Sorry, what? Your assumptions about my assumptions are bollocks.
Have you been sleeping? Did you just dream that?
Wakey.
Ok, let’s take Clinton at her very worst. Then we have two horrible liars – one who has supported illegal war, and one who argues they need to go further and start targeting families; one who claims she treats all Americans as people but doesn’t follow through, and one who brags about his plans to crush down on one minority after another.
And that’s her worst. Can we please stop inventing reasons to pretend they’re the same, or that anyone who is not completely ignorant might be legitimately confused who would want to hurt more people? Especially since polls show that is why the one is so popular?
More generally: besides the dedicated party supporters, there seems to be a faction dedicated to the ideology that they are the same, no matter how one or the other changes over time. The pretense is always that they are not getting dragged into the petty biases they have against one another, which reminds me a lot of this xkcd:
But bias isn’t always such a clear thing. In Galileo’s dialogs he has Salviati to represent his own physics, Simplicio the Aristotelian one, and then Sagredo. Some people have interpreted the third as an impartial intermediary, and others have pointed out he is a terrible one, because he always agrees with Salviati. And since Galileo is writing the whole thing, that’s kind of fair, but in real life what would such a man do? The evidence is all that Salviati is right.
This isn’t nearly such a clean example, because the Democratic party are not really good guys. For instance there is Obama’s drone program mentioned above – not that it was acknowledged that Romney agreed with it, most of his rivals wanted to escalate it, and of course now there is Trump calling to start taking out women and children. But as examples like that show, it’s still a case where there are real distinctions.
As I’ve tried arguing, drawing any equivalence here always depends on erasing the people the policies effect. When you actually consider consequences, you get what Ignatius described so nicely above:
Ignoring all those things, to try to make it seem like supporting one party is like the other no matter what they actually stand for, is its own form of partiality. Some people are taking actions to hurt other people here, and many more are cool with them doing it, and it’s only a lie to pretend there is nothing blameworthy in that.
To go back to your remarks, pixleshifter, up above you talked about how rare it is to see Republicans presented in a positive light. With all their current talk about deporting Mexicans, and banning Muslims, and killing more civilians abroad, and doing more profiling of blacks, and banning marriage for gays, and keeping trans* people out of public bathrooms, and whatever other anti-human crap from their platform I’m forgetting, have you considered there might be some good reason besides our liberal bias?
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I’m trying to understand the narrative you put forth that “Trump is a bigot, Hillary is a liar, not sure which is worse.” This would seem to imply that you think Hillary’s lies are worse or more brazen than Trump’s lies, otherwise there would be no question which candidate’s faults were worse.
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There are plenty of people who don’t see me as “average” for any number of reasons, including my political views.
Why shouldn’t I point out the racism of Trump’s policies and how dangerous that is for the country? And that voting for him is supporting that? Do you think that’s untrue? Whether they agree or not, they are inherently endorsing that by voting for him. Just like I’m endorsing clinton and her policies if I vote for her. [quote=“pixleshifter, post:303, topic:85956, full:true”]
Sorry, what? Your assumptions about my assumptions are bollocks.
Have you been sleeping? Did you just dream that?
Wakey.
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You’re connecting an average voter in the flyover states with Trump, and assuming that those of us pointing out that he’s fomenting racism through his policy proposals are looking down on them for being “average” and from the flyover states. I’m calling out very specific things, that those who support Trump are inherently supporting racist policies, whether or not they agree with those policies.
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The most infuriating thing about this attitude is that voting for Trump because Congress is broken is just rewarding Republicans for destroying Congress’s ability to get anything done. (Yeah yeah, both sides blah blah blah, but objectively, Congress since 2010 has been breaking records on lack of productivity at a breathtaking rate.)
Policies aside, warmongering and chumminess with Wall Street are two of Trump’s planks (or the GOP’s at least). And when it comes to lying, well… as I’ve seen it said elsewhere that’s like saying you don’t like how hot it is outside, then setting your house on fire. Anyone voting for Trump for those reasons is a fucking idiot.
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So. Liberal humility is what’s driving attempts at universal healthcare? Job retraining? Progressive, supportive family policies for the workplace? This list is but a toe in the pool. For the last eight years, conservatives have been openly, OPENLY pushing racist rumors about Obama, his wife, kids, family, etc., the FAUX news channel regularly spins out derogatory pieces about Democratic lawmakers, activists, civilians, we have millionaire trump and his supporters dragging veterans and their families…
So, gee, if conservatives get called “deplorable” because they’re voting for an actually deplorable human being who will especially ravage the marginalized and underserved (for a start)–and this is not disputed, check his “policies” if they can be called that–then I guess they’ll have to pull up their big-boy pants and suffer through it.
Damn. I spent a few minutes saying what @robulus already said:
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I think a portion of the writer’s hypothesis is that those minds would never be changed. If people have seen everything that’s come out about this guy, and either said “NUH UH, YOU’RE LYING”, or “meh, I’m fine with that”, nothing is going to sway them.
You have ONE vote. As far as democracy is concerned, you’re ms/mrs average.
Point it out by all means. But if you do it intelligently with dialogue it might get somewhere, if you do it by just calling everyone stupid shits, then that’s not going to get you anywhere. That’s my point…
Nope, never did that. mr/s average voter is indeed Schrödinger’s cat. They’re all stripes and all persuasions.
Winning hearts and minds I see. Good on ya.
Sure. Not everyone agrees. My level of education, among other things, makes me suspect in some people’s minds.
And where have I, personally, done that? I do think that voting for trump is an endorsement of racism and bigotry, whether or not that’s the person’s intent. I stand by that.
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They’re both dishonest, but one’s far more so, and far more seriously so. LEV is the only option in the US at this point in time, so it’s irresponsible to not choose the lesser evil.
The more important issue here is that we’re talking about candidates for a job as the top administrator of the Federal Government of the US. We should be judging them by a whole lot of criteria, one of which is character, but also by the agenda they’ll pursue as an administrator, how effective they’d be in managing an incredibly demanding role, intellectually, ethically, and emotionally, and how effective they are in dealing with the incredible number of various challenges they’ll face in that role.
Trump’s barely laid out any agenda, and what he has laid out is a program of institutional bigotry, irresponsible neglect of the environment, and unrealistic ideas that would be impossible to implement.
Clinton’s laid out an agenda, and what she’s laid out isn’t fully fleshed out (since platforms never are, this is a very minor complaint), but it’s hundreds of times more specific and detailed than Trump’s, is focused on helping those most in need, dealing with long standing institutional issues, and working on problems which even if partially solved would be of benefit to the whole of the nation.
Trump has a background as a terrible administrator who works poorly in teams, ignores advice from subject matter experts, built businesses primarily based on fraud, exploiting human weaknesses, and selling low quality garbage falsely labeled luxury goods, has trouble paying attention, and when a crisis hits flees, declaring bankruptcy and hopping out with cash in hand.
Clinton has a background as a very effective administrator who pays attention to experts and adjusts positions accordingly, has a laser focus once she has a goal, works tirelessly, and while she’s certainly lined her pockets and befriended wealthy scumbags, and made more bad calls than I’d like, she has worked through her life on empowering women, helping the sick, poor, and needy, and worked as a very effective administrator.
The President isn’t just an administrator, they’re also a world leader.
Trump’s shockingly ignorant of basic facts involving international diplomacy, and is a belligerent asshole who’s already insulted numerous world leaders in the short period of his campaign, and even insulted the Pope.
Clinton was Secretary of State and has an intimate working knowledge of international issues. While I don’t agree with all her decisions, she’d be effective, and wouldn’t be actively harming international relations.
Clinton’s a lesser evil, but she’s a better candidate for the actual job in every single role that the job entails.
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Never said you did. Sorry for the confusion, I was talking in generalities. There are plenty on this thread that have though.
You’re entitled to think so, but understand that there are people voting for Trump for reasons other than that. @daneel stated it quite nicely upthread.
The cool pope, no less.
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They are still endorsing his racist proposals, likely because it won’t directly effect them and they don’t care much about the people it does effect.
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Did you check the results of those searches? Most of them have nothing to do with the topic at hand, and most, if not all, of the rest are dismissive of the term.
All what you say is probably true. And that’s how it should be expressed to those who’d vote for Trump, it’d probably be more effective than calling them all dicks.
As for the pope. I’ve no problem insulting him.[quote=“Mindysan33, post:317, topic:85956”]
likely because it won’t directly effect them and they don’t care much about the people it does effect
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True. And possibly also because they know he’s not going to get his crazy ideas through Congress, but it’ll stop Hillary.
No. Verbal abuse.
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Yes, and I did see what I said I saw, though as I’ve said more than once, it’s hard for me to care less, even though I’m trying. The reason I dropped the links and didn’t go into detail is that that entire discussion is an irrelevant tangent I have no investment in, and that’s still the case. No idea why people want to protect Maureen Dowd, David Brooks, Tomas Friedman, and the rest of the sneering pundits looking down on America from the Times opinion page, but if you want to, please leave me out of it.
You’ve dished out a good amount of it yourself, in some cases, needlessly.
I don’t mind sarcasm and wit, but at least own up to your shit.
Frankly, at this point, it just seems like you’re being contrary just for the sake of being contrary.
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Genuinely sorry; I missed the rest of the conversation in a quick search. But I have to wonder why make an argument you can’t be bothered to support…
It wasn’t an argument. It was a minor side note agreeing with a previous comment that referring to much of the country as “flyover states” is a dick move.
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