anti_dan
8d ago
they are deeply miscalibrated to the views of the electorate.
The campaign has shown that multiple times. He's simply not a person that is capable of understanding Americans
anti_dan
9d ago
There's something to be said for losing with dignity. Now he's the child rapist sympathizer. "Oops I didn't know better" doesn't absolve him.
My personal theory on this is that your take is incorrect. I don't think he is siding with the child rapist, he cares not about that matter. Rather, he is of a sincere position that being raped is something that happens to suckers and losers, and thus the rape coming out makes his opponent a sucker and loser, and thus he will win bigly because people will vote for him, the winner that takes advantage of suckers and losers.
anti_dan
9d ago
When an Indian billionaire posts online the day after Christmas and tells Americans that they should adopt the stereotypical Asian childraising style if they want to be economically competitive, I might give it credit for audacity, but good politics it is not.
It also has the primary problem of being wrong. Asians goodharting all the academic metrics hasn't made Japan into the juggernaught people feared in the early 90s, nor has it even helped India keep up with the Chinese. In the end innovation seems to be driven by people like Musk and Lucky who just genuinely love the stuff, and running/founding successful companies also is full of jocks like Phil Knight, the Kochs, Bob Kraft, etc.
anti_dan
9d ago
The annoying bit is that it's going to get drawn up as anti-Indian racism, rather than principles or just disliking the smarmy git.
Its will only be half wrong to call it racism. In that, just about any other similarly situated Indian man has a high liklihood of having made many of the same mistakes. The Screech/Homecoming insults were not a mistake any white guy would make, but certainly is a sentiment many Indians hold. And this is another blunder down the same lines. Vivek, like many other Indians view elections as a status runoff and that being sexually assaulted lowers one's reputation, which again is a mistake no white guy in that position would have made.
anti_dan
9d ago
What makes it all the more obvious is that he almost surely knew about the sexual abuse allegations when his team greenlit the ad. It seems like he genuinely doesn't understand what is wrong.
anti_dan
15d ago
In a directly causal way, this is true. Iran realized it could do this thing only because they were so desperate.
In the real world, Iran could always do this thing. Ever since the Euros basically sanctioned it we have seen it proliferate through the mid east. Imagine if Israel shuts down Suez Canal traffic after a Gazan Hamas attack. Will the French blame Hamas then? You and I both know that is silly.
We had hundreds of years of countries enforcing maritime norms abandoned because Euros are wimps now.
anti_dan
15d ago
Hard disagree. Obama or GWB or Clinton could have all gotten honest capability assessments from the military/intelligence community. So could Trump, if he wanted. I am not a fan of the CIA, but I do not think they would push a president they dislike into a bad war just to harm him domestically. I also do not think their median employee is a pink-haired lesbian with a gender studies degree.
This is where I think you are wrong. I don't think capability assessments are the issue here, its all about willpower assessments, which long time employees and generals appear to be the worst at.
There is no way to think there exists some "deep state" (for lack of a better word) general or civilian in the DOD circles would have told Trump that if Iran pirated French vessels in response to airstrikes the French would do nothing. Who would have been that guy? Such a person with such a low opinion of the French would have been driven out by the establishment years ago. They'd never make general while openly stating that NATO is a bunch of wimps who would rather just mail Iran nukes then lift a finger to stop them obtaining nukes.
While Obama and GWB have fired some high-ranking generals, under Trump 10% of the top brass was fired or sidelined. I surmise this is not conductive to an atmosphere of honest feedback. "Mr Hegseth, I think engaging Iran on this scale will not result in regime change, but drag the US into a long-winding and unpopular war" is unlikely to be received very well -- probably he would tell you to get your testosterone levels checked because you are lacking the Spartan warrior spirit or something.
I agree this feedback would be risky under trump and hegseth, but I just disagree that it is relevant. The Iran war is a military success despite having no real end date. In fact, if the question is the lack of end date, it is the lifelong employees that will be advocating against the best ways to bring about an end date, such as destroying power plants, Kharg Island, "bridge day" as it was once floated as an idea, etc.
And on the other side, its not like there was a lack of people telling Trump not to do the war, almost all reporting indicates that Vance was opposed to the war on the grounds it would be unpopular.
anti_dan
15d ago
And NATO was not going to help either, as they don't feel any inclination to help dig trump out of the hole he created.
I think this understates the problem. I think a large part of the failures of the Iran war were predictable, but probably not by people in the mainstream, and probably not people in the Trump admin. I have very large outlier views on the matters of Iran and Iran's relations with other countries, which I think would have been necessary to predict what actually happened.
Because yes, NATO not helping is predictable, they barely ever do anything.
What no one in just about ANY mainstream, left or right, warroom would have predicted is that France, Germany, England, etc would be just fine with Iran pirating boats destined for their countries and/or flagged to their countries and/or crewed by people from their countries. Which is what we have seen. Iran bombs a tanker bound for Germany, and Germany just shrugs, or even more derangedly, blames the USA. Its like blaming the SWAT team when a highjacker intentionally kills a hostage during the raid. But this is Europe's mentality now. And IMO not predictable by any mainstream people.
Unless you understood the JCPOA as I did, as tacit approval by all the signatories for Iran to obtain nukes and continue terrorist operations while obtaining nukes for the purpose of deploying them against Israel and ultimately the USA. If you think that is what all those countries actually wanted, then you understand why they act so limply while their ships are bombed by a hostile power.
anti_dan
16d ago
If he really just had the flu he would have been posting daily vlog updates. There effeminately is a coverup going on, its just not the coverup the crazies first latched onto.
anti_dan
17d ago
it won't help Trump
This is kind of irrelevant. The investigation's purpose isn't to help Trump, that isn't what the Trump DOJ does. It had pursued a few vindictive cases like Comey on direct orders, but largely the Trump DOJ is not political in its investigations and prosecutions. They probably didn't even start this investigation which likely started as some Dem-on-Dem squabbling.
anti_dan
19d ago
"Public entertainment" is the least charitable way to frame it. It is mostly public informing. People should see the states' actions clearly.
anti_dan
19d ago
Ececuting a murderer should be an exciting day for the people. Properly, there shouldn't be that many murderers in their community. This is complicated in that we now live in a multi billion person world with many multi million person cities, but the base truth is the same: If someone kills a person or persons in good standing in your community, that evil persons execution is going to be a day of celebration. The defense and appeals bar has ruined this by delaying execution for decades at this point, and a nationally seen execution is historically unheard of, but... arent the victims of Islamic terror all of America? Shouldn't we all have the reminder that Sharia is evil and the enemy of America just as a small town of 900 people in Massachusetts in 1830 would have been reminded that killing the butcher is evil? Shouldn't we be able to rejoice in evil being exterminated just as they did when a rapist in 1910 was executed?
Or must we go along with the people who's role in the world is fighting biology and reality and deny that we think killing bad people is good and pretend to cry when bad people go to prison? Should we keep letting dogs die so coyotes can live?
anti_dan
24d ago
I concur.
I have been railing against the consent framework for sex for years at this point. And what is this case but yet another example of its complete failure and inability to deal with tricky cases. Lets be clear how bad this case is for the consent framework: Even if everyone involved was wearing body cams and every room was equipped with security cams, you would probably not be able to determine consent for any of the encounters beyond reasonable doubt.
Obviously since none of that is even available, the case is even trickier, and shows how consent fails so hard as a system. Consent is soft and subjective. For something as serious as rape you need a hard and objective system. If you are a trad, something as hard as marriage only. If you are a licentious inclined person something like, "entered a bedroom without force and allowed the door to be closed" works pretty well.
Consent, just never works. Or rather, it works well in all the easy cases, but EVERY system works well in the easy cases. And consent fails most often in the hard cases.
anti_dan
26d ago
Ukraine is petitioning to be a vassal state of the EU, which means its leadership wants wokeness (long term) and demographic replacement (long term). There is no other result of being in the EU.
I certainly never did that at 9. But I'd have had a 7 and 3 year old to care for in that case, which is dubious.
The real issue is that, once a kid is responsible enough to run a household for 3 days, they are also clever enough to throw a party while mom is away.
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