2024 Presidential Election thread

[ben9753]

@Tigeraholic1 Can I ask you a question and you answer in good faith? If Obama had lost in 2012 and did everything Trump did in 2020, what would your outlook be on his actions? I know what mine would be. What would yours be?

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, ben9753 said:

@Tigeraholic1 Can I ask you a question and you answer in good faith? If Obama had lost in 2012 and did everything Trump did in 2020, what would your outlook be on his actions? I know what mine would be. What would yours be?

It's a non sequitur because if he had, he would not have been the Obama people voted for, and so that person you describe would have been someone else. You simply can't posit that X would have done Y when it's clear X would never have done Y. It's a meaningless comparison.

Edited November 25, 2024 by gehringer_2

[ben9753]

Thats a cop out. Of course he wouldn't have because he's not a criminal, but it's called a thought exercise. Of course Holic liked your post because it allows him a lazy way out of answering the question without coming off as either a hypocrite or a liar. I can actually perform the thought exercise without having to go to incredible lengths of cognitive dissonance because I'm not a hypocrite or cultist. 

Edited November 25, 2024 by ben9753

[chasfh]

5 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

In one way it's bad that Marx is so out of fashion, because the truth of the basic critique that unfettered capitalism is politically unstable in the long run has been lost from Western socioeconomic thinking.

I don't know whether it's so much lost from Western socioeconomic thinking as much as it has been overwhelmed by a muscular cultural identity. Socialism, as far as I can tell, is considered the namby-pamby coddling of those trying to pass themselves off as too weak to work when they are in fact too lazy to get up off their asses. Capitalism is seen as God's own ordained economic order of self-reliance, so ensconced in right-wing cultural thinking that even working-class people with barely a dollar to their names will unironically refer to themselves as "capitalists." There's no actual thinking about of the socioeconomic nature of capitalism taking place there.

[ben9753]

Oh, and I clearly recall, from a different life time when I would listen to AM Radio, Sean Hannity declaring that if Obama won in 2012 he was going to do away with term limits and all that crap. So they obviously thought Obama was the kind of person to hang on to power by all means.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

It's a non sequitur because if he had, he would not have been the Obama people voted for, and so that person you describe would have been someone else. You simply can't posit that X would have done Y when it's clear X would never have done Y. It's a meaningless comparison.

This is similar to the hypothetical that is sometimes asked: how would Babe Ruth do in the major leagues today were be born in 1995 and had access to all the nutritional, training, and coaching advantages players today have? And the answer is, of course, that's also a non sequitur, because if such a person were born today, he would not be Babe Ruth. He would be someone else.

[ben9753]

I'm sorry but thats ridiculous and you are letting him off the hook without answering the question.

[gehringer_2]

18 minutes ago, ben9753 said:

Oh, and I clearly recall, from a different life time when I would listen to AM Radio, Sean Hannity declaring that if Obama won in 2012 he was going to do away with term limits and all that crap. So they obviously thought Obama was the kind of person to hang on to power by all means.

who is your 'they'? Hannity? really? 

[ben9753]

Just now, gehringer_2 said:

who is your 'they'? Hannity? really? 

Yes. Does this surprise you? or are you being facetious 

[gehringer_2]

19 minutes ago, chasfh said:

There's no actual thinking

I'm getting to the opinion that we can all stop right about here......

[gehringer_2]

8 minutes ago, ben9753 said:

Yes. Does this surprise you? or are you being facetious 

Sean Hannity repeatedly demands we not treat him as a journalist. Take him at his word.

Edited November 25, 2024 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, ben9753 said:

I'm sorry but thats ridiculous and you are letting him off the hook without answering the question.

You must be talking to someone else, because I don't have him or anyone else on any hook.

However, I will say your hypothetical assumes that Obama is the same vain, insecure, criminal character that Trump is, and he can't be, because if Obama were, he would be literally an entirely different person with a different background, outlook, temperament and support structure. This is why the question, respectfully, makes no sense. Someone of Obama's character would never have engaged in something so base and crass as Trump and his craven post-2020 election nonsense.

Had you used Bill Clinton in 1996 as your example, you might have come closer to the mark you were aiming for, but then, you couldn't have made your point as effectively as you could have with Obama, that is, were it not such an absurd impossibility.

[ben9753]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Sean Hannity repeatedly demands we not treat him as a journalist. So I don't.

My point is that Holic, presumably a consumer of Hannity type media, (correct me if I'm wrong), did believe Obama was capable of taking extreme measures to hold on to power. So it shouldn't be so far fetched in his mind that Obama would do the kinds of things Trump actually did had he lost. I only wanted to know what his opinion of Obamas actions would be in that scenario. I don't think he'll respond to the question, because cultists aren't exactly known for being intellectually consistent.

Edited November 25, 2024 by ben9753

[gehringer_2]

13 minutes ago, ben9753 said:

I'm sorry but thats ridiculous and you are letting him off the hook without answering the question.

If Mother Teresa robbed banks, she wouldn't be Mother Teresa, she'd be Ma Barker.  There is no hypothetical that follows from 'If Mother Teresa robbed a bank'. When you say 'Obama' that name is not just a dust jacket you can put on another book, the identity carries it's own set of definitions with it. If you move outside that actual identity, you simply are not talking about that person in any real way. This is pretty simple.

If you want to say, "What if some unidentified Democrat did what Trump did', then you can at least get to 1st base with the hypothetical.

Edited November 25, 2024 by gehringer_2

[ben9753]

SMH it's called a THOUGHT EXERCISE. Yes if Mother Theresa robbed a bank I'd be in favor of criminal charges being brought against her. Its not so hard.

[mtutiger]

4 hours ago, oblong said:

It doesn't confirm that at all.

He knows the investigation is over because he's not an independent counsel like Kenneth Starr was.  They don't have those anymore.

Yep, based on the news report I saw today, it was based on DOJ guidelines, not actual evidence or ability to prosecute.

Hawley knows that, but he's gotta chum the waters for the base

[mtutiger]

Oh wow, you mean to tell me that Nancy Mace is a grifter without any core principles? 

Asking for a friend

[Tiger337]

So, if Obama is too nice and honest to be Trump, what if we insert Bill Clinton into Ben's question instead?

[Motown Bombers]

Inflation will be solved by raising the price of everything 25%.

 

[gehringer_2]

10 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Inflation will be solved by raising the price of everything 25%.

 

And the beatings will continue until morale improves! 

So seriously, how long would it take for 25% across the board tariffs to trip a recession? 6 months? Maybe less than that I'd guess. The only way to ameliorate it at all would be for Congress to immediately pass spending to push all those dollars right back into the economy and even that wouldn't make up for the shutdown of US export markets in retaliation.  

Edited November 26, 2024 by gehringer_2

[mtutiger]

11 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

And the beatings will continue until morale improves! 

So seriously, how long would it take for 25% across the board tariffs to trip a recession? 6 months? Maybe less than that I'd guess. The only way to ameliorate it at all would be for Congress to immediately pass spending to push all those dollars right back into the economy and even that wouldn't make up for the shutdown of US export markets in retaliation.  

To paraphrase Lord Farquaad:

"Some of you may [have to pay significantly more on all ag, material and consumer imported products], but that's a sacrifice I am willing to make"

Edited November 26, 2024 by mtutiger

[gehringer_2]

36 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

So, if Obama is too nice and honest to be Trump, what if we insert Bill Clinton into Ben's question instead?

Trump is a one of, probably wrt both sides. I don't see how projecting him onto anyone else gets you a meaningful discussion. If the argument is, what if Trump himself had run as a Democrat? What would the outcome have been in that case is a little interesting. But the Congressional dems are too much a herd of cats with too many constituencies for him to have been empowered in the D party the way he was on the R side. The Dems are fine with eating their own. It still wouldn't have been similar.

Edited November 26, 2024 by gehringer_2

[Motown Bombers]

Trump used to be a Democrat. He didn't run as a Democrat because he knew he wouldn't win. 

[gehringer_2]

48 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Trump used to be a Democrat. He didn't run as a Democrat because he knew he wouldn't win. 

Exactly. And if Trump himself couldn't win the Dem nomination, under what scenario would anyone else who was going to be Trump like win there? It's a long route to try to get to another 'whataboutism'  or 'both sides are 'just the same'. No. One side is going to places neither side has thought about going at least since 11 states seceded.

And the public is fine with it because at heart they care more about potties than politics.

Edited November 26, 2024 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

58 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Trump used to be a Democrat. He didn't run as a Democrat because he knew he wouldn't win. 

If he did win as a Democrat and then tried to steal the next election, Tigeraholic would have gone ape ****.  I think that's the point Ben was making.