2020 US Election

  On 4/26/2023 at 9:40 PM, taphead said:

They were all hoping that Biden would decline to run. But with the incumbent in the race, the party establishment is going to rally around him, and any attempt at pulling him into a primary with some actual stakes (rather than just swatting down some wackadoodles) would be career suicide. And so they wait for 28.

not all. maybe aoc. many appreciate that biden won more votes than any candidate in history in 2020 and is doing a good job

disinfo is about

the concern of course with Biden running again, is that he will turn away those highly coveted on-the-fence voters, and they'll do something stupid - like vote for chump. those (incredibly so at this point) undecided folks who somehow forget about all the shenanigans we went through with the kindergartner king in office... Biden should have the decency to step aside if he realizes the dems are gonna lose with him in the run. hell, maybe he will once those poll numbers start skewing toward the crazy R direction. I know Biden quitting in a presidential run shows weakness and lack of direction in the party, which is kinda my point here. how tf there is no one else with potential in the dems to run is crazy. but realistically, I know Joe isn't ever going to back down, since he's pushed out this image of being a fighter, and so we just have no other fucking option then. 

politics of any flavor really suck. two party system sucks. one party system sucks. there is no solution here. just go with the lesser of the evils. there is no reason for any sane person to vote R at this point in time. I don't really care what party is running against them, I'm just voting for the one with the best chance to beat the R's. therefore I have no choice but to vote dem, since the other ones (green, libertarian) are never going to be realistic options. 

  On 4/26/2023 at 6:07 PM, zero said:

bar is super low now. so fuck it. throw an AI chatbot into the race. that's where we're heading. let the fake AI things battle it out with the humans.

if anybody could outperform Trump's wacky gaslighting hyperbole that the voters love so much, it's Bing Chat

Bing Chat 2024: You Asked Me Wrong, So I'll Start A War

  On 4/26/2023 at 9:46 PM, trying to be less rude said:

not all. maybe aoc. many appreciate that biden won more votes than any candidate in history in 2020 and is doing a good job

 

disinfo is about

he’s too old. this should be obvious 

  On 4/26/2023 at 9:46 PM, trying to be less rude said:

not all. maybe aoc. many appreciate that biden won more votes than any candidate in history in 2020 and is doing a good job

 

disinfo is about

Sorry if I was unclear, but I meant that anyone on the Democratic Party side with presidential aspirations was hoping that Biden would not run for re-election. There are a few people beyond AOC who could concievably take a crack at it! And there seems to be a bit of a disadvantage when running for office after one party held the presidency for two terms, so they're probably a little bit bummed out that they'll be dealing with that. But I think there's many within the party who believe that Biden is the only one who would be able to take down Trump, and I think it's entirely plausible that they're right.

Personally, I do think Biden is better than expected, it's awesome that he has significantly reduced the use of drones to kill people in other countries. But it's still a little bit stressful that so much will be depending on how voters feel about this specific old man in 19 months. I'm trans and if Trump or Desantis get into office, I'm a bit worried about what they could do that would impact my ability to recieve health insurance coverage and doctor's visits. So yeah, can't say I'm excited about the future here, but I don't think there's any possible scenario where I wouldn't find this all very stressful.

  On 4/26/2023 at 11:26 PM, exitonly said:

he’s too old. this should be obvious 

the job is not athletic. he makes good decisions.

far from obvious, it's logically wrong. and oh hey coincidence it's the best narrative the opposition can find. it should tell people something that the main thing anyone can fault him for is his age.  once again: coincidence that this is a deployed narrative

  On 4/26/2023 at 11:58 PM, trying to be less rude said:

the job is not athletic. he makes good decisions.

 

far from obvious, it's logically wrong. and oh hey coincidence it's the best narrative the opposition can find. it should tell people something that the main thing anyone can fault him for is his age.  once again: coincidence that this is a deployed narrative

dude, just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t meant they’re spreading disinformation or are some tool of russian propaganda or something. cognitive decline is a real thing. biden is 80. whether he is ok or not today doesn’t mean he will be in 2-3 years. that’s not something i would have to worry about from a candidate in their 50s or 60s.

  On 4/26/2023 at 9:13 PM, trying to be less rude said:

this asshole claims to dislike bigotry but here i am suffering his prejudice and stereotyping against me as an american. idiotic hypocrite. 

aw, you poor victim. you do nothing but equivocate like a professional internet arguer when pressed on your bullshit. it took me 2 seconds to go back a few pages and find the Capitol riot/"coup" comment exactly as I thought it'd been written.

  On 4/27/2023 at 3:58 AM, usagi said:

aw, you poor victim. you do nothing but equivocate like a professional internet arguer when pressed on your bullshit. it took me 2 seconds to go back a few pages and find the Capitol riot/"coup" comment exactly as I thought it'd been written.

ok well i admit when i'm wrong. you're still a cunt and should stop shitting up us political discourse with your shit takes

  On 3/31/2023 at 12:54 AM, trying to be less rude said:

but in this case the feds should and may. the one we are waiting for is the feds indicting him for his failed coup, probably the worst crime in american history

yeah thanks. 

honestly sedition is fucking bad. the dude almost took the country out

but yeah the million dead is bad too

for the record, i was never suggesting someone should vote for trump or any other republican for that matter

btw the coup was not the riot. sicking the armed mob on the capitol was one component of the failed coup

  On 4/27/2023 at 3:50 AM, exitonly said:

dude, just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t meant they’re spreading disinformation or are some tool of russian propaganda or something. cognitive decline is a real thing. biden is 80. whether he is ok or not today doesn’t mean he will be in 2-3 years. that’s not something i would have to worry about from a candidate in their 50s or 60s.

i'm not saying you are. just don't go by consensus. consensus is fucked. like deeply fucked.

anyway he is the dem nominee as of now. and he is a great american president, in my honest opinion.

us intel dumps prebunking russian disinfo maneuvers during invasion were innovative and very effective. that's an example of what good leadership looks like. it can be subtle but he is doing a lot of things right and the totality of that is helping the country return to normalcy from a state of extreme duress

chomsky getting old af but making as much sense as ever... talking about 40+ year class war that's been waged on the poor/middle class

  On 4/29/2023 at 4:20 PM, ignatius said:

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OMG.. that's...that's painful. Too much truth in one drawing

As a general response to Chomsky, this video is an interesting mental exercise in political philosophy.

I wonder who Republicans would class as centre-left these days? 

It seems that every time a Democrat is discussed they have the same prefixes:  "crazy, extreme fringe radical, far-distant-left, Mao-loving, wealth redistributing, pie-in-the-sky, 5 year plan bastard, skull crushing, baby blood drinking Democrat Joe Manchin... etc"

Its the boy who cried Marx. They've run out of road.

  On 5/7/2023 at 4:32 PM, Key said:

I wonder who Republicans would class as centre-left these days? 

It seems that every time a Democrat is discussed they have the same prefixes:  "crazy, extreme fringe radical, far-distant-left, Mao-loving, wealth redistributing, pie-in-the-sky, 5 year plan bastard, skull crushing, baby blood drinking Democrat Joe Manchin... etc"

Its the boy who cried Marx. They've run out of road.

there are some "centrist" GOPs but the party seems unable to do the smart thing and get behind them. trump brings goons out of the woodwork who don't vote otherwise, so the party is in a weird position where trump is really hurting them in some ways but in other ways they see it as unwise to break with him. the republican party may be on track for a really sad showing in 2024, as no republican candidates seem capable of really criticizing him (except for christie who will mildly criticize him for almost killing him), and trump is likely to be prosecuted as the greatest traitor in american history, right in prime campaign season. 

with any luck there will be a good blue wave, which is needed, such as to address the gerrymandering problem. the REDMAP project, using AI to gerrymander districts, has locked up state legislatures in swing states, such that dems get a clear majority of the popular vote but repubs get a large majority of seats. fixing gerrymandering is exceptionally difficult, this is one of the ways the country is maimed. we nearly addressed it with the Freedom To Vote Act but it failed by 2 votes in the Senate

  On 5/7/2023 at 4:58 PM, trying to be less rude said:

there are some "centrist" GOPs but the party seems unable to do the smart thing and get behind them. trump brings goons out of the woodwork who don't vote otherwise, so the party is in a weird position where trump is really hurting them in some ways but in other ways they see it as unwise to break with him. the republican party may be on track for a really sad showing in 2024, as no republican candidates seem capable of really criticizing him (except for christie who will mildly criticize him for almost killing him), and trump is likely to be prosecuted as the greatest traitor in american history, right in prime campaign season. 

 

with any luck there will be a good blue wave, which is needed, such as to address the gerrymandering problem. the REDMAP project, using AI to gerrymander districts, has locked up state legislatures in swing states, such that dems get a clear majority of the popular vote but repubs get a large majority of seats. fixing gerrymandering is exceptionally difficult, this is one of the ways the country is maimed. we nearly addressed it with the Freedom To Vote Act but it failed by 2 votes in the Senate

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If there is a blue wave, do we trust the Ds to actually fix the gerrymandering problem in that they'll make it as fair as possible or will they "fix" it meaning they'll just gerrymander it back to slanting more blue?

I'm thinking of the recent case in the Ohio state legislature where the people overwhelmingly voted for a resolution to force a fair redrawing of the districts, but the shithole Rs refused to do it on the back of some sneaky language they put in that allowed them to loosely define a "fair" redrawing any way they wanted.  Not saying they wouldn't have done this anyway, but it seems they were empowered by the Ds previously gerrymandering the fuck out of the state to lean blue.

My point is, that for this issue to really be fixed, it seems that one party is going to have to stand up and be the adult in the room (which is what the majority of Americans want, it seems), and I just don't see either party doing that right now, thinking it will hurt them at the ballot box in the short term.  Nobody's willing to give an inch.

  On 5/7/2023 at 6:59 PM, randomsummer said:

If there is a blue wave, do we trust the Ds to actually fix the gerrymandering problem in that they'll make it as fair as possible or will they "fix" it meaning they'll just gerrymander it back to slanting more blue?

yeah man. why do you think 48 dems/independents voted for the Freedom to Vote Act in the Senate but the republicans uniformly voted against it? That would have established unbiased redistricting commissions. 

  On 5/8/2023 at 12:51 AM, trying to be less rude said:

yeah man. why do you think 48 dems/independents voted for the Freedom to Vote Act in the Senate but the republicans uniformly voted against it? That would have established unbiased redistricting commissions. 

OK, but the Rs in Ohio appeared to play nice and play along all the while introducing language that would let them ignore the will of the people by determining themselves what "fair" metrics to use for redistricting.

Of course they voted for it, it's good PR, that's what the Ds' base wanted.  All I'm saying is, that I have a hard time seeing either party when, in control, striving to draw truly fair districting maps.  That being said, I do think Ds in power would be less damaging than Rs in power.  And I'm also open to being surprised if some politicians actually follow through with attempting to end gerrymandering.  From what I've heard and read, the Ds attempt in Ohio did seem to be in good faith, but was that only because they knew they were getting screwed by the current maps?

  On 5/8/2023 at 4:13 PM, randomsummer said:

All I'm saying is, that I have a hard time seeing either party when, in control, striving to draw truly fair districting maps. 

you're right. it's almost as if we need a completely neutral, non-political take on how to best determine this.

half joking/half serious - feed the American voting district map into chatGPT, let it come up with the best solution...then let it tell us how dumb the whole 2 party system is lol.

  On 5/8/2023 at 6:34 PM, zero said:

you're right. it's almost as if we need a completely neutral, non-political take on how to best determine this.

half joking/half serious - feed the American voting district map into chatGPT, let it come up with the best solution...then let it tell us how dumb the whole 2 party system is lol.

To be fair, in the Ohio case the Ohio supreme court struck down the many bullshit maps that the Rs submitted, correctly saying that they were unconstitutional (unfair).  The courts are supposed to be the neutral party here, but the Rs strategy of stall until the last minute forced the Ohio voters to go to the polls with the same unconstitutional districting maps, with no real consequences for the politicians failing to do their job.

I know that at my job, if I just refused to do what I was told 4 times in a row, I'd kinda get fired.

There's a pretty good podcast about that recent situation in Ohio.