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Billy_TParticipantHappy for the win. But since I didn’t get to see the game, I don’t know what happened, at all.
Thought they would crush the Giants, and continue running well. Apparently, that didn’t happen.
Looking forward to the next two games, which I’ll be able to watch, “live.” Washington and SF. Should be some goodin’ football.
. . .
Still not sure if this season lasts. Hope so, of course. But who knows at this point?
Hope all is well with youze guys.
Join us in the chat room during a game or 2.
You would be welcome and it’s a good chat room group.
And we have nachos.
Thanks for the invite. I may do just that. At least during half time. TV is in the other room.
;>)
Billy_TParticipant<
My answer is never to tell people they are “wrong”. But to ask them questions-much like taking a deposition. If one says science doesn’t know everything-my question is “why do you say that”. Then they will say something like “I had a friend who…” Then I ask “do you personally know of others”. At some point the message comes across without them feeling they are looked down upon by someone who comes off as “having all the answers”. Might and likely won’t change their opinions but might give them a pause to think a second time about an issue. “Why do you ” are three very powerful words.=================
OK, but at what point do you usually pull out an ice-pick and run it through their walnut-brain? Because i find that its best to do it just after I’ve asked them an ‘I have a friend’ question.
w
vYou’re just being modest. I’ve always seen you as pretty good at that sort of thing, WV. Patient, almost tireless, and able to communicate with pretty much anyone. You’re a very good spokes-dude for the left.
I have my good days too, but I suspect they’re far rarer than yours, and my bull in a china shop moods hit me too often.
Lately, I’ve been discussing these things with family, too, with some recent, surprising advances, but mostly mixed results. I still have a ton to learn.
As always, thanks to you and others here for recs on this or that writer/thinker/activist, etc.
Billy_TParticipantQuick addendum:
I’ve found that righties are often condescending on certain topics. Talk to a righty about “economics” and you’re bound to get a lecture on how stupid liberals and leftists are when it comes to “the real world.” Same goes when it comes to military stuff, and until recently, geopolitics in general. Until Trump, righties were wont to lecture us on Spy-stuff too. They’ve done a complete 180 on that one.
Righties are also often condescending about religious matters, “patriotism,” and sports, as well.
But they’re graded on a curve, and far too many lefties have internalized that curve, so we all too often think we’re guiltier.
More likely: We have a greater capacity for guilt, shame, self-criticism, self-analysis, empathy, sympathy and consciences, etc. etc. . . .
Billy_TParticipantYeah, Billy. That’s well put. That’s what I’m driving at, I guess. And I just think that the GOP is more completely inclined to view people as Things than liberals are, and that just aligns with how everybody is indoctrinated to think, and it removes the Condescension. You never condescend to a Thing.
Liberals ARE condescending. Leftists, too. Maybe Leftists even more so. And so the masses hate universities and experts and everybody whom they feel look down their noses at them.
So…you take Trump. They identify with him because he is interested in the same things they are interested in – letting it all hang out without apologies to the snotty elitist types – and because he talks their language naturally. No condescension. He isn’t one of them, and has no use for them other than as a commodity, but he can bang their drumbeat like nobody else in decades. So even though he would spit in their faces if they showed up at Mar-a-Lago, his disdain for them never shows. Not because he likes them. But because they like him. And that’s ALL he cares about. They’re just Things to him, but because he does not care for them at all, they paradoxically feel included in his circle. He gives them attention, and makes them roar with delight.
They have grasped tightly to the Illusion of Acceptance.
Well put. Condescension is a huge problem for the left. At least the perception of condescension.
We gotta find another way of messaging. We gotta get better at “sales.” It basically helps keep the GOP in the game — our inability along those lines — cuz they’ve mastered the Big Lie. Invented it, actually. They’re great at sales, which they need, cuz their product is for shit.
Also, unlike the left, they can play at “man of the people,” drive into town with their beat-up truck, wear their old cowboy hat, give their spiel, then go back to their mansions, laughing up a storm, and cut new tax breaks for themselves and their billionaire friends. Lefties reject that game. But this often hurts lefties at the polls, ironically.
In the capitalist system, no one is more at a disadvantage than folks with consciences, moral compasses, shame or empathy, and I think it’s safe to say that “the left” kicks butt on those grounds. We also have a much tougher time, in general, lying about the way things are. Or lying, period. The right couldn’t care less about its lies and their effects, as long as it “wins.” Means to an end.
Again, in general. Exceptions exist, of course.
___
Good topic. More later. Possible tangent? Different life-choices for left and right. Why are “creatives” far more likely to be lefties, for instance? Or social workers, teachers, scientists, and so on? Again, Being versus Having. Which is more important? Who we are? Or What we Own?
Hope everyone is healthy and safe.
Billy_TParticipantIf you did not know, you can watch the replay of all the games is this thread.
Is it safe? No viruses, etc. etc.?
“Free” games on the NFL are “free” for a reason, usually. They want to leave the viewer a nice little gift, one that our computers generally don’t like all that much.
Billy_TParticipantHappy for the win. But since I didn’t get to see the game, I don’t know what happened, at all.
Thought they would crush the Giants, and continue running well. Apparently, that didn’t happen.
Looking forward to the next two games, which I’ll be able to watch, “live.” Washington and SF. Should be some goodin’ football.
. . .
Still not sure if this season lasts. Hope so, of course. But who knows at this point?
Hope all is well with youze guys.
Join us in the chat room during a game or 2.
You would be welcome and it’s a good chat room group.
And we have nachos.
Thanks for the invite. I may do just that. At least during half time. TV is in the other room.
;>)
October 6, 2020 at 5:24 pm in reply to: Trump said today the flu is worse than Covid. This article corrects the record. #122532Billy_TParticipantTrying to wrap it all up in a Hack-size post:
The seasonal flu death totals are always an estimate. We’re never given the raw numbers. The estimate is general a multiple of somewhere between 3 and 7, depending upon who’s doing the deal. They multiply the known count to offset undercounting.
If we did a true apples to apples comparison between the seasonal flu and Covid-19, we’d take the current official number of 211K . . . a shocking, mind-boggling tragedy, of course . . . and multiply that number somewhere in the range of 3 to 7.
(Again, I’ve seen different multiples, but that’s roughly it)
The scientific consensus is that Covid-19 is, at minimum, five times more lethal than the seasonal flu. More likely a much, much higher number. And America isn’t being told the true death count. It’s being given a gross undercount instead.
Billy_TParticipantZooey,
I’m currently reading a really interesting book by Erich Fromm — he of the Frankfurt School. To Have or to Be. He talks about the way our language itself has changed over time, due to the shift into a mass consumerist society.
I agree with most of what you say about the divisions between left and right and the way folks look at the world, and how the right basically sees people as things. But isn’t that the prerequisite for capitalism itself? Isn’t that basically the underlying, unspoken rationale for making it legal for one human being to own the productive labor of hundreds of thousands?
They have to be things. And then to rationalize selling shit, they have to turn consumers into things too. Things can’t be hurt by that shit. We don’t have to care about things, especially those we can’t see. Or the ones we see here but aren’t like us — which is yet another level of thingliness.
Humankind needs a radical transformation into Being. People who are. Not people who own. Recent discussions with folks who should know better show how difficult this change will be, cuz, “human nature,” apparently, but if we don’t do it, we won’t last as a species much into the 22nd century.
In short, capitalism has done a number on the way we think about ourselves, our own “nature,” each other, and it’s all wrong. None of it is the case. None of it is accurate. And all of it is deadly.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by
Billy_T.
Billy_TParticipantBall really does sound like someone working for a Trumpkin. They must be paying her well.
Pelosi and the Dems passed a major aid package last spring. Several trillions worth of aid. The GOP blocked it. Wouldn’t even give it a vote on the Senate floor. The Dems continued to negotiate with the GOP for a better deal than the GOP was willing to give, compromising from the one they originally passed, but better than the alternative by more than a trillion.
So after all the bashing of the Dems for always doing too little, Ball calls Pelosi a psychopath for trying to ask for more aid than the Republicans are offering? For trying to actually help Americans more than the GOP is willing to? Seriously?
Trump shut this down, not Pelosi. Pelosi and Mnuchin were still in the middle of negotiations when Trump, high on steroids, ended this today.
Billy_TParticipantFar too much to respond to in recent times. Have been doing my best not to get wound up beyond measure, so have stepped back a bit.
Skimming through the above, could comment about a hundred things. But I’ll try some low-hanging fruit.
The Nation makes a good point about the Middle Class, and the mistaken ways of defining it, but diminishes its own point a bit by using “household” as a metric. That’s a very slippery measure, cuz it can mean several incomes or just one. Far better way to define “Middle Class” is via a single income. Find the median for that, not an entire “household.”
This has been used by the right for decades now to try to make things look less fucked up than they actually are. Cuz, well, prior to the 1970s, one bread-winner could bring home what it takes two or more now — relative to cost of living, etc. etc. And it slowly got worse from there. As in, one bread-winner, no credit card debt, to two bread-winners, plus credit cards, and then all of that plus second mortgages, and then side hustles, Uber, etc. etc.
Time to update the metrics and tell the truth for once, and then compare all of that with the rest of the world which is even more fucked up.
Billy_TParticipantHappy for the win. But since I didn’t get to see the game, I don’t know what happened, at all.
Thought they would crush the Giants, and continue running well. Apparently, that didn’t happen.
Looking forward to the next two games, which I’ll be able to watch, “live.” Washington and SF. Should be some goodin’ football.
. . .
Still not sure if this season lasts. Hope so, of course. But who knows at this point?
Hope all is well with youze guys.
Billy_TParticipantWatched the replay on NFL Gamepass (free trial). Thought Goff looked much improved from last year, and am impressed with Henderson.
The Defense? Not so much. Gashed via the run and the pass. They need to fix that or they won’t get to the playoffs, which would be a shame, given the quality Offense, etc.
Will throw in some belated two cents over on the football side later.
Hope all is well.
Billy_TParticipantNo no. I think WV said it best. No complicated intellectual answer. People are stupid.
Well it’s possible that WV has a simplistic anti-intellectual answer, though I doubt it. But can we say people are inherently stupid? Seems to me that’s an elitist view no good self-consistent progressive can go along with. IMO many people are as smart as what he calls the propaganda-advertising-marketing-lies let them be. In my case, one of the people I am blaming for the propaganda-advertising-marketing-lies is Biden. He’s the one who goes yeah socialism IS bad and my opponent in the primaries WAS a socialist. So he’s part of the problem, or he is at least in that respect. Mostly because, like most propaganda-advertising-marketing-liars, he believes it.
And don’t worry. Many progressives are voting for Biden. We don’t have to lie about him to vote for him. Like I said once, when it comes to a choice between getting gangrene and cutting your leg off, you cut your leg off.
Have always thought it was a terrible mistake, even from a political POV, for the Dems to lie about Socialism. They don’t have to make a case for it, though I obviously wish they would. But by trashing it, they’re just aiding and abetting their opponents, who lump them in with “socialism” anyway, no matter how conservative they actually are, and Biden is a conservative — as were Clinton and Obama, at least on most issues.
Aside from socialism being head and shoulders the best political philosophy developed to date, morally, ethically, democratically, environmentally, it’s also the best way for Dems to (indirectly) achieve what they say they want to achieve — by positioning themselves as the “compromise” position between left and right. The “sensible center,” so to speak, between socialism and conservatism. By endlessly attacking socialism (and leftists in general), they destroy that possibility, and make themselves appear as “as the radical left” to a large percentage of Americans, ironically.
FDR understood this. He positioned his New Deal as the compromise between a rising socialist tide and the conservative establishment, and basically told the latter, “It’s me or the guys with the pitchforks to my left. Which would you rather have? I’ll save capitalism for you, in exchange for your support,” etc. etc.
Basically, IMO, the current crop of Dems (going back to at least the early 1970s) have helped eliminate the threat of the pitchforks, which just strengthens the GOP’s hand.
Billy_TParticipantI’m happy about the Tight End group too. They’ve got a lot of athleticism now. And Higbee really stepped it up last year, obviously. He’s that big, relatively athletic target the Rams have lacked for so long. Not quite as athletic as Hopkins or Everett, but close, and a lot bigger.
On a side note: It wouldn’t have taken much at all to make that helmet remix excellent. Can’t help but wish they had just made the arc bigger, all around, at least an inch on the top, toward the back of the helmet too, and then done the old loop on the bottom ear part. It would have been so easy to get it right.
;>(
But I’m getting used to it enough not to think it’s awful now.
Billy_TParticipantYeah, Carlson knows what’s truly important about this. Who let Trump talk with Woodward 18 times by phone (for the book)!! It’s all their fault!!
Trump is also trying to blame Woodward for not sharing what he knew, earlier, about Trump’s deadly mendacity.
We’re light years beyond the twilight zone.
And, cuz the right-wing/GOP mediaverse has far, far more message discipline than the centrist/Dem mediaverse, it may just work. Endless repetition, the projection of confidence and certainty, a unified voice — these things work. Doesn’t matter that it’s all lies.
Billy_TParticipantThis must have been the sequel:
Btw, what was Perry Mason doing in Tokyo?
Billy_TParticipantHere’s a new scoop — except for those here who already knew about it.
;>)
This, of course, was bound to happen, and was “the plan” all along, when Trump forced a reroute of info from the CDC to his own Homeland Security Dept. Far less chance for those pesky scientists to mess up his endless lies/propaganda about Covid-19.
Excerpt:
The health department’s politically appointed communications aides have demanded the right to review and seek changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly scientific reports charting the progress of the coronavirus pandemic, in what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the reports’ authors and water down their communications to health professionals.
In some cases, emails from communications aides to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other senior officials openly complained that the agency’s reports would undermine President Donald Trump’s optimistic messages about the outbreak, according to emails reviewed by POLITICO and three people familiar with the situation.
CDC officials have fought back against the most sweeping changes, but have increasingly agreed to allow the political officials to review the reports and, in a few cases, compromised on the wording, according to three people familiar with the exchanges. The communications aides’ efforts to change the language in the CDC’s reports have been constant across the summer and continued as recently as Friday afternoon.
The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports are authored by career scientists and serve as the main vehicle for the agency to inform doctors, researchers and the general public about how Covid-19 is spreading and who is at risk. Such reports have historically been published with little fanfare and no political interference, said several longtime health department officials, and have been viewed as a cornerstone of the nation’s public health work for decades.
But since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the Health and Human Services department’s new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump’s statements, including the president’s claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether.
Caputo and his team have attempted to add caveats to the CDC’s findings, including an effort to retroactively change agency reports that they said wrongly inflated the risks of Covid-19 and should have made clear that Americans sickened by the virus may have been infected because of their own behavior, according to the individuals familiar with the situation and emails reviewed by POLITICO.
Caputo’s team also has tried to halt the release of some CDC reports, including delaying a report that addressed how doctors were prescribing hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug favored by Trump as a coronavirus treatment despite scant evidence. The report, which was held for about a month after Caputo’s team raised questions about its authors’ political leanings, was finally published last week. It said that “the potential benefits of these drugs do not outweigh their risks.”
In one clash, an aide to Caputo berated CDC scientists for attempting to use the reports to “hurt the President” in an Aug. 8 email sent to CDC Director Robert Redfield and other officials that was widely circulated inside the department and obtained by POLITICO.
Billy_TParticipantPanic. Trump ran on panic in 2016, and he’s doing it again. He tried to paint the US under Obama as hell on earth (for white people), and took a page out of Hitler’s playbook by blaming it all on furriners, “the left,” migrants, “hordes in caravans” coming to steal your jobs, etc. etc. He stoked the flames burning inside the lizard brains of white Americans susceptible to the Big Lie, and we saw, tragically, that they number in the millions. Of course, without the direct aid of Comey, the GOP’s highly successful voter suppression efforts, and Putin, Clinton would have won, despite Trump’s Hitlerian tactics.
A Clinton win would have meant that the US, basically, kept its status quo, which was rotten. But Trump has kept the foundation of that same status quo — the imperialism, the wars, the carceral state, the environmental destruction, the mass inequality, etc. etc. . . . and made them a thousand fold worse. He slashed taxes for the uber-rich, deregulated their businesses more than any president since Reagan, even more than some corporations actually wanted, privatized millions of protected acres, and radically increased defense spending. He put countless corporate lobbyists and billionaires in charge. Hell, the Secretary of Defense used to lobby on behalf of Raytheon!
Panic. And we aint seen nothing yet. That’s Trump’s only move now. Scare white America shitless.
Obviously, he hid knowledge of the pandemic from Americans to save his own skin. He’s directly responsible for nearly 200,000 deaths.
Billy_TParticipantAnyway, all of that pales in comparison, in my opinion, to Trump’s deadly, daily lies regarding the pandemic. He literally has the blood of nearly 200,000 Americans on his hands. We already knew Trump was putting his reelection and the Stock Market above human lives. But now we also know, from the recordings, that he knew it was deadly serious. He can’t pretend anymore that he was just fighting “elite libtards” on the science, owning them, etc. He knew. He knew had bad this shit was gonna be back in January, at least, and he said so to Woodward.
This also tracks with other stuff we knew before these bombshells. That Trump and others in his administration blocked a plan to fight the pandemic, because they decided this was just a “Blue State” problem, and they could blame Blue State governors, etc. As long as it wouldn’t impact Trump’s base, directly, they could scapegoat their way to victory in November — or so they believed. And the revelation that Trump knew how deadly this is also casts more (obscenely ugly) light on his decision to hold a half dozen indoor rallies in the last few months.
He doesn’t care how many Americans die, as long as he maintains power. And we know he doesn’t care about how many furriners die. Kids in cages. Migrants in cages, period, despite Covid-19. Fomenting a coup in Venezuela. Leaving the Kurds defenseless to be slaughtered by the Turks, cuz he and Erdogan had a phone conversation, etc. Bragging to Woodward about this amazing new Nuke “he” had developed, etc. etc . . . which tracks with his earlier public statements that he would use the Bomb, even on Europe, if necessary.
Not to mention his anti-Climate policies.
Worst. President. Evah.
Billy_TParticipant“…Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence at the time. Mr. Coats himself was haunted by the president’s Twitter feed and believed that Mr. Trump’s gentle approach to Russia reflected something more sinister….”
=============This to me — and i know others here disagree — but this to me, is part of the mega-problem. This CIA-murderer is upset at Trump, NOT because trump has interfered in left-leaning nations, or that Trump has bombed Syria or that Trump has embraced dictators in Saudi Arabia, or that Trump is destroying the biosphere with his insane enviro-policies — no. The spook is upset because Trump is not hostile enough towards Russia. Like Hillary would have been.
This is exactly why people like me, and bill moyers and glenn greenwald and chris hedges and cornell west are not averse to the ‘deep state’ term.
w
vNot trying to defend Coats here. He’s a very conservative Republican, and we share zero ground on the issues. But he doesn’t come from the Intelligence “community.” He wasn’t CIA. He was a senator from Indiana, then an Ambassador to Germany under Bush, then a senator again, then Trump appointed him to be his DNI. As far as I know, he had no previous experience in the “spook” world.
Which means, if I understand this correctly, his job was to collect the intel data from all the various departments and then advise the president. Might be more to it than that. But I think that’s the gist of it. Again, he was Trump’s appointee.
Billy_TParticipantYou’re probably right.
But isn’t it interesting that this seems okay with right-wing spokespersons? More grading on the curve stuff. They likely even gain “cred” for being scruffy, if it’s in the right(wing) way. Old cap, beard, camouflage gear, an AR-15 and whatnot. If they look like hunters, I suppose — of animals or people — they seem “authentic,” not scary, to all too many an American.
But leftists, especially “anarchists”? It’s grab all the children and hide under the beds.
Which makes me also think, especially now, of the tragic conflation of “anarchist” with “bomb-thrower,” which seems deeply ingrained in our culture. Centuries of anarchist philosophy — as you know — counters that stereotype. But who listens or cares?
Billy_TParticipantSo far, the Atlantic article has been backed up by reports from the AP, the NYT, the WaPo and now Fox News.
Trump called for the firing of the Fox reporter for . . . for . . . doing her job:
Jennifer Griffin defended by Fox News colleagues after Trump Twitter attack over confirmation of Atlantic reporting
Excerpt:
September 5, 2020 at 2:44 p.m. EDT
Add to listJennifer Griffin caused an unexpected media firestorm Friday when she did something fairly routine for a reporter: A competitor had broken a story on her beat, so she set out to see whether she could match it.
In this case, it was the Atlantic’s blockbuster report that President Trump had made disparaging remarks about veterans. Griffin, a national security correspondent for Fox News, found sources to validate key aspects of the story, sharing her reporting on Twitter and on anchor Bret Baier’s news show.
Other beat reporters had confirmed aspects of the Atlantic story, too. But the fact that Griffin works for Fox, whose opinion hosts and corporate owners are seen as reliable supporters and defenders of the president, turned her revelations into a watershed development. It led to Trump’s call for her firing late Friday on Twitter — and an impassioned pushback from Fox News colleagues defending her journalistic honor.
ADIn a nine-tweet thread Friday afternoon, Griffin cited two unnamed former senior administration officials who she said confirmed for her many key aspects of Atlantic Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s story about Trump’s cancellation of a trip to Aisne-Marne American Cemetery while visiting Paris in 2018.
Billy_TParticipantI live in a city in the outskirts of the Philly suburbs and I can tell you that if anyone here has any enthusiasm for Joe Biden at all,it isn’t showing. This city is mostly Latino and the Democrats are failing somewhat miserably in engaging them at all.
No one I know of is voting FOR Biden. If they vote at all it is AGAINST Trump. This seems like a strategy we have seen before by the Democrats. They are very anti-populist and are running on a strategy of conveying competence vs. chaos. That’s great. But will it be enough to motivate people to vote?
Biden isn’t the kind of person to get excited about — and that’s not just in terms of his policies. A lot of that has to do with his own lackluster personality. Watching him on TV makes me think he wishes he had never gotten into this.
We humans are, in many ways, far less complicated than we like to believe, and far more prone to being manipulated. Or flat out sold. All kinds of studies show this. Even supposedly sophisticated wine connoisseurs will choose a glass of wine labelled $91 over the one labelled $10, even though they both came from the same bottle.
Manufactured realities, fictions, symbols, and signs. Who does better with the creation and sales of these false-fields. That’s key. The Dems have never been good at sales, and they keep choosing bad salespersons to top their tickets.
They’ve cleared the field the last two times for the least effective salesperson, instead of letting the guy with the best agenda (Sanders) head the ticket, etc. etc.
IMO, a clear majority of Americans will vote against Trump, not necessarily for Biden, if they’re able to. If Trump and his fellow right-wing goons let them vote.
Billy_TParticipantIt fits a pattern going back decades for him. He’s on tape calling McCain a loser for being captured, in a Dan Rather (2000) interview. He repeated this when he ran for president. Kelly’s silence after the latest accusation speaks volumes too.
I’d bet 99% of the story is spot on.
Also, his approval/disapproval ratings were already underwater with vets, before this came out, and a plurality of vets favored Biden over Trump. He’s not nearly as popular among military rank and file as he wants the nation to believe. Endless stunts using the military as political props have taken their toll, and vets tend not to like it when a president trashes their brethren in public. Vindman, Gold Star families, etc. etc.
I doubt they think much of Trump’s choices to head the military branches, either. Especially when he tried to install billionaire CEOs.
Again, I think his overall support is paper thin. Most of it comes from diehard Republicans, who vote Red no matter what. Of course, Biden’s is thin as well.
Diehard Red and Blue voters. It’s gonna be all about the clash between voter turnout and voter suppression.
Billy_TParticipantTaibbi basically admits that “policy” is irrelevant when it comes to Trump.
Well…Message, then. The Democrats only message seems to be “Not Trump.”
Biden has a slogan, apparently written by Melania, that I do not even understand: Build Back Better. WTF does that even mean?
There is no promise to increase people’s well-being through wages or healthcare or whatever. They’re not Trump.
I must be overly ornery today. Gotta get to my favorite mountain places tomorrow and fine some semblance of peace.
Anyway, how about this? The Dems do both? Push an agenda that will actually improve lives and help save the planet, and go after Trump when needed?
He keeps adding fuel to the fire:
Trump targets ‘white privilege’ training as ‘anti-American’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has directed the Office of Management and Budget to crack down on federal agencies’ anti-racism training sessions, calling them “divisive, anti-American propaganda.”
OMB director Russell Vought, in a letter Friday to executive branch agencies, directed them to identify spending related to any training on “critical race theory,” “white privilege” or any other material that teaches or suggests that the United States or any race or ethnicity is “inherently racist or evil.”
He’s really working overtime for the Nazi vote.
Billy_TParticipantOn the polls and such:
I think if Americans weren’t constantly gaslit, and everyone had real edjucajuns that open up the multiverse to all, that inspire critical thinking skills, etc. etc. . . . and didn’t feel the need to blindly follow Team Blue or Team Red . . . this would be the typical scenario for the two major parties, when they held power, respectively:
Generic Dem: Approval rates roughly in the 10-25% range.
Generic Republican: Approval rates roughly in the 3-10% range.Allowances made for “exceptional” leaders (and times), for better or worse, etc.
Billy_TParticipantI think his main point is that making the election about Trump is a losing strategy. It should be about policy.
I agree that Biden should be crushing Trump in the polls. .
==================
Well, maybe in Portugal. Or Finland.
Not in Corporate-Capitalism-Central.
The System made too many Red-State versions of Idiots and Blue-State versions of idiots.
How could there be a landslide by either side on the planet-of-the-apes?
w
vWV,
That’s damn fine thinking there. Scary, too.
. . . This video may segue into an all too appropriate advertisement/reminder at the end. A nice “corrective” to this might be “The Boys,” on Amazon, if you haven’t seen it. Deals with the commodification of superheroes. Of course, it’s on a service owned by the richest man in the world, at least officially ($200 billion now. Got that way by wiping out millions of jobs and paying slave wages.
As Norman Mailer said in the pages of Dissent, back in the 1950s:
Capitalism follows you everywhere.
Billy_TParticipantRemember, Trump “won” primarily by focusing on Obama and the Clintons. He didn’t run on his own agenda, beyond vague bumper stickers like Bannon’s “Build the Wall!!” He won by endlessly attacking them and painting “Obama’s America” as a hellscape, and Clinton as dangerously corrupt beyond measure.
He ran as the “outsider” against the incumbents and dynasts.
The shoe is on the other foot now. Trump is the would-be dynast, and his corruption makes the Clintons look like Theresa of Avila and Francis of Assisi. Throw in his fascist rhetoric, his endless attacks on POCs, his support for the Confederacy, his endless scandals, and he presents a target a thousand fold larger than Obama and the Clintons. An obvious target. With 21,000 documented lies to boot.
To me, if Trump can win an election doing virtually nothing but attacking his opponent, Biden and the Dems can play the same game and win. I’d bet a virtual fortune that 99 out of a 100 seasoned campaign directors would rather use that strategy against Trump (2020) than Obama/Clinton (2016).
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This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by Billy_T.
Billy_TParticipantI think his main point is that making the election about Trump is a losing strategy. It should be about policy.
I agree that Biden should be crushing Trump in the polls. Trump’s term has been one policy failure after another, and he has done NOTHING to help the people whose dissatisfaction with their marginalization led to his election. If you make the campaign about policies, then that failure is emphasized. When you make it about Trump, you are making it about showbiz, a terrain that favors bombast.
I am starting to see Trump stuff pop up on vehicles now. (I haven’t seen a single Biden). And a common Trump sticker/sign is “Trump 2020: Make liberals cry again.”
And I think, actually, that that is pretty much the core of Trump’s appeal to a lot of people. And I think if the Democrats let the election be about culture war, they are more likely to lose. IMO, they ought to be saying, “Your jobs didn’t come back. Health care hasn’t been fixed. The Swamp has been added to, not drained. His family has literally made hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves, and you are right where you were four years ago.”
Of course, it would be helpful if they had a plan to do something about wages and job security and healthcare, but they don’t. So maybe that’s why they’re taking their chances on amping up the people who hate Trump.
Taibbi basically admits that “policy” is irrelevant when it comes to Trump. But he doesn’t seem to draw the logical inference from that and extend it to politics/voters in general. Trump won because he was able to easily sell a crap sandwich to his base, and actually make his voters love that crap sandwich. The Dems are terrible at that. They can’t even sell edible stuff.
With few exceptions, and for decades now, the Dems have been terrible at sales. They seem incapable of staying on message, projecting confidence, strength or certainty in their own agenda, and rarely show anything approaching a unified front. And the MSM amplifies these weaknesses and divisions constantly. They get a lot of clicks from said stories.
It would be awesome if the Dems countered with at least social democratic/Bernie-style policy platforms, but none of that would matter without sales prowess, which they lack. Conversely, of course, if they actually were as good at sales as Trump is, they could sell a far more ambitious slate, with far better results, well to the left of Sanders. The kind we (here) would love, etc.
Again, they can’t even sell centrism, except to that trickle of ex-Republicans who aren’t a big enough voting bloc to matter.
IMO, without decent salespersons, they need to make this about Trump. But all in, for the jugular, take the gloves off.
Billy_TParticipantThere’s always the Politician-Front-Man, and then there’s the Money-People behind the scenes. Why does Taibbi think thats crazy-conspiratorial?
Isnt it also true about Trump? I dunno. Trump’s a billionaire-Narcissist-Ass-Clown. So, ironically, he may be the first President its NOT true of. I dunno.
This is all a minor point, but its just a thing with me. I hate it when MSM-types or Taibbi-types act like ALL talk of shadow-government-power is crazy talk. I wanna tell them grow up. Of COURSE there’s mega-money people in the shadows. Duh.
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vWV,
We know for a fact that, yes, Trump, too, has massive mega-donors and billionaires supporting him, guiding him, pushing tax laws, deregulation, privatization schemes on him. He hired several to sit on his cabinet and run key government departments, and tried to get several more to run military wings, but they were rebuffed by the GOP-led Senate at the time.
And every other day, we find out about a new scandal involving people surrounding Trump, stealing from taxpayers, or moving millions of dollars from Trump’s inauguration committee into Trump’s own bank account.
I know you don’t believe this, but it’s true: Trump and the GOP are far more beholden to those “money men” and corporate America than the Dems could even dream of being. It’s not at all close. And no president has ever lined his own pockets with such success or ferocity.
The Dems, in comparison, are back alley crap game hosts.
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