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  #76  
Old 01-21-2018, 02:26 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

Remember, Democrats are Awful Too

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This is why a large segment of the anti-Trump “resistance,” perhaps the most anodyne political force ever to use that word, is, for all intents and purposes, a Democratic Party project, and why much of the rest either is or is about to be coopted into the Democratic fold.

Good or bad (or very bad), this is inevitable. Democratic victories in 2018 are not quite as inevitable because Democrats have a knack for losing with winning hands. But this time around, even more than in 2016, they would have to outdo themselves not to take control of both the Senate and the House.

Insofar as Democratic victories weaken the Republican Party, diminishing its hold over national and state institutions, then bring them on. A pox on them, though, insofar as they help build the Democratic Party in anything like its present form.
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  #77  
Old 01-21-2018, 04:53 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

Still trying to have it both ways... Dems and "Killary" (fucking stupid nickname, btw - especially from people who say definite actual murderers and aggressively dictatorial strongmen like Putin and Assad are better and/or not a problem at all, but hawkish neo-liberals get denigrating nicknames and uncompromising hatred...) can't be an improvement over Republicans, however marginal, and just as bad. Like, it literally can't be both, but that's what you keep saying. Criticize the Dems, and Clinton, all the live-long day, I'll join you for most of it, but this false equivalency crap is still crap no matter how you try to dress it up. Better is better, and I'll take better every god damn time, even if I hate the brute fact that I can't have something actually good. Have to change the electoral system and process more fundamentally for that, and I'm not going to hold my breath...
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  #78  
Old 01-21-2018, 05:40 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

For the US Trump is probably worse, for the world Trump is better because if exposes what was going on anyway. There is no major break with Obama's policies, but it's all done so clumsily and arrogant that most of it backfires.

So it pretty much evens out.
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  #79  
Old 01-21-2018, 07:18 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

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Originally Posted by Watser? View Post
You voted for Killary, so yeah...

Moral high ground? You have none.
You could've just quoted me and reiterated that this is your position.
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Anyway, the most moral action is to vote for parties/candidates like Artikel 1, which has the following positive accomplishments in the Dutch government:
  • .
  • (That's the list.)
Truly, the most moral actions are the ones with no positive consequences at all and which are centered on the way the action makes you personally feel.
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  #80  
Old 01-21-2018, 07:36 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

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But this time around, even more than in 2016, they would have to outdo themselves not to take control of both the Senate and the House.
It sure is strange how you always find idiotic and poorly-informed political analysis.

Here's the basic math: Democrats have 26 seats up for election, including 5 in states that Trump won by 18 pts or more. Republicans have only 8 seats up (although chances are not trivial that McCain's seat will also go up), only one of which is in a state Clinton won, and only one other seat in a state Trump won by less than 9 pts. In other words, NV and AZ are the only obvious pickups, with several Democratic seats being obvious targets for the GOP. They have to pick up two seats, which means the two obvious pickups, without losing any of their own seats OR they have to win a much harder GOP-held seat to balance out any seat they lose, and they only have like two or three opportunities like that (TX and perhaps TN...).

Which isn't to say that they can't do it. It is plausible that they hold every seat, or lose only one while picking up McCain's seat. But the idea that this is a gimme is stupid.
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Still trying to have it both ways... Dems and "Killary" (fucking stupid nickname, btw - especially from people who say definite actual murderers and aggressively dictatorial strongmen like Putin and Assad are better and/or not a problem at all, but hawkish neo-liberals get denigrating nicknames and uncompromising hatred...)
The fact that Putin has had hitmen murder journalists and such doesn't mean he deserves the level of hate Hillary does. His murders are the lesser evil which he orders with great reluctance and a heavy heart, but knows it has to be done for the children of Syria, whereas Killary just enjoys the screams of children.
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For the US Trump is probably worse, for the world Trump is better because if exposes what was going on anyway. There is no major break with Obama's policies, but it's all done so clumsily and arrogant that most of it backfires.

So it pretty much evens out.
Trump Is Killing Record Numbers Of Civilians | HuffPost

It evened out great for the civilians who died because Trump ramped up bombing across the globe.

So weird how deaths are just statistics that "pretty much even out" when you're using them to argue against Democrats, yet you can get worked up over any individual Palestinian, even if they're only thrown in prison.

Me, I'm just so morally void and evil that I prefer the guy who kills fewer people.
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  #81  
Old 01-21-2018, 07:48 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

Also here's an intentional Nazi-era comparison for you:

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Originally Posted by Watser, 1934
For Germany, Hitler is probably worse, but for the world Hitler is better because he is a buffoon who exposes what was going on anyway. There is no major break with SPD social fascist policies, but it's all done so clumsily and arrogantly that most of it backfires. It pretty much evens out.

You voted for the social fascist party, so yeah...

Moral high ground? You have none.
This time you can say I brought it up.
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  #82  
Old 01-22-2018, 07:20 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

Anyway that name is a fucking insult to everyone who fought the nazis in WWII.
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  #83  
Old 01-22-2018, 07:33 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

I'll be sure to notify the millions of random protesters that you find it insulting.

I'll also notify all non-WW2 resistance movements and civil rights movements* that they can't refer to themselves or their tactics as "resistance" because that word only ever can refer to WW2 resistance to Nazi occupation.

*And protests considered part of "the resistance" (anti-Trump) can be considered civil rights protests in many instances. But perhaps you consider it insulting to compare the demonstrations against the Muslim ban to other civil rights protests?
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  #84  
Old 01-22-2018, 07:39 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

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Originally Posted by erimir View Post
Also here's an intentional Nazi-era comparison for you:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Watser, 1934
For Germany, Hitler is probably worse, but for the world Hitler is better because he is a buffoon who exposes what was going on anyway. There is no major break with SPD social fascist policies, but it's all done so clumsily and arrogantly that most of it backfires. It pretty much evens out.

You voted for the social fascist party, so yeah...

Moral high ground? You have none.
This time you can say I brought it up.
:rolleyes:
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  #85  
Old 01-22-2018, 08:43 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

And that's an even worse insult to everyone who fought nazis in WWII. That's the kind of arrogance that is so fucking typical for the Democrats.
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  #86  
Old 01-22-2018, 09:44 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

So let me get this straight, erimir is comparing comparing Trump to Clinton to comparing Hitler to the SPD.

I rate that at 15 kilometagodwins.
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  #87  
Old 01-22-2018, 10:37 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

It's interesting how worked up you two are getting over what you see as false equivalences :chin:

And at any rate, the Communists probably would've conceded that the SPD was better than the fascists, but nevertheless they stood in the way of revolution. They also thought that the excesses of the fascists would lead the public to embrace their ideology. Instead it lead to them being murdered by the fascists. A lesson there being that relying on the excesses of the right-wing to work out to the favor of the left is a dangerous game.

Watser seems to think that Trump's excesses will work out in favor of the causes he supports and that it will win people over to his side. Trump doesn't need to be Hitler for that to be a poor calculation.

And I mean, Watser says he couldn't vote for either major US party without wanting to barf, and apparently his feelings extend to all of the parties capable of winning even one seat in the Netherlands, including GroenLinks (Green Left), the Socialist Party, DENK, the Labour Party and the animal rights party. I assume those parties are better than Trump, which by the transitive property of Obama=Trump, means they're also better than the Democrats. Yet he voted for Artikel 1, which couldn't even meet the 0.67% threshold for one seat, a result which was indicated by the polls.

So what about Watser's behavior makes you think he would've advocated an alliance with the SPD if he had been a German in 1933*? I see no indication of that whatsoever in his rhetoric or behavior.

And I'd remind you, in 1933, Hitler wasn't "Hitler" either. He had committed no genocide and many dismissed his bigotry as rhetoric to rile up the rubes. The time to ally to stop him was before the 1933 election.

*A closer look at the timing of elections and laws makes 1933 a better year to make the comparison, I'll concede.

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I rate that at 15 kilometagodwins.
Aside from the silliness of dismissing a comparison on the mere basis that it involves the Nazis (I don't need to say Trump is as bad as Hitler to compare Watser's political strategy to that of the KPD), which isn't even what Godwin's law is about - it merely predicts that a Nazi comparison will be made, and isn't meant to indicate anything about the validity of such a comparison - here's what Mike Godwin has to say about Trump and the current GOP:

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  #88  
Old 01-22-2018, 10:41 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

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It's interesting how worked up you two are getting over what you see as false equivalences :chin:
Yeah no shit, you got it too!

:clap:
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  #89  
Old 01-22-2018, 10:47 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

"Bush=Obama=Trump=Democrats=GOP"

"YOU [erimir] are worse than Putin and Assad!"

"How dare you compare Watser's view that Trump's excesses will cause a backlash and overall favorable outcome to the KPD's view that Hitler's excesses would lead them to power! How insulting!"

:chin:
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  #90  
Old 01-22-2018, 10:51 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

It's not "how dare you", it's just that it's some seriously dumb shit.
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  #91  
Old 01-22-2018, 10:55 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

You seem to think that makes that better.

I'm worse than Putin. That's orders of magnitude stupider shit.
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  #92  
Old 01-22-2018, 11:09 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

I'm not sure why the two of you (Waster? and But) have chosen this particular fight, but as a queer, disabled Jewish person - you know, a member of three separate groups Hitler rounded up into concentration camps and gave lethal doses of Zyklon-B - you're essentially trashing whatever remnants of respect I once had for you. Let's outline a number of ways your arguments are not merely stupid and ignorant but actually offensive.

Rounding up people into camps and deporting them as ICE has been doing is in fact not merely ethnic cleansing but a full-on Gestapo tactic. Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns & Money has been doing yeoman's work covering this issue that Pravda on the Hudson and the rest of our media seem to prefer to ignore. His pieces on immigration (and others', but the most recent post under the tag by anyone else is from July 12) can be found under the immigration tag and cover this administration's deportation tactics in nightmarish detail. This presidency* seems determined to deport every single person of Muslim or Hispanic/Latinx origin that it can.

I'm not sure why you've chosen this particular hill to die on, but it is personally offensive, and not merely because of my background. This administration has made it entirely clear that it would prefer for me not to have healthcare. I have "pre-existing conditions" (autism, depression, PTSD, and other factors), and if this administration got its way, I could have my premiums raised by factors of six or more, or even be entirely dropped from coverage. It is, in fact, largely because of the actions of the resistance (you know, the one you're, for whatever reason, attacking) that my premiums didn't spike astronomically this year. You are posting apologetics for this administration at a time when my mental health is at a nadir and I depend upon that healthcare even to be able to perform simple tasks such as writing.

You are also posting apologetics for an administration that makes it perfectly plain where its sympathies lie: with actual Nazis. This despicable, illegitimate president*, when a violent group of Nazis was chanting "Jews will not replace us," said there were "very fine people" marching with them. When one of those Nazis ran over a nonviolent counterprotestor, this would-be dictator attributed her death to "violence on many sides", despite the fact that not one of the anti-Nazi counterprotestors harmed any human being in any meaningful fashion. This senile racist waited days before even giving an unequivocal condemnation of the Nazis' violence, which he almost immediately walked back in a television interview. This waste of flesh and oxygen is credibly documented to have slept with an actual collection of Hitler's speeches at his bedside. You are, in fact, throwing your lot in with a person who has made it perfectly clear that he is, at best, a Nazi sympatheiser, and at worst an actual Nazi, and you are attacking people who are doing actual, meaningful work in opposing him for using an analogy that is so ubiquitous in both popular culture and human history that it is literally the name of a trope at TV Tropes. In essence, by attacking his opponents because you don't like their choice of imagery while refusing to engage with arguments about his actual flaws, you are also indirectly aligning yourselves with Nazis (in a Six Degrees of Nazi manner, admittedly, but I think that's - what - two degrees of separation?).

And frankly, it's not your place to decide whether a comparison is offensive to WWII veterans or Holocaust survivors. You know who is qualified to make that decision? WWII veterans, Holocaust survivors, and their descendants. The people that Hitler would have fed Zyklon-B. Roma. The disabled. Queer people. Jews. And so on. Most of these groups oppose Trump, some by margins of 4:1 or more. Trump's administration is so vile that it's causing former Republican warmongers of Jewish descent, such as Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin, David Frum, and Bill Kristol, to seemingly re-evaluate their entire conception of the world. Boot has written of his increasing awareness of privilege, to which he explicitly cites Trump's election as a pivotal contributing factor. Rubin, in her Washington Post column, has consistently been harshly criticising Republicans not merely on style and competency but on substance. And so on.

Beyond this, of course, lies the fact that Hitler didn't start out gassing everyone he didn't like with Zyklon-B. (Sneaky in-between poster erimir already pointed this out, but I'll leave it because deleting it might cause later parts of my post not to make sense.) While the concentration camps dated to fairly early in the regime, historians widely agree that the Holocaust did not begin in earnest until the 1940s. Because the date is usually pegged as 1941, this means there were eight years of Nazi tactics that did not actually extend to full-on genocide. I've been reading Richard Evans' The Coming of the Third Reich off and on, and while I must emphasise that conditions in this country are not as awful as conditions in 1933 Germany were (we don't have their hyperinflation or really any significant level of inflation at all, the business community seems less subservient to the administration on social issues, the civil service apart from ICE isn't as thoroughly shot through with authoritarians, our intelligentsia is nowhere near as right-wing as Germany's was, we have a much longer tradition of democratic norms, etc.), the tactics this administration is employing are worryingly familiar. Attacks on the press. Attacks on the actual notion of truth. Constant attempts to gaslight the public. The constant subversions of democratic norms. The constant praise for other authoritarian strongmen. And on and on.

Trump has deflected criticisms of Putin's murders of journalists with whataboutery (which is interesting, because you also haven't bothered addressing this issue and have also chosen to deflect the subject to attacks on other people). Trump has called Kim Jong Un "a pretty smart cookie". He has congratulated Tayyip Erdogan on his erosion of democratic norms in Turkey. He has refused to condemn Rodrigo Duterte for throwing people out of helicopters to their deaths. And so on.

(As an aside, it's definitely interesting how all the complaints about drones that were ubiquitous a few years ago have largely disappeared now that the black guy is no longer in office, even though the usage of drone strikes has risen substantially under his successor. I'm sure there's a benign explanation that doesn't involve racism.)

The idea that, under a Clinton administration, anyone would have to worry about keeping their healthcare is completely unsupported by evidence, particularly considering that she literally led the Democrats' push for universal healthcare in the 1990s. The idea that Clinton would full-throatedly support deporting people of Islamic and Hispanic/Latinx backgrounds is completely unsupported by evidence. The idea that she would be destabilising world peace with increasingly incoherent Twitter threats against Kim Jong Un is completely unsupported by evidence. The idea that she would continually threaten to rip up the Iran deal she had a substantial hand in laying the groundwork for is completely unsupported by evidence. The idea that she would have supported moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem is completely unsupported by evidence.

You may not like the Democrats. I'll be the first to acknowledge that they have plenty of failings. But, as others have indicated, they are better than the Republicans in every meaningful fashion. And better is as good as you can actually get in a country that is bound into a two-party system by its first-past-the-post elections - and because things can always get worse, and Trump is actively trying to make them worse in every conceivable fashion, better is still really fucking good overall.

Duverger's Law is all but ironclad in presidential FPTP systems. This is basic mathematics, and Noam Chomsky, an anarchist who is about as far left on every issue as you can get and who has been a consistent supporter of Palestine, understands this well enough that he has consistently advocated tactical voting for Democrats in any election where there is a meaningful race. This isn't because he particularly likes the Democrats. He has harshly criticised them, particularly on foreign policy, throughout his books. But when the only realistic choices in an election are a centrist (or even, if you feel the label applies better, a conservative) and an actual fascist, you choose the party that can defeat the fascist, no matter their flaws.

Even Louisiana voters, once upon a time, were capable of recognising this. When David Duke, erstwhile Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and current supporter of Donald Trump, was running for governor, his Democratic opponent, Edwin Edwards, was a convicted felon on several counts, including racketeering, extortion, money laundering, mail fraud, and wire fraud. Duke's opponents, correctly recognising that Edwards was the only realistic choice to defeat Duke, coined the slogan, "Vote for the crook - it's important." Edwards won in a 61%-39% landslide. There's a lesson here. (Moreover, in a 2011 poll, 30% of Louisiana respondents named Edwards the state's best governor since 1980, despite his corruption.)

The people who are actually oppressed in this country have far better things to do with their time than worry about someone using WWII imagery that tens of millions of others throughout history have also used. An awful lot of them are, in fact, active participants in resistance movements when they have time. You know. The same resistance movements you're attacking because they're using WWII imagery. These people are actively improving not only their own lives but others' as well - mine included. And what are you doing? Posting stupid bullshit on the Internet pretending to be offended because someone used the wrong symbol.

This presidency* has been almost universally horrible, but it has also certainly done a lot to clarify who my actual allies are, and none of them say they "prefer Trump". Feel free to take your whataboutism and fuck off and die in a fire with it.
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  #93  
Old 01-22-2018, 11:20 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

Just remind me, how many Democrat politicians and party members have been tortured and beaten to death by Trump's minions, after which the state refused to prosecute?
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  #94  
Old 01-22-2018, 11:40 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

Ah, the fallacy of relative privation. "Trump hasn't actually used power he doesn't actually possess to stop the state from prosecuting others' murders; he's just refused to condemn his supporters' politically motivated murder and written it off as a product of 'violence on many sides', and endorsed other people who murder their political opponents, so he can't actually be a Nazi."

Also, FYI, the correct adjective form is "Democratic" for everyone who isn't a right-wing or Kremlin troll.
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  #95  
Old 01-22-2018, 11:49 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

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Just remind me, how many Democrat politicians and party members have been tortured and beaten to death by Trump's minions, after which the state refused to prosecute?
Oh, is that the line we're waiting for? Don't worry, everyone, it's all fine and he's no worse than the Democrats because he hasn't started literally murdering political opponents yet! Wait, that won't matter either, since exactly that behavior by not one but two other world leaders has been waved away because they happen to line up with a few bullet points of your foreign policy preferences...

BTW, that line is way too fucking late to start criticizing a President or his administration, or to admit that he just might be worse than the other option on the table.
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  #96  
Old 01-22-2018, 11:50 PM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

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Beyond this, of course, lies the fact that Hitler didn't start out gassing everyone he didn't like with Zyklon-B. (Sneaky in-between poster erimir already pointed this out, but I'll leave it because deleting it might cause later parts of my post not to make sense.) While the concentration camps dated to fairly early in the regime, historians widely agree that the Holocaust did not begin in earnest until the 1940s. Because the date is usually pegged as 1941, this means there were eight years of Nazi tactics that did not actually extend to full-on genocide. I've been reading Richard Evans' The Coming of the Third Reich off and on, and while I must emphasise that conditions in this country are not as awful as conditions in 1933 Germany were (we don't have their hyperinflation or really any significant level of inflation at all, the business community seems less subservient to the administration on social issues, the civil service apart from ICE isn't as thoroughly shot through with authoritarians, our intelligentsia is nowhere near as right-wing as Germany's was, we have a much longer tradition of democratic norms, etc.), the tactics this administration is employing are worryingly familiar. Attacks on the press. Attacks on the actual notion of truth. Constant attempts to gaslight the public. The constant subversions of democratic norms. The constant praise for other authoritarian strongmen. And on and on.
It also reminds me a bit of that line Ruth Bader Ginsburg used in her Shelby County dissent, that "[t]hrowing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."

The idea that "the resistance" (despite their incredibly tacky name, boohoo) is overheated and bad because Trump hasn't been doing things that are all that bad... is ignoring that part of the reason the GOP hasn't succeeded in doing some of the horrible things they'd like to do, and hasn't even tried to do some even worse things that elements in the party would like to do, is because of those protests and the pressure they and voters sympathetic to them have been putting on politicians in both parties, the attention they've been getting in the media, etc.

If the reaction to the firing of James Comey had been a giant shrug with Democrats adopting Watser's view that there's probably nothing there and even if there was, America is worse than Putin anyway, so who cares... What do you suppose Trump and the GOP would be doing at the FBI? I imagine that they'd be further along in trying to purge anyone who isn't a GOP party hack. After all, anyone they purge isn't worth defending anyway, so it's irrelevant if they're replaced with people who are even worse.
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Duverger's Law is all but ironclad in presidential FPTP systems. This is basic mathematics, and Noam Chomsky, an anarchist who is about as far left on every issue as you can get and who has been a consistent supporter of Palestine, understands this well enough that he has consistently advocated tactical voting for Democrats in any election where there is a meaningful race. This isn't because he particularly likes the Democrats. He has harshly criticised them, particularly on foreign policy, throughout his books. But when the only realistic choices in an election are a centrist (or even, if you feel the label applies better, a conservative) and an actual fascist, you choose the party that can defeat the fascist, no matter their flaws.
You could defend him by saying, he's a foreigner, it's understandable he doesn't know what he's talking about. But of course, as I pointed out, Watser can't even bring himself to make the far smaller compromise necessary to vote strategically in a proportional representation election.

The notion that someone who rejects every left-wing party in the Netherlands except for those with no hope of winning any seats has anywhere near a realistic handle on what's plausible in American politics is laughable. Yet he continually opines in the most idiotic way demonstrating little understanding of the American system or political dynamics. Hence why he could approvingly quote someone suggesting that the 2018 Senate map is trivial for Democrats to win... something he will not bother to defend because doing so might require him to actually learn how senate elections in the US work before spewing uninformed opinions. Anything that actually requires engaging with how elections actually work is something he will ignore, before repeating the same stupid ideas later.

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Old 01-23-2018, 12:02 AM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

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Ah, the fallacy of relative privation.
Followed by the fallacy of Shit I Didn't Actually Say or whatever the official name is.
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Old 01-23-2018, 12:05 AM
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Oh, is that the line we're waiting for? Don't worry, everyone, it's all fine and he's no worse than the Democrats because he hasn't started literally murdering political opponents yet!
I'm sorry dude, but that's pretty much the standard when you want to compare someone to Hitler in 1933.
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Old 01-23-2018, 12:12 AM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

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Ah, the fallacy of relative privation.
Followed by the fallacy of Shit I Didn't Actually Say or whatever the official name is.
K, adding reductio ad absurdum to the list of Shit You Don't Actually Understand, then.

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Originally Posted by Kael View Post
Oh, is that the line we're waiting for? Don't worry, everyone, it's all fine and he's no worse than the Democrats because he hasn't started literally murdering political opponents yet!
I'm sorry dude, but that's pretty much the standard when you want to compare someone to Hitler in 1933.
People have been murdered by Trump's minions - and I'm going to keep bringing up Heather Heyer until you acknowledge this. Trump doesn't actually possess the authority to keep the state from prosecuting them, because our constitution and democratic norms are substantially stabler than Germany's were in 1933's. A plausible argument can be made that, if he did possess that authority, he would have exercised it, particularly because he's repeatedly endorsed lynching black teenagers (the Central Park Five) for a crime they've been completely exonerated of. He still, AFAIK, hasn't even acknowledged their innocence or ever repudiated his argument to have them lynched.

This is basic U.S. civics, dude. Apart from pardons (which he can only issue for federal offences), the president does not possess any authority to intervene with the justice system, and in fact, if he even comments about an ongoing case, that can cause a mistrial (there was serious worry that Nixon's comments about Charles Manson would cause the latter to walk free, though fortunately, that didn't happen). The executive, legislative, and judicial branches are, at least in theory, separate things. The Republicans in the legislative branch have indicated they'll swallow just about anything up to polonium-210 from Trump, but he doesn't have control over the judiciary, particularly at a state level - for instance, as alluded to above, he cannot pardon anyone for state offences.

(To be fair, it's entirely possible that Trump may eventually attempt to deliberately throw the Heyer case with Nixon-like comments, but AFAIK it hasn't even gone to trial so far, so it's early days yet. And in any case, "saying prejudicial shit about a case" is still a completely different level of authority than "stopping it from going to trial at all.")

In short, you may wish to leave the discussion of U.S. politics to people who at least possess a rudimentary understanding of the structure of its government.
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Old 01-23-2018, 12:14 AM
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Default Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

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Ah, the fallacy of relative privation.
Followed by the fallacy of Shit I Didn't Actually Say or whatever the official name is.
Ah. So you naturally will be able to show where I Actually Said that Trump had refused to prosecute murderers who supported him.

Because apparently a comparison between Watser and the KPD necessitates that I think the situation is identical in all the particulars, including that Trump is just like Hitler, despite that being Shit I Didn't Actually Say, not even when I elaborated on the comparison.
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Just remind me, how many Democrat politicians and party members have been tortured and beaten to death by Trump's minions, after which the state refused to prosecute?
Putin has had political opponents and journalists murdered, and imprisoned human rights activists and sits by while one of his subordinates murders human rights activists and LGBT people.

Remind me, how am I worse than him? You seem to have no problem with that comparison. You jump in because I went too far, but passed right over that comparison, strangely enough.

It seems that I'm in for a lot of criticism (and be called a partisan hack) because I'll defend the Democrats as being better than Trump and the GOP, even though you can find plenty of instances of me criticizing Obama and other Democrats if you go through my posting history. But someone on your side warrants not a peep, not even a cover-your-ass to gesture at any form of objectivity to say "sure Watser's wrong too, but your comparison is still bad."

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