Might as well kick it off with a reminder of the dire threat we face.
I'm trying to figure out how this is only being covered overseas right now. (BBC and Haaretz have stories about it). The Nick Fuentes angle got a mention -- as a sidenote!? -- in a story about Kanye announcing a run for President in 2024 (and claiming he talked to Trump about being his running mate).
His latest claims came in a video posted after West was spotted at Trump's Mar-A-Lago golf club earlier this week, accompanied by Nick Fuentes, a prominent white nationalist.
West said his request for a running mate left the former president, who recently launched his own re-election campaign, "most perturbed".
In a video titled Mar-A-Lago Debrief, West claimed: "Trump started basically screaming at me at the table, telling me I'm going to lose. Has that ever worked for anyone in history?"
Unagi wrote: ↑Fri Nov 25, 2022 10:57 am
Honestly. Who cares what Ye is doing at all.
I certainly don’t.
I’m sure someone does. But yeah, I really don’t.
You're absolutely right. The thing we should be focusing on here is that Trump is meeting with an antisemite and a white supremacist.
Unagi wrote: ↑Fri Nov 25, 2022 10:57 am
Honestly. Who cares what Ye is doing at all.
I certainly don’t.
I’m sure someone does. But yeah, I really don’t.
You're absolutely right. The thing we should be focusing on here is that Trump is meeting with an antisemite and a white supremacist.
Not the most “2024 Trump” post to start the thread.
Huh? I am struggling to understand the beef here.
But perhaps I need to explain/connect all the dots if it isn't clear - that first post wasn't about Kanye: Trump is running for President, he may very well be the nominee, he could win a second term, he is meeting with really suspect people, that in itself is not a great development, and the press is apparently sleeping on it.
IMO Trump is emboldened by the lack of accountability he is facing. Both from the law and the press. Trump is out there right now making friends with hate leaders and we can't just shrug at it.
Unagi wrote: ↑Fri Nov 25, 2022 11:18 am
I mean, I only shrug because I am totally not even remotely surprised by it.
Also, I feel the more Trump embraces bat-shit, the more he will alienate the voters that rejected him the last time.
He won the first election in a coin flip. He lost the second by a hair more than a coin flip. We are heading potentially into another coin flip election. The worst election deniers lost in coin flips. Instead of these results inviting vigilance, they are apparently inviting complacence and the threat is still mounting. So while more bat shit might make the odds slightly better, should we shrug at a 44% or 46% or 48% chance that Trump gains the White House again?
Unagi wrote: ↑Fri Nov 25, 2022 11:18 am
Also, I feel the more Trump embraces bat-shit, the more he will alienate the voters that rejected him the last time.
And yet, TFG is still the defacto leader of the GOP, apparently - and he's openly meeting with the head of an American White Supremacist movement. That should be a radioactive, political career ending decision for someone that just announced he's running for President. Hell, it should be a career ending move for someone that's running for city council. Instead, it's Friday.
--------------------------------------------
I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake. http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
On the bright side a run by a Kanye/Fuentes ticket could serve to split the hate vote. Also: Incel. Apparently the poster boy for proud boy hate is un-boneable.
I think it's far too early to clutch our pearls at a Trump presidency. We have looming indictments, and while yes I know Teflon Don has been seemingly immune to all this stuff before, he's never faced charges as serious and at as high a level as he's facing now. While we know indictments won't necessarily mean he can't be the candidate, I think they'd go a long way in further eroding the already dwindling support he has from the GOP establishment.
We have looming indictments, and while yes I know Teflon Don has been seemingly immune to all this stuff before, he's never faced charges as serious and at as high a level as he's facing now.
It's possible but we've also amassed a decent body of evidence that the justice system moves glacially while the threat moves quickly. It's possible they'll begin moving on prosecutions quickly but we also very well could be staring down the election approaching without a resolution.
Just to give some time frames - the Elizabeth Holmes saga from criminal event to serving time will be 8 years. The Hunter Biden investigation is in its fourth year. The investigation that Gaetz faced is in its third year and they gave him a free pass despite accounts of strong evidence. I get that people want to hold to some hope but trust in the performance of the DOJ is a little misguided at this point. We just haven't seen them rise to the threat. To be a little fair, we shouldn't (and can't) rely on DOJ to solve what is essentially a worsening political crisis.
While we know indictments won't necessarily mean he can't be the candidate, I think they'd go a long way in further eroding the already dwindling support he has from the GOP establishment.
We have seen that the GOP establishment has tried to buck Trump many times in the last two years. They didn't lose him after 1/6. I have some doubts that a close mid-term is the stake in his political heart. Especially when he probably controls the base. The establishment is "strongest" at resisting the whims of the base when the establishment isn't actively campaigning/running - e.g. now. When the 2024 campaign is swinging into full gear we'll see if Trump is still a force with the GOP base. If he still has that base firmly behind him then I suspect the establishment will rally around him as well. A critical period in my estimation will play out throughout 2023.
Not the most “2024 Trump” post to start the thread.
Huh? I am struggling to understand the beef here.
But perhaps I need to explain/connect all the dots if it isn't clear - that first post wasn't about Kanye: Trump is running for President, he may very well be the nominee, he could win a second term, he is meeting with really suspect people, that in itself is not a great development, and the press is apparently sleeping on it.
Well, this strikes me as kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. The first time around, the press covered every thing Trump did with bated breath, and they were rightfully criticized for giving him so much exposure. Now we want them to do the same thing again? Seems like a little less Trump coverage isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially when it's something as completely stupid as a meeting with Ye.
Just 'cause you feel it, doesn't mean it's there -- Radiohead
Do you believe me? Do you trust me? Do you like me? 😳
In 2016, Trump coyly appealed to racism and bigotry while keeping open racists at arm's length until he took office.
In 2022, he welcomes open antisemites and avowed Nazis to his headquarters a week after announcing his run.
And Fuentes is *absolutely* a Nazi. He has declared non-whites to be intellectually inferior, has called for the rescinding of votes from women, and has insisted that Trump should be installed as a Christian Nationalist dictator to punish everyone who doesn't agree with him.
(That Trump doesn't know Fuentes is impossible to believe. This isn't just because Fuentes has been an extremely high-profile Trump-lover since 2016 but because former presidents have a staff dedicated to vetting who gets close to them.)
Not the most “2024 Trump” post to start the thread.
Huh? I am struggling to understand the beef here.
But perhaps I need to explain/connect all the dots if it isn't clear - that first post wasn't about Kanye: Trump is running for President, he may very well be the nominee, he could win a second term, he is meeting with really suspect people, that in itself is not a great development, and the press is apparently sleeping on it.
Well, this strikes me as kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. The first time around, the press covered every thing Trump did with bated breath, and they were rightfully criticized for giving him so much exposure. Now we want them to do the same thing again? Seems like a little less Trump coverage isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially when it's something as completely stupid as a meeting with Ye.
This isn't right to me. In 2016 the problem was overexposure in part but the bigger problem IMO was the horse race coverage. They turned it into a sporting event. They spent tons of time megaphoning GOP talking points and harping on topics such as HIllary's emails. In 2022, they show us they've learned nothing. It is a slightly different form at the moment but recognizable in the vapid East side-West side Trump/DeSantis horse race bullshit. While they overlook serious problems. What we need is the right sort of exposure when he does terrible things like say a meeting with out in the open white supremacists. It's the negligence I've been documenting here for years. The national media is a trainwreck.
malchior wrote: ↑Fri Nov 25, 2022 11:15 pm
The national media is a trainwreck.
Exhibit A from the failing NYT:
Hi young journos! Fuentes is a white nationalist who is a strident racist and anti-Semite. How do we feel about this weak description by this journalist: “…who has denounced Jews among other groups…”. What could be the purpose of such a milquetoast description of him?
Despite some apparent denials from someone around Trump, Fuentes -- who has denounced Jews among other groups -- was indeed at dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, people have confirmed to NYT
Also important to note is the NY Times finally caught up to the story a few hours ago proving again that overseas reporters scooped the entirety of the national media and both were scooped by Twitter users.
Former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday night had dinner with Nick Fuentes, an outspoken antisemite and racist who is one of the country’s most prominent young white supremacists, at Mr. Trump’s private club in Florida, advisers to Mr. Trump conceded on Friday.
Also at the dinner was the performer Kanye West, who has also been denounced for making antisemitic statements. Mr. West traveled to meet with Mr. Trump at the club, Mar-a-Lago, and brought Mr. Fuentes along, the advisers said.
The fourth attendee at the four-person dinner, Karen Giorno — a veteran political operative who worked on Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign as his state director in Florida — also confirmed that Mr. Fuentes was there. Attempts to reach Mr. Fuentes through an intermediary on Friday were unsuccessful.
malchior wrote: ↑Fri Nov 25, 2022 11:15 pm
The national media is a trainwreck.
Exhibit A from the failing NYT:
Hi young journos! Fuentes is a white nationalist who is a strident racist and anti-Semite. How do we feel about this weak description by this journalist: “…who has denounced Jews among other groups…”. What could be the purpose of such a milquetoast description of him?
Despite some apparent denials from someone around Trump, Fuentes -- who has denounced Jews among other groups -- was indeed at dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, people have confirmed to NYT
She wrote that Tweet earlier and perhaps got clearance from corporate to say something stronger when her story went to print. Or perhaps she found out the DOJ called him a white supremacist in court filings! Another interesting thing to consider is that apparently Trump's people may be showing way more information/disclosure discipline than they have in the past.
I'll try to articulate my feelings a little better. I will probably fail, but I want to give it a shot...
I guess I'm just tired of the whole concept of "exposing Trump" for who he really is. I am not saying it shouldn't be done, I'm just tired. To me (and I know to a lot of us) the character of Trump has been quite clear since day one. The notion that he would totally support White Supremacists became a plain fact to me, pretty early in his political career (I'm pretty sure that many here also saw it). And then, the idea that about 35%-45% of the US voting population is totally OK with that has also become a painful reality made clear to me by this point. Depressing as shit, of course.
It's almost to the point where if Donald Trump was seen participating in a KKK rally, in full KKK hood and robe, I would likely also think to myself, "Yeah, will it matter?" The people that would cringe at Trump dining with a Nazi are already cringing, and those that are not already cringing - have trained themselves to get over any of this... It either is in line with their beliefs - or it is just simply not something they give a shit about.
So, what am I left with? Well, I can work myself up into a frustrated ball of rage... again, or I can shake my head and just hope that the ~55% of (voting) Americans that can't stand him continue to show up.
Unagi wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:19 am
So, what am I left with? Well, I can work myself up into a frustrated ball of rage... again, or I can shake my head and just hope that the ~55% of (voting) Americans that can't stand him continue to show up.
The voting public being ok with TFG is one thing. The fact that the GOP is still fully embracing TFG is where my alarms are going off. No good can come from a party that is seeing benefits from being cozy with an individual that is openly cavorting with fascists and encouraging violence - especially around voting.
Unagi wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:19 am
I have trained themselves to get over any of this... It either is in line with their beliefs - or it is just simply not something they give a shit about.
So, what am I left with? Well, I can work myself up into a frustrated ball of rage... again, or I can shake my head and just hope that the ~55% of (voting) Americans that can't stand him continue to show up.
His following stormed the Capital and killed cops and tried to overturn the election as best the could. If 35% - 45% of Americans got over that in a month or less. If they can get over that, I don't know the hurdle it will take. A KKK robe is nothing.
I also put my hope in 55% of Americans becoming enduring electors and slowly grow. What else is there? 2022 already put me in a bad way for the couple of months leading up to election. I'm sure 2024 will do the same. I can't take two full years of it though. Just 30 seconds or so TFG taking the stage filled me with what I can only equate to PTSD. I am going to ignore him and them as best I can and place my faith in what I can only hope is a generational replacement growing majority.
It isn't 55% though. I wish it was! A majority nationally of midterm voters voted for GOP candidates for the House. Even though that field was hand packed by an extremist base and was packed with election deniers, MAGAts, and other extreme positions. 22 months after 1/6. After the GOP doubled down on supporting Trump.
Arizona was split 49.7% - 50.3% and a grand vote difference of 17K over ~2.5M votes. Fetterman got 51% in PA. These aren't durable results. There are a lot of folks who'll overlook the bad to vote GOP.
I get why people wanted to call it a huge victory for democracy and our future. It was better than expected based on the economics but the election confirmed some uncomfortable truths. Despite everything we've learned, the GOP still performed better than the last election before 1/6. That was what led pundits and the Democrats to re-frame consequences as the GOP doing worse than expected. The honest analysis is that the GOP did better than they should have considering their extreme positions. Yet there is evidence that exposing their extreme positions hurt them to some extent. That is a key learning. That's why we need to keep the foot to floor attacking Trump, attacking the GOP, because it is the only rational, ethical, and smart thing to do.
malchior wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 4:43 pm
I get why people wanted to call it a huge victory for democracy and our future.
I consider it a much better than expected loss. It' would have been a victory, albeit small one, if the house stood blue by one vote. But the loss could have been Yugely, as was expected during normal midterms, and it was morale boosting for it not to be, and precisely because of the influence of MAGA on the voting process.
Unagi wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:19 am
I guess I'm just tired of the whole concept of "exposing Trump" for who he really is. I am not saying it shouldn't be done, I'm just tired. To me (and I know to a lot of us) the character of Trump has been quite clear since day one. The notion that he would totally support White Supremacists became a plain fact to me, pretty early in his political career (I'm pretty sure that many here also saw it). And then, the idea that about 35%-45% of the US voting population is totally OK with that has also become a painful reality made clear to me by this point. Depressing as shit, of course.
I take the opposite view.
It's easy to forget that a HUGE number of Americans know literally *nothing* about politics or current events. The only news they get is the weather report and the local TV news (which is owned either by right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting or by a firm utterly dedicated to avoiding controversy in order to keep selling ads) telling them about local crime and holiday parades.
Most of these people don't vote, but the ones who do simply vote the way their friends or co-workers or fellow church members say they are voting.
A lot of Trump voters are indeed totally OK with his crimes. But a significant chunk of them are actually completely ignorant of them. Anything that keeps Trump's badness in media circulation has at least a chance of breaking through, and that's a good thing.
Unagi wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:19 am
I guess I'm just tired of the whole concept of "exposing Trump" for who he really is. I am not saying it shouldn't be done, I'm just tired. To me (and I know to a lot of us) the character of Trump has been quite clear since day one. The notion that he would totally support White Supremacists became a plain fact to me, pretty early in his political career (I'm pretty sure that many here also saw it). And then, the idea that about 35%-45% of the US voting population is totally OK with that has also become a painful reality made clear to me by this point. Depressing as shit, of course.
I take the opposite view.
It's easy to forget that a HUGE number of Americans know literally *nothing* about politics or current events. The only news they get is the weather report and the local TV news (which is owned either by right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting or by a firm utterly dedicated to avoiding controversy in order to keep selling ads) telling them about local crime and holiday parades.
Most of these people don't vote, but the ones who do simply vote the way their friends or co-workers or fellow church members say they are voting.
A lot of Trump voters are indeed totally OK with his crimes. But a significant chunk of them are actually completely ignorant of them. Anything that keeps Trump's badness in media circulation has at least a chance of breaking through, and that's a good thing.
Those are the people that I labeled with "just simply not something they give a shit about."
Unagi wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:19 am
I guess I'm just tired of the whole concept of "exposing Trump" for who he really is. I am not saying it shouldn't be done, I'm just tired. To me (and I know to a lot of us) the character of Trump has been quite clear since day one. The notion that he would totally support White Supremacists became a plain fact to me, pretty early in his political career (I'm pretty sure that many here also saw it). And then, the idea that about 35%-45% of the US voting population is totally OK with that has also become a painful reality made clear to me by this point. Depressing as shit, of course.
I take the opposite view.
It's easy to forget that a HUGE number of Americans know literally *nothing* about politics or current events. The only news they get is the weather report and the local TV news (which is owned either by right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting or by a firm utterly dedicated to avoiding controversy in order to keep selling ads) telling them about local crime and holiday parades.
Most of these people don't vote, but the ones who do simply vote the way their friends or co-workers or fellow church members say they are voting.
A lot of Trump voters are indeed totally OK with his crimes. But a significant chunk of them are actually completely ignorant of them. Anything that keeps Trump's badness in media circulation has at least a chance of breaking through, and that's a good thing.
There’s also a lot of people who erroneously think that the democrats are just as bad. So whatever crimes Trump does are forgiven because the “other side is just the same”.
Trump is probably going to kill the Republican Party. More and more people are seeing him as the threat he is, but the republican politicians are too cowardly to quit him.
The democrats have the more popular policies and they continue to have the more popular policies they will probably eventually prevail.
It’s the probably that worries me. It’s not a big probability that the republicans gain complete control of the government and we slip into some form of authoritarian government. But they still have that chance.
Dramatist wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 6:26 pm
The democrats have the more popular policies and they continue to have the more popular policies they will probably eventually prevail.
It’s the probably that worries me. It’s not a big probability that the republicans gain complete control of the government and we slip into some form of authoritarian government. But they still have that chance.
The question is whether we have enough time. Republicans see very clearly the point you make above, which is why they're going all-in on destroying elected government before elections make them irrelevant.
It's all going to be decided in the next couple of cycles. We'll know soon whether the American experiment has failed.
I saw someone make a good point on this. Florida Man's rabid base isn't going anywhere. They will keep pulling the lever for him like a slot machine addict on the Twilight Zone. However, that base was not enough for him to win in 2020, and he would need to increase his support. Where exactly are those new supporters coming from? In fact at least a few of them will die off by November, 2024. And if the trend continues with young voters rejecting TFG, their numbers will continue to grow. A cautious cause for hope.
Jaymann wrote: ↑Sun Nov 27, 2022 9:27 pm
I saw someone make a good point on this. Florida Man's rabid base isn't going anywhere. They will keep pulling the lever for him like a slot machine addict on the Twilight Zone. However, that base was not enough for him to win in 2020, and he would need to increase his support. Where exactly are those new supporters coming from? In fact at least a few of them will die off by November, 2024. And if the trend continues with young voters rejecting TFG, their numbers will continue to grow. A cautious cause for hope.
That's what the conspiracy theories are for.
Everywhere MAGA candidates claim voter fraud has occurred are places dominated by young and/or minority voters. If they can successfully push that narrative, they can put onerous restrictions in place to dampen voter turnout in those areas: single-day voting, limited polling places, in-person challenges, six-hour limits, etc.
You and I know this is all a joke, but low-information voters will see the BOLD HEADLINES and take it all very seriously.
Holman wrote: ↑Sun Nov 27, 2022 9:34 pm
Everywhere MAGA candidates claim voter fraud has occurred are places dominated by young and/or minority voters.
As an Old School Liberal living in a Deep Red State, I sincerely hope that those on the Left one day learn that the way to discredit Right-Wing assholes like Trump is not to be OUTRAGED! by everything they say and do. That's what they are hoping for! That's Red Meat for their base: See how much the Lefties hate him!
The way to hurt someone like Trump: Roll your eyes at whatever he does and dismiss him as a Pathetic Loser. Don't even discuss what he's done or said. That plants real doubt in the tiny little minds of his supporters that they might be backing someone who is a joke and might lose the election. The Right-Wing Establishment understands this and is using this technique right now to discredit him. I only hope that the Left and their continual OUTRAGE over everything Trump does doesn't cancel out their efforts.
Bad idea. The problem with 'ignore him' is that we're well past that stage. That doesn't mean 'be outraged' all the time but we need to fight hard now. That also comes with a cost that people might mistake vigilance for mindless outrage. That might feed some reaction from the right but that is unavoidable now.
How does one 'fight hard now', specifically? Obviously, I'm certain there are places in the USA where there is indeed a struggle with the GOP that could use some grassroots help but around me, there really isn't an obvious fight to participate in. I don't have the resources to spare nor the access that would be needed to fight off gerrymandering in Georgia, for instance. But even something as clear as that (helping GA with voter suppression) doesn't speak to Trump 'getting away with' dining with a Nazi. I can't shame the media into covering this all correctly. I can't influence Americans to stop buying into the GOP bullshit, in all its flavors, and to instead be thoughtful people.
And perhaps just as important - how do we measure our success in this fight? Where do I look to see if the hard fight is having any effect?
One thing I learned in the corporate world was to not go down the path of fixing a problem without knowing how you would measure your success.
I think the midterms showed that Americans *are* fighting back, in the best way they know how. At the ballot box. It's not perfect, and that method is under attack, but so far it has proven effective.
Technically twice. They dumped Trump and elected Biden. So we have two elections in a row where they rejected Trumpism while bucking historical trends/conventional wisdom. Sure, it's a small sample size, but it's something.
Apollo wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 11:59 am
As an Old School Liberal living in a Deep Red State, I sincerely hope that those on the Left one day learn that the way to discredit Right-Wing assholes like Trump is not to be OUTRAGED! by everything they say and do. That's what they are hoping for! That's Red Meat for their base: See how much the Lefties hate him!
The way to hurt someone like Trump: Roll your eyes at whatever he does and dismiss him as a Pathetic Loser. Don't even discuss what he's done or said. That plants real doubt in the tiny little minds of his supporters that they might be backing someone who is a joke and might lose the election. The Right-Wing Establishment understands this and is using this technique right now to discredit him. I only hope that the Left and their continual OUTRAGE over everything Trump does doesn't cancel out their efforts.
QFT.
Calling out how ‘unusual’ or norm-breaking something he says or does is just fuel. People support him BECAUSE he colors outside of the lines and doing that drives the libs and progressives they hate, crazy.
They love the ‘maverick’ in him. The fact that his maverick behavior drives libs nuts is gravy.
