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Old 04-08-2017, 07:25 AM
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erimir erimir is offline
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Default Re: 2016 Presidential Race

Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
I believe it was then that you mocked my predictive abilities in your defense of Hillary, because, I guess, just what the U.S. needed was … another four to eight years of the Clintonistas! Heaven forfend that we a real Democrat be put back in the White House.
I’m not sure who you are talking about here — me? So, I am to blame for Bernie losing? :lol: Gosh, I wish I had such powers.

:rolleyes:
Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
As per my fresh post upthread, my argument was not that “maybe Trump was better”; but rather than, if one were to believe his stated positions on certain key issues, he could indeed seem to be the lesser of two evils on those issues to tens of millions of working-class voters.
Yes, we've already established that if you append a bunch of things you did not say to your post from back then, it's much less ridiculous.

You did not, however, say those things last spring. You did hedge a bit after you were repeatedly pressed on how ridiculous that post was, but not in the manner you just did. It's hard to believe that it was your original intention when even after I initially criticized your post, you said this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
But please don’t get the wrong idea here. I will never vote for Trump, nor do I deem him “trustworthy” on anything. I am simply pointing out that given what he has said on certain key issues, vs. what Clinton has said (which is often different from what she has said in the past), there is no reason to think that Clinton is necessarily the lesser of two evils on those particular issues.
[bolding mine]

There are no disclaimers about how one might get that impression, or that it should be clear, but it would not be if you take Trump at his word (and ignore all the times he said the opposite, of course).

You preferred to pretend that they were equally dishonest, and/or that Trump was entirely unpredictable, when his record of actions in his life made it pretty clear the he, for example, does not give a single shit about working people. It was clear who would have better policies, even just going by Trump's public statements and record. Which I pointed out at the time - that thinking he was the lesser of two evils didn't just require assuming he wasn't lying, but that you would have to choose to disbelieve his many statements that contradicted those positions! It's not good enough to say based on his statements - because his statements did not consistently support the positions you were suggesting he might hold!

Now that that it seems none of the "intriguing possibilities" have come to pass, you have applied your strongest hedges yet to them, reducing them down to basically making no claim whatsoever. They're just a hypothetical about something incredibly implausible, or about how low information voters might see it. That's not how you presented it at the time.

And of course, that's about that "lesser evil" post.

This post... contains no such hedges.
Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm View Post
The lesser of two evils is not at all clear in 2016

I will add that I think Trump, if elected, will do nothing to impede gay or transgender rights and will not appoint Scalias to the Supreme Court. All his rhetoric suggesting he will do such stuff is malarky to gull the rubes he knows he must court to win the nomination of the Dumb Party. The G.O.P. elites hate and fear Trump (just check out the hysterics at the Red State blogs) because they know he essentially is a socially liberal Democrat from New York who in the past has supported abortion rights, gun control, higher taxes on the "hedge fund guys" and has donated to and schmoozed with Hillary and other Demos. Additionally, on foreign policy, Hillary is the interventionist, neocon hawk in this race. Trump's recent foreign policy speech deployed the rhetoric of a fourth-grader, probably because Trump knows that most Americans have a fourth-grade mentality, but certain core principles he expressed were sound, foremost among them: do not go abroad in search of dragons to slay. Hillary, of course, is the biggest dragon slayer there is. How may times, dating back to 2008, has she mused aloud about "obliterating" Iran!

No, indeed, even if you support the "lesser of two evils" voting idea, it's not at all clear who the lesser evil is here.
But I'm sure I just forgot to read between the lines. When you said "I think Trump [...] will not appoint Scalias", it was incredibly uncharitable to suggest you really thought that.
Quote:
Or I suppose you are probably criticizing progressive Bernie voters in general for continuing to attack Clinton even when it seemed likely she would win the nomination. But this gets to the heart of why you now retroactively belittle my articulation last summer of a plausible Rust Belt path to victory from Trump, and why you are mistaken to do so.

You see, Erimir, you’ve got it precisely bassackwards. People from the left attacking Hillary did not cause Hillary to lose the election. Hillary caused Hillary to lose the election.
Right, I forgot that Hillary Clinton was the only person who had any agency when it came to the 2016 election. Similarly, Bernie caused Bernie to lose the primary, eh?

And not merely "attacking" and not when it merely "seemed likely". Making character-based attacks, often on the basis of innuendo, and promoting conspiracy theories about the DNC, and so forth. And when it was (not "seemed") extremely likely that she would be the nominee.

Sorry you didn't get your way, but once that was clear, yes, you should've focused your strategy on winning the general election with the nominee we were going to have.

(Also I don't see how your prediction about the Rust Belt affects whether these attacks were damaging and counterproductive.)
Quote:
Bernie supporters yelling from the left at you Hillary supporters were saying loud and clear:

Wake up! She doesn’t connect with the working class. That’s because she’s a Wall Street tool. She is not a good candidate. This is a Change Year. Either Bernie or Trump is likely to go to the White House. Why? Because tens of millions of working-class people have been utterly shit upon by for decades by the neoliberal globalist agenda embraced by both parties and they are fucking fed up.
I mean, if you want to say that other factors were important. Sure.

But no, there's no fucking way that saying "she's a Wall Street tool" or "she's not a good candidate" was helpful. You might want to say it didn't matter much, it wasn't that harmful. But it was harmful. You can't possibly think that you HELPED by doing that. And the chorus of other assholes saying the same shit certainly contributed as well.
Quote:
And she lost.

Blame you and her, not me or Bernie supporters, for the calamity of Trump.

You own it, not us.
I’m not sure who you are talking about here — me? So, I am to blame for Bernie losing? :lol: Gosh, I wish I had such powers.

Oh wait, I guess I can do this too:

I’m not sure who you are talking about here — me? So, I am to blame for Hillary losing? :lol: Gosh, I wish I had such powers.

So yup, there's no basis on which to criticize me for anything. I was merely a blameless and passive observer. :phew: no need to consider my behavior for future elections.

Guess what, sweetheart: You have agency too, despite your self-serving attempts to deny it. There is no exclusive ownership here.

(Of course, people like James Comey and Putin and the despicable assholes in the GOP and yes, Hillary Clinton and people on her campaign, and yes, Bernie Sanders too, have a far greater share of responsibility for the outcome than any of us by far.)
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