Biden's presidency

[mtutiger]

In terms of slippery slopes, what comes of the election of the ideology described in the speech for offices in various states? Election deniers are running in Michigan, for instance?

Any concern about that?

[Tigeraholic1]

6 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

In terms of slippery slopes, what comes of the election of the ideology described in the speech for offices in various states? Election deniers are running in Michigan, for instance?

Any concern about that?

So if this election cycle stomps out all the MAGA crazies running for office then, maybe this ideology starts fading back into the shadows? I guess it would be the best case scenario. 
 

[romad1]

30 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

So what comes of it? Do we round up MAGA lock them up? Take their guns? Send them to reeducation camps? I am being serious, how do we move forward?

You haven't seriously done introspection about the dialogue on the right.  People want there to be political moderation.  What people really want is for the political playing field to be free of violence.  Until the MAGAs give up their calls for civil war and insurrections we won't have that.

[chasfh]

32 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

So what comes of it? Do we round up MAGA lock them up? Take their guns? Send them to reeducation camps? I am being serious, how do we move forward?

You’re being serious about reeducation camps for red hats?

[Tigeraholic1]

5 minutes ago, chasfh said:

You’re being serious about reeducation camps for red hats?

 No probably too late for that.

[chasfh]

14 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

So if this election cycle stomps out all the MAGA crazies running for office then, maybe this ideology starts fading back into the shadows? I guess it would be the best case scenario. 
 

MAGA ideology being fueled by foreign-influenced right-wing media seems as likely to simply fade away as does a tea kettle settling back to room temperature while sitting on a lit stove.

I don’t know what, but it seems likely something dramatic, much more dramatic than J6, will have to happen to finally wake this country up. I saw that someone recently referred to what’s happening now as the beginning of our own version of The Troubles. That’s imaginable. 

[mtutiger]

25 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

So if this election cycle stomps out all the MAGA crazies running for office then, maybe this ideology starts fading back into the shadows? I guess it would be the best case scenario. 
 

Probably not likely. But Biden's speech is an acknowledgment that the majority of Americans (Dems, majority of I's, some R's) don't favor that ideology and don't want the political violence that it entails. That we saw on J6.

Trump dead-enders aren't the intended audience and aren't the overall majority... the speech was intended for the rest of us as an appeal to go out and vote against the crazies at the ballot box. Whether it works or not remains to be seen, I worry that he mixed a little too much domestic politics into it, but the GOP framing of it has been largely inaccurate as well.

Edited September 3, 2022 by mtutiger

[Tigeraholic1]

16 minutes ago, romad1 said:

You haven't seriously done introspection about the dialogue on the right.  People want there to be political moderation.  What people really want is for the political playing field to be free of violence.  Until the MAGAs give up their calls for civil war and insurrections we won't have that.

Biden was right to call them out but I fear it is having the same rallying effect as Trump on J6. They have the powder keg just needed a reason to light it.

[chasfh]

Just now, Tigeraholic1 said:

 No probably too late for that.

Come on.

To be fair—I do believe your concern about your military friends and how they might as a group react has some basis in legitimacy. A lot of people the past few days have portrayed red hats as being butt-hurt crybabies who will simply retreat and suck their thumbs. But some of the people you refer to have done military stuff overseas before, are willing to do it again here, and are out training for that right now. So while I don’t anticipate them waging anything like years-long quasi-military campaigns against liberal enclaves and slaughtering civilians by the tens of thousands, I can envision them doing guerrilla strikes here and there, perhaps even attempting the assassination of certain government executives. I agree they are a threat that needs to be monitored and dealt with appropriately, and I’m trusting that the federal police are amping up surveillance of them in the wake of this speech, and will continue to do so after future aggravating events.

[mtutiger]

10 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Biden was right to call them out but I fear it is having the same rallying effect as Trump on J6. They have the powder keg just needed a reason to light it.

I dont know how to fix the problem or to rid ourselves of the ideology that Trump birthed, particularly with regard to the 2020 Election and election denial, but one thing I do believe is that ignoring it isn't a viable solution.

I get the anxiety you have, I wish politics were more high-minded in this day and age, but the environment just is what it is.

[mtutiger]

14 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Come on.

To be fair—I do believe your concern about your military friends and how they might as a group react has some basis in legitimacy. A lot of people the past few days have portrayed red hats as being butt-hurt crybabies who will simply retreat and suck their thumbs. But some of the people you refer to have done military stuff overseas before, are willing to do it again here, and are out training for that right now. So while I don’t anticipate them waging anything like years-long quasi-military campaigns against liberal enclaves and slaughtering civilians by the tens of thousands, I can envision them doing guerrilla strikes here and there, perhaps even attempting the assassination of certain government executives. I agree they are a threat that needs to be monitored and dealt with appropriately, and I’m trusting that the federal police are amping up surveillance of them in the wake of this speech, and will continue to do so after future aggravating events.

Counterintuitive to the goals, but I would imagine that guerilla attacks would be wildly unpopular politically with the GP and would hinder the goals of whatever ideology they put forth.

But, of course, nuts who are willing to exercise violence on the public are probably thinking of a world beyond democracy. Unfortunately 

[Dan Gilmore]

I have seen a number of comments, here and elsewhere, that start out with “I didn’t watch the speech, but…” and then proceed to bring up all sorts of outrage and some dire warnings. Maybe those folks could spend a few minutes to find out what was said before jumping to some pretty radical conclusions. Maybe the outrage is the goal. Maybe the speech never included them in any condemnations. 

[chasfh]

2 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Counterintuitive to the goals, but I would imagine that guerilla attacks would be wildly unpopular politically with the GP and would hinder the goals of whatever ideology they put forth.

But, of course, nuts who are willing to exercise violence on the public are probably thinking of a world beyond democracy. Unfortunately 

How popular was the deadly public violence against Jews and other marginalized groups in 1930s Europe? How many in the Aryan majority actively cheered it on? How many of the majority contributed to the marginalization of these people by firing them from their jobs, cutting off cordial relations with them, and excluding them from public spaces they managed? And how many of the majority simply kept their heads down, trying to ignore it so they could try to just live their own “normal” lives?

I’m not sure we’ll ever know the actual numbers, but I do know this: only a small percentage of people in Germany were actively engaged in the actual violent repression, and the rest of Aryan society succumbed to the pressure to accept it just so they could get along with as little drama in their own lives as possible.

That could be instructive for America today. It doesn’t take a majority of people answering a poll to politically approve of a violent anti-democracy to make a violent anti-democracy happen. All that’s really needed is a highly-motivated, well-resourced, establishment-supported minority to put it in motion, coupled with a well-fed, constantly-entertained, moderately affluent majority base that will passively accept what’s happening in the background so they can just live out their lives in comfort. That majority base doesn’t have to be active red hats, participate in pogroms, vote for Trumpy candidates, or anything like that. With their well-bring and livelihoods being a higher priority than any group representing a small fraction of the population, groups who are constantly demonized as “leftists”, “Antifa”, BLM”, “marxists”, “groomers”, or as an otherwise dangerous threat, all the majority will need to do for it all to succeed is to overlook the real threats to the red hat targets and mind their own fucking business. 

 

[mtutiger]

2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

How popular was the deadly public violence against Jews and other marginalized groups in 1930s Europe? How many in the Aryan majority actively cheered it on? How many of the majority contributed to the marginalization of these people by firing them from their jobs, cutting off cordial relations with them, and excluding them from public spaces they managed? And how many of the majority simply kept their heads down, trying to ignore it so they could try to just live their own “normal” lives?

I’m not sure we’ll ever know the actual numbers, but I do know this: only a small percentage of people in Germany were actively engaged in the actual violent repression, and the rest of Aryan society succumbed to the pressure to accept it just so they could get along with as little drama in their own lives as possible.

That could be instructive for America today. It doesn’t take a majority of people answering a poll to politically approve of a violent anti-democracy to make a violent anti-democracy happen. All that’s really needed is a highly-motivated, well-resourced, establishment-supported minority to put it in motion, coupled with a well-fed, constantly-entertained, moderately affluent majority base that will passively accept what’s happening in the background so they can just live out their lives in comfort. That majority base doesn’t have to be active red hats, participate in pogroms, vote for Trumpy candidates, or anything like that. With their well-bring and livelihoods being a higher priority than any group representing a small fraction of the population, groups who are constantly demonized as “leftists”, “Antifa”, BLM”, “marxists”, “groomers”, or as an otherwise dangerous threat, all the majority will need to do for it all to succeed is to overlook the real threats to the red hat targets and mind their own fucking business. 

 

Trust me, I get it.

[romad1]

48 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Counterintuitive to the goals, but I would imagine that guerilla attacks would be wildly unpopular politically with the GP and would hinder the goals of whatever ideology they put forth.

But, of course, nuts who are willing to exercise violence on the public are probably thinking of a world beyond democracy. Unfortunately 

I think some of the MAGAs imagine a world where "one man, one vote" is literally one white man, one vote or one head of household (the white patriarch) one vote.   They would welcome a form of democracy where this group dominated all the non-whites and non-males.  I think we call that oligarchy.  

G2 and others took pains to educate me and my own observation has also instructed that we already have oligarchy in many ways because of the outsized influence of money (exacerbated post citizens united) enabling people like John Malone who can take over the editorial direction of CNN and the Murdochs who get to choose who will be the GOP presidential nominee because of Fox's reach.

Edited September 3, 2022 by romad1

[chasfh]

24 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Trust me, I get it.

I know. I wasn’t criticizing you or suggesting you’re naive. I was building on what you said.

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, mtutiger said:

Counterintuitive to the goals, but I would imagine that guerilla attacks would be wildly unpopular politically with the GP and would hinder the goals of whatever ideology they put forth.

But that is exactly how movements like the IRA provos eventually put themselves out of favor. Sometimes the hard way is the way it has to happen....

Edited September 3, 2022 by gehringer_2

[oblong]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

But that is exactly how movements like the IRA provos eventually put themselves out of favor. Sometimes the hard way is the way it has to happen....

I learned in this thread that all we needed to do was just not say mean things to the IRA. 

[pfife]

On 9/2/2022 at 4:20 PM, Tigeraholic1 said:

So do you feel that speech last night was an attempt at uniting Americans or furthering the divide? 

uniting against fascism

[pfife]

...

Edited September 4, 2022 by pfife

[pfife]

11 hours ago, Dan Gilmore said:

I have seen a number of comments, here and elsewhere, that start out with “I didn’t watch the speech, but…” and then proceed to bring up all sorts of outrage and some dire warnings. Maybe those folks could spend a few minutes to find out what was said before jumping to some pretty radical conclusions. Maybe the outrage is the goal. Maybe the speech never included them in any condemnations. 

Well said.  There's one person here who has said it repeatedly and it's a very out of character for him.   He usually researches things way more thoroughly than anyone else here. 

[pfife]

Also if this is deplorables pt2, where's the evidence that deplorables pt1 actually had an impact on the election?

Democrats are satanic blood drinking pedophiles fyi

nice double standard.

[pfife]

"so much for the tolerant left....."

[mtutiger]

Seems really divisive to lie about half the country like this.

Edited September 4, 2022 by mtutiger

[chasfh]

24 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Seems really divisive to lie about half the country like this.

He actually said much more: “They’re against God, guns, oil, law enforcement, tax cuts, regulation cuts, the Constitution, and they’re against our Founding Fathers. Other than that, they’re actually quite good …”

How about him slyly slipping “regulation cuts” in there? That’s the big magilla [sic] right there. Nothing capitalists want more than the freedom to operate without any restrictions whatsoever.