The cancer infecting the political Left

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-07-2020, 01:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Who said if you don't vote for me then your not black and then picked a running mate strictly on basis of their race and gender?

If you bring in a group of people that look like America with a good mix, you are racist for ignoring the practice of giving the best jobs to white males? That is very racist and sexist of you.

(12-07-2020, 01:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Obama was a savvy con man and a privileged little dickhead who claimed that we were racists for knowing and understanding that about him.

You have demonized Obama and made judgements based on your own demonization. How racist of you.

(12-07-2020, 01:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Yes. You could build a wall or iron curtain and trap everyone within or behind like the Soviets did with Berlin or the Nazi's did with the German people before the Soviets took over after World War II. Barrack and his elitist friends and professional colleagues have a pretty good gig going for themselves these days. It's to bad they're going to find themselves stuck and being overwhelmed by the anger and resentment that they've been feeding, creating and building up among their own for generations.

The Soviets and Nazi were racist too, just like you. The Nazi killed Jew, Gypsies, Homosexuals and others they considered undesirable. The Soviets shipped their undesirables off to Siberia. What has America done other than separate families and keep some of them in concentration camps?

The problem is tribal thinking. Like S&H, Henrich is trying to keep tribals neutral, to develop their good side. Supposedly they are good on dealing with people, can be good to others within their family, tribal or national group. Unfortunately, some, like you, tend to hate and be prejudice against those in other groups. They tend to use or threaten violence against those not perceive of as being like them.

They are racist. Like you.

[pbrower2a]

(12-07-2020, 07:12 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-06-2020, 03:30 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: No, here is the Second Amendment:

Quote:A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.[35]

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It's about a militia necessary for the enforcement of the law; suppression of Indian attacks, pirate raids; and slave revolts (now of course obsolete); and formation of state equivalents of the National Guard. The right to bear arms is no more absolute than freedom of speech (I do not have the right to go into a bank or a store and say "This is a stick-up", if I am in business I have no right to do false advertising or to speak in a way in which to facilitate a fraud).   

from Wikipedia:

Quote:In United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the Supreme Court ruled that, "The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second Amendments [sic] means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress, and has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the National Government."[15] In United States v. Miller (1939), the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment did not protect weapon types not having a "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia".[16][17]

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#cite_note-crs2a-17]
Apparently the government can prohibit me from possessing guns disguised as something clearly not a gun (let us say a cane or an umbrella), grenades, bombs, Katusha rockets, tanks, or nuclear warheads. 

No right guarantees the right to harm others or restrict other's rights.  It is correct to say as above that no right is absolute, but you should quote what the limits are.  You should not say because rights have limits, rights are meaningless.

Cruikshank in 1876 was a ruling by the Jim Crow Supreme Court.  They were paving the way to remove all rights so they could oppress the blacks.  It was a political deal.  The Republicans got the presidency.  The Democrats got the south back.  Most of these Jim Crow court cases have been clearly reversed, including this one.

Miller was an attempt to disarm gangsters based on the logic of the Jim Crow decisions.  The government was trying to forbid gangsters from carrying shotguns and tommy guns, which had no military use at the time.  Unfortunately, tommy guns were the early assault weapons, and became commonly used by the US military by World War II.  Shotguns were commonly carried in Vietnam.  Miller sets up a litmus test that essentially says everyone has a right to own and carry assault weapons and shotguns.

Arms that are disguised as something else are still arms.  With the Jim Crow understanding that the government could regulate non militia arms, it made sense to limit disguised arms.  With the right firmly an individual right that cannot be infringed, there is far less justification for the laws against disguised arms.

Now nukes are arms too.  So are hand grenades, weapons carried by common infantrymen with a direct bearing on the militia.  Just because the Founding Fathers did not anticipate weapons development doesn't mean there isn't a need to amend the Second today.  It should be possible to forbid certain military arms while allowing folks to own and carry civilian arms.  Compromise has proven difficult.  The reds are correct according to the text of the amendment and the intent of the authors.  The blues are correct by a century of Jim Crow precedent and common sense.  Each is hoping for a total victory and is not willing to yield.

Being willing to listen and compromise seems necessary.  Instead we get extremists uttering half truths.

If I could I would rewrite the Second Amendment so that it makes clear that 

(1) military weapons are not for civilian use, which is consistent with the early-American practice of recognizing that infantry weapons were similar to hunting rifles and really had dual purpose. The common man did not get to keep artillery pieces and certainly not naval weaponry. The Uzi, AK-47, and AR-15 are infantry weapons for modern warfare, but they are not hunting weapons. Machine guns take special training to use due to the recoil. What possible use in civilian life could one have for Katyusha rockets of the type that mowed down the Wehrmacht on the German-Soviet front in World War II? The infantry weapons of the American Revolution were the ones that people killed deer with for venison.
  
(2) the States have the obvious right to own and such weapons as needed for law enforcement and to delegate to subordinate political entities (county and city governments) the right to establish responsible militias. The federal government was not going to enforce state or local laws with a highly-centralized police force. The States could form  equivalents of the National Guard to meet emergencies before a distant Congress could respond. 

(3) the idea that the States supply their militias to any national Army (or air force or navy) is obsolete. Such has not been done since the Civil War. The Army, Navy, and Air Force may 'borrow' them, but on the whole... the Union Army was structured (if you want to call it structure) with entities such as Battery "A" 1st Michigan Volunteer Light Artillery, but that sort of structure did not apply in any war beginning with the Spanish-American War. Still, natural disasters are legitimate uses for state (but clearly well-disciplined) militias.

(4) persons who would be rejected from service in a militia for reasons of character (especially criminal record) or mental inadequacy (idiocy or lunacy, as the old words went) should not have guns or access thereto. We don't need anything like the Dirlewanger brigade (Oskar Dirlewanger was a sexual sadist and a fanatical, brutal Nazi... and you can imagine how his brigade of his selection of criminals and perverts operated). Weapons suited only to criminal use are not military weapons and nobody has any inherent right to those. 

(5) any such amendment would have a non-discrimination clause (as with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and subsequent amendments establishing or extending voting rights) and would give the states the right to control the 'import' of weapons into their states as is so with the repeal of Prohibition. As an example, someone prohibited by New York state law
from owning a firearm would not be able to buy a gun in Virginia and bring it back to New York or have someone ship such a gun from Virginia (Virginia has lax gun laws).  

It would take an Amendment to the Constitution simply to establish a non-discrimination clause to the Second Amendment, and that would be appropriate.     

[Classic-Xer]

(12-07-2020, 01:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: You guys are indeed to blame for everything wrong with America. You guys should wear MAW hats: Make America Worse.

Biden did suffer a decline in the election returns from what the polls said, essentially his margin of victory being cut in half, and Democrats lost ground in the House and so far have failed to take back the Senate. That was probably due to the Trump team's greater willingness to wage door to door ground campaigns. Trump's rallies were shown by Chuck Todd on Meet the Press to be counter-productive. Biden didn't stay home the bulk of the time, but you keep parroting that Hannity/Ingraham Fox talking point, because that's all you watch for your news. You live in a bubble, and thus the AG's report and the decisions of 40 judges that Trump has no fraud case make no impression on you. Just as Trump ignored the pandemic and sponsored super-spreader events, so he and you called it fraudulent to offer many more mail-in ballots so people could vote safely. As for Google and Facebook et al, their behavior depends on your point of view. What you call censorship, others call an inadequate job of fact checking and removal of malicious lies and conspiracy theory and threats to peoples' safety. Biden may be old, but he's doing well and is fully articulate, despite some signs of dementia in early primary debates. So you no longer have a case there either. He was the only candidate running who could have won, as the horoscope scores show. If no-one better stepped up to run, which no-one did, then we had no other choice but Joe.

Well, we can't go back through and fact check every vote that was cast during the election. You made a mistake, the DNC made a mistake and the Rhino's made a mistake and it won't be long before you all figure that out and find yourselves more or less separated from the rest of the country with a tidal wave of debt and global obligations coming at you all. Sometimes you have to pull the plug and tank a make believe economy to level the playing field and preserve the better half. America will be fine once it separates and wipes out all of you guys during the process. We'll do whatever it takes to preserve America and protect our portion of the country and you're going to find that out soon enough now that we have Biden/Harris in office and a wayward government that only cares about enriching itself and financially bettering itself on the taxpayers dime. Trump lost. I don't care if Trump takes his time before handing Biden the keys to the White House after all the big government hoopla is over. I have no intentions to watch Biden get sworn into office. America will be fine as Washington goes ape shit. I didn't go ape shit when a bunch of lowly Democrats skipped his inauguration or a bunch of self absorbed celebrity athletes refused his invitation to the White House to be recognized for their accomplishments and so forth.

[Eric the Green]

(12-07-2020, 02:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 01:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: You guys are indeed to blame for everything wrong with America. You guys should wear MAW hats: Make America Worse.

Biden did suffer a decline in the election returns from what the polls said, essentially his margin of victory being cut in half, and Democrats lost ground in the House and so far have failed to take back the Senate. That was probably due to the Trump team's greater willingness to wage door to door ground campaigns. Trump's rallies were shown by Chuck Todd on Meet the Press to be counter-productive. Biden didn't stay home the bulk of the time, but you keep parroting that Hannity/Ingraham Fox talking point, because that's all you watch for your news. You live in a bubble, and thus the AG's report and the decisions of 40 judges that Trump has no fraud case make no impression on you. Just as Trump ignored the pandemic and sponsored super-spreader events, so he and you called it fraudulent to offer many more mail-in ballots so people could vote safely. As for Google and Facebook et al, their behavior depends on your point of view. What you call censorship, others call an inadequate job of fact checking and removal of malicious lies and conspiracy theory and threats to peoples' safety. Biden may be old, but he's doing well and is fully articulate, despite some signs of dementia in early primary debates. So you no longer have a case there either. He was the only candidate running who could have won, as the horoscope scores show. If no-one better stepped up to run, which no-one did, then we had no other choice but Joe.

Well, we can't go back through and fact check every vote that was cast during the election. You made a mistake, the DNC made a mistake and the Rhino's made a mistake and it won't be long before you all figure that out and find yourselves more or less separated from the rest of the country with a tidal wave of debt and global obligations coming at you all. Sometimes you have to pull the plug and tank a make believe economy to level the playing field and preserve the better half. America will be fine once it separates and wipes out all of you guys during the process. We'll do whatever it takes to preserve America and protect our portion of the country and you're going to find that out soon enough now that we have Biden/Harris in office and a wayward government that only cares about enriching itself and financially bettering itself on the taxpayers dime. Trump lost. I don't care if Trump takes his time before handing Biden the keys to the White House after all the big government hoopla is over. I have no intentions to watch Biden get sworn into office. America will be fine as Washington goes ape shit. I didn't go ape shit when a bunch of lowly Democrats skipped his inauguration or a bunch of self absorbed celebrity athletes refused his invitation to the White House to be recognized for their accomplishments and so forth.

The elections have been recounted and fact-checked and certified. There was no fraud. Anyone who says there was, is a loony. As I said, we made no mistake in voting for Biden because that's who there was to vote for. The voters chose Biden, not the DNC.

Reagan, W. Bush and Trump created the debt. YOUR guys created the debt. I know you guys like to pull the plug on the economy. Your Wall Street boys love to do that, like they did in 2008. Trump did that by ignoring the pandemic, not preparing for it, denying it, not taking action on it, resulting in shutdowns and closings that continue unabated. Your guys only care about enriching yourselves on our dime. Blue states support your red states. Your debt will be paid by our descendants. 

I don't care what Trump says or does. He will never get back the keys to the White House, unless he gets to run in 2024 against Kamala Harris, and then I wouldn't bet on Harris.

You don't preserve America, you destroy it. All you care about is your stupid guns, your money and your vision of America without immigrants, which means you care about Zero.

[pbrower2a]

(12-07-2020, 01:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Who said if you don't vote for me then your not black and then picked a running mate strictly on basis of their race and gender?

Which white person said the opposite? It certainly wasn't John McCain or Mitt Romney, who did run campaigns against Barack Obama. Neither called attention to Barack Obama being black. The 2008 and 2012 elections really were run on the merits of the opposing candidates, and nothing else. Barack Obama never attributed voting against him as racism. Never. 

I am white (in case that matters to you) and I had misgivings about Obama as a presidential nominee because as a black man he would be able to get away with far less as a politician -- and I don't mean corruption or despotic behavior.  America was in deep trouble, and it needed pervasive reforms to solve the mess that got America where it was -- the worst economic meltdown in nearly eighty years. I thought that America needed a fiery populist to unite poor whites with the middle class in a common effort to make America a more just and equable society. Obama was the worst candidate possible for winning over poor whites in the Mountain and Deep South, as the electoral map showed. 

But in general, outside the Great Plains states and the Mountain and Deep South, Obama won with Reagan-like margins where he won but lost by McGovern-like or Mondale-like margins in most places that he lost in 2008 and 2012. Democrats from the Clinton era were still Senators from Arkansas, Missouri, West Virginia, Florida, and Louisiana. Now there is only one Democratic Senator from any one of those states. The Republican Party in the South basically stands for the economic inequality of the Jim Crow Era without the ugly symbolism of racism. Most of the South has gone Prussian. That is an improvement over slavery, but that is still horribly flawed.  

Quote:Obama was a savvy con man and a privileged little dickhead who claimed that we were racists for knowing and understanding that about him.

A statement like that, so fundamentally false, says more about you than about your enemy. Remember well that every evil that the Nazis attributed to the Jews was absolutely true -- about themselves! The word for that in psychology is projection, attributing to others one's worst tendencies as a person. 

If one has command of the facts and can present them well, one is simply convincing. That is necessary in law. If I am overweight and my physician cannot convince me to change my eating habits and do more exercise (or perhaps go from a sedentary job to one that requires genuine toil) then I do not have a good physician. If I attend a church yet beat my wife after drunken debauches as I drink away my paycheck in a saloon and the preacher cannot convince me to change my ways then I need to find some other house of worship in which the preacher can tell me that -- maybe I am headed to Hell for such egregious sins as drunkenness and spouse abuse.   In some cases competent salesmanship and advertising depend upon honest and competent presentation of objective fact. Many people can't be snowed with unadulterated falsehood.  

Don't underestimate the value of salesmanship and advertising. Capitalism could not work without it. But know well: much else really is salesmanship. That includes teaching. What I learned about selling in a department store when such was the only work available to me in the early 1980's was good for teaching as a substitute. I was not teaching: I was selling.  I was selling the worthiness of learning to spell and to use proper grammar. I was selling the idea that drudgery in math work was worth the effort. I was selling the idea that history and civics are worth the effort. I was selling the idea that science solves problems. I was selling the value of learning as a necessity for a good life in America. 

Some black kid complained to me that I was asking him to act white because I insisted that he do his appointed tasks. I responded that there are plenty of white losers who don't take learning seriously and that they get the same results as black losers who don't take learning seriously. I told him that I wanted him to act.... like a more typical Chinese-American.

Barack Obama is a trained attorney, and by all accounts he has a superb legal mind. He went to Chicago where he thought that he could be a very good DA or judge... and I could imagine him as a nightmare for criminal defendants who might have gotten away with facing less competent legal minds. Barack Obama may be a liberal, but he is also one of those do-the-crime-and-do-the-time people. That is what I want in a prosecutor or judge for the simple reason that I have no empathy for criminal predators. 

The Chicago machine didn't want him around and got him into electoral politics. That solved one problem. Sure, he might have become a federal attorney or judge... and that would have made him a monster to gangsters and crooked pols... and other shysters. Obama learned early that criminality is a choice -- a bad choice even in the worst slums. Commuting twenty miles in each direction to a job as a fast-food worker or as a box-store clerk in the suburbs is a far better choice. 

I think I understand Barack Obama as well as anyone can. Most people find him easy to understand because he makes his points clearly and effectively. That is a necessity for a well-trained attorney, and something well honed in law school. He is certainly easier to understand than some lunatic or drug-addled loser, isn't he? 

Can I understand the arcane knowledge of law that he has? That takes legal training, neither of us possessing. Barack Obama is privileged only to the extent that he has earned it. It is like the violinist who seems to make playing the instrument look easy. Malcom Gladwell




yes, this fellow

explains that and much other high-level achievement as 10,000 hours of dedicated preparation starting in childhood. That includes Dominicans in American baseball. That includes classical musicians. That includes the typical PhD, attorney, or physician. That includes the Beatles, the slickest and most versatile of pop musicians ever. That includes singers and actors. That is about how long it takes to be a master at something like selling insurance effectively. Raw talent isn't enough. It doesn't take so long to be a raw laborer or clerk. Read his book Outliers some time. If I were a school principal I would push it. Barack Obama is definitely an outlier. 

As I recall, he said of violinists at the Berlin Conservatory of Music in a near-quote (with some of my conclusions)

'Violinists fit neatly into roughly three categories. Those who had done about 2000 hours of preparation typically ended up as violin teachers at Germany's equivalent of K-12 public education. At 8000 hours of preparation one gets the greatest violinists who play in small-city orchestras or in stage orchestras, or perhaps teach at a college level as at the Conservatory itself. 

Classical music is an inextricable part of the culture of the German-speaking world, and the German educational system pushes that heritage. People who have truly refined ears may not be the sorts who have the patience with which to teach beginning violinists. 8000? You are good, but not that good. 10,000? Welcome to the Berlin, Vienna, Cologne, Leipzig, or Munich Philharmonic, orchestras of Amsterdam or Rotterdam ... maybe London... or you are a soloist or a member of a great string quartet. But consider what it takes to have 10,000 hours of preparation playing the violin. That is a thousand hours of playing the violin, learning musical theory, taking lessons, hearing concerts every year from age eight. That is two hours a day including K-12 learning of orchestral play. Who gets to spend two hours a day at the dreary exercise of scales and dreadfully didactic exercises on a beginner violin? Maybe your mother plays for the Staatskapelle Dresden and knows how that goes.    

 
...if you want to know what your projection about Obama says:

Quote:Obama was a savvy con man and a privileged little dickhead who claimed that we were racists for knowing and understanding that about him.

then I could alter it as in a commonplace exercise in learning a foreign language (substitute words so that one has to change others to agree in number in the verb and agreement with pronouns and (in al Romance languages, German, and all Slavic languages gender)... changing the facts to fit is easier:

Donald Trump was a savvy con man and a privileged overweight dickhead who claimed that we were un-American intellectuals for knowing and understanding that about him. 

I saw his record as a businessman, and it doesn't impress me. Really-good entrepreneurs do not dabble; they go deep and specialize in one zone of activity. This is not John Davison Rockefeller II, Sebastian Kresge, A. P. Giannini, James Cash Penney, Roy Kroc, Sam Walton, T. Boone Pickens. Ross Perot, Bill Gates, or Jeff Bezos. Warren Buffett stayed clear of high technology because, even if it was potentially lucrative, he didn't understand it. Fools and gamblers invest in what they don't understand. John Rockefeller II didn't toy with banking or retailing. Roy Kroc didn't try to add gasoline pumps to his fast-food places.  Ross Perot didn't buy newspaper publishers. James Cash Penney didn't go into the grocery business. Jeff Bezos isn't in the financial industry. Wise people know their limits, and Donald Trump does not know his. 

Good people do not brag about grabbing people in their genital areas. Lyndon Baines Johnson may have been a savvy politician, but that he spoke of grabbing men (figuratively) by their "manhood" was an ugly metaphor that only a nasty person could use. Grab her by her (kitty-cats)? At least LBJ had a record of political achievements. Still, the Military-Industrial Complex grabbed LBJ figuratively by his manhood... and got us into the profitable, but discreditable, war in Vietnam. 

Good people do not cheat on their golf scores. I would admit that I am not good at it for reasons that have nothing to do with 10,000 hours of dedicated preparation (if you lack the talent you will give up long before you put in the needed 10,000 hours for mastery  of anything at the slick levels for distinguished achivement in our time). 

Politics may look easy -- but Arthur Rubinstein made playing the piano look easy, too. Abraham Lincoln made his speeches with mathematical precision, and only someone has adept as he would dare repeat the word "dead" so many times and the syllable "dead" in the word "dedicated" that he pounded into the Gettysburg Address. Churchill claimed that he didn't quite master Latin, but he certainly drew upon the finest rhetoric of ancient Roman politicians against the "Carthage" of his time. Only so masterful a rhetorician as FDR could tell us that "We have nothing to fear... but Fear itself!" at the time that Hitler and Stalin had fear as their most powerful tool of control. That is the 10,000 hours for you. 

Quote:Yes. You could build a wall or iron curtain and trap everyone within or behind like the Soviets did with Berlin or the Nazi's did with the German people before the Soviets took over after World War II. Barrack and his elitist friends and professional colleagues have a pretty good gig going for themselves these days. It's to bad they're going to find themselves stuck and being overwhelmed by the anger and resentment that they've been feeding, creating and building up among their own for generations.

Barack Obama is a superb speaker, and he is impeccably honest. There was a book out called Assholes, (yes, that is the title, and the title is clearly intended to offend, and it explained clearly that much of what is wrong with America is people whom one can call "anal sphincters" for their vile treatment of other people -- in creative activities, in entertainment, and in politics. The author mentioned George W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump (this is before his dabbling in politics) extensively... and plenty of business people. I forget whether he mentioned Harvey Weinstein, but that man was a certifiable asshole. He said of Barack Obama that the notable thing about him is how little the word applies to him. He does not want such people around him. 

People around Barack Obama are very much in demand in American Big Business because integrity is a virtue in some settings. It prevents some serious problems. I'll take the scandal-free Obama administration, even with slight achievements (OK, that is because the opposition party was able to stymie him) over the sickening vileness of Donald Trump. Surely you saw my overlay map between Barack Obama and Dwight Eisenhower. Ike was a conservative and a traditionalist, and Obama is a liberal and a modernist. The next effective conservative President (ruling out a despot of the type that Donald Trump wishes he were) will be a conservative version of Barack Obama. The American political pattern goes that way after a Crisis Era is over. Obama is much more a portent of such than a parody.

[pbrower2a]

(12-07-2020, 03:08 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 02:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 01:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: You guys are indeed to blame for everything wrong with America. You guys should wear MAW hats: Make America Worse.

Biden did suffer a decline in the election returns from what the polls said, essentially his margin of victory being cut in half, and Democrats lost ground in the House and so far have failed to take back the Senate. That was probably due to the Trump team's greater willingness to wage door to door ground campaigns. Trump's rallies were shown by Chuck Todd on Meet the Press to be counter-productive. Biden didn't stay home the bulk of the time, but you keep parroting that Hannity/Ingraham Fox talking point, because that's all you watch for your news. You live in a bubble, and thus the AG's report and the decisions of 40 judges that Trump has no fraud case make no impression on you. Just as Trump ignored the pandemic and sponsored super-spreader events, so he and you called it fraudulent to offer many more mail-in ballots so people could vote safely. As for Google and Facebook et al, their behavior depends on your point of view. What you call censorship, others call an inadequate job of fact checking and removal of malicious lies and conspiracy theory and threats to peoples' safety. Biden may be old, but he's doing well and is fully articulate, despite some signs of dementia in early primary debates. So you no longer have a case there either. He was the only candidate running who could have won, as the horoscope scores show. If no-one better stepped up to run, which no-one did, then we had no other choice but Joe.

Well, we can't go back through and fact check every vote that was cast during the election. You made a mistake, the DNC made a mistake and the Rhino's made a mistake and it won't be long before you all figure that out and find yourselves more or less separated from the rest of the country with a tidal wave of debt and global obligations coming at you all. Sometimes you have to pull the plug and tank a make believe economy to level the playing field and preserve the better half. America will be fine once it separates and wipes out all of you guys during the process. We'll do whatever it takes to preserve America and protect our portion of the country and you're going to find that out soon enough now that we have Biden/Harris in office and a wayward government that only cares about enriching itself and financially bettering itself on the taxpayers dime. Trump lost. I don't care if Trump takes his time before handing Biden the keys to the White House after all the big government hoopla is over. I have no intentions to watch Biden get sworn into office. America will be fine as Washington goes ape shit. I didn't go ape shit when a bunch of lowly Democrats skipped his inauguration or a bunch of self absorbed celebrity athletes refused his invitation to the White House to be recognized for their accomplishments and so forth.

The elections have been recounted and fact-checked and certified. There was no fraud. Anyone who says there was, is a loony. As I said, we made no mistake in voting for Biden because that's who there was to vote for. The voters chose Biden, not the DNC.

Reagan, W. Bush and Trump created the debt. YOUR guys created the debt. I know you guys like to pull the plug on the economy. Your Wall Street boys love to do that, like they did in 2008. Trump did that by ignoring the pandemic, not preparing for it, denying it, not taking action on it, resulting in shutdowns and closings that continue unabated. Your guys only care about enriching yourselves on our dime. Blue states support your red states. Your debt will be paid by our descendants. 

I don't care what Trump says or does. He will never get back the keys to the White House, unless he gets to run in 2024 against Kamala Harris, and then I wouldn't bet on Harris.

You don't preserve America, you destroy it. All you care about is your stupid guns, your money and your vision of America without immigrants, which means you care about Zero.

Indeed, no election has had so many recounts as this one. All establish the same thing: the original vote count was right, and every state that Joe Biden was said to have won in the media.. he won. It's 306 electoral votes, 27 of them from states that the Democrats have not won in a Presidential election since the 1990's. 

I can't understand how Republicans can say that Democrats cheated when the final results were less favorable to the Democrats than was expected a couple weeks earlier. What looked like a possible wave election favoring the Democrats has proved to be a status-quo election except for the President. Democrats thought that they were going to win more states for the Presidency and win some Senate seats that they didn't.

Trump lost his part of the election, and if he had been simply substandard and not as hideous as he was, then he would have been re-elected. Democrats would have nominated someone sure to go down to defeat... maybe someone honored for 'long and dedicated service' by party loyalists... like Mondale in 1984 or Dole in 1996. Incumbent Presidents typically win status quo elections. 

I think we are past telling Classic X'er how awful Trump was... if he can ignore nearly 290,000 deaths from a respiratory infection of the kind that we thought until recently no longer happens in the First World, one that is killing Americans on the scale of a Crisis War... well he may be beyond home.

The days in which accusations of electoral fraud make sense are over. Both Parties have insisted on preventing it, and both have, as the political realities demand, insisted on the sorts of controls on electoral devices and materials characteristic of accounting controls for cash and valuable objects in Big Business. There are rigid chains of custody for voting devices, and strict controls on the sources of ballot materials. Counts of votes and voters practically ensure that such a fraud as phantom votes on a machine, phantom voters, or phantom ballots is impossible. Ballots have watermarks from reputable suppliers of paper as for personal checks or legal documents, so if someone introduces fake ballots that have the wrong watermark... then there is Hell to pay. Dead people voting? I went to the township clerk after both my mother and my father died to have them removed from the voter rolls. I showed the death certificate for my mother in 2014... and the clerk promptly removed my mother. After my father died (2016) the township clerk told me that he had already been removed from voter rolls because the county clerk now reads the obituaries and disqualifies people whose names and days of birth match those in the obituaries. 

It has never been easier to detect electoral fraud in America, so it is practically impossible to get away with it.  The consequences are just not worth the risk. 

... The demographic trends do not favor the Republican Party as its ideology suggests. 2020 is the best year ever for the Republican party in winning raw votes. Democrats did not do as much face-to-face politics as is normal... because of COVID-19. We'll be back doing that in 2022, and the Republican Party has far more incumbents at risk of losing re-election bids, especially if they remain supportive of Donald Trump, and especially if they obstruct popular legislation. Voters over 55 (Silent, Boom and early-wave X)  are still about 5% more D than R and voters under 40 (this will be exclusively Millennial and Homelander adults) are about 20% more D than R. That again implies about a 0.8% shift from R to D in the electorate by 2022. With Millennial pols appearing for high elective office, those pols will generally be more able to excite young-adult voters. 

Trump and the GOP did succeed at blind-siding Democrats late in the campaign. These people still believe that no human suffering can ever be in excess in the support of the power, indulgence, and gain (PIG) of entrenched elites... but it is questionable how long they can run on this. Trump and the GOP hit Democrats hard by attacking Democrats for being lenient on Commie and near-Commie regimes in Cuba and Venezuela.  Next time... I would retort with "What do you expect to do? Invade Cuba and Venezuela?" 

But that is Florida. One state. 

The GOP will have some accounting to do for gross incompetence in dealing with COVID-19.   Life will be back to normal as a safe and effective vaccine for the Plague of Donald Trump... except that we will be aware of the absence of at least 300,000 people. People will be asking questions, and the gory details will be out.  How did people die? That's so far for the nurses and other medical staff to know.

[Eric the Green]

(12-07-2020, 01:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 01:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-06-2020, 01:19 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-05-2020, 09:02 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-03-2020, 12:04 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Nope. 2020 is going to extend well into 2022. The Republican base is awake and has been awake for years. The Democratic base is groggy, clueless, still dreaming and wishful thinking. So, what's coming Bob? Is climate change coming or is climate change here forever? I assume climate change is here forever. AOC says that we are going to die in ten years unless we spend Trillions and eliminate evil industries today but the plan is over thirty years. ARE THERE ANY LIBERALS WHO UNDERSTAND MATH or ARE ANY GOOD AT MATH? Since we're all going to be dead in years I've noticed we only have spend 3 Trillion so we can all die feeling good about ourselves. Sounds comical but Liberals are pretty comical these days but it seems to work for largely disconnected Democratic voters/supporters these days. 

Well, if we are going to die and the world is going to starve or die of thirst or be flooded out of house and home due to rising seas, the 1st priority should be exterminating China? The polar bears will adapt.  So, what are we going to do about it? Are you going to change Mother Nature? Did you know that our carbon footprint is less than a quarter of China's? More of the same as far as what we seen last summer? Are the blacks going to take power and begin enslaving whites? Are our guns going to be taken away by crazy Liberals? The Republican base is awake Bob.

You Republicans are falling ever more to sleep. You are almost comatose. Fantasy is your reality. Who are you guys to talk about math, for goodness sakes? LOL

Republicans caused climate change, and are quite happy with it and vote to expand it. It keeps their gas guzzlers humming and the oil and gas profits coming. We could certainly change our energy system in ten years, but we can't solely because of you guys. China is much more efficient at getting things done, and no, their footprint is about the same size as the USA's, and I expect them to make the transition faster than the USA, which already had a 30-year head start.

It's not nice to fool Mother Nature (the actress who portrayed her just passed away). And you still deny human-caused climate change. My my, do you deny the value of facemasks too? Do you think Trump was cheated out of the election? Are vaccines a plot by Bill Gates to implant control devices? Are all Democrats pedophiles? Were gun massacres staged? Are you being attacked by chemtrails? Did aliens bring down the twin towers?

No-one knows for sure how many years we have before we die from this climate disaster. It is not as cut and dried as that, and how quick the transition needs to really be is not known in exact detail. I expect humanity to survive, but what I keep asking is whether we should give up our civilization, our beaches, our leisure time, our creativity and our culture, our homes, our heritage, and more; just so a few oil, gas and coal barons are not inconvenienced? Is it really worth all that? Is it so good that maybe the human race will barely survive their greed? That's the best you'll give us? 

Gee, I hope we can take your guns away. Nothing would make me happier. Although raising your taxes to socialist levels would be about as much fun. The things you care about make me want to vomit. But it's a good idea you have there about what the black lives matter protesters wanted; maybe we should insist not only on reparations for the descendants of slaves, but give the enslavers a lot of their own medicine. Not me, of course; I have no slavemasters in my long American ancestry.

If you believe the Republicans are to blame for climate change, you're as a nuts as those who believed the Jews were responsible for everything wrong with Germany. Also, you should check your facts because China and India and Russia are the largest contributors of emissions. We're about the same as Europe despite us using more energy than Europe. Our portion of a continent was built for commerce.

No, it is the only sane view. Republicans since the 1970s have backed politicians who oppose pollution regulation, climate change regulation, and alternative energy development. Reagan took the solar panels down from the White House that Carter had put up, which symbolized Reagan's policies of supporting fossil fuels, the burning of which causes climate change. The graphs we have posted here countless times shows that global warming took a giant leap upward from Reagan's term onward. Republicans have continued to oppose and stop the policies of pollution regulation, climate change regulation, and alternative energy development. Trump pulled out of the Paris Accord and thus stopped all of the USA's power to persuade and make deals to get China and other countries to speed up their energy transition to renewables. I don't know how much more of a causal connection you can make. You are wrong on your facts. The USA and China are now equal, India still far below, and Europe below the USA in emissions. But your side is not interested in facts.

Quote:I think Biden won the election but I don't think he won it fair and square. The Democratic party pulled out the stops and cheated and won it for him.  As a general rule, candidates don't win national elections by limiting their campaigning/campaigns and being able to stay home the bulk of the time. Plus, I've never seen a corporation like Google or Facebook/Twitter having the power and authority to control free speech and censor pertinent information either. Plus, I've never seen a bunch of states change their laws or use mass balloting just prior to an election either. Plus, I've never seen a Presidential candidate showing  obvious signs of dementia get elected without being questioned about it either. I heard a Left Wing Brit who said Trump not conceding was the greatest threat to our democracy but it's pretty clear the bitch wasn't here to witness what we experienced or what we watched occur happen during this election. I think you're going to regret going along with the Democratic party and voting for Biden myself. As a general rule, people aren't fond of being tricked by a classic bait and switch or having pertinent information withheld from them.  Of course, you'll still blame us for it anyways. You already lost half the country forever because we know what the Democratic party is about these days. What the Democrats say its about doesn't jive with what we see these days. It's a disaster waiting to happen at this point. Grid lock is not what you need but what you're going to get and if you go back to slim majorities having the power it will come back to bite you like it did with the judges.

You guys are indeed to blame for everything wrong with America. You guys should wear MAW hats: Make America Worse.

Biden did suffer a decline in the election returns from what the polls said, essentially his margin of victory being cut in half, and Democrats lost ground in the House and so far have failed to take back the Senate. That was probably due to the Trump team's greater willingness to wage door to door ground campaigns. Trump's rallies were shown by Chuck Todd on Meet the Press to be counter-productive. Biden didn't stay home the bulk of the time, but you keep parroting that Hannity/Ingraham Fox talking point, because that's all you watch for your news. You live in a bubble, and thus the AG's report and the decisions of 40 judges that Trump has no fraud case make no impression on you. Just as Trump ignored the pandemic and sponsored super-spreader events, so he and you called it fraudulent to offer many more mail-in ballots so people could vote safely. As for Google and Facebook et al, their behavior depends on your point of view. What you call censorship, others call an inadequate job of fact checking and removal of malicious lies and conspiracy theory and threats to peoples' safety. Biden may be old, but he's doing well and is fully articulate, despite some signs of dementia in early primary debates. So you no longer have a case there either. He was the only candidate running who could have won, as the horoscope scores show. If no-one better stepped up to run, which no-one did, then we had no other choice but Joe.

Quote:Do you want to know what the cities mean to us? The cities are where we have go to see a sports event or concert or go to work for some or travel through to get some place else. I don't have any slave owners in my long ancestry either. If there's a Civil War, we won't fighting over slavery this time around because every black person in this country is free whether they feel like it or not.  You won't be able to take our guns away but you can try and see what happens as a result. I'd actually welcome it myself knowing the outcome wouldn't be in your favor. Emotional twits don't think and the Democratic side has the overwhelming majority of the emotional twits on its side these days. I doubt to many US soldiers would be willing to fight for their rights being taken away these days. You always forget that you live in a country with a government that doesn't have the freedom to remove our Constitutional rights and the army that's in place is there to keep it that way. So, unless you want a war with us and them I'd suggest that you leave the second amendment alone.

If there is a civil war, your side would be fighting to make sure you can discriminate against blacks or kill them on the street for no reason, about which you and your side has no objection. You think any effort to help them out of the poverty and wealth gap that you guys imposed on them is socialism, so under your rule they would stay poor and as dispossessed as they were after the civil war. Most people of color would move away from a Red America and leave you guys without enough labor and service workers for your markets and industries. Not having any immigrants either would also cripple your labor pool, and the fact that most rich bosses know a good thing and can afford to live in blue states would rob you of some of your executive talent too, not to mention smart young techies and artists and teachers who would complete their ongoing migration out of your foresaken lands. Perhaps our Blue America could pass laws requiring your bosses to live in your states or give up their ownership and leadership rights. If they want to oppress their people, they should move to where their people live and suffer the consequences.

We could leave the second amendment alone, and still pass gun control that you would call "not leaving the second amendment alone." I would be willing to compromise on the issue, but your side is not willing. Myself I have zero respect for the second amendment, or your stupid, depraved gun rights, and I would support the second amendment's total removal and replacement with strict confiscation of guns everywhere. But I don't have the majority of voters on my side on that position, even in blue states, and unlike you I recognize facts and am willing to deal with them.

Who said if you don't vote for me then your not black and then picked a running mate strictly on basis of their race and gender? Obama was a savvy con man and a privileged little dickhead who claimed that we were racists for knowing and understanding that about him. Yes. You could build a wall or iron curtain and trap everyone within or behind like the Soviets did with Berlin or the Nazi's did with the German people before the Soviets took over after World War II. Barrack and his elitist friends and professional colleagues have a pretty good gig going for themselves these days. It's to bad they're going to find themselves stuck and being overwhelmed by the anger and resentment that they've been feeding, creating and building up among their own for generations.

What is exactly clear is that you are feeding, creating and building up your own anger and resentment, and whatever reason there may be for it, it is directed at exactly the wrong target. Anyone who said Biden's election is a fraud is insane. If 40% of the people are therefore judged by me insane, that is no more than what I have been saying for a while. Your almost-half the country is insane, and your posts are typical of the raving madness of your side. You make stuff into reasons we are wrong which don't hold any water, and you throw it at us, but it makes no difference what insane people say. It is not the truth.

I don't know what's wrong with this senator from Indiana.




Wouldn't it be nice to have brilliant young millennials like Jon Ossoff in the Senate instead of old dorks like Braun. Whatever we can do, make calls or texts or answer the endless pleas for money by Ossoff and Warnock, we need to do.

[pbrower2a]

If the 2020 Presidential election wasn't clean, than what was? The controls against electoral fraud have never been stronger. Dirty tricks are still possible, but those are not electoral fraud. Close elections count too, and if someone like Classic X'er dislikes the result because he dislikes who voted... then tough!

Trump lost the 2020 Presidential election under circumstances similar to those under which he won in 2016. All that seems to have changed was that about 1.6% of the popular vote went from Trump to Biden.

Except that Donald Trump is the worst President in American history, this was about as good an election for the GOP as anyone could have dreamed. Trump lost this election due to his incompetence, cruelty, and corruption. He had a lot of us scared.

[Eric the Green]

google election results 2020:


Joe Biden
Democratic Party
306
51.4%
81,271,129

Donald Trump
Republican Party
232
46.9%
74,209,290

[Classic-Xer]

(12-07-2020, 07:22 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If the 2020 Presidential election wasn't clean, than what was? The controls against electoral fraud have never been stronger. Dirty tricks are still possible, but those are not electoral fraud. Close elections count too, and if someone like Classic X'er dislikes the result because he dislikes who voted... then tough!

Trump lost the 2020 Presidential election under circumstances similar to those under which he won in 2016. All that seems to have changed was that about 1.6% of the popular vote went from Trump to Biden.

Except that Donald Trump is the worst President in American history, this was about as good an election for the GOP as anyone could have dreamed. Trump lost this election due to his incompetence, cruelty, and corruption. He had a lot of us scared.

You run out of government support then tough. As I mentioned, I actually prefer having the Democrats in power at this point.

[Classic-Xer]

(12-07-2020, 06:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 01:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 01:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-06-2020, 01:19 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-05-2020, 09:02 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: You Republicans are falling ever more to sleep. You are almost comatose. Fantasy is your reality. Who are you guys to talk about math, for goodness sakes? LOL

Republicans caused climate change, and are quite happy with it and vote to expand it. It keeps their gas guzzlers humming and the oil and gas profits coming. We could certainly change our energy system in ten years, but we can't solely because of you guys. China is much more efficient at getting things done, and no, their footprint is about the same size as the USA's, and I expect them to make the transition faster than the USA, which already had a 30-year head start.

It's not nice to fool Mother Nature (the actress who portrayed her just passed away). And you still deny human-caused climate change. My my, do you deny the value of facemasks too? Do you think Trump was cheated out of the election? Are vaccines a plot by Bill Gates to implant control devices? Are all Democrats pedophiles? Were gun massacres staged? Are you being attacked by chemtrails? Did aliens bring down the twin towers?

No-one knows for sure how many years we have before we die from this climate disaster. It is not as cut and dried as that, and how quick the transition needs to really be is not known in exact detail. I expect humanity to survive, but what I keep asking is whether we should give up our civilization, our beaches, our leisure time, our creativity and our culture, our homes, our heritage, and more; just so a few oil, gas and coal barons are not inconvenienced? Is it really worth all that? Is it so good that maybe the human race will barely survive their greed? That's the best you'll give us? 

Gee, I hope we can take your guns away. Nothing would make me happier. Although raising your taxes to socialist levels would be about as much fun. The things you care about make me want to vomit. But it's a good idea you have there about what the black lives matter protesters wanted; maybe we should insist not only on reparations for the descendants of slaves, but give the enslavers a lot of their own medicine. Not me, of course; I have no slavemasters in my long American ancestry.

If you believe the Republicans are to blame for climate change, you're as a nuts as those who believed the Jews were responsible for everything wrong with Germany. Also, you should check your facts because China and India and Russia are the largest contributors of emissions. We're about the same as Europe despite us using more energy than Europe. Our portion of a continent was built for commerce.

No, it is the only sane view. Republicans since the 1970s have backed politicians who oppose pollution regulation, climate change regulation, and alternative energy development. Reagan took the solar panels down from the White House that Carter had put up, which symbolized Reagan's policies of supporting fossil fuels, the burning of which causes climate change. The graphs we have posted here countless times shows that global warming took a giant leap upward from Reagan's term onward. Republicans have continued to oppose and stop the policies of pollution regulation, climate change regulation, and alternative energy development. Trump pulled out of the Paris Accord and thus stopped all of the USA's power to persuade and make deals to get China and other countries to speed up their energy transition to renewables. I don't know how much more of a causal connection you can make. You are wrong on your facts. The USA and China are now equal, India still far below, and Europe below the USA in emissions. But your side is not interested in facts.

Quote:I think Biden won the election but I don't think he won it fair and square. The Democratic party pulled out the stops and cheated and won it for him.  As a general rule, candidates don't win national elections by limiting their campaigning/campaigns and being able to stay home the bulk of the time. Plus, I've never seen a corporation like Google or Facebook/Twitter having the power and authority to control free speech and censor pertinent information either. Plus, I've never seen a bunch of states change their laws or use mass balloting just prior to an election either. Plus, I've never seen a Presidential candidate showing  obvious signs of dementia get elected without being questioned about it either. I heard a Left Wing Brit who said Trump not conceding was the greatest threat to our democracy but it's pretty clear the bitch wasn't here to witness what we experienced or what we watched occur happen during this election. I think you're going to regret going along with the Democratic party and voting for Biden myself. As a general rule, people aren't fond of being tricked by a classic bait and switch or having pertinent information withheld from them.  Of course, you'll still blame us for it anyways. You already lost half the country forever because we know what the Democratic party is about these days. What the Democrats say its about doesn't jive with what we see these days. It's a disaster waiting to happen at this point. Grid lock is not what you need but what you're going to get and if you go back to slim majorities having the power it will come back to bite you like it did with the judges.

You guys are indeed to blame for everything wrong with America. You guys should wear MAW hats: Make America Worse.

Biden did suffer a decline in the election returns from what the polls said, essentially his margin of victory being cut in half, and Democrats lost ground in the House and so far have failed to take back the Senate. That was probably due to the Trump team's greater willingness to wage door to door ground campaigns. Trump's rallies were shown by Chuck Todd on Meet the Press to be counter-productive. Biden didn't stay home the bulk of the time, but you keep parroting that Hannity/Ingraham Fox talking point, because that's all you watch for your news. You live in a bubble, and thus the AG's report and the decisions of 40 judges that Trump has no fraud case make no impression on you. Just as Trump ignored the pandemic and sponsored super-spreader events, so he and you called it fraudulent to offer many more mail-in ballots so people could vote safely. As for Google and Facebook et al, their behavior depends on your point of view. What you call censorship, others call an inadequate job of fact checking and removal of malicious lies and conspiracy theory and threats to peoples' safety. Biden may be old, but he's doing well and is fully articulate, despite some signs of dementia in early primary debates. So you no longer have a case there either. He was the only candidate running who could have won, as the horoscope scores show. If no-one better stepped up to run, which no-one did, then we had no other choice but Joe.

Quote:Do you want to know what the cities mean to us? The cities are where we have go to see a sports event or concert or go to work for some or travel through to get some place else. I don't have any slave owners in my long ancestry either. If there's a Civil War, we won't fighting over slavery this time around because every black person in this country is free whether they feel like it or not.  You won't be able to take our guns away but you can try and see what happens as a result. I'd actually welcome it myself knowing the outcome wouldn't be in your favor. Emotional twits don't think and the Democratic side has the overwhelming majority of the emotional twits on its side these days. I doubt to many US soldiers would be willing to fight for their rights being taken away these days. You always forget that you live in a country with a government that doesn't have the freedom to remove our Constitutional rights and the army that's in place is there to keep it that way. So, unless you want a war with us and them I'd suggest that you leave the second amendment alone.

If there is a civil war, your side would be fighting to make sure you can discriminate against blacks or kill them on the street for no reason, about which you and your side has no objection. You think any effort to help them out of the poverty and wealth gap that you guys imposed on them is socialism, so under your rule they would stay poor and as dispossessed as they were after the civil war. Most people of color would move away from a Red America and leave you guys without enough labor and service workers for your markets and industries. Not having any immigrants either would also cripple your labor pool, and the fact that most rich bosses know a good thing and can afford to live in blue states would rob you of some of your executive talent too, not to mention smart young techies and artists and teachers who would complete their ongoing migration out of your foresaken lands. Perhaps our Blue America could pass laws requiring your bosses to live in your states or give up their ownership and leadership rights. If they want to oppress their people, they should move to where their people live and suffer the consequences.

We could leave the second amendment alone, and still pass gun control that you would call "not leaving the second amendment alone." I would be willing to compromise on the issue, but your side is not willing. Myself I have zero respect for the second amendment, or your stupid, depraved gun rights, and I would support the second amendment's total removal and replacement with strict confiscation of guns everywhere. But I don't have the majority of voters on my side on that position, even in blue states, and unlike you I recognize facts and am willing to deal with them.

Who said if you don't vote for me then your not black and then picked a running mate strictly on basis of their race and gender? Obama was a savvy con man and a privileged little dickhead who claimed that we were racists for knowing and understanding that about him. Yes. You could build a wall or iron curtain and trap everyone within or behind like the Soviets did with Berlin or the Nazi's did with the German people before the Soviets took over after World War II. Barrack and his elitist friends and professional colleagues have a pretty good gig going for themselves these days. It's to bad they're going to find themselves stuck and being overwhelmed by the anger and resentment that they've been feeding, creating and building up among their own for generations.

What is exactly clear is that you are feeding, creating and building up your own anger and resentment, and whatever reason there may be for it, it is directed at exactly the wrong target. Anyone who said Biden's election is a fraud is insane. If 40% of the people are therefore judged by me insane, that is no more than what I have been saying for a while. Your almost-half the country is insane, and your posts are typical of the raving madness of your side. You make stuff into reasons we are wrong which don't hold any water, and you throw it at us, but it makes no difference what insane people say. It is not the truth.

I don't know what's wrong with this senator from Indiana.




Wouldn't it be nice to have brilliant young millennials like Jon Ossoff in the Senate instead of old dorks like Braun. Whatever we can do, make calls or texts or answer the endless pleas for money by Ossoff and Warnock, we need to do.

Do you want to bet how long he's able to remain in office? His election was a fraud and his condition will be obvious to most within a few years. The government has little integrity and by the time we're done with the Biden/Harris years the government integrity left which will open the door for a national split or a period of government reforms which will result in the destruction of the Democratic party. I doubt the Democratic party could win a two front war.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-08-2020, 01:10 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Do you want to bet how long he's able to remain in office? His election was a fraud and his condition will be obvious to most within a few years. The government has little integrity and by the time we're done with the Biden/Harris years the government integrity left which will open the door for a national split or a period of government reforms which will result in the destruction of the Democratic party. I doubt the Democratic party could win a two front war.

You seem to be projecting again. The Republicans have bought into the unraveling mindset, buying into a policy of greed and criminality. The Democrats are much more in crisis mode. For a time they will not have a problem with integrity. They will be working too hard on the crisis problems.

This will change in time. Any party which holds power too long will become corrupt. The mood of the country will shift. For the moment, though, a swing and a miss.

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-07-2020, 02:37 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If I could I would rewrite the Second Amendment so that it makes clear that... 

I’m mostly with you.  A few tweaks.

If you are going to remove a right, you need due process.  This would require a felony conviction, or a professional psychological decision.  That is a higher standard than being banned from a militia unit.

The National Guard is a federal standing army.  The militia cannot be sent abroad.  When Teddy Roosevelt set up the current system, he wanted a reserve that could be sent abroad, that could be called up without congressional approval.  An alternate line of command to the state was there, but the Nation Guard is paid for by federal money, and if the president calls a unit into service, the governor is out of luck.  An example was when George Wallace sent the Guard to a state university to prevent black students from integrating, and John Kennedy responded by federally taking command of the Guard.

I see civilian weapons as being limited in power per shot, speed of fire and size of magazine.  Would you try for anything else?

[David Horn]

(12-08-2020, 04:44 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-08-2020, 01:10 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Do you want to bet how long he's able to remain in office? His election was a fraud and his condition will be obvious to most within a few years. The government has little integrity and by the time we're done with the Biden/Harris years the government integrity left which will open the door for a national split or a period of government reforms which will result in the destruction of the Democratic party. I doubt the Democratic party could win a two front war.

You seem to be projecting again.  The Republicans have bought into the unraveling mindset, buying into a policy of greed and criminality.  The Democrats are much more in crisis mode.  For a time they will not have a problem with integrity.  They will be working too hard on the crisis problems.  

This will change in time.  Any party which holds power too long will become corrupt.  The mood of the country will shift.  For the moment, though, a swing and a miss.

Good summary, if a bit more optimistic than I am myself.  Trump and his cabal have broken something that's necessary to democracy, and mending it (or not) may be Biden's #1 task, whether he wants it or not.  I've recently heard some serious grumbling about the roles the two parties have assumed in the last few decades, where the GOP creates messes for the Dems to clean up, but Trump is (hopefully) a special case.  If Biden accomplishes that mission and  bows-out after one term, that paradigm might finally be broken.

[pbrower2a]

(12-08-2020, 05:03 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 02:37 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: If I could I would rewrite the Second Amendment so that it makes clear that... 

I’m mostly with you.  A few tweaks.

If you are going to remove a right, you need due process.  This would require a felony conviction, or a professional psychological decision.  That is a higher standard than being banned from a militia unit.

Of course. The Armed Services do not want criminals. I would have been 4-F for a bad back, little arm strength, and Asperger's syndrome. None of those would have affected my trustworthiness with a firearm.  

Quote:The National Guard is a federal standing army.  The militia cannot be sent abroad.  When Teddy Roosevelt set up the current system, he wanted a reserve that could be sent abroad, that could be called up without congressional approval.  An alternate line of command to the state was there, but the Nation Guard is paid for by federal money, and if the president calls a unit into service, the governor is out of luck.  An example was when George Wallace sent the Guard to a state university to prevent black students from integrating, and John Kennedy responded by federally taking command of the Guard.

It is under the command of the Governor in its most usual applications (responses to natural disasters), but a Governor who uses the state National Guard for unconstitutional purposes (like Orval Faubus using the Arkansas National Guard to thwart desegregation) can find that by a Presidential decree that the State National Guard can have to answere to the President instead.  

Quote:I see civilian weapons as being limited in power per shot, speed of fire and size of magazine.  Would you try for anything else?

That might largely reduce 'gun rights' to hunting. Most criminals dread this:



A man's home is his castle... and his dog's jungle.  
'

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-08-2020, 06:38 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: It is under the command of the Governor in its most usual applications (responses to natural disasters), but a Governor who uses the state National Guard for unconstitutional purposes (like Orval Faubus using the Arkansas National Guard to thwart desegregation) can find that by a Presidential decree that the State National Guard can have to answere to the President instead.

Once in a while, most recently with Bush 43's Iraq war, the Guard winds up used as an army reserve and abroad. That is hopefully rare.

Today? I have wondered if for some reason Trump might nationalize some red state's Guard, likely with a red governor and a red adjutant general commanding the Guard. An unlikely scenario, but it could bypass the ranking Pentagon's refusal to fight America.

[Eric the Green]

(12-08-2020, 01:10 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 06:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 01:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 01:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-06-2020, 01:19 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: If you believe the Republicans are to blame for climate change, you're as a nuts as those who believed the Jews were responsible for everything wrong with Germany. Also, you should check your facts because China and India and Russia are the largest contributors of emissions. We're about the same as Europe despite us using more energy than Europe. Our portion of a continent was built for commerce.

No, it is the only sane view. Republicans since the 1970s have backed politicians who oppose pollution regulation, climate change regulation, and alternative energy development. Reagan took the solar panels down from the White House that Carter had put up, which symbolized Reagan's policies of supporting fossil fuels, the burning of which causes climate change. The graphs we have posted here countless times shows that global warming took a giant leap upward from Reagan's term onward. Republicans have continued to oppose and stop the policies of pollution regulation, climate change regulation, and alternative energy development. Trump pulled out of the Paris Accord and thus stopped all of the USA's power to persuade and make deals to get China and other countries to speed up their energy transition to renewables. I don't know how much more of a causal connection you can make. You are wrong on your facts. The USA and China are now equal, India still far below, and Europe below the USA in emissions. But your side is not interested in facts.

Quote:I think Biden won the election but I don't think he won it fair and square. The Democratic party pulled out the stops and cheated and won it for him.  As a general rule, candidates don't win national elections by limiting their campaigning/campaigns and being able to stay home the bulk of the time. Plus, I've never seen a corporation like Google or Facebook/Twitter having the power and authority to control free speech and censor pertinent information either. Plus, I've never seen a bunch of states change their laws or use mass balloting just prior to an election either. Plus, I've never seen a Presidential candidate showing  obvious signs of dementia get elected without being questioned about it either. I heard a Left Wing Brit who said Trump not conceding was the greatest threat to our democracy but it's pretty clear the bitch wasn't here to witness what we experienced or what we watched occur happen during this election. I think you're going to regret going along with the Democratic party and voting for Biden myself. As a general rule, people aren't fond of being tricked by a classic bait and switch or having pertinent information withheld from them.  Of course, you'll still blame us for it anyways. You already lost half the country forever because we know what the Democratic party is about these days. What the Democrats say its about doesn't jive with what we see these days. It's a disaster waiting to happen at this point. Grid lock is not what you need but what you're going to get and if you go back to slim majorities having the power it will come back to bite you like it did with the judges.

You guys are indeed to blame for everything wrong with America. You guys should wear MAW hats: Make America Worse.

Biden did suffer a decline in the election returns from what the polls said, essentially his margin of victory being cut in half, and Democrats lost ground in the House and so far have failed to take back the Senate. That was probably due to the Trump team's greater willingness to wage door to door ground campaigns. Trump's rallies were shown by Chuck Todd on Meet the Press to be counter-productive. Biden didn't stay home the bulk of the time, but you keep parroting that Hannity/Ingraham Fox talking point, because that's all you watch for your news. You live in a bubble, and thus the AG's report and the decisions of 40 judges that Trump has no fraud case make no impression on you. Just as Trump ignored the pandemic and sponsored super-spreader events, so he and you called it fraudulent to offer many more mail-in ballots so people could vote safely. As for Google and Facebook et al, their behavior depends on your point of view. What you call censorship, others call an inadequate job of fact checking and removal of malicious lies and conspiracy theory and threats to peoples' safety. Biden may be old, but he's doing well and is fully articulate, despite some signs of dementia in early primary debates. So you no longer have a case there either. He was the only candidate running who could have won, as the horoscope scores show. If no-one better stepped up to run, which no-one did, then we had no other choice but Joe.

Quote:Do you want to know what the cities mean to us? The cities are where we have go to see a sports event or concert or go to work for some or travel through to get some place else. I don't have any slave owners in my long ancestry either. If there's a Civil War, we won't fighting over slavery this time around because every black person in this country is free whether they feel like it or not.  You won't be able to take our guns away but you can try and see what happens as a result. I'd actually welcome it myself knowing the outcome wouldn't be in your favor. Emotional twits don't think and the Democratic side has the overwhelming majority of the emotional twits on its side these days. I doubt to many US soldiers would be willing to fight for their rights being taken away these days. You always forget that you live in a country with a government that doesn't have the freedom to remove our Constitutional rights and the army that's in place is there to keep it that way. So, unless you want a war with us and them I'd suggest that you leave the second amendment alone.

If there is a civil war, your side would be fighting to make sure you can discriminate against blacks or kill them on the street for no reason, about which you and your side has no objection. You think any effort to help them out of the poverty and wealth gap that you guys imposed on them is socialism, so under your rule they would stay poor and as dispossessed as they were after the civil war. Most people of color would move away from a Red America and leave you guys without enough labor and service workers for your markets and industries. Not having any immigrants either would also cripple your labor pool, and the fact that most rich bosses know a good thing and can afford to live in blue states would rob you of some of your executive talent too, not to mention smart young techies and artists and teachers who would complete their ongoing migration out of your foresaken lands. Perhaps our Blue America could pass laws requiring your bosses to live in your states or give up their ownership and leadership rights. If they want to oppress their people, they should move to where their people live and suffer the consequences.

We could leave the second amendment alone, and still pass gun control that you would call "not leaving the second amendment alone." I would be willing to compromise on the issue, but your side is not willing. Myself I have zero respect for the second amendment, or your stupid, depraved gun rights, and I would support the second amendment's total removal and replacement with strict confiscation of guns everywhere. But I don't have the majority of voters on my side on that position, even in blue states, and unlike you I recognize facts and am willing to deal with them.

Who said if you don't vote for me then your not black and then picked a running mate strictly on basis of their race and gender? Obama was a savvy con man and a privileged little dickhead who claimed that we were racists for knowing and understanding that about him. Yes. You could build a wall or iron curtain and trap everyone within or behind like the Soviets did with Berlin or the Nazi's did with the German people before the Soviets took over after World War II. Barrack and his elitist friends and professional colleagues have a pretty good gig going for themselves these days. It's to bad they're going to find themselves stuck and being overwhelmed by the anger and resentment that they've been feeding, creating and building up among their own for generations.

What is exactly clear is that you are feeding, creating and building up your own anger and resentment, and whatever reason there may be for it, it is directed at exactly the wrong target. Anyone who said Biden's election is a fraud is insane. If 40% of the people are therefore judged by me insane, that is no more than what I have been saying for a while. Your almost-half the country is insane, and your posts are typical of the raving madness of your side. You make stuff into reasons we are wrong which don't hold any water, and you throw it at us, but it makes no difference what insane people say. It is not the truth.

I don't know what's wrong with this senator from Indiana.




Wouldn't it be nice to have brilliant young millennials like Jon Ossoff in the Senate instead of old dorks like Braun. Whatever we can do, make calls or texts or answer the endless pleas for money by Ossoff and Warnock, we need to do.

Do you want to bet how long he's able to remain in office? His election was a fraud and his condition will be obvious to most within a few years. The government has little integrity and by the time we're done with the Biden/Harris years the government integrity left which will open the door for a national split or a period of government reforms which will result in the destruction of the Democratic party. I doubt the Democratic party could win a two front war.

I would bet on it. But I don't trust you where money is concerned, or much else, so I guess I won't make an offer. And since you are insane (still falling for the fraud that the election was a fraud), making a bet with an insane person is also off the table. I think you need to see a shrink. And on top of that, you seem to be blind to the fact that Trump has no integrity. Gee whiz, Classic Xer; get help!

[pbrower2a]

(12-08-2020, 03:25 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-08-2020, 01:10 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Do you want to bet how long he's able to remain in office? His election was a fraud and his condition will be obvious to most within a few years. The government has little integrity and by the time we're done with the Biden/Harris years the government integrity left which will open the door for a national split or a period of government reforms which will result in the destruction of the Democratic party. I doubt the Democratic party could win a two front war.

I would bet on it. But I don't trust you where money is concerned, or much else, so I guess I won't make an offer. And since you are insane (still falling for the fraud that the election was a fraud), making a bet with an insane person is also off the table. I think you need to see a shrink. And on top of that, you seem to be blind to the fact that Trump has no integrity. Gee whiz, Classic Xer; get help!

Electoral cheating is now difficult, easy to detect, and just simply too risky for any participant. The controls over voting machines and materials are modeled after accounting practices that insure quick audits of the vote. The classic frauds of stuffing the ballot boxes, "losing" unwelcome votes, or tampering with electoral machines run into protections. Most obviously the number of voters must be very close to the number of ballots or some action of voting. Poll watchers can watch elected officials insert absentee ballots. Both major parties have agreed on reforms that give more electoral security.  Know well that in most communities, the people who have responsibility for the election often have some of the best jobs in the community for the level of training that they have. Why would anyone risk such a job to falsify an electoral result which has little impact upon one's life, let alone risk a prison term?

Yes, I know: you don't like the result of this Presidential election. As polarizing a character as Donald Trump is, people on the other side of the partisan divide didn't like the result of the 2016 Presidential election. We basically had a status quo election except for the Presidency. Can you accept why people on the other side of the political debate think Donald Trump the worst President in their memory? Can you understand the offense that he does to the sensibilities of people who didn't vote for him?  

Biden beat Trump by a margin in the popular vote just larger than that by which Barack Obama bested Mitt Romney in 2012. OK. Romney didn't have a personality cult behind him... but I would say that he had arguably the strongest record of any challenger ever against an above-average President. He had a record as a sitting governor, and it wasn't awful. He may have had some flaws as a person, but the worst one was having the family dog (that apparently was lost) in a crate tied to the top of his car while he made a long-distance move. Poor doggie!  But let us remember that few people alleged that the 2012 election was in any way shaky. Your side acts as if the result of the 2020 election will ruin America because Donald Trump is exactly the man to save this country. He had his chance, and he

(1) committed major indiscretions, one of them resulting in an impeachment for literal "high crimes and misdemeanors". Blackmailing a foreign leader for a favor in his re-election bid is a literal crime. 

(2) bungled the response to the response to COVID-19

(3) sponsored racism and religious bigotry (contrast Ronald Reagan, who consistently condemned such stuff).

He also failed to win people over. The President has the spotlight on him and gets automatic attention from the news media. An effective President uses that to support his agenda and succeeds. A good President, let us say Obama, typically has approval numbers in the middle forties or higher before an electoral campaign and with a spirited and competent campaign parlays that into a victory. Trump approval numbers were rarely that high.

You demonstrate as do many others your opinion that Donald Trump was the greatest thing to happen to America, and that without him America is headed for ruin. Trump's style of leadership is unique, all right -- which is about like saying that (serial murderer and rapist) Ted Bundy had a unique way of getting along with women. Donald Trump has become a sick joke for more than half the electorate, and as time passes people are going to like him and his style less. If you think that Trump was cheated, then you may not be alone. I have gone through areas in which  everyone seemed to have a Trump banner or yard sign. I can understand how people in some places can't imagine how anyone could possibly fail to recognize the wonder of Donald Trump. I saw that in rural Ohio, but I would guess that that is not how things looked in ... let us say, Brooklyn.

The numbers do not lie. Sure, Mark Twain may have said that there are "lies, damn lies, and statistics"... but in more than a century people have gotten wise to suspect statistics, and wise people know what to trust. America has been polarizing into exclusive camps that have little to do with each other, which is a dangerous trend. We are in a 4T, and we are far enough into it that we are closer to its end than its beginning. Political polarization, one of the most dangerous tendencies in this Crisis, will abate as people want shared improvements in their lives. 

The generational theory suggests what sorts of leaders take over in the 1T: "mature Reactive" types who think that the government exists largely to facilitate the best in human and institutional behavior. Let's put it this way: the next effective Conservative President of the United States will be more like Barack Obama than like Donald Trump. All that kept Barack Obama from being the conservative ideal was that he was not a conservative. Unlike Trump, Barack Obama did not start a personality cult. Trump did, and as he vanishes from the limelight I expect most Americans to hold the Trump cult increasingly in contempt. Personality cults are dangerous!



 

  https://www.legion.org/magazine/237862/cult-castro

Surprise, Classic X'er! You may think that I am the sort who wears T-shirts with the image of Che Guevara on them.  Sorry to disabuse you. 

Here's a less blatant practitioner of the cult of personality. He got away with it for some time, but eventually he ended up with a disaster.  Trump is more like this, except for not having the military shtick:





As the Soviet Army approached Hungary, Horthy considered breaking with his partner in crime... only to be all but overthrown. Hungary became one of the bloodiest battlefields of the war, a Nazi puppet took over the government and started deporting Hungarian Jews to murder camps in Poland... and Soviet influence replaced Nazi influence because Hitler's puppet was incompetent except at mass murder. Nice music! Hungary has one of the most glorious traditions of folk music in the world. (Other countries with particularly great folk-music traditions: Gypsies, the Poles, the Czechs, the Indonesians, the Peruvians, African-Americans)   



   

Satan Hussein. I would not be surprised if he did much to select this national anthem with the usual fascist junk: glorification of war, pretense to revolution, mythologization of a national history... 

Did FDR or Churchill get such treatment? They seem not to have needed it.

[Classic-Xer]

(12-07-2020, 02:11 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 01:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Who said if you don't vote for me then your not black and then picked a running mate strictly on basis of their race and gender?

If you bring in a group of people that look like America with a good mix, you are racist for ignoring the practice of giving the best jobs to white males?  That is very racist and sexist of you.

 

So, who voted for the white male who was given the best job who told a black that if he didn't vote the way he should as a black then he was no longer black and then proceeded to pick his running mate strictly on the basis of their race and gender vs overall merits? You don't see anything racist about either decision of Biden's (The old white male showing obvious signs of dementia aka old age that you voted for for president). You do realize that when the Democratic system begins to fail across the board, the Republican base is more likely to part ways with the Democrats and reestablish America aka the United States of America and leave them to their own demise. You might luck out and die before the time comes but there will be millions of Democratic voters/supporters who won't be as fortunate as you in that regard. It's coming dude and the Biden election will only going to speed up the inevitable. Are you a racist? Do you still believe that black are incapable of making it own their own and advancing on the basis of their own merits? I understand that is what the Democrats teach/promote in Democratic run schools and in politics but is it true of all these days.

(12-07-2020, 02:11 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 01:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Obama was a savvy con man and a privileged little dickhead who claimed that we were racists for knowing and understanding that about him.

You have demonized Obama and made judgements based on your own demonization.  How racist of you.

You didn't see it or figure it out while he was in office and still can't see it or understand it today. He's much more open about his racist views then he was back in 08' and he even more openly arrogant and thin skinned and even acts more like a privileged dickhead than he did back then as well. If that's all it takes to be racist then the coddled minority Democrats better look out because they're all racists today Oh, and the whites Democrats like you who support them are all pretty much dead meet come crisis time.

(12-07-2020, 02:11 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-07-2020, 01:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Yes. You could build a wall or iron curtain and trap everyone within or behind like the Soviets did with Berlin or the Nazi's did with the German people before the Soviets took over after World War II. Barrack and his elitist friends and professional colleagues have a pretty good gig going for themselves these days. It's to bad they're going to find themselves stuck and being overwhelmed by the anger and resentment that they've been feeding, creating and building up among their own for generations.

The Soviets and Nazi were racist too, just like you.  The Nazi killed Jew, Gypsies, Homosexuals and others they considered undesirable.  The Soviets shipped their undesirables off to Siberia.  What has America done other than separate families and keep some of them in concentration camps?

The problem is tribal thinking.  Like S&H, Henrich is trying to keep tribals neutral, to develop their good side.  Supposedly they are good on dealing with people, can be good to others within their family, tribal or national group.  Unfortunately, some, like you, tend to hate and be prejudice against those in other groups.  They tend to use or threaten violence against those not perceive of as being like them.

They are racist.  Like you.

I'm not either one of them or a Democrat (The closest to a version of them that exists in America today) for that matter. I'm an American and have always been an remember. I think I've made that very clear and have proven where I stand with people like you over the years. Why are preaching against tribal thinking while you're still into tribal thinking and posting proof of it.

[Classic-Xer]

(12-08-2020, 08:32 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(12-08-2020, 03:25 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(12-08-2020, 01:10 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Do you want to bet how long he's able to remain in office? His election was a fraud and his condition will be obvious to most within a few years. The government has little integrity and by the time we're done with the Biden/Harris years the government integrity left which will open the door for a national split or a period of government reforms which will result in the destruction of the Democratic party. I doubt the Democratic party could win a two front war.

I would bet on it. But I don't trust you where money is concerned, or much else, so I guess I won't make an offer. And since you are insane (still falling for the fraud that the election was a fraud), making a bet with an insane person is also off the table. I think you need to see a shrink. And on top of that, you seem to be blind to the fact that Trump has no integrity. Gee whiz, Classic Xer; get help!

Electoral cheating is now difficult, easy to detect, and just simply too risky for any participant. The controls over voting machines and materials are modeled after accounting practices that insure quick audits of the vote. The classic frauds of stuffing the ballot boxes, "losing" unwelcome votes, or tampering with electoral machines run into protections. Most obviously the number of voters must be very close to the number of ballots or some action of voting. Poll watchers can watch elected officials insert absentee ballots. Both major parties have agreed on reforms that give more electoral security.  Know well that in most communities, the people who have responsibility for the election often have some of the best jobs in the community for the level of training that they have. Why would anyone risk such a job to falsify an electoral result which has little impact upon one's life, let alone risk a prison term?

Yes, I know: you don't like the result of this Presidential election. As polarizing a character as Donald Trump is, people on the other side of the partisan divide didn't like the result of the 2016 Presidential election. We basically had a status quo election except for the Presidency. Can you accept why people on the other side of the political debate think Donald Trump the worst President in their memory? Can you understand the offense that he does to the sensibilities of people who didn't vote for him?  

Biden beat Trump by a margin in the popular vote just larger than that by which Barack Obama bested Mitt Romney in 2012. OK. Romney didn't have a personality cult behind him... but I would say that he had arguably the strongest record of any challenger ever against an above-average President. He had a record as a sitting governor, and it wasn't awful. He may have had some flaws as a person, but the worst one was having the family dog (that apparently was lost) in a crate tied to the top of his car while he made a long-distance move. Poor doggie!  But let us remember that few people alleged that the 2012 election was in any way shaky. Your side acts as if the result of the 2020 election will ruin America because Donald Trump is exactly the man to save this country. He had his chance, and he

(1) committed major indiscretions, one of them resulting in an impeachment for literal "high crimes and misdemeanors". Blackmailing a foreign leader for a favor in his re-election bid is a literal crime. 

(2) bungled the response to the response to COVID-19

(3) sponsored racism and religious bigotry (contrast Ronald Reagan, who consistently condemned such stuff).

He also failed to win people over. The President has the spotlight on him and gets automatic attention from the news media. An effective President uses that to support his agenda and succeeds. A good President, let us say Obama, typically has approval numbers in the middle forties or higher before an electoral campaign and with a spirited and competent campaign parlays that into a victory. Trump approval numbers were rarely that high.

You demonstrate as do many others your opinion that Donald Trump was the greatest thing to happen to America, and that without him America is headed for ruin. Trump's style of leadership is unique, all right -- which is about like saying that (serial murderer and rapist) Ted Bundy had a unique way of getting along with women. Donald Trump has become a sick joke for more than half the electorate, and as time passes people are going to like him and his style less. If you think that Trump was cheated, then you may not be alone. I have gone through areas in which  everyone seemed to have a Trump banner or yard sign. I can understand how people in some places can't imagine how anyone could possibly fail to recognize the wonder of Donald Trump. I saw that in rural Ohio, but I would guess that that is not how things looked in ... let us say, Brooklyn.

The numbers do not lie. Sure, Mark Twain may have said that there are "lies, damn lies, and statistics"... but in more than a century people have gotten wise to suspect statistics, and wise people know what to trust. America has been polarizing into exclusive camps that have little to do with each other, which is a dangerous trend. We are in a 4T, and we are far enough into it that we are closer to its end than its beginning. Political polarization, one of the most dangerous tendencies in this Crisis, will abate as people want shared improvements in their lives. 

The generational theory suggests what sorts of leaders take over in the 1T: "mature Reactive" types who think that the government exists largely to facilitate the best in human and institutional behavior. Let's put it this way: the next effective Conservative President of the United States will be more like Barack Obama than like Donald Trump. All that kept Barack Obama from being the conservative ideal was that he was not a conservative. Unlike Trump, Barack Obama did not start a personality cult. Trump did, and as he vanishes from the limelight I expect most Americans to hold the Trump cult increasingly in contempt. Personality cults are dangerous!



 

  https://www.legion.org/magazine/237862/cult-castro

Surprise, Classic X'er! You may think that I am the sort who wears T-shirts with the image of Che Guevara on them.  Sorry to disabuse you. 

Here's a less blatant practitioner of the cult of personality. He got away with it for some time, but eventually he ended up with a disaster.  Trump is more like this, except for not having the military shtick:





As the Soviet Army approached Hungary, Horthy considered breaking with his partner in crime... only to be all but overthrown. Hungary became one of the bloodiest battlefields of the war, a Nazi puppet took over the government and started deporting Hungarian Jews to murder camps in Poland... and Soviet influence replaced Nazi influence because Hitler's puppet was incompetent except at mass murder. Nice music! Hungary has one of the most glorious traditions of folk music in the world. (Other countries with particularly great folk-music traditions: Gypsies, the Poles, the Czechs, the Indonesians, the Peruvians, African-Americans)   



   

Satan Hussein. I would not be surprised if he did much to select this national anthem with the usual fascist junk: glorification of war, pretense to revolution, mythologization of a national history... 

Did FDR or Churchill get such treatment? They seem not to have needed it.

Obama had a personality cult behind him. What's wrong with your eyes and mind because the two don't seem to be working as well as mine?