US Politics, September 2024 -- “I’m Not Going to Apologize For Posting a Joke”

It's definitely possible. It's just, this is a safe political strategy that will remain conventional wisdom until it's upended. If Harris lose and there's reason to think that loss is partly attributable to her stance on Gaza, future candidates might take note. There are risks in both directions, so the natural thing to do is take what appears based on past experience to be the less risky route. I mean, another thing that could upend the conventional wisdom would be to have a candidate willing to take a potentially risky position because they feel strongly enough about an issue to do so. If they did that and won — as I think Harris could do here, if she felt strongly enough about it — then that would also be a future model. But we don't have a candidate who feels that way about it and is willing to be risky on it.

with the numbers on cutting aide to israel being so strong, and without any leadership from the dems on the issue, imho its pretty clear that the safe thing to do would be support that policy, i dont think they want to tho its just so far out of the mainstream for them pure hippy shit

no one votes on foreign policy & if we deviate from foreign policy convention at all something terrible might happen is an odd pairing

I agree. So at a basic level you have to assume the messsge she’s sending is also the one she wants to send.

message

yup

Who could ever have predicted that Charlie Kirk and Elon Musk would be bad at GOTV?

Republicans in swing states say they see scant signs of groups door-knocking for Trump

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Republican activists in swing states say they have seen little sign of the teams tasked with knocking on doors and turning out infrequent voters on behalf of Donald Trump, raising concerns about the party’s presidential nominee relying on outside groups for an important part of his campaign operations.

Trump and the Republican National Committee he controls opted to share get-out-the-vote duties in key parts of the most competitive states this year with groups such as America PAC, the organization supported by billionaire Elon Musk.

It is difficult to demonstrate that something is not happening. But with fewer than 50 days until the Nov. 5 election, dozens of Republican officials, activists and operatives in Michigan, North Carolina and other battleground states say they have rarely or never witnessed the group’s canvassers. In Arizona and Nevada, the Musk-backed political action committee replaced its door-knocking company just this past week.

“I haven’t seen anybody,” said Nate Wilkowski, field director for the Republican Party in vote-rich Oakland County, Michigan, which includes crucial Detroit suburbs. He was speaking specifically of America PAC. “Nobody’s given me a heads-up that they’re around in Oakland County areas.”

i think, in general, talking about war is never good for an american candidate. people don't want to think about it. the u.s. was in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years and no politicans ever wanted to talk about it. i don't think i've EVER heard Kamala talk about Ukraine in a speech! its a bummer to people. which is why you get all the vague/general strong military blah blah talk. she uses the word "lethal" which surprised people. trump is just as vague. he's a negative. his voters like his isolationist strongman thing. not getting into stupid wars. people here are crazy violent at times but they don't want to go anywhere to fight. no wifi. its all abstract to americans. very few people here have ANY idea what is happening around the world. millions of people here didn't know kamala harris's NAME two months ago let alone how to pronounce it! and the government here knows that the proxy war thing is the way to go for them. they can't BELIEVE their good fortune when it comes to ukraine. they get to weaken russia's military for YEARS? and all it costs them is some rockets and some chump change? its like christmas every day.
at tim walz's PA rally yesterday? whenever a gaza protester got loud you know what the crowd did? started screaming USA! USA! USA!

you can look at the poll its just a little bit upthread

i'm not talking about polls. i'm saying its never a good idea for political candidates here to bring up war in a speech/rally/etc. and that's why kamala harris is never going to say any more than she has already said a million times. "we need a ceasefire right now and we need to bring the hostages home and me and joe biden have been working around the clock...blah blah blah."

or maybe its because because shes supporting an evil act

lol, have seen some fucked up pols in my time. But was not prepared for porn-addict, self-styled "Black Hitler" kind of pol.

if it makes you feel any better, i do think the protests have made a big impact on a lot of people who would not have paid attention to any of it otherwise. it doesn't hurt that its just a horrible thing that is very easy to see is horrible. polls are weird though. i'll never understand how you poll 2,000 and make that representative of 350 million. but i was never good at math. i'd like to see a more recent poll with kamala as the candidate. that poll is biden-era. its probably even more anti-bomb now.

now let's start getting people talking about yemen and sudan! its never too late. well, sometimes it is.

the problem with whatabouting yemen sudan ukraine etc is youre just not going to find another situation where the actions of our government are as evil

i mean its not the only problem with whatabouting the standard problems apply as well

people here are crazy violent at times but they don't want to go anywhere to fight.

One can hope!

"the problem with whatabouting yemen sudan ukraine etc is youre just not going to find another situation where the actions of our government are as evil"

how many dead russians makes it evil? you gotta give me a number. we are at, what, 300,000 so far?

russia attacked ukraine those are all soldiers of an invading army its just not morally comparable to waging genocide, in fact in this case those russians are the ones waging a genocidal war, but i will say that i dont think you really give a shit the only time ive heard you bring up any of this stuff is when people are criticizing your favored politicians for supporting genocide

tons of russian prisoners have been forced to fight. russian kids. by a genocidal ruler. and the war would have been over before it started without american bombs. and the american military LIKES the fact that they can weaken russia by killing so many russian soldiers. if that ain't evil we have different definitions of evil.

a genocidal ruler. and the war would have been over before it started

― scott seward, Sunday, September 22, 2024 3:56 PM (twenty-nine seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

then what

i don't have any favored politicians. i've been digging the kamala/walz thing in direct proportion to how much i hate trump. that's really the only reason i'm even on this thread. i hate trump. i'm not a dem. i'm not a repub. i'm not an independent. i don't belong to a party. i've never supported a politician in my life until two months ago. i just assumed that trump was going to win until biden left. there is a part of me that likes the idea of being ruled by a black queen though! especially if we get cool uniforms.

i also still stand by my comments of May 13, 2003.

Please Indulge My Fantasy Of A Canadian-led Invasion Of The U.S. And A Subsequent Regime Change

"then what"

then russia would have been bigger. how the fuck should i know? do i look like Zbigniew Brzeziński to you?

do you think just because the war is "over before it started" its going to be a chill stitch for ukrainians after being invaded by a genocidal leader

The US and its allies are feeding the meat grinder in Ukraine (in terms of Russian soldiers and Ukrainian soldiers and civilians as a proxy war, absolutely.

The idea a Democrat would say this is too fanciful to contemplate - the Russians are invaders, the Russian soldiers aren’t innocent children getting bombed, Democrats are as gleefully imperialist as Republicans and because the central animating force behind Democrats since 2016 has been that Russia is the Evil Empire.

Nevertheless, feeding the death machine in an ongoing war is still a far less evil act than actively supporting a one-sided slaughter of innocents.

otm

worth noting too that ukrainians for the most part want to fight russia

you want me to run some different scenarios or something? i'm not at the war college. maybe the day after russia invades ukraine is brought into nato. then what does russia do? but see that's not something that this country wants. because they WANT to keep killing russians!
look, its all shit. its shit for russian families who have lost children just as its shit for ukrainian or gazan or yemeni families who have lost children. you root for who you want to root for. pick your side. pick your favorite. you can call it whatabouting, that's fine. but a lot of what happens in this world can be laid right at the u.s. congress doorstep not just what happens in gaza.

do you care about whats going on in gaza

this is where I divert from a lot of the UK left, inc Jeremy Corbyn. Who advocate for a negotiated peace settlement rather than feeding the meat grinder. The way I see it, it would be an appalling existence for Ukrainians in the occupied rump of their country to live under a Putin installed regime and he'd come for the rest later, whatever treaty was signed.

"the Russian soldiers aren’t innocent children getting bombed"

they have no choice though. they have to fight. its a dictatorship. and i don't even care if the russian people support the war. they are emptying their prisons for cannon fodder! its insane. but i get it. nobody likes russians. i won't bring them up anymore.

imo the idea that the US is perpetuating the conflict for cynical [insert yr fav theory] reasons with no real intention of doing anything to achieve an end to it is worth considering, esp years into the war. though I also have no real idea what I think should happen differently

i get it. nobody likes russians. i won't bring them up anymore.

― scott seward, Sunday, September 22, 2024 4:17 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

jfc

otoh scott it does sound like you're saying that Putin should be allowed to invade and conquer Ukraine, because opposing him means lots of Russians of dying, which eh idk

"do you care about whats going on in gaza"

sure. i don't want anyone to die in a war. ever. its horrifying. and if you feel strongly about it you definitely should do everything you can to fight the killing there. i am all for that.

because mostly when its brought up you say what about these other wars, or politicians simply cant talk about this stuff, instead of yeah thats bad

lol, have seen some fucked up pols in my time. But was not prepared for porn-addict, self-styled "Black Hitler" kind of pol.

― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Sunday, September 22, 2024 2:59 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

not the first to make this observation but the young right being obsessed with pornography and then aging into running for office is going to be a thing over the next few years.

"scott it does sound like you're saying that Putin should be allowed to invade and conquer Ukraine, because opposing him means lots of Russians of dying, which eh idk"

i'm not saying that. i'm saying that this country wants that conflict to go on forever because its makes this country money - the government pays bomb-makers which is win/win as far as this government and the bomb-makers are concerned - and it means more destroyed russian tech/guns/tanks/etc which means a weakened russian military meaning the u.s. has more power/etc and if millions of russians die whatever. sucks to be them.
why not work around the clock to come up with a solution to the conflict? why not let ukraine into nato? because that's not what this country wants. because its evil.

seen some posts from the online right where theyre looking at a pretty normal photo of a politician in some situation or another and implying thats its super reminiscent of a porn scenario, which obvs isnt great, but i think where it get really sick is when the porn brain mixes with the classic conservative shame, youve got the recipe for some real psychosis there

xp
gotcha. I'm not sure there was a way to solve this conflict that wouldn't have resulted in 100,000s of people dying anyway, but I get what you're saying

"because mostly when its brought up you say what about these other wars, or politicians simply cant talk about this stuff, instead of yeah thats bad"

i know its annoying i think i just get frustrated because nobody ever brings up any of the other equally or more horrifying things going on in the world and i make the mistake of reading about them.
i talk about gaza in real life with people and i mostly don't do it here because i know how emotional people are about it here and i don't want to be the gaza troll.
this just started with me saying that political candidates don't talk about war on a campaign trail because they are told that it is not a good idea. i did not mention gaza at all other than to mention the walz rally. i was just bringing up political reality in a race. i wasn't agreeing with that reality. the fact that people care WAY more about grocery store prices then gaza isn't ME or my opinions its just a fact. i know people want their leaders to talk about this stuff but they really don't want to.

xxp or porn brain + race stuff (Elon musk is an example of this)

why not let ukraine into nato? because that's not what this country wants.

― scott seward, Sunday, September 22, 2024 4:28 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

ukraine was invaded by russia in 2014, by rule a country cant join nato or even start the process while involved in a border dispute fwiw, i agree that the US has used ukraine a chess piece in its cynical scheme, but i suspect at this point were russia to withdraw there would be support for them joining

should also be noted that before 2014 ukraine didnt have governments who were interested in joining nato

I think this analysis of the Russia / Ukraine war grants the US more agency in the conflict than it really has (though this tendency is not unique to this thread - I think even people like Mearsheimer were guilty of this, at least with respect to the war’s causes).

The difference between the two conflicts is that the US doesn’t really have effective leverage (that it can use without legitimate fear of the consequences) over the psychotic state actor in one of those conflicts, whereas it does have that leverage in the other but chooses not to use it for what are essentially domestic political reasons.

I tend to think those reasons are neither “we personally support Israel’s campaign of destruction” nor “we think it’s domestically politically unpalatable to do otherwise” but a weird mixture of both. Watching my own govt crabwalk away from unquestioning support of Israel to a (somewhat) more nuanced position of quasi-neutrality with a massive grimace on its face has underscored to me how much of this is about institutional political instinct. It’s the ideological equivalent for them of that moment in abseiling where you first lower your body over the side of the cliff face and every part of your body is screaming at you that you’re about to die.

gotta say that i think anyone who believes that most Dems (aside from Tlaib and Omar etc) actually give a fuck about Palestinians dying is a total rube. neither Biden nor Harris nor any of the AIPAC-funded ghouls in Congress give a fuck, they want their Israel lobby money and if that means directly aiding a genocide, fuck the Palestinians. why do i say this? because this is the only conclusion that one can come to given the past 11.5 months. that such cynical fuckwits will blather about “human rights” is laughable bullshit— they don’t give a fuck.

they at the very least effectively dont give a fuck

“Yet this misses how Trump—and perhaps Vance, though this is murkier—really understands this issue. Trump actively wants the argument over immigration to be as charged with hate and rage as possible. He doesn’t think that will alienate swing voters. He thinks it will activate their latent MAGA tendencies. The picture Trump is seizing on Springfield to invoke—that of a largely white, innocent heartland town getting ravaged by dark, alien hordes who basically constitute a subhuman species—simply cannot be a distraction from the immigration debate. To Trump, it is the immigration debate.

An underappreciated difference between Trump and Vance is that Trump is explicit on that point, while Vance is not. Trump says that migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” that we should not let in people from “shithole countries” like Haiti, and that other countries are sending millions of people “from prisons, from insane asylums, from mental institutions.” Those and other statements constitute quasi-open declarations that the problem with immigration is racial contamination. They drain migrants of any trace of basic humanity that might make claims on our sense of justice. When Trump says Haitians are “eating the dogs” and “eating the cats,” it’s more of that dehumanization game.

So what exactly does Vance believe about all this?

After Vance got caught out spreading falsehoods about Haitians eating house pets, he angrily insisted there’s no racial component to his assertions about their impact on Springfield. He declared that he objects to the scale and speed of their influx and their effect on housing costs and public health.

Local leaders and business owners have said that social tensions are real but manageable, that Haitians are filling real labor shortages, and that Haitians are hardworking, upstanding people who carry out jobs that locals won’t do. But Vance has an answer here too. He has suggested that when local employers hail Haitians’ willingness to work, employers are using them as tools to drive down wages, and that native-born Americans are the real victims of that.”

https://newrepublic.com/article/186224/ohio-governor-dewine-exposes-trump-vance-maga

they at the very least effectively dont give a fuck

"effectively" seems right to me. i think for a lot of elected democrats it's more about cowardice than malice. they don't want to stick out their necks bc they are worried about the political consequences, whatever they may be. better to stick with the status quo and blend in with the party consensus.

who knows what lays in their hearts but as long as theyre toeing the line it doesnt really matter

This seems less than ideal (for him)... Mark Robinson's campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, finance director, and campaign consultant/senior advisor have all resigned.