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Politics Discussion
- Thread starter caribou
- Start date
Amen
Y’all? SMH. Trump paid $750 in federal taxes in 2016 and 2017. What the actual fuck? I owed $18k in taxes in 2007 on a 10-99. I’m allowed to write haircuts off because of my career as a singer, but I never had $70K worth of haircut write-offs. Trump has avoided taxes for the past 10 years, a new report shows (just a few days before the first debate).
How could anyone continue to support this man?
How could anyone continue to support this man?
He's a con man. While I believe that he's such a poor business man that he could lose $1.4B in a year... Keep in mind that when he applies for loans or puts up other properties of his as collateral on new loans, he always artificially (read crookedly) inflates their value. But then when it comes time to pay taxes, he always lowballs the value of those same assets and holdings.
Michael Cohen famously admitted as much under oath.
Michael Cohen famously admitted as much under oath.
I don't know how the rest of you guys feel about this, but for the first time in my life I have made very humble sized donations to two Senate campaigns. I have donated to Sara Gideon's campaign against Susan Collins in Maine. And I've also made a modest donation to the campaign of Jamie Harrison in his campaign against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. South Carolina is in a statistical tie at this point. When you see a tie in the polls the advantages of incumbency will usually help carry the day. So defeating Graham is still a long shot. But the word is that Lindsey is running scared right now. He knows that his polls should not even be close. He should be walking away with it easily. And he's not. So I still have some hope.
Susan Collins I have a special antithesis towards based on her behavior as a "moderate" Republican from a progressive state. Her votes for Kavanaugh and the impeachment trial showed that when push came to shove, and the country was so obviously into sliding a far-right dictatorship for the first time, along with an absurd cult of personality...that moderation went out the window. She can wax poetic in front of the cameras about how "concerned" she is about Trump's behavior....or how internally conflicted she is about the decision processes of her most important and consequential votes. But the truth is that right now when her country most needs her supposed moderation and thoughtfulness, that she is consistently voting like a take-no-prisoners, diehard arch-conservative Republican. So she needs to go.
Susan Collins I have a special antithesis towards based on her behavior as a "moderate" Republican from a progressive state. Her votes for Kavanaugh and the impeachment trial showed that when push came to shove, and the country was so obviously into sliding a far-right dictatorship for the first time, along with an absurd cult of personality...that moderation went out the window. She can wax poetic in front of the cameras about how "concerned" she is about Trump's behavior....or how internally conflicted she is about the decision processes of her most important and consequential votes. But the truth is that right now when her country most needs her supposed moderation and thoughtfulness, that she is consistently voting like a take-no-prisoners, diehard arch-conservative Republican. So she needs to go.
mikeyank
Long time forumite
I am very curious to watch the debate tomorrow night. It probably will not be of much influence in the election as I can't imagine very many Americans who are still "on the fence" as to which candidate to vote for. I believe for most of us, nothing will change our minds in either camp. I am very pleased that Chris Wallace will be the moderator. I record and watch his Sunday program each week, the one and only FOX program that I watch for more than a few seconds. To me, this will be a fascinating debate.
I agree buddy. IF both candidates do not make any major mistakes, I don't think the debate will change many minds. We are already so polarized as a country right now that I don't think there are very many undecideds left up for grabs. That said, the undecided voters are pretty important when the electorate is very close to evenly split. My hope is that Biden will not make any of his infamous verbal gaffes that will give Fux news ammunition for days.
As a Democrat I hope that Trump is the one who has a major stumble in the debate. But I'm not counting on it. It will be interesting to see though how Trump handles the latest allegations that he has lost a ton of money through poor management and that he paid only $750 in federal taxes in 2016. He is caught in a bind in that while he can deny that number all he wants and claim it's fake news and so on, he isn't willing to release an official return to prove that he paid a different amount. So it sure looks like he's the one lying when he says the $750 amount is wildly wrong but he conspicuously won't share the supposed real amount of taxes paid.
If I could edit this post I would change two things. One is that I misused the word, antithesis. I was aware that it was not quite the word I was going for and I meant to revisit it before posting. But then I got distracted. The word I meant to use was, antipathy. Not antithesis. That has a very different meaning. Though I could say that Collins' beliefs and political ideologies lately are the antithesis of my own. haha
Second, the first name of Lindsey Graham's Democratic opponent is not Jamie. It's Jaime. Jaime Harrison. Which for those of us who know or have studied Spanish, know that Jaime is a common Spanish name. The correct Castilian pronunciation of it would be more phonetically sounded out like, high-may.
Thanks. haha
mikeyank
Long time forumite
Most voters say Trump-Biden debates won't move them.
As I mentioned yesterday, I believe that the vast majority of Americans know who they are voting for five weeks from today, but this article by NBC News mentions how the debate could potentially be a game changer.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/20...-biden-trump-debates-won-t-move-them-n1241259
Most voters say Trump-Biden debates won't move them. But here's why they could matter.
The first faceoff Tuesday features two septuagenarians prone to verbal stumbles and seeing them side by side could affect voter perceptions.
Presidential debates, from left, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, and Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.Matt Nighswander / NBC News; Getty Images; Reuters
Sept. 29, 2020, 4:32 AM EDT / Updated Sept. 29, 2020, 7:40 AM EDT
By Sahil Kapur
WASHINGTON — The first debate between Republican President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden is unlikely to change the minds of the vast majority of the American electorate who have already decided whom they support and say they can't be swayed.
But the debate could still rattle the race and rev up the electorate. A marginal impact in persuading voters could have a profound influence on the outcome if the contest comes down to a few battleground states. And some experts say presidential debates have proven to solidify impressions of candidates in ways that affect voters' behavior.
The debates could be Trump's last, best chance to reshape the contest. But that won't be easy.
Biden has enjoyed a healthy lead in polls since he became the Democratic nominee, and Trump's repeated attempts to gain ground have failed.
"Presidential debates matter less than people think. Voters don't watch to make up their minds. They watch to root for their favorites," said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. "After Kansas City won the Super Bowl, very few San Francisco fans thought to themselves, 'Golly, Kansas City played better, so I should be for them, instead.'"
But the contest remains close in key battleground states, like Florida and North Carolina. And some voters will be watching with an eye to making a final choice. Twenty-nine percent of Americans said in a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that debates are extremely important or very important to their votes.
'Senior moment'
The debate will feature two septuagenarians who are prone to verbal stumbles, and seeing them side by side could affect voter perceptions.
"A debate could affect the outcome if either candidate showed serious signs of mental instability or cognitive decline. The key word is 'serious.' The occasional stumble, stammer or factual error won't do it," Pitney said. "Even Reagan's senior moments in the first 1984 debate with Mondale did not change the race. I don't know what it would take, but it would be something we've never seen in the 60-year history of televised presidential debates."
Historically, debates have proven to allow a candidate to project an image, said Barbara Perry, a professor and director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Center.
Richard Nixon's "ghastly" appearance in the first televised presidential debate in U.S. history, in 1960, gave the younger and less experienced John F. Kennedy a boost, potentially helping his popular vote victory of 0.17 percentage points, she said.
The debate could offer Trump the opportunity to make the case that perceptions of his first term are unfairly negative. Trump's job approval ratings in polls remain low, and voters frequently say they trust Biden to manage the coronavirus pandemic and health care.
But Trump continues to be more trusted than Biden on the economy, which often ranks as the top voter concern and will be a debate topic. The president may seek to use the economy to appeal to undecided voters who are worried about their pocketbooks. Biden will be trying to make up ground on the economy.
Perry said that a foreign policy stumble by President Gerald Ford in 1976 cost him credibility in what ended up being a narrow defeat and that Al Gore's sighing and "condescending speaking style" may have been detrimental in a 2000 contest that came down to a few hundred votes in Florida.
TRUMP EFFECT
Pelosi says Trump's taxes reveal 'national security' issue
Perry doubted that the Trump-Biden debates will tilt the outcome. But she said Biden has more to lose if he makes a colossal error.
"Nothing will hurt Trump among his base," she said. "A disastrous misstatement by Biden or terribly poor performance might siphon just enough votes to cause his candidacy to crash, especially in a close election."
In 1992, a strong debate answer about the economy rebranded Bill Clinton "as a caring, empathic public servant, instead of a draft-dodging womanizer," and "retrenched Bush 41 as a WASPy elitist" in the minds of many voters, Perry said.
In 1988, an emotionless response from Michael Dukakis to a hypothetical question involving his wife and the death penalty "cemented his image as a nerdy policy wonk," she said.
More recent history suggests caution about the significance of debates. In 2016, polls showed Hillary Clinton handily winning all three debates, yet she lost the Electoral College. In 2012, President Barack Obama lost the first debate in surveys before recovering and winning re-election.
Now, in the social media era, the debates may be about who creates the sharpest viral moments that drive narratives and flood Facebook and Twitter feeds, where candidates are talking to their base followers, as well as seeking out the elusive undecided voters.
"Our modern-era debates are really about creating a spectacular moment or several spectacular moments that social media influencers will retweet, while avoiding being an inspiration for the newest internet meme," said Ed Lee, senior director of the Alben W. Barkley Forum for Debate, Deliberation, and Dialogue at Emory University.
Lee said the economic contrast, as it did in 2016, will matter most.
"Many people voted for President Trump in spite of his insults, insensitivities and brash bravado, not because of it," he said. "Pocketbook issues are ultimately the deciding factors."
As I mentioned yesterday, I believe that the vast majority of Americans know who they are voting for five weeks from today, but this article by NBC News mentions how the debate could potentially be a game changer.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/20...-biden-trump-debates-won-t-move-them-n1241259
Most voters say Trump-Biden debates won't move them. But here's why they could matter.
The first faceoff Tuesday features two septuagenarians prone to verbal stumbles and seeing them side by side could affect voter perceptions.
Presidential debates, from left, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, and Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.Matt Nighswander / NBC News; Getty Images; Reuters
Sept. 29, 2020, 4:32 AM EDT / Updated Sept. 29, 2020, 7:40 AM EDT
By Sahil Kapur
WASHINGTON — The first debate between Republican President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden is unlikely to change the minds of the vast majority of the American electorate who have already decided whom they support and say they can't be swayed.
But the debate could still rattle the race and rev up the electorate. A marginal impact in persuading voters could have a profound influence on the outcome if the contest comes down to a few battleground states. And some experts say presidential debates have proven to solidify impressions of candidates in ways that affect voters' behavior.
The debates could be Trump's last, best chance to reshape the contest. But that won't be easy.
Biden has enjoyed a healthy lead in polls since he became the Democratic nominee, and Trump's repeated attempts to gain ground have failed.
"Presidential debates matter less than people think. Voters don't watch to make up their minds. They watch to root for their favorites," said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. "After Kansas City won the Super Bowl, very few San Francisco fans thought to themselves, 'Golly, Kansas City played better, so I should be for them, instead.'"
But the contest remains close in key battleground states, like Florida and North Carolina. And some voters will be watching with an eye to making a final choice. Twenty-nine percent of Americans said in a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that debates are extremely important or very important to their votes.
'Senior moment'
The debate will feature two septuagenarians who are prone to verbal stumbles, and seeing them side by side could affect voter perceptions.
"A debate could affect the outcome if either candidate showed serious signs of mental instability or cognitive decline. The key word is 'serious.' The occasional stumble, stammer or factual error won't do it," Pitney said. "Even Reagan's senior moments in the first 1984 debate with Mondale did not change the race. I don't know what it would take, but it would be something we've never seen in the 60-year history of televised presidential debates."
Historically, debates have proven to allow a candidate to project an image, said Barbara Perry, a professor and director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Center.
Richard Nixon's "ghastly" appearance in the first televised presidential debate in U.S. history, in 1960, gave the younger and less experienced John F. Kennedy a boost, potentially helping his popular vote victory of 0.17 percentage points, she said.
The debate could offer Trump the opportunity to make the case that perceptions of his first term are unfairly negative. Trump's job approval ratings in polls remain low, and voters frequently say they trust Biden to manage the coronavirus pandemic and health care.
But Trump continues to be more trusted than Biden on the economy, which often ranks as the top voter concern and will be a debate topic. The president may seek to use the economy to appeal to undecided voters who are worried about their pocketbooks. Biden will be trying to make up ground on the economy.
Perry said that a foreign policy stumble by President Gerald Ford in 1976 cost him credibility in what ended up being a narrow defeat and that Al Gore's sighing and "condescending speaking style" may have been detrimental in a 2000 contest that came down to a few hundred votes in Florida.
TRUMP EFFECT
Pelosi says Trump's taxes reveal 'national security' issue
Perry doubted that the Trump-Biden debates will tilt the outcome. But she said Biden has more to lose if he makes a colossal error.
"Nothing will hurt Trump among his base," she said. "A disastrous misstatement by Biden or terribly poor performance might siphon just enough votes to cause his candidacy to crash, especially in a close election."
In 1992, a strong debate answer about the economy rebranded Bill Clinton "as a caring, empathic public servant, instead of a draft-dodging womanizer," and "retrenched Bush 41 as a WASPy elitist" in the minds of many voters, Perry said.
In 1988, an emotionless response from Michael Dukakis to a hypothetical question involving his wife and the death penalty "cemented his image as a nerdy policy wonk," she said.
More recent history suggests caution about the significance of debates. In 2016, polls showed Hillary Clinton handily winning all three debates, yet she lost the Electoral College. In 2012, President Barack Obama lost the first debate in surveys before recovering and winning re-election.
Now, in the social media era, the debates may be about who creates the sharpest viral moments that drive narratives and flood Facebook and Twitter feeds, where candidates are talking to their base followers, as well as seeking out the elusive undecided voters.
"Our modern-era debates are really about creating a spectacular moment or several spectacular moments that social media influencers will retweet, while avoiding being an inspiration for the newest internet meme," said Ed Lee, senior director of the Alben W. Barkley Forum for Debate, Deliberation, and Dialogue at Emory University.
Lee said the economic contrast, as it did in 2016, will matter most.
"Many people voted for President Trump in spite of his insults, insensitivities and brash bravado, not because of it," he said. "Pocketbook issues are ultimately the deciding factors."
juanjo
BSB Addict
A couple of observations.
1. The number of undecided voters in this cycle is already minuscule so it is unlikely that the debate is going to cause any huge jump in one or the other candidate's poll numbers. The real key on that issue will be gaffes.
Trump loves to shoot from the lip and wander off his talking points. It is also when he really starts lying. He seems to think that this is a strength and not a weakness. After all, he has done it his entire life and no one has ever seriously called him on it, i.e., actually to his face in public called him an out and out liar. He also tends to equate the reactions of partisan crowds at his rallies with the general public and they are not the same crowd. His base is not going to leave him at this point short of some unknowable and unpredictable event prior to the election. But those suburban housewives and others whose support has been seriously eroded do not typically care for his lies, not to mention the things he often says in general when he shoots from the lip.
Biden is not a good debater and never has been. However, when the crunch is on as it is now, he does much better. If you look at his previous two vice-presidential debates vs his debates in the primaries, he did far better in the vice-presidential debates, as well as, the debates prior to the last two seriously contested primaries when he was on the ropes and came back. His major issue is he has a speech impediment and is known for gaffes as a result pretty much his entire life. However, the Republicans are trying really hard to impress in people's minds that any gaffes are a result of age and imminent dementia. Frankly, the media have not helped in this matter either. They are playing up controversies and the dementia attacks are a controversy.
2. Trump's tax issues are big and will be big for a bit. However, the focus on the "he paid little or no tax" argument is not all that helpful. Amazon and a number of other large corporations pay little or no taxes as well. The average voter doesn't understand tax law, hell, the average attorney doesn't either. To Trump's base, not paying taxes is a plus not a negative. They see this as feeding into their vision of him as an outsider maverick sticking it into the eye of the Deep State. They love it.
The other and more important issue here is to play up Trump as a failed businessman who has kept himself afloat by cheating people he does business with and still hemorrhaging money since 2012.
Trump's tax records show he has taken pretty aggressive tax reduction strategies. Some of those are almost undoubtedly illegal - like paying Ivanka as an employee and also listing her as an independent contractor consultant in order to deduct a sum of money paid to her. Other matters which come up are his debt write-off issues. As was mentioned in 2016, Trump is notorious for refusing to pay his debts. His tax records are filled with instances of him stiffing creditors. Now if you stiff a creditor and they write-off the debt which has happened in a number of cases listed in his tax records, the IRS requires you to list the amount of that write-off as income as you received the money or service or product but never paid the agreed sum for it. In the past 10 years for which we have records for Trump, he had to account for over 200 million in bad loans write-offs where he stiffed his creditors. Now we do not know who these creditors are. They may be banks but US banks will not have anything to do with Trump since his 1991 collapse. I doubt it is the Russians or the Saudis who have been the main source of his funds since the 1990s. It may be vendors, contractors, and other businesses he dealt with in his different businesses. We know that he refused to pay a lot of contractors and vendors back when he was building casinos and as a result of the business bankruptcies, those creditors lost their money. He has been forced to personally guarantee his business contracts and financing since the 1990s for most people publicly dealing with him so they can go after him personally if the business entity files a bankruptcy.
Most people, even Trump supporters, would view someone who doesn't honor his own deals as less than a good businessman. While they might be amused at say, Bank of America being left high and dry, they would feel different about the local laundry or restaurant supply business where Trump refused to pay his tab. Certainly, regular folks who work hard and pay their debts would not like the fact he was a person who cheated others by refusing to pay a debt he owed.
Then there is the fact that his entire schtick since 2016 has been what a great businessman he is and how he can run the country as well as he has run his businesses. The fact is that he was been losing tens of millions of dollars every year and pulling money from any source he can to pump it into these failing businesses. Hence, his stealing money from his charities to put it into the businesses. The man is a complete loser and a total fraud. That is really the only thing that I think will have a negative impact on some of his base. If they see him as lying to them, as being a fraud to them, and not the successful businessman he told them he was, some of them might stay home and sit out the election.
3. The final matter which as yet hasn't seemed to penetrate the news cycle in the USA is a report from Channel 4 in the UK about Cambridge Analytica and just how deeply they impacted both the 2016 election on behalf of Trump and the Brexit vote of the same year for the pro-Brexit side. Essentially, they gathered such an immense amount of data on voters in the US from Facebook and other sources that they were able to target very specific advertising and communications [appearing to be from other individuals] to people. They would analyze what was of concern to individuals and then feed them a steady stream of fake news and communications to feed into whatever misgivings the person was having. So, for example, supported Bernie in the primary? You receive a steady stream of fake stories and communications from "other Bernie" supporters discussing how the DNC and Hillary stole the elections away from Bernie. Are you an ardent Clinton supporter and nothing will change your mind? You get a barrage of stories and emails about how Clinton is blowing Trump completely out of the water and it is such a blow-out it doesn't really matter if you show up and vote or not. Not 100% on board with Clinton and you are gay? You are flooded with information about how Hillary and the Democrats are screwing over gay people and since she is going to win anyway, maybe this is a good time for you to register a protest and vote for a 3rd party. There were similar attacks specifically aimed at Black voters, Hispanic voters, and Asian voters, again filled with fake information and lots of "concern" from others "in the community".
This news came out yesterday evening in the UK. I am wondering when or if it will start to receive play over here. They have dug up documents and have interviews tying Bannon and the Mercer family into the efforts to sway the election in favor of Trump. All of which, by the way, is highly illegal since Cambridge Analytica was a UK entity and so were the people they employed on the project. Given Bannon's ties to Trump prior to, during, and after the election what do you think the likelihood is that Trump knew all about the actions being taken on his behalf?
1. The number of undecided voters in this cycle is already minuscule so it is unlikely that the debate is going to cause any huge jump in one or the other candidate's poll numbers. The real key on that issue will be gaffes.
Trump loves to shoot from the lip and wander off his talking points. It is also when he really starts lying. He seems to think that this is a strength and not a weakness. After all, he has done it his entire life and no one has ever seriously called him on it, i.e., actually to his face in public called him an out and out liar. He also tends to equate the reactions of partisan crowds at his rallies with the general public and they are not the same crowd. His base is not going to leave him at this point short of some unknowable and unpredictable event prior to the election. But those suburban housewives and others whose support has been seriously eroded do not typically care for his lies, not to mention the things he often says in general when he shoots from the lip.
Biden is not a good debater and never has been. However, when the crunch is on as it is now, he does much better. If you look at his previous two vice-presidential debates vs his debates in the primaries, he did far better in the vice-presidential debates, as well as, the debates prior to the last two seriously contested primaries when he was on the ropes and came back. His major issue is he has a speech impediment and is known for gaffes as a result pretty much his entire life. However, the Republicans are trying really hard to impress in people's minds that any gaffes are a result of age and imminent dementia. Frankly, the media have not helped in this matter either. They are playing up controversies and the dementia attacks are a controversy.
2. Trump's tax issues are big and will be big for a bit. However, the focus on the "he paid little or no tax" argument is not all that helpful. Amazon and a number of other large corporations pay little or no taxes as well. The average voter doesn't understand tax law, hell, the average attorney doesn't either. To Trump's base, not paying taxes is a plus not a negative. They see this as feeding into their vision of him as an outsider maverick sticking it into the eye of the Deep State. They love it.
The other and more important issue here is to play up Trump as a failed businessman who has kept himself afloat by cheating people he does business with and still hemorrhaging money since 2012.
Trump's tax records show he has taken pretty aggressive tax reduction strategies. Some of those are almost undoubtedly illegal - like paying Ivanka as an employee and also listing her as an independent contractor consultant in order to deduct a sum of money paid to her. Other matters which come up are his debt write-off issues. As was mentioned in 2016, Trump is notorious for refusing to pay his debts. His tax records are filled with instances of him stiffing creditors. Now if you stiff a creditor and they write-off the debt which has happened in a number of cases listed in his tax records, the IRS requires you to list the amount of that write-off as income as you received the money or service or product but never paid the agreed sum for it. In the past 10 years for which we have records for Trump, he had to account for over 200 million in bad loans write-offs where he stiffed his creditors. Now we do not know who these creditors are. They may be banks but US banks will not have anything to do with Trump since his 1991 collapse. I doubt it is the Russians or the Saudis who have been the main source of his funds since the 1990s. It may be vendors, contractors, and other businesses he dealt with in his different businesses. We know that he refused to pay a lot of contractors and vendors back when he was building casinos and as a result of the business bankruptcies, those creditors lost their money. He has been forced to personally guarantee his business contracts and financing since the 1990s for most people publicly dealing with him so they can go after him personally if the business entity files a bankruptcy.
Most people, even Trump supporters, would view someone who doesn't honor his own deals as less than a good businessman. While they might be amused at say, Bank of America being left high and dry, they would feel different about the local laundry or restaurant supply business where Trump refused to pay his tab. Certainly, regular folks who work hard and pay their debts would not like the fact he was a person who cheated others by refusing to pay a debt he owed.
Then there is the fact that his entire schtick since 2016 has been what a great businessman he is and how he can run the country as well as he has run his businesses. The fact is that he was been losing tens of millions of dollars every year and pulling money from any source he can to pump it into these failing businesses. Hence, his stealing money from his charities to put it into the businesses. The man is a complete loser and a total fraud. That is really the only thing that I think will have a negative impact on some of his base. If they see him as lying to them, as being a fraud to them, and not the successful businessman he told them he was, some of them might stay home and sit out the election.
3. The final matter which as yet hasn't seemed to penetrate the news cycle in the USA is a report from Channel 4 in the UK about Cambridge Analytica and just how deeply they impacted both the 2016 election on behalf of Trump and the Brexit vote of the same year for the pro-Brexit side. Essentially, they gathered such an immense amount of data on voters in the US from Facebook and other sources that they were able to target very specific advertising and communications [appearing to be from other individuals] to people. They would analyze what was of concern to individuals and then feed them a steady stream of fake news and communications to feed into whatever misgivings the person was having. So, for example, supported Bernie in the primary? You receive a steady stream of fake stories and communications from "other Bernie" supporters discussing how the DNC and Hillary stole the elections away from Bernie. Are you an ardent Clinton supporter and nothing will change your mind? You get a barrage of stories and emails about how Clinton is blowing Trump completely out of the water and it is such a blow-out it doesn't really matter if you show up and vote or not. Not 100% on board with Clinton and you are gay? You are flooded with information about how Hillary and the Democrats are screwing over gay people and since she is going to win anyway, maybe this is a good time for you to register a protest and vote for a 3rd party. There were similar attacks specifically aimed at Black voters, Hispanic voters, and Asian voters, again filled with fake information and lots of "concern" from others "in the community".
This news came out yesterday evening in the UK. I am wondering when or if it will start to receive play over here. They have dug up documents and have interviews tying Bannon and the Mercer family into the efforts to sway the election in favor of Trump. All of which, by the way, is highly illegal since Cambridge Analytica was a UK entity and so were the people they employed on the project. Given Bannon's ties to Trump prior to, during, and after the election what do you think the likelihood is that Trump knew all about the actions being taken on his behalf?
I stopped drinking on April 17, 2017. I have been sober for 3 1/2 years. Tonight I almost started drinking again. Lord have mercy, that debate.
Two things I learned through all the speaking over each over....
-Trump WOULD NOT denounce white supremacy
-Biden never mentioned Trump’s children even once.
I’m sure this debate didn’t change many minds, but Trump refusing to denounce white supremacy was the one thing that spoke the loudest to me.
Biden/Harris 2020
Two things I learned through all the speaking over each over....
-Trump WOULD NOT denounce white supremacy
-Biden never mentioned Trump’s children even once.
I’m sure this debate didn’t change many minds, but Trump refusing to denounce white supremacy was the one thing that spoke the loudest to me.
Biden/Harris 2020
The thought that ran through my head when Trump went after Hunter Biden for past cocaine use, was that Biden could have gone for the obvious kill of DJTJ tweaking from coke the night of the Republican convention. Which was only a few weeks ago. But Biden stayed above the fray and didn't go into the mud pit.
There was another point when Trump hit Hunter Biden hard for shady business dealings and Biden said something about, "Well I could talk about your kids." Trump hesitated in a brief "Oh shit" nanosecond when he thought Biden might go there. There was a flash of fear across Trump's face and a moment of tension in the room. But Biden moved on to something else and didn't go there.
Trump treated this event like he would any other press conference with reporters. Bullying any reporters who ask tough questions. Talking over tough questions. Deflecting the subject off on a tangent away from the real question. Talking over someone making a point that calls him out on one of Trump's innumerable lies and exaggerations.
Trump played the part of a strong arrogant dictator who shouldn't even have to be bothered with elections. (Which will actually please his core 30-35% base.) Biden looked meek and mild in contrast to Trump's incessant bombastic verbal tantrums. Could or should Biden have looked stronger and stood his ground more? Maybe. As Juanjo points out, Biden will never be known as one who's especially good at debating. But importantly here, he didn't lose the debate either.
Wallace did not fare well here either as Trump did his best to try to steamroll over many of his questions, go into sparring matches with Wallace himself, and generally ignored every rule of procedure and decorum for a dignified presidential debate. But could any other moderator have done much better under the exact circumstances?
The recording of this debate will not age well as a historic artifact for the state of the country after the turn of the century.
This was not a debate that moved the needle and changed the dynamic as Trump needed it to. I don't see this one shaking up the polls in Trump's favor at all. This was just more of him playing to his base. Not building a bigger GOP tent.
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My partner thought Biden came across weak for not going after Trump in a like manner. But I think Biden was the adult in the room. I wish he had hit Trump harder on some issues and as mentioned above he could have definitely used the you want to talk about children issue to really go off on the Trump family. He also could have said, did you here that. He just called for violence from his white supremacy mob. I truly believe Trump would love his people to take out those pesky black lives mater people. What a mess. It’s pretty clear the civil war isn’t really over, not in the minds of some people.
mikeyank
Long time forumite
Trump showed his true colors last night by hyping the white supremacist group "The Proud Boys".
2020 DEBATES
Trump's jarring white supremacist moment launches an online furor
The president told the Proud Boys, a self-described "western chauvinist" group, to "stand back" and "stand by." ground, "The proud Boys".
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/...G58wuLG-nF7ZSTXWuxsZjzp9R44Oz_9w9ffIH3qu7mCLQ
President Donald Trump gestures while speaking during the first presidential debate. | Julio Cortez/AP Photo
By MAYA KING and LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ
09/30/2020 02:08 AM EDT
In a night marked by constant interruptions and blatant fact-fudging, it was a moment that sparked a separate online melee.
Moderator Chris Wallace gave President Donald Trump an uninterrupted opportunity to condemn the nation's biggest domestic terrorist groups: white supremacists. Instead, Trump said they should “stand back and stand by.” What's more, he said, the violence in cities like Kenosha and Portland is a “left-wing problem, not a right-wing problem.”
Anti-racism advocates also reacted swiftly. "'Stand back and stand by,'" Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, tweeted. "The line of the night. What Donald J. Trump said to the greatest domestic terrorist threat of our time: White supremacists."
The president’s refusal to condemn white supremacists follows a summer of protest and civil unrest in response to police brutality and systemic racism. Millions of Americans have taken to the streets since May in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, African-Americans who were killed by police and white civilian vigilantes. Trump has denounced these demonstrations and referred to organizations like Black Lives Matter as “a symbol of hate.”
During a section pegged as “race and violence in our cities,” — a conflation that raised eyebrows pre-debate — Trump didn’t address the issue of police reform. Instead, he doubled down on his claims that violence is rampant in Democrat-controlled cities — a Republican playbook aimed at stoking fear among white voters.
Joe Biden parried, arguing the president’s current FBI director Christopher Wray referred to Antifa as “more of an ideology or a movement” than a terror organization as Trump claimed.Trump's comments were quickly embraced by the Proud Boys, an alt-right self-described “western chauvinist” group who clearly viewed it as a call to action. The group turned his words into a logo that has been widely circulated on social media. On the right-wing social media site Parler, Proud Boys leader Joe Biggs said he took Trump’s words as a directive to “f--- them up.”
Social justice organizations were quick to censure the president’s comments. Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, told POLITICO the president’s willingness to villainize the movement and pivot to talking points on law and order are meant to distract voters from his larger shortcomings.
“There are protests happening in this country right now because of the lack of racial justice. But alongside those protests there is a campaign of racial terror,” she said. “Rather than focus on the issues at hand, rather than addressing and solving problems, this administration has done more to stoke fear, to stoke division, to create anxiety and frankly to leave a very complicated narrative that distracts us from the utter failures of this administration to deliver on the issues that most Americans care about.”
“At this point, no one should be surprised that Trump is at minimum sympathetic to the Proud Boys and other White supremacists,” said Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change. “It’s not just his words but his actions, through policy and practice, which have been enabled by so many that will pretend to be outraged or surprised.”
Jessica Byrd, an organizer with the Movement for Black Lives and leader of the Frontline project, which aims to galvanize voters ahead of the November election, issued a statement calling Trump’s refusal to condemn the Proud Boys “a stark insult” to Black Americans.
2020 DEBATES
Trump's jarring white supremacist moment launches an online furor
The president told the Proud Boys, a self-described "western chauvinist" group, to "stand back" and "stand by." ground, "The proud Boys".
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/...G58wuLG-nF7ZSTXWuxsZjzp9R44Oz_9w9ffIH3qu7mCLQ
President Donald Trump gestures while speaking during the first presidential debate. | Julio Cortez/AP Photo
By MAYA KING and LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ
09/30/2020 02:08 AM EDT
In a night marked by constant interruptions and blatant fact-fudging, it was a moment that sparked a separate online melee.
Moderator Chris Wallace gave President Donald Trump an uninterrupted opportunity to condemn the nation's biggest domestic terrorist groups: white supremacists. Instead, Trump said they should “stand back and stand by.” What's more, he said, the violence in cities like Kenosha and Portland is a “left-wing problem, not a right-wing problem.”
Anti-racism advocates also reacted swiftly. "'Stand back and stand by,'" Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, tweeted. "The line of the night. What Donald J. Trump said to the greatest domestic terrorist threat of our time: White supremacists."
The president’s refusal to condemn white supremacists follows a summer of protest and civil unrest in response to police brutality and systemic racism. Millions of Americans have taken to the streets since May in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, African-Americans who were killed by police and white civilian vigilantes. Trump has denounced these demonstrations and referred to organizations like Black Lives Matter as “a symbol of hate.”
During a section pegged as “race and violence in our cities,” — a conflation that raised eyebrows pre-debate — Trump didn’t address the issue of police reform. Instead, he doubled down on his claims that violence is rampant in Democrat-controlled cities — a Republican playbook aimed at stoking fear among white voters.
Joe Biden parried, arguing the president’s current FBI director Christopher Wray referred to Antifa as “more of an ideology or a movement” than a terror organization as Trump claimed.Trump's comments were quickly embraced by the Proud Boys, an alt-right self-described “western chauvinist” group who clearly viewed it as a call to action. The group turned his words into a logo that has been widely circulated on social media. On the right-wing social media site Parler, Proud Boys leader Joe Biggs said he took Trump’s words as a directive to “f--- them up.”
Social justice organizations were quick to censure the president’s comments. Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, told POLITICO the president’s willingness to villainize the movement and pivot to talking points on law and order are meant to distract voters from his larger shortcomings.
“There are protests happening in this country right now because of the lack of racial justice. But alongside those protests there is a campaign of racial terror,” she said. “Rather than focus on the issues at hand, rather than addressing and solving problems, this administration has done more to stoke fear, to stoke division, to create anxiety and frankly to leave a very complicated narrative that distracts us from the utter failures of this administration to deliver on the issues that most Americans care about.”
“At this point, no one should be surprised that Trump is at minimum sympathetic to the Proud Boys and other White supremacists,” said Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change. “It’s not just his words but his actions, through policy and practice, which have been enabled by so many that will pretend to be outraged or surprised.”
Jessica Byrd, an organizer with the Movement for Black Lives and leader of the Frontline project, which aims to galvanize voters ahead of the November election, issued a statement calling Trump’s refusal to condemn the Proud Boys “a stark insult” to Black Americans.
juanjo
BSB Addict
It would seem that Trump, as he does in other areas, decided to come in and use his usual bullying tactics to frustrate and piss off Biden. He went low and rude, constantly interrupting Biden, telling lie after lie, making snark asides [not that Biden did not get a few of those in as well], and making personal attacks on Biden and his family. His goal seems to have been to get Biden mad enough to lose his cool and launch into a tirade of his own and hopefully make some gaffs that Trump could then exploit.
Biden did not go there and came across as the more adult of the two. He also capably displayed that he is not the senile, doddering old man the Trump campaign is trying to paint him. Given that Trump needs to convince the people who voted for him in 2016 to come back and vote for him in 2020, his tactics might blow up in his face. One of the larger groups he has lost ground with is suburban voters, particularly female suburban voters. Suburban voters tend to be better educated and not impressed by antics like Trump displayed last night - personal attacks, lies, and rude behavior. That is especially true of suburban women. It will be very interesting to see what the polls say after last night's performance.
The White Supremacist nonsense is also going to hurt Trump. He claimed that his 2017 comments were misinterpreted and then when asked to state on stage last night that he denounced White Supremacy, he refused to do so. He attacked "Antifa" and his undefined "leftists" and called out the Proud Boys to Stand down and stand by. He also called on his followers to defend polling places from non-existent fraud. Now that is going to excite the far-right White Supremacist branch of his supporters but it is not going to help him with everyone else.
There was a piece on YouTube last night by Channel 4 out of the UK about how the Republicans this election are using the exact same data manipulation that Cambridge Analytica used in the 2016 election - extremely focused research that allows them to focus on specific people in specific neighborhoods and bombard them with very specific pieces of email, snail-mail, and post on social media designed to affect if someone voted, as well as, how they voted. Channel 4 had one such list they had obtained somehow for Wisconsin and went around to different neighborhoods looking up people and asking them questions based on the information about them on the lists. The information was surprisingly accurate and some people were a little troubled by the implications of how they were being targeted.
It is going to be a very interesting month.
Biden did not go there and came across as the more adult of the two. He also capably displayed that he is not the senile, doddering old man the Trump campaign is trying to paint him. Given that Trump needs to convince the people who voted for him in 2016 to come back and vote for him in 2020, his tactics might blow up in his face. One of the larger groups he has lost ground with is suburban voters, particularly female suburban voters. Suburban voters tend to be better educated and not impressed by antics like Trump displayed last night - personal attacks, lies, and rude behavior. That is especially true of suburban women. It will be very interesting to see what the polls say after last night's performance.
The White Supremacist nonsense is also going to hurt Trump. He claimed that his 2017 comments were misinterpreted and then when asked to state on stage last night that he denounced White Supremacy, he refused to do so. He attacked "Antifa" and his undefined "leftists" and called out the Proud Boys to Stand down and stand by. He also called on his followers to defend polling places from non-existent fraud. Now that is going to excite the far-right White Supremacist branch of his supporters but it is not going to help him with everyone else.
There was a piece on YouTube last night by Channel 4 out of the UK about how the Republicans this election are using the exact same data manipulation that Cambridge Analytica used in the 2016 election - extremely focused research that allows them to focus on specific people in specific neighborhoods and bombard them with very specific pieces of email, snail-mail, and post on social media designed to affect if someone voted, as well as, how they voted. Channel 4 had one such list they had obtained somehow for Wisconsin and went around to different neighborhoods looking up people and asking them questions based on the information about them on the lists. The information was surprisingly accurate and some people were a little troubled by the implications of how they were being targeted.
It is going to be a very interesting month.
So Trump has just reiterated that rather than waiting for the election to be officially certified once all the mail-in ballots and military ballots are counted, that he plans on sending his supporters (white supremacists included) to polling places to "observe", intimidate, bully, harass and otherwise show up with an attitude looking for (and hopefully finding or making) trouble. He doesn't care if he has to start a low-level civil war in order to hold on to power.
So he has told us his playbook in advance. Only somebody very naive and Pollyannaish will be shocked and surprised to see him go down exactly this path. This is gonna be a very rough ride.
So he has told us his playbook in advance. Only somebody very naive and Pollyannaish will be shocked and surprised to see him go down exactly this path. This is gonna be a very rough ride.
juanjo
BSB Addict
And herein lies the rub. It is illegal under federal law and under state law of any state I know of for anyone to show up at the polls to "observe". Those of us old enough recall how the KKK and other White Supremacists used to do exactly that in the 1950s and 1960s. Some of the slightly younger people here might recall when the Republicans tried that in the 1980s, having people dressed in security guard uniforms or with jackets saying "poll watcher" on them would approach people in the lines and start questioning them about whether they had proper identification, etc. Funny thing was they primarily approached minorities and focused on precincts that had heavy Democratic registration. There was a lawsuit over that behavior and the court entered an injunction against it. That injunction expired late last year. In 2016, the Republicans sent emails to minority voters and used media sites like Facebook to "warn" minorities that the police were checking for people with warrants when they came to vote or that immigration was checking the papers for people trying to vote.
So, in some areas, it is likely that we will see idiots show up at the polls some armed. It is illegal and if the cops are called and do their duty it could result in confrontations. If they do not, it sure will be intimidating. We saw a preview of this last week when early voting opened up in some locations and Trump supporters swarmed down to the polls and stood around making noise and acting like fools. It is looking more and more like a 3rd world banana republic in this country by the day.
I can't disagree. Trump's plan is to create chaos at the polls. Then he will use the chaos he himself encourages in order to justify his false narrative that the election is completely tainted and should be ignored. Unless of course he appears to be the legitimate winner. Short of that he will try to sue in lower state courts to stop or slow down the count. Then he'll try to throw it to the Supreme Court to try to get it to decide the final result of the election. I'm not saying that any of that is legally possible. Our presidents are not picked by the majority consent of a 9 person council of elders. But Trump lives in his own fantasy world anyway. It's his world. The rest of us poor peons just live in it with him. He's not above trying for an election coup of sorts where he steals the election if it doesn't go his way fair and square.
This will be a great historical lesson (in the present and in hindsight) for the U.S. in the perils of getting somebody elected president who is deeply mentally disturbed. He doesn't care at all if he has to torch the U.S. Constitution and literally leave dozens of American cities in flames, if it means he can somehow keep himself in power. Pinochet would approve of his plan.
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Long may it continue.
