pigeonburger
11mo ago
It's pretty much the two extremes as far as the appearance of strength of the two candidates.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
There was concerns and coverage when the famous "mugshot" was released a couple of months ago that it gave Trump streetcred in the "hood", with some circumstantial evidence that it did sway some.
There's a lot more people that are convinced by a simplistic appeal to strength and power than the people on a website like this one would like to imagine.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
Democrats / media playing that card would only sound convincing to the people they already convinced long ago, and it would be extremely off-putting to everyone else. They might not be able to help themselves but do it, as the alternative, doing the right thing (and the thing that wouldn't immediately disgust anyone who could be a swing voter) means giving Trump a couple of days at least of deferential, respectful coverage (in the case of the media) and unqualified wishes for a speedy recovery to Trump and complete unconditional condemnation of the assassin (for Democrat politicians).
If Democrats had allowed some sort of positive legacy to survive from the Trump presidency and hadn't made it so personal with the lawsuits, maybe he wouldn't be so incentivized to run again. But they went and reversed everything and even deny him the objective foreign policy wins that aren't partisan politics. Likewise, for Biden, if he wasn't running against Trump the election wouldn't feel to him like a direct referendum on whether he ended up being worse than the guy he was supposed to fix the messes of; if he was facing anyone else, or was polling above Trump, he could ride into the sunset with the satisfaction of having done his job.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
It's legacy, that's what they want, at that level. No one wants to be a one term president that handed over a massive mess. No one wants to be the next Jimmy Carter.
Neither Trump or Biden has secured a positive legacy. Trump wants to be remembered at least like a Reagan, a president at least half the US remember fondly, not a one term president impeached twice. Biden's legacy if he doesn't win is that he's the guy who people elected to replace the Big Bad Trump but was such a failure that the people prefered re-electing Trump over him.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
I'm not saying they don't complain but my experience with it is that when people complain about it, it's only with trusted friends and the way they say it is as if it is transgressive to admit that they don't think it's acceptable that mentally ill people scream at them on the bus. Then it's usually followed by multiple phrases saying how obviously it's not those people's fault and how it's because we're so terrible, etc...
In some societies like China or Turkey it's shameful to have a relative who is homeless.
To compare, in western liberal cities, it's shameful to express discomfort about anything the homeless do. It's seen as a lack of compassion and understanding (the most important virtues for the WEIRD).
With the incentives being where they are, the difference in outcomes is unsurprising.
The implication is that you suck for not being able to hold your nose and step around the human feces left in the street and public transport for a couple of minutes of your day, while the homeless' life is so much worse, it sucks all day every day. This all slots in nicely with belief that affluent people with more pleasant lives probably don't deserve it, and vice-versa, the homeless doesn't deserve his shitty life.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
Maybe she just thought she would show the country her prosecutor skills by making someone squirm on the stand, but forgot that the someone was one of the top judges in the land.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
Basically, they thought they could Jedi Mind Trick the entire world into thinking they did not just see a clearly, obviously senile POTUS.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
Yeah, I think we know he isn't and wasn't but since the media were loudly claiming he was it was still necessary to assign a legit percentage probability to the idea that maybe the media wasn't crazy (and Trump was), achieving the same effect.
What I'm less sure is that the same effect isn't in play for a litteral dementia case; what's to stop Biden to have an episode and decide that he needs to resist the Soviets by sending American troops to Ukraine?
The longer they wait, the more the Democrats are going to run into problems if they want to swap Biden. There are states with ballot deadlines, fundraising concerns (ie: current funds could not be redirected to anyone but Kamala), and Biden's state is not likely to get better. Not to mention that some voters would likely feel cheated by a last minute switcharoo (an earlier one for anyone but Kamala is still a betrayal of democratic principles, but at least they'd have some time to come to terms with it). In all cases, sitting back and waiting is the right move for Trump. Once they swap Biden and he knows who he'll be facing, or enough deadlines have passed that swapping Biden would be devastating, then he will resume his regularly scheduled shitposting. If he pounces now and deliver a killing blow to Joe's chances they'll swap him out early rather than later (or not at all).
pigeonburger
11mo ago
Hillary would be fuming, I love it.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
Teaching there could become the automatic next job of any new ex-president (as long as he was not removed by impeachment or 25th Amendment), and they would all give a different class.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
I think it's important to note that heads of state, being at the apex of accomplishment in the field of politics, are subject to different incentives as the average person.
For the most part, once you've reached that point, what more can you reasonably expect out of life? You already are garanteed to be able to have most of the earthly possessions you might reasonably desire, even if you did not abuse your position for personal gain, because of the inherent value of your importance and popularity, you can make millions trivially by letting a ghostwriter write a book for you, or by making a few corporate event appearances. Most of us scramble to try to make something significant out of our brief time on earth. Becoming President is significant. If I managed to do it, did what I believe to be a good job, yet after my term my opponents came to jail me, fuck it I'd off myself and go into the afterlife smiling knowing that I won at life and they can't take that away from me.
All that to say that the regular carrot and stick that keep us mere mortals from misbehaving are not really needed for them, because what's supposed to keep them honest is legacy. When you become head of state, you become someone who will be written in history books and known about centuries, quite possibly even millenias, into the future. Trying to play whack-a-mole with the million different ways a head of state could abuse his power is useless, just make sure, since you have the luxury to select them, that the people who get there are the kind who care that their entry in future encyclopedias read more like Marcus Aurelius' than Commodus'.
Weather is a universal, if cliché, starting point. If it's summer, you can ask if they're doing something for their vacation. If it's December, you can ask what their plans for the holidays are. Sports, if your city has a sports team that has the attention of a large portion of the population (here it's our hockey team).
The only divisive topic that's allowed is sports because it's sort of an agreed upon topic most normal adults nowadays can still have diagreements on without significantly affecting their esteem of the other. Avoid controversy, avoid politics, even if you think the person agrees with you (they might not and just be keeping quiet about their real opinion) and others might overhear and alter their opinion of you over it. Others with either less awareness or stronger filter bubbles might still bring politics up, being unaware (or not caring) that the topic is divisive, in those case stick to uncontroversial, non-committal answers or statements.
You don't necessarily have to remember every little detail of their answers (if you can, though, great!), but try to remember a few points to reference next time you chat with them. If, for instance, the person tells you that they're going to stay at her parents over the holidays because her mother is sick, next time you see them, ask how her mother is doing. That kind of stuff.
It feels almost gross of me to write it down, because I feel like it is faking sympathy for my fellow humans, but I certainly needed to figure out how to have small talk myself, and it wasn't because I didn't care about others.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
I don't know how comfortable with small talk you are, but I recommend practicing it, some people assume if you don't engage or reciprocate small talk with them then you hate them or something.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
Master and Commander was great
Honestly, the whole series is fun, and since you're already past the biggest obstacle (the nautical jargon) you should check it out
pigeonburger
11mo ago
I haven't seen a qualitative change in recent times, I've seen footage of unfocussness similar to the debate for the last 4 years, but I think they were rare episodes 4 years ago, and since the beginning of the year it's more like the baseline with rare instances of focus.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
Obama might be worried because if Biden has a chance at all to win, it would be by a slim margin, and if Biden won't step aside, disunity might cost the dems that margin, and Obama would be one of the obvious ones to blame for it.
And ultimately I'm in the camp that the debate is probably not going to move the needle much, unless it causes Biden to be replaced, because of the same reason. People know what they have in front of them. The only thing it will change is independents who already knew they would like to vote Trump but needed an excuse to voice it now have it.
I don't think anyone doubted since 2020 that Biden was not reaaaally going to be in charge. The guy was always entirely a vote in favor of letting the PMC/The Deep State/the Cathedral/the Swamp/The Adults In the Room/whatever you want to call it reassert control of the government, and they on-purpose pushed a candidate with little ability to assert himself to represent that choice. Biden's cognitive state never mattered, except that now they think they have an excuse to saddle him with the blame for all the failures of the last 4 years and replace him with someone who's going to come into this looking like a fresh start.
We all know that the promises politicians make are not enforceable. They are riddled with lies. They were rehearsed in a backroom focus test to sound good. They were designed to manipulate us. So why are we discussing them seriously?
Ultimately that's what bugs me so much about the whole "Trump lies" schtick I hear from the media and the PMC.
It's tone deaf and insulting to the public, because the public knows very well what they have in front of them. They know politicians are salesmen, pitching a product. Usually, pitching that product will involve some sort of lie if we take that word in an narrow sense. The car salesman who tells you the deal he's offering you is the best in the industry, is that a lie? I mean, maybe technically, but only a very socially stunted person would get offended by it, stand up and point at the car salesman and yell "LIAR! THIS ISN'T THE BEST DEAL, AT HONDA THEY MADE ME A BETTER DEAL!" The dude's trying to sell a car, you know that coming into the dealership.
And Trump as a salesman is a lot like a car salesman, Obama is more like a startup founder pitching to angel investors. But both are selling something, trying to make their product look as good as they can, and yes, technically lying. Or omitting important truths. But the public already knows this, they've interacted with salesman, they know that not everything you hear from a salesman is to be taken at face value. But the media thinks that since Trump talks like a blue collar worker and Obama like a university professor they can make you "realize" that Trump is lying but since he uses big words maybe they can fool you into thinking Obama is not. Which is insulting because the public knows they're both just as much salesmen one as the other for a long time, it's all been priced in already.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
Sadly, I'm sure most will reach for a relief valve against cognitive dissonance; they'll claim it's a recent development. If anything, they might end up blaming conservatives because their unprincipled claims for years that Biden was unfit made them ignore his actual decline when it happened.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
Trump really seems to care about stopping immigration
I would reframe that. Trump really seemed to have picked up that a majority of voters seem to care about immigration.
I doubt he personally cares. But a leader who's at least able to identify and echo the wishes of the voters is still way ahead of one that cannot or will not.
pigeonburger
11mo ago
I would be surprised if he was, he's notoriously "straight edge" due to his brother's struggles with alcoolism, and that's one of the things I can believe is a deeply-held personal conviction of his.
Haley might try and fail, but Desantis I imagine has more political sense than do that; going against a popular figure like Trump (and by association his family) damages a Republican's brand. Jeb is a joke and a non-entity now. Rubio had to go into hiding for years to recover. The Cheney name is dirty now. Haley might have destroyed her political future. Desantis probably gave up on the primary just in time not to damage himself for 2028.
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