2024 Presidential Election thread

[pfife]

seems indicative of a candidates judgement

 

[Dan Gilmore]

11 hours ago, pfife said:

seems indicative of a candidates judgement

Birds of a feather.

 

[digitalpigsmuggler]

At least he didn't try to murder anyone

Quote

A convicted drug dealer, given a second chance after a pardon by former President Barack Obama, has been arrested for attempted murder in a shooting which left a woman with traumatic brain injuries, police said.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/alton-mills-obama-pardon-shooting-b2343073.html

 

Trying to blame Trump or Obama for either is stupid.

[mtutiger]

Again, this guy is supposed to be the "mainstream" alternative... at least that's what the NRO conservative Twitterati keeps telling us anyway lol

[CMRivdogs]

3 hours ago, mtutiger said:

Again, this guy is supposed to be the "mainstream" alternative... at least that's what the NRO conservative Twitterati keeps telling us anyway lol

At best RD may be telling a 1/4 truth. While true many slaves learned "valuable trades" (John Hemmings, Sally's half brother, became a master Joiner training under white master craftsmen) they were still slaves. There was no way they could go out on their own to obtain jobs. Most likely they were "rented out" to other farms and plantations and their masters reaped the riches of their training. Not to mention separating workers from their families for months at a time.

Even after slaves were emancipated, a free black finding a decent paying job in a white man's world was fairly unlikely. Heck, even into the 70s and 80s minorities usually received second class wages.

I highly doubt the "anti-woke" crowd wants to see this taught in their schools because their privileged white kids would feel bad.

Edited July 22, 2023 by CMRivdogs

[mtutiger]

8 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

At best RD may be telling a 1/4 truth. While true many slaves learned "valuable trades" (John Hemmings, Sally's half brother, became a master Joiner training under white master craftsmen) they were still slaves. There was no way they could go out on their own to obtain jobs. Most likely they were "rented out" to other farms and plantations and their masters reaped the riches of their training. Not to mention separating workers from their families for months at a time.

Exactly, it comes down to free will. The fact that (some) slaves learned some skills doesn't abrogate the denial of free will to said slaves.

And as far as the added context is concerned, I'm not sure why it's needed... like, no **** they learned some skills, their literal existance was to do labor that white owners didn't want to do. That's just implied.... It all just strikes me as a way to excuse the behavior of the past and to tell a sanitized version of history, and it's BS.

And for my part, it's not the reason we are moving back up north, but a significant benefit to making the move is hopefully not having to worry about my kids being taught a sanitized version of American history whereby the Confederates "had their reasons" or whatever BS

[gehringer_2]

28 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

At best RD may be telling a 1/4 truth. While true many slaves learned "valuable trades" (John Hemmings, Sally's half brother, became a master Joiner training under white master craftsmen) they were still slaves. There was no way they could go out on their own to obtain jobs. Most likely they were "rented out" to other farms and plantations and their masters reaped the riches of their training. Not to mention separating workers from their families for months at a time.

Even after slaves were emancipated, a free black finding a decent paying job in a white man's world was fairly unlikely. Heck, even into the 70s and 80s minorities usually received second class wages.

I highly doubt the "anti-woke" crowd wants to see this taught in their schools because their privileged white kids would feel bad.

People refuse to - well more like just don't want to - understand how whitewashed the history of the US they think they know really is. Desantis is just the lastest in the long line of white and capital representing power trying to control history to their own advantage. And overcoming that, at it's core, is what getting woke is really about. Just came across an essay by a NY journalist who returned home to W. VA and began learning about the erasure of the history of the violent suppression of the minors union movement (I'll link it if I can find it again). This one isn't even black vs white but the more general case of monied interests having rewritten/erased history to subvert the consciousness of the more general public. And in the end isn't that at core the force that has always kept racism alive in the US as well? The capitalist class using racism as the wedge to politically control both lower class whites and blacks?

 

Edited July 22, 2023 by gehringer_2

[mtutiger]

21 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

People refuse to - well more like just don't want to - understand how whitewashed the history of the US they think they know really is. Desantis is just the lastest in the long line of white and capital representing power trying to control history to their own advantage. And overcoming that, at it's core, is what getting woke is really about. Just came across an essay by a NY journalist who returned home to W. VA and began learning about the erasure of the history of the violent suppression of the minors union movement (I'll link it if I can find it again). This one isn't even black vs white but the more general case of monied interests having rewritten/erased history to subvert the consciousness of the more general public. And in the end isn't that at core the force that has always kept racism alive in the US as well? The capitalist class using racism as the wedge to politically control both lower class whites and blacks?

 

A lot of that obfuscation gets down to questions of what it means to "love" America.

To be quite frank, I just think a lot of conservatives (not all, but quite a few) take the view that to love the country is to never question its past and just talk about how great it is... no introspection, just empty patriotism that wraps itself in the flag. It doesn't demand improvement, it's just stagnant and incapable of improvement

Just as all of us have family members in life who maybe struggle with various flaws and who we would like to see overcome, I would argue that to love isn't to run away from the problems and to just be comfortable with the status quo, it's to deal with the flaws and make this country, that is already great in many ways, even greater.

Collectively, I think we do more of the latter now than in the past. But because of that, the insanity from those who prefer the former approach is just amped up to a greater degree. And we see it manifested in the kinds of bat**** crazy comments like the one Ron DeSantis uncorked above

And yeah, a lot of moneyed interests are more than willing to exploit those differences

Edited July 22, 2023 by mtutiger

[CMRivdogs]

Agree wholeheartedly with the above. To me one of the joys of living where I do near Colonial Williamsburg, Va is the effort the Foundation has made in recent years to tell all sides of the story leading up to the Revolution. The fact that blacks made up a little more than 50% of the population and free blacks were about half of that.

Not to mention insight into the paradox of wanting to break bonds with England while holding on to the institution of slavery. Not to mention the cost both socially and monetarily of attempting to free the slaves. It's been a whole new education experience for me, somewhat on the level of an advanced Early American history class.

People haven't changed over the nearly 400 years of our history.

[SkyBlue]

The curriculum in question.

https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/20653/urlt/6-4.pdf

[chasfh]

On 7/22/2023 at 8:34 AM, mtutiger said:

Again, this guy is supposed to be the "mainstream" alternative... at least that's what the NRO conservative Twitterati keeps telling us anyway lol

Look lien the people in the room agree with that.

[Tiger337]

7 hours ago, chasfh said:

Look lien the people in the room agree with that.

They look like they are too bored to listen to him.  No facial expressions whatsoever.  

[digitalpigsmuggler]

Two different systems

 

[chasfh]

I'm not sure I know how to feel about the Republicans' chances for next year.

On the one hand I feel like if three-time-loser Trump gets the nomination, he will lose, again, and by a lot, because people will truly be motivated to line up at the polling place at two in the morning to not miss their opportunity to vote against him; and also, middle of the road Rs are still not on board with him and his antics despite "Justice overreach", or whatever it's being called now.

On the other hand, if someone like a Chris Christie or Tim Scott or Nikki Haley get the nomination, they may get middle of the roaders to back them enthusiastically, but they'll also lose millions of actually-apolitical MAGAs who would never show up at the polls for anyone except Trump. And that goes double for Haley and Scott, since a lot of them plus other right wingers would never vote for a woman or an Asian or a black.

The only way I see out of this, at this point in time, for them is to find some candidate not named DeSantis who can combine the hard right cruelty with both a pleasant disposition and white maleness, a guy no one is thinking about today who comes swooping in seemingly out of nowhere like Obama did. No idea who that could be at the moment.

Edited July 25, 2023 by chasfh

[Tiger337]

Obama would absolutely dominate both the Democratic primaries and the general election.  

[Tiger337]

 

 

[gehringer_2]

29 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I'm not sure I know how to feel about the Republicans' chances for next year.

On the one hand I feel like if three-time-loser Trump gets the nomination, he will lose, again, and by a lot, because people will truly be motivated to line up at the polling place at two in the morning to not miss their opportunity to vote against him; and also, middle of the road Rs are still not on board with him and his antics despite "Justice overreach", or whatever it's being called now.

On the other hand, if someone like a Chris Christie or Tim Scott or Nikki Haley get the nomination, they may get middle of the roaders to back them enthusiastically, but they'll also lose millions of actually-apolitical MAGAs who would never show up at the polls for anyone except Trump. And that goes double for Haley and Scott, since a lot of them plus other right wingers would never vote for a woman or an Asian or a black.

The only way I see out of this, at this point in time, for them is to find some candidate not named DeSantis who can combine the hard right cruelty with both a pleasant disposition and white maleness, a guy no one is thinking about today who comes swooping in seemingly out of nowhere like Obama did. No idea who that could be at the moment.

and not to lose the forest for the trees, I just read that by 11/2024, the 2016 electorate will have rolled over by 52 million voters. No matter what else is happening, for the R's to still have a shot you would have to assume that purple trending boomers are turning hard red as fast as hard blue millennials are entering the electorate, and I have my doubts that can be close to true.

I know well enough that people have been predicting demographic armageddon for the GOP for a while now without it coming to pass, but we've never had the young side entering cohort be so monolithically on one side.

Edited July 25, 2023 by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

32 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Obama would absolutely dominate both the Democratic primaries and the general election.  

it is a little ironic. I think Biden has been a better president by almost every policy and effectiveness measure (esp on foriegn policy - odds are that Russians would be burning Ukrainian language school books in Kyiv right now if Obama were still in office). But you still wish there was a way to splice BIden the political species, and Obama the public persona, together.

Edited July 25, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

3 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

it is a little ironic. I think Biden has been a better president by almost every policy and effectiveness measure (esp on foriegn policy - odds are that Russians would be burning Ukrainian language school books in Kyiv right now if Obama were still in office). But you still wish there was a way to splice BIden the political species, and Obama the public persona, together.

The one area where Biden hurts himself is his weakened speaking skills which came with age.  For someone whose job involves a lot of communication, he really has a difficult time communicating and I am not talking about the out of context "dementia clips" posts by conservatives.   

 

[gehringer_2]

22 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

The one area where Biden hurts himself is his weakened speaking skills which came with age.  For someone whose job involves a lot of communication, he really has a difficult time communicating and I am not talking about the out of context "dementia clips" posts by conservatives.   

 

yup

[pfife]

On 7/21/2023 at 9:02 AM, digitalpigsmuggler said:

At least he didn't try to murder anyone

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/alton-mills-obama-pardon-shooting-b2343073.html

 

Trying to blame Trump or Obama for either is stupid.

there goes obamas campaign

[pfife]

 

 

[oblong]

 

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

 

Trump would have not called him regardless of party.  He would have tweeted something like: "I disagreed with him on everything and he was very bad for this country and he never thanked for everything I did.  I wish him well."  

[Mr.TaterSalad]

9 hours ago, oblong said:

First, let me say that it was a very nice gesture on Biden's part to call Mitch McConnell and check to see that he was alright. That type of civility and decency is all too often missing in politics. So good on Biden for checking in on McConnell.

Come election time though, it won't mean a thing. McConnell will go back to supporting the candidate who hurls ethnic slurs at his wife and threatens our very democratic system of government because Supreme Court.