Our newest Senators.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
So does this count as a New Game+ mode?
American Politics: A Brand New Day
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https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2021/01/20/day-1/
[h=1]Day 1: "Democracy has prevailed."[/h]
! 1/ Biden was sworn as the 46th president of the United States, moments after Kamala Harris took her oath of office, making her the first woman and the first woman of color to serve as vice president. “This is America’s day,” Biden said as he began his Inaugural Address. “This is democracy’s day.” Biden – the oldest man to be sworn in as president at 78 – described today as “our historic moment of crisis and challenge,” as he called on the nation to end its “uncivil war” and embrace “Unity [as] the path forward. And we must meet this moment as the United States of America. If we do that, I guarantee you we will not fail.” Four years after Trump attacked the Washington establishment throughout his Inaugural Address, declaring that the “American carnage stops right here and stops right now,” Biden offered a direct rebuttal: “We’ve learned again that democracy is precious, democracy is fragile — and at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.” (New York Times / Washington Post / NBC News / Wall Street Journal / CNN / Politico)
! * Biden’s Inaugural Address, Annotated. (NPR)- Biden inauguration live blogs: New York Times / Washington Post / NPR / The Guardian / Politico / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / ABC News / NBC News / CNN
- Trump left a note for Biden in the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk. A Trump White House spokesperson did not reveal the contents of what Trump left for Biden to read. (Politico / USA Today)
- Melania Trump outsourced her “thank you” notes to the White House residence staff who cared for her and her family for the last four years. A low-level East Wing staffer wrote them “in her voice,” and she signed her name. (CNN)
Biden inherits a country that is older, on shakier economic footing, and is more politically polarized. “The coronavirus pandemic halted the 11-year economic expansion and drove up unemployment just as the typical American household was starting to enjoy sustained income growth. Americans were living longer until the pandemic exacted a swift, deadly toll.” (Wall Street Journal)- Trump will step into a financial minefield that appears to be unlike anything he has faced. “Baseless election fraud claims and the Capitol riot have compounded already-looming threats to his bottom line. And the cash lifelines he once relied on are gone.” (New York Times)
! 2/ Trump, who refused to concede, never congratulated Biden and skipped his successor’s swearing-in, held a small, socially distanced military-style send-off for himself before leaving for his Florida resort. “I hope they don’t raise your taxes,” Trump told the crowd of several hundred people at Joint Base Andrews. “But if they do, I told you so.” While Trump did not mention Biden by name, he did “wish the new administration great luck and great success.” Trump concluded his remarks, vowing to “be back in some form” and, as the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” began playing, Trump told his supporters: “Have a good life.” (Washington Post / Politico / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal / The Guardian)
! * Trump discussed forming a new political party and wants to call it the “Patriot Party.” (Wall Street Journal)- The Proud Boys mock Trump, call him “extraordinarily weak” and a “total failure.” (New York Times)
- Believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory struggled to square their falsehoods with the inauguration. As it became clear that their long-awaited mass arrests of Biden and other “deep-state” Democrats, followed by the restoration of the Trump presidency, QAnon believers began to wonder if they had been tricked. (Daily Beast / New York Times)
! 3/ Trump granted clemency to 143 people in his final hours as president, wiping away the convictions and prison sentences for a host of corrupt politicians and business executives. In total, Trump issued a batch of 73 pardons and 70 commutations, including a pardoned for Stephen Bannon, his former White House chief strategist who was charged with defrauding donors to a private fundraising effort for construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and Elliott Broidy, who pleaded guilty in October to acting as an unregistered foreign agent and lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of foreign interests. Trump, however, did not preemptively pardon himself or his family. (Washington Post / New York Times / NBC News / CNN / New York Times / Washington Post / The Guardian)
! * Full list of Trump’s pardons and commuted sentences. (NBC News)
! 4/ Trump rescinded his administration’s ethics pledge intended to “drain the swamp.” In 2017, Trump signed an executive order that barred political appointees from lobbying the government or working for foreign countries related to their agency for five years. At the time Trump joked that his political appointees would “not be subject to those commitments after noon January 20, 2021.” However, in a late-night executive order issued in the final hours of his presidency, Trump rescinded the executive order. The Trump White House did not offer any justification for the reversal. (Washington Post / Politico / Bloomberg)
! * Trump extended post-presidency Secret Service protection to 14 members of his family who were not entitled to receive it, at no cost. (Washington Post)- Trump declassified some documents related to the FBI’s Russia investigation. No documents, however, were immediately released. (New York Times)
! 5/ Trump administration officials said Homeland Security entered into last-minute agreements to “sabotage” the Biden administration’s efforts to unwind its immigration policies. Homeland Security signed legal agreements with state and local authorities in recent weeks that would require the agency to delay making changes for 180 days. (NBC News)
6/ Biden plans to make immediate and extensive use of executive orders to undo much of the last four years under Trump. On Day One, Biden is expected to sign 17 executive actions, memorandums, and proclamations from the Oval Office to address the pandemic, economic relief, immigration, climate change, and racial equity. Biden will also sign executive orders to extend bans on pandemic-related home evictions and foreclosures, revoke the permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and reverse Trump’s travel ban on several largely Muslim and African countries. (Politico / Washington Post / New York Times / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal) -
Someone shared this with me earlier:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/444556350434050084/801520167753875507/EsMKH_YXMAsb5wZ.png -
Someone shared this with me earlier:
[qimg]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/444556350434050084/801520167753875507/EsMKH_YXMAsb5wZ.png[/qimg]https://www.rawstory.com/trump-qanon-2650043613/
I really need to check and see if one of the people I follow on Twitter or anyone else has a breakdown on the QAnon madness.
I've often wondered about that myself; seems like being supported by people who only want you there so the world can end in fire (with you going to Hell in the process) would be somewhat off-putting
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Here is a simple victory theme that symbolize Trump's departure and Biden's entry.
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Here's to the start of a great 4 years with our 46th President and 49th Vice President!
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A wonderful speech, one without Trump, who is the first president in 150 years to not attend the inauguration of the new one. To the very end, an immature baby.
But whatever, my girl ROCKED IT!
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-qanon-2650043613/
I really need to check and see if one of the people I follow on Twitter or anyone else has a breakdown on the QAnon madness.
A little more here, but mostly just wonderful schadenfreude.
https://secondnexus.com/qanon-supporters-react-joe-biden?fbclid=IwAR1zx_glrOOgmRVw9ltxy0GX-xJZ2snQh9wex23s3rKs-k6A8Grv0MNb8ag -
Gaga's version sounded a little like Disney or a musical.
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A wonderful speech, one without Trump, who is the first president in 150 years to not attend the inauguration of the new one. To the very end, an immature baby.
Jimmy Carter was also absent, but he has the excuse of being 94 and in failing health. I heard Biden's acceptance speech included Carter in his thank yous, but never mentioned Trump directly or indirectly.
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Well if you're in failing health or injured then yeah, you can miss it, but Trump has no excuse. He's just immature and petty.
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About reversing everything Trump did, I understand why. However I think Biden reversing everything is a little rushed. Don't you think he should save some decisions and put them into consideration on how to improve that? It's almost like what Trump did after Obama left. I would like hold some decisions to improve that part or add to it.
Currently writing a book
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So Trump left behind a pre-taped farewell address, where he said, "The world respects us again. Please don't lose that respect." To which pretty much everyone replied, "yeah, now that you're gone." It's hilarious.
https://secondnexus.com/donald-trump-world-respects-us?fbclid=IwAR3MRi0QVgkdUyXc1bWggTwz9a98WNuwlCx3u6heUa9LvYoW88Sof1zTD2IAnd remember MyPillow guy? Well, getting caught with martial law documents made a bunch of retailers drop his product. Which made him do something of an on-air loony tantrum meltdown:
https://www.comicsands.com/mypillow-lindell-tantrum-retailers-boycott-2650032185.html?fbclid=IwAR2M6jitxBbFEzUHp7girkhPMEKdDUVl5DG_CMz70q5U_VNAZ2yDGJCXIwAHow did this guy get involved with politics again?
@joekido:
About reversing everything Trump did, I understand why. However I think Biden reversing everything is a little rushed. Don't you think he should save some decisions and put them into consideration on how to improve that? It's almost like what Trump did after Obama left. I would like hold some decisions to improve that part or add to it.
Even if he overturns decisions, first and foremost is the pandemic. Period. If we can get a little less emergency out of our systems we can sit down and look at things one by one. I would like to think that Biden is smart enough to go over things slowly, but we're not in a situation where we can take most things slowly. And even if we have majority, there are still plenty of Senators and Congressmen who can make things annoying if we automatically flip everything Trump.
Not that I'm against that, particularly, almost everything Trump has signed has been awful. I want to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord RIGHT NOW.
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Honestly Biden got so incredibly lucky that trump was his competition. I think this is the only way he could've ever won. He's so not appealing to any specific demographic that the only chance he had was if he went against someone universally hated. I don't think theres ever been election that had "at least you aren't the other guy" on the forefront. I think most people can agree both are absolutely pathetic, and while I and many other feel some relief right now in reality the next 4 years probably aren't going to me all that great. Hope is not felt as much as lessened dread.
The real arlong park was the friends we made along the way
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Even if he overturns decisions, first and foremost is the pandemic. Period. If we can get a little less emergency out of our systems we can sit down and look at things one by one. I would like to think that Biden is smart enough to go over things slowly, but we're not in a situation where we can take most things slowly. And even if we have majority, there are still plenty of Senators and Congressmen who can make things annoying if we automatically flip everything Trump.
Not that I'm against that, particularly, almost everything Trump has signed has been awful. I want to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord RIGHT NOW.
I've always wondered why do Republican presidents keeps taking us out of the Paris Climate Accord if Democrat presidents are just gonna put us back in? Can the Republicans just leave it alone already? There is nothing wrong with taking care of the climate. Can't the Republicans and Democrats sit down and make compromise over it?
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Republicans don't believe in science.
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And they'd rather make money than take care of the planet. Or they're being controlled by big corporations who would REALLY rather make money than save the planet. People who can't see the bigger picture.
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Albertans are throwing a shit fit because Biden said no to the Keystone pipeline. A pipeline everyone in Canada said NO to, but since Alberta are unable to have an economy without oil they got their way anyway. None of the oil is going into Canada's economy and is just going to be sold to China instead, and they have the gall to get pissed at Biden?
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@Blake:
Honestly Biden got so incredibly lucky that trump was his competition. I think this is the only way he could've ever won. He's so not appealing to any specific demographic that the only chance he had was if he went against someone universally hated. I don't think theres ever been election that had "at least you aren't the other guy" on the forefront. I think most people can agree both are absolutely pathetic, and while I and many other feel some relief right now in reality the next 4 years probably aren't going to me all that great. Hope is not felt as much as lessened dread.
I kind of agree, but also I'm not sure what would have happened if his campaign had done a better job of covering up whatever issues caused that one weird press conference with Cornpop and "hairy legs".
His biggest enemy in this election was the DNC itself, who fractured the left during an extremely sketchy primary season and would have cost us everything if Trump hadn't instituted a military crackdown on protesters and civilians in June.
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I will say I'm fascinated with the some of the goalpost moving "reluctant Biden supporters" have been doing in response to him…well generally keeping promises and building a progressive cabinet and staff.
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@Blake:
Honestly Biden got so incredibly lucky that trump was his competition. I think this is the only way he could've ever won. He's so not appealing to any specific demographic that the only chance he had was if he went against someone universally hated. I don't think theres ever been election that had "at least you aren't the other guy" on the forefront. I think most people can agree both are absolutely pathetic, and while I and many other feel some relief right now in reality the next 4 years probably aren't going to me all that great. Hope is not felt as much as lessened dread.
Well yeah, I voted Biden because Trump is just too much for me. This guy just can't do his job right and uses the executive office to get what he wants. Biden is too close to the end of his life span to be president but he was the only chance to throw Trump out. Voting Biden was to assure our survival, I voted Biden so this nation will survive for our children, their own children, their grandchildren and their great great great grandchildren to grow up in the same United States we are living on. However like I did with Trump, I'm still hoping Biden would surprise us. I'm not expecting anything from him, if he does indeed make America great in the correct way; this will be the greatest choice we made.
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@Blake:
Honestly Biden got so incredibly lucky that trump was his competition.
Trump was Hillary's competition and look what went down there along with the fact that Trump this time around got more votes than he did the first time around. Not that there wasn't some luck involved especially considering how Biden lost Florida and Ohio which should've been won or more narrow.
His biggest enemy in this election was the DNC itself, who fractured the left during an extremely sketchy primary season and would have cost us everything if Trump hadn't instituted a military crackdown on protesters and civilians in June.
You forgot Republicans getting him off on impeachment and his incredibly stupid idea to piss on mail in ballots.
I've often wondered about that myself; seems like being supported by people who only want you there so the world can end in fire (with you going to Hell in the process) would be somewhat off-putting
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The Cuban and Venezuelan exiles won’t vote left until they understand that Democrat is not our left but your left, as in center right, combine that with the senior citizens and the Florida men the most impressive subculture of red necks, So that Florida dream is just that.
One of Trumpy’s final actions was even a gesture at us, that as this tweet puts it shouldn’t balance out his other few death rattle actions:
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This post is deleted!
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Trump was Hillary's competition and look what went down there along with the fact that Trump this time around got more votes than he did the first time around. Not that there wasn't some luck involved especially considering how Biden lost Florida and Ohio which should've been won or more narrow.
In retrospect Hillary ran a much worse campaign than Biden.
I hope we never live to see another Democratic candidate so inept that they devote valuable campaign time to attacking a popular internet meme, or hiring an army of internet trolls to piss off voters and unintentionally motivate them to vote for the other side, or actively promoting the most insane person running in the Republican primaries, or completely ignoring key states for no good reason…
The fact that Trump almost lost to Hillary is proof that he really needed the presidency, a Republican senate with no morals, a major news network willing to promote any lie as fact, and a digital bully pulpit in the form of Twitter to make himself a truly popular candidate.
You forgot Republicans getting him off on impeachment and his incredibly stupid idea to piss on mail in ballots.
Based on the sheer number of votes he got, it doesn't seem like his attacks on mail-in voting caused significant problems for him.
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@Blake:
Honestly Biden got so incredibly lucky that trump was his competition. I think this is the only way he could've ever won. He's so not appealing to any specific demographic that the only chance he had was if he went against someone universally hated. I don't think theres ever been election that had "at least you aren't the other guy" on the forefront. I think most people can agree both are absolutely pathetic, and while I and many other feel some relief right now in reality the next 4 years probably aren't going to me all that great. Hope is not felt as much as lessened dread.
Trump got the most votes in history. If he'd had these numbers last time he would have beaten Clinton by almost 10 million votes, and not just electoral college shenanigans. We can't even chalk that up to population change, it's only been 4 years. THAT many people thought he was doing a great job.
And that was WITH a year of plague and mass protests and brutality.
He was in no way "universally hated", though that boggles my mind. I'd thought for sure he'd do worse than the first time around but nope. He was not lucky easy opponent that anyone could beat. And if he'd actually handled the pandemic well (promoting mask use, regular checks, etc.) he might have been unbeatable.
Luckily, Trumps most votes in history only lasted a day until Biden's votes were counted.
I'm not a big fan of Biden myself, but I can see what people DO see in him, and yes, a large part of his appeal IS "exact opposite of Trump in personality" but a lot of his policies are also much more palatable towards the middle and he's not as extreme as other candidates would have been..
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In retrospect Hillary ran a much worse campaign than Biden.
I hope we never live to see another Democratic candidate so inept that they devote valuable campaign time to attacking a popular internet meme, or hiring an army of internet trolls to piss off voters and unintentionally motivate them to vote for the other side, or actively promoting the most insane person running in the Republican primaries, or completely ignoring key states for no good reason…
Still amazes me at 4 years after Hillary lost, you still point out the dumbest reasons as why she lost.
Trump didn't need the things you listed to be a popular candidate. He needed you. He needed someone who has spent 4 years "complaining' about Trump, while being harsh on Democrats for all the wrong reasons.
I would LIKE to say I'm surprised on the day of inaugurating Trump's replacement, you're criticizing Hillary Clinton for checks your post "hiring an army of internet trolls to piss off voters", but it's pretty on brand for you.
I mean we both live in the same congressional district and you've spent more time on here bitching about Clinton than our congressman who has spent the last 4 years openly campaigning with and is funded by White Supremacy groups.
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Still amazes me at 4 years after Hillary lost, you still point out the dumbest reasons as why she lost.
Trump didn't need the things you listed to be a popular candidate. He needed you. He needed someone who has spent 4 years "complaining' about Trump, while being harsh on Democrats for all the wrong reasons.
I would LIKE to say I'm surprised on the day of inaugurating Trump's replacement, you're criticizing Hillary Clinton for checks your post "hiring an army of internet trolls to piss off voters", but it's pretty on brand for you.
I mean we both live in the same congressional district and you've spent more time on here bitching about Clinton than our congressman who has spent the last 4 years openly campaigning with and is funded by White Supremacy groups.
Putting aside the fact that no, I wasn't saying that was why she lost (it was Comey), how did I help Trump become popular?
Even if I never criticized another Democrat, there's so much stuff stuff floating around that contributes to the left's dissatisfaction with Democratic candidates that it wouldn't make a difference.
People shouldn't just sit by quietly while the person they were essentially forced to vote for very publicly fails to live up to their expectations over and over.
Edit: Maybe the problem is that I haven't made my point clearly enough in the past.
The Pepe and Correct The Record complaints are examples of a mistake a lot of Democrats have made and continue to make: they attack the voters.This isn't a policy issue, and although it is a campaign issue because of the bad PR the practice generates (see Mitt Romney's loss for why that matters), my complaints generally come down to personal grudges shared by a large number of others.
It's shitty when a rich, entitled white elite candidate groomed for the throne attacks the masses, and it gets more and more anger inducing each time it happens.That's why I complain about Hillary whenever the topic comes up.
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Putting aside the fact that no, I wasn't saying that was why she lost (it was Comey), how did I help Trump become popular?
It's been explained to you over and over. You VERY consistently pull "both sides" arguments on any issue and carried Trump's water by echoing his propaganda. Not just once or twice, but all the time.
I had a longer thing written out here, but…
New guy, new regime, could you please stop with HER EMAILS style stuff and we can all pretend its a fresh slate?
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What do you guys think about Trump possibly starting a new party? The "Patriot Party" or whatever he calls it? Could this be a real thing?
Part of me just wants him gone, I'm seriously sick of his mere existence dominating and poisoning the discourse every other day (and I don't even live in the US…), but on the other hand I would love the Republicans to pay dearly for feeding this monster in the past 4 years.
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What do you guys think about Trump possibly starting a new party? The "Patriot Party" or whatever he calls it? Could this be a real thing?
Part of me just wants him gone, I'm seriously sick of his mere existence dominating and poisoning the discourse every other day (and I don't even live in the US…), but on the other hand I would love the Republicans to pay dearly for feeding this monster in the past 4 years.
As i've stated before, I feel the worst outcome for 2024 is Biden vs Trump part 2, electric boogaloo. Two old white guys again, only now Biden potentially loses steam if the presidency isn't so smooth and now he faces more direct blame for things (i.e covid's remaining threat four years from now). I know conversely, if the next four years are good, he has the home field advantage.
But
I feel the best thing for either party is to move past either of them for fresher, younger faces. Republicans need to excise the Trump tumor ASAP if they don't want to sink with him.It'd be great karma for them and their dickish actions, but at the same time, it'd be more time and exposure Trump injects into our lives perhaps to his literal dying breath. I can't take anymore of his scowling face or his inevitable "yeah i was the best president ever, america doesn't know what they've lost" arrogance we'll probably see.
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What do you guys think about Trump possibly starting a new party? The "Patriot Party" or whatever he calls it? Could this be a real thing?
I genuinely hope it is because it would be the best thing that could realistically happen to this country.
See, Trump has two bases in the Republican party:
The "Alt-Right". the ones who love how mask off racist and shitty he went and want that to continue. IE the Q sect who think he's a genius strategist fighting a shadow war against the Globlist cabal of satanic pedophile deep state yada yada.
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The rank and file Republicans who weren't 100% on board with how shitty he acted and how he stopped dog whistling the racism, but who want a conservative agenda or just hate "Liberals" enough that they'll reliably vote Republican no matter what.The aftermath of the election should show that these two groups are very at odds now and their alliance was probably not all that stable to begin with. Hell, they were calling McConnell a traitor and called for the death of Pence because they didn't support the dumbest Coup attempt in modern history.
If Trump creates his own party, those two groups will no longer reluctantly work together but will actually split. Oh sure, some of the Trumpublicans may get cold feet and stay with the regular group, especially since some of them now feel betrayed because the mass arrests at the Inauguration "Q" promised them didn't happen, and may stick with the regular republicans, but a good chunk of them WILL follow Trump because the "Cucks" in the regular Republican party "failed them" and then they will never win a Republican presidential election ever again.
It's the same reason Bernie always ran as a Democrat. This may suck, but our de-facto two party system is so heavily entrenched in the minds of the voters, that any attempt to split off and form your own party is doomed to fail. You either get next to nothing like the Libertarians or the Greens, or you get a good sizable chunk of voters, but those voters are siphoned off one of the major parties, and you wouldn't draw enough of them to win. Some people ARE just more moderate while others might like progressive stuff like M4A, but are politically disengaged enough that they just want to stick with what's easy and for them that's always been "Vote Democrat". Instead, you would only draw enough of them to ensure you and that party lose.
It's why I've been saying the right way to get a progressive agenda through in this country isn't to spend all your time shitting on Democrats and making memes about brunch, but to start by running smaller campaigns for people in Congress. Primary some Democrats. Get some true progressives in office until they have a solid 20-30% of the Democrat seats in congress so the establishment Dems will HAVE to work with them to get anything done. Then the party's overton window shifts more leftward. It's the same damn tactic the Republicans used (That's what the Tea Party was).
Trump seriously starting a new party would be the death knell for the Republicans.
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What do you guys think about Trump possibly starting a new party? The "Patriot Party" or whatever he calls it? Could this be a real thing?
Sure, but it'd be basically like Perot's party in the 90's, which I bet you can't name without looking it up. it would be a strong third party that wouldn't win a single state and just split the party in half and not win anything, and then have significantly less clout the next time.
And because its based around one guy instead of an actual idea, it dies before it can make headway as a legit third party. It'd die after one attempt, and 82 year old Trump ain't running in 2028 after two losses, if he's even still alive then.
They don't actually care about winning though, they just want a media empire.
That said, if Trump's impeachment goes through this time its off the table. And… he's so in debt, he can't actually afford to invest into any of the stuff he'd need to. And there's a lot of legal action coming his way...
He may be saying it right now to save face, and further grift, but its near impossible to see actually working long term in any significant way. They couldn't organize an existing party, you think they can run one from scratch?
Oh man, Beau looked crazy before he trimmed the beard down. He's sensible, I swear! That's a covid beard!
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You very, VERY consistently pulled "both sides" on any issue and carried Trump's water by echoing his propaganda. Constantly. Not just once or twice, but all the time.
Even if you didn't like the guy, you did, and continue even now in your latest post, to do it on a very regular basis. It's why everyone in here assumes you're a Trump supporter despite your denials and yells at you all the time.
Right this minute on day 1 of the new admin, Ted Cruz is saying that joining the Paris Climate accords is Biden not caring about Americans, and trying to appease France and it is bad for checks notes Pittsburgh, but you're randomly attacking Hillary Clinton?
Oh, and there was an actual coup attempt a little over a week ago backed by over a hundred senators that led to actual deaths and an impeachment,, that STILL haven't agreed that Biden won the election.
But you know, HER EMAILS.
New guy, new regime, could you please stop with that and we can all pretend its a fresh slate?
He also committed genocide which put one of us in mortal danger and it wasn't you.
A bunch of people disagreed with that when I said it.Should I call everyone who said that a Trump apologist and both sides-er now?
You can feel free to tell me that my complaints about the presidential candidate from five years ago are a waste of time and it's kind of shitty that I brought them up again today, but why is it whenever there's a dispute like this it has to be framed as "Robo is secretly a traitor"?
Why can't you attack me for the mistakes I made and for the criticisms you disagree with, and not for this made-up bullshit?
I know you have this belief that in order for people to not be thought of as Trump supporters they need to follow a narrow hallway of thinking and speech, but you have to understand that even if I wanted to follow that path it's impossible for me to stick to it because of my nature and possibly my disability.
I'm just really bad at towing the party line because I have a tendency to question and argue with the majority view and then form my own opinion placing me somewhere outside the lines.To more calmly address your point: I really don't understand how criticizing someone who's not in office and has no intention of ever returning to power while subtly complimenting the person who just became president is in any way bothsides-ing.
I haven't made any strong criticisms of Biden in months and at the same time I've complained and worried endlessly about Trump's likely coup attempt (which eventually happened) and the wave of related terrorism and possible civil war that fortunately seems to have died down since the 6th. I also never stopped being freaked out about Trump's attempts to destroy the post office and help New Polio kill and cripple as many people as possible.
I had no idea that Ted Cruz made that stupid statement about Biden's plan to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, and I don't really care because it's not going to change anything. I care more about the fact that Ted Cruz should be removed from the senate for treason.
I have no rational need to prove to anyone that I'm not a Trump supporter but I do get easily triggered when I feel I'm being falsely accused.
I don't even fully understand why it keeps happening here, because despite you repeatedly trying to explain it, your explanations lean heavily on the idea that criticizing any part of the establishment left is somehow inherently bad.
No one outside of this forum that I can recall has ever tried to make that argument to me, and while I have very occasionally had a single person enter one of my other social circles and assume I'm a Trumpist, it never lasts very long and no one sides with them.It's very disappointing for me to have come back here with the assumption that I was a complete asshole and almost everything I posted in the politics threads from 2015-2017 was wrong, only to find out that while I was often very misinformed, there most certainly was and still is a small but toxic group of irrationally judgemental partisans who have a weird obsession with sniffing out and driving away any and all suppressive persons.
I know that sounds harsh, but what else am I supposed to think when these weird arguments that don't happen anywhere else keep popping up?
I see people who barely even read my posts before wasting their time attacking me for reasons other than what I said. In this very post you put words in my mouth, because somehow any criticism of Hillary Clinton ever is about "her emails".In conclusion: if you want a clean slate for the Biden administration, clean the slate.
Don't lecture me about how if you read between the lines this criticism of someone with a lot of flaws who used to be a part of the Democratic power structure is further proof that I'm holding water for Trump because Ted Cruz said a completely pointless thing the same day why aren't you attacking him?I just made a post yesterday talking about how Biden's speech moved me and made me proud to have voted for him ffs.
Edit: I should add that I do appreciate your desire to move on and let the Biden era be a better time, but I'm just really frustrated that I've been attempting to move on since February and that refuses to happen because of this weird, unpleasant idiosyncrasy.
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To more calmly address your point: I really don't understand how criticizing someone who's not in office and has no intention of ever returning to power while subtly complimenting the person who just became president is in any way bothsides-ing.
It's actually because she's not in office anymore.
She's no longer politically or topically relevant. She ran a failed campaign, and then receded into the background. She currently holds no elected office and so far has not been offered a cabinet position by Biden. She's not on any committees in the DNC She is politically irrelevant to everyone.
… Exceeeeeeept the QAnon people. They still see her as one of the big enemies and a member of the "Satanic Pedophile Cult" yada yada.
They're the only ones still treating her like a big enemy and bringing her up all the time... just like you.I'm not saying you're Q, but it's kindof upsetting that you bring her up to shit on her when she couldn't be less relevant. Shitting on her accomplishes nothing but dragging her down more because you're not shitting on someone who has any power.
It's like, the current state of Leftist
discourse where it seems shitting on "The Libs" is more important than actually getting anything done.Yesterday was full of a bunch of smug "Kids are still in cages... wish someone would do something about that but oops, the Neolibs don't care about kids!"
If someone points out to them that Biden has signed a few executive orders to both completely end that policy, strengthen DACA, and to start up a task force dedicated to reuniting the families that have already been pulled apart, they either ignore you and continue shitting on Biden or brush it off with a "He's not going to follow through. Remember who built the cages!!"
They're not willing to give him a chance even tho by all accounts at least so far he seems to be keeping a lot of these promises. Like, at least wait until he fails or goes back on the promise to start shitting on him.
He immediately reversed Trump's attacks on LGBT people but I guess that doesn't matter because since rich people like Caitlyn Jenner and Ellen DeGeneres are our most visible representation in the medium, LGBT issues count as Bourgeois and are therefore not good praxis so fuck us I guess.
I mean, last week the Leftist
Discourse was all about how the Capitol Insurrectionists were really economically frustrated working class people who were tricked into redirecting their anger with capitalism towards a fake conspiracy which makes them potential comrades but also the only way to have them see consequences anyway would be through the FBI and Prison which are both bad so therefore they should be given a pass for the insurrection attempt and any family members who report them are Bourgeois traitors or something and I'm just so fucking tired.Switch Friend Code: SW-1795-2519-1884 • Click Here to check out my Twitch Channel
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New thread! Feels weird. Still proud of The D.!
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It's actually because she's not in office anymore.
She's no longer politically or topically relevant. She ran a failed campaign, and then receded into the background. She currently holds no elected office and so far has not been offered a cabinet position by Biden. She's not on any committees in the DNC She is politically irrelevant to everyone.
… Exceeeeeeept the QAnon people. They still see her as one of the big enemies and a member of the "Satanic Pedophile Cult" yada yada.
They're the only ones still treating her like a big enemy and bringing her up all the time... just like you.I'm not saying you're Q, but it's kindof upsetting that you bring her up to shit on her when she couldn't be less relevant. Shitting on her accomplishes nothing but dragging her down more because you're not shitting on someone who has any power.
OK, I see your thought process but I have a few issues with it.
First, I wasn't even the one who brought her up, and I really can't remember the last time I brought up Hillary on my own.
I commented because Green brought up her 2016 campaign to compare it to Biden's campaign, and my response was also a comparison.
Second, an awful lot of people still have negative feelings about Hillary for a wide range of reasons.
I don't talk to the Q people so I really have no idea how much Hillary factors into their antisemitic conspiracy theory about the Democrats being pedophiles/eating children for immortality or whatever it was.
I do talk to a few people on the right who still parrot the Fox News arguments against her, and people on the left who are still mad that she lost to Trump/unfairly deprived us of a theoretical Bernie presidency.
The fact that you immediately made the connection between "talking bad about Hillary" and "QAnon" is unfair.
However I will admit that it's possible that I need to update my complaints about her to the year 2021 and reevaluate how much I should care about them.It's like, the current state of Leftist
discourse where it seems shitting on "The Libs" is more important than actually getting anything done.Yesterday was full of a bunch of smug "Kids are still in cages… wish someone would do something about that but oops, the Neolibs don't care about kids!"
If someone points out to them that Biden has signed a few executive orders to both completely end that policy, strengthen DACA, and to start up a task force dedicated to reuniting the families that have already been pulled apart, they either ignore you and continue shitting on Biden or brush it off with a "He's not going to follow through. Remember who built the cages!!"
They're not willing to give him a chance even tho by all accounts at least so far he seems to be keeping a lot of these promises. Like, at least wait until he fails or goes back on the promise to start shitting on him.
He immediately reversed Trump's attacks on LGBT people but I guess that doesn't matter because since rich people like Caitlyn Jenner and Ellen DeGeneres are our most visible representation in the medium, LGBT issues count as Bourgeois and are therefore not good praxis so fuck us I guess.
To be fair, there really is no good reason to fully trust a politician to follow through on their promises (or in Biden's case do what needs to be done in spite of the fact that he explicitly refused to promise some of the things we desperately need).
The country's literally falling apart around him so some hate and bitterness from day one is to be expected, but unlike Trump he doesn't seem to be letting it get to him at all (he's probably doing the smart thing and not reading Twitter).
He is doing a lot more than I expected, and he hasn't made any huge screw-ups yet (aside from possibly supporting the plan to send out all available COVID vaccines and risk depriving people of their second shot before the 28 day hard deadline, but Trump was still the president on paper when that started so I don't know how much I can blame him for that).I mean, last week the Leftist
Discourse was all about how the Capitol Insurrectionists were really economically frustrated working class people who were tricked into redirecting their anger with capitalism towards a fake conspiracy which makes them potential comrades but also the only way to have them see consequences anyway would be through the FBI and Prison which are both bad so therefore they should be given a pass for the insurrection attempt and any family members who report them are Bourgeois traitors or something and I'm just so fucking tired.Well that sounds almost as bad as the Q people.
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Robo, I know you don't understand why everyone constantly takes issues with what you say, or what specifically you choose to focus on.
But you DO keep taking specific stances, picking certain topics, consistently, that throw everyone off.
So I'm gonna go over this one more time as clearly as I can, and then we're moving on.
[hide]First off.
In my earlier post, I wrote a longer thing at you, then deleted it because I realized it wasn't relevant and was going to get heated quickly. You responded to the longer thing. Which is fine, I wrote it an posted it, I said it, I don't get to backpeddle that easily if you saw it.But I DID try make it less accusatory, I knew very quickly it was the wrong thing to say, so I'm sorry. I did try to be better after I said it and I thought I edited it fairly quickly.
So I absolutely apologize for that, I already tried to make that better earlier but was obviously too late. I am sorry, I already knew it was a bad way to say it or I wouldn't have edited it so quickly.
Now, for this next part.
I am NOT insulting you. I swear on everything important to me, I am NOT trying to insult you.
I am going to explain to you, one more time, what everyone else sees, and what you are doing. This is not meant in any ill way, or to be mean.
Do not read any of this with an angry or upset tone. Do not apply any old baggage to it. Read it as completely neutral as possible, and trying to be helpful. It is an attempt to explain.
No one decided "lets all accuse Robo of something he doesn't actually do on a regular basis for fun".
You DO keep carrying water for the bad people, even if you don't like them, even if you don't mean to. YOU DO IT ANYWAY.
Softselling what the bad people are doing, while overselling what the not-as-bad other people are doing, or over-criticizing anything potentially positive, IS something you do. All the time. That's why a dozen people point it out to you practically every time you post.
Like for example
@RoboBlue:He is doing a lot more than I expected, and he hasn't made any huge screw-ups yet
It's literally day 1, and your take is "he hasn't messed up any any big way yet." LITERALLY DAY ONE. He hadn't even been president 24 hours yet when you wrote that.
Do you see and understand how that can be interpreted? Why folks would think you're okay with the bad stuff and are actively against anything potentially positive? When you're that immediately negative and discounting on the new guy? I'm not cherry picking, you do that all that time, on just about every political subject.
Or, you take what is an obvious inflammatory conspiracy theory like "Joe Biden sexually assaulted that women in a hallway! There's zero evidence and he wasn't even in the state at the time, but he did it!" and you hold onto and keep spreading that for weeks even after people in here have extensively
debunked it.Or, when it is explained that "Joe Biden has a speech impediment and always has since he was a kid, that's not a sign of recent decline" you still continue to pick random out of context soundbites and make them sure signs of dementia or creepiness?
When there is an image of him hugging his granddaughter at his son's funeral and the picture is taken out of context to be a "creepy pedophile thing"?
No one is saying you are a Trump supporter.
We ARE saying that "You are picking the wrong things to talk about and bad things to hyper focus on."… which in turn are the kind of talking points that help Trump and his ilk out.Not that you literally ARE one, but that what you say makes you SOUND like one. Because the topics you pick and focus on run in that direction.
Those are two different things, but with a similar final result.
Please, try to be aware of that. We don't keep telling you these things just to insult you or be mean or be spiteful, we really don't. It IS something you are really actually doing.
We all have our flaws, and things we constantly do that are bad that we don't realize.
I know I personally have a ton of issues that I try to be better about like I get angry way too easily, or I'd get way too snarky and mean on people that didn't deserve it. That's something that was pointed out to me by several people, and I've taken steps to notice the problem when I'm doing it, and I try to course correct.
Look closer at what you're saying. What you're picking to say or bring up out of the blue. And think about why people might think of you a certain way when you say those things.
When Biden eventually screws up or does a bad thing I'm going to criticize him too. I wasn't 100% behind everything Obama did, and Biden isn't anywhere near my first choice. Try to move the agenda and the discourse. But "well, he's not a complete failure in his first day" isn't helpful for anyone.
I'd even hoped Trump would do okay at first. I knew he wasn't going to based on how he campaigned and his track record, but I hoped.
Again, I apologize for what I said earlier.
Please, try to understand what we are actually saying to you, and not what you perceive we are saying to you.
[/hide]
Now lets please move the fuck on.
Stop talking about Clinton for no reason. I'm absolutely going stop talking about Trump unless its currently relevant, I don't want to think of him more than I need to.
Hopefully Biden is a super uneventful boring president and we can all stop paying any real attention to this thread.
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I have serious doubts about any party wining the presidency without getting a governorship or senate seat or something before.
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Robo. Stop. Nobody is calling you a Trump supporter. The core problem is you consistently fail to recognize what is contextually important and get lost arguing details that detract from what matters. In that way you tend to fuel the fires of toxicity, whether you meant to or not. The number one way you do this is the "both sides" behavior being pointed out (yet again). e.g. "to be fair to the other side, <some minor="" insignificant="" way="" in="" which="" the="" overwhelmingly="" positive="" side="" did="" something="" bad,="" and="" we="" should="" talk="" about="" that="" thing="" instead="" of="" anything="" else="" because="" your="" head="" it="" really="" matters="" somehow="" would="" be="" unjust="" to="" ignore="">." This rhetoric is only a step away from actively supporting the other side while trying to sound like you aren't, which I and others understand isn't true but the net effect is the same.
It only gets compounded by the fact that you very often buy into or at least heavily consider grand accusations that often turn out to be either blatant lies or at best misconstrued facts. This has a similar effect; you (unwittingly?) echo all the trash that gets thrown out there to try to cast doubt, and you treat it as equally important (based on how much time gets spent discussing it, if nothing else!) as all the actual horrible shit going on. You get obsessed with the wrong minutiae, often seemingly on the principle that if we don't call out every single mistake at every possible opportunity, we're letting people get away with things. THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS. Sometimes what you're saying is technically true, other times it isn't, but regardless you've really really got to recognize at some point that context matters; all facts are not equally significant; and something being factually accurate absolutely does not automatically justify it being stated. You're the guy who, when humans launch a missile to destroy the extinction-level asteroid headed for earth to save all life on the planet, complains that they really ought to have used a less dangerous fuel, so yeah it's great that we're all still alive but shame on those scientists; in fact maybe we should really think about these sickos' agenda before we fund NASA for another year. (Later it will turn out the fuel was perfectly safe and friendly, but big oil started spreading unsubstantiated doubts because they were mad nobody tried using a petrolium-based rocket fuel.)
The reason you're getting called out now is that even YEARS later when it's completely irrelevant you're still harping on toxic warped arguments. It'll never change if you can't recognize all these things, which people have tried to explain to you for ages. But you don't understand the explanations either, you just go straight to "they think I'm a Trumpist" or whatever the equivalent is for the issue at hand. I'm sorry if it's hard for you to grasp. I know it sucks to not understand what you're being accused of or why. But if you still can't see it, you've just got to trust us and stop. If you need to further air out your frustrations with being called out, it needs to be taken privately at this point, while everyone else is trying to revel in a positive outcome for once in a new thread.</some>
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There won't be a Biden vs. Trump, parte deux, if the Senate can do their job and get a majority vote on barring Trump from running for office again.
It's the least he deserves, can be the result of the current impeachment trial, and should be the result, given that he instigated an insurrection against the first branch of our government. An insurrection that probably would have resulted in the lynching/death of a number of our highest representatives, if it weren't for the quick maneuvering of the Capitol Police.
This guy must be prevented from ever holding public office again.
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I accept Jesus Burgess as my Lord and Savior
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However I will admit that it's possible that I need to update my complaints about her to the year 2021 and reevaluate how much I should care about them.
That's the thing. She's so irrelevant right now you honestly shouldn't care about anything Hillary related unless something ACTUALLY happens. Like she goes on TV in 2021 and says something monumentally stupid, and even then because she has no power it should be a brief aside, not serious substantive critique.
She's not even like Trump who is apparently going to continue to try to be relevant to the party. He wants to make his own party? He's gonna keep doing speaking engagements? He's going to run again in 2024 (If the senate doesn't convict)?
That COULD potentially make him relevant and important to the discourse again going forward, but for right now as Robby said: We all just want to forget him UNTIL he actually says or does something to insert himself back into the thick of things.Hillary by and large has not done any of that and so continuing to harp on her does no good.
To be fair, there really is no good reason to fully trust a politician to follow through on their promises (or in Biden's case do what needs to be done in spite of the fact that he explicitly refused to promise some of the things we desperately need).
The country's literally falling apart around him so some hate and bitterness from day one is to be expected, but unlike Trump he doesn't seem to be letting it get to him at all (he's probably doing the smart thing and not reading Twitter).
He is doing a lot more than I expected, and he hasn't made any huge screw-ups yet (aside from possibly supporting the plan to send out all available COVID vaccines and risk depriving people of their second shot before the 28 day hard deadline, but Trump was still the president on paper when that started so I don't know how much I can blame him for that).But he's LITERALLY doing it. He signed three executive orders. One to end the policy entirely, one to strengthen DACA, and one to establish a task force entirely dedicated to reuniting families already ripped apart which is unfortunately necessary because the Trump Admin did a piss poor job of keeping track of them and has outright lost kids in the system.
He's started the process of fixing this.To me, the response to that SHOULD be "Good job so far… but we'll be watching" and then wait to see what actually happens... but no, people are just convinced he's going to go back on this or fail right out of the gate because they've worked themselves into a froth where "Neolibs" are the enemy and must be shit on at every possible opportunity.
Well that sounds almost as bad as the Q people.
Yeah, because that's what Leftism
is currently. ONLY economic issues affecting the working class matter. EVERYTHING else is Bourgeois and therefore bad.Seriously, the first time I saw "Caitlyn Jenner, Ellen DeGeneres etc are the mainstream media face of LGBT issues, and THEY'RE super rich, so like it or not, caring about LGBT issues comes across to working class people as Bourgeois decadence and therefore those issues are bad praxis for the socialist revolution" I decided to check out of all of this bullshit.
Switch Friend Code: SW-1795-2519-1884 • Click Here to check out my Twitch Channel
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If my dank memes are update, Q think the Clintons ordered Epstein's death because he would rat out Bill, despite the fact the the former was probablly a lot more closer to Donnie than to Bill.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Yeah, because that's what Leftism
is currently. ONLY economic issues affecting the working class matter. EVERYTHING else is Bourgeois and therefore bad.Seriously, the first time I saw "Caitlyn Jenner, Ellen DeGeneres etc are the mainstream media face of LGBT issues, and THEY'RE super rich, so like it or not, caring about LGBT issues comes across to working class people as Bourgeois decadence and therefore those issues are bad praxis for the socialist revolution" I decided to check out of all of this bullshit.
All that cold war propaganda really fucked the chances of the American Continent having a respectful and useful left hasn't it?
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Soooo . . . anybody else enjoying the Grandpa Bernie memes?
https://www.comicsands.com/bernie-sanders-inauguration-mittens-memes-2650047500.html?fbclid=IwAR30ID2dTYNieREDTkH231x9R86gn-FtceZVyRCWUCw-TPVQpiVALaM9-u4 -
Soooo . . . anybody else enjoying the Grandpa Bernie memes?
https://www.comicsands.com/bernie-sanders-inauguration-mittens-memes-2650047500.html?fbclid=IwAR30ID2dTYNieREDTkH231x9R86gn-FtceZVyRCWUCw-TPVQpiVALaM9-u4is both my favorite and probably the most appropriate to post here lol.
EDIT: Ok, another one.
There came a time when the Old Gods died!
Then there wasSwitch Friend Code: SW-1795-2519-1884 • Click Here to check out my Twitch Channel
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Robo, I know you don't understand why everyone constantly takes issues with what you say, or what specifically you choose to focus on.
But you DO keep taking specific stances, picking certain topics, consistently, that throw everyone off.
I can see that to a point.
Certain criticisms of Biden have been highly divisive and were over time adopted by Trump which made things worse, so as frustrated as I was with those things being locked away in the "off-limits Trump lies drawer", it's not that hard for me to see in retrospect why a connection to Trump was made.I tend to naturally be attracted to the kinds of stories that don't get a lot of attention from mainstream outlets and at times that can be useful in creating a less processed awareness of the world (which was particularly useful for COVID because the entire governent and every major media outlet repeatedly lied to us about highly important things).
Incidentally a shocking-but-not-shocking story just came out about how Biden officials just discovered that Trump had no plan for vaccine distribution whatsoever.[hide]No one decided "lets all accuse Robo of something he doesn't do on a regular basis for fun".
You DO keep carrying water for the bad people, even if you don't like them, even if you don't mean to. YOU DO IT ANYWAY.
I wrote a longer thing at you, then deleted it because I realized it wasn't relevant and was going to get heated quickly. You responded to the longer thing. Which is fine, I wrote it an posted it, I don't get to backpeddle that easily.
But I DID try make it less accusatory, so I'm sorry you saw the full post. I tried to be better after I said it and I thought I edited it fairly quickly.
But softselling what the bad people are doing, while overselling what the not-as-bad other people are doing, IS something you do. All the time. That's why a dozen people point it out to you practically every time you post. [/hide]
[hide]
OK, I'll acknowledge that I used to do that. I don't remember how much it was so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say it was a lot.
I was angry about some political internet drama and extremely skeptical of the claims that Trump was a white supremacist, because in the pre-Charlottesville era the term "Nazi" got thrown around a whole lot and I was still mentally living in 2011 when calling someone a Nazi was an admission that the speaker was a nutcase. I do remember apologizing at the time when I was proven wrong, but that may not have come across as very sincere so I'll repeat that I'm sorry I ever doubted the white house had been taken over by Nazis, and expand that to any criticism of Trump that I may have doubted because for the most part the truth was worse than the allegations.However… I can't remember the last time I doubted the accuracy of any attack on Trump, and lately there haven't really any topical figures on the right that I cared to say more about than "look at this horrible thing this person said/did".
I get being angry at me for stuff I said in the past but from my perspective your complaint that I softsell bad people is not rooted in the present day or recent history.
Like for example
It's literally day 1, and your take is "he hasn't messed up any any big way yet." LITERALLY DAY ONE. He hadn't even been president 24 hours yet when you wrote that.
Do you see and understand how that can be interpreted? Why folks would think you're okay with the bad stuff and are actively against anything potentially positive? When you're that immediately negative and discounting on the new guy? I'm not cherry picking, you do that all that time, on just about every political subject..
I don't really think that's fair, though. The not-big thing I was referencing was the $2000 check issue, but even just reading it in terms of pure negative "I know he's going to screw up sometime", I think we've earned that level of cynicism over the last 20 years.
With how bad things have been in the last year and how much worse things are about to get COVID-wise, it's just safer to remain cynical and later congratulate Biden on navigating us through an extremely trying crisis than it is to actually have much hope that things will improve in the short-term.
Based on how hard Britain is being hit by their new strain, two hundred thousand Americans are going to die in the next forty days and we'll be well on our way to a million dead before summer if there isn't a national lockdown, which is something that Biden isn't in favor of and may not even be able to achieve. The South African strain was recently discovered to have new traits that make it resistant to current antibodies, so in a few months the entire country is going to need a new version of the vaccine.They won't even close the schools in NY, so my gf risks catching the virus every workday.
Our teachers currently live and work with the knowledge that parents, their country, and their bosses don't care about their lives at all.
All this cynicism and fear we've been breathing in down here isn't going to go away just because someone who actually wants to help has just taken power, and because Biden hasn't demanded that schools close immediately his COVID response is already a failure-by-inaction.
We shouldn't be seeing this in terms of how much he'll succeed, it's how much he'll fail, to what extent those failures are his fault, and how costly those failures will be.If people still want to look at the near future optimistically that's fine, but to those who criticize me for my lack of optimism I ask that they consider just how badly the CDC was corrupted by Trump and if there's any possible way Biden can even remotely salvage their reputation and implement sensible mask mandate/shutdown policies without sparking multiple regional civil wars.[/hide]
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