The General American Politics Thread

[SenEDDtor Missile]

I don't know why I keep on trying to understand anyone who supports Trump, or any of the rhetoric he spouts. It's like I'm some kind of masochist just for constantly trying to find reason in their beliefs (or their comments), only to leave irritated and angry each time. I keep on trying to understand, but I only become more baffled at the sheer obliviousness or malice inherent to people who support him, and how they can claim to be morally just and decent people while disconnecting themselves from the horrible nature of what they are supporting/who they are.

[Tani Coyote]

On 11/2/2016 at 9:48 PM, Meta77 said:

Can not say I like him but when voting for two evils I am going for the one I feel less likely to get us in trouble with russia. Sure people like picking on them as a joke but the country with the second highest count of nuclear arms is most important to me.

President Eisenhower's Secretary of State was very vocal about "rolling back" the Iron Curtain. Read: a foreign policy of overthrowing pro-Soviet regimes across Eastern Europe (and the wider world) to gradually erode Soviet power.

We never rolled it back. We understood that would cause nuclear war.

Hillary is posturing. She's a capitalist and will not do anything to threaten the capitalist world order, which a nuclear war certainly would. She might saber rattle a little, but no real crisis will result. Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis? That was far more strategically important than Syria, and even it didn't end in nuclear war. Both sides arranged a deal and made it seem like they had "won" the crisis.

Really there's no reason to assume Clinton is going to be any different from other Presidents in terms of foreign policy. Ignoring her own experience, she's going to have advisers who would keep her from doing anything rash in foreign policy.

On 11/2/2016 at 11:22 PM, KHCast said:

Goes to show the massive sexist double standard people have. Trump does tons of shit, and his numbers barely see a dent. Something claimed about Hilary is stated that doesn't result in anything being found or even related to her, and her massive lead is lost cause "trust" issues 

Hey, one positive of Trump's nomination is not only does it confirm the prejudice running deep within the Party ranks, but it also lets us mute a good chunk of Republican arguments.

In 2008, tons of Republicans said Obama wasn't ready to be President due to lack of experience... they are now backing a man with literally no experience in any public office. By the same token, the GOP likes to promote itself as the party of veterans' rights, but their voting patterns - as well as the cruel remarks about McCain and the equally cruel opportunism of the Muslim soldier's death to ramble about the danger of Islam - shows how little the Party base really cares for them.

[Apollo Chungus]

9 hours ago, SenEDtor Missile said:

I don't know why I keep on trying to understand anyone who supports Trump, or any of the rhetoric he spouts. It's like I'm some kind of masochist just for constantly trying to find reason in their beliefs (or their comments), only to leave irritated and angry each time. I keep on trying to understand, but I only become more baffled at the sheer obliviousness or malice inherent to people who support him, and how they can claim to be morally just and decent people while disconnecting themselves from the horrible nature of what they are supporting/who they are.

I've a fairly good idea as to why some people choose to support Trump: Fear.

If you've seen any of his speeches, you get this sense that everything in the world is horrible, that you should be terrified of what will happen if immigration, Hilary becoming president, the election being rigged or the litany of other things he's talked about get out of hand, that the moon is going to fall on our metaphorical Termina if we don't go for the only available solution: Donald Trump.

And if you're not sure about him and try to find things on Hilary? Depending on where you look, you could very well end up thinking she is the literal Anti-Christ. She is the most horrible person who has ever tried to become president, she's secretly plotting with ISIS, Russia or any of the other faces of our latest cultural anxieties, and she must die before she pushes the button and destroys us all with whatever's in her emails.

It's really telling that the latest episode of John Oliver, which discusses the resurgence of the emails, isn't fully available on YT for casual viewing. You can get the school segregation piece, but try to look up anything to do with the emails and you'll only get a small fraction of the clip or videos with obnoxious titles such as "JOHN OLIVER (THE CUCK) SHILLS FOR CLINTON" or "JOHN OLIVER DESTROYS HILARY (THE BITCH)".

When the media is such an incredible scatter-shot in terms of framing Hilary and her actions (ie. as a flawed person, a shining beacon of hope, or the walking apocalypse), is it any wonder that else some people react to this near-impossible-to-read-correctly scenario by going to what they believe is the least horrific option?

Consider that Hilary's Twitter account just posted a slogan, containing the phrase "Stand up and reject fear." What else can the account possibly be trying to say, in light of the shitstorm the last 18 months have been?

Reject fear. Reject the desperate hysteria. Reject Donald Trump.

[Apollo Chungus]

On another note, the NY Times put a game up on their website today: The Voter Suppression Trail. It's basically a 2016 election take on The Oregon Trail, and gives you a short idea on basic facts about the election and going out to vote. Give it a shot, it's only about 10 minutes for the entire game (that includes playing as all 3 characters).

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/01/opinion/voting-suppression-videogame.html?_r=0

[Tani Coyote]

12 hours ago, Apollo Chungus said:

I've a fairly good idea as to why some people choose to support Trump: Fear.

Reject fear. Reject the desperate hysteria. Reject Donald Trump.

You know, it's kind of unfortunate that you could replace Trump with "the Republican Party" and it would still work pretty nicely.

Democrats have their share of fearmongering too of course, but it seems outright integral to American conservative dogma.

You can't revisit sentencing, or you're letting criminals possibly walk free (I was legitimately surprised the actual GOP platform calls for loosening criminal punishments slightly). You can't have unconditional welfare, or everybody will quit their job and mooch. You can't cut the military, or Red Dawn is going to happen. You can't legalize drugs, or else everyone is going to become a junkie. You can't have voting without IDs, because widespread voter fraud will occur.

Dress it up with the anxiety caused by processing the eventual status of whites as a minority, and you've got a really ugly Party platform.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

3 hours ago, Noelgilvie said:

You know, it's kind of unfortunate that you could replace Trump with "the Republican Party" and it would still work pretty nicely.

Democrats have their share of fearmongering too of course, but it seems outright integral to American conservative dogma.

You can't revisit sentencing, or you're letting criminals possibly walk free (I was legitimately surprised the actual GOP platform calls for loosening criminal punishments slightly). You can't have unconditional welfare, or everybody will quit their job and mooch. You can't cut the military, or Red Dawn is going to happen. You can't legalize drugs, or else everyone is going to become a junkie. You can't have voting without IDs, because widespread voter fraud will occur.

Dress it up with the anxiety caused by processing the eventual status of whites as a minority, and you've got a really ugly Party platform.

Kinda makes me think of Chicken Little (not the film). They're screaming about the sky falling, all the while failing to realize that they are often the biggest threat to themselves, or ignoring a far greater/imminent threat for a fantasy threat concocted in their minds.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

6 hours ago, Noelgilvie said:

You know, it's kind of unfortunate that you could replace Trump with "the Republican Party" and it would still work pretty nicely.

Democrats have their share of fearmongering too of course, but it seems outright integral to American conservative dogma.

You can't revisit sentencing, or you're letting criminals possibly walk free (I was legitimately surprised the actual GOP platform calls for loosening criminal punishments slightly). You can't have unconditional welfare, or everybody will quit their job and mooch. You can't cut the military, or Red Dawn is going to happen. You can't legalize drugs, or else everyone is going to become a junkie. You can't have voting without IDs, because widespread voter fraud will occur.

Dress it up with the anxiety caused by processing the eventual status of whites as a minority, and you've got a really ugly Party platform.

The joys of black and white thinking - "anything that isn't the way I want is bad/evil."

Nevermind that making drugs illegal has led to a failing drug war that's made things worse, or that it's extremely difficult to commit voter fraud in the US unless you have the time, money, resources, and skill to collude with millions of watchdogs to commit such fraud (or the fact that groups commit gerrymandering as an alternative), or that the entire sentencing is jacked up and inconsistent, and so forth.

Like, I can understand that they want safeguards, but they're going about the solutions in such a narrow way that it's ridiculous.

[Tani Coyote]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/04/drudge-and-the-alt-right-cite-wikileaks-to-claim-clinton-campaign-worships-satan.html

Jesus.

An artist who does occultic art asked if Podesta might come over for dinner one night, and this has been used to 1) imply Podesta has said yes before, 2) imply the artist is a Satanist, and 3) that Clinton herself is a Satanist.

The worst aspects of the Christian Right and the tinfoil hats have merged into one. They're also ignoring the fact Podesta's brother replied, and in no way stated Podesta has gone to any of the events before.

This election is getting (more) ridiculous.

12 hours ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

Like, I can understand that they want safeguards, but they're going about the solutions in such a narrow way that it's ridiculous.

In business, it's not worth chasing down every thief, because it often consumes valuable resources that could be used towards legitimate customers. An ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, deterrence is better than punishment. There's also this whole legalistic approach that the government needs to address welfare abuse - why not get people to, well, shun those who steal from society?

The same principle here. Imagine how much waste results from this massive bureaucracy that has been set up to reduce abuse/waste.

Sometimes the best approach to a topic really is to do nothing.

[KHCast]

So yeah this happened. Right after @Nepenthe made that status the other day presenting the speech Obama made. And people say Hilary lies 

 

[Conando]

Apparently a district Judge has slapped a restraining order on Trump's campaign in Ohio in order to prevent voter intimidation. I don't know what kind of world we live in when someone blatantly admits they're going to pull this shit, but at least someone finally called him on it.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/civil-rights-lawyer-tweets-voter-suppression-hearing-donald-trump

[Patticus]

Last night was a bit of an eventful one for Trump:

There was no gun - only a 'Republicans Against Trump' sign. But of course, some irresponsible, paranoid moron cried "Gun!" and set events in motion that would see the poor man holding the sign wrestled to the floor, possibly choked and beaten too. Naturally, the comments on the Breibart coverage of this story are full-on lunacy.

[Johnny Boy]

Just two more days of this fuckery. Two more fucking days.

[Your Vest Friend]

15 hours ago, Noelgilvie said:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/04/drudge-and-the-alt-right-cite-wikileaks-to-claim-clinton-campaign-worships-satan.html

Jesus.

An artist who does occultic art asked if Podesta might come over for dinner one night, and this has been used to 1) imply Podesta has said yes before, 2) imply the artist is a Satanist, and 3) that Clinton herself is a Satanist.

The worst aspects of the Christian Right and the tinfoil hats have merged into one. They're also ignoring the fact Podesta's brother replied, and in no way stated Podesta has gone to any of the events before.

This election is getting (more) ridiculous.

In business, it's not worth chasing down every thief, because it often consumes valuable resources that could be used towards legitimate customers. An ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, deterrence is better than punishment. There's also this whole legalistic approach that the government needs to address welfare abuse - why not get people to, well, shun those who steal from society?

The same principle here. Imagine how much waste results from this massive bureaucracy that has been set up to reduce abuse/waste.

Sometimes the best approach to a topic really is to do nothing.

Huh, that's tame compared to those using the same leaks to suggest that Clinton is involved in a child porn ring. 

[Patticus]

8 hours ago, VEDJ-F said:

Huh, that's tame compared to those using the same leaks to suggest that Clinton is involved in a child porn ring. 

Presumably, they made that particular bullshit up to excuse Trump for his possible mid-1990s rape of a 13 year old girl.

Edit: OH HEY LOOK YOU GUYS

A lot of fuss over nothing. A lot of nothing that hit Clinton hard in the polls just days before the election.

Why did Comey even feel the need to announce anything before finding evidence? I think an inquiry needs to be launched to find out what he was up to, because frankly it looks like a political stunt.

[KHCast]

I literally have been laughing for the last 30 minutes at just how shittu this situation has been all for fucking nothing 

9 hours ago, Patticus said:

Last night was a bit of an eventful one for Trump:

There was no gun - only a 'Republicans Against Trump' sign. But of course, some irresponsible, paranoid moron cried "Gun!" and set events in motion that would see the poor man holding the sign wrestled to the floor, possibly choked and beaten too. Naturally, the comments on the Breibart coverage of this story are full-on lunacy.

How many fuck heads are blaming Hilary lol?

[Patticus]

A lot, probably, but it just turned out to be a Republican exercising his right to freedom of speech/expression and getting beaten up by the crowd for it.

Freedom.

[Dizcrybe]

This is what I thought of the moment I saw that gif.

https://gifsound.com/?gif=i.imgur.com/rv92tDs.gif&v=ZnHmskwqCCQ

[Mad Convoy]

Wow, jeez. I almost wonder if the guy shouted that on purpose to try to silence the guy holding the sign, knowing that his fellows would be paranoid enough to believe him and assault the protester.

---

On the bright side, in the news everybody saw coming (but perhaps not from the expected person), Hilary's new emails have been determined to be no cause for concern according to Comey. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/us/politics/hilary-clinton-male-voters-donald-trump.html?_r=0 Comey seems to be trying to be a good sport, but whether that's just him trying to save face or genuine is yet to be determined. Either way, he's still coming under fire for dragging the FBI in the election and putting it into a position where it won't be able to pull out easily, not to mention possibly giving misleading information which the DoJ is still very interested in investigating. Honestly, I can't help but pity him-- unprofessional as it was for him to make such a misleading statement, he clearly acted in response to political pressure from the Republicans and seems like he just wants to move on now. But at the same time, he can't take back his statement, which for all the pressure applied was ultimately his decision to make, and there's no reason for him to not have to face the consequences for it. Hopefully this causes the GOP and Trump to back off now in regards to the emails.

If there's any lesson to take from this, its that caving to peer pressure and lying by omission just to impress some people or demonstrate some screwed up interpretation of loyalty ultimately does more harm than good for everybody.

[KHCast]

I mean comey seems to be taking some accountability which is commendable. At least he's admitting it was shitty. 

 

Anyway, I'm surprised we aren't talking about the fact that Trumps rape case was dropped apparently. That's pretty...wow, if that's the case

[Patticus]

The rape case was probably dropped after death threats were made against Lisa Bloom following the announcement of her press conference - surprise surprise!

I'd hazard a guess that the plaintiff feels terrible about the likelihood that going forward will mean more threats of violence or murder made against her lawyer, herself and her loved ones, which could lead to tragic loss of life at the hands of a Trump fanatic. She doesn't want anyone getting hurt on her account, so she decided to drop it, rather than pursue what would surely be a grueling, heart rending case.

It's very sad, because nobody should be above the law, or get away with deeds like that... and yet somehow here he is, getting away with it (assuming for a moment that he really did do it). Maybe, if Clinton loses the election, she should pick the case up - or bring together a fearless team to do so in her stead - and end Trump's presidency and his brand in one fell swoop.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Shows where people stand if they're willing to let sexual harassment fly but get up in arms about emails...

Quote

In business, it's not worth chasing down every thief, because it often consumes valuable resources that could be used towards legitimate customers. An ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, deterrence is better than punishment. There's also this whole legalistic approach that the government needs to address welfare abuse - why not get people to, well, shun those who steal from society?

The same principle here. Imagine how much waste results from this massive bureaucracy that has been set up to reduce abuse/waste.

Sometimes the best approach to a topic really is to do nothing.

I'm not saying that it's realistic myself. Oftimes it seems excessive when it's over something really small.

Just saying that I understand why. Problem is that it seems rather black and white to some people who would waste such resources for such a thing. I can get that even one person can cause something serious if safeguards are in place, but others treat it as if letting small thiefs go is a potential domino effect that will lead to catastrophe.

[Mad Convoy]

7 hours ago, Patticus said:

The rape case was probably dropped after death threats were made against Lisa Bloom following the announcement of her press conference - surprise surprise!

I'd hazard a guess that the plaintiff feels terrible about the likelihood that going forward will mean more threats of violence or murder made against her lawyer, herself and her loved ones, which could lead to tragic loss of life at the hands of a Trump fanatic. She doesn't want anyone getting hurt on her account, so she decided to drop it, rather than pursue what would surely be a grueling, heart rending case.

It's very sad, because nobody should be above the law, or get away with deeds like that... and yet somehow here he is, getting away with it (assuming for a moment that he really did do it). Maybe, if Clinton loses the election, she should pick the case up - or bring together a fearless team to do so in her stead - and end Trump's presidency and his brand in one fell swoop.

Sad but true. Its not uncommon in any rape or sexual assault case for the victim to face abuse or even threats of violence for pressing charges. For whatever reason people tend to get really weird around sex crimes-- if Trump was found to, say, have large stacks of money in secret (something often done to hide large-scale theft, cons, etc.) and openly discussing them in a tape, then mocking the concerns of people who worry that he might be committing theft or scamming people, you bet people wouldn't be pulling the stupid "locker room talk" BS. But since its a sex crime, the abuser and his fanboys get away with what amounts to witness intimidation (which has clearly been effective in the rape case). The sad thing is, his supporters are probably going to trumpet the dropping of the case as proof that the victim was faking it and take it as encouragement to be more violent, intimidating, etc. in the future. Much as I get why the victim would drop the case, I really think it would be unwise to do so especially since there are ways of working with the media to keep everybody anonymous in interviews and stuff like that.

The problem with trying to press charges with Trump is that once he gets himself in a position of power, he tends to pull every abuse of power necessary to stay there. In this case, he'd probably just pardon himself for all his crimes and elect somebody for the Supreme Court who would back him on this. Heck, he might even make sexual assault-y behaviors and mindsets legal and use his position of power to find and coerce more victims. Not to mention that he'd probably try to trump up some charges against Clinton himself, considering his supporters' chants of "Lock her up!"-- though of course, if Clinton attempted the same, her supporters and she would be called hypocrites for only criticizing the idea of incarcerating the opposing candidate when its Trump that's doing it (the fact that Trump has a lot more evidence against him than Clinton is apparently irrelevant).

[BlueSky]

Even with a possibility of getting looked over here, I'd like to talk about this election stuff myself. Please don't hate me coming here I just needed to get this out of my system.

From where I'm watching this nonsensical campaign war going on, I can't help but feel the way Trump is constantly showed trying to control the masses by fear over things such as foreigners and terrorists and lost jobs and about every populistic aspect one could use reminds me of something that occurred in pre-reboot Archie Sonic continuity; the way how Naugus took over and became the king. He did it by pretty much throwing gasoline in the fire using the fears of the people to pretty much take over a country. I'm not thinking they're actually that same but sometimes I can't help but wonder wheter he's been reading these comics or not... Or maybe it's just that real life does copy what happens in the stories in general.

About that email scene, I think one possible reason could be they wanted to be certain Clinton didn't do anything illegal so that Trump couldn't use that as an excuse trying to start whatever he might do if he doesn't win. Like they didn't want to give him possibilities for making her seem as one of those few priviledged oppressors or something. Or it might just be that Trump did some scheming, I'm not too certain of this one.

But that wasn't all I wanted to say about Trump here; if he truly wants to make people afraid, then congratulations. I'm afraid of him becoming the next president of the United States of America. That's because of where I am placed by the fact I was born in here. Right here next to one very big country. Like many others. Many countries, unlike mine, are in NATO while having border lines with that country. Many consider them at least as in a some kind of possible threat I think. Now, what Trump said some time ago is basically heard here as "we don't need NATO so let's get out of it". What do you guys think that would maybe cause in around that said borderline? I think some serious breaks on the (military) balance. As much as I may not like to say it it still remains a fact that there's a risk of some big problems coming up if something like that happens in such a short time. I'm seriously afraid of it. Not just because of my own security (of course that's one of my fears) or just those close to me but I fear also what happens those countries that have even more to be afraid of. Not so long ago some of todays NATO countries were not even independent. What doesn't help with my nerves is how Trump seems to think that country's cool and all.

I don't really want to see the worst happening; war starting and all, I don't want to curse or even remember Trump every single day of the test of my life.

How he acts makes me nervous to think all of those nukes your president has pretty much over his command. Even if that scenario above wouldn't happen, do you really want to give someone as bad-tempered guy as Trump means of use such weapons? It really seems his supporters cannot be reasoned with at least not by sheer logic. They really seem to go with the flow which is kind of sad.

Plus the idea he wants to cut the foreign trade agreements and "get new better ones" doesn't make me that happy; I really like reading Archie's Sonic comics and cutting trade agreements wouldn't help me in slightest with that. 

But hey, it's really not like anything I say should matter to them. I'm just some stupid foreign person out here they can only use as an example why they should vote for Trump because foreign people want them to do otherwise and they want to make America great again.... by making one part of America pay for a huge wall that separates it from some other parts of America. That's great. And this was sarcasm just so you know it. 

[Kevin]

Well it's Election Eve, and I just want to give my final thoughts before it's (hopefully) all over tomorrow evening.

I have to say this has been one of the most remarkable and unpredictable elections I've lived through. Everything from Trump's rise, to the debates, the e-mail scandal, pussy-gate, and so on has lead to many twists and turns here. Personally, I think this is one election that won't be forgotten for a long time and one that is to be written for the history books and is also ripe to be analyzed by historians years down the road.

I'm nervouscited about the results tomorrow and can only hope there's a positive path forward after this.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

I can't help but have deeply paranoid fears about what would happen if Trump wins. I know that this is likely just my fears getting the better of me, but Trump and his supporters are anything but stable or sane, and even democracies can be undermined and destroyed by the unexpected.