Current Affairs The 2020 United States Presidential Election

[Tubey]

Fine, but I am not sure how appealing to their better nature and not calling them Nazis does that. Surely to fix the problems in the South and in the media you'd have to actually do something to them to get them to stop?

I've said repeatedly the people who attacked the Capitol are what they are - extremists, terrorists, racists. There's no point in being afraid of using accurate terminology.

When they do horrendous stuff, call it out. That's perfectly fine. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is taking the oxygen away from them so their fire doesn't grow in the future. Understanding the underlying cause and effect, not just reacting to the obvious that's happening in the moment.

And yes, you're spot on - Fox News exists because an audience wants it to exist; if you fix society to the point where their narrative is ludicrous to more people, then they no longer have a base to get viewers from.

In the short term, you could have Biden have stricter "OFCOM" style regulation to stop extremism on the airwaves. You can have greater representation of ethnic minorities in southern positions of power over time and so on. But what you can't do is everything and anything to "attack" these things and many others; you have to smart and selective in how you nudge the dial to the left.

 

[riddick]

I've explained my view several times, but it comes down to when in power, don't do things that give extremists something to exploit and spread fear in the populace who hold certain political views.

Biden needs to nudge the political spectrum left, not batter the dial all the way to the left, because one is reasonable, the other results in backlash. Because now is a time to stop burning bridges and be sensible.

Perfect, so the Overton window is now still massively more right than it was when Obama left? I'm sorry, that's asinine. It's how we keep going right as a country because of your genius idea to not offend people who are, basically, kopites. EVERYTHING offends them. Obama wearing a tan suit offended them. Him "saluting" an officer with a coffee cup in his hand (and then, subsequently, going back and doing it correctly but that was completely ignored) offended them. Trump figuratively shitting on the constitution and breaking every law? Perfectly fine.

But yeah, let's appease those who are racist, let's appease those who are xenophobic, let's appease those who are uneducated and proud of it.

Might as well turn off the lights and close the doors as a country at that point. If someone moves the needle from the middle to -7 and your great suggestion is to move it back to -5 because "feelings" it's doing a massive massive disservice to those who voted to get us at LEAST back to the middle.

 

[Tubey]

Is it? You make a lot of grand pronouncements without much in the way of evidence.

So which would you let slide? Prosecuting police officers? Getting rid of racist statues? Better healthcare?

You say a lot about how BLM caused this yet not that the very politics you espouse were the main politics of Western democracies for the last 30 years.

The evidence is history; these things happening over and over again.

For example, Hickson just said "the fascists need to be eviscerated" - very emotive language where you say we need to stomp on them, oppress. All I can say is good luck with that, because again, throughout history, that hasn't worked.

Because it's like playing Whack-A-Mole; you attack these people, they become martyrs like Hitler in Landsberg Prison and more pop up. You can (and should) arrest the criminals at the Capitol, but that's addressing the immediate; the true battle is much deeper.

Revenge isn't the answer, it really isn't. The answer, again, is a responsible person in power aiming at reconciliation and getting at the underpinning causes of this.

 

[Shevin Keedy]

This has gone back years, but yes, Trump's scaremongering about losing the country if Biden gets in etc. wouldn't have been effective if people hadn't had months and months of protests and riots fresh in their minds.

That's just a fact.

Come on Tubey, it is not a fact at all. It is hypothetical, and also conditional.

 

[tsubaki]

I've said repeatedly the people who attacked the Capitol are what they are - extremists, terrorists, racists. There's no point in being afraid of using accurate terminology.

When they do horrendous stuff, call it out. That's perfectly fine. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is taking the oxygen away from them so their fire doesn't grow in the future. Understanding the underlying cause and effect, not just reacting to the obvious that's happening in the moment.

And yes, you're spot on - Fox News exists because an audience wants it to exist; if you fix society to the point where their narrative is ludicrous to more people, then they no longer have a base to get viewers from.

In the short term, you could have Biden have stricter "OFCOM" style regulation to stop extremism on the airwaves. You can have greater representation of ethnic minorities in southern positions of power over time and so on. But what you can't do is everything and anything to "attack" these things and many others; you have to smart and selective in how you nudge the dial to the left.

I am fairly sure that wouldn't do much - for a start, we have OFCOM style regulation and we are about to get two Fox News-type fibstations on top of an almost entirely biased print media, radio and very suspect social media scene.

Also "greater representation of ethnic minorities in southern positions over power over time" is a bit centrist; what we need is for them to stop interfering in the electoral process (disenfranchising voters, redistricting and other more outright frauds) now so that the electoral process is fair going forward and they can lose influence and power. That way, these communities can vote for who they want rather than having tokenism and a worsening situation.

 

[Tubey]

Perfect, so the Overton window is now still massively more right than it was when Obama left? I'm sorry, that's asinine. It's how we keep going right as a country because of your genius idea to not offend people who are, basically, kopites. EVERYTHING offends them. Obama wearing a tan suit offended them. Him "saluting" an officer with a coffee cup in his hand (and then, subsequently, going back and doing it correctly but that was completely ignored) offended them. Trump figuratively shitting on the constitution and breaking every law? Perfectly fine.

But yeah, let's appease those who are racist, let's appease those who are xenophobic, let's appease those who are uneducated and proud of it.

Might as well turn off the lights and close the doors as a country at that point. If someone moves the needle from the middle to -7 and your great suggestion is to move it back to -5 because "feelings" it's doing a massive massive disservice to those who voted to get us at LEAST back to the middle.

I'm guessing it feels great to type that.

Unfortunately, all you are advocating is the ramping up, constantly, of the ideological war we're currently in. If that's the approach, there's no end game, no way out. No answers, just more of the same.

You keep putting people in a box, they'll continue to try and get out of it.

 

[tsubaki]

The evidence is history; these things happening over and over again.

For example, Hickson just said "the fascists need to be eviscerated" - very emotive language where you say we need to stomp on them, oppress. All I can say is good luck with that, because again, throughout history, that hasn't worked.

Because it's like playing Whack-A-Mole; you attack these people, they become martyrs like Hitler in Landsberg Prison and more pop up. You can (and should) arrest the criminals at the Capitol, but that's addressing the immediate; the true battle is much deeper.

Revenge isn't the answer, it really isn't. The answer, again, is a responsible person in power aiming at reconciliation and getting at the underpinning causes of this.

It absolutely did work though - the reason fascism and nazism went into decline almost everywhere was because fascists and nazis were executed; because substantial force was used to put them down.

Hitler got power not because he was imprisoned, but because he was emboldened by the lack of substantial action against him by the state he'd attempted to overthrow. Had they done what they should have done and put him up against a wall, Nazism (at least as we know it, but in all likelyhood Nazism itself) would not have happened.

 

[dead_soft]

The evidence is history; these things happening over and over again.

For example, Hickson just said "the fascists need to be eviscerated" - very emotive language where you say we need to stomp on them, oppress. All I can say is good luck with that, because again, throughout history, that hasn't worked.

Because it's like playing Whack-A-Mole; you attack these people, they become martyrs like Hitler in Landsberg Prison and more pop up. You can (and should) arrest the criminals at the Capitol, but that's addressing the immediate; the true battle is much deeper.

Revenge isn't the answer, it really isn't. The answer, again, is a responsible person in power aiming at reconciliation and getting at the underpinning causes of this.

I mean the literal Nazis were stomped on and oppressed - regularly this has worked. Again, all you've said is reconciliation and appeasing fascists. I'm not sure how you think your attempts would do anything to help.

Housing, education, employment, these are the things that would help and will only happen through proper change not by giving the fascist some of that they want.

Or, you can keep doing as has been done, then you can patronisingly say, 'but we need grown ups' without offering an ounce of anything that will actually do anything.

 

[Tubey]

Might as well turn off the lights and close the doors as a country at that point. If someone moves the needle from the middle to -7 and your great suggestion is to move it back to -5 because "feelings" it's doing a massive massive disservice to those who voted to get us at LEAST back to the middle.

Let me just take this to the logical endpoint, just to spell out what I mean.

So Trump has taken it to -7.

Let's say Biden takes it to 0, or +7 over two terms. Massive sweeping left wing agenda.

Trump's base is empowered, the breeding grounds for radicalism are there, Trump 2.0 emerges.

This time, Trump 2.0 is elected on a ticket of revenge, and he swings the dial to -14. He can't get a dictatorship yet, the institutions just about holds up, and after four years. Biden 2.0 comes in.

He, in turn, swings the dial to +21.

Trump 3.0 then swings the dial to -28 and the people, with the mandate, authorise a dictatorship.

The US is then permanently -28. Because nobody ever learned, nobody ever reconciled, and in doing so made the fire ever worse. Both sides in a race to extinguish the other.

That can't be the answer, it just can't.

 

[riddick]

I'm guessing it feels great to type that.

Unfortunately, all you are advocating is the ramping up, constantly, of the ideological war we're currently in. If that's the approach, there's no end game, no way out. No answers, just more of the same.

You keep putting people in a box, they'll continue to try and get out of it.

No, you're being smarmy about something with no answers. Trump has brought the country from a "democratic" listing to "autocratic" listing in 4 years according to watchdog groups. He's pulled the country MASSIVELY right with his judge placements, with his policies and tax cuts going to be assaulting the middle and lower class, with his rhetoric being OK with fn nazis.

Your idea is to "do a LITTLE bit to bring it more left". How is that even a thing? Once again, if somenoe pulls you 6 steps to the right and you advocate moving it back 2 steps to the left it leaves the country massively more to one side than the other. Guess what happens then? The next guy comes in and moves it even more right. Your suggestion after that would seemingly be "oh, don't move it left TOO much because it may offend those that moved it so far right to begin with".

I'm not saying bomb the crap out of them, I'm saying reaching out hasn't worked in 30+ years.

 

[Tubey]

It absolutely did work though - the reason fascism and nazism went into decline almost everywhere was because fascists and nazis were executed; because substantial force was used to put them down.

Hitler got power not because he was imprisoned, but because he was emboldened by the lack of substantial action against him by the state he'd attempted to overthrow. Had they done what they should have done and put him up against a wall, Nazism (at least as we know it, but in all likelyhood Nazism itself) would not have happened.

No, I'm fairly sure they went into decline because literally a World War occurred because of those ideologies.

If you think war is the way out, by all means let's go down the current path, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Personally I'd prefer to not let things get to that point.

 

[Hickson9]

Yes.

I fully believe that Fascists should be oppressed.

 

[Hickson9]

It is sounding increasing likely that the House will impeach Trump, for the second time.

Excellent news.

 

[riddick]

Let me just take this to the logical endpoint, just to spell out what I mean.

So Trump has taken it to -7.

Let's say Biden takes it to 0, or +7 over two terms. Massive sweeping left wing agenda.

Trump's base is empowered, the breeding grounds for radicalism are there, Trump 2.0 emerges.

This time, Trump 2.0 is elected on a ticket of revenge, and he swings the dial to -14. He can't get a dictatorship yet, the institutions just about holds up, and after four years. Biden 2.0 comes in.

He, in turn, swings the dial to +21.

Trump 3.0 then swings the dial to -28 and the people, with the mandate, authorise a dictatorship.

The US is then permanently -28. Because nobody ever learned, nobody ever reconciled, and in doing so made the fire ever worse. Both sides in a race to extinguish the other.

That can't be the answer, it just can't.

You're saying that the left needs to kowtow to a literal minority in the country that wants this to be a religious theocracy. But only the god of THEIR choosing and only for what THEY think is right. Do you understand how dangerous a mindset of not even getting back to the middle is? Theres a reason why "a slippery slope" is a way to describe how things get out of hand completely. You saying that they shouldn't even get back to 0 means we might as well just call it a day. We left the Paris accords. Is going back to that TOO much for these people? Well, yes actually. They were applauding it. Being less dependent on fossil fuels and investing in renewable energy, is THAT TOO much? Again, yes.

So let's just ruin our planet and ruin our country because people may not like what is being done for the genuine greater good? That's insane.

 

[Tubey]

No, you're being smarmy about something with no answers. Trump has brought the country from a "democratic" listing to "autocratic" listing in 4 years according to watchdog groups. He's pulled the country MASSIVELY right with his judge placements, with his policies and tax cuts going to be assaulting the middle and lower class, with his rhetoric being OK with fn nazis.

Your idea is to "do a LITTLE bit to bring it more left". How is that even a thing? Once again, if somenoe pulls you 6 steps to the right and you advocate moving it back 2 steps to the left it leaves the country massively more to one side than the other. Guess what happens then? The next guy comes in and moves it even more right. Your suggestion after that would seemingly be "oh, don't move it left TOO much because it may offend those that moved it so far right to begin with".

I'm not saying bomb the crap out of them, I'm saying reaching out hasn't worked in 30+ years.

No, to use your analogy, I'm saying you move the dial a bit to the left, then a bit more, then a bit more again. Because you then gradually create a concensus that is increasingly left wing in your population.

You don't just smash the dial all at once to the left.

It's subtlety. Your "Guess what happens then?" is wrong - what happens if you take time is the project continues because you've done a decent job in power. 12 years of moderate governance edging left is better than 4 years of going mental, because you leave a lasting legacy.

Indeed, you've just now seen what happens when you "go mad" - Trump is a first term president. If Biden is smart, Trumpism is now dead after the attack on the Capitol. If he's not smart, then what we've just witnessed is the Beer Hall Putsch ahead of the main event in a few years.