs versus the propaganda varied between different eras. China's hegemonic ambitions aren't going anywhere until they figure out how to conduct actual diplomacy and Public Relations.
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Sep 5th 2020 at 7:55:12 AM
Sounds like the inverse of Wants a Prize for Basic Decency, in that it's fair to still believe that Biden is sub-optimal and unreliable, and that it's worth holding some degree of skepticism over how full his attempts to improve over the years have been. But nevertheless Biden does at least pay respect to basic decorum and respect for human individuals in a way that Trump absolutely does not, and is thus worth supporting in order to keep out the latter for that reason alone. No matter how dark and close to black the shade of gray Biden may be (fwiw I don't think he's actually that close), he's still the gray to Trump's Vantablack in Black-and-Gray Morality.
Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 5th 2020 at 8:16:53 AM
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/05/politics/joe-biden-lead-analysis/index.html
So some analysts think that Biden's lead is smaller than it looks. Thoughts on this?
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If it's not smaller than it appears, CNN will give Trump free airtime to make it so.
I would have expected Hill to vote for Biden anyway, negative feelings or no, but what she says makes perfect sense from a pragmatic and moral POV, and from a political POV it makes sense to endorse him. Regardless of his shortcomings and past mistakes he is in no way equivalent or close to equivalent to Trump if you care even slightly about racial justice or institutional sexism.
It's really becoming frustrating how every few days (sometimes more often), someone comes in with a poll, or several polls, and some pundits' analysis of how "narrow" or "bad" things look for Biden and asks "Should we be worried??" Isn't this just another form of doomsaying? Plus, there's only so worried I can become before I just shut down.
Edited by Ingonyama on Sep 5th 2020 at 9:55:58 AM
Trump is sick in the head and should have been removed from the office long ago.
His dementia probably devours his memories and making him think that Obama is still the President of the united states.
Just as he think that the year is still 2016 and is running for the first term as a president.
People like that shouldn't hold the office.

Republican voters don't need any police. They're white Trump supporters, after all. Police are for black people and Democrats.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"