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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Yes, he was in congress for a very long time but basically did nothing except propose ineffectual legislation and sat on his ass profiting from the government.
That's one of the main things that was baffling because he tried to paint himself as some kind of outsider, similar to Trump, but...he wasn't. He's literally the definition of an establishment politician.
"Make no mistake: The attempt to harness Trumpism—without Trump, but with calculated, refined, and smarter political talent—is coming. And it won’t be easy to make the next Trumpist a one-term president. He will not be so clumsy or vulnerable. He will get into office less by luck than by skill. Perhaps it will be Senator Josh Hawley, who is writing a book against Big Tech because he knows that will be the next chapter in the culture wars, with social-media companies joining “fake news” as the enemy. Perhaps it will be Senator Tom Cotton, running as a law-and-order leader with a populist bent. Maybe it will be another media figure: Tucker Carlson or Joe Rogan, both men with talent and followings. Perhaps it will be another Sarah Palin—she was a prototype—with the charisma and appeal but without the baggage and the need for a presidential candidate to pluck her out of the blue. Perhaps someone like the Q Anon-supporting Representative-elect Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who first beat the traditional Republican representative in the primary and then ran her race with guns blazing, mask off, and won against the Democratic candidate, a retired professor who avoided campaigning in person. Indeed, a self-made charismatic person coming out of nowhere probably has a better chance than many establishment figures in the party."
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.Funny thing just happened. In response to that Philadelphia situation some comment on Twitter claimed that the bulk of mass shootings are perpetuated by Leftists, going as far back as Kennedy and Lincoln. I asked him to provide a source for that, and he immediately got defensive and claimed that nothing he posts will change my mind.
These people shrink immediately upon being challenged. The expect us to just go along with whatever they say.
Just Having Fun@G Ninja Well, it should be noted not all rightists are conservatives necessarily. In addition, defining Conservatism as being opposed to change is not necessarily accurate, or at least that's not how conservatives necessarily view their ideology. I mean, they definitely wanted change when Obama was in office. Beyond that conservatives can have severe disagreements in the same way theocrats of different religions don't necessarily like each other.
As a conservative or pseudo-conservative myself, I'd tend to define Conservatism vaguely along these lines:
-A black-and-white view of morality. There is good and evil, and both are necessarily in conflict with one another. People who think otherwise are dangerous both-siders.
-A belief that people have a relatively high degree of self-determination. Essentially, a high degree of skepticism that Society Is to Blame.
-Pro-culturalism: A belief that the cultural institutions of society primarily lean towards goodness or can be made to do so relatively easily.
-Institutional Moralism: It's the job of the state and institutions to get people to behave morally. What "Cultural Morals" society is supposed to enforce can very quite wildly and are often tied to what the conservative's home culture believes.
Leviticus 19:34How would trump still be able to win?
I'm feeling morbid
The worst case scenario is that Joe Biden dies (or is killed) before January 6th, when the new Congress receives and counts the Electoral College's votes and locks him in as the president-elect (until then, you could perhaps more accurately call him the presumptive president-elect).
This doesn't guarantee a Trump win, but it would be complete legal pandemonium because there is no clear provision for reallocation of electoral votes and many states strictly require their electors vote for whoever won the state, and at the same time, it would open up just about every bit of state-level legislative fuckery anyone's ever feared about. Even in the best case scenario of everyone getting their ducks in a row and agreeing to either just make Joe Biden's corpse president-elect and letting normal succession take over, or jumping straight to making Kamala Harris president-elect, it would be absolute chaos.
Is it really so weird? Fundamentally, there is no such thing as an inherent conservative ideological position because it's defined entirely by what it isn't, rather than what it is.
But beyond that, in a strict sense, there are very few "true" conservatives (people who don't want change or want very slow change) and a lot of reactionaries (people who want to return to an imagined past rooted in nationalist mythology).
I think the core of the issue here is that most voters don't really care about policy or ideology in anything but the broadest or vaguest of terms. It takes a lot of time and studying to really understand the nitty gritty of political policy and most people just can't be assed to try.
But what does work to get people to vote is emotional appeals. And as it turns out, appealing to people's hatred and fear works much better than talking about stuff like fiscal conservatism. That's why trump won the primaries.
Mind you, this is unlikely, but it's at least legally plausible.
Extraordinarily unlikely. In a state that has just demonstrated the existence of a Democratic majority among its voting populace, a Republican governor and/or legislature performing such a legislative coup would be painting a bullseye on their own backs for their own next re-election.
Deliberately antagonizing the demonstrative majority of voters in one's state is generally bad politics. Trump's political backers talk a good game, but have historically always stopped short of actually taking bullets for him. Personal sacrifice is incompatible with Fuck You Got Mine ideology.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 6th 2020 at 3:06:40 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.The closest I've seen to a short summary of conservative values is this description by a Latino man about why he voted for Trump:
"Our families and our communities, you know, really took care of each other and took care of ourselves. We weren't really focused on what is the government going to do for us," he said. "The independent spirit of our community really drove me to the Republican ideal of making sure that you're able to provide for yourself and your family, that you have that independence and that liberty to be able to start your own business or work where you wanted to, or go to school where you wanted to go and have those opportunities available."
His Christian faith also aligned him with the Republican Party on issues such as abortion. And while he said he probably wouldn't phrase things the way Trump does sometimes, Latino voters such as him are attracted to the message of lower taxes and lower costs of living, especially in California."
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.@Tobias: this gets into why the death of Joe Biden is the worst-case scenario - the state legislatures don't even have to say "okay, Biden's dead we're sending the Trump electors", they only have to split on who their electors go to, such as some states saying "stay with Joe even though he's dead" and others demanding their electors vote for Kamala. It only takes a few states splitting one way or the other to deny any candidate a 270+ majority and kick the election to the House. Even well-intentioned states could potentially create a problem simply because there's no established procedure for the succession of a presumptive president-elect (a confirmed president-elect would simply follow regular succession).
To emphasize about this, it isn't a likely case, but someone asked about the worst case and I'm standing by my answer that this is the worst case.
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/tinker-tailor-mobster-trump
Here's an article that speculates Trump may have been a CI for the FBI on his business partners. Notably, while this is speculation, the real meat of the article is exposing the extensive mob ties of Fred Trump and his son that the media just ignored.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.I didn't know whether to put this on this thread or the election thread, so I've mentioned it on both.
The Guardian has revealed that the international election observers have released their preliminary report
. (Guardian timestamp 23:21
)
International election observers from Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Panama said they found the presidential campaign was "competitive and quite aggressive, with one campaign, in particular, launching repeated attacks on its major rival as well as the integrity of the country's electoral system" in a damning new report
.
"These attacks served to further divide an already highly polarized electorate and electoral process," said the report from the Organization of American States, a Washington-based group that has also provided analysis of often chaotic Latin American elections.
The report also noted that Trump-allied "stop the count" demonstrators "were clear examples of intimidation of electoral officials".
Read the report here
.
I'm reading the report in full (it's only 20 pages). There's an interesting bit at the bottom of page 7 about polling accuracy:
Edited by Wyldchyld on Nov 6th 2020 at 12:43:08 PM
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.Wall Street Journal:
Trump Fundraising for Legal Challenges Would Also Pay Down Debt
Edited by nova92 on Nov 6th 2020 at 4:29:57 AM
If they’re lucky, a legislative coup risks painting an actual bullseye on themselves.
Coups are dangerous, people die in coups, even successful ones, but especially in failed ones.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranAnd even if Biden wins, the bad times are still not over. Trump will be president for 76 days after election day, in which time he can still do whatever he wants as president, possibly with Congress backing him.
They could conceivably try to get a few more laws shoved through congress in that time.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesBiden's lead hasn't really shrunk in a significant manner in any place where it matters. Even in Arizona it's not shrinking at a rate Trump needs to win.
Let's also not forget that a good number of the places that haven't finished counting votes lean very much Blue.
Also, we do have a separate thread for discussion of the actual vote results.
Edited by M84 on Nov 6th 2020 at 9:09:25 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised

It's weird that so many right wing idealogues are inconsistent. Wouldn't conservatism be one of the simplest beliefs to have? You don't like change.
Kaze ni Nare!