POLITICS SCHMALITICS

[gehringer_2]

35 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Clinton was popular when he left office. One of the most popular outgoing presidents. Gore running from Clinton probably hurt him more than it helped. 

I think Gore hurt himself more that Clinton helped or hurt him. His campaign was pretty artless - esp early on.  And even the liberal press was writing nice things about W's time in Tx. Plus W caught the afterglow of GHWB's rapid rehabilitation from re-election loser to fondly remembered ex-prez.

It certainly never entered my mind that with all the legacy, expertise and connections that W had available to him that he would end up running the most outright incompetent WH since --- probably before Herbert Hoover.

Edited Tuesday at 07:22 PM by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, CMRivdogs said:

Nixon also lost his race for Governor in California. prompting the following quote saying, "you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference."^[8]

 

I remember seeing that and hoping it might actually be true. Sadly not so much....

[chasfh]

7 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

And Nixon just barely edged Humphrey in the popular vote. I think the conventional wisdom is Wallace drained more votes from Nixon than Humphrey, but who really knows?  The South was still pretty nominally Democratic at that time so without a favorite son how many of those votes might have gone to Humphrey by habit?

Humphrey was charging toward the lead at the end and probably would have won were it not for the Chennault affair. 

[chasfh]

6 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

 

Oh **** that’s a genius move if they get away with it

so much for democracy

Edited yesterday at 01:41 AM by chasfh

[oblong]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Humphrey was charging toward the lead at the end and probably would have won were it not for the Chennault affair. 

And they knew about it. LBJ was bugging planes and phones. He went to the majority leader and called it Treason. But they couldn’t say anything because they were illegally bugging.  Then Johnson calls Nixon and they do a verbal dance and a game of “I know that you know that I know…”. 
 

of course the question is whether they really would have had a deal. But Nixon and Kissinger sabatoged a potential deal for political purposes. 

[CMRivdogs]

Alway has, always will, all about the Benjamins 

Check the dates. The Citizens United ruling came in 2010

Edited yesterday at 03:21 PM by CMRivdogs

[CMRivdogs]

They've been screaming Sharia Law since at least 2001 while trying to cram Christian (White) Nationalism down our throats since before 1860

 

[Tigeraholic1]

 

 

[gehringer_2]

13 hours ago, oblong said:

And they knew about it. LBJ was bugging planes and phones. He went to the majority leader and called it Treason. But they couldn’t say anything because they were illegally bugging.  Then Johnson calls Nixon and they do a verbal dance and a game of “I know that you know that I know…”. 
 

of course the question is whether they really would have had a deal. But Nixon and Kissinger sabatoged a potential deal for political purposes. 

It probably had some effect, everything has some effect and it was a close election and maybe it was enough -  but I think it's also easy to overestimate it because there is always such a strong bias to want to blame more stuff on bad people like Nixon. 

So some of the things I think you have to add to the mix:

-Revisionist history in the US about VN is strong. By 1980 everybody was always against the war, but that just isn't true. In 1968 most Americans still wanted a 'win' not just a peace. The WWII mindset that the US was invincible was still very dominant. The idea of walking away without victory was still hard to swallow, even after Korea (maybe especially because of Korea). The anger at Johnson was  as least as much over him being unable to win the war as for having gotten into it.

-Everyone knew Humphrey was a stronger 'peace' candidate than Nixon and that a deal was going to be more likely under Humphrey, so I'm not so sure how much difference the existence of any preliminary announcement was going to make. Humphrey had already said publicly that he was willing to go further to get a deal Johnson had been. I think that actually hurt him with the hawk part of the population - he was an appeaser!

-S.V. didn't want a deal on N.V. terms so it was not going to be an easy needle to thread in any case.

I was still pretty young but I liked HHH. The problem is a lot of people saw him as a caricature - it was a big problem for him.

Edited yesterday at 05:17 PM by gehringer_2

[Motown Bombers]

1964 was the last time A democrat won the majority of the white vote. The Civil Rights act and riots in cities like Detroit pushed voters to the right. 

[gehringer_2]

35 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

1964 was the last time A democrat won the majority of the white vote. The Civil Rights act and riots in cities like Detroit pushed voters to the right. 

and speaking of riots. The '68 convention mess probably cost the Dems that election more than any other single event beside the War itself.

Edited yesterday at 06:05 PM by gehringer_2

[LaceyLou]

2 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

They've been screaming Sharia Law since at least 2001 while trying to cram Christian (White) Nationalism down our throats since before 1860

 

And this is not just here. In Europe, there are fake videos of "Islamists" cooking and eating-you guessed it-cats and dogs. Sound familiar? What's scary is that there are some who believe they're real.

[romad1]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

and speaking of riots. The '68 convention mess probably cost the Dems that election more than any other single event beside the War itself.

You can bet they (the GOP) want (the Dems) to have another one.  And they will do things to bring that about. 

[Motown Bombers]

39 minutes ago, romad1 said:

You can bet they (the GOP) want (the Dems) to have another one.  And they will do things to bring that about. 

They got it in 2024 with the Free Palestine protests that suddenly ended when Trump took office. 

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

1964 was the last time A democrat won the majority of the white vote. The Civil Rights act and riots in cities like Detroit pushed voters to the right. 

Old enough to remember posters on the old MTS forcefully arguing that today's Democratic Party was the same as the slavery-Jim Crow Democratic Party.

[CMRivdogs]

23 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Old enough to remember posters on the old MTS forcefully arguing that today's Democratic Party was the same as the slavery-Jim Crow Democratic Party.

That was pre Nixon  "Southern Strategy" The big flip took place around 1972

[Deleterious]

The creativity that place inspires.

 

[chasfh]

5 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

That was pre Nixon  "Southern Strategy" The big flip took place around 1972

There were not a few people on MTS seriously hammering the then-current Democratic Party for slavery and Jim Crow, basically during the Obama years.

[gehringer_2]

13 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

 

 

None of the rights in the "Bill of" are absolute here either even though we like to talk to ourselves like they are, and liberal democracy (small 'l' small 'd') in Europe has manage to evolve pretty well without the more explicit kinds of statements we put in the Constitution. And to this particular point, Europe has more reason to remain circumspect of lofty pronouncements because they experienced political speech in Hitler that succeeded in producing 6 million+ murders and a war that destroyed most of their continent. If that had been our experience,  it might have changed our views about the rhetoric we allow in the political sphere too. 

[Tigermojo]

"Do you have Prince Andrew in the clink?" *hangs up* *snickers*

[chasfh]

5 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

None of the rights in the "Bill of" are absolute here either even though we like to talk to ourselves like they are, and liberal democracy (small 'l' small 'd') in Europe has manage to evolve pretty well without the more explicit kinds of statements we put in the Constitution. And to this particular point, Europe has more reason to remain circumspect of lofty pronouncements because they experienced political speech in Hitler that succeeded in producing 6 million+ murders and a war that destroyed most of their continent. If that had been our experience,  it might have changed our views about the rhetoric we allow in the political sphere too. 

Yes, Europe still has that instructional memory, if not living memory. America has neither. Maybe that’s why too may people can’t hear the five alarms going off.

[oblong]

10 hours ago, Deleterious said:

The creativity that place inspires.

 

Looks like I'll find a reason to visit MSD this weekend so I can see for myself.

[Tigeraholic1]

6 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

None of the rights in the "Bill of" are absolute here either even though we like to talk to ourselves like they are, and liberal democracy (small 'l' small 'd') in Europe has manage to evolve pretty well without the more explicit kinds of statements we put in the Constitution. And to this particular point, Europe has more reason to remain circumspect of lofty pronouncements because they experienced political speech in Hitler that succeeded in producing 6 million+ murders and a war that destroyed most of their continent. If that had been our experience,  it might have changed our views about the rhetoric we allow in the political sphere too. 

I was under the belief that freedom of speech meant free speech whether you like the speech our not. Speaking of Europe, I see the AFD was allowed to attend the Munich Security conference this year after being banned. They are the 2nd largest party in the Bundestag and rising.

[gehringer_2]

20 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

I was under the belief that freedom of speech meant free speech whether you like the speech our not. Speaking of Europe, I see the AFD was allowed to attend the Munich Security conference this year after being banned. They are the 2nd largest party in the Bundestag and rising.

everything has limits. There is no intrinsic law of the Universe that just because a particular set of words got put into the US Constitution they are necessarily the best rule for all societies for all time.

TBH, I think the rise of the mass media in the 20th century and now the rise of mass communication of any media in 21st has created a fundamental paradigm shift between the danger of suppressing speech and the danger of truth becoming impossibly hard to tease out of the avalanche of falsehood. I'm not sure what the all the answers should be, but the idea that 18th century implementations can be the only just ones for all people for all  times is an impossibly naive view of history.

Core values may remain but details are local. The core value here is not speech but truth. If your rules of speech do not support truth, you need to think about your rules again.

Edited 5 hours ago by gehringer_2

[Motown Bombers]