Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Sure there are:
williamglenn and TheKitchenCabinet
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
Even if that's true (and although many people may think that it's not something I've seen hard evidence for) it's hardly a case for Trump, per se.
It may be a case for a disrupter, but that relies on the disruptor in question not being so insane he could easily blow up the whole world by mistake. Which Trump could. Hence why he was only the second US president, after Nixon in 1974, to effectively have the nuclear codes taken off him.
There's disruption and there's lunacy. I would love to see the DfE shut down and all the idiots there begging for their bread. That doesn't mean I want the education system handed over to Dominic Cummings.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Sure there are:
williamglenn and TheKitchenCabinet
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
Even if that's true (and although many people may think that it's not something I've seen hard evidence for) it's hardly a case for Trump, per se.
It may be a case for a disrupter, but that relies on the disruptor in question not being so insane he could easily blow up the whole world by mistake. Which Trump could. Hence why he was only the second US president, after Nixon in 1974, to effectively have the nuclear codes taken off him.
There's disruption and there's lunacy. I would love to see the DfE shut down and all the idiots there begging for their bread. That doesn't mean I want the education system handed over to Dominic Cummings.
I can offer some disruptive policies, if you like.
My one on the black economy would, according to some, collapse entire industries. Who depend on sub-minimum wage employment, it seems.
'A public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal at the Post Office has produced enough evidence for police to investigate senior staff, according to lawyers for postmasters who were wrongly convicted of crimes including theft and fraud.
[...] Paul Marshall, a barrister who is representing post office operators in their continuing fight for compensation, said he believed that enough evidence had emerged for police to consider prosecuting former Post Office executives.
“On the face of it, the material is sufficient for the police to investigate whether, over a substantial period of time, the Post Office was engaged in perverting the course of justice or a conspiracy to pervert the courses of justice,” he told the Guardian.
“In my view, the Post Office was engaged in a sustained attack on the rule of law itself.”
Lawyers for the post office owner-managers reportedly want Sir Wyn Williams, chairman of the public inquiry into the scandal, to pass files to the director of public prosecutions once the inquiry is completed next year.'
The Times article I posted earlier gives more details.
"The Times can reveal that the Crown Prosecution Service has appointed Tom Little KC to oversee the case. He is one of six specialist barristers described as the “brightest and the best” who prosecute the most serious and complex cases. Sources said Little would be the “point man” in deciding who was investigated and prosecuted."
The police are getting the same evidence the inquiry is, along with the witness statements and the answers they give to the inquiry. Set against that is the fact that any conspiracy charge has to meet a high bar.
But here's hoping.
There are some days though when I feel that everyone involved, from Ministers down, should just be thrown in jail and have to show why they should be let out.
Yes, the mischief was being done at every level from the lowest to the highest, including the PO's legal and computer consultants. They all deserve to go to hell, never mind jail, but can they really be prosecuted before the Inquiry finishes? Isn't there a danger that further evidence will become availabe while the trials are in progress?
You know how the truth has been oozing out slowly so far. There may be a lot more incriminating evidence to come.
The case FOR Trump - it starts from the standpoint the existing political system doesn't deliver for many citizens let alone voters. That itself raises a number of questions among which would be what people "expect" from the political process - representation, economic growth, free money, strong public services? I'd argue all of them and perhaps none of them and therein lies the disconnection between politics and the people.
Politicians probably understand though none can or would say aloud the obvious truth is most people's demands or requirements of the political system are unachievable and often mutually contradictory. I've cited European levels of public services paid for by American levels of taxation - I'd also offer levels of services which would bankrupt all and any council which tried to impose them.
Yet turn the argument round - would you pay 60-65% of your salary in tax back to central and local authorities to provide good public services? I think we know the answer to that.
The second part of the case for Trump stems from seeing the failure of politics as being the failure of politicians - Trump cheerfully plays on the fact he is a businessman, an outsider and that feeds into the perception that if you think politics has failed, adopting an business-like ethos might be more successful. We've had strands of it over here - remember Jesse Norman? The truth is business people often fail in politics because they can't command and and cajole, they have to argue and convince and that doesn't come easily.
The success of populists like Trump and Milei starts from them acknowledging the failure of politics and politicians and putting up an anti-politics alternative where they are the "strong man" who can get things done once the drain is swamped or legislation suppressing normal political activity is enacted.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
I respectfully disagree. Trump in 2016 was an iconoclast. He challenged a very cosy consensus in Washington and the media. Some of his observations were sharp, some insane.
In 2023 the ratio is different. He has almost nothing to say about the many problems America faces. He has disgraced himself with Jan 6th. It is not about America anymore. It’s about him.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
I respectfully disagree. Trump in 2016 was an iconoclast. He challenged a very cosy consensus in Washington and the media. Some of his observations were sharp, some insane.
In 2023 the ratio is different. He has almost nothing to say about the many problems America faces. He has disgraced himself with Jan 6th. It is not about America anymore. It’s about him.
It was always about him.
The difference is, in 2016 it wasn't obvious. He had other things to say to hide the central message.
'A public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal at the Post Office has produced enough evidence for police to investigate senior staff, according to lawyers for postmasters who were wrongly convicted of crimes including theft and fraud.
[...] Paul Marshall, a barrister who is representing post office operators in their continuing fight for compensation, said he believed that enough evidence had emerged for police to consider prosecuting former Post Office executives.
“On the face of it, the material is sufficient for the police to investigate whether, over a substantial period of time, the Post Office was engaged in perverting the course of justice or a conspiracy to pervert the courses of justice,” he told the Guardian.
“In my view, the Post Office was engaged in a sustained attack on the rule of law itself.”
Lawyers for the post office owner-managers reportedly want Sir Wyn Williams, chairman of the public inquiry into the scandal, to pass files to the director of public prosecutions once the inquiry is completed next year.'
The Times article I posted earlier gives more details.
"The Times can reveal that the Crown Prosecution Service has appointed Tom Little KC to oversee the case. He is one of six specialist barristers described as the “brightest and the best” who prosecute the most serious and complex cases. Sources said Little would be the “point man” in deciding who was investigated and prosecuted."
The police are getting the same evidence the inquiry is, along with the witness statements and the answers they give to the inquiry. Set against that is the fact that any conspiracy charge has to meet a high bar.
But here's hoping.
There are some days though when I feel that everyone involved, from Ministers down, should just be thrown in jail and have to show why they should be let out.
Marshall appears to be a good guy, but that’s not really different from what he said back in 2022, presumably re-released because it’s topical with the ITV drama nearly upon us. Marshall got into trouble for passing legally confidential documentation to the police, leading to his resignation back in 2020.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
It is barely a case for Trump, let alone a thinking man's one. It is much more akin to cultlike apocalypse conspiracies. It doesn't survive basic intellectual scrutiny.
Re: Lauren Boebert switching districts, should have also noted that it's possible>likely that she will change her voting, and maybe actual, residence in Colorado from CO CD3 to CD4 before June primary.
Even IF she does not, she & her backers can make a good argument, that her current locale in the mountains of Western Slope is not as divergent from the high plains of Eastern Colorado.
This is especially true IF you put aside Rep. Boebert's (in)famous personal/political activities/antics.
For she is definitely NOT representative of Aspen, even though it's in her (current) district.
Instead of Rocky Mountain High Colorado of enviros, libtards & similar Woke-folk, she's kickin' her heals and kickin' ass for what you might call Shit-Kicker Colorado where economy is mainly based on agriculture, oil & gas & related.
Isn’t she yet another of our Leon’s hot tips that then crash and burn?
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
I respectfully disagree. Trump in 2016 was an iconoclast. He challenged a very cosy consensus in Washington and the media. Some of his observations were sharp, some insane.
In 2023 the ratio is different. He has almost nothing to say about the many problems America faces. He has disgraced himself with Jan 6th. It is not about America anymore. It’s about him.
It was always about him.
The difference is, in 2016 it wasn't obvious. He had other things to say to hide the central message.
Now it is obvious.
I think the difference is that in 2016 it wasn't just about him. He was a genuine voice for the disinherited, the alienated and the fleeced. All those that Washington and the establishment doesn't work for and they are many. Now... I've got nothing.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
Re: Lauren Boebert switching districts, should have also noted that it's possible>likely that she will change her voting, and maybe actual, residence in Colorado from CO CD3 to CD4 before June primary.
Even IF she does not, she & her backers can make a good argument, that her current locale in the mountains of Western Slope is not as divergent from the high plains of Eastern Colorado.
This is especially true IF you put aside Rep. Boebert's (in)famous personal/political activities/antics.
For she is definitely NOT representative of Aspen, even though it's in her (current) district.
Instead of Rocky Mountain High Colorado of enviros, libtards & similar Woke-folk, she's kickin' her heals and kickin' ass for what you might call Shit-Kicker Colorado where economy is mainly based on agriculture, oil & gas & related.
Isn’t she yet another of our Leon’s hot tips that then crash and burn?
No, I said she was quite sexy, which is somewhat different
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
Please explain how Trump's "soft authoritarianism" allows basics of liberalism to survive while eliminating "woke tyranny". And not in general vague terms. That isn't a thinking man's case. What are the specific liberal basics that survive under Trumpist authoritarianism and but die under wokist tyranny?
The difficulty in making a case for Trump (as opposed to against the Dems) is that it isn't clear what he stands for apart from personal revenge.
Disruption, is probably the long and short of it.
I remember hearing Kathy Burke talking about Brexit. Something along the lines of "It was the only battle the working class were offered and they took it. So they won the battle but lost the war."
Thanks for this comment: "Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism."
Which illustrates the argument that I was making, that US journalists are more and more biased against the Republican Party, and thus our journalists are an unreliable source of information.
But perhaps the writer and I have different definitions of modernity. For example, a series of Republican presidents worked to enforce our civil rights laws and extend them. (For example, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. But many US leftists think that such laws should be replaced by "affirmative action" (as it is often called), parcelling out jobs, admissions, and other valuables by group.
Or we may differ on the importance of education to modernity. President Reagan sounded the alarm with the "Nation at Risk" report. George H. W. Bush worked to rally governors to improve education, and his son got the "No Child Left Behind Act" through Congress. Republican governors, among them Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, have led successful efforts to improve education in their states.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Sure there are:
williamglenn and TheKitchenCabinet
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
Even if that's true (and although many people may think that it's not something I've seen hard evidence for) it's hardly a case for Trump, per se.
It may be a case for a disrupter, but that relies on the disruptor in question not being so insane he could easily blow up the whole world by mistake. Which Trump could. Hence why he was only the second US president, after Nixon in 1974, to effectively have the nuclear codes taken off him.
There's disruption and there's lunacy. I would love to see the DfE shut down and all the idiots there begging for their bread. That doesn't mean I want the education system handed over to Dominic Cummings.
I can offer some disruptive policies, if you like.
My one on the black economy would, according to some, collapse entire industries. Who depend on sub-minimum wage employment, it seems.
My space program might be more popular, though.
Just read, belatedly, the history of Blue Streak by John Boyes. Now we could have done with some Brits in space and on the moon, like that graphic novel I mentioned some months back ...
'A public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal at the Post Office has produced enough evidence for police to investigate senior staff, according to lawyers for postmasters who were wrongly convicted of crimes including theft and fraud.
[...] Paul Marshall, a barrister who is representing post office operators in their continuing fight for compensation, said he believed that enough evidence had emerged for police to consider prosecuting former Post Office executives.
“On the face of it, the material is sufficient for the police to investigate whether, over a substantial period of time, the Post Office was engaged in perverting the course of justice or a conspiracy to pervert the courses of justice,” he told the Guardian.
“In my view, the Post Office was engaged in a sustained attack on the rule of law itself.”
Lawyers for the post office owner-managers reportedly want Sir Wyn Williams, chairman of the public inquiry into the scandal, to pass files to the director of public prosecutions once the inquiry is completed next year.'
The Times article I posted earlier gives more details.
"The Times can reveal that the Crown Prosecution Service has appointed Tom Little KC to oversee the case. He is one of six specialist barristers described as the “brightest and the best” who prosecute the most serious and complex cases. Sources said Little would be the “point man” in deciding who was investigated and prosecuted."
The police are getting the same evidence the inquiry is, along with the witness statements and the answers they give to the inquiry. Set against that is the fact that any conspiracy charge has to meet a high bar.
But here's hoping.
There are some days though when I feel that everyone involved, from Ministers down, should just be thrown in jail and have to show why they should be let out.
Yes, the mischief was being done at every level from the lowest to the highest, including the PO's legal and computer consultants. They all deserve to go to hell, never mind jail, but can they really be prosecuted before the Inquiry finishes? Isn't there a danger that further evidence will become availabe while the trials are in progress?
You know how the truth has been oozing out slowly so far. There may be a lot more incriminating evidence to come.
It is unpleasantly reminiscent of the Tar Tunnel at Blist's Hill - no disrespect to the latter intended.
Off topic (but some will find this amusing): Las Vegas is looking forward to a huge number of weddings on the 31st. Why? Because, using the American convention, the date can be written 123123. Which should be easy for even the most forgetful husband to remember.
(Strunk and White say this is an excellent way of writing a date: 31 December 2023. And that's what I have been doing, whenever possible.)
I've taken to writing dates as 2023-12-31, because it is impossible to misinterpret.
Thanks for this comment: "Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism."
Which illustrates the argument that I was making, that US journalists are more and more biased against the Republican Party, and thus our journalists are an unreliable source of information.
But perhaps the writer and I have different definitions of modernity. For example, a series of Republican presidents worked to enforce our civil rights laws and extend them. (For example, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. But many US leftists think that such laws should be replaced by "affirmative action" (as it is often called), parcelling out jobs, admissions, and other valuables by group.
Or we may differ on the importance of education to modernity. President Reagan sounded the alarm with the "Nation at Risk" report. George H. W. Bush worked to rally governors to improve education, and his son got the "No Child Left Behind Act" through Congress. Republican governors, among them Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, have led successful efforts to improve education in their states.
Everything you say is true. There was a thinking case for GHWB, for Jeb, for Romney, even for GWB just about. But those are strands of conservatism that have now been entirely knocked aside for Trumpism. Trumpism has its roots in the dark apocalypticism of the evangelical "Conservative Movement" combined with the neanderthal right wing media "Own the Libs" philosophy of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.
Thanks for this comment: "Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism."
Which illustrates the argument that I was making, that US journalists are more and more biased against the Republican Party, and thus our journalists are an unreliable source of information.
But perhaps the writer and I have different definitions of modernity. For example, a series of Republican presidents worked to enforce our civil rights laws and extend them. (For example, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. But many US leftists think that such laws should be replaced by "affirmative action" (as it is often called), parcelling out jobs, admissions, and other valuables by group.
Or we may differ on the importance of education to modernity. President Reagan sounded the alarm with the "Nation at Risk" report. George H. W. Bush worked to rally governors to improve education, and his son got the "No Child Left Behind Act" through Congress. Republican governors, among them Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, have led successful efforts to improve education in their states.
People are saying that’s orange tarpaulin flapping in the wind…looks like it & doesn’t seem to be much smoke… But there are fire engines so must be I suppose
Loads of reporters are asking to use that footage. My money is on it being a wind up
Fire/flames are one of the tougher tasks any movie encoder has to do: so much so, such videos were a significant component of the test suites we had back when I was doing STBs. What we see there might be a tarpaulin, or it might just be artificats of the MPEG encoding of a heavily-zoomed image. Need better images to tell.
Loads of fire engines there now, and the Fire brigade account is talking about it, so must surely be a legitimate fire.
That's CNN. Washington Post, and Politico in the last few weeks (or days)
None of this means ET has been a visiting; it does mean the US government is behaving in ways which are absolutely unprecedented in regards to this issue, disclosing (inter alia) that there really is stuff in the sky they cannot explain. They have yet to explain it
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
Apropos of nothing, I was doing some research on the 14th Amendment earlier and I came across this rather interesting article about it from 2021 (so before it was used in Colorado but not before the Capitol riots):
1) It's self executing; 2) It was intended to include the presidency; 3) It wasn't intended to require people to be actually convicted of a crime to be put into effect. Indeed, Jefferson Davis used it to argue he'd already been punished so shouldn't be tried for treason; 4) It's always been twisted to suit whatever agenda the judge had - a rather hilarious anecdote about how Cleveland's attorney general cited his own exemption under it to allow others amnesty from it is the best example, but Chase's ruling on Griffin is even more stark; 5) It's an obscure part of the constitution nobody cares about but is interesting for all that.
The last part has not aged well but the rest seems highly relevant. In particular, it explains the thinking of the judges in Colorado that they could declare Trump guilty of treason for this purpose without a jury trial, which I've been vocal in my unhappiness about.
And one more: Perhaps the writer and I differ on the importance of reducing nuclear stockpiles to modernity. That effort was strengthened when President Reagan argued for the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons entirely. His successor, George H. W. Bush, negotiated by far the largest decrease in the weapons. With that momentum, President Clinton was able to negotiate another decrease, as did George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.
Now, here's a significant fact: When the Obama decrease was negotiated, Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat wrote that this was something that George W. Bush never would have done. Except that Bush had -- and his decrease was somewhat larger than Obama's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Offensive_Reductions_Treaty
Apparently, Westneat was so captive to his biases that he never bothered to check -- which took me just minutes.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
Not necessarily. 'What is the problem' and 'Trump is the answer' fit together quite neatly.
Re: Lauren Boebert switching districts, should have also noted that it's possible>likely that she will change her voting, and maybe actual, residence in Colorado from CO CD3 to CD4 before June primary.
Even IF she does not, she & her backers can make a good argument, that her current locale in the mountains of Western Slope is not as divergent from the high plains of Eastern Colorado.
This is especially true IF you put aside Rep. Boebert's (in)famous personal/political activities/antics.
For she is definitely NOT representative of Aspen, even though it's in her (current) district.
Instead of Rocky Mountain High Colorado of enviros, libtards & similar Woke-folk, she's kickin' her heals and kickin' ass for what you might call Shit-Kicker Colorado where economy is mainly based on agriculture, oil & gas & related.
Isn’t she yet another of our Leon’s hot tips that then crash and burn?
No, I said she was quite sexy, which is somewhat different
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
Please explain how Trump's "soft authoritarianism" allows basics of liberalism to survive while eliminating "woke tyranny". And not in general vague terms. That isn't a thinking man's case. What are the specific liberal basics that survive under Trumpist authoritarianism and but die under wokist tyranny?
Trumpism is indistinguishable from conventional conservatism in that it seeks to put some basics in place, like having meaningful borders, dealing with illegal immigration. Not getting involved in wars based on temporary popular whims but with no strategic purpose. Having a realistic view of other countries and not being distracted by naïve notions of correcting historic injustice, or obsessed with utopian visions of progress. Trump is offering a vision of 'back to normal' to his followers. They think that, because the state is not on a mission to correct some flaws in the human condition, there is likely to be more individual freedom, just as there is in practice in Russia, but with a different set of limits. People go along with this and will vote for it, because they are tired of the current lot of progressive overlords who have fallen in to the trap of focussing on certain favoured minorities at the expense of normal people that go to work etc. It is just business as usual for most people, the usual left/right choice. I won't be surprised if Trump gets elected.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Sure there are:
williamglenn and TheKitchenCabinet
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
Even if that's true (and although many people may think that it's not something I've seen hard evidence for) it's hardly a case for Trump, per se.
It may be a case for a disrupter, but that relies on the disruptor in question not being so insane he could easily blow up the whole world by mistake. Which Trump could. Hence why he was only the second US president, after Nixon in 1974, to effectively have the nuclear codes taken off him.
There's disruption and there's lunacy. I would love to see the DfE shut down and all the idiots there begging for their bread. That doesn't mean I want the education system handed over to Dominic Cummings.
I can offer some disruptive policies, if you like.
My one on the black economy would, according to some, collapse entire industries. Who depend on sub-minimum wage employment, it seems.
My space program might be more popular, though.
Just read, belatedly, the history of Blue Streak by John Boyes. Now we could have done with some Brits in space and on the moon, like that graphic novel I mentioned some months back ...
Blue Streak was a farce before the specification was written. A missile that would be destroyed in any attack before it was launched.
The whole HTP dead end was a classic of Whitehall insisting on using a unique technology because…. Something.
Edit : the reason I mentioned the HTP comedy was that it was the dead end for Black Arrow.
'A public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal at the Post Office has produced enough evidence for police to investigate senior staff, according to lawyers for postmasters who were wrongly convicted of crimes including theft and fraud.
[...] Paul Marshall, a barrister who is representing post office operators in their continuing fight for compensation, said he believed that enough evidence had emerged for police to consider prosecuting former Post Office executives.
“On the face of it, the material is sufficient for the police to investigate whether, over a substantial period of time, the Post Office was engaged in perverting the course of justice or a conspiracy to pervert the courses of justice,” he told the Guardian.
“In my view, the Post Office was engaged in a sustained attack on the rule of law itself.”
Lawyers for the post office owner-managers reportedly want Sir Wyn Williams, chairman of the public inquiry into the scandal, to pass files to the director of public prosecutions once the inquiry is completed next year.'
The Times article I posted earlier gives more details.
"The Times can reveal that the Crown Prosecution Service has appointed Tom Little KC to oversee the case. He is one of six specialist barristers described as the “brightest and the best” who prosecute the most serious and complex cases. Sources said Little would be the “point man” in deciding who was investigated and prosecuted."
The police are getting the same evidence the inquiry is, along with the witness statements and the answers they give to the inquiry. Set against that is the fact that any conspiracy charge has to meet a high bar.
But here's hoping.
There are some days though when I feel that everyone involved, from Ministers down, should just be thrown in jail and have to show why they should be let out.
Yes, the mischief was being done at every level from the lowest to the highest, including the PO's legal and computer consultants. They all deserve to go to hell, never mind jail, but can they really be prosecuted before the Inquiry finishes? Isn't there a danger that further evidence will become availabe while the trials are in progress?
You know how the truth has been oozing out slowly so far. There may be a lot more incriminating evidence to come.
The Inquiry Report is due in 2024 so prosecutions can happen after that.
There is plenty of other stuff that can be done. And should be done.
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board should be looking at taking disciplinary action against many of the lawyers involved, internal and external. - The award given to Ben Foat, the PO GC, for Best In-House Legal Team should be removed from him given the PO's continuing disclosure failings. - The investigators still employed should be dismissed or retired. The entire investigative function needs to be rebuilt from scratch. - The Business Select Committee should be asking - urgently - why the PO has just announced that it is reducing the amount set aside for compensation for the subpostmasters. - It should hold an urgent and speedy inquiry into whether Badenoch and Hollinrake misled them over their knowledge of the Board's bonus scheme. There is strong evidence to suggest they did. - There should be a separate speedy independent inquiry into what went on with the Bonus scheme and the misleading statements published by the Board, including whether there is evidence of fraud by abuse of position. The internal report is worthless. - Paula Vennells should have her CBE removed. - Some of the directors of the PO during this period should be investigated to see if they can be disbarred from being directors. - The external law firms advising the PO with regard to any aspect of this matter should be told that they are off all panels of any kind for any public sector work. That decision may be revisited if and when they cough up compensation which must be at least equivalent to the fees earned by them from the Post Office. That will hit Slaughter and May and Herbert Smith Freehills. Too bad. - Anyone associated with Fujitsu during this period should be removed from any public sector post and told they will not be considered for any such posts in the future. - The government should pass a law overturning all PO convictions of subpostmasters 2000 - 2016, including those of people who have died before they could receive justice. - The provision treating computer evidence as automatically true should be revisited and, this time, the government should insist that IT specialists be involved in assessing the best way forward.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
Please explain how Trump's "soft authoritarianism" allows basics of liberalism to survive while eliminating "woke tyranny". And not in general vague terms. That isn't a thinking man's case. What are the specific liberal basics that survive under Trumpist authoritarianism and but die under wokist tyranny?
Trumpism is indistinguishable from conventional conservatism in that it seeks to put some basics in place, like having meaningful borders, dealing with illegal immigration. Not getting involved in wars based on temporary popular whims but with no strategic purpose. Having a realistic view of other countries and not being distracted by naïve notions of correcting historic injustice, or obsessed with utopian visions of progress. Trump is offering a vision of 'back to normal' to his followers. They think that, because the state is not on a mission to correct some flaws in the human condition, there is likely to be more individual freedom, just as there is in practice in Russia, but with a different set of limits. People go along with this and will vote for it, because they are tired of the current lot of progressive overlords who have fallen in to the trap of focussing on certain favoured minorities at the expense of normal people that go to work etc. It is just business as usual for most people, the usual left/right choice. I won't be surprised if Trump gets elected.
People are saying that’s orange tarpaulin flapping in the wind…looks like it & doesn’t seem to be much smoke… But there are fire engines so must be I suppose
Loads of reporters are asking to use that footage. My money is on it being a wind up
Fire/flames are one of the tougher tasks any movie encoder has to do: so much so, such videos were a significant component of the test suites we had back when I was doing STBs. What we see there might be a tarpaulin, or it might just be artificats of the MPEG encoding of a heavily-zoomed image. Need better images to tell.
Loads of fire engines there now, and the Fire brigade account is talking about it, so must surely be a legitimate fire.
That's CNN. Washington Post, and Politico in the last few weeks (or days)
None of this means ET has been a visiting; it does mean the US government is behaving in ways which are absolutely unprecedented in regards to this issue, disclosing (inter alia) that there really is stuff in the sky they cannot explain. They have yet to explain it
I thought this was going to be the year of the big reveal? Clock is ticking… Not going to happen. It’s all just misidentification combined with dishones5 actors. There is serious cash to be made peddling stories of hidden government projects on captured UFOs.
It’s also possible to ascribe US politicians with more intelligence than our British cohort… Truth is I expect there are enough conspiracy nuts in government to believe the tales of the hucksters.
Re: Lauren Boebert switching districts, should have also noted that it's possible>likely that she will change her voting, and maybe actual, residence in Colorado from CO CD3 to CD4 before June primary.
Even IF she does not, she & her backers can make a good argument, that her current locale in the mountains of Western Slope is not as divergent from the high plains of Eastern Colorado.
This is especially true IF you put aside Rep. Boebert's (in)famous personal/political activities/antics.
For she is definitely NOT representative of Aspen, even though it's in her (current) district.
Instead of Rocky Mountain High Colorado of enviros, libtards & similar Woke-folk, she's kickin' her heals and kickin' ass for what you might call Shit-Kicker Colorado where economy is mainly based on agriculture, oil & gas & related.
Isn’t she yet another of our Leon’s hot tips that then crash and burn?
No, I said she was quite sexy, which is somewhat different
Should've gone to Specsavers
No, she’s definitely hot. Looks like she enjoys sex. I appreciate her sass
She’s on the right here (in all senses)
This is not a partisan issue. I also think AOC is genuinely beautiful - I wish I didn’t because she soooooooo annoys me, however it is the case. She’s a proper looker
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
I respectfully disagree. Trump in 2016 was an iconoclast. He challenged a very cosy consensus in Washington and the media. Some of his observations were sharp, some insane.
In 2023 the ratio is different. He has almost nothing to say about the many problems America faces. He has disgraced himself with Jan 6th. It is not about America anymore. It’s about him.
It was always about him.
The difference is, in 2016 it wasn't obvious. He had other things to say to hide the central message.
Now it is obvious.
I think the difference is that in 2016 it wasn't just about him. He was a genuine voice for the disinherited, the alienated and the fleeced. All those that Washington and the establishment doesn't work for and they are many. Now... I've got nothing.
How is a multi millionaire grifter, whose priority was tax cuts for the wealthy, ever a voice for the dispossessed and the outsider ?
US politics would be far healthier if there were a genuine alternative to a fairly sclerotic Democratic establishment (and equally so traditional Republican rump).
The current GOP mainstream is an ongoing dumpster fire.
Mississippi scored slightly higher than California in the latest 4th grade reading tests. Considering how much poorer the state is, and how much less educated the population is, that's astonishing.
'A public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal at the Post Office has produced enough evidence for police to investigate senior staff, according to lawyers for postmasters who were wrongly convicted of crimes including theft and fraud.
[...] Paul Marshall, a barrister who is representing post office operators in their continuing fight for compensation, said he believed that enough evidence had emerged for police to consider prosecuting former Post Office executives.
“On the face of it, the material is sufficient for the police to investigate whether, over a substantial period of time, the Post Office was engaged in perverting the course of justice or a conspiracy to pervert the courses of justice,” he told the Guardian.
“In my view, the Post Office was engaged in a sustained attack on the rule of law itself.”
Lawyers for the post office owner-managers reportedly want Sir Wyn Williams, chairman of the public inquiry into the scandal, to pass files to the director of public prosecutions once the inquiry is completed next year.'
The Times article I posted earlier gives more details.
"The Times can reveal that the Crown Prosecution Service has appointed Tom Little KC to oversee the case. He is one of six specialist barristers described as the “brightest and the best” who prosecute the most serious and complex cases. Sources said Little would be the “point man” in deciding who was investigated and prosecuted."
The police are getting the same evidence the inquiry is, along with the witness statements and the answers they give to the inquiry. Set against that is the fact that any conspiracy charge has to meet a high bar.
But here's hoping.
There are some days though when I feel that everyone involved, from Ministers down, should just be thrown in jail and have to show why they should be let out.
Yes, the mischief was being done at every level from the lowest to the highest, including the PO's legal and computer consultants. They all deserve to go to hell, never mind jail, but can they really be prosecuted before the Inquiry finishes? Isn't there a danger that further evidence will become availabe while the trials are in progress?
You know how the truth has been oozing out slowly so far. There may be a lot more incriminating evidence to come.
The Inquiry Report is due in 2024 so prosecutions can happen after that.
There is plenty of other stuff that can be done. And should be done.
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board should be looking at taking disciplinary action against many of the lawyers involved, internal and external. - The award given to Ben Foat, the PO GC, for Best In-House Legal Team should be removed from him given the PO's continuing disclosure failings. - The investigators still employed should be dismissed or retired. The entire investigative function needs to be rebuilt from scratch. - The Business Select Committee should be asking - urgently - why the PO has just announced that it is reducing the amount set aside for compensation for the subpostmasters. - It should hold an urgent and speedy inquiry into whether Badenoch and Hollinrake misled them over their knowledge of the Board's bonus scheme. There is strong evidence to suggest they did. - There should be a separate speedy independent inquiry into what went on with the Bonus scheme and the misleading statements published by the Board, including whether there is evidence of fraud by abuse of position. The internal report is worthless. - Paula Vennells should have her CBE removed. - Some of the directors of the PO during this period should be investigated to see if they can be disbarred from being directors. - The external law firms advising the PO with regard to any aspect of this matter should be told that they are off all panels of any kind for any public sector work. That decision may be revisited if and when they cough up compensation which must be at least equivalent to the fees earned by them from the Post Office. That will hit Slaughter and May and Herbert Smith Freehills. Too bad. - Anyone associated with Fujitsu during this period should be removed from any public sector post and told they will not be considered for any such posts in the future. - The government should pass a law overturning all PO convictions of subpostmasters 2000 - 2016, including those of people who have died before they could receive justice. - The provision treating computer evidence as automatically true should be revisited and, this time, the government should insist that IT specialists be involved in assessing the best way forward.
And so on.
Agree with all of that except the "Anyone associated with Fujitsu during this period..." part, which is far too draconian and would sweep up lots of innocent people.
People are saying that’s orange tarpaulin flapping in the wind…looks like it & doesn’t seem to be much smoke… But there are fire engines so must be I suppose
Loads of reporters are asking to use that footage. My money is on it being a wind up
Fire/flames are one of the tougher tasks any movie encoder has to do: so much so, such videos were a significant component of the test suites we had back when I was doing STBs. What we see there might be a tarpaulin, or it might just be artificats of the MPEG encoding of a heavily-zoomed image. Need better images to tell.
Loads of fire engines there now, and the Fire brigade account is talking about it, so must surely be a legitimate fire.
That's CNN. Washington Post, and Politico in the last few weeks (or days)
None of this means ET has been a visiting; it does mean the US government is behaving in ways which are absolutely unprecedented in regards to this issue, disclosing (inter alia) that there really is stuff in the sky they cannot explain. They have yet to explain it
I thought this was going to be the year of the big reveal? Clock is ticking… Not going to happen. It’s all just misidentification combined with dishones5 actors. There is serious cash to be made peddling stories of hidden government projects on captured UFOs.
It’s also possible to ascribe US politicians with more intelligence than our British cohort… Truth is I expect there are enough conspiracy nuts in government to believe the tales of the hucksters.
No one ever said 2023 was gonna be the year of the final big reveal, however more has been revealed than anyone ever anticipated, esp with the Grusch testimonial at Congress
Of course it could all be a flap (tho that becomes ever harder to sustain as an explanation) but it is now the biggest flap ever and shows no signs of stopping
I still adhere to the explanations given in the Spectator article on this (in descending order of likelihood):
"1. The US establishment – Pentagon to press – is engaged in a complex cross-party conspiracy of psyops to unnerve and mystify America’s adversaries, especially the Chinese. Perhaps they want to convince them America possesses advanced alien technology, and America has been reverse engineering it for decades.
2. The US establishment has some incredible new military tech – something truly astonishing, like anti-gravity aircraft – and they’ve had it for ages, and they want to hide it from everyone: Americans as much as the Chinese.
3. The US establishment has gone collectively mad, or is suffering some mass hallucination, stemming from a few credulous individuals (a process known in psychology as ‘contagion’).
4. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – but they’re wrong.
5. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – and they are right. "
Shows what a working class lad from Wakefield can do. I think the most interesting item was that the audience were quite happy to see a toaster being beaten up but not Spot the AI machine.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
Please explain how Trump's "soft authoritarianism" allows basics of liberalism to survive while eliminating "woke tyranny". And not in general vague terms. That isn't a thinking man's case. What are the specific liberal basics that survive under Trumpist authoritarianism and but die under wokist tyranny?
Trumpism is indistinguishable from conventional conservatism in that it seeks to put some basics in place, like having meaningful borders, dealing with illegal immigration. Not getting involved in wars based on temporary popular whims but with no strategic purpose. Having a realistic view of other countries and not being distracted by naïve notions of correcting historic injustice, or obsessed with utopian visions of progress. Trump is offering a vision of 'back to normal' to his followers. They think that, because the state is not on a mission to correct some flaws in the human condition, there is likely to be more individual freedom, just as there is in practice in Russia, but with a different set of limits. People go along with this and will vote for it, because they are tired of the current lot of progressive overlords who have fallen in to the trap of focussing on certain favoured minorities at the expense of normal people that go to work etc. It is just business as usual for most people, the usual left/right choice. I won't be surprised if Trump gets elected.
I am more sympathetic to your position than most on here. Probably because, like you, I see the menace of the American Left and Wokery for what it is, and how lethal it is to Western values and how corrosive of what makes the West strong
Nonetheless I have to draw the line at Trump. He is still just a bit too mad and malignant, for me, a more proximate danger even than Wokeness
However I can totally understand why so many sane Americans believe Trump, for all his faults, is better than the mad Democrat Left: hence the polls
Thanks for this comment: "Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism."
Which illustrates the argument that I was making, that US journalists are more and more biased against the Republican Party, and thus our journalists are an unreliable source of information.
But perhaps the writer and I have different definitions of modernity. For example, a series of Republican presidents worked to enforce our civil rights laws and extend them. (For example, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. But many US leftists think that such laws should be replaced by "affirmative action" (as it is often called), parcelling out jobs, admissions, and other valuables by group.
Or we may differ on the importance of education to modernity. President Reagan sounded the alarm with the "Nation at Risk" report. George H. W. Bush worked to rally governors to improve education, and his son got the "No Child Left Behind Act" through Congress. Republican governors, among them Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, have led successful efforts to improve education in their states.
Are US journalists more and more biased against the GOP, or has the GOP moved more and more beyond democratic norms? You talk of Reagan: he would be spinning in his grave at the many Republicans praising Putin. You talk of Bush snr. He would be horrified by Trump's abuses of the system. You praise Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney. Romney says he won't vote for Trump, and I doubt Jeb! will either.
The Republican Party of Reagan, the Bushes and Romney is barely there any more. That "40-year strategy to wage war on modernity" is not a critique perhaps of the Republican Party in its entirety, but of a tendency within the party that has become dominant and incarnate in Trump.
'A public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal at the Post Office has produced enough evidence for police to investigate senior staff, according to lawyers for postmasters who were wrongly convicted of crimes including theft and fraud.
[...] Paul Marshall, a barrister who is representing post office operators in their continuing fight for compensation, said he believed that enough evidence had emerged for police to consider prosecuting former Post Office executives.
“On the face of it, the material is sufficient for the police to investigate whether, over a substantial period of time, the Post Office was engaged in perverting the course of justice or a conspiracy to pervert the courses of justice,” he told the Guardian.
“In my view, the Post Office was engaged in a sustained attack on the rule of law itself.”
Lawyers for the post office owner-managers reportedly want Sir Wyn Williams, chairman of the public inquiry into the scandal, to pass files to the director of public prosecutions once the inquiry is completed next year.'
The Times article I posted earlier gives more details.
"The Times can reveal that the Crown Prosecution Service has appointed Tom Little KC to oversee the case. He is one of six specialist barristers described as the “brightest and the best” who prosecute the most serious and complex cases. Sources said Little would be the “point man” in deciding who was investigated and prosecuted."
The police are getting the same evidence the inquiry is, along with the witness statements and the answers they give to the inquiry. Set against that is the fact that any conspiracy charge has to meet a high bar.
But here's hoping.
There are some days though when I feel that everyone involved, from Ministers down, should just be thrown in jail and have to show why they should be let out.
Yes, the mischief was being done at every level from the lowest to the highest, including the PO's legal and computer consultants. They all deserve to go to hell, never mind jail, but can they really be prosecuted before the Inquiry finishes? Isn't there a danger that further evidence will become availabe while the trials are in progress?
You know how the truth has been oozing out slowly so far. There may be a lot more incriminating evidence to come.
The Inquiry Report is due in 2024 so prosecutions can happen after that.
There is plenty of other stuff that can be done. And should be done.
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board should be looking at taking disciplinary action against many of the lawyers involved, internal and external. - The award given to Ben Foat, the PO GC, for Best In-House Legal Team should be removed from him given the PO's continuing disclosure failings. - The investigators still employed should be dismissed or retired. The entire investigative function needs to be rebuilt from scratch. - The Business Select Committee should be asking - urgently - why the PO has just announced that it is reducing the amount set aside for compensation for the subpostmasters. - It should hold an urgent and speedy inquiry into whether Badenoch and Hollinrake misled them over their knowledge of the Board's bonus scheme. There is strong evidence to suggest they did. - There should be a separate speedy independent inquiry into what went on with the Bonus scheme and the misleading statements published by the Board, including whether there is evidence of fraud by abuse of position. The internal report is worthless. - Paula Vennells should have her CBE removed. - Some of the directors of the PO during this period should be investigated to see if they can be disbarred from being directors. - The external law firms advising the PO with regard to any aspect of this matter should be told that they are off all panels of any kind for any public sector work. That decision may be revisited if and when they cough up compensation which must be at least equivalent to the fees earned by them from the Post Office. That will hit Slaughter and May and Herbert Smith Freehills. Too bad. - Anyone associated with Fujitsu during this period should be removed from any public sector post and told they will not be considered for any such posts in the future. - The government should pass a law overturning all PO convictions of subpostmasters 2000 - 2016, including those of people who have died before they could receive justice. - The provision treating computer evidence as automatically true should be revisited and, this time, the government should insist that IT specialists be involved in assessing the best way forward.
And so on.
Agree with all of that except the "Anyone associated with Fujitsu during this period..." part, which is far too draconian and would sweep up lots of innocent people.
Also Gillian Keegan, by association.
She got very mad indeed when her husband was accused of being involved in Horizon.
Turns out he wasn't, although if he he's happy to work for Fujitsu I wouldn't take it as a sparkling character reference.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
'A public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal at the Post Office has produced enough evidence for police to investigate senior staff, according to lawyers for postmasters who were wrongly convicted of crimes including theft and fraud.
[...] Paul Marshall, a barrister who is representing post office operators in their continuing fight for compensation, said he believed that enough evidence had emerged for police to consider prosecuting former Post Office executives.
“On the face of it, the material is sufficient for the police to investigate whether, over a substantial period of time, the Post Office was engaged in perverting the course of justice or a conspiracy to pervert the courses of justice,” he told the Guardian.
“In my view, the Post Office was engaged in a sustained attack on the rule of law itself.”
Lawyers for the post office owner-managers reportedly want Sir Wyn Williams, chairman of the public inquiry into the scandal, to pass files to the director of public prosecutions once the inquiry is completed next year.'
The Times article I posted earlier gives more details.
"The Times can reveal that the Crown Prosecution Service has appointed Tom Little KC to oversee the case. He is one of six specialist barristers described as the “brightest and the best” who prosecute the most serious and complex cases. Sources said Little would be the “point man” in deciding who was investigated and prosecuted."
The police are getting the same evidence the inquiry is, along with the witness statements and the answers they give to the inquiry. Set against that is the fact that any conspiracy charge has to meet a high bar.
But here's hoping.
There are some days though when I feel that everyone involved, from Ministers down, should just be thrown in jail and have to show why they should be let out.
Yes, the mischief was being done at every level from the lowest to the highest, including the PO's legal and computer consultants. They all deserve to go to hell, never mind jail, but can they really be prosecuted before the Inquiry finishes? Isn't there a danger that further evidence will become availabe while the trials are in progress?
You know how the truth has been oozing out slowly so far. There may be a lot more incriminating evidence to come.
The Inquiry Report is due in 2024 so prosecutions can happen after that.
There is plenty of other stuff that can be done. And should be done.
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board should be looking at taking disciplinary action against many of the lawyers involved, internal and external. - The award given to Ben Foat, the PO GC, for Best In-House Legal Team should be removed from him given the PO's continuing disclosure failings. - The investigators still employed should be dismissed or retired. The entire investigative function needs to be rebuilt from scratch. - The Business Select Committee should be asking - urgently - why the PO has just announced that it is reducing the amount set aside for compensation for the subpostmasters. - It should hold an urgent and speedy inquiry into whether Badenoch and Hollinrake misled them over their knowledge of the Board's bonus scheme. There is strong evidence to suggest they did. - There should be a separate speedy independent inquiry into what went on with the Bonus scheme and the misleading statements published by the Board, including whether there is evidence of fraud by abuse of position. The internal report is worthless. - Paula Vennells should have her CBE removed. - Some of the directors of the PO during this period should be investigated to see if they can be disbarred from being directors. - The external law firms advising the PO with regard to any aspect of this matter should be told that they are off all panels of any kind for any public sector work. That decision may be revisited if and when they cough up compensation which must be at least equivalent to the fees earned by them from the Post Office. That will hit Slaughter and May and Herbert Smith Freehills. Too bad. - Anyone associated with Fujitsu during this period should be removed from any public sector post and told they will not be considered for any such posts in the future. - The government should pass a law overturning all PO convictions of subpostmasters 2000 - 2016, including those of people who have died before they could receive justice. - The provision treating computer evidence as automatically true should be revisited and, this time, the government should insist that IT specialists be involved in assessing the best way forward.
And so on.
Agree with all of that except the "Anyone associated with Fujitsu during this period..." part, which is far too draconian and would sweep up lots of innocent people.
I will amend it to anyone associated with Fujitsu who worked in any way on the Post Office contract should be out.
I am utterly fed up with the incompetent, the malicious, the second rate getting away with their behaviour and just moving on. Far too many of them around. It is one reason why so much of what we do in this country is so shit, why we have such a poverty of expectations, why it comes as an unexpected bonus when things work, people behave well, take responsibility etc.,.
I am, I'm afraid, in a "pour encourager les autres" mood over this so that we start moving the needle back to somewhere close to where it should be.
Apropos of nothing, I was doing some research on the 14th Amendment earlier and I came across this rather interesting article about it from 2021 (so before it was used in Colorado but not before the Capitol riots):
1) It's self executing; 2) It was intended to include the presidency; 3) It wasn't intended to require people to be actually convicted of a crime to be put into effect. Indeed, Jefferson Davis used it to argue he'd already been punished so shouldn't be tried for treason; 4) It's always been twisted to suit whatever agenda the judge had - a rather hilarious anecdote about how Cleveland's attorney general cited his own exemption under it to allow others amnesty from it is the best example, but Chase's ruling on Griffin is even more stark; 5) It's an obscure part of the constitution nobody cares about but is interesting for all that.
The last part has not aged well but the rest seems highly relevant. In particular, it explains the thinking of the judges in Colorado that they could declare Trump guilty of treason for this purpose without a jury trial, which I've been vocal in my unhappiness about.
There's a genuine due process issue around the Colorado court's finding of fact (which is how the Supreme Court might set it aside). But it's no good calling it 'obscure' as an argument against the legal validity of the law itself (or of states' rights to apply it).
As I've noted before, it's a politically uncomfortable ruling for both parties.
It's also fair to note that Trump is doing everything he can to frustrate any actual trial of his part in an alleged coup before next year's election.
And Trump's immunity argument is absurd on its face.
Apropos of nothing, I was doing some research on the 14th Amendment earlier and I came across this rather interesting article about it from 2021 (so before it was used in Colorado but not before the Capitol riots):
1) It's self executing; 2) It was intended to include the presidency; 3) It wasn't intended to require people to be actually convicted of a crime to be put into effect. Indeed, Jefferson Davis used it to argue he'd already been punished so shouldn't be tried for treason; 4) It's always been twisted to suit whatever agenda the judge had - a rather hilarious anecdote about how Cleveland's attorney general cited his own exemption under it to allow others amnesty from it is the best example, but Chase's ruling on Griffin is even more stark; 5) It's an obscure part of the constitution nobody cares about but is interesting for all that.
The last part has not aged well but the rest seems highly relevant. In particular, it explains the thinking of the judges in Colorado that they could declare Trump guilty of treason for this purpose without a jury trial, which I've been vocal in my unhappiness about.
There's a genuine due process issue around the Colorado court's finding of fact (which is how the Supreme Court might set it aside). But it's no good calling it 'obscure' as an argument against the legal validity of the law itself (or of states' rights to apply it).
As I've noted before, it's a politically uncomfortable ruling for both parties.
It's also fair to note that Trump is doing everything he can to frustrate any actual trial of his part in an alleged coup before next year's election.
And Trump's immunity argument is absurd on its face.
It's almost as absurd as his face.
If presidents were immune, there would be no need for an impeachment process.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
I respectfully disagree. Trump in 2016 was an iconoclast. He challenged a very cosy consensus in Washington and the media. Some of his observations were sharp, some insane.
In 2023 the ratio is different. He has almost nothing to say about the many problems America faces. He has disgraced himself with Jan 6th. It is not about America anymore. It’s about him.
It was always about him.
The difference is, in 2016 it wasn't obvious. He had other things to say to hide the central message.
Now it is obvious.
I think the difference is that in 2016 it wasn't just about him. He was a genuine voice for the disinherited, the alienated and the fleeced. All those that Washington and the establishment doesn't work for and they are many. Now... I've got nothing.
How is a multi millionaire grifter, whose priority was tax cuts for the wealthy, ever a voice for the dispossessed and the outsider ?
US politics would be far healthier if there were a genuine alternative to a fairly sclerotic Democratic establishment (and equally so traditional Republican rump).
The current GOP mainstream is an ongoing dumpster fire.
Not saying he was. Just that he could articulate and channel their resentment better than anyone else. I think he has lost that now.
'A public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal at the Post Office has produced enough evidence for police to investigate senior staff, according to lawyers for postmasters who were wrongly convicted of crimes including theft and fraud.
[...] Paul Marshall, a barrister who is representing post office operators in their continuing fight for compensation, said he believed that enough evidence had emerged for police to consider prosecuting former Post Office executives.
“On the face of it, the material is sufficient for the police to investigate whether, over a substantial period of time, the Post Office was engaged in perverting the course of justice or a conspiracy to pervert the courses of justice,” he told the Guardian.
“In my view, the Post Office was engaged in a sustained attack on the rule of law itself.”
Lawyers for the post office owner-managers reportedly want Sir Wyn Williams, chairman of the public inquiry into the scandal, to pass files to the director of public prosecutions once the inquiry is completed next year.'
The Times article I posted earlier gives more details.
"The Times can reveal that the Crown Prosecution Service has appointed Tom Little KC to oversee the case. He is one of six specialist barristers described as the “brightest and the best” who prosecute the most serious and complex cases. Sources said Little would be the “point man” in deciding who was investigated and prosecuted."
The police are getting the same evidence the inquiry is, along with the witness statements and the answers they give to the inquiry. Set against that is the fact that any conspiracy charge has to meet a high bar.
But here's hoping.
There are some days though when I feel that everyone involved, from Ministers down, should just be thrown in jail and have to show why they should be let out.
Yes, the mischief was being done at every level from the lowest to the highest, including the PO's legal and computer consultants. They all deserve to go to hell, never mind jail, but can they really be prosecuted before the Inquiry finishes? Isn't there a danger that further evidence will become availabe while the trials are in progress?
You know how the truth has been oozing out slowly so far. There may be a lot more incriminating evidence to come.
The Inquiry Report is due in 2024 so prosecutions can happen after that.
There is plenty of other stuff that can be done. And should be done.
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board should be looking at taking disciplinary action against many of the lawyers involved, internal and external. - The award given to Ben Foat, the PO GC, for Best In-House Legal Team should be removed from him given the PO's continuing disclosure failings. - The investigators still employed should be dismissed or retired. The entire investigative function needs to be rebuilt from scratch. - The Business Select Committee should be asking - urgently - why the PO has just announced that it is reducing the amount set aside for compensation for the subpostmasters. - It should hold an urgent and speedy inquiry into whether Badenoch and Hollinrake misled them over their knowledge of the Board's bonus scheme. There is strong evidence to suggest they did. - There should be a separate speedy independent inquiry into what went on with the Bonus scheme and the misleading statements published by the Board, including whether there is evidence of fraud by abuse of position. The internal report is worthless. - Paula Vennells should have her CBE removed. - Some of the directors of the PO during this period should be investigated to see if they can be disbarred from being directors. - The external law firms advising the PO with regard to any aspect of this matter should be told that they are off all panels of any kind for any public sector work. That decision may be revisited if and when they cough up compensation which must be at least equivalent to the fees earned by them from the Post Office. That will hit Slaughter and May and Herbert Smith Freehills. Too bad. - Anyone associated with Fujitsu during this period should be removed from any public sector post and told they will not be considered for any such posts in the future. - The government should pass a law overturning all PO convictions of subpostmasters 2000 - 2016, including those of people who have died before they could receive justice. - The provision treating computer evidence as automatically true should be revisited and, this time, the government should insist that IT specialists be involved in assessing the best way forward.
And so on.
Agree with all of that except the "Anyone associated with Fujitsu during this period..." part, which is far too draconian and would sweep up lots of innocent people.
I would ban Fujitsu from public contracts forever.
Tobolsk City Duma deputy Egorov, 46, a member of Putin's ruling United Russia party, fell from the third-floor window of a house on Kedrovaya Street in Tobolsk in the Tyumen Oblast.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
They're relentlessly negative about the one major candidate facing multiple criminal charges?
Gee, I wonder why. Not like that has any implications for the betting.
Tobolsk City Duma deputy Egorov, 46, a member of Putin's ruling United Russia party, fell from the third-floor window of a house on Kedrovaya Street in Tobolsk in the Tyumen Oblast.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
They're relentlessly negative about the one major candidate facing multiple criminal charges?
Gee, I wonder why. Not like that has any implications for the betting.
And all the many issues surrounding Biden, from his son to his own extremely questionable personal history? Do we ever see anything about that? Or indeed the problems and lunacies of the Woke Dems in general?
I am not criticising the site per se. It's the mods' blog and they can publish what they like
However anyone relying on this site for a balanced view of American presidential politics, so as to make an informed wager on the election, is a fool
Apropos of nothing, I was doing some research on the 14th Amendment earlier and I came across this rather interesting article about it from 2021 (so before it was used in Colorado but not before the Capitol riots):
1) It's self executing; 2) It was intended to include the presidency; 3) It wasn't intended to require people to be actually convicted of a crime to be put into effect. Indeed, Jefferson Davis used it to argue he'd already been punished so shouldn't be tried for treason; 4) It's always been twisted to suit whatever agenda the judge had - a rather hilarious anecdote about how Cleveland's attorney general cited his own exemption under it to allow others amnesty from it is the best example, but Chase's ruling on Griffin is even more stark; 5) It's an obscure part of the constitution nobody cares about but is interesting for all that.
The last part has not aged well but the rest seems highly relevant. In particular, it explains the thinking of the judges in Colorado that they could declare Trump guilty of treason for this purpose without a jury trial, which I've been vocal in my unhappiness about.
There's a genuine due process issue around the Colorado court's finding of fact (which is how the Supreme Court might set it aside). But it's no good calling it 'obscure' as an argument against the legal validity of the law itself (or of states' rights to apply it).
As I've noted before, it's a politically uncomfortable ruling for both parties.
It's also fair to note that Trump is doing everything he can to frustrate any actual trial of his part in an alleged coup before next year's election.
And Trump's immunity argument is absurd on its face.
It's almost as absurd as his face.
If presidents were immune, there would be no need for an impeachment process.
Presidents do have limited personal immunity regarding official acts. Trump is arguing, in terms, that they have absolute legal immunity for any actions taken while President.
Tobolsk City Duma deputy Egorov, 46, a member of Putin's ruling United Russia party, fell from the third-floor window of a house on Kedrovaya Street in Tobolsk in the Tyumen Oblast.
And I suspect that much of the increase in "other" during that time (now 8.5%) are journalists who find the Democrats too moderate, or even too conservative. Certainly, there was not much "mainstream" criticism of socialist Bernie Sanders during his run for the presidency in 2016.
In my opinion those shifts are one -- let me repeat, I said one -- reason for Trump's rise.
My argument is simple: If you feel your party is being treated unfairly, you may look for someone who will "fight back", whatever that person's faults may be.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
They're relentlessly negative about the one major candidate facing multiple criminal charges?
Gee, I wonder why. Not like that has any implications for the betting.
And all the many issues surrounding Biden, from his son to his own extremely questionable personal history? Do we ever see anything about that? Or indeed the problems and lunacies of the Woke Dems in general?
I am not criticising the site per se. It's the mods' blog and they can publish what they like
However anyone relying on this site for a balanced view of American presidential politics, so as to make an informed wager on the election, is a fool
Biden has an idiot son. Pretty much Mark Thatcher. Every politician seems to have an idiot relative. Billy Carter?
It is such a trope that they included an example in the West Wing.
On a serious note, I think one problem the Republicans have is they have trapped themselves. They've whipped a declining minority of voters into a frenzy about their politics, and as a result made it much harder for themselves when they try to appeal to swing voters.
And the longer that goes on, the more frustrated they will get, and the more extreme.
They need somebody who will reach out. Biden did that very cleverly, pitching as far as possible to his base to win the primaries and then pivoting to the centre. But Trump running as a spoiler is making that very hard indeed for the one actually sane candidate left in the Republican race.
Here is a sobering fact for the American right - they have won the popular vote only once since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and that was by a wafer thin margin.
Here's another. Two of their three incumbent presidents have suffered electoral defeat in that time. Previously only three presidents had lost re-election since World War One (and one of those was under very unusual circumstances).
They can still do well in downstream races - they have held the House for 22 years since 1990 and the Senate for 18 - but they are really struggling to reach out across America where they need to.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
I think the problem is that educated people are on the whole naïve about the progressive left and sympathetic to communism, and stalked by irrational fears of a 'descent in to fascism', to such a degree that they will be supportive of riots and mass illegal immigration, it is some kind of weird legacy of twentieth century schooling of which nearly everyone on here is a product.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
Trump has made it clear, he advocates dictatorship. His failure to overturn the 2020 election through sedition suggests he is not joking.
Biden's failure with the Mexican border issue and occasionally tripping over his words and his feet are not the clear and present danger Trump tearing up the Constitution poses.
Although Trump generated pro-Russian, anti Founding Fathers catastrophe makes good copy for journalists like yourself, but not for a safer world.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
They're relentlessly negative about the one major candidate facing multiple criminal charges?
Gee, I wonder why. Not like that has any implications for the betting.
And all the many issues surrounding Biden, from his son to his own extremely questionable personal history? Do we ever see anything about that? Or indeed the problems and lunacies of the Woke Dems in general?
I am not criticising the site per se. It's the mods' blog and they can publish what they like
However anyone relying on this site for a balanced view of American presidential politics, so as to make an informed wager on the election, is a fool
His son is a dodgy customer.
The Republicans are trying to prevent him from having normal judicial process.
His 'extremely questionable personal history' - you mean, things like opposition to bussing? Not great but not to be compared with the rampaging fraud, theft and tax evasion Trump has gone in for.
As for the Woke Dems, Biden isn't one. The Trumpite opposites like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are not really important in the Democrats. Come back to me when they are.
'A public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal at the Post Office has produced enough evidence for police to investigate senior staff, according to lawyers for postmasters who were wrongly convicted of crimes including theft and fraud.
[...] Paul Marshall, a barrister who is representing post office operators in their continuing fight for compensation, said he believed that enough evidence had emerged for police to consider prosecuting former Post Office executives.
“On the face of it, the material is sufficient for the police to investigate whether, over a substantial period of time, the Post Office was engaged in perverting the course of justice or a conspiracy to pervert the courses of justice,” he told the Guardian.
“In my view, the Post Office was engaged in a sustained attack on the rule of law itself.”
Lawyers for the post office owner-managers reportedly want Sir Wyn Williams, chairman of the public inquiry into the scandal, to pass files to the director of public prosecutions once the inquiry is completed next year.'
The Times article I posted earlier gives more details.
"The Times can reveal that the Crown Prosecution Service has appointed Tom Little KC to oversee the case. He is one of six specialist barristers described as the “brightest and the best” who prosecute the most serious and complex cases. Sources said Little would be the “point man” in deciding who was investigated and prosecuted."
The police are getting the same evidence the inquiry is, along with the witness statements and the answers they give to the inquiry. Set against that is the fact that any conspiracy charge has to meet a high bar.
But here's hoping.
There are some days though when I feel that everyone involved, from Ministers down, should just be thrown in jail and have to show why they should be let out.
Yes, the mischief was being done at every level from the lowest to the highest, including the PO's legal and computer consultants. They all deserve to go to hell, never mind jail, but can they really be prosecuted before the Inquiry finishes? Isn't there a danger that further evidence will become availabe while the trials are in progress?
You know how the truth has been oozing out slowly so far. There may be a lot more incriminating evidence to come.
The Inquiry Report is due in 2024 so prosecutions can happen after that.
There is plenty of other stuff that can be done. And should be done.
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board should be looking at taking disciplinary action against many of the lawyers involved, internal and external. - The award given to Ben Foat, the PO GC, for Best In-House Legal Team should be removed from him given the PO's continuing disclosure failings. - The investigators still employed should be dismissed or retired. The entire investigative function needs to be rebuilt from scratch. - The Business Select Committee should be asking - urgently - why the PO has just announced that it is reducing the amount set aside for compensation for the subpostmasters. - It should hold an urgent and speedy inquiry into whether Badenoch and Hollinrake misled them over their knowledge of the Board's bonus scheme. There is strong evidence to suggest they did. - There should be a separate speedy independent inquiry into what went on with the Bonus scheme and the misleading statements published by the Board, including whether there is evidence of fraud by abuse of position. The internal report is worthless. - Paula Vennells should have her CBE removed. - Some of the directors of the PO during this period should be investigated to see if they can be disbarred from being directors. - The external law firms advising the PO with regard to any aspect of this matter should be told that they are off all panels of any kind for any public sector work. That decision may be revisited if and when they cough up compensation which must be at least equivalent to the fees earned by them from the Post Office. That will hit Slaughter and May and Herbert Smith Freehills. Too bad. - Anyone associated with Fujitsu during this period should be removed from any public sector post and told they will not be considered for any such posts in the future. - The government should pass a law overturning all PO convictions of subpostmasters 2000 - 2016, including those of people who have died before they could receive justice. - The provision treating computer evidence as automatically true should be revisited and, this time, the government should insist that IT specialists be involved in assessing the best way forward.
And so on.
Agree with all of that except the "Anyone associated with Fujitsu during this period..." part, which is far too draconian and would sweep up lots of innocent people.
Also Gillian Keegan, by association.
She got very mad indeed when her husband was accused of being involved in Horizon.
Turns out he wasn't, although if he he's happy to work for Fujitsu I wouldn't take it as a sparkling character reference.
He was there for 12 years over the relevant period. You can see the details of what he did in his LinkedIn profile. He says that the Post Office was managed by the Private Sector Division of FJ as an arms length body during his entire time there.
It is a very carefully crafted statement. I would have a number of questions about exactly what that means. Because he is both boasting about the very wide ranging responsibilities and experience he had at Fujitsu, including being Sales and Business Development Director for the Government Business Division and the £1 billion in revenues this brought in while apparently having nothing at all to do with one of Fujitsu's biggest contracts with the government.
It can't just be Gareth Jenkins who was at fault within Fujitsu.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
They're relentlessly negative about the one major candidate facing multiple criminal charges?
Gee, I wonder why. Not like that has any implications for the betting.
And all the many issues surrounding Biden, from his son to his own extremely questionable personal history? Do we ever see anything about that? Or indeed the problems and lunacies of the Woke Dems in general?
I am not criticising the site per se. It's the mods' blog and they can publish what they like
However anyone relying on this site for a balanced view of American presidential politics, so as to make an informed wager on the election, is a fool
Tobolsk City Duma deputy Egorov, 46, a member of Putin's ruling United Russia party, fell from the third-floor window of a house on Kedrovaya Street in Tobolsk in the Tyumen Oblast.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
Trump has made it clear, he advocates dictatorship. His failure to overturn the 2020 election through sedition suggests he is not joking.
Biden's failure with the Mexican border issue and occasionally tripping over his words and his feet are not the clear and present danger Trump tearing up the Constitution poses.
Although Trump generated pro-Russian, anti Founding Fathers catastrophe makes good copy for journalists like yourself, but not for a safer world.
I'm certainly not advocating Trump. But I can see why small town America supports him to the extent it does. Very simply to small town America he appears to be unequivocally in their side. Anyone attempting to moderate Trump's approach also appears to be moderating the extent to which they are on the side of red America.
Tobolsk City Duma deputy Egorov, 46, a member of Putin's ruling United Russia party, fell from the third-floor window of a house on Kedrovaya Street in Tobolsk in the Tyumen Oblast.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
Two different things. Betting, and politics as such.
Politics. In the 2016 election quite a few people in the UK were interested in giving Trump a chance, as Hilary was not an attractive candidate, and it was reasonable to assume (as many assumed with Boris) that actual office would temper the flaws in his character, and the balance of powers in the USA would moderate the politics.
The relentless worsening of Trump as a character means that, however popular he is, all that does is remind dull centrist liberals of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s and how popular some sub optimal people became. We now think Trump may actually mean what he says, and may be as malign as he appears and there are good reasons for thinking it.
Betting. I think he will win. DYOR. Bet accordingly. In 2016 I didn't mind much, see above. This time I mind very much.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
They're relentlessly negative about the one major candidate facing multiple criminal charges?
Gee, I wonder why. Not like that has any implications for the betting.
And all the many issues surrounding Biden, from his son to his own extremely questionable personal history? Do we ever see anything about that? Or indeed the problems and lunacies of the Woke Dems in general?
I am not criticising the site per se. It's the mods' blog and they can publish what they like
However anyone relying on this site for a balanced view of American presidential politics, so as to make an informed wager on the election, is a fool
What are these issues "surrounding Biden"? And can you identify any evidence which reflects on him as President?
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
They're relentlessly negative about the one major candidate facing multiple criminal charges?
Gee, I wonder why. Not like that has any implications for the betting.
And all the many issues surrounding Biden, from his son to his own extremely questionable personal history? Do we ever see anything about that? Or indeed the problems and lunacies of the Woke Dems in general?
I am not criticising the site per se. It's the mods' blog and they can publish what they like
However anyone relying on this site for a balanced view of American presidential politics, so as to make an informed wager on the election, is a fool
It's a line that gets used over here too: All the UK growth 1997-2010 was due to John Major and all the stagnation since 2010 has been due to Brown. Obviously.
“The electoral base of the Democratic Party has been transformed over the past generation. Democrats have lost ground in rural America while adding strength in cities and, more recently, suburbs. A major consequence of this shift has been the creation of a “U-shaped” Democratic voting base, with both poorer metro voters and affluent suburbanites siding with the party. This spatial alliance overlays a multi-racial one, as Democrats rely more heavily on voters of color than any other major party in American history. Many analysts have argued that the Democratic Party has managed this sea change by shifting from economic to cultural and identity appeals. This claim is consistent with leading models of two-dimensional party competition, as well as a fair amount of cross-national research on parties of the left and center-left in contemporary knowledge economies. However, we find little evidence for this claim in national Democrats’ messaging (via party platforms and on Twitter), nor, more important, in their actual policy efforts. Instead, we show that even as Democrats have increasingly relied on affluent, educated voters, the party has embraced a more ambitious economic agenda. The national party has bridged the Blue Divide not by foreswearing redistribution or foregrounding cultural liberalism, but by formulating an increasingly bold economic program—albeit one that elides important inequalities within its metro-based multi-racial coalition. Understanding how and why Democrats have taken this path is central to understanding not just the party’s response to its shifting electorate, but the way parties manage coalitional change more broadly.”
'A public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal at the Post Office has produced enough evidence for police to investigate senior staff, according to lawyers for postmasters who were wrongly convicted of crimes including theft and fraud.
[...] Paul Marshall, a barrister who is representing post office operators in their continuing fight for compensation, said he believed that enough evidence had emerged for police to consider prosecuting former Post Office executives.
“On the face of it, the material is sufficient for the police to investigate whether, over a substantial period of time, the Post Office was engaged in perverting the course of justice or a conspiracy to pervert the courses of justice,” he told the Guardian.
“In my view, the Post Office was engaged in a sustained attack on the rule of law itself.”
Lawyers for the post office owner-managers reportedly want Sir Wyn Williams, chairman of the public inquiry into the scandal, to pass files to the director of public prosecutions once the inquiry is completed next year.'
The Times article I posted earlier gives more details.
"The Times can reveal that the Crown Prosecution Service has appointed Tom Little KC to oversee the case. He is one of six specialist barristers described as the “brightest and the best” who prosecute the most serious and complex cases. Sources said Little would be the “point man” in deciding who was investigated and prosecuted."
The police are getting the same evidence the inquiry is, along with the witness statements and the answers they give to the inquiry. Set against that is the fact that any conspiracy charge has to meet a high bar.
But here's hoping.
There are some days though when I feel that everyone involved, from Ministers down, should just be thrown in jail and have to show why they should be let out.
Yes, the mischief was being done at every level from the lowest to the highest, including the PO's legal and computer consultants. They all deserve to go to hell, never mind jail, but can they really be prosecuted before the Inquiry finishes? Isn't there a danger that further evidence will become availabe while the trials are in progress?
You know how the truth has been oozing out slowly so far. There may be a lot more incriminating evidence to come.
Well, the single most important witness — Gareth Jenkins, Fujitsu software engineer — hasn't even appeared at the inquiry yet, due to the Post Office continually disclosing new documents just before he's due to attend. It's happened twice so far. (Not his fault, to reiterate).
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
They're relentlessly negative about the one major candidate facing multiple criminal charges?
Gee, I wonder why. Not like that has any implications for the betting.
And all the many issues surrounding Biden, from his son to his own extremely questionable personal history? Do we ever see anything about that? Or indeed the problems and lunacies of the Woke Dems in general?
I am not criticising the site per se. It's the mods' blog and they can publish what they like
However anyone relying on this site for a balanced view of American presidential politics, so as to make an informed wager on the election, is a fool
What are these issues "surrounding Biden"? And can you identify any evidence which reflects on him as President?
(Clue: Trump hasn't demonstrated anything.)
I must disagree with you there.
Trump has repeatedly demonstrated he's unfit for office.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
I think the problem is that educated people are on the whole naïve about the progressive left and sympathetic to communism, and stalked by irrational fears of a 'descent in to fascism', to such a degree that they will be supportive of riots and mass illegal immigration, it is some kind of weird legacy of twentieth century schooling of which nearly everyone on here is a product.
I remember visiting the communism museum in Prague, and being quite taken aback by their unequivocal attitude to communism (i.e. that it was bad). Made me wonder why we're so reluctant to be similarly unequivocal in the old west.
Off topic, but important for anyone who bets on American politics: "A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. . . . . When the first iteration of the study came out over 50 years ago, 35.5% of respondents said they were Democrats, 25.7% said they were Republicans, and 32.5% said they were Independents. The percentage that call themselves Democrats or independents have bounced around over the years, with the proportion of Democrats reaching a high of 44.1% in 1992." source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
Humans being what we are, you should not expect unbiased coverage of American politics from most American journalists.
(As it happens, our local monopoly newspaper, the Seattle Times, provides many good examples of this problem. From time to time I see pieces in the newspaper that read like satires, they are so far into current leftist thinking.)
Well, this is the long echo of the 40-year strategy to wage war on modernity and anything resembling intellectualism. If the woke Democrats are ever as successful, I'm sure a similar backlash would follow in the long term too, but when your party tries to make schools praise the benefits of slavery while banning discussions of homosexuality, you will pay a price among people who think differently.
The most interesting thing about Trumpism, the current dominant philosophy in the GOP, is that there's no thinking man's case for it. I can't think of that ever being the situation for one of the two big parties in a major Western democracy.
I don't know whether in any sense PB is a barometer, but IIRC there isn't a single person commenting here who will defend or support Trumpism.
And, maybe I'm sheltered, but I don't where where I would go for a reasoned defence of Trump, what he has done or what he stands for. (Of course there are people who can give a reasoned explanation, but they are always giving a explanation of why people are acting wrongly or badly).
Quite frankly @algarkirk, I just find there is little point trying to say anything vaguely positive re Trump on this site. There are several posters on here (whom I won't mention by name but who should be obvious) who quickly go low and personal if you don't sign up to the "Democrats are good, Republicans are evil" cult * Personally, I am a bit like LBJ's pig, I like wrestling in the mud but I find I waste a lot of time very quickly and I have a lot of stuff to do. So I really have to be in the mood and have some time to spare.
Re Trump, I have said my stuff before. In summary, he is a symptom, not a cause; in his Presidency, the world was certainly a lot calmer than it was now; the economy pre-Covid was doing well; there was not the same crisis at the US border at there is now; and he certainly did not pursue Hilary Clinton in the same way that his opponents seem to be pursuing him now.
Drop me a line if you want more. And re betting - I'm not putting anything on the main race at the moment but I think where the real value lies is in the 2024 Democrat nominee. I think Biden is toast, there will be a coronation at the convention and you can get some fantastic odds on some of the possible Democrat Governor candidates.
* And it is a cult. The obsession some posters have on here with posting anything about Trump is truly scary.
Says a poster who has accused Trump's critics of Fascism and mental illness.
While accusing the US legal system of being biased against Trump for daring to prosecute him while ignoring a load of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.
That's the imposing self-awareness fail since Dominic Cummings said Boris Johnson was unfit for public office.
I think you will find @ydoethur - and since you have replied, I am quite happy to say you are one of the worst examples on this site - that I will never fire the first shot but, if someone descends into personal vitriol, I am quite happy to dish it back. Which is exactly what you got with your posts when you got nasty very quickly.
This is a discussion forum. If you're not prepared to defend your views, particularly views based on bizarre ideas, don't post them. As for personal vitriol, I use it only when it used against me. Which you always do, I think because you don't like being challenged.
I can see why you like Trump. You are, after all, very similar people. But I'll keep calling you out on your lies about Trump and so will the rest of us. If you think the world was more stable when he was threatening nuclear war on Twitter or violently abusing the Australian prime Minister, or that he deserves to get away with his many crimes because you like him, or obsessively repost conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, or make false statements about the progress of Trump's legal woes, well, be prepared to be criticised.
You are right, that said, to the extent that in 2016 he was as much a symptom of as a cause of America's problems. The disaffection with mainstream politics, the economic system that rewards a few at the expense of the many, the cleavage between the rural and coastal states. That changed rather dramatically when he staged an abortive coup to stay in power. Now, he's channelled all those problems into himself. If the US re-elect him as a planet we're headed for a dark place.
There is certainly a 'thinking mans case for Trump'; it is as a sort of last roll of the dice against the prevailing dictatorship of progressivism. If you think that society is only headed for catastrophe and disaster at a personal / structural level then Trumpism is a coherant alternative. It is what a lot of people think, reflected in over 50% support for Trump amongst Americans. If no journalists vote republican and no one on PB admits this, this just shows that the profession of journalism and the readership of this website have been dragged in to a progressive echo chamber. As dark as it would be if Trump is elected in 2024, for many people, the darkness started already, so it is just another phase.
That's very interesting, but if that is an outline of the 'thinking man's case for Trump' I feel it needs a good deal of intellectual refining to be much use.
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
Trumpism could be seen as a soft and benign form of authoritarianism under which many of the basics of liberalism can survive, it is an alternative to political systems which try and censor and eliminate all opposition in pursuit of 'progress' - the nightmare 'woke' tyranny that we are basically subjected to even under a conservative government that purports to oppose it. I would agree that Trump crossed a line on Jan 6th but various other lines have been crossed by the political left as well, perhaps less well defined but more numerous, such as it all cancels each other out and becomes a fog for many people. It is a bit like this for me. You will laugh amongst yourselves but it is all reminiscent to me of Sweden in the near past. The unreal quickly becomes real.
In a free speech free press society such as UK and USA the idea of 'nightmare woke tyranny' makes no sense unless given a detailed account. Have you read the Daily Mail, the Express or the thoughts of Nigel Farage or GB News?
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
I was not saying that I would vote for Trump, but explaining why people do. It is a choice between bad options. A lot of people are stuck in naivety about progressive governments.
PB mirrors the commentariat in general. It is now so liberal-left and soft-Woke it cannot even comprehend opposing arguments, let alone offer any
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
Two different things. Betting, and politics as such.
Politics. In the 2016 election quite a few people in the UK were interested in giving Trump a chance, as Hilary was not an attractive candidate, and it was reasonable to assume (as many assumed with Boris) that actual office would temper the flaws in his character, and the balance of powers in the USA would moderate the politics.
The relentless worsening of Trump as a character means that, however popular he is, all that does is remind dull centrist liberals of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s and how popular some sub optimal people became. We now think Trump may actually mean what he says, and may be as malign as he appears and there are good reasons for thinking it.
Betting. I think he will win. DYOR. Bet accordingly. In 2016 I didn't mind much, see above. This time I mind very much.
But again, all your focus is on the evils of Trump and the awfulness of the GOP. You don't even mention the Dems, Wokeness and the American Left, and how many ordinary Americans see the Left as an even greater threat than the madness of the The Donald, hence much of Trump's support
THAT is the large jigsaw piece missing from this puzzle, as it is presented on PB
Comments
1) Suppose we are heading for catastrophe, on what grounds would the rhetoric, politics and morality of Trump be the cure?
2) The term 'dictatorship' better belongs to the ideas of the man behind 6th January and who lied about losing an election
3) Which progressive echo chamber?
It may be a case for a disrupter, but that relies on the disruptor in question not being so insane he could easily blow up the whole world by mistake. Which Trump could. Hence why he was only the second US president, after Nixon in 1974, to effectively have the nuclear codes taken off him.
There's disruption and there's lunacy. I would love to see the DfE shut down and all the idiots there begging for their bread. That doesn't mean I want the education system handed over to Dominic Cummings.
https://vote-2012.proboards.com
My one on the black economy would, according to some, collapse entire industries. Who depend on sub-minimum wage employment, it seems.
My space program might be more popular, though.
You know how the truth has been oozing out slowly so far. There may be a lot more incriminating evidence to come.
The case FOR Trump - it starts from the standpoint the existing political system doesn't deliver for many citizens let alone voters. That itself raises a number of questions among which would be what people "expect" from the political process - representation, economic growth, free money, strong public services? I'd argue all of them and perhaps none of them and therein lies the disconnection between politics and the people.
Politicians probably understand though none can or would say aloud the obvious truth is most people's demands or requirements of the political system are unachievable and often mutually contradictory. I've cited European levels of public services paid for by American levels of taxation - I'd also offer levels of services which would bankrupt all and any council which tried to impose them.
Yet turn the argument round - would you pay 60-65% of your salary in tax back to central and local authorities to provide good public services? I think we know the answer to that.
The second part of the case for Trump stems from seeing the failure of politics as being the failure of politicians - Trump cheerfully plays on the fact he is a businessman, an outsider and that feeds into the perception that if you think politics has failed, adopting an business-like ethos might be more successful. We've had strands of it over here - remember Jesse Norman? The truth is business people often fail in politics because they can't command and and cajole, they have to argue and convince and that doesn't come easily.
The success of populists like Trump and Milei starts from them acknowledging the failure of politics and politicians and putting up an anti-politics alternative where they are the "strong man" who can get things done once the drain is swamped or legislation suppressing normal political activity is enacted.
In 2023 the ratio is different. He has almost nothing to say about the many problems America faces. He has disgraced himself with Jan 6th. It is not about America anymore. It’s about him.
The difference is, in 2016 it wasn't obvious. He had other things to say to hide the central message.
Now it is obvious.
I think the difference is that in 2016 it wasn't just about him. He was a genuine voice for the disinherited, the alienated and the fleeced. All those that Washington and the establishment doesn't work for and they are many. Now... I've got nothing.
"How Post Office lawyers pushed boundaries in UK sub-postmasters scandal"
https://www.ft.com/content/f100c560-b3be-4c01-a184-d7d61bf023d8
https://twitter.com/ftworldnews/status/1740221599758864484
Trump reminds me of that.
Which illustrates the argument that I was making, that US journalists are more and more biased against the Republican Party, and thus our journalists are an unreliable source of information.
But perhaps the writer and I have different definitions of modernity. For example, a series of Republican presidents worked to enforce our civil rights laws and extend them. (For example, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. But many US leftists think that such laws should be replaced by "affirmative action" (as it is often called), parcelling out jobs, admissions, and other valuables by group.
Or we may differ on the importance of education to modernity. President Reagan sounded the alarm with the "Nation at Risk" report. George H. W. Bush worked to rally governors to improve education, and his son got the "No Child Left Behind Act" through Congress. Republican governors, among them Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, have led successful efforts to improve education in their states.
Or we may differ on the environment. George H. W. Bush was, unquestionably, "the environmental president, just as he had promised. (His work on cleaning up the air alone saves tens of thousands of lives every year.) His son established immense marine sanctuaries: https://www.doi.gov/oia/press/2009/President-Bush-Creates-Three-New-Pacific-Marine-Monuments
Shameful.
Brighton 2
Tottenham 0
West Ham 1
Arsenal 0
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/football/67255960
That being said, you mention two republican presidents which were in office over 30 years ago. that republican party is no longer in existence.
"An unprecedented UFO report and other moments from 2023 that rivaled science fiction"
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/27/world/space-craziest-moments-recap-end-of-year-scn/index.html
"What we actually know about aliens, according to science"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/11/25/aliens-uaps-scientific-evidence/
"We Have a UFO Problem. What We Don’t Have (Yet) Is a Serious Answer."
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/11/16/us-government-ufos-military-00127376
That's CNN. Washington Post, and Politico in the last few weeks (or days)
None of this means ET has been a visiting; it does mean the US government is behaving in ways which are absolutely unprecedented in regards to this issue, disclosing (inter alia) that there really is stuff in the sky they cannot explain. They have yet to explain it
Nor do I have any sense of an authority in the UK which tries to 'eliminate all opposition'.
Benign authoritarianism? No. Not since 6th January and the lies about losing an election.
The thinking man will have to do better.
This is not to say there are no problems. But the gulf between 'Problem' and 'Trump is the Answer' is a large one.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pmbqq
https://constitutionalcommentary.lib.umn.edu/article/amnesty-and-section-three-of-the-fourteenth-amendment/
It is very long, but the salient points are:
1) It's self executing;
2) It was intended to include the presidency;
3) It wasn't intended to require people to be actually convicted of a crime to be put into effect. Indeed, Jefferson Davis used it to argue he'd already been punished so shouldn't be tried for treason;
4) It's always been twisted to suit whatever agenda the judge had - a rather hilarious anecdote about how Cleveland's attorney general cited his own exemption under it to allow others amnesty from it is the best example, but Chase's ruling on Griffin is even more stark;
5) It's an obscure part of the constitution nobody cares about but is interesting for all that.
The last part has not aged well but the rest seems highly relevant. In particular, it explains the thinking of the judges in Colorado that they could declare Trump guilty of treason for this purpose without a jury trial, which I've been vocal in my unhappiness about.
Now, here's a significant fact: When the Obama decrease was negotiated, Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat wrote that this was something that George W. Bush never would have done. Except that Bush had -- and his decrease was somewhat larger than Obama's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Offensive_Reductions_Treaty
Apparently, Westneat was so captive to his biases that he never bothered to check -- which took me just minutes.
It explains the disparity of insight we see here on PB
The whole HTP dead end was a classic of Whitehall insisting on using a unique technology because…. Something.
Edit : the reason I mentioned the HTP comedy was that it was the dead end for Black Arrow.
There is plenty of other stuff that can be done. And should be done.
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board should be looking at taking disciplinary action against many of the lawyers involved, internal and external.
- The award given to Ben Foat, the PO GC, for Best In-House Legal Team should be removed from him given the PO's continuing disclosure failings.
- The investigators still employed should be dismissed or retired. The entire investigative function needs to be rebuilt from scratch.
- The Business Select Committee should be asking - urgently - why the PO has just announced that it is reducing the amount set aside for compensation for the subpostmasters.
- It should hold an urgent and speedy inquiry into whether Badenoch and Hollinrake misled them over their knowledge of the Board's bonus scheme. There is strong evidence to suggest they did.
- There should be a separate speedy independent inquiry into what went on with the Bonus scheme and the misleading statements published by the Board, including whether there is evidence of fraud by abuse of position. The internal report is worthless.
- Paula Vennells should have her CBE removed.
- Some of the directors of the PO during this period should be investigated to see if they can be disbarred from being directors.
- The external law firms advising the PO with regard to any aspect of this matter should be told that they are off all panels of any kind for any public sector work. That decision may be revisited if and when they cough up compensation which must be at least equivalent to the fees earned by them from the Post Office. That will hit Slaughter and May and Herbert Smith Freehills. Too bad.
- Anyone associated with Fujitsu during this period should be removed from any public sector post and told they will not be considered for any such posts in the future.
- The government should pass a law overturning all PO convictions of subpostmasters 2000 - 2016, including those of people who have died before they could receive justice.
- The provision treating computer evidence as automatically true should be revisited and, this time, the government should insist that IT specialists be involved in assessing the best way forward.
And so on.
Not going to happen. It’s all just misidentification combined with dishones5 actors. There is serious cash to be made peddling stories of hidden government projects on captured UFOs.
It’s also possible to ascribe US politicians with more intelligence than our British cohort… Truth is I expect there are enough conspiracy nuts in government to believe the tales of the hucksters.
She’s on the right here (in all senses)
This is not a partisan issue. I also think AOC is genuinely beautiful - I wish I didn’t because she soooooooo annoys me, however it is the case. She’s a proper looker
I thought the concluding section about consciousness and experience versus intelligence and sensing physical inputs was good.
US politics would be far healthier if there were a genuine alternative to a fairly sclerotic Democratic establishment (and equally so traditional Republican rump).
The current GOP mainstream is an ongoing dumpster fire.
Mississippi scored slightly higher than California in the latest 4th grade reading tests. Considering how much poorer the state is, and how much less educated the population is, that's astonishing.
(Those unfamiliar with the National Assessment of Educaitonal Progress can visit their site, here: https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ )
Of course it could all be a flap (tho that becomes ever harder to sustain as an explanation) but it is now the biggest flap ever and shows no signs of stopping
I still adhere to the explanations given in the Spectator article on this (in descending order of likelihood):
"1. The US establishment – Pentagon to press – is engaged in a complex cross-party conspiracy of psyops to unnerve and mystify America’s adversaries, especially the Chinese. Perhaps they want to convince them America possesses advanced alien technology, and America has been reverse engineering it for decades.
2. The US establishment has some incredible new military tech – something truly astonishing, like anti-gravity aircraft – and they’ve had it for ages, and they want to hide it from everyone: Americans as much as the Chinese.
3. The US establishment has gone collectively mad, or is suffering some mass hallucination, stemming from a few credulous individuals (a process known in psychology as ‘contagion’).
4. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – but they’re wrong.
5. The US military/elite sincerely believes we are being visited by non human intelligence – and they are right. "
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/ufos-or-not-something-is-up/
Nonetheless I have to draw the line at Trump. He is still just a bit too mad and malignant, for me, a more proximate danger even than Wokeness
However I can totally understand why so many sane Americans believe Trump, for all his faults, is better than the mad Democrat Left: hence the polls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hC5nXXJrV8
The Republican Party of Reagan, the Bushes and Romney is barely there any more. That "40-year strategy to wage war on modernity" is not a critique perhaps of the Republican Party in its entirety, but of a tendency within the party that has become dominant and incarnate in Trump.
She got very mad indeed when her husband was accused of being involved in Horizon.
Turns out he wasn't, although if he he's happy to work for Fujitsu I wouldn't take it as a sparkling character reference.
I am utterly fed up with the incompetent, the malicious, the second rate getting away with their behaviour and just moving on. Far too many of them around. It is one reason why so much of what we do in this country is so shit, why we have such a poverty of expectations, why it comes as an unexpected bonus when things work, people behave well, take responsibility etc.,.
I am, I'm afraid, in a "pour encourager les autres" mood over this so that we start moving the needle back to somewhere close to where it should be.
But it's no good calling it 'obscure' as an argument against the legal validity of the law itself (or of states' rights to apply it).
As I've noted before, it's a politically uncomfortable ruling for both parties.
It's also fair to note that Trump is doing everything he can to frustrate any actual trial of his part in an alleged coup before next year's election.
And Trump's immunity argument is absurd on its face.
If presidents were immune, there would be no need for an impeachment process.
So the willingness of Americans to vote Trump comes as a bewildering mystery to 95% of people on here, and these Americans are generally and contemptuously dismissed as mad or racist (despite comprising 50%+ of America). This is not good for a site which purports to be about politicalbetting. If only one anti-Trump argument is ever heard the chance the other side might win is continuously minimised, to a dangerous extent
We see it in the headers. They are relentlessly negative about Trump, they seldom address the flaws in Biden, the Dem Left, American Wokeness
Anyone betting on US elex on the info provided here is an idiot, they are getting a warped picture
Tobolsk City Duma deputy Egorov, 46, a member of Putin's ruling United Russia party, fell from the third-floor window of a house on Kedrovaya Street in Tobolsk in the Tyumen Oblast.
Putin Ally Found Dead After Falling From Third-Floor Window
https://twitter.com/Meidas_LaurenA/status/1740467984920178723
Gee, I wonder why. Not like that has any implications for the betting.
I am not criticising the site per se. It's the mods' blog and they can publish what they like
However anyone relying on this site for a balanced view of American presidential politics, so as to make an informed wager on the election, is a fool
Trump is arguing, in terms, that they have absolute legal immunity for any actions taken while President.
It would be a marvelous end to this saga if Putin himself ends up toppling from a tenth floor window in St Basil's Cathedral
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/study-finds-that-just-3-4-of-american-journalists-are-republicans/ar-AA1m6Tf6?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=41d2edafd0ec40a09c509a2a259194a1&ei=175
And I suspect that much of the increase in "other" during that time (now 8.5%) are journalists who find the Democrats too moderate, or even too conservative. Certainly, there was not much "mainstream" criticism of socialist Bernie Sanders during his run for the presidency in 2016.
In my opinion those shifts are one -- let me repeat, I said one -- reason for Trump's rise.
My argument is simple: If you feel your party is being treated unfairly, you may look for someone who will "fight back", whatever that person's faults may be.
That may change next week when Mr Bates vs The Post Office is aired on ITV.
It is such a trope that they included an example in the West Wing.
And the longer that goes on, the more frustrated they will get, and the more extreme.
They need somebody who will reach out. Biden did that very cleverly, pitching as far as possible to his base to win the primaries and then pivoting to the centre. But Trump running as a spoiler is making that very hard indeed for the one actually sane candidate left in the Republican race.
Here is a sobering fact for the American right - they have won the popular vote only once since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and that was by a wafer thin margin.
Here's another. Two of their three incumbent presidents have suffered electoral defeat in that time. Previously only three presidents had lost re-election since World War One (and one of those was under very unusual circumstances).
They can still do well in downstream races - they have held the House for 22 years since 1990 and the Senate for 18 - but they are really struggling to reach out across America where they need to.
Biden's failure with the Mexican border issue and occasionally tripping over his words and his feet are not the clear and present danger Trump tearing up the Constitution poses.
Although Trump generated pro-Russian, anti Founding Fathers catastrophe makes good copy for journalists like yourself, but not for a safer world.
The Republicans are trying to prevent him from having normal judicial process.
His 'extremely questionable personal history' - you mean, things like opposition to bussing? Not great but not to be compared with the rampaging fraud, theft and tax evasion Trump has gone in for.
As for the Woke Dems, Biden isn't one. The Trumpite opposites like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are not really important in the Democrats. Come back to me when they are.
It is a very carefully crafted statement. I would have a number of questions about exactly what that means. Because he is both boasting about the very wide ranging responsibilities and experience he had at Fujitsu, including being Sales and Business Development Director for the Government Business Division and the £1 billion in revenues this brought in while apparently having nothing at all to do with one of Fujitsu's biggest contracts with the government.
It can't just be Gareth Jenkins who was at fault within Fujitsu.
Of course, you might buy Trump's line that it is roaring back because he is going to be coming back as President.
Maybe.
Watched Death of Stalin again last week. Still brilliant - seems as relevant as ever.
Politics. In the 2016 election quite a few people in the UK were interested in giving Trump a chance, as Hilary was not an attractive candidate, and it was reasonable to assume (as many assumed with Boris) that actual office would temper the flaws in his character, and the balance of powers in the USA would moderate the politics.
The relentless worsening of Trump as a character means that, however popular he is, all that does is remind dull centrist liberals of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s and how popular some sub optimal people became. We now think Trump may actually mean what he says, and may be as malign as he appears and there are good reasons for thinking it.
Betting. I think he will win. DYOR. Bet accordingly. In 2016 I didn't mind much, see above. This time I mind very much.
(Clue: Trump hasn't demonstrated anything.)
“The electoral base of the Democratic Party has been transformed over the past generation. Democrats have lost ground in rural America while adding strength in cities and, more recently, suburbs. A major consequence of this shift has been the creation of a “U-shaped” Democratic voting base, with both poorer metro voters and affluent suburbanites siding with the party. This spatial alliance overlays a multi-racial one, as Democrats rely more heavily on voters of color than any other major party in American history. Many analysts have argued that the Democratic Party has managed this sea change by shifting from economic to cultural and identity appeals. This claim is consistent with leading models of two-dimensional party competition, as well as a fair amount of cross-national research on parties of the left and center-left in contemporary knowledge economies. However, we find little evidence for this claim in national Democrats’ messaging (via party platforms and on Twitter), nor, more important, in their actual policy efforts. Instead, we show that even as Democrats have increasingly relied on affluent, educated voters, the party has embraced a more ambitious economic agenda. The national party has bridged the Blue Divide not by foreswearing redistribution or foregrounding cultural liberalism, but by formulating an increasingly bold economic program—albeit one that elides important inequalities within its metro-based multi-racial coalition. Understanding how and why Democrats have taken this path is central to understanding not just the party’s response to its shifting electorate, but the way parties manage coalitional change more broadly.”
Trump has repeatedly demonstrated he's unfit for office.
THAT is the large jigsaw piece missing from this puzzle, as it is presented on PB