US Politics, October 2019 — I guess statement you could say with thread. I made a thread. The thread was PERFECT.

I do worry that the inquiry wraps up fairly soon, the House votes to impeach, it goes to the Senate and they don't vote for removal, and now it's like November or December or whatever and we still have almost a year until the election and this whole scandal just becomes Another Thing That Happened and has little bearing on 2020.

― Evans on Hammond (evol j),

Now recite this without a breath in front of a mirror.

can we do these threads with less erection talk please? ymmv but to me it makes this place feel like a gross dudebro space.

xpost -- idk, if i'm making a prediction that's just what I think happens, I think it's the most likely way this thing plays out based on past results and the parties involved.

co-sign

xp

President Baby doesn’t understand that one can do anything with a mobile phone other than tweet, because he doesn’t

....to see. Importantly, Ambassador Sondland’s tweet, which few report, stated, “I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions. The President has been crystal clear: no quid pro quo’s of any kind.” That says it ALL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2019

Whoa wait: he's almost mastered comma placement!

there are like 5 separate committees looking into impeachment. I don't think this'll be over anytime soon.

how trump thinks trials work

DEFENDANT: i didn't do it
PROSECUTOR: good try team, but i think that settles it. where should we go for lunch?

this is not going to be over any time soon because Trump is going to block all attempts to gather evidence/testimony. Which means subpoenas, court battles, etc.

xp

The impression I got is that the Dems are just adding this stuff to the list under the "obstruction" header. That is to say, they want this testimony, but they're not going to be drawn into a trap of waiting months and months for it. I mean, impeachment really is a foregone conclusion, isn't it? I don't see how it isn't. So the more evidence they have ... the more evidence they have, but it doesn't change the inevitable result we're careening toward.

trump did not do it, and he's a victim of a spy, potentially many spies, all treasonous
but if trump did do it, it was a good thing, and he'll do more of it
if the president does it, it's not illegal
he is still doing it
you are convicted of treason

I do worry that the inquiry wraps up fairly soon, the House votes to impeach, it goes to the Senate and they don't vote for removal, and now it's like November or December or whatever and we still have almost a year until the election and this whole scandal just becomes Another Thing That Happened and has little bearing on 2020.

Yeah, I don't see how impeaching the President, causing him to erupt in wild spasms of insanely guilty-looking behavior every single day since it started and likely long after it ends, could possibly have any impact on voters' thinking going into the 2020 election. Certainly watching the Senate brazenly flout the impeachment verdict won't do a damn thing to motivate Democratic voters in 2020, because why would it, right? Only Republicans vote based on anger and a sense of injustice/vengeance. Democrats vote so they can wear an "I voted" sticker. Right?

Repeat after me: Donald Trump is not popular. He has never been popular. His approval rating has never crossed the 45% mark for more than a day since he was elected. He is President because of an Electoral College fluke which he is extremely unlikely to repeat, considering that he is already underwater in at least one and possibly all three of the states that handed him victory last time.

If you think this is somehow making him more popular, or is causing people to be less excited about voting against him (which, make no mistake, is going to be a vast swath of the electorate's motivation when they enter the booth next November), you should slide your resume under the door at Fox News; they'd love to have you.

first and foremost, this motherfucker needs to be impeached for misuse of apostrophes; that drives me nuts
also corroding America from within

his popularity rises back to mid-40s every time he manages to shut the fuck up for a few days.

Josh otm. Given that we know Trump will block every attempt to compel participation, the House needs to make that a pillar of the case against him, which I gather they plan to.

BUT he should also be roundly mocked for this in the public sphere, and it should be presented in such a way as to push his buttons. Not a legalistic concept like obstruction, or a lofty appeal to the concepts of rule of law or checks and balances. That shit is for op-ed writers and professors. Instead, call him a coward, a wuss, and a scaredy-pants. Ask him point-blank: "if you're totally innocent why are you acting like he's hiding something?" Ask him why is he so afraid of Nancy Pelosi. Get under his famously thin skin. Trump on the defensive will do and say yet more stupid shit.

I am starting to wonder if our nation's popcorn producers are up to the task.

this same pointless defeatism itt

with history to back it up

Well cool let's just wait for the meteors

I don't see how impeaching the President, causing him to erupt in wild spasms of insanely guilty-looking behavior every single day since it started and likely long after it ends, could possibly have any impact on voters' thinking going into the 2020 election.

I even feel like some of the Democrats don't realize the degree to which the investigation of Donald Trump is a necessary and inevitable part of the 2020 campaign. There's no doubt (IMO) that BENGHAZI BENGHAZI BENGHAZI hurt Clinton and that was bullshit. If anything I wish I felt like more Democrats grasped that impeachment is a case that needs to be made, not just facts that will speak for themselves.(Maybe more of them do grasp that. I wish I felt that.)

If you think this is somehow making him more popular, or is causing people to be less excited about voting against him (which, make no mistake, is going to be a vast swath of the electorate's motivation when they enter the booth next November), you should slide your resume under the door at Fox News; they'd love to have you.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Tuesday, October 8, 2019 11:48 AM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't know how you got ANY of that from what I wrote but I think it's touching that you have sufficient faith in mainstream media that come November 2020 they won't have already chased after 9,000 newer shinier things, very much including whatever smears the right-wing apparatus cooks up on Trump's opponent.

predicting anything in this day and age is a fool's game

take this whole Ukraine thing - total unforced error on the part of Trump, no one would have guessed this was going to happen a couple of months ago.

I'm really not trying to be a fatalist and honestly I do think there's a better than 50/50 chance that Trump loses in 2020, I just think there's a depressingly good chance that when people actually go out to vote in 2020, the general middle of the road consensus on impeachment is going to be that it was a partisan fishing expedition.

never a bad time for this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDoncJckows

I wish it was 50/50, but red state governments have been in overdrive with voter purges and other forms of voter suppression. The amount of corporate anti-Warren or anti-Sanders advertising will be enormous. And Russian military strategy is to always reinforce success, and presumably this will apply to active measures on social media and electoral hacking.

the general middle of the road consensus on impeachment is going to be that it was a partisan fishing expedition.

if anything "Democratic overreach" will be the cautious, Brooksian take. but even if that's true, it doesn't necessarily mean that it won't still hurt the GOP electorially. Cf. BENGHAZI!!! Which is why I'm definitely on Team Who the Fuck Knows? when it comes to making any predictions about any of this ...

And Russian military strategy is to always reinforce success, and presumably this will apply to active measures on social media and electoral hacking.

four days ago Facebook announced an official policy that you can lie in election ads

People like brotherslovedub want reassuring hugs more than message boards.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, October 8, 2019 11:14 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think most of us from time to time indulge in this here, with good reason. Nothing wrong with an ilxor e-hug.

I also think the occasional experssion of defeatism is totally understandable, if only as a psych device for preempting greater disappointment. So long as it doesn't mean giving up the real-world fight.

My own indignation gets a between-rounds breather from wondering if maybe we aren't all fucked. Doesn't mean I won't be in the streets when shit goes down

i think defeatism is fine for ilx, and any other nominally neutral communication zone that isn't a political organization. sure, if everyone adopts defeatism, we're totally fucked (we may be totally fucked anyway!). but that doesn't mean that everyone here should be forced to either say positive/nondefeatist things. we're not a political organization, we're a messageboard. and irl many people DO feel completely defeated and/or have reason to believe they will be defeated. sometimes retreating away from the real world fight is an important coping mechanism. i don't blame anyone for doing it.

the lost causes, Mr Smith

(that doesn't mean that near-constant defeatism is not annoying to some people, of course, nor that the annoyed people shouldn't be allowed to express the "defeatism is unproductive (for me to witness!)" viewpoint)

The president acts like a lunatic every day, right in front of people, and his approval ratings are in line with historical norms.

Trump's only scheduled activity for today: presenting the Presidential Medal Of Freedom to Ed Meese.

lol

Trump's only scheduled activity for today: presenting the Presidential Medal Of Freedom to Ed Meese.

― now let's play big lunch take little lunch (sic), Tuesday, October 8, 2019

which would've happened under President Jeb! or Rubio.

omg Ed Meese is still alive???

he thought it was ed grimley; when he discovers the truth, we're going to nuke monaco

his approval ratings are in line with historical norms

This is simply not true. Yes, previous presidents have had, at some point in their term, approval ratings in the low 40s. Some have even dipped below that. But they have all also gotten well above the 60% mark. On inauguration day, Obama had a 68% approval rating. On inauguration day, Trump had a 44% approval rating.

He is historically unpopular. He is, in fact, widely hated. That you persist in thinking otherwise may reflect a deep self-loathing, I don't want to speculate, but it's an empirically unsupportable position. He gamed the system to win. Period. If the Democratic candidate prevents him from gaming the system the exact same way a second time, he will lose.

howbout James Buchanan

unperson otm (in this instance)

The issue with the defeatism itt is that several times, people have called out that the constant, contextless negativity and bleak outlook was triggering to their anxiety and caused them to disengage.

And folks with higher stakes than some of us have also taken time to decry the occasional hyperbolic despair ITT.

So I get we all feel it, but I read this thread for recent news as I find it impossible to keep up, so it's helpful to get the greatest hits here .

I also enjoy everybody's takes on what a development might mean, even if it's not a positive development.

But the kneejerk driveby nihilism can be a put off.

Someone venting their personal anguish is one thing. Constant drivebys of "the world is fucked and we are all gonna die" are aggravating.

Xxxxxxposts

His inauguration numbers were low bc he ran the most scabrous and contemptible campaign ever. He should jave gotten less popular from there but he hasn’t.

I think I'm Big Meese
Herbert Hoover

xp

But point taken. I’m not alone in my dislike of Trump. He is beatable in 2020.

But the kneejerk driveby nihilism can be a put off.

Someone venting their personal anguish is one thing. Constant drivebys of "the world is fucked and we are all gonna die" are aggravating.

yeah I totally agree w this. Large chunks of these threads consist of this, and it's both frustrating and unhelpful and really I just skip huge swathes of them to get to whatever the next actual news/relevant analysis is.

Trump is banking on the fact that he’ll win the close-call states he took in 2016 while running against a candidate who (it doesn’t matter which candidate) will be more popular than the one he ran against in 2016, both due to any of the possible nominees being simply more well-liked than HRC and also Trump’s incoherent presidency coming into play.

That you persist in thinking otherwise may reflect a deep self-loathing, I don't want to speculate

lolol love when ppl go all armchair psychology on datazz

The issue with the defeatism itt is that several times, people have called out that the constant, contextless negativity and bleak outlook was triggering to their anxiety and caused them to disengage.

And folks with higher stakes than some of us have also taken time to decry the occasional hyperbolic despair ITT.

I've been playing shrink and terror on this thread since November 2016. I don't see myself relinquishing this role despite the croaking of despair from some of y'all.

I wonder if those of you who moan the loudest live in red states, therefore have more reason to. I'm surrounded by venomous Cubans and it makes me wanna win, not cry.

We've needed you!

Xpost