US Politics Thread

[ChicagoBlue]

That’s really interesting, as from an international perspective he is the guy in the US government who comes across as serious, intelligent and capable. Particularly in the way he’s managed the Ukraine and Gaza situations.

To international observers US politics is frankly quite absurd (and I say this as a Brit, we’ve had our own problems). Blinken - a bit like Kier Starmer I guess - seems like the quiet clever “grown up in the room”.

I’d have him over Trump, Biden or Harris anyway.

I can’t, and wouldn’t, argue with your assessment of Blinken on the world stage, but he’s not a retail politician or seemingly a Beltway deal maker.

He’d make a great authoritarian leader, because he seems smart, but without malice, but being President in the US is about managing the externals from the Oval (Blinken would be great!) but managing the internals on Capitol Hill and on TV (Blinken appears to not be great at all!).

I would bet your a dime to a dollar that 90% of “on the street” Americans could not name Blinken if you showed them a picture (recall) or even find him in a line-up (recognition)! That’d make an election difficult.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Is the definition of “echo chamber” a place where liars get called out by others on their lies and then go away until everyone forgot they lied and then come back after a while and lie again and the process repeats?

Is that the “echo”?

I like echo chambers then.

Anyway I don’t think Dax is a liar — he’s just a parrot who has been conservative his whole life and as such cannot bear to confront the fact that his party has become an enslaved cult to a dumbfuck amoral grifter.

It’s like what happens when you confront a “literal Biblical truth” evangelical with facts that disprove the Bible. They don’t know where to go with it because then they have to tear down the entire belief structure they’ve built their life on. Very tough task. Very emotional task. Like finding out your spouse cheated on you.

So it’s easier to live with the cognitive dissonance and put up a “whataboutery” front.

It’s also common for folks like this to feel so fucking sorry for themselves they can’t help but reach out with global tropes — “Everyone is against me here”; “You’re all a bunch of shills”; “You don’t tolerate other views”; “This is an echo chamber.”

Which conveniently brings us full circle.

 

[Vienna_70]

No..I want what a leftist defines as a racist to be President

There was an investigation into the idiot, early in his presidency, by a man, whose name escapes me, that concluded that he is racist.

I clearly remember watching him say it on the news.

There was also the Central Park Jogger case, in which five young black men were accused of assaulting and raping a young woman.

Trump paid for full-page adverts in four newspapers, calling for the return of the death penalty. Even after they were eventually exonerated, he never apologised.

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

Is the definition of “echo chamber” a place where liars get called out by others on their lies and then go away until everyone forgot they lied and then come back after a while and lie again and the process repeats?

Is that the “echo”?

I like echo chambers then.

I find the accusations that this forum is an echo chamber quite funny personally.

If that were actually the case there would be no arguments. This place is non-stop arguments. It is, quite literally, entirely made up of people arguing. Even the people who agree are discussing their various shades of disagreement.

There’d also surely be a lack of people to highlight that it is an echo chamber. Demonstrably this is not the case as somebody seems to drone on about it every day.

What these people are actually saying is “I wish more people agreed with me.” If you went to an astronomy convention claiming the earth was flat you might experience a similar feeling.

If you go into an echo chamber then that echo chamber might disagree with you. But that doesn’t mean every group of people that disagrees with you is an echo chamber. Pretty obvious logical fallacy.

 

[TonyM]

The root cause of Trump imo is 2 things.

1. George W Bush being voted in. His lawyers and his hawks going amuck creating the fear, hatred, cheated system and low standards ever since. No longer was it required to be Presidential.

2. 911 and the 2nd Iraq War. More fear. More hatred. More low standards. And on top of that more flag waving and "fuck yaehs". No longer was the US welcoming of anyone willing to work.

If only Gore had won that election. Or Kerry or McCain got in later. In fact I wonder if, given that GWB seems a genuine enough nice guy as far as pampered millionaires go, had he a crystal ball would he have not run in the first place. Would he have put his country before his ambition?

Oh ya and Republicans are cunts!!!!

 

[TinFoilHat]

Happy to be bring some balance to the lunacy that's Bluemoon's US politics thread.

I know you assholes do your best to hound our any opposing view.

You are like MSNBC who couldn't handle and ex-Republican chair being hired as an analyst. God forbid she has a different opinion.

Same here.

Who am I at MSNBC?

I'd like to be inside Jen Psaki.

 

[AliBobbyJ]

On the planet you live on ... does October replace January ?

Ouch!
Obvious, but still ouch.

 

[remember arthur mann]

Who am I at MSNBC?

I'd like to be inside Jane Psaki.

 

[TinFoilHat]

Things seem to be moving quickly to support kamela, but why is obama yet to endorse her ? Curious

Like Pelosi I think he feels like he's cheating on his Bro Biden by coming out so early. Probably just needs a couple of weeks to honour his buddy then you'll see him up front at rallies with his wife behind Harris.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

I agree with what youre saying wholeheartedly. That was a reach for them. They wont reach that widely again and in any case they are MAGA now, and without the pun that trumps anything else progessive

Again, and not necessarily directed at you specifically, who is this “they” of which you speak?

There are 330,000,000+ Americans. Do you know how many MAGAts that is? Or even how many Americans vote? Or, how, even when Trump won, he did so with the slimmest of Electoral College votes, and a minority of the individual votes cast…by millions?!!

MAGA is a distinctly minority cult, with outsized coverage, because they show up at his rallies in their red hats and “patriotic” uniforms. They cry when he speaks, chant “USA! USA! USA!” and now even wear big white bandages on their right ears!

Do you think they’d guzzle down a few cups of Trump Kool Aid without even blinking???

Sadly, America has a few factions that Trump has tapped into:

1) Racists; some of them overt, but many of them covert

2) Christians, esp those who believe the Democrats are evil

3) Nationalists, who think America is somehow a special place that is better than anywhere else in the world and should be kept “clean” of outside influences and peoples

4) Isolationists, who have been made to believe a dollar spent overseas on “shithole countries” or countries that should fend for, and defend, themselves are bleeding America dry of money that should be used at home to help make America great again!

5) Followers, who are so weak and feeble-minded, or simply so unintelligent, they will follow any charismatic that appeals to one or more of their triggers…or others they see supporting the trappings of what they think America stands for (see 1-4 above)

THAT^^^^ is NOT the majority of Americans! Or, more precisely, hasn't been so far in the elections that have taken place to date.

It is naive to ascribe such generalizations to a nation simply because some faction is somehow stealing all the media oxygen.