Well I live in Maine's second district so I promise to do my part. I suddenly feel so important.
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Serious The Politics Thread
- Thread starter Oglemi
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Btw for those who don't know, in the event of 269-269 tie the hypothetical procedure outlined by law would be the house of reps voting in the president, with 1 vote per state. Yes it's as stupid as it sounds. In that case Trump would win almost certainly because there are more red states than blue states, unless there's a massive blue landslide.
However the massive caveat here is that this situation would be so chaotic that it's rife for political shenanigans, on one hand the dems control the white house and the senate, and with enough nevertrump republicans the house too so they could try to change the law, on the other hand republicans control the supreme court so this would be a power struggle of epic proportions. Completely impossible to predict how that would go. Even more hilariously, the Senate is supposed to pick the VP in the event of a tie so Trump-Walz is a distant possibility.
However the massive caveat here is that this situation would be so chaotic that it's rife for political shenanigans, on one hand the dems control the white house and the senate, and with enough nevertrump republicans the house too so they could try to change the law, on the other hand republicans control the supreme court so this would be a power struggle of epic proportions. Completely impossible to predict how that would go. Even more hilariously, the Senate is supposed to pick the VP in the event of a tie so Trump-Walz is a distant possibility.
The mockery of Allan Lichtman's Keys to the White House makes no logical sense. The system he created has modeled every election retroactively since 1860, and is 38/41 overall (93% total accuracy), with the only 3 misses being scenarios where the candidate won the popular vote but was fucked over by the electoral college. That is an astonishing degree of accuracy.
Yes, here is my routine fuck the polls post. Fuck the polls. Fuck the state polls. Fuck the polling industrial complex.
Bouzy has Harris winning with 349 Electoral Votes, which is a solid optimistic scenario. It means Harris carries all swing states + Florida, and has both Iowa and Ohio as "toss ups."
My personal map I modeled after the generic ballot, state trends of the last six Pres cycles, and my applying Lichtman's keys to an application of the Kelly betting formula.
As of Today, September 21, 2024, my model is expecting a Harris +3.1% PV victory, and the following EC map:
View attachment 671109
I have come to the conclusion that the only way we are getting peace in the Middle East is by unilaterally sanctioning, boycotting and divesting from Israel together with demilitarising Israel.
The latter has less chance than satan going to work in a snowplough given USA’s influence.
So the only recourse is to now look at how to pressure the USA, because if they’re currently unwilling to do anything to stop Israel than this becomes everyone else’s only recourse to stop the carnage Israel is wreaking across the Middle East.
The cynic in me is saying that this is going to end badly for everyone. The optimist wants the UNGA this week to absolutely take Benjamin Netanyahu to task and pressure him into stopping. Whether that happens is another matter, and unlikely given his rhetoric.
But how Israel shows up at the UN time and time again whilst showing no respect for it or international law time and time again can only be explained by the feeling of invincibility impunity brings.
The latter has less chance than satan going to work in a snowplough given USA’s influence.
So the only recourse is to now look at how to pressure the USA, because if they’re currently unwilling to do anything to stop Israel than this becomes everyone else’s only recourse to stop the carnage Israel is wreaking across the Middle East.
The cynic in me is saying that this is going to end badly for everyone. The optimist wants the UNGA this week to absolutely take Benjamin Netanyahu to task and pressure him into stopping. Whether that happens is another matter, and unlikely given his rhetoric.
But how Israel shows up at the UN time and time again whilst showing no respect for it or international law time and time again can only be explained by the feeling of invincibility impunity brings.
This week, our national far right (CHEGA, portugal) said in their party's convention that they have by far the most handsome youth groups, and that it was "scary" how ugly the socialist youths are
Hilarious situation aside, can someone tell me if this wasn't this at one point something the nazis or other prominent far right regimes echoed? I'm pretty sure i've read about something like this before but can't find anything concrete
Hilarious situation aside, can someone tell me if this wasn't this at one point something the nazis or other prominent far right regimes echoed? I'm pretty sure i've read about something like this before but can't find anything concrete
The far-right loves to fixate on the physical appearances of its enemies. This is because their ideology is an aesthetic one first and foremost. MAGA Republicans do it all the time.
Is this why Fox News goes out of its way to hire people with a certain “look” that includes about 50 lbs of makeup?
And they think that helps people how? Not that I’m surprised, it just seems like a terrible sales job. What voters actually care about shit like this?
Yep, the Hitler Youth did this by way of the emphasis on the physical physique and the “aryan” look being part of the culture right from the start:
https://perspectives.ushmm.org/item/hitler-youth-training-film
Unfortunately, racist fascists do and they do to dehumanise and undercut opposing views.
Historians keep repeating themselves and warning everyone but it’s happening…again.
This is a good time to remind/introduce everyone of Umberto Eco
- The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
- The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense, Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
- The cult of action for action’s sale. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
- Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture, the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
- Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
- Appeal to social frustration. “[…] one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.
- The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”
- The enemy is both weak and strong. “[…] the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
- Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
- Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
- Everybody is educated to become a hero. “in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
- Machismo and Weaponry. “This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.”
- Selective Populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
- Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
I see that we have a serial laugher in the face of some pretty serious stuff being discussed.
Its funny how this thread is such a great way of finding out who to put on ignore.
Its funny how this thread is such a great way of finding out who to put on ignore.
The fact that the thread decided to pretend that calling your enemies ugly is a fascist dogwhistle for half a page is indeed hilarious. Every political movement demonizes its enemies, which includes calling them fat and ugly. It's like saying "what is it about far-right movements that makes them resort to breathing and drinking water so often"
ngl i thought it was pretty hilarious how yall immediately made the jump from the percieved ugliness of fox news reporter to fox news are fucking facists comparable to the nazis
this whole thread deserves a laugh react honestly
edit: apparently this needed to be clarified but whatever, I am not laughing at the tragic real world events happening in gaza. I have sympathy for anybody that has family there. what I was specifically laughing at was this thread's tendency to exaggerate, leap to conclusions, and overuse the word facists, as well as its inability to back down literally ever, and some other fundamental problems with the thread i won't go over here.
this whole thread deserves a laugh react honestly
edit: apparently this needed to be clarified but whatever, I am not laughing at the tragic real world events happening in gaza. I have sympathy for anybody that has family there. what I was specifically laughing at was this thread's tendency to exaggerate, leap to conclusions, and overuse the word facists, as well as its inability to back down literally ever, and some other fundamental problems with the thread i won't go over here.
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Who is "y'all"? I make it a point to not mock people's appearances in this thread because it's cruel, and you can pretty much always find a better reason to mock someone anyway. As far as other people go, I only recall one instance in this thread of someone's appearance being mocked by left-wing users, and it was met with significant pushback from other left-wing users.
Now this is a pretty bad faith jab when the original idea which brought this up was a country's far right party talking about how they look better than the ugly socialists. Fox News was jabbed at by RaikouLover, but the discussion followed pretty exclusively how the far right historically uses idealistic and heroic imagery and demonizing its enemies, with examples from Nazi Germany.
Though that being said, the company that continued to peddle the false narrative of a stolen election (FOX News) until being in DEEP shit with a massive lawsuit could indeed be described as fascist, yes.
I don't think someone who wastes their time on this thread just to haha react random palestine posts and then acts smug about it is someone whose opinions are worth anything. It's funny how the people who make fun of users of this thread are almost always much more pathetic, though. Makes it easier to ignore them.
The whole MSM did this for years about Russiagate. Although maybe this thread believes the russian mind control powers via facebook posts was a real case of a stolen election...
Alternatively the hard leftists will claim that all the media is fascist which i agree with insofar as they are all enemies of the people.
It’s funny because that’s not what actually happened.
The question was:
And I obviously responded (because I specialised in the Holocaust and a study of Nazi Germany during my History A Levels) with an affirmative that, yes, the principle of reducing a.n. other group in terms of looks or elevating the central group’s looks above others was a staple part of the regime.
This is historical fact, cited.
The fact you are clearly lacking in understanding or nuance on the discussion is your problem, not ours.
You can put the whole thread on ignore, for my part you are on ignore and happily so. Toodle ooo.
My god, the question was specific whether the Nazis did this and I answered it in the affirmative, because I have knowledge and experience/understanding in how they operated in an historical context.
I neither denied that other right or left leaning entities had also done so nor confirmed it. I simply answered a question.
This response you have given is yet another bad faith example of a “gotcha! You guys only bash the right wing” posting that is emblematic of - well - pretty much every right wing protestor that has entered this thread.
It is madness that you're more concerned about who is being criticised rather than what they are being criticised for, but there you go.
Your first post indeed was just answering the question. Your next posts: "Unfortunately, racist fascists [care about physical appearances] and they do to dehumanise and undercut opposing views." "I see that we have a serial laugher in the face of some pretty serious stuff being discussed." This is what makes it look like you believe this is a unique and serious problem among specifically far-right peoples that the rest of the political spectrum is immune to or somehow it's not a problem when we do it.
Edit:-- this part is a general post not specifically a response to Martin
"well i never said leftists don't do this" doesn't really work as a retreat. If you are listing characteristics to identify a particular group it makes no sense to list things that are widespread among people who aren't members of that group. It becomes a useless part of the list that just serves to confirmation bias people using the list as a checklist. If you list 4 actual characteristics of fascists and then 11 normal human behaviors it becomes very easy to call anyone a fascist.
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That’s your own interpretation of something I said, in your own head, and a huge gigantic leap from what I actually said.
I did not say the left doesn’t do it, I affirmed that the right wing does indeed do it and why.
I do not have to introduce “balance” or “whatabouterism” to my posts underlying the historical aspects of the discussion. It’s not my job to provide an essay on how the entire political spectrum is capable of being monstrous.
It is your job if you are unhappy with the spotlight being on the far right to explain why we shouldn’t highlight their inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour.
But to be quite frank, that’s not why you are arguing with me now. You’re engaging in a bad faith discussion to distract from the right wing crap that is easily evidenced and highlighted. Things you side with or agree with are getting criticised, and you don’t like that: so you engage in a bad faith commentary to distract from it.
Pretty fascist frankly!
Other posters already provided the context on this and why your post was done in bad faith. Me on the other hand I share no reservations about attacking the appearance of right-wing fascists when they are the ones starting the mud slinging gutter speak. (People who have stumbled upon Fox News will understand the jab)
Fox News is a fascist propaganda outlet that should have been given the corporate death penalty under the Obama Administration. Democrats need to add that to their platform. Fox News should no longer exist. The sooner we deprogram their viewers the sooner we can get off the authoritarian crackpot express and back to reporting… you know.. news. Not bullshit about pet eating or whatever crazy conspiracy theory Trump and Vance decided to spout off about each week.
I know I've advocated against interrogating likes in the past and I stand by that, but if your entire engagement with this thread is hahaing posts you disagree with and not actually participating in any kind of discussion, you're pathetic and nobody should respect you for it (judging by the reaction, it seems like nobody does). Try growing a pair and having an actual discussion.
Okay guys maybe we can stop being #Triggered Liberals.
Haha reacts can be epic and funny or whatever but its at least more fun to engage when possible and there's no harm besides being laughed at by people at, at the very least, we, are fairly assured are wrong.
That said, I will make a small distinction between the Democrats adopting "weird" vs Trump calling himself beautiful and all that stuff. This isn't to absolve lefties of all guilt, but the campaign to paint current Reps as weird isn't one based on factors they can't control. What's being called weird are the actions and rhetoric, while we see things like far right groups genuinely trying to define an ideal population with notable appearance markers.
Haha reacts can be epic and funny or whatever but its at least more fun to engage when possible and there's no harm besides being laughed at by people at, at the very least, we, are fairly assured are wrong.
That said, I will make a small distinction between the Democrats adopting "weird" vs Trump calling himself beautiful and all that stuff. This isn't to absolve lefties of all guilt, but the campaign to paint current Reps as weird isn't one based on factors they can't control. What's being called weird are the actions and rhetoric, while we see things like far right groups genuinely trying to define an ideal population with notable appearance markers.
Maybe it's the sleep deprivation but I genuinely cannot parse this.
Anyways, don't give a fuck about reacts by themselves, but if that's how you engage with the thread besides one attempt to barge into the conversation with some enlightened apathetic centrist bullshit where you clearly didn't even read the posts you're referring to, that's a pretty sad look. Call it what you want, I don't really care. I just don't think that's someone whose opinion should be shown any respect (and it wasn't, so fair enough).
https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/articl...ebours-du-front-republicain_6329303_3232.html
I have no words to describe how I'm disgusted by the politics in France. For context : on June, 9th, 2024, Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly, which led to the election of a new government. I was, at that moment, worried by how far right oriented the new government could become. But I had hope that with the alliance of the left parties, somehow a good part of the National Assembly would join the left wing. And I was right! The left party got a majority at the National Assembly.
But what happened to our government? Macron chose Barnier, a "Républicains". Not only their party did 8% at the election, but the rest of the government chosen afterwards is mostly composed of "Republicains" and people from Macron's party. No Left wing minister, and on top of that, most of these new ministers are like, absolutely bad people for social measures (Transphobic, Homophobic, anti gay marriage, etc.), and for economic measures whatsoever.
Our vote has been ignored because Macron had absolutely no plan of changing its dumb politics. This is a coup.
I have no words to describe how I'm disgusted by the politics in France. For context : on June, 9th, 2024, Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly, which led to the election of a new government. I was, at that moment, worried by how far right oriented the new government could become. But I had hope that with the alliance of the left parties, somehow a good part of the National Assembly would join the left wing. And I was right! The left party got a majority at the National Assembly.
But what happened to our government? Macron chose Barnier, a "Républicains". Not only their party did 8% at the election, but the rest of the government chosen afterwards is mostly composed of "Republicains" and people from Macron's party. No Left wing minister, and on top of that, most of these new ministers are like, absolutely bad people for social measures (Transphobic, Homophobic, anti gay marriage, etc.), and for economic measures whatsoever.
Our vote has been ignored because Macron had absolutely no plan of changing its dumb politics. This is a coup.
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I’ve had to switch the news off as the death toll in Lebanon from Israeli air strikes has hit 200.
This has all the hallmarks of Gaza. Phone calls demanding “evacuation”. Multiple air strikes. Israeli forces waiting at the border.
The world is watching and nothing is being done to deter or stop the Israelis.
The last time I can think of the world being so paralysed was September 1939.
We are on the brink of the abyss, insanity and humanity suffering continuing across the Middle East.
And still Israel’s “right to defend itself” outweighs the right of everyone else to exist.
I need a day off. Sorry.
This has all the hallmarks of Gaza. Phone calls demanding “evacuation”. Multiple air strikes. Israeli forces waiting at the border.
The world is watching and nothing is being done to deter or stop the Israelis.
The last time I can think of the world being so paralysed was September 1939.
We are on the brink of the abyss, insanity and humanity suffering continuing across the Middle East.
And still Israel’s “right to defend itself” outweighs the right of everyone else to exist.
I need a day off. Sorry.
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