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PoliGAF 2016 |OT9| The Wrath of Khan!

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P

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
I mean, Trump's people may have a point here. The Internet is a clear sign of who is popular. Once President Paul gets out of office, we'll have a clearer picture of the truth.
 
H

HP_Wuvcraft

Banned
So, apparently now McConnell is going around telling people that he told Obama that he wouldn't do his job until Obama left office?

Is this real?
 
B

brainchild

Banned
Valhelm said:
Once again, I don't see this happening. Generally, socialism liberates oppressed ethnoreligious groups. In Mexico, in Bolivia, in Russia, in Germany, in Cuba, in Kurdistan, and in America, socialism has given a voice to the powerless and lessened their burden. The far left tends to be interested in the concerns of minorities more than the liberal left, because of its idealistic nature. Despite the oppression of the Soviet Union, a Jew or a Tatar or a Georgian would live much more freely than in the Tsarist Empire, with old racist laws abolished and right-wing bigots thrown out of power.

And there's no need to assume a far-left government would be authoritarian. Very few American socialists see the USSR or Maoist China as a desirable society. Despotic and imperious socialist societies generally emerge out of pre-existing and non-socialist imperial traditions. There's not much reason to believe that a hypothetical socialist France or US would look anything like the USSR or communist China.
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And again, I'm not talking about what the far left sees or believes. I'm talking about what they will be willing to do in order to accomplish what they see/believe, and when you're so far on the extreme left, that inevitably ends up being paradoxical.

Extreme zealotry on either side of the political spectrum will always lead to authoritarianism if given enough power

On the left side of the horseshoe are placed communist countries such as the Soviet Union, Maoist China, Cuba under Fidel Castro, North Korea under Kim Il-sung, and, well, every other communist country, with "happiest-barrack" countries like Hungary under "goulash communism" and Yugoslavia furthest from the end.
On the right side goes (in order from the end) Nazi Germany, militarist Japan, Pinochet's Chile, Fascist Italy, Franquist Spain, and various clerical-fascist regimes, military dictatorships, and monarchies.
Click to expand...

Authoritarian type parties on the hard-left and hard-right may not represent the furthest ends of the political spectrum but still mirror each other in significant ways.

Take the anti-pragmatic side of the United States Republican Party (especially the Religious Right) and compare it to the modern Communist Party of the Russian Federation and you can find quite a few similarities (besides the obvious one that both are ideologues focused on the "purity" of their movement), especially on social policies. In fact, if each party's leaders avoided talking to each other about economics they would find more common ground than they may expect, especially considering their vehement hatred for each other. For instance:

Both strongly endorse "tough on crime" policies and the death penalty.[1]

Both strongly support "traditional values," meaning hardcore social conservatism, pro-life attitudes.[2] and hostility to LGBT rights.

Both have weaknesses for conspiracy theories, especially the conspiracy theory that there is some deliberate effort to destroy morality.[3][4]

Both are fervently patriotic and support some form of nationalism while holding the belief that each of their countries are the greatest in the world. This leads to some supporting a degree of historical revisionism as well.[5][6][7]

Both are reactionary in nature and extremely nostalgic for some sort of "golden age" (Stalin for the commies,[8] Ronald Reagan or the 50's[9][10] for the GOP).

Both support increasing spending on an even larger national defense while rarely questioning if it's necessary. Also, they both tend to admire "masculinity" and militarism.

Both have a weakness for "boogeymen," with liberals being a common target for both parties.

Both make populist appeals to the lower classes, mainly by promising to cut their taxes,[11] regardless of whether it will be done or whether it can be afforded.

Both have a love of dramatic rhetoric, even by political standards.

Both support largely discredited economic crankery that is usually defended with "common sense" type arguments.

Both have strands of anti-intellectualism, with intellectuals who question them being seen as "elitist."

Both are currently trying to appeal to the religious majority in each of their respective countries, with even CPRF leader Zyuganov citing the "spiritual values" of communism in his speeches to appeal to followers of the Russian Orthodox Church, despite the party being historically atheist.[12]

Both support censorship, and passing legislation to stop the "degradation" of national symbols.[13]

Both, hilariously, blame each other for the supposed "degradation" of art, literature, culture, and philosophy. The commies claim that the embrace of capitalism has left these areas bland because artists are only concerned about profit, not quality,[14] whereas the Republicans like to say that "leftists" or "secularists" have ruined these areas because their "hostility" to religion has harmed creativity.

Both like to reference revolutionary heroes from their nation's past in their arguments,[15] usually by claiming that they are fighting for the same values they were, which is commonly followed up by saying that what they stand for is "True American/Russian values," whereas their opponents stand for evil/radicalism. They may also liken themselves to being the "underdogs" in their current fight, like said revolutionary leaders. Expect these historical figures to be glorified and their flaws to be ignored/excused/downplayed.[16][17]
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http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory


And you cannot just dismiss examples of far left authoritarian governments just because the US hasn't become one yet. Just like you say that there's no reason to assume that the far left would become like those countries, I would posit that there's no reason to assume that they wouldn't, based on all existing evidence. I'm not making assumptions either way. I said the far left has the POTENTIAL to go in this direction, I never said that I assumed that they would.
 
J

jbug617

Banned
HP_Wuvcraft said:
So, apparently now McConnell is going around telling people that he told Obama that he wouldn't do his job until Obama left office?

Is this real?
Click to expand...

Don't know if he said that or not but he did say his proudest moment is blocking Obama's Supreme Court nominee.
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
McConnell has never made his disrespect for Obama a secret, so it wouldn't exactly surprise me.

Remember this is the man who talked about making ACA his "Waterloo" and that Republicans' only goal was to ensure Obama was a one-term president.

It's a shame so many people haven't caught on and are content to just wring their hands about both sides doing it.

You know when Democrats held the Senate from 01-03 Bush pretty much had them over a barrel.
 
R

Retromelon

Member
im in tears at this goofy shit
Hannity: If Trump Loses, I Blame Party Leaders and Establishment; "I'm Sick and Tired Of These Idiots"

"If in 96 days Trump loses this election, I am pointing the finger directly at people like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and John McCain.

I have watched these Republicans be more harsh toward Donald Trump than they’ve ever been in standing up to Barack Obama and his radical agenda. They did nothing, nothing -- all these phony votes to repeal and replace Obamacare, show votes so they can go back and keep their power and get reelected.

Sorry, you created Donald Trump, all of you. Because of your ineffectiveness, because of your weakness, your spinelessness, your lack of vision, your inability to fight Obama. I'm getting a little sick and tired of all of you. I am, honestly, I am tempted to just say I don’t support any of you people ever."
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Sean, above, blaming party establishment, whose collective attitude towards the republican primary voter's love of trump is that of the beleaguered, defeated father driving his screaming child to McDonald's, for the loss of outsider candidate. teehee
 
U

User 85168

Banned
Retromelon said:
im in tears at this goofy shit
Hannity: If Trump Loses, I Blame Party Leaders and Establishment; "I'm Sick and Tired Of These Idiots"


Sean, above, blaming party establishment, whose collective attitude towards the republican primary voter's love of trump is that of the beleaguered, defeated father driving his screaming child to McDonald's, for the loss of outsider candidate. teehee
Click to expand...

His twitter feed has been amazing. It reads like Trump took over his account.
 
N

nature boy

Member
Top Nazi leader: Trump will be a ‘real opportunity’ for white nationalists

The effort to plant the seeds of white nationalism in the political mainstream, where they might blossom into pro-white political coalitions that appeal to a broader swath of Caucasian voters, will not be easy, according to the chairman of the American Nazi Party.

But Rocky Suhayda thinks there is one political figure who presents a “real opportunity” to lessen the load.

Who is it? Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president.

“Now, if Trump does win, okay, it’s going to be a real opportunity for people like white nationalists, acting intelligently to build upon that, and to go and start — you know how you have the black political caucus and what not in Congress and everything — to start building on something like that,” Suhayda declared on his radio program last month.

“It doesn’t have to be anti-, like the movement’s been for decades, so much as it has to be pro-white,” he added. “You know what I’m saying? It’s kinda hard to go and call us bigots if we don’t go around and act like a bigot. That’s what the movement should contemplate. All right.”
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Crazy.
 
S

sc0la

Unconfirmed Member
Aaron Strife said:
McConnell has never made his disrespect for Obama a secret, so it wouldn't exactly surprise me.

Remember this is the man who talked about making ACA his "Waterloo" and that Republicans' only goal was to ensure Obama was a one-term president.

It's a shame so many people haven't caught on and are content to just wring their hands about both sides doing it.

You know when Democrats held the Senate from 01-03 Bush pretty much had them over a barrel.
Click to expand...
Elections have consequences!!*


*except when won by a black or woman liberal.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Retromelon said:
im in tears at this goofy shit
Hannity: If Trump Loses, I Blame Party Leaders and Establishment; "I'm Sick and Tired Of These Idiots"


Sean, above, blaming party establishment, whose collective attitude towards the republican primary voter's love of trump is that of the beleaguered, defeated father driving his screaming child to McDonald's, for the loss of outsider candidate. teehee
Click to expand...

In a weird way, he's kind of right, though. Trump is the product of decades of 'moderate' Republicans stoking the ashes. They can't really be surprised they caught fire.
 
V

VendettaRed07

Member
Chivas USA was the MLS team with the most Facebook likes by a massive margin despite having the worst attendance before they were retracted in 2013

I don't think trump should feel confident because of his Facebook
 
Y

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Hannity seems right to me! It is not by Trump's hand that he is once again made flesh. He was brought here by humans who wish to pay him tribute.
 
Vestal

Vestal

Junior Member
Crab said:
In a weird way, he's kind of right, though. Trump is the product of decades of 'moderate' Republicans stoking the ashes. They can't really be surprised they caught fire.
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But that is not what he is inferring. Not to mention that in reality Hannity along with Limbaugh and Beck carry a large part of the responsibility for were the party is at right now, they spewed bullshit and hate forever while the party leadership stayed complicit or fueled it.


Hannity is by far the craziest of the bunch. I cannot wait for his meltdown come election night. it will be glorious.
 
E

eBay Huckster

Member
pigeon said:
Oh, not this again.

"How could it be possible for Romney to be so unpopular that not a single vote would be cast for him in a black Ohio suburb?"
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hey now, all of those precincts (except one) were in Cleveland proper!

(incidentally i was canvassing a Columbus neighborhood that was majority-black today, and pretty much every voter marked as "undecided" in MiniVAN was already planning on voting Clinton)
 
H

Holmes

Member
I see that Clinton opened two field offices in AZ the other day, in Phoenix and Tucson. Does she have anything in Georgia yet?
 
T

TheFatOne

Member
Watching CNN currently and just saw a black church endorse Trump. The thing that got me is that I don't understand why people keep falling for the 90+% of black people in polls aren't voting for Trump, but I don't see that. No shit you don't see that you are in the percentage of those who agree with Trump. Like if that view somehow invalidates all of the polling thus far.
 
E

eBay Huckster

Member
wait, black church or black pastor? there's a very important distinction there

like that one black pastor from cleveland heights endorsed trump and spoke at the RNC, but like 95% of his congregation is gonna vote clinton
 
B

Boke1879

Member
eBay Huckster said:
wait, black church or black pastor? there's a very important distinction there

like that one black pastor from cleveland heights endorsed trump and spoke at the RNC, but like 95% of his congregation is gonna vote clinton
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be shocked if it's some conservative church group.
 
D

Dubbedinenglish

Banned
eBay Huckster said:
wait, black church or black pastor? there's a very important distinction there

like that one black pastor from cleveland heights endorsed trump and spoke at the RNC, but like 95% of his congregation is gonna vote clinton
Click to expand...

Those people are a mess. They were on CNN and some quote they wanted to use during the segment and forgot the quote on air.
 
A

A Link to the Past

Banned
One thing that always helps me to calm down and chill about the election is to do a "best-case scenario" for Trump - namely, where I take the latest state polls and assume that he wins every state that he is currently leading/is within 5% of winning. Ultimately, he only got 263 EVs, and that's even with him taking Minnesota and Oregon and not flipping any red states.
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
Just got a fundraising email highlighting recent polls showing Clinton leading in Arizona, Georgia, Missouri and North Carolina.

Obviously it's cherry picked but I vastly prefer this to the "OH MY GOD EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE" approach Democrats usually take for fundraising. I'd be more encouraged by running up the score than freaking out about every single domino falling in the right place for us to win.

Granted there are just some years where we're up against really strong headwinds like 2014 and it's hard to create a narrative that we can win, but like Election Day 2014 I didn't even care. It's so demoralizing when the best you can hope for is that we don't lose by that much.
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Aaron Strife said:
Just got a fundraising email highlighting recent polls showing Clinton leading in Arizona, Georgia, Missouri and North Carolina.

Obviously it's cherry picked but I vastly prefer this to the "OH MY GOD EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE" approach Democrats usually take for fundraising. I'd be more encouraged by running up the score than freaking out about every single domino falling in the right place for us to win.

Granted there are just some years where we're up against really strong headwinds like 2014 and it's hard to create a narrative that we can win, but like Election Day 2014 I didn't even care. It's so demoralizing when the best you can hope for is that we don't lose by that much.
Click to expand...

Running up the score would be great, but even if she doesn't win those states, the fact that they're in play just means the GOP will have to spend money there.
 
B

brainchild

Banned
benjipwns said:
Horseshoe theory is a patch on a misdesigned spectrum with insufficiently defined extremes that people want to cling to for even more poorly defined reasons.
Click to expand...

I never argued otherwise.

However, within the context of a discussion about the convergence of methodology with respect to two different extremes of ideological purity, the horseshoe theory is absolutely relevant and offers a logically sound explanation for the phenomenon.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
Aaron Strife said:
Just got a fundraising email highlighting recent polls showing Clinton leading in Arizona, Georgia, Missouri and North Carolina.

Obviously it's cherry picked but I vastly prefer this to the "OH MY GOD EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE" approach Democrats usually take for fundraising. I'd be more encouraged by running up the score than freaking out about every single domino falling in the right place for us to win.

Granted there are just some years where we're up against really strong headwinds like 2014 and it's hard to create a narrative that we can win, but like Election Day 2014 I didn't even care. It's so demoralizing when the best you can hope for is that we don't lose by that much.
Click to expand...

Mostly I'm entertained to hear that Hillary is so far ahead they're experimenting with "let's win more" as a fundraising strategy. That's when you know we're winning.

(I got an email this morning with the subject line "He may still beat me," so they're definitely just A/B testing here.)
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
brainchild said:
I never argued otherwise.

However, within the context of a discussion about the convergence of methodology with respect to two different extremes of ideological purity, the horseshoe theory is absolutely relevant and offers a logically sound explanation for the phenomenon.
Click to expand...

I... don't think it does? You'll have to explain for me because just intuitively I'd never given horseshoe much credence.
 
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