Do you know who is making amazing documentaries about all types of Americans across the country? Peter Santenello, who has his own YouTube channel. He is talking to former prostitutes in Vegas, the Amish in Kentucky; Americans in Appalachia, next to the Mexican border, on Native American reservations and now in the Deep South. He is amazing and non-click-baity. Check him out to get a feel of the real diversity of the country.
I honestly think most of our political divisions arise from competing sets of facts. By and large, conservatives are more informed than their left wing equivalents. Most of our schools and universities and media outlets have been overtaken by what in effect are professional liars, whose output has the aim of homogenizing opinion around ideas that are largely wrong.
Their success, of course, creates a rift between the actually informed, and those with whom their work has succeeded.
The 2020 election was almost certainly stolen, and was certainly not investigated with the seriousness those charges--and the evidence for them--warranted.
Jan. 6 was not an insurrection, and Trump tried to stop it. Those are in my view obvious facts. There was no attempt to take control of either the election or the $4 trillion Federal bureaucratic and military apparatus. They broke in through windows, led it would seem by Federal agents in many cases, came into the Capital, and took selfies, then left. That's not an insurrection.
Trump is not anything remote like Hitler. He is trying to restore the rule of law, and trying to curtail the activities of anti-democratic elements of our own government. He is if anything opposing Pro-Hitlerian elements of our own government, who are calling him "literally Hitler" because most Americans are stupid and willing to believe anything they see on their TVs'. But a lie is a lie is a lie.
Etc. Most Republicans are fine with 3-4 month abortion bans, and even with some extensions if the mothers health is in danger. I think all of us understand, if we are honest, that two bodies and two lives are involved, and that "my body, my choice" is simultaneously understandable and more than a little disingenuous. We all know that at some point that other body will acquire the ability to feel pain, and eventually to cry and scream.
If we are going to come together, we need to stop with the lies. The lie that Ben told here is that the "far right" is anything but ordinary Americans who are basically decent, open, honest, and generous, saying "enough with the bullshit". And everyone to the Left of the people you are calling "far right" is pushing lies, from mild lies, up to whoppers like "the border is secured", or "the President has no control over the Border Patrol".
Ben has a lot of habits that lead in the direction of dishonesty. Some of them perhaps arose in the period when anti-gay sentiment was common among Republicans. That sentiment is largely gone. Me personally, I think Republicanism should be about "if it doesn't affect you personally and it hurts no one else, then it's none of your business". The core contention with regard to abortion, obviously, is that it DOES affect someone else. None of us care if a woman has her gall bladder removed.
But I call myself a Liberal, by which I mean most of the things Libertarians mean with their word, but without the kookiness. And in today's world, only conservatives are meaningfully LIberal any more. We value free speech, the even application of the law for everyone everywhere, and a government kept within firm bounds. There is nothing Liberal about a metastasized government that is telling you what to do every day in every way.
"Jan. 6 was not an insurrection, and Trump tried to stop it. Those are in my view obvious facts."
In my view, neither of these are facts, and you and I can argue the validity of our cases until the cows come home. But I do very little of that in real life, only here on social media when I have time and fun making my case.
America's problem right now is that 90 percent of us will say, "OK, you have your view and I have mine, how do you want your steak cooked?" The other 10 percent will go into berserker mode trying to destroy those who don't agree with therm---and that 10 percent is heavily overrepresented in media and in several institutions, including elite universities and elective office.
It would be nice to have a less flawed vessel, But we don't.
Love the last paragraph -- the word "liberal" is one of many that the proggy left has poisoned into oblivion. I try to defend the language when I can, but that one's a no-hoper.
I came up with idea of “Good Enough Presidenting” last week, as both a nod to Winnecut, and as a reasonable way to underscore my belief that all we REALLY need in a President is goodwill and a sincere desire to do the job honestly.
Trump is not as smart as he thinks he is—although his instincts are usually spot on, even when he cant articulate why—but he genuinely means well. He is on the side of the American people as a whole. He made his fortune before he entered politics and does not need to sell favors to increase it, like Biden has done and is presumably still doing.
Have to disagree with you there, Unsaint. Trump in my view is not on the side of the American people as a whole. He only speaks to his base. Always has and always will.
If you look at a map of his support by county that is red, the blue is what is exceptional, in a sea of red. Pretty much everyone in every small town supports him strongly.
Biden, demographically, is only supported by big city elites. His election, if it happened, happened in big cities only.
A friend does commercial development and has done deals building dozens and dozens of large residential healthcare-like facilities around the country. He's the smartest guy I know--MENSA level smart. His view on Trump's intelligence is that it is exceptional: "Anyone who can put together the financial deals and then construct skyscrapers in the middle of the some of the largest cities in the world is extraordinarily smart--certainly smarter than I am."
The most common thread among Trump's detractors is they always underestimate his intellegence.
I agree. He is brilliant at Big Picture, and forms accurate judgements—most if the time—very quickly. But he doesnt always do a great job ARTICULATING what he believes and why. He and I probably both suffer at times from the defect of assuming that what is obvious to us is obvious to others. It isn’t. And every gap in explanation is used by the cretinous Left to manufacture lies about him.
And Mensa is not that hard to get into. I qualified drunk. But they are mask people, at least around here. I only went to one meeting, and although it was long before COVID, that type has always annoyed me. Intelligence should mean intellectual diversity, but it often means nothing more than better than usual recitation of someone elses ideas.
Thats why I dont work in an office. IQ is just a potential, and it is reliably negated by cowardice, poor self awareness, and poor individuation generally.
That sounds like a definition of stupidity or feckin' idiocy rather than intelligence. If you can't understand simple concepts, either on the page or coming out of someones mouth, you aren't very bright.
What scares me is that you think you think you believe that. From reading your posts I know you to have a functioning mind. Yet tribal/ideological commitments overrule intelligence, as we see. There's no cure after the infection has taken hold, what the nation needs is to train the next generation how to be honest with themselves.
Of course many *do* know they are lying. Take Tucker Carlson who was caught admitting that most of what he said on his show was BS, but as a Loyal Trumpist, he had to pretend to believe the election was stolen. Lie, of course -- this is politics! -- but it is very dangerous to not know that you are lying.
Until liberals agree to require a photo id to vote, which includes applying in person for an absentee ballot and eliminating mail-in ballots, there will always be a shadow as well as reasonable doubt that an election was stolen.
If one side agreed to a photo ID, applying in person for absentee ballots and eliminating mail-in ballots, the other side would still complain that "the election was stolen" when their people lost.
Yes, I do have a way of knowing: past practice. Maybe you're too young to remember?
In my earlier voting life, I had to go to City Hall to get an absentee ballot, provide a "good reason" to vote absentee, and show an ID. There were no mail-in ballots other than overseas military. In Illinois, where I lived until recently, election judges performed signature matches at the polls--the ballot you signed had to match to the one you signed with two forms of ID when you registered. They were paper ballots.
Election still got stolen and "stolen."
The losing side will complain no matter how stringent the protections. I don't have any particular issue with showing IDs at the polls, but I won't give up absentee and mail-in voting. I make more intelligent choices when I can sit in my house and study the election booklets while making my decisions.
The WSJ today has an article about Trump already saying that the 2024 election is going to be rigged. In that article the WSJ says that the RNC and Lara Trump are planning to dramatically increase GOP voters use of mail in ballots and also human ballot collectors (you know, "ballot harvesting"). The RNC and Lara Trump are also big on promoting early voting over showing up in person the day of. The exact opposite of what Donald is saying.
MAGA Republicans whine endlessly about "the swamp" when they're the most poisonous reptiles floating in the cattails and feces.
2024 will be rigged, all right: by MAGA goon squads led by Lara and Daddums-In-Law. Well, they'll try, anyway, but won't succeed. I can't wait for America to flush the whole Trump grifter family down the golden toilet.
Oh, don't misunderstand: Of course there was cheating here and there, that's normal. There's no question the Rats *want* to make it easier to cheat. However multiple recounts in the last election failed to overturn even a single county. Not a single one of hundreds of such recounts and investigations produced a single upset. This includes recounts in deeply Red states with loyal Trumpists in control of them. 60 out of 60 lawsuits failed. 50 out of 50 states ratified. The entire Republican leadership -- not the rank and file noise makers but the *leadership* -- were unanimous that Trump lost. Every election watchdog organization declared that Biden won. But facts don't matter when tribal loyalties are at stake.
You're right that the endless recounts verified the election numbers. However, recounting ballots was not the remedy to the question of legitimacy.
—>Verifying the signatures<—on the ballots against the voter rolls has always been the standard protocol for adjudicating such claims, and that was *not* done in the battleground states that gave Biden the presidency...except a couple years later in AZ (after much legal wrangling), which then turned up enough disqualified ballots that Trump would have won AZ had the signatures been properly validated in 2020.
It's important to note that those 60 lawsuits were all tossed out on grounds of "standing" or "laches" ("you don't have standing to be heard on this claim" and "you brought the claim too late to be heard"). Hence, the most basic question of election fraud—were mail-in ballots manipulated/illegally included such that enough unqualified ballots were included and counted to change the outcome?—was never actually adjudicated. The many lawsuits with evidence of such claims were, as I said, all tossed out on *procedural* grounds, not "lost" on evidentiary. That leaves HUGE questions open in the minds of people who are aware of what that evidence is.
So, given the evidence was never properly investigated by the legacy media either, it might be worth considering that maybe the issue isn't that people who talk about the election being stolen are "lying," but that they have important information that you do not.
Bingo, Leah! Recounting sketchy ballots over and over isn't the answer. It's validating and if needed rejecting sketchy ballots, and that is what isn't happening.
Quality post Rose. Look, I'm just a regular Canadian dolphin, all I know is what I see on the media and then I try to apply some sense to it. Yes, I know about 'latches'. Seems to me the courts understand something: there's zero help in the Constitution about what to do if things aren't squared up by Jan 20. IF there really were cases where the Dems actually succeeded in stealing a state, I'm sure it will come out eventually. Mean while, as the saying goes: "They stole it, fair and square" -- *even* if they stole it, it is what it is on Jan 20 -- get it sorted out next time. Meanwhile I basically wouldn't believe that the sky was blue if Donald Trump said so because he is the greatest liar in the history of the world. Jesus! I'm a conservative, but give me someone respectable please.
Its really pretty simple: they changed the totals in the servers then added enough ballots to match. Once they are out ofvtheir envelopes an invalid ballot that should not be there looks the same as a valid ballot that should. You could count them a dozen times and nothing would change. They actually added too many ballots in Arizona. That finding actually strikes at election integrity. It in no way supports it.
I await proof. But be assured, if that proof is forthcoming I'm not going to attempt to deny it. I'm not running interference for the Dems. But all the investigations in Arizona ended up with nada. You may say that this that and the other thing was found, but the investigators report otherwise. I'm going with the conclusions of the people who actually got right in there and looked at things up close and personal. If all you people know the election was stolen then surely proving it in court should be easy. Civil case! Just do it.
Ray, check out the newly released book "Disproven" by Ken Block, the Republican data scientist hired by the Trump campaign to find the voter fraud to overturn the election, only there was none. Foreword written by Brad Raffensperger.
It tells you something when a Republican, who's been hired to find something that would hugely help his employer and aid his own party, yet can't find anything. You know, it warms my heart just a tiny little bit to know that there are yet Republicans who have not drunk the kool-aid and who maintain their integrity in the face of that loathsome creature's mob of morons. Brad, I salute you sir. Cheney, Flake, Kaisich, Romney ... there are not a few. (Pardon misspelling) Contrast that miserable wretch 'America's Mayor' who is now eternally disgraced and if he had an ounce of dignity left he'd kill himself.
Governments already provide photo IDs for any citizen who requests one for a nominal fee. Talk about a red herring. Many places will even wave that fee if the applicant claims financial hardship. If any qualified citizen in this country is involuntarily disenfranchised because they were legitimately unable to obtain a government photo ID, I'd sure be interested as to how that happened.
In addition, "automatic" registration is a glaring election security risk. Most people who don't intentionally register to vote don't plan on voting. Registering these people without their knowledge and potentially against their will, and mailing out ballots is an open invitation for someone else to vote their ballots. And frankly, so is "no request" mail in voting. How many people, especially elderly, are disenfranchised by family members or other caregivers who decide to vote granny's ballot. I guarantee it's magnitudes more than are disenfranchised by not being able to get a photo ID.
I didn't say "nominal fee," did I, Brian? No. I didn't. I said: "Free"
Why do you have a problem with that? :) I think we both know the answer to that. Probably the same reason a gun license is valid ID in TX, but a student ID is not. Hmmm...wonder why?
Talk about mealy-mouthed, disengenuous argument.
Oh, you'd be interested to know how that happened? Well, let's start with this and if you want to keep going, we can:
While automatic registration along with a free photo ID seems like a good idea, my only reservation is that people move and change addresses so often that an initial registration would soon be out of date. Typically an ID is valid for 4 years. How do you deal with that?
It took my husband and I less than an hour to get new ID’s when we moved from California to North Carolina eight years ago. Took even less time to let California know we no longer lived in that state - although they continued sending me ballots (sometimes multiple for the same election) until just after the ‘recall,’ despite my continued efforts to make them stop.
I register Independent. One of my ex-CA neighbors, who was registered Democrat, received six - SIX - mail-in ballots for the 2022 election, although, to be truthful, one was for the dead guy who had previously owned her house.
The government tracks us all anyways... I don't know anyone who believes otherwise. Picture IDs are very possible and the only way that people will trust elections again. The loss of trust in our elections is a major issue that feeds the loss of trust in government and that has had significant consequences.
I would think that the military could handle something as simple as voting within a window of time, otherwise, it is scary to think that they are in charge of large movements of troops, etc. for our national defense.
The military can get you a ballot as easy as delivering your mail. Just apply the next time you buy stamps. If you care enough about voting honestly you'll find a way to apply. You've only got four years.
So let me get this straight. Take Europe - a million Americans, give or take, live there. You want them all to come home and apply in person? All within the few months of an election so that the names are on ballots? Are you nuts?
They don't. I lived / worked overseas for many years. You don't need to apply for an absentee ballot in person, you just need to apply for one on a 1:1 request basis. Not blanket mail outs. At the same time, voter rolls must be rigorously maintained - it's sort of important, you know?
I love the fact the all the laws supposedly to suppress voting simple require what has always been required to vote here in canada, that you are a resident of the riding and can produce ID.
According to today's WSJ, the RNC led by Lara Trump is planning to dramatically increase GOP voters use of early voting and mail in ballots, including the use of human ballot collectors (known to people like you as "ballot harvesting"). It's in the WSJ article about Trump already saying that the 2024 election will be rigged. Apparently the RNC and Lara Trump disagree with him.
This may come as a surprise, but some of us actually can think for ourselves and do not need to march in step with what the RNC or the Trumps say, who I will argue have been forced to give in to adopting a questionable practice of voting. (Maybe Republicans will learn to game the system as well or better than Democrats.)
Since you seem to have a suffering need to advance this discussion, let me ask you....."Isn't it necessary to do everything we can to protect the the sanctity of 'our most sacred right'?
Which practice is more prone to inviting fraud: voting with an id, as we used to or should, or mail-in ballots?
If you cannot answer either/or, please find someone else's time to take.
I live in Louisiana, a Ruby red state with a long line of Republican Secretaries of State. We've had early voting, absentee voting and mail in ballots for eligible voters (ex, over 65) for a long time. Right now I'm overseas and my husband and I were able to go online and register for an absentee Mail in ballot for the Republican presidential primary simply by filling in our driver's license numbers, our SS#s, and mother's maiden name. They mailed the paper absentee ballots to us and we mailed them in before we left the country. We left town too early to absentee vote in person.
The RNC doesn't believe photo id is necessary, although I personally have no problem with it. But the security measures I mentioned seem to me to be adequate protection. When we go to the polls in person a photo id is required.
There's a new book out by Ken Block, the Republican data scientist hired by the Trump campaign to find voter fraud to overturn the 2020 election. It's called "Disproven" and the foreword is written by Brad Raffensperger. Much to the dismay of the Trump campaign, their hired expert didn't find any fraud. He did, however, discover huge differences in how the various states run their elections and uses the last 1/3 of the book to make suggestions on how to make our elections more uniform and more secure. I think you'd enjoy reading it.
Just curious: were you one of the large majority of Democrats screaming RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA for four years and denying Trump won fairly?
Given that we have everything from sworn eyewitnesa testiminy of thumb drives being inserted into election servers to counties with more votes tham voters, can you admit our evidential claims are both vastly stronger than those which were on 24/7 repeat for four years, and vastly less investigated, since you had Mueller?
Problem is that *every* independent investigation has found all these claims to be partisan bullshit. But let me repeat: the Rats *try* to cheat, they just didn't have much success. The liars also found themselves having to be very careful: recall the Dominion award. Recall the Trumpist noise makers who, in court, were liable to perjury charges who went very quiet all of a sudden. And those Trumpists who admitted publicly to having lied in the service of their master.
> RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA for four years and denying Trump won fairly?
When your team wins, it was Free and Fair. When your team looses it was stolen, yes? Funny tho -- when the Rats are in power, somehow it's the Reps that manage to steal the election. When the Reps are in power, somehow, in four years, the entire electoral apparatus of the country gets hijacked by the other team without anybody noticing.
Nope, it's not that it *couldn't* be true, it's that it *isn't* true. Biden won, thumb drives notwithstanding. Nuts, when they recounted in Arizona, Biden's lead increased. Ditto Georgia. Both recounts run by strong Republicans. I loved that guy in Arizona -- dedicated conservative but not a traitor.
Where were actual police involved in any criminal investigation? And if not, is it somehow not obvious to you that the courts did not accept any of the vast volume of evidence because no actual prosecutors were involved?
You dont want to discuss specifics. I get it: facts are not on your side.
You dont want to admit you were blaming the Russians for four years. I get it: that was so stupid its embarrassing now.
But serious question: should not anyone who believes in democracy not care deeply about MAKING SURE every valid vote was counted and that no fraudulent votes were counted?
If there is any doubt, what objection could you have to making sure, as we did with Mueller? What would be wrong with it? Its a polarizing issue and your people are saying they want to unify the country and heal divisions? How is calling people traitors and criminals who are doing the SAME THING THE DEMOCRATS DID acceptable in any way?
> You dont want to admit you were blaming the Russians for four years. I get it: that was so stupid its embarrassing now.
Yup. I was taken in. I'm not partisan. In fact I detest both of your parties. They are equally disgusting. I have no bias against anyone proving that this or that Rat did in fact cheat -- no surprise -- but not a single vote has been overturned, notwithstanding cheating by *both sides*.
> How is calling people traitors and criminals who are doing the SAME THING THE DEMOCRATS DID acceptable in any way?
Acceptable?? Who said that? I said 'normal' in the sense of par for the course. If you guys can't have elections until they are perfect then you may as well declare Trump dictator for life and be done with it. Meanwhile I suggest you soldier on as best you can. Yes, where there are problems, fix them. Funny ... up here in Canada elections are almost never a problem -- you put your X on the paper and later on that day the results are announced. It's actually quite easy.
Gosh, do you think we should take seriously ALL cases of this sort? There were hundreds of similar and worse allegations in 2020. Is it oerhaps the case that only one side is investigated in States where the process is controlled by Democrats?
Let me turn the tables on you: If we can overturn the 2020 election because , indeed, there were hundreds of these little episodes, then what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, no? The Trumpists bewailed every dull pencil, but two can play that sort of game. IMHO both sides should grow up.
When someone says the election was "stolen," I think it's poor word choice. On top of all the things the "public health" authoritarians did during COVID, leftist/Democrat officials changed election laws/regulations at the last minute to make fraud/questionable ballot tactics easier to propagate.
One of those was the extension of early voting. This probably affected the PA Senate race most of all - after people had already voted a month ahead of time (!), all the stuff about Fetterman's stroke came out, and no one could change their vote (if they wanted to). Would Oz have been a better Senator? Debatable. Could the stroke have changed people's minds closer to election date? It's certainly possible.
So while I don't believe the election was, in a competent and fully masterminded way, "stolen" per se, I do believe leftist/Democrat officials went around crowing about a public health emergency to make things like ballot harvesting, early voting, and non-id supported voting easier, allowing for the opportunity for fraud and for losing candidates to question the outcome.
Just like HRC and all her useful idiots in the media obsessed with "Russia-gate" will never accept the outcome of 2016, I - and I suspect many others - will never accept the outcome of 2020.
"Stolen" is the worst word to describe what occurred because it implies breaking the law and many of the aberrancies were legal but unethical. In addition to the Covid-enabled ballot harvesting was the selective funding by the mega-wealth progressives like Zuckerberg of election boards only in overwhelmingly Democratic counties to underwrite their programs to administer and collect absentee ballots. Perfectly legal and perfectly immoral.
All that happened. In my view so did the changing of totals in the servers.
If you want to claim otherwise, show me a place where evidence was looked for by police or other duly constituted authorities. No court would accept the vast volume of evidence becuase in the absence of cops willing to do their jobs, private citizens were forced to do it.
But when was the last time you guys had a 'moral' election? Competent voters must be robust enough to see thru the baloney and vote intelligently. That's not easy, and it's getting harder, but that's the way it is.
Yes. Dems have a long and glorious tradition of fixing elections. Much worse in the old days when 'machines' controlled entire states. It's now well understood that Kennedy stole the election from Nixon.
I think the difference between his statement and your rebuttal is that he's aware of evidence of election shenanigans that you either haven't seen, or choose to discount. Can we agree that much of what we think we know depends on our news sources?
> Can we agree that much of what we think we know depends on our news sources?
Yes. I wasn't in the room. I rely on reports. When blatantly partisan actors accuse election officials of misbehavior I automatically red-tag the report. However when competent bodies or courts overturn the charge, I give that more credence, especially if the latter groups are themselves Republicans. Here's looking at you Mr. Bradford Jay Raffensperger -- Patriot.
“Overturn the charge”? Here again, what we think we know depends on the news source. Not a single judge reached and decided the merits of a challenge to 2020 election procedures.
I will ask this question too: given that valid votes counted honestly are the core element of democracy, are the opponents of democracy those who are willing to investigate claims of fraud—however far fetched—or those who accuse everyone asking for an investigation—particularly when there were large and obvious problems—traitors and criminals?
Trumo gave the Left Mueller because he knew he was innocent. In fact we now know the whole thing was made up, and detail the players, timeline and even payments in good detail.
Why should I not assume there have been no criminal investigations—which are the sort whose evidence courts will allow—precisely because there WAS fraud and that those involved would go to jail if the full truth were known?
> Trumo gave the Left Mueller because he knew he was innocent.
But the truth always leaks out, does it not? Yeah, at the time I thought Mueller dropped the ball. I believed the Russiagate stuff. But then the truth comes out. I don't need convincing that the Rats cheat, lie and steal ... when they can.
Rats is Fascist language, isnt it? Vermin and cockroaches are good examples too. Fascists love purity, so evoking unclean animals workmparticularly well in breeding the hate their people feed on.
You have a point. DemocRAT vs. REPupublican ... I like the symmetry but perhaps it is a bit too rude. Yeah ... you're not the first to mention that, either. How about 'Democrits'?
No one will convince me it wasn’t stolen. I watched in REAL TIME as Trump was CRUISING to victory and the vote counting stopped in FIVE KEY STATES all at the same time. Never seen anything like it. There is an ENORMOUS amount of other evidence/books/articles documenting the fraudulent election but that initial evidence was PLENTY for me.
Can't remember. What I do know is that zero courts found these reports to be actionable. Look, you trust the superiority of your sources and your judgement. I trust the courts and the overseeing authorities who's job it is to oversee these things. I can believe Trumpist agitators or I can believe conservative courts -- I go with the courts.
What is clear to me is that a group that was capable and willing to manufacture Rusha-gate would have no problem cheating, if it was possible, to prevent Trump's re-election. We do know, via the Time magazine story, that they bragged about all of the efforts made to "fortify" the election in Biden's favor.
I’m not an election denier. I wish Trump would drop it. If Nixon could he can too. However as information dribbles out it appears not everything was kosher.
No, I don't suggest everything was. It never is kosher, the point being that by the dirty conventions of American politics, Biden won. Any steps that can be taken to tighten things up should of course be taken, but in the mean time ...
That's fair. It's outside the normal rules of debate to say you know a person's mind better than they do. Yet, it is true that people can fool themselves and we all know that. So, tho it is exceptional, I do make the claim.
There are things that are simply not believable. That the US presidential election of 2020 wasn't meddled with egregiously is one of them. On the evidence you are presenting of yourself the DNC could probably convince you it was hunky-dory to walk yourself into a "shower" to be gassed.
The irony seems to be that there's always so many imperfections in American elections that egregious meddling could be called normal. But honestly, in a nation of 330 million people -- too many of them mad dog partisans -- in 50 states all running under different rules, one hardly expects perfection. Yup, from God's perspective there's probably thousands of things that weren't done absolutely perfectly. And some outright cheating too -- by partisans of both sides. The only real question is whether any of this would have changed the outcome, and the universal answer -- from non-partisan observers -- is that no, it would not.
You know, now that both sides have demonstrated that they only accept elections if they won, it seems that there will never be another peaceful election in your country. You do not know the harm you do.
Unsaint, I find it interesting - genuinely - that you present your facts as you do. To me, it is an equally simple statement of fact that the election was almost certainly not stolen and that the events of Jan 6., regardless of whether it technically qualifies for the definition of insurrection (I think it's borderline), was clearly an attempt by a mob to disrupt the application of the law and peaceful transfer of power. I watched the live-feeds, it was goofy at times, but it was illegal, and a dangerous precedent.
It also seems quite apparent that Trump encouraged it and refused to genuinely stop it. I watched his half-hearted "oh no, please stop" video on Twitter live before his ban. Jan 6 may be blown out of proportion by some but neither should it be minimized to less than it was, unless we want this to become a normal reaction to elections.
I also think it's quite a statement to talk about conservatives as broadly more informed. It would be easy for me to trot out numbers about educational attainment. The rot we have seen at elite institutions is despicable but is not present throughout the entire system, most college grads are better off for it. I honestly don't think "liberals" or "conservatives" have a monopoly on perspective and wisdom, and simply reject how easily you state the opposite.
Trump is indeed not like Hitler. But the "far right" is not the moderate ordinary middle. There are numerous positions espoused from the far right, which are obviously white nationalist, racist, anti-semetic, etc., and if you view yourself as simply an "enough with the BS" common sense kind of person - which I honestly sense that you do - I'd personally suggest you don't try to defend that corner of right wing thinking.
My personal philosophy has more or less always aligned with the "live and let live, as long as you're not hurting anybody" mindset you suggest, although I don't associate it with either party. Lots of people who lean left think that way too (believe it or not). My father used to say (I forget who he was quoting) that "your right to swing your fist ends at my nose," and that's about right.
Lots of people on both sides of the aisle are liberal in the classic sense of the word. The issue is not which side of the political aisle you're on, it's how far away from the center you are. The extremes want to blow stuff up. The middle just wants to live their lives, mostly unmolested, but also wouldn't mind a little help when they need it.
While we clearly have differing views, I appreciate your clear statements and hope that you can accept mine in reply.
And to respond at least briefly to the article itself - while I recognize the challenge of covering this issue with humor, it fell flat to me. There was an earlier article on TFP, "The Great Scramble," that I think is a better example of how this kind of coverage can be done.
I dont have time to get into the weeds today, but will say first that the “far right” is normal people. You have been lied to. As Russell Brand—who has been labelled far right himself, in my understanding, which is so stupid it actually is kind of funny—pointed out, the “far right” is now the most diverse group on the planet. It includes everyone who is not Democrat or Democrat curious.
Second, James Comer, the Congressman, has documented AT LEAST 40 plainclothes FBI agents were present on Jan.6. What were they doing? In what respect is it unreasonable to view as intentionally having manioulated an already very angry crowd?
And if they did—if paid agents of American law enforcement broke the law to support attacks on patriotic and otherwise reasonable and law abiding Americans—is that not a MUCH larger problem than anything any of those protesters did?
And we only have one person calling in advance to go INTO the Capital. Only one: Ray Epps. Why is he not in jail, if he was nit working for the Feds? And if he was, do you not see that our democracy is ending?
I think we may be debating different definitions. It sounds to me like you're saying "far right" is anyone the media applies that label to, which is probably quite a lot of people depending on where you read your news. I'm defining the far right as the more extreme end of right-leaning politics today.
The line where "far right" ends and other adjectives like "right-wing" or "right-of-center" begin may be fuzzy, but that's the only way it makes sense to me. We need to be able to talk about extreme political views in comparison to more moderate ones, and if you defend "far right" as a generalized bucket, we can't do that. I don't mean it as a slur, just as a reference point.
As for Jan 6 - I did watch the events live but honestly have not gone deep into it since. I can't speak to the details there.
The actual far right is politically irrelevant. I have not met one such person in my life. It is just a new way ti call everyone who disagrees with absurd policies a Nazi. Perhaps because it is indeniable that Nazi stands for National Socialism, “far right” is just a rebranding of an old propaganda trick. There is no true far right in this country that is sizable enough to matter in any way. And most of them seem to be in prison. That is certainly where the violence is.
And we KNOW that AT LEAST 40 plainclothes FBI agents were embedded in that crowd, but Chris Wray refuses to say what they were doing.
And Epps is free, despite being the only tenable candidate for ring leader.
These are not small problems. They are glimpses into a corrupt and authoritarian governmemt.
I would disagree that they are politically irrelevant. Trump famously hosted Nick Fuentes for dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Many with extreme views have followings in the millions on social platforms. Not all of their followers may be equally far right (or left), but they certainly exert real influence on politics and thus American life.
I *really* think it's worth making a distinction between following beliefs such as those Fuentes promotes, and rejecting them but still having more moderate right-wing beliefs (like, say, on the right limits for abortion or immigration, etc.).
The answer is to have the vote count in certain swing states that shut down with Trump in the lead only to have Biden win audited before the count became official.. That's all. Why did the FBI bury the Hunter laptop news until after the election?
And how many states with Biden in the lead shut down and see Trump win?
MAGA stormed the Capitol because they were lied to for 4 years about Rushagate (among many other things). Those people had a right to pissed, and distrusting of election results, given the scorched earth tactics of Trump's opponents.
His campaign manager Manafort? Yes. Directly with the GRU officer Kilimnik. Why is now Manafort is being brought back to the Trump campaign? Weren't there enough scandals with Austrian foreign minister who had Putin as a guest at her wedding and is now living in Russia, German chancellor who worked for Russian government-owned gas company for 15 years, Russian agent who worked as an advisor to the major German party leader? Anyone who agrees that Putin is a murderer should understand that Manafort is tainted, to say the least. Pardoned, but still convicted for tax fraud and other charges by the jurors of whom at least one was a wholehearted MAGA.
Have commented regularly that Bari and company needed to find people like Peter Santenello to do long form stories for them. Santenello is politically neutral and is honestly thoughtful and thorough in his stories.
YES! I have watched Peter's offerings, which I stumbled onto quite by accident, or by algorithm if you are of a conspiratorial mind. Very entertaining and informative. I do not believe that Ben is capable of doing the same thing without injecting his way of humor into the matter. He seems to be an outsider looking in, while Peter is more dispassionate in his interviews.
Oooh thank you for sharing! I was thinking…someone should have swept America doing this sort of interviewing years ago, not just during election year. Can’t wait to catch up on Peter’s work…and catch up to his 2.86MM subscribers!
Thanks for this suggestion. I just watched one of his videos of the black belt of Alabama. Very informative and accurately portrayed small town South. I will watch more.
Yes, it's an outstanding, singular and the deepest of deep dives into all the neglected realms of this nation. But his videos are LONG and there are no jokes 🙁
Overall I enjoy Ben’s writing and look forward to this series. In my personal experience most people want to live free and prosper, for themselves and their families. For others! What’s wrong with America is that we have a ruling class who doesn’t want that for the average American. They then use the media propaganda machine and other Marxist institutions to confuse and distract the average person so that they don’t notice their incompetence, corruption and malevolence. The people themselves are alright! 👍🏻
Most Americans are ignoramuses. They don't know shit from Shinola. (Shinola is a defunct American brand of shoe polish) the average American can tell you who Vana White is but can't name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Without a knowledge of history or current affairs, how can you make a educate choice in an election. They can't point out Germany on a map or tell you who we fought in the Revolutionary War.
I could go on and on. It has been this way forever. I don't know if we are totally fucked or we will muddle through and survive with the constitution and our rights intact.
True, but some say that democracy will work if as few as 15% of the electorate have intact and educated minds. As we see, the morons have a tendency to divide equally between team red and team blue, so they sorta cancel out. It's the swing voters who can *also* think who decide what happens. But the 15% has been eroded, maybe it's down to 10%.
Shinola has been resurrected into a watch/clothing/accessories brand based in Detroit. That said, I had a conversation with two other Directors of the company I work for (one who grew up in a communist Czechoslovakia) and watched their eyes glaze over as I discussed the Trade accomplishments of the Trump administration. They dislike Biden, but could still not bring themselves to vote for Trump.
Ignoring history is an American strength and our Achilles heel. If you live somewhere for a while steeped in history it is definitely not unalloyed goodness. Marinating your mind from birth in ancient history that speaks of men dead 1000 years ago like that person stepped out for lunch also propagates appalling feuds that are endlessly stupid.
Well, we do need role models and examples of people’s courage, sacrifices and kindness!
Taken from real people, not make believe paper tigers currently presiding in our government!
Both my parents POW DURING WW2, their pockets weren’t padded by Xi. And I know enough about our past to continue. With hope and hard work to make my adopted country a better place for ALL. Nothing like these college misfits who are bought and sold protesters funded by Qatar and company!
> Marinating your mind from birth in ancient history that speaks of men dead 1000 years ago like that person stepped out for lunch
I profoundly disagree. It is precisely by studying the lives of men dead for a long time that we gain the 'anchors' of understanding the various sorts of men who exist. Nuts, they don't even have have existed! We learn much of what power does to people from MacBeth, do we not? Who cannot learn what patriotism is from studying the life of Washington? Or Cincinnatus?
Yes! Those who turn to demagogues and opportunists in times of trouble reap the whirlwind. In their day Hitler and Mussolini offered their country's the same sort of 'salvation' that Trump now offers his. Conservatives: please cleanse yourselves of that criminal and find a decent leader.
It could have been possible to do if the D's hadn't worked so hard, spent sooo much time and money on making him "Hitler" and trying to put him in jail and bankrupt him.
Now, it is too late, as a vast number of people want him to try and right the wrongs done to him and our country.
For certain, R's will find an even more "decent" leader in 2028.
James Lindsay’s best illustration of the craziness we are living through is when he, Helen Pluckrose and Peter Boghossian wrote completely made up papers and had them peer reviewed and published.
One of the papers had passages from Mein Kampf rewritten from a feminist point of view. Utter BS that was heralded as expert research and thought.
At the top of my list of things I would change about America is to restore draft, with the option of non-military service. 1 year to 6 months, for every young person, male or female, to get out of their bubble and go repair roads, work at nursing homes, help with recovery from natural disasters, but most importantly, mix with people of different social status, geographic area, religion.
YES! My son joined the US Army after graduating from Yale. He tells me that boot camp was ten times more diverse than Yale, where most of the students of color or recent immigrants also happened to be from wealthy, privileged, often powerful families with lifestyles no different from the wealthy white students. Boot camp was a potpourri of young people from every imaginable cultural nook of America with stories of struggle and the determination to parlay a shot at being a soldier into an American Dream because it was often the only shot they had.
Amen! A minimum of a year. The draft was greatly abused, but when all citizens where either serving, running from serving, buying their way out of serving, or loving someone who served, everyone in America had some kind of skin in the game. Now, 99% ride on the blood of 1% and can't be bothered to care about said 1% unless somehow their trip to WalMart gets interrupted. It's a different set of problems when the vast majority of the country gets to call for wars without ever risking their own blood.
Agree 100%. Especially when the presidents who make decisions to go to war are the ones who dodged the draft themselves and never had anyone in the family serving in the military.
I readily admit that there were two reasons for me not to protest against invasion of Iraq, even as I knew at the time it was a wrong decision: 1. I trusted Colin Powell (who was apparently lied to) and 2. I knew that my then 18-year old son was not subject to draft.
Except as someone who had served in AmeriCorps about 20 yrs ago sadly it was a place of indoctrination of illiberal values and many of the 40:somethings that spout a lot of illiberal nonsense were taught it in places like that. I think if one were to overhaul AmeriCorps and make it truly apolitical (they told us how to go protest and to make sure not to wear anything identifying us as AmeriCorps volunteers) then I'd be all for it. The whole country would be a lot better with less navel gazing.
My daughter did an Americorp year 15 years ago. The first thing they instructed them to do was sign up for food stamps because the stipend was so low they qualified. I would not allow my daughter to sign up, I supplemented her stipend. Nothing like making recent college graduates more dependent on the government, and attempting to make government handouts less stigmatized.
Also to make the agenda of how evil capitalism is and that socialism is the way. This is further cemented making them go to mandatory trainings where they fill their heads full of indoctrination and shame them if they speak out. I swear this was a practice run for what happens on the regular today in most public institutions.
Universal service should be the thing. And the set of approved activities should be non-political- literally the physical service work you are speaking about, not furthering any political agenda or group think goals. Likewise, free tuition programs should be earned through post grad service in underserved areas of the US.
I meant a compulsory service, so even rich spoiled brats like Trump could not get deferment from the bone spurs that miraculously healed as soon as Vietnam war ended.
They say that in ancient Rome, a senator or patrician would disown a son who failed to *distinguish* himself in battle -- let alone avoid avoiding the draft.
Yes. His suggestion is to make that draft mandatory, even in non-war time: military or non-military service, and Americorps would be a great option for the latter.
Absolutely. And they all will come out with at least one shared experience to keep the small talk moving. After 23 years in the military I can count on one hand the number of people who didn't benefit from the experience.
Seriously , communist USSR in 1940s through 1960s was the world's leader in conservative values: total abortion ban, policies against out of wedlock childbirth, criminalized gay relationships. As Putin is shifting towards communist ideology, conservative values are coming back.
I've said this elsewhere, but I think it's important to distinguish between "conservative" and "Conservative." To be a conservative is to make a value judgment on whether something that has worked historically will keep working going forward. When presented with a long-standing policy/belief, a conservative asks themselves if this is important to maintain (conserve) or if there is a better option available. If there is something better, a conservative wants to make that transition as least disruptive as possible (whereas a progressive just replaces something without considering the consequences). A Conservative is like a party ideologue that sticks to policies because the party tells them to (like Democrats being against gay marriage until it was politically expedient to not be anymore).
So the "conservative values" you mention are not really so. As times have changed, a true conservative would recognize that while children born to a stable, two-parent (preferably married) household has statistically better outcomes than other family types, we should not judge those whose circumstances are different; that gay people have the same God-given rights as the rest of us and deserve to participate fully and openly in society; that while abortion is, scientifically, the termination (some would say killing) of a living, human organism, every incident is distinct and requires nuance - there is no one-size-fits-all approach, though common-sense late-stage restrictions (with exceptions like in the case of life-threatening danger to the mother) are preferable since we're dealing with two human lives.
Just like "liberal" has been co-opted beyond recognition, "conservative" is a term that needs to be rehabilitated.
I agree. I had an exchange on this site with a woman who was ripping "liberals". I gave her a dictionary definition of liberalism and told her that I subscribe to this 100%. She conceded that those were good values that conservatives subscribe to, too.
Unfortunately, right now we have too many "conservatives " who are ready to throw out all conservative values and "liberals " who are illiberal to extreme. Add the two parties to the mix - and I squarely put myself into the ranks of independent voters and not changing any time soon.
Yes, exactly. That's why I always try to use "leftist" or "Democrat" as the situation calls for it, but those two, these days, are very interchangeable. I think the ideal Democrat was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and I wouldn't describe him as leftist, but classically liberal. Unfortunately, as you say, there are plenty of Republicans who are no longer conservative, but still get labelled as such, thus tainting the term.
If you read what was discussed, all 4 you mentioned are just labels. I have no idea what you put behind those labels, I am giving you facts: policies instituted in the USSR during Stalin era were: gay sex was criminal, abortions were criminal, childbirth outside wedlock discouraged to the point that father's name was not allowed on the birth certificate and mother not allowed to request child support. Whether you identify these policies with conservative label - it is up to you. I see it matching with policies in some states that call themselves conservative.
Here's an interesting question to ask. Where do you get your news and information about what's going on in the world? Ask the question and then engage in a conversation about why there? Let us know some of the answers, could be quite instructive.
It is a very interesting question. Here (in my view) is at least part of the answer: the mass media age has afforded a hugely disproportionate voice to the one-track-minded, the 'activist', the mouthy obsessive, the permanently malcontent and the general screwballs among us. Anyone who has actually got a reasonably balanced life is far less likely to be a media-type of person. Second thing: Although you get the above types on both sides of the political aisle, thanks to the academia sheep-dip you now get them in much larger numbers on the Left. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/non-binary-sibling-is-entertaining
"The amplification of those extremes—and, I would argue, a craven kowtowing among the political right and the cultural left to each group’s most radical elements—gives an impression of a nation more “polarized” than it actually is.". After reading or seeing the news from various sources I ask myself...who ARE these people??? I live in a middle class subdivision with a diversity of yard signs come election time and we all still treat each other kindly and with civility. Then we all go to work, pay our taxes and raise our children with "old-fashioned" values like kindness and civility. I would guess that if you STATISTICALLY counted the total crazies it would be a small percentage!
I'm not sure whether it's so much that "we're so divided" as that the progressive left is afflicted with True Belief, which has turned its adherents into religious zealots. There's no arguing with True Belief, and True Belief does not compromise, it is in possession of the Truth. It gets to the point Megan brought up in The Witch Trials, really; the people of Salem weren't fools, they were highly educated and intelligent, and yet, they still fell prey to a moral panic. I give you, the Progressive Left. Democracy is on the ballot, we're witnessing the rise of fascism, Donald Trump will end elections forever, and every other whack-a-doo thing they believe, and by golly they're the only ones who can stop it!
I agree and yet some of my former colleagues in public education believe that Trump will be the end of democracy. The lack of critical thinking from supposedly educated people is astonishing. Yet they are teaching your children!! Yikes!!
This has always been true though. There's never been a time when people don't absolutely see the world differently. What's different was people used to keep their politics to themselves, out of the workplace, out of schools, out of the NFL and sports, and certainly out of medicine. But now, the left side of this group has taken over all the institutions on the management and administrative levels. Corporations also have been selling social causes as a marketing ploy (and profiting handsomely from it too). We're at the point of Planet Fitness dictating our morality: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13206823/Planet-Fitness-trans-locker-room-video-alaska-response.html. (The dude on the photo on the right, BTW, is the 'woman" PF is so adamant in their protection against middle-aged ladies and 13 y.o. Girls from: https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1767391548889849885?s=20). And at PF, women aren't allowed to wear tank tops cut at mid-riffs, and guys aren't allowed to wear tight tank tops, because that would be fat shaming other out-of-shape members or something and make them feel uncomfortable. Literally this is where we're at.
I don't care how people think and what their politics are personally. We've always had political divide and always will. What is abhorrent today is only one side is dictating how we must all behave. And threats are everywhere that something might happen to us if we don't toe their line. And there's not nearly enough public push back to stop it.
Well said and true, differences have always been there! There does need to be more public pushback. I watched Tucker Carlson's recent interview with Chris Cuomo. It was a wonderful display of the humanity of each and seeing clearly the worldview that leads them to why they believe the things they believe. The thing that stood out was how Carlson is very unconcerned with what people think about what he says or does while Cuomo appeared to be very taken by employers and the public opinion. Personally I think that Carlson's approach leads to more pushback and open dialog and discussion.
Because the right (especially Trump) just laughs at people on the left. They don't shun people on the left and if met up in person, might even invite you in for a beer. The left OTOH has branded people on the right as "deplorables". The new lepers to be shunned and best to be isolated and kept inside leper colonies (ie red states). The left would break off relations with anyone who openly admits they're on the right and/or for Trump, including families. The "inclusive" party is anything but.
We hear a lot about people losing families and friends over politics. But that's quite a mischaracterization I think. It's almost always the left breaking up the family relationship or friendship, and terminating employment. It's rarely (if ever happens at all) people on the right who throw tantrums and walk away, or terminate people from jobs on basis of WrongThink.
I noticed something interesting on Facebook after the 2016 election. Lots of Democrats were saying, "If you voted for Trump, Unfriend me!"
But here's the most interesting part: a lot of centrists (included me) were saying, "Whoa, wait a minute, isn't that kind of extreme? That you're going to utterly reject longtime real-life friends and family members because you disagree with how they voted?" Those centrists GOT UNFRIENDED by those Democrats just for speaking up as a voice of reason.
That was one of the early indictors of just how unhinged Leftists were becoming.
Basically it is a fanatical cult. I think there are a lot of people that are going along with the cult, but don't fully buy in, but at this point they are in too deep or too worried about how trying to break away would totally upend their world (if all of your friends/family/co-workers are cultists, they tend to not make it easy to leave).
I don't know if people are going along and don't buy in, as much as the cult is using language in such a deceptive way and also changing the meanings without people on the left actually knowing meanings have changed. The cult employs a three-prong strategy. First is media blackout to keep their sheeples in the wrap. Second is Newspeak, where they change definitions and meanings of language to deceive (eg; "diversity" is a word used for decades and people think they know what it means, without knowing that now it's revised into the madness that is DEI) and also new language to slowly indoctrinate until there's no way back anymore (eg: "unhoused", "undocumented", "uterus-havers" etc.);. Finally, if the first two attempts failed, brand any and all dissent as "Trump!" "Right-wing". The last one is quite potent.
I've seen this strategy work in real life time and again. Especially the last prong. The minute "right wing" is mentioned, anyone with an ounce of doubt would suddenly become true believers.
And in all fairness, I'm going to go out on a limb and say conservatives and Trumpers bear some blame for this. I see them saying all the time some version of "I told you so" (not in exact words but many variations of, combined with "why are you still voting for those people?"), with a dollop of blame. Granted, they have a good point. But it's not a strategy to winning people over. I've never seen them make a case why blacks and minorities should vote conservative (and I think they can make very strong cases, but they won't because it's "playing racial politics"). And they do prioritize the pro-life fraction over women, even to their own election detriment. Beyond that, they do vote consistently in ways that, rightly or wrongly, are perceived as being against the interests of women. (If that's not true, they never bother to explain how and why.) The top makes no effort to bring more voters into the fold (and to some extent they don't want to because they don't want "RINOs"). They're just sitting waiting for them to come over on their own....or not. At the grassroot level they enjoy more "nyah nyah we told you so enjoy Biden's America" .
The difference between the left and the right is the left's strategy is, at the moment, much more effective. They branded "right wing" as something equivalent of diseased. And the right plays right into their hand by refusing to defend themselves. At times, they even wear that brand as a batch of honor.
The lefts advantage is ‘ends justify means’. How do ‘ conservatives ‘ defend themselves? The constitution for the most part. Unfortunately few know what it says.
Don't much disagree with any of that. Sucks that we have to play this like a contest instead of people just voting their conscience. But once anyone starts using tactics, everyone has to do it.
Here’s what I hate. I have an acquaintance who is a Democrat who tries to act like she’s open minded about Republicans. For example, she says she’d be open to voting for some Republicans, like Liz Cheney or Adam Kisinger or Nikki Haley. So I told her they were all war mongers and why would she vote for war hawks? Because they are never Trumpers?? And that’s more important than being pro-war? No answer. She’s an idiot. Sorry, not sorry.
A Democratic friend said he would vote for a Republican candidate if there was one not so extreme as Trump. I asked him if he voted for Romney or McCain. Crickets.
I'd be curious your thoughts regarding Miranda Devine's article in today's NY Post revealing that Letitia James is essentially doing what she accused Trump to be doing with regard to the American Irish Historical Society building at 991 Fifth Ave. Again, the great hypocrisy - Trump paid back the lenders while she is protecting the Society as they do not pay back a $3 million loan based on an inflated valuation of the building!
Another exhibit for Ripley's Believe It Or Not!! :)
David - I'm from California and echo your thoughts. I've voted for Trump two times, both reluctantly, all the while fulling knowing he's a mixed bag. A blow-hard, thin-skinning, infantile, narcissist... who, by the way is the more conservative of the choices. As much as I don't want to, if he's the candidate for the GOP, I'll likely vote for him again... reluctantly.
I am a boomer and when Viet Nam was going on we protested. went to Canada and did everything we could to avoid the draft. it was (then) what was done to escape being killed or maimed in a war no one wanted bone spurs, near sightenness, fallen arches. whateverworked.. now we see that as a bad thing. then it your duty to avoid the draft..
Sorry pal I was drafted 12/65 did not go to Nam. Was in West Germany but have zero respect for punk Trump whose daddy paid for fake doctor for bone spurs letter
My Republican in-laws are in upstate New York and they hate Trump. They have voted Libertarian each time he's been on the ballot and will be voting Libertarian again in November.
Agreed. The late Senator and Governor Fritz Hollings (D) from my state of SC, who died in 2019 and whom Joe Biden eulogized, wouldn't recognize the D party of today. He last won election in SC in 1998.
The Dems loved Kinzinger so much they gerrymandered his seat away. Just like they had so much respect for Justin Amash voting to impeach, which they showed by heavily promoting his extremely dangerous super-pro-Trump opponent in the primary.
If Trump were in power now, and he is sending weapons to Israel in aid of its defence after the terror attacks of Oct 7, would he be considered a war monger then?
And it certainly doesn’t win new voters to the candidates she supports. When your candidate is no longer viable, insulting the voter is pretty tone deaf. Most aren’t going to turn to your guy when you insult and name call them.
In an election that’s going to need every vote, deepening the divide only sends voters to the competition. I’m not stupid enough to choose the candidate whose backers label me as an idiot or a war mongerer. But
I’m not interested in convincing anyone to vote for a particular person or party. It’s their choice. But I do think it’s disingenuous when a Democrat says they’d vote for Liz Cheney. It’s a lie, plain and simple.
Liberal friend insists that walls don't work despite the fact that I have to stop at the guard shack to be cleared before I can get into his neighborhood.
Liberal friend insists that there is actually more than one definition of the word 'defund'.
Liberal friend meltdown over orange man bad. I asked what Trump policies worked to undermine our collective success? No answer.
Me to liberal friend: What the hell is going on with these caravans coming to our border wearing 'Let us in Joe Biden' tee-shirts? Liberal says: That's just Fox News propaganda.
The county my store is in banned plastic bags (despite studies showing that it doesn't reduce plastic waste). When I mentioned to a customer the other day that I couldn't give her a bag, she started going off about Trump and how he is such a danger to this country. This is how insane these people are.
Reminds me a video I saw on Twitter when gas prices were rising far and fast. A middle-aged female was having a literal meltdown in her car about gas prices, AND SHE BLAMED the Far Right for it. The complete disconnect from reality is an ongoing problem on the Left.
plastic bag bans are ridiculous. along with the plastic straw ban.. but at 10 a bag and $$ going directly to the store. the checkers sure do push them. the best is where the "self checkouts" ask. how many bags did you use.. uhhh none. ( taking 5 or 6)_LOL
Bags cause a fair but more waste than straws and tend to end up in oceans/rivers. There's a much stronger environmental case for banning plastic bags than straws.
nope. almost every item in the grocery now is wrapped in plastic. lettuce ? in a plastic bag.. carrots same.. look at the plastic used by wal mart and costco to shrink wrap the loads brought in. my little plastic bag ( always reused) is not the problem
Friends, which makes it so bizarre and disappointing. Smart people that staunchly adhere to factually inaccurate, non-reality based arguments. And the thing is, we have all seen and heard exactly the same things.
we have progressive friends like this. when we invite them over to have dinner with us at our house, we inevitably just talk about tv shows, movies, music and the food and wine.
I have difficulty not thinking to myself, "you're an idiot" and "if this is what you think, how can I trust your judgment". Definitely awkward because those responses are so wildly absurd.
This is a left wing characteristic of gaslighting. The gaslighting is not only of other people but of themselves. They are unknowingly caged by self-craziness, in a world where up is down and down is up.
Trump's lockdown policies really injured our economy before Biden took over. Funny how both sides fail to give him credit for that. Nobody wants to honor him for Operation Warp Speed either.
I must have missed the 'Trump lockdowns'. I do give credit to Biden for mandating shots and show your papers or lose your job and be excluded from society. "Get the shot and you will not get or give covid."
Who was president in March of 2020? The state of emergency we entered was Trump's decision. Just like his decision to not end the emergency powers of the state or fire Fauci even as a sitting duck president with nothing to lose. Like his decision to continue to promote the "Trump shots" everywhere. If you have any record of Trump begging people not to take them or apologizing for what he accidentally dragged our country into--and forgot to end before leaving office--please share it.
I voted for Trump twice. I'm willing to admit he took me in too. He was playing 4 D chess--with all of us.
As I recall, the MSM was constantly screaming that Trump wasn't doing enough to lock down the country. They constantly accused him of being anti-vax as soon as the vaccine was available (although they had been screaming, shortly before, that they wouldn't take a vaccine created under his Presidency).
It was the state governors who made the lockdown policies. My state didn't have any, because our governor is a conservative Republican.
I was NOT pleased that Trump allowed Fauci and the CDC and the governors of Blue states to implement totalitarian Covid policy. It was a massive failure of leadership on his part. But no matter what Trump had done, the Leftist MSM would have called it the wrong thing.
I'm no fan of Trump, but you're barking up the wrong tree to blame him for everything that happened with Covid.
Yes, the MSM was saying a bunch of horrible things about Trump. And they were ridiculously untrue too. That's what struck me as odd. They kept calling him anti vaxx and telling those who followed their lies that Trump was telling his followers not to get vaccinated. Yet Trump was very proud of the shot he had pushed through. He repeatedly told his followers that they should get vaccinated, though he was not in favor of mandates. Fox and Newsmax passed this narrative to a lot of conservative Boomers who only go online for FB. And the alt media told Trump's followers that though Trump was our savior we should not take the jab he was so proud of and promotes everywhere to this day.
None of this made sense till I viewed it in light of controlled opposition. The Bolsheviks used this technique when they took over Russia.
As far as draconian lockdowns, I discovered one of the biggest reasons governors and mayors did it. Federal funding. Signed by the executive branch.
If you recall, nobody seemed to know what covid was or what it would do, not even the experts at the CDC, NIH/NIAID despite having spent their entire careers studying coronavirus. The initial cautious approach seemed reasonable. The shot clearly provided the salve hysterical democrats longed for. Trump never said, "take the shot and you won't get or give covid" nor did he mandate the shot despite being derided for not being more aggressive in pushing for people to get it. Unfortunately, he did rely on Fauci's sloppy 'science' and should have fired him as evidence was more than clear that lockdowns, social distancing and masks were ineffective. Trump's shot was overwhelming accepted without question by libs, lib media, Biden and Harris who were fervently demanding everyone take it. And here were are, Biden's CDC is now pushing a 10th shot.
Trump allowed the lockdowns but was not the author or agent of them. He chose to trust the scientific institutions that own that responsibility, which was the right choice for a president who is not a medical scientist.
Deborah Birx and the Chinese government are the ones responsible for our lockdown policies, among others.
Warp Speed was mostly Pence, the unsung hero of the pandemic, who consistently did the right thing, humiliated stupid scientific bureaucrats, took no money for it, and wanted no credit. Pence is the last vestige of American integrity.
There are things the right stonewalls on. The main one being abortion -- people have really strongly-held opinions about it. In general, I find political no-homers or dissidents probably the most open-minded of all.
I wish I could find the poll on abortion I saw recently. It showed the conservatives (or Republicans if you prefer that designation) were pretty flexible on the timing allowed for an abortion. I think it was up to three months.
Today's divisive problem is built on all-or-nothing thinking. A substantial number of people think less extremely, but news about them isn't appealing to MSM readers.
If it was the one I'm thinking of, it was like 30% of Republicans think abortion should never be allowed under any circumstances while 70% are flexible about it. The problem is those 30% control the purse strings of major donations. That (and gun control) are the only two "right-wing" social policies that have major funding backing them up, which is why GOP leadership tends to be so inflexible on that.
Meanwhile, any funding that once went to, say, a free speech organization is now directed towards Democrats who want to censor. Therefore, few Republicans are willing to stand up for free speech. Similarly, there's no major anti-DEI/anti-woke organization besides maybe AFL (and they have their hands full), so Republicans are generally willing to give in on that front.
I agree. "Follow the money" for a lot of issues and it becomes more clear why we keep hearing from extremes. Someone pointed out to me that if you follow the money for transgender ideology, it will explain why all the support. I read recently that a lot of nonprofits are really PACs. Also, they are consulting groups that can go into schools or businesses, for example, as speakers on social issues.
Having been born and raised in New Orleans, I know a little about the populace. And the politics. I have no idea who was throwing the party, but it sounds like an average group there. Some are sensible, others not so much. Removing Robert E. Lee’s statue from Lee Circle—which has, of course, been renamed—wasn’t the work of moderates. Nor is the renaming of city streets. The Big Easy has become quite a racist place. Try running for mayor if you’re white. Hasn’t been one since 1972.
I still have family there, but it’s hard for me to imagine a scenario in which I’d move back. Food’s quite good, though.
Are you crazy? You think Landrieu is black? Or mixed? You can't possibly be "born and raised in Nola" and be that ignorant of the Landrieu family. I grew up with the Landrieu family around the corner and hung out with Mary on the weekends. My mom went to Loyola with Moon and Verna. Good grief. Who are you?
I moved to NOLA in 1992 for college; My first time experiencing racism was in my classroom at Loyola, by my black professor (1994). But that’s not the first thing I think of when recollect on my couple of years at that college: it’s the amazing food…there’s only one sin in that town and it’s bad food.
Looking forward to this series. I’ve always thought that if journalists would get out in the real world and talk to real people, they would see we don’t all hate each other as much as they think (or try to get us to).
As soon as russiagate got made up and disseminated the whole “need to understand why America rejected Hillary” disappeared and it became RESIST pussy hat time.
My daughter is involved in a club at her uni called Bridge. It’s for anyone interested in politics. No matter which party you support or if you’re independent you’re welcome and treated respectfully. They have lively but respectful discussions on a variety of topics. They moderate the debates between college dems and college republicans.
Recently she met a young man and they started dating. He’s from the DC area. I was told that when he mentioned to his father he started seeing a nice girl at school his father asked “Is she a crazy MAGA?”
She’s bringing him home for Easter. I am so tempted to wear a bright red cap! 😂
Ben, I look forward to your correspondence. I believe most of us (that majority you speak of) already know that the country isn't as divided as the pundits lead us to believe.
As someone who actually worked elections, I can assure you that two important reasons to schedule special elections for the same dates as regular ones are the cost and logistics. Special elections in this case add almost no cost and no staff, no need to run around and recruit volunteers. I see no malice in the action of the governor, at least the primary reason is not a desire to get Boebert, she is very good at hurting herself.
That would be recovering Chicagoan. Sir. (Though back when I lived there it was still a pretty neat place. (I thought the Symphony under Sir Georg was the best of the best.) Aside from the politics, of course. Which finally killed it.)
Politics are killing Chicago AND Illinois deader'n disco. I moved to Phoenix, AZ, two years ago and am quite happy I did. I love many things about Illinois, but insane taxes and politics are not part of that.
Sure in "Bari- world." The rest of us find him more than a bit cringey and mildly amusing - at his best. Like the self-described "class clown" in high school, who plays the dork and then manically looks for adoration. And talk about a predilection of stereotyping......
Most people are interesting precisely because we are not stereotypes. And the only thing that will get most of us fighting mad is trying to dictate what we must feel and say. People and a government who do that will rue the day.....Otherwise. live and let live.
That's how I feel about Ben, too. Just won't/can't watch his videos. He is not as clever as he thinks, and does not come across as an honest broker. His video editing is amateurish and deceptive
Yeah…not wild about it. There was nothing groundbreaking or particularly funny or interesting about this. The one thing I did like was his asking what the interviewee thought his/her own political group gets wrong and what the other gets right. That was a good and thought-provoking question, but for me, even that was ruined by the predictability of the answers (“abortion!” “Lower gas prices!”).
The problem is not the electorate, the problem is those politicians and a media that drumbeat the stereotypes and outright twist and lie about what is said, and the hidden agenda behind legislation. There are plenty on both sides of the aisle that do this, most recently it occurred right here about statements made by Mark Robinson, republican nominee for Governor of NC. Either the writer never listened to his entire speech for the context (bad journalism) or purposefully took him out of context to say he supports fascism and putting women back in the kitchen. Completely opposite of what he said. This kind of stuff makes me want to vomit and it's so prevalent in the news and commentary garbage generated that I trust very few writers. The electorate has to somewhat trust what the journos are writing and saying, and the journos with an agenda (most of them) need to go look in the mirror to see where the hate is generated. The above video was nice in that you didn't steer, lie or try and "destroy" anyone.
Another example just this weekend. Trump uses the word bloodbath and in less than 24 hours all MSM, democrats and of course Pelosi, are out decrying his threats to democracy!
Then you watch the actual video for the context. What were they watching?
my almost 18 year was talking about this last night. she said that people are melting down about what he supposedly says and then posting a link so you can watch it, and when you watch, it doesn't say at all what they claimed in their panicked headline. she was like, "how much of an idiot are you to claim something and go as far as to post the link to watch something that doesn't say what you claim it says?" we raised a critical thinker, and for that i'm quite happy! unfortunately (and she'll tell you this herself) her generation are fools and she has zero confidence in her peers for the future.
Another example is the recent teenage brawl that has a girl in the hospital in critical condition. The usual suspects are pounding race, as the girl in the hospital is white and her attacker is black, with a screen shot to get the natives worked up. The hard-to-find video shows another black girl pulling the attacker off the white girl on the pavement, and then she gets attacked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdSn6doB2_A
Perhaps look at your motivation for your interpretation. "They" are the people who try and turn us against each other, the war tactic Ben seems to be trying to undermine.
Considering MSM is failing with very few people actually watching the opinion news I have to wonder why they still play off of all the histrionics and BS??? Just report the news already.
I think the problem is that anyone that wants to do real journalism doesn't work for MSM. So they don't have anyone left to do it....and likely don't know how to do it. You see, journalism is work. It requires research and doublechecking data, and finding more sources. So time consuming. Much easier to make up opinion pieces.
The bloodbath distortion is a perfect example. Their agenda isn't to report news but to support a specific agenda. And their misleading/dishonest reporting gets amplified via late night talk shows and The View.
Just like the "fine people at Charlottesville. Clearly Trump was talking about the monuments dispute but the dorks in the media made it seem like he was supporting the nitwits with tiki torches. Remember the old comment about a lie going twice around the world before the truth even laces up its boots. The leftist press lives lies. Because the basis of their world view is the lie told by Marx.
Agreed! I think it takes a lot to look for real writing and be able to sift thru the garbage and then to even go a step further to look for that one the other side of the arguments/aisle you generally follow makes for a lot of work. It's sad but true. Most people live off junk food journalism and that gets to be a problem.
Ben seems to have finally gotten a handle on not mocking the people he's interviewing. Or maybe it's that he didn't quite dare to do that in NOLA the way he did in Iowa.
I’m anxious to see thefp get on this ground. Most of us already know this, yet it seems surprising to the urban coastals when they discover it. I wrote a short piece on this a couple years ago that I was proud of…
Pace, Ms M! True dat, but I, for one, will refrain from throwing rocks until there's a target. (I suspect that there will be many.) But the laddie seems to be trying. Don't forget that no one's been taught to be an actual newspaperman for 20 years or so. Popcorn suggested.
One main point- no matter who represents the right politically- the left will hate. And not just hate but will make ultimate enemy #1. They cannot let loose with power, even for a year or two. That is why we are so divided. It’s the lefts way or total destruction.
This. If Haley had somehow managed to get the nomination the same leftists praising her as the moderate alternative would immediately turn their guns on her, call her the brown face of white supremacy etc.
Do you know who is making amazing documentaries about all types of Americans across the country? Peter Santenello, who has his own YouTube channel. He is talking to former prostitutes in Vegas, the Amish in Kentucky; Americans in Appalachia, next to the Mexican border, on Native American reservations and now in the Deep South. He is amazing and non-click-baity. Check him out to get a feel of the real diversity of the country.
I honestly think most of our political divisions arise from competing sets of facts. By and large, conservatives are more informed than their left wing equivalents. Most of our schools and universities and media outlets have been overtaken by what in effect are professional liars, whose output has the aim of homogenizing opinion around ideas that are largely wrong.
Their success, of course, creates a rift between the actually informed, and those with whom their work has succeeded.
The 2020 election was almost certainly stolen, and was certainly not investigated with the seriousness those charges--and the evidence for them--warranted.
Jan. 6 was not an insurrection, and Trump tried to stop it. Those are in my view obvious facts. There was no attempt to take control of either the election or the $4 trillion Federal bureaucratic and military apparatus. They broke in through windows, led it would seem by Federal agents in many cases, came into the Capital, and took selfies, then left. That's not an insurrection.
Trump is not anything remote like Hitler. He is trying to restore the rule of law, and trying to curtail the activities of anti-democratic elements of our own government. He is if anything opposing Pro-Hitlerian elements of our own government, who are calling him "literally Hitler" because most Americans are stupid and willing to believe anything they see on their TVs'. But a lie is a lie is a lie.
Etc. Most Republicans are fine with 3-4 month abortion bans, and even with some extensions if the mothers health is in danger. I think all of us understand, if we are honest, that two bodies and two lives are involved, and that "my body, my choice" is simultaneously understandable and more than a little disingenuous. We all know that at some point that other body will acquire the ability to feel pain, and eventually to cry and scream.
If we are going to come together, we need to stop with the lies. The lie that Ben told here is that the "far right" is anything but ordinary Americans who are basically decent, open, honest, and generous, saying "enough with the bullshit". And everyone to the Left of the people you are calling "far right" is pushing lies, from mild lies, up to whoppers like "the border is secured", or "the President has no control over the Border Patrol".
Ben has a lot of habits that lead in the direction of dishonesty. Some of them perhaps arose in the period when anti-gay sentiment was common among Republicans. That sentiment is largely gone. Me personally, I think Republicanism should be about "if it doesn't affect you personally and it hurts no one else, then it's none of your business". The core contention with regard to abortion, obviously, is that it DOES affect someone else. None of us care if a woman has her gall bladder removed.
But I call myself a Liberal, by which I mean most of the things Libertarians mean with their word, but without the kookiness. And in today's world, only conservatives are meaningfully LIberal any more. We value free speech, the even application of the law for everyone everywhere, and a government kept within firm bounds. There is nothing Liberal about a metastasized government that is telling you what to do every day in every way.
"Jan. 6 was not an insurrection, and Trump tried to stop it. Those are in my view obvious facts."
In my view, neither of these are facts, and you and I can argue the validity of our cases until the cows come home. But I do very little of that in real life, only here on social media when I have time and fun making my case.
America's problem right now is that 90 percent of us will say, "OK, you have your view and I have mine, how do you want your steak cooked?" The other 10 percent will go into berserker mode trying to destroy those who don't agree with therm---and that 10 percent is heavily overrepresented in media and in several institutions, including elite universities and elective office.
And, in addition to your last sentence, on comment threads like this..
Oh, yeah, absolutely comment boards.
And on online comment boards.
Media news and social, for sure.
And they are really efficient voters.
It would be nice to have a less flawed vessel, But we don't.
Love the last paragraph -- the word "liberal" is one of many that the proggy left has poisoned into oblivion. I try to defend the language when I can, but that one's a no-hoper.
I came up with idea of “Good Enough Presidenting” last week, as both a nod to Winnecut, and as a reasonable way to underscore my belief that all we REALLY need in a President is goodwill and a sincere desire to do the job honestly.
Trump is not as smart as he thinks he is—although his instincts are usually spot on, even when he cant articulate why—but he genuinely means well. He is on the side of the American people as a whole. He made his fortune before he entered politics and does not need to sell favors to increase it, like Biden has done and is presumably still doing.
There are MANY forms of intelligence. Trump has strong natural instincts that are frequently correct
Have to disagree with you there, Unsaint. Trump in my view is not on the side of the American people as a whole. He only speaks to his base. Always has and always will.
If you look at a map of his support by county that is red, the blue is what is exceptional, in a sea of red. Pretty much everyone in every small town supports him strongly.
Biden, demographically, is only supported by big city elites. His election, if it happened, happened in big cities only.
Oh, lord...
A friend does commercial development and has done deals building dozens and dozens of large residential healthcare-like facilities around the country. He's the smartest guy I know--MENSA level smart. His view on Trump's intelligence is that it is exceptional: "Anyone who can put together the financial deals and then construct skyscrapers in the middle of the some of the largest cities in the world is extraordinarily smart--certainly smarter than I am."
The most common thread among Trump's detractors is they always underestimate his intellegence.
I agree. He is brilliant at Big Picture, and forms accurate judgements—most if the time—very quickly. But he doesnt always do a great job ARTICULATING what he believes and why. He and I probably both suffer at times from the defect of assuming that what is obvious to us is obvious to others. It isn’t. And every gap in explanation is used by the cretinous Left to manufacture lies about him.
And Mensa is not that hard to get into. I qualified drunk. But they are mask people, at least around here. I only went to one meeting, and although it was long before COVID, that type has always annoyed me. Intelligence should mean intellectual diversity, but it often means nothing more than better than usual recitation of someone elses ideas.
Thats why I dont work in an office. IQ is just a potential, and it is reliably negated by cowardice, poor self awareness, and poor individuation generally.
That sounds like a definition of stupidity or feckin' idiocy rather than intelligence. If you can't understand simple concepts, either on the page or coming out of someones mouth, you aren't very bright.
Proggies. Now that has legs.
> The 2020 election was almost certainly stolen
What scares me is that you think you think you believe that. From reading your posts I know you to have a functioning mind. Yet tribal/ideological commitments overrule intelligence, as we see. There's no cure after the infection has taken hold, what the nation needs is to train the next generation how to be honest with themselves.
Of course many *do* know they are lying. Take Tucker Carlson who was caught admitting that most of what he said on his show was BS, but as a Loyal Trumpist, he had to pretend to believe the election was stolen. Lie, of course -- this is politics! -- but it is very dangerous to not know that you are lying.
Until liberals agree to require a photo id to vote, which includes applying in person for an absentee ballot and eliminating mail-in ballots, there will always be a shadow as well as reasonable doubt that an election was stolen.
If one side agreed to a photo ID, applying in person for absentee ballots and eliminating mail-in ballots, the other side would still complain that "the election was stolen" when their people lost.
Lets guve it a try. Since none if those things were in place in 2020 you have no way of knowing, do you?
Yes, I do have a way of knowing: past practice. Maybe you're too young to remember?
In my earlier voting life, I had to go to City Hall to get an absentee ballot, provide a "good reason" to vote absentee, and show an ID. There were no mail-in ballots other than overseas military. In Illinois, where I lived until recently, election judges performed signature matches at the polls--the ballot you signed had to match to the one you signed with two forms of ID when you registered. They were paper ballots.
Election still got stolen and "stolen."
The losing side will complain no matter how stringent the protections. I don't have any particular issue with showing IDs at the polls, but I won't give up absentee and mail-in voting. I make more intelligent choices when I can sit in my house and study the election booklets while making my decisions.
I'm not sure I agree, but it would be on such a small scale it would be moot.
I don't believe Biden can possibly get elected today in a fair election.
I think Biden will be easily elected, and the election will be fair, barring a heart attack or stroke in either candidate.
The WSJ today has an article about Trump already saying that the 2024 election is going to be rigged. In that article the WSJ says that the RNC and Lara Trump are planning to dramatically increase GOP voters use of mail in ballots and also human ballot collectors (you know, "ballot harvesting"). The RNC and Lara Trump are also big on promoting early voting over showing up in person the day of. The exact opposite of what Donald is saying.
MAGA Republicans whine endlessly about "the swamp" when they're the most poisonous reptiles floating in the cattails and feces.
2024 will be rigged, all right: by MAGA goon squads led by Lara and Daddums-In-Law. Well, they'll try, anyway, but won't succeed. I can't wait for America to flush the whole Trump grifter family down the golden toilet.
Oh, don't misunderstand: Of course there was cheating here and there, that's normal. There's no question the Rats *want* to make it easier to cheat. However multiple recounts in the last election failed to overturn even a single county. Not a single one of hundreds of such recounts and investigations produced a single upset. This includes recounts in deeply Red states with loyal Trumpists in control of them. 60 out of 60 lawsuits failed. 50 out of 50 states ratified. The entire Republican leadership -- not the rank and file noise makers but the *leadership* -- were unanimous that Trump lost. Every election watchdog organization declared that Biden won. But facts don't matter when tribal loyalties are at stake.
You're right that the endless recounts verified the election numbers. However, recounting ballots was not the remedy to the question of legitimacy.
—>Verifying the signatures<—on the ballots against the voter rolls has always been the standard protocol for adjudicating such claims, and that was *not* done in the battleground states that gave Biden the presidency...except a couple years later in AZ (after much legal wrangling), which then turned up enough disqualified ballots that Trump would have won AZ had the signatures been properly validated in 2020.
It's important to note that those 60 lawsuits were all tossed out on grounds of "standing" or "laches" ("you don't have standing to be heard on this claim" and "you brought the claim too late to be heard"). Hence, the most basic question of election fraud—were mail-in ballots manipulated/illegally included such that enough unqualified ballots were included and counted to change the outcome?—was never actually adjudicated. The many lawsuits with evidence of such claims were, as I said, all tossed out on *procedural* grounds, not "lost" on evidentiary. That leaves HUGE questions open in the minds of people who are aware of what that evidence is.
So, given the evidence was never properly investigated by the legacy media either, it might be worth considering that maybe the issue isn't that people who talk about the election being stolen are "lying," but that they have important information that you do not.
Bingo, Leah! Recounting sketchy ballots over and over isn't the answer. It's validating and if needed rejecting sketchy ballots, and that is what isn't happening.
Quality post Rose. Look, I'm just a regular Canadian dolphin, all I know is what I see on the media and then I try to apply some sense to it. Yes, I know about 'latches'. Seems to me the courts understand something: there's zero help in the Constitution about what to do if things aren't squared up by Jan 20. IF there really were cases where the Dems actually succeeded in stealing a state, I'm sure it will come out eventually. Mean while, as the saying goes: "They stole it, fair and square" -- *even* if they stole it, it is what it is on Jan 20 -- get it sorted out next time. Meanwhile I basically wouldn't believe that the sky was blue if Donald Trump said so because he is the greatest liar in the history of the world. Jesus! I'm a conservative, but give me someone respectable please.
Facts most definitely matter and most main stream conservatives have long ago moved on, but you won't hear about that on the MSM.
There's a simple solution to removing any doubt about future elections.
Care to take a guess?
Tell us, I'm curious. You guys need all the ideas you can come up with.
Its really pretty simple: they changed the totals in the servers then added enough ballots to match. Once they are out ofvtheir envelopes an invalid ballot that should not be there looks the same as a valid ballot that should. You could count them a dozen times and nothing would change. They actually added too many ballots in Arizona. That finding actually strikes at election integrity. It in no way supports it.
I await proof. But be assured, if that proof is forthcoming I'm not going to attempt to deny it. I'm not running interference for the Dems. But all the investigations in Arizona ended up with nada. You may say that this that and the other thing was found, but the investigators report otherwise. I'm going with the conclusions of the people who actually got right in there and looked at things up close and personal. If all you people know the election was stolen then surely proving it in court should be easy. Civil case! Just do it.
Ray, check out the newly released book "Disproven" by Ken Block, the Republican data scientist hired by the Trump campaign to find the voter fraud to overturn the election, only there was none. Foreword written by Brad Raffensperger.
It tells you something when a Republican, who's been hired to find something that would hugely help his employer and aid his own party, yet can't find anything. You know, it warms my heart just a tiny little bit to know that there are yet Republicans who have not drunk the kool-aid and who maintain their integrity in the face of that loathsome creature's mob of morons. Brad, I salute you sir. Cheney, Flake, Kaisich, Romney ... there are not a few. (Pardon misspelling) Contrast that miserable wretch 'America's Mayor' who is now eternally disgraced and if he had an ounce of dignity left he'd kill himself.
1. Government provides photo ID for all, that includes automatic registration.
2. Free of charge.
Deal?
As long as immigration status is verified, sure.
As it stands currently, nope.
And how does it "stand" currently, Marie? Are there illegal immigrants voting in your world?
Agreed on the condition that we amend #1 to"...photo ID for all with citizenship verification..."
Let's do it!
Of course it's a deal!
Republicans would agree to that before the sun goes down in Georgia. Will Democrats?
Lol!!! The GOP are the ones accepting gun licences as valid but not student IDs.
Free IDs for all, so everyone can vote? You'd stroke-out if that ever happened.
MAGA would storm the Capitol again over that.
Governments already provide photo IDs for any citizen who requests one for a nominal fee. Talk about a red herring. Many places will even wave that fee if the applicant claims financial hardship. If any qualified citizen in this country is involuntarily disenfranchised because they were legitimately unable to obtain a government photo ID, I'd sure be interested as to how that happened.
In addition, "automatic" registration is a glaring election security risk. Most people who don't intentionally register to vote don't plan on voting. Registering these people without their knowledge and potentially against their will, and mailing out ballots is an open invitation for someone else to vote their ballots. And frankly, so is "no request" mail in voting. How many people, especially elderly, are disenfranchised by family members or other caregivers who decide to vote granny's ballot. I guarantee it's magnitudes more than are disenfranchised by not being able to get a photo ID.
I didn't say "nominal fee," did I, Brian? No. I didn't. I said: "Free"
Why do you have a problem with that? :) I think we both know the answer to that. Probably the same reason a gun license is valid ID in TX, but a student ID is not. Hmmm...wonder why?
Talk about mealy-mouthed, disengenuous argument.
Oh, you'd be interested to know how that happened? Well, let's start with this and if you want to keep going, we can:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a-photo-id-so-you-can-vote-is-easy-unless-youre-poor-black-latino-or-elderly/2016/05/23/8d5474ec-20f0-11e6-8690-f14ca9de2972_story.html
https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/data-dive-voter-id-laws-are-bad-but-who-do-they-impact-the-most/
Com Prof you’re making sense did you get a bad ice cube this morning?
Lol. Make sense all the time. Which is why I own/destroy so many on here.
While automatic registration along with a free photo ID seems like a good idea, my only reservation is that people move and change addresses so often that an initial registration would soon be out of date. Typically an ID is valid for 4 years. How do you deal with that?
It took my husband and I less than an hour to get new ID’s when we moved from California to North Carolina eight years ago. Took even less time to let California know we no longer lived in that state - although they continued sending me ballots (sometimes multiple for the same election) until just after the ‘recall,’ despite my continued efforts to make them stop.
I register Independent. One of my ex-CA neighbors, who was registered Democrat, received six - SIX - mail-in ballots for the 2022 election, although, to be truthful, one was for the dead guy who had previously owned her house.
The government tracks us all anyways... I don't know anyone who believes otherwise. Picture IDs are very possible and the only way that people will trust elections again. The loss of trust in our elections is a major issue that feeds the loss of trust in government and that has had significant consequences.
There are millions of Americans who live in other countries (like our military..). How do they apply in person to get an absentee ballot?
I would think that the military could handle something as simple as voting within a window of time, otherwise, it is scary to think that they are in charge of large movements of troops, etc. for our national defense.
And what about the other few million Americans who live in Canada and overseas who don't have uniforms on?
The military can get you a ballot as easy as delivering your mail. Just apply the next time you buy stamps. If you care enough about voting honestly you'll find a way to apply. You've only got four years.
So let me get this straight. Take Europe - a million Americans, give or take, live there. You want them all to come home and apply in person? All within the few months of an election so that the names are on ballots? Are you nuts?
They don't. I lived / worked overseas for many years. You don't need to apply for an absentee ballot in person, you just need to apply for one on a 1:1 request basis. Not blanket mail outs. At the same time, voter rolls must be rigorously maintained - it's sort of important, you know?
I know they don't T. I was responding to 234 who insists that all absentee ballots be applied for in person..
I love the fact the all the laws supposedly to suppress voting simple require what has always been required to vote here in canada, that you are a resident of the riding and can produce ID.
Anyone without ID cannot vote
It’s not hard
According to today's WSJ, the RNC led by Lara Trump is planning to dramatically increase GOP voters use of early voting and mail in ballots, including the use of human ballot collectors (known to people like you as "ballot harvesting"). It's in the WSJ article about Trump already saying that the 2024 election will be rigged. Apparently the RNC and Lara Trump disagree with him.
This may come as a surprise, but some of us actually can think for ourselves and do not need to march in step with what the RNC or the Trumps say, who I will argue have been forced to give in to adopting a questionable practice of voting. (Maybe Republicans will learn to game the system as well or better than Democrats.)
Since you seem to have a suffering need to advance this discussion, let me ask you....."Isn't it necessary to do everything we can to protect the the sanctity of 'our most sacred right'?
Which practice is more prone to inviting fraud: voting with an id, as we used to or should, or mail-in ballots?
If you cannot answer either/or, please find someone else's time to take.
I live in Louisiana, a Ruby red state with a long line of Republican Secretaries of State. We've had early voting, absentee voting and mail in ballots for eligible voters (ex, over 65) for a long time. Right now I'm overseas and my husband and I were able to go online and register for an absentee Mail in ballot for the Republican presidential primary simply by filling in our driver's license numbers, our SS#s, and mother's maiden name. They mailed the paper absentee ballots to us and we mailed them in before we left the country. We left town too early to absentee vote in person.
The RNC doesn't believe photo id is necessary, although I personally have no problem with it. But the security measures I mentioned seem to me to be adequate protection. When we go to the polls in person a photo id is required.
There's a new book out by Ken Block, the Republican data scientist hired by the Trump campaign to find voter fraud to overturn the 2020 election. It's called "Disproven" and the foreword is written by Brad Raffensperger. Much to the dismay of the Trump campaign, their hired expert didn't find any fraud. He did, however, discover huge differences in how the various states run their elections and uses the last 1/3 of the book to make suggestions on how to make our elections more uniform and more secure. I think you'd enjoy reading it.
Just curious: were you one of the large majority of Democrats screaming RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA for four years and denying Trump won fairly?
Given that we have everything from sworn eyewitnesa testiminy of thumb drives being inserted into election servers to counties with more votes tham voters, can you admit our evidential claims are both vastly stronger than those which were on 24/7 repeat for four years, and vastly less investigated, since you had Mueller?
Problem is that *every* independent investigation has found all these claims to be partisan bullshit. But let me repeat: the Rats *try* to cheat, they just didn't have much success. The liars also found themselves having to be very careful: recall the Dominion award. Recall the Trumpist noise makers who, in court, were liable to perjury charges who went very quiet all of a sudden. And those Trumpists who admitted publicly to having lied in the service of their master.
> RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA for four years and denying Trump won fairly?
When your team wins, it was Free and Fair. When your team looses it was stolen, yes? Funny tho -- when the Rats are in power, somehow it's the Reps that manage to steal the election. When the Reps are in power, somehow, in four years, the entire electoral apparatus of the country gets hijacked by the other team without anybody noticing.
Nope, it's not that it *couldn't* be true, it's that it *isn't* true. Biden won, thumb drives notwithstanding. Nuts, when they recounted in Arizona, Biden's lead increased. Ditto Georgia. Both recounts run by strong Republicans. I loved that guy in Arizona -- dedicated conservative but not a traitor.
Election law was changed ad hoc and outside the bounds of the legal process all across the country.
So you deny this?
Where were actual police involved in any criminal investigation? And if not, is it somehow not obvious to you that the courts did not accept any of the vast volume of evidence because no actual prosecutors were involved?
You dont want to discuss specifics. I get it: facts are not on your side.
You dont want to admit you were blaming the Russians for four years. I get it: that was so stupid its embarrassing now.
But serious question: should not anyone who believes in democracy not care deeply about MAKING SURE every valid vote was counted and that no fraudulent votes were counted?
If there is any doubt, what objection could you have to making sure, as we did with Mueller? What would be wrong with it? Its a polarizing issue and your people are saying they want to unify the country and heal divisions? How is calling people traitors and criminals who are doing the SAME THING THE DEMOCRATS DID acceptable in any way?
> You dont want to admit you were blaming the Russians for four years. I get it: that was so stupid its embarrassing now.
Yup. I was taken in. I'm not partisan. In fact I detest both of your parties. They are equally disgusting. I have no bias against anyone proving that this or that Rat did in fact cheat -- no surprise -- but not a single vote has been overturned, notwithstanding cheating by *both sides*.
> How is calling people traitors and criminals who are doing the SAME THING THE DEMOCRATS DID acceptable in any way?
Acceptable?? Who said that? I said 'normal' in the sense of par for the course. If you guys can't have elections until they are perfect then you may as well declare Trump dictator for life and be done with it. Meanwhile I suggest you soldier on as best you can. Yes, where there are problems, fix them. Funny ... up here in Canada elections are almost never a problem -- you put your X on the paper and later on that day the results are announced. It's actually quite easy.
How many polls shut down in the dark of night that had Biden ahead, but wound up having Trump win?
Thank you Ray for standing up for the truth.
Thanks! Not that I have any pipeline to The Truth, but I'm at least trying to think about it honestly.
"of course there was cheating her and there. that's normal.". maybe in your world. have another banana
But it is normal, your whole case rests on that claim.
Hmm....anyone know if they were GOP or not?
https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/election-worker-facing-tampering-charges-michigan-gop-precinct-delegate#:~:text=James%20Donald%20Holkeboer%2C%20an%20election,to%20five%20years%20in%20prison.
So "well-informed," Unsaint.
Gosh, do you think we should take seriously ALL cases of this sort? There were hundreds of similar and worse allegations in 2020. Is it oerhaps the case that only one side is investigated in States where the process is controlled by Democrats?
Lol. You didn't even check the backstory for your talking point.
Gosh, what were these "hundreds of similar and worse allegations?"
Can you tell me since you're so well-informed?
Are channeling Giuliani?
Let me turn the tables on you: If we can overturn the 2020 election because , indeed, there were hundreds of these little episodes, then what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, no? The Trumpists bewailed every dull pencil, but two can play that sort of game. IMHO both sides should grow up.
Funny thing, with all the noise about the Rat's tampering, we overlook the fact that Reps cheat too.
When someone says the election was "stolen," I think it's poor word choice. On top of all the things the "public health" authoritarians did during COVID, leftist/Democrat officials changed election laws/regulations at the last minute to make fraud/questionable ballot tactics easier to propagate.
One of those was the extension of early voting. This probably affected the PA Senate race most of all - after people had already voted a month ahead of time (!), all the stuff about Fetterman's stroke came out, and no one could change their vote (if they wanted to). Would Oz have been a better Senator? Debatable. Could the stroke have changed people's minds closer to election date? It's certainly possible.
So while I don't believe the election was, in a competent and fully masterminded way, "stolen" per se, I do believe leftist/Democrat officials went around crowing about a public health emergency to make things like ballot harvesting, early voting, and non-id supported voting easier, allowing for the opportunity for fraud and for losing candidates to question the outcome.
Just like HRC and all her useful idiots in the media obsessed with "Russia-gate" will never accept the outcome of 2016, I - and I suspect many others - will never accept the outcome of 2020.
"Stolen" is the worst word to describe what occurred because it implies breaking the law and many of the aberrancies were legal but unethical. In addition to the Covid-enabled ballot harvesting was the selective funding by the mega-wealth progressives like Zuckerberg of election boards only in overwhelmingly Democratic counties to underwrite their programs to administer and collect absentee ballots. Perfectly legal and perfectly immoral.
All that happened. In my view so did the changing of totals in the servers.
If you want to claim otherwise, show me a place where evidence was looked for by police or other duly constituted authorities. No court would accept the vast volume of evidence becuase in the absence of cops willing to do their jobs, private citizens were forced to do it.
The whole thing is pathetic.
> Perfectly legal and perfectly immoral.
But when was the last time you guys had a 'moral' election? Competent voters must be robust enough to see thru the baloney and vote intelligently. That's not easy, and it's getting harder, but that's the way it is.
'Stolen' also includes burying the Hunter Biden laptop news until after the election.
> I do believe leftist/Democrat officials went around ...
Certainly! They are natural cheaters. The question is whether their cheating changed the result, and it seems it didn't.
We’re natural cheaters?
Yes. Dems have a long and glorious tradition of fixing elections. Much worse in the old days when 'machines' controlled entire states. It's now well understood that Kennedy stole the election from Nixon.
I think the difference between his statement and your rebuttal is that he's aware of evidence of election shenanigans that you either haven't seen, or choose to discount. Can we agree that much of what we think we know depends on our news sources?
> Can we agree that much of what we think we know depends on our news sources?
Yes. I wasn't in the room. I rely on reports. When blatantly partisan actors accuse election officials of misbehavior I automatically red-tag the report. However when competent bodies or courts overturn the charge, I give that more credence, especially if the latter groups are themselves Republicans. Here's looking at you Mr. Bradford Jay Raffensperger -- Patriot.
“Overturn the charge”? Here again, what we think we know depends on the news source. Not a single judge reached and decided the merits of a challenge to 2020 election procedures.
Pardon?
I will ask this question too: given that valid votes counted honestly are the core element of democracy, are the opponents of democracy those who are willing to investigate claims of fraud—however far fetched—or those who accuse everyone asking for an investigation—particularly when there were large and obvious problems—traitors and criminals?
Trumo gave the Left Mueller because he knew he was innocent. In fact we now know the whole thing was made up, and detail the players, timeline and even payments in good detail.
Why should I not assume there have been no criminal investigations—which are the sort whose evidence courts will allow—precisely because there WAS fraud and that those involved would go to jail if the full truth were known?
> Trumo gave the Left Mueller because he knew he was innocent.
But the truth always leaks out, does it not? Yeah, at the time I thought Mueller dropped the ball. I believed the Russiagate stuff. But then the truth comes out. I don't need convincing that the Rats cheat, lie and steal ... when they can.
Rats is Fascist language, isnt it? Vermin and cockroaches are good examples too. Fascists love purity, so evoking unclean animals workmparticularly well in breeding the hate their people feed on.
Do you identify as a fascist yet?
You have a point. DemocRAT vs. REPupublican ... I like the symmetry but perhaps it is a bit too rude. Yeah ... you're not the first to mention that, either. How about 'Democrits'?
Yes. Just like Trumptards suggests the mentally deficient that need to be eradicated from society.
No one will convince me it wasn’t stolen. I watched in REAL TIME as Trump was CRUISING to victory and the vote counting stopped in FIVE KEY STATES all at the same time. Never seen anything like it. There is an ENORMOUS amount of other evidence/books/articles documenting the fraudulent election but that initial evidence was PLENTY for me.
If you're right it WILL come out. But again, 60 out of 60 courts found no reason to overturn any result. Still, you are the higher authority.
Refresh my memory, were there any states that had Biden in the lead, shut down, then had Trump winning?
Can't remember. What I do know is that zero courts found these reports to be actionable. Look, you trust the superiority of your sources and your judgement. I trust the courts and the overseeing authorities who's job it is to oversee these things. I can believe Trumpist agitators or I can believe conservative courts -- I go with the courts.
What is clear to me is that a group that was capable and willing to manufacture Rusha-gate would have no problem cheating, if it was possible, to prevent Trump's re-election. We do know, via the Time magazine story, that they bragged about all of the efforts made to "fortify" the election in Biden's favor.
I’m not an election denier. I wish Trump would drop it. If Nixon could he can too. However as information dribbles out it appears not everything was kosher.
No, I don't suggest everything was. It never is kosher, the point being that by the dirty conventions of American politics, Biden won. Any steps that can be taken to tighten things up should of course be taken, but in the mean time ...
Oliver Wiseman is the one you need to send out there to meet real Americans
Interesting that you know the mind of a poster better than the poster. How do you know if you are not infected?
That's fair. It's outside the normal rules of debate to say you know a person's mind better than they do. Yet, it is true that people can fool themselves and we all know that. So, tho it is exceptional, I do make the claim.
There are things that are simply not believable. That the US presidential election of 2020 wasn't meddled with egregiously is one of them. On the evidence you are presenting of yourself the DNC could probably convince you it was hunky-dory to walk yourself into a "shower" to be gassed.
The irony seems to be that there's always so many imperfections in American elections that egregious meddling could be called normal. But honestly, in a nation of 330 million people -- too many of them mad dog partisans -- in 50 states all running under different rules, one hardly expects perfection. Yup, from God's perspective there's probably thousands of things that weren't done absolutely perfectly. And some outright cheating too -- by partisans of both sides. The only real question is whether any of this would have changed the outcome, and the universal answer -- from non-partisan observers -- is that no, it would not.
You know, now that both sides have demonstrated that they only accept elections if they won, it seems that there will never be another peaceful election in your country. You do not know the harm you do.
Unsaint, I find it interesting - genuinely - that you present your facts as you do. To me, it is an equally simple statement of fact that the election was almost certainly not stolen and that the events of Jan 6., regardless of whether it technically qualifies for the definition of insurrection (I think it's borderline), was clearly an attempt by a mob to disrupt the application of the law and peaceful transfer of power. I watched the live-feeds, it was goofy at times, but it was illegal, and a dangerous precedent.
It also seems quite apparent that Trump encouraged it and refused to genuinely stop it. I watched his half-hearted "oh no, please stop" video on Twitter live before his ban. Jan 6 may be blown out of proportion by some but neither should it be minimized to less than it was, unless we want this to become a normal reaction to elections.
I also think it's quite a statement to talk about conservatives as broadly more informed. It would be easy for me to trot out numbers about educational attainment. The rot we have seen at elite institutions is despicable but is not present throughout the entire system, most college grads are better off for it. I honestly don't think "liberals" or "conservatives" have a monopoly on perspective and wisdom, and simply reject how easily you state the opposite.
Trump is indeed not like Hitler. But the "far right" is not the moderate ordinary middle. There are numerous positions espoused from the far right, which are obviously white nationalist, racist, anti-semetic, etc., and if you view yourself as simply an "enough with the BS" common sense kind of person - which I honestly sense that you do - I'd personally suggest you don't try to defend that corner of right wing thinking.
My personal philosophy has more or less always aligned with the "live and let live, as long as you're not hurting anybody" mindset you suggest, although I don't associate it with either party. Lots of people who lean left think that way too (believe it or not). My father used to say (I forget who he was quoting) that "your right to swing your fist ends at my nose," and that's about right.
Lots of people on both sides of the aisle are liberal in the classic sense of the word. The issue is not which side of the political aisle you're on, it's how far away from the center you are. The extremes want to blow stuff up. The middle just wants to live their lives, mostly unmolested, but also wouldn't mind a little help when they need it.
While we clearly have differing views, I appreciate your clear statements and hope that you can accept mine in reply.
And to respond at least briefly to the article itself - while I recognize the challenge of covering this issue with humor, it fell flat to me. There was an earlier article on TFP, "The Great Scramble," that I think is a better example of how this kind of coverage can be done.
I dont have time to get into the weeds today, but will say first that the “far right” is normal people. You have been lied to. As Russell Brand—who has been labelled far right himself, in my understanding, which is so stupid it actually is kind of funny—pointed out, the “far right” is now the most diverse group on the planet. It includes everyone who is not Democrat or Democrat curious.
Second, James Comer, the Congressman, has documented AT LEAST 40 plainclothes FBI agents were present on Jan.6. What were they doing? In what respect is it unreasonable to view as intentionally having manioulated an already very angry crowd?
And if they did—if paid agents of American law enforcement broke the law to support attacks on patriotic and otherwise reasonable and law abiding Americans—is that not a MUCH larger problem than anything any of those protesters did?
And we only have one person calling in advance to go INTO the Capital. Only one: Ray Epps. Why is he not in jail, if he was nit working for the Feds? And if he was, do you not see that our democracy is ending?
I think we may be debating different definitions. It sounds to me like you're saying "far right" is anyone the media applies that label to, which is probably quite a lot of people depending on where you read your news. I'm defining the far right as the more extreme end of right-leaning politics today.
The line where "far right" ends and other adjectives like "right-wing" or "right-of-center" begin may be fuzzy, but that's the only way it makes sense to me. We need to be able to talk about extreme political views in comparison to more moderate ones, and if you defend "far right" as a generalized bucket, we can't do that. I don't mean it as a slur, just as a reference point.
As for Jan 6 - I did watch the events live but honestly have not gone deep into it since. I can't speak to the details there.
The actual far right is politically irrelevant. I have not met one such person in my life. It is just a new way ti call everyone who disagrees with absurd policies a Nazi. Perhaps because it is indeniable that Nazi stands for National Socialism, “far right” is just a rebranding of an old propaganda trick. There is no true far right in this country that is sizable enough to matter in any way. And most of them seem to be in prison. That is certainly where the violence is.
And we KNOW that AT LEAST 40 plainclothes FBI agents were embedded in that crowd, but Chris Wray refuses to say what they were doing.
And Epps is free, despite being the only tenable candidate for ring leader.
These are not small problems. They are glimpses into a corrupt and authoritarian governmemt.
I would disagree that they are politically irrelevant. Trump famously hosted Nick Fuentes for dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Many with extreme views have followings in the millions on social platforms. Not all of their followers may be equally far right (or left), but they certainly exert real influence on politics and thus American life.
I *really* think it's worth making a distinction between following beliefs such as those Fuentes promotes, and rejecting them but still having more moderate right-wing beliefs (like, say, on the right limits for abortion or immigration, etc.).
Liberals generally view the fundamentalist fraction of pro-life/anti abortion rights voters as far right. They see Mike Johnson as far right.
Excellent comment
I would not care what anyone believes except for the fact that only certain statements, videos and facts have have been censored by who knows whom!
8 believe the term classical liberal is more apt.
Why did MAGA storm the Capitol?
The answer is to have the vote count in certain swing states that shut down with Trump in the lead only to have Biden win audited before the count became official.. That's all. Why did the FBI bury the Hunter laptop news until after the election?
And how many states with Biden in the lead shut down and see Trump win?
MAGA stormed the Capitol because they were lied to for 4 years about Rushagate (among many other things). Those people had a right to pissed, and distrusting of election results, given the scorched earth tactics of Trump's opponents.
Here is the Senate Intelligence Committee report under the Republican Chairman Burr recognizing that Russian interference in our elections in 2016 was real: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-releases-election-security-findings-first-volume-bipartisan-russia-report
With Trump at the center of the interference? No.
His campaign manager Manafort? Yes. Directly with the GRU officer Kilimnik. Why is now Manafort is being brought back to the Trump campaign? Weren't there enough scandals with Austrian foreign minister who had Putin as a guest at her wedding and is now living in Russia, German chancellor who worked for Russian government-owned gas company for 15 years, Russian agent who worked as an advisor to the major German party leader? Anyone who agrees that Putin is a murderer should understand that Manafort is tainted, to say the least. Pardoned, but still convicted for tax fraud and other charges by the jurors of whom at least one was a wholehearted MAGA.
Lol!! Ok.....
Oh, they absolutely have a right to their fee-fees and be taken in by a con artist, Fox News, etc. Bu we're talking about what was done.
Now, what were they hoping to accomplish that day?
Yep. The "QAnon" and "Stolen Election" group is by far more well-informed.
Agree. Once Joy Reid told me it was "The Big Lie" there was no need to look at the particulars.
Provide your particulars (i.e. evidence.)
I'll wait :)
Like I said, there was no reason to look at the particulars.
Like I said, what "particulars," are those, William?
I'll wait :)
Well said. You took the words right out of my mouth. I think of myself as exactly the same as you describe in your last paragraph.
Trump tried to steal my vote and almost succeeded. I could never vote for a rapist.
Did you vote for Joe Biden or Bill Clinton?
Nailed it.
You are so obviously steeped in your bias you can’t see the irony of your “facts.”
If that were actually true of you, how would you know?
Have commented regularly that Bari and company needed to find people like Peter Santenello to do long form stories for them. Santenello is politically neutral and is honestly thoughtful and thorough in his stories.
yes. please. I am hooked. he is super. thanks for telling us about him.. he is a super erson to listen too and what he sees is true America
YES! I have watched Peter's offerings, which I stumbled onto quite by accident, or by algorithm if you are of a conspiratorial mind. Very entertaining and informative. I do not believe that Ben is capable of doing the same thing without injecting his way of humor into the matter. He seems to be an outsider looking in, while Peter is more dispassionate in his interviews.
Oooh thank you for sharing! I was thinking…someone should have swept America doing this sort of interviewing years ago, not just during election year. Can’t wait to catch up on Peter’s work…and catch up to his 2.86MM subscribers!
Thanks for this suggestion. I just watched one of his videos of the black belt of Alabama. Very informative and accurately portrayed small town South. I will watch more.
I was thinking the same thing. I started watching him in shortly before the pandemic. His YouTube channel is one of the best!
I agree about Peter Santenello! His videos are interesting and even handed, not inflammatory.
Just checked out Peter's channel. Looks very interesting - thank you for the suggestion.
Thanks. I just subscribed.
Highly agree, his work is amazing. His inter-city interviews with people on the street are outstanding. Also, check out Salina Zito.
Yes, it's an outstanding, singular and the deepest of deep dives into all the neglected realms of this nation. But his videos are LONG and there are no jokes 🙁
Would you mind providing a link? Thanks.
Here's the link to his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@PeterSantenello
Overall I enjoy Ben’s writing and look forward to this series. In my personal experience most people want to live free and prosper, for themselves and their families. For others! What’s wrong with America is that we have a ruling class who doesn’t want that for the average American. They then use the media propaganda machine and other Marxist institutions to confuse and distract the average person so that they don’t notice their incompetence, corruption and malevolence. The people themselves are alright! 👍🏻
Most Americans are ignoramuses. They don't know shit from Shinola. (Shinola is a defunct American brand of shoe polish) the average American can tell you who Vana White is but can't name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Without a knowledge of history or current affairs, how can you make a educate choice in an election. They can't point out Germany on a map or tell you who we fought in the Revolutionary War.
I could go on and on. It has been this way forever. I don't know if we are totally fucked or we will muddle through and survive with the constitution and our rights intact.
It's also a watch company out of Detroit.
LOL. this is one of the best shit shinola scenes ever..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDXN7T3-Jrg. "son you gonna be alright"
You mean I'm gonna stay this color?!
Love that movie.
True, but some say that democracy will work if as few as 15% of the electorate have intact and educated minds. As we see, the morons have a tendency to divide equally between team red and team blue, so they sorta cancel out. It's the swing voters who can *also* think who decide what happens. But the 15% has been eroded, maybe it's down to 10%.
For many years I was in a band called “The Shit From Shinola”. Facts!
Shinola has been resurrected into a watch/clothing/accessories brand based in Detroit. That said, I had a conversation with two other Directors of the company I work for (one who grew up in a communist Czechoslovakia) and watched their eyes glaze over as I discussed the Trade accomplishments of the Trump administration. They dislike Biden, but could still not bring themselves to vote for Trump.
People in the US, especially the left, don't know how good we have it here.
Ignoring history is an American strength and our Achilles heel. If you live somewhere for a while steeped in history it is definitely not unalloyed goodness. Marinating your mind from birth in ancient history that speaks of men dead 1000 years ago like that person stepped out for lunch also propagates appalling feuds that are endlessly stupid.
Well, we do need role models and examples of people’s courage, sacrifices and kindness!
Taken from real people, not make believe paper tigers currently presiding in our government!
Both my parents POW DURING WW2, their pockets weren’t padded by Xi. And I know enough about our past to continue. With hope and hard work to make my adopted country a better place for ALL. Nothing like these college misfits who are bought and sold protesters funded by Qatar and company!
I like you! And welcome to all who come here and wish to make us a better country!
> Marinating your mind from birth in ancient history that speaks of men dead 1000 years ago like that person stepped out for lunch
I profoundly disagree. It is precisely by studying the lives of men dead for a long time that we gain the 'anchors' of understanding the various sorts of men who exist. Nuts, they don't even have have existed! We learn much of what power does to people from MacBeth, do we not? Who cannot learn what patriotism is from studying the life of Washington? Or Cincinnatus?
George Santayana, “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it”
And repeat it we do.
Yes! Those who turn to demagogues and opportunists in times of trouble reap the whirlwind. In their day Hitler and Mussolini offered their country's the same sort of 'salvation' that Trump now offers his. Conservatives: please cleanse yourselves of that criminal and find a decent leader.
That is such a ridiculous stretch it barely justifies a response.
If Trump is really an incarnation of Hitler or Mussolini (PLEEEEASE!) why was it not evident during is first term?
Refresh my memory, how many millions did Trump march into gas chambers?
I think Trump is a vicious asshole but I will not vote for the ever senile joe, the head of the Biden crime family.
We have a choice between two asshole. I choose not to vote Dem/Soc.
It could have been possible to do if the D's hadn't worked so hard, spent sooo much time and money on making him "Hitler" and trying to put him in jail and bankrupt him.
Now, it is too late, as a vast number of people want him to try and right the wrongs done to him and our country.
For certain, R's will find an even more "decent" leader in 2028.
"decent leader", do you mean like the ever senile Joe, head of the Biden crime family?
https://www.shinola.com/
An outstanding summation.Very, VERY few people are monsters. But they get all the attention, I have no idea how to combat this.
The recent Joe Rogan/James Lindsay discussion on the state of America might interest you.
James Lindsay’s best illustration of the craziness we are living through is when he, Helen Pluckrose and Peter Boghossian wrote completely made up papers and had them peer reviewed and published.
One of the papers had passages from Mein Kampf rewritten from a feminist point of view. Utter BS that was heralded as expert research and thought.
Grievance Studies papers!!!
At the top of my list of things I would change about America is to restore draft, with the option of non-military service. 1 year to 6 months, for every young person, male or female, to get out of their bubble and go repair roads, work at nursing homes, help with recovery from natural disasters, but most importantly, mix with people of different social status, geographic area, religion.
Been saying this for so long that I've given up saying it. If there's a melting pot, boot camp is it.
YES! My son joined the US Army after graduating from Yale. He tells me that boot camp was ten times more diverse than Yale, where most of the students of color or recent immigrants also happened to be from wealthy, privileged, often powerful families with lifestyles no different from the wealthy white students. Boot camp was a potpourri of young people from every imaginable cultural nook of America with stories of struggle and the determination to parlay a shot at being a soldier into an American Dream because it was often the only shot they had.
This is 100% true in my experience: https://ifunny.co/picture/NnneXXdDA
:)
Amen! A minimum of a year. The draft was greatly abused, but when all citizens where either serving, running from serving, buying their way out of serving, or loving someone who served, everyone in America had some kind of skin in the game. Now, 99% ride on the blood of 1% and can't be bothered to care about said 1% unless somehow their trip to WalMart gets interrupted. It's a different set of problems when the vast majority of the country gets to call for wars without ever risking their own blood.
Agree 100%. Especially when the presidents who make decisions to go to war are the ones who dodged the draft themselves and never had anyone in the family serving in the military.
I readily admit that there were two reasons for me not to protest against invasion of Iraq, even as I knew at the time it was a wrong decision: 1. I trusted Colin Powell (who was apparently lied to) and 2. I knew that my then 18-year old son was not subject to draft.
That or 2 weeks of SERE for those who claim to be oppressed on Ivy League campuses or Park Slope type places.
Or drop them broke and phoneless on a street corner in South Chicago.
A domestic Peace Corps. Good idea..
And run by the US Army..
They have something similar already it’s called Americorps
Except as someone who had served in AmeriCorps about 20 yrs ago sadly it was a place of indoctrination of illiberal values and many of the 40:somethings that spout a lot of illiberal nonsense were taught it in places like that. I think if one were to overhaul AmeriCorps and make it truly apolitical (they told us how to go protest and to make sure not to wear anything identifying us as AmeriCorps volunteers) then I'd be all for it. The whole country would be a lot better with less navel gazing.
My daughter did an Americorp year 15 years ago. The first thing they instructed them to do was sign up for food stamps because the stipend was so low they qualified. I would not allow my daughter to sign up, I supplemented her stipend. Nothing like making recent college graduates more dependent on the government, and attempting to make government handouts less stigmatized.
Also to make the agenda of how evil capitalism is and that socialism is the way. This is further cemented making them go to mandatory trainings where they fill their heads full of indoctrination and shame them if they speak out. I swear this was a practice run for what happens on the regular today in most public institutions.
Social Media made it even more fashionable,
NAVEL GAZING
Universal service should be the thing. And the set of approved activities should be non-political- literally the physical service work you are speaking about, not furthering any political agenda or group think goals. Likewise, free tuition programs should be earned through post grad service in underserved areas of the US.
I meant a compulsory service, so even rich spoiled brats like Trump could not get deferment from the bone spurs that miraculously healed as soon as Vietnam war ended.
They say that in ancient Rome, a senator or patrician would disown a son who failed to *distinguish* himself in battle -- let alone avoid avoiding the draft.
Yes. His suggestion is to make that draft mandatory, even in non-war time: military or non-military service, and Americorps would be a great option for the latter.
and Peace Corps, non-military service.
Both of which are not mandatory
Bingo
Absolutely. And they all will come out with at least one shared experience to keep the small talk moving. After 23 years in the military I can count on one hand the number of people who didn't benefit from the experience.
In other nations they call it "national service" and I 100% agree we need to do it.
China has this. Oops! 😂
But seriously, when you examine China's communism you find deeply conservative values in many ways, and melting pot values.
Seriously , communist USSR in 1940s through 1960s was the world's leader in conservative values: total abortion ban, policies against out of wedlock childbirth, criminalized gay relationships. As Putin is shifting towards communist ideology, conservative values are coming back.
I've said this elsewhere, but I think it's important to distinguish between "conservative" and "Conservative." To be a conservative is to make a value judgment on whether something that has worked historically will keep working going forward. When presented with a long-standing policy/belief, a conservative asks themselves if this is important to maintain (conserve) or if there is a better option available. If there is something better, a conservative wants to make that transition as least disruptive as possible (whereas a progressive just replaces something without considering the consequences). A Conservative is like a party ideologue that sticks to policies because the party tells them to (like Democrats being against gay marriage until it was politically expedient to not be anymore).
So the "conservative values" you mention are not really so. As times have changed, a true conservative would recognize that while children born to a stable, two-parent (preferably married) household has statistically better outcomes than other family types, we should not judge those whose circumstances are different; that gay people have the same God-given rights as the rest of us and deserve to participate fully and openly in society; that while abortion is, scientifically, the termination (some would say killing) of a living, human organism, every incident is distinct and requires nuance - there is no one-size-fits-all approach, though common-sense late-stage restrictions (with exceptions like in the case of life-threatening danger to the mother) are preferable since we're dealing with two human lives.
Just like "liberal" has been co-opted beyond recognition, "conservative" is a term that needs to be rehabilitated.
I agree. I had an exchange on this site with a woman who was ripping "liberals". I gave her a dictionary definition of liberalism and told her that I subscribe to this 100%. She conceded that those were good values that conservatives subscribe to, too.
Unfortunately, right now we have too many "conservatives " who are ready to throw out all conservative values and "liberals " who are illiberal to extreme. Add the two parties to the mix - and I squarely put myself into the ranks of independent voters and not changing any time soon.
Yes, exactly. That's why I always try to use "leftist" or "Democrat" as the situation calls for it, but those two, these days, are very interchangeable. I think the ideal Democrat was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and I wouldn't describe him as leftist, but classically liberal. Unfortunately, as you say, there are plenty of Republicans who are no longer conservative, but still get labelled as such, thus tainting the term.
Socialism, communism, fascism are conservative? Well knock me over with a feather
If you read what was discussed, all 4 you mentioned are just labels. I have no idea what you put behind those labels, I am giving you facts: policies instituted in the USSR during Stalin era were: gay sex was criminal, abortions were criminal, childbirth outside wedlock discouraged to the point that father's name was not allowed on the birth certificate and mother not allowed to request child support. Whether you identify these policies with conservative label - it is up to you. I see it matching with policies in some states that call themselves conservative.
Murder is illegal in Russia so we really need to legalize drive by shootings.
You can’t seriously believe this line of reasoning.
What does this conclusion have to do with what I said?
Here's an interesting question to ask. Where do you get your news and information about what's going on in the world? Ask the question and then engage in a conversation about why there? Let us know some of the answers, could be quite instructive.
It is a very interesting question. Here (in my view) is at least part of the answer: the mass media age has afforded a hugely disproportionate voice to the one-track-minded, the 'activist', the mouthy obsessive, the permanently malcontent and the general screwballs among us. Anyone who has actually got a reasonably balanced life is far less likely to be a media-type of person. Second thing: Although you get the above types on both sides of the political aisle, thanks to the academia sheep-dip you now get them in much larger numbers on the Left. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/non-binary-sibling-is-entertaining
"The amplification of those extremes—and, I would argue, a craven kowtowing among the political right and the cultural left to each group’s most radical elements—gives an impression of a nation more “polarized” than it actually is.". After reading or seeing the news from various sources I ask myself...who ARE these people??? I live in a middle class subdivision with a diversity of yard signs come election time and we all still treat each other kindly and with civility. Then we all go to work, pay our taxes and raise our children with "old-fashioned" values like kindness and civility. I would guess that if you STATISTICALLY counted the total crazies it would be a small percentage!
And y'all will never sell a single newspaper. Figure out a way around that and you'll be amongst the GOATs
I'm not sure anyone in the clip is capable of handling that.....
I'm not sure whether it's so much that "we're so divided" as that the progressive left is afflicted with True Belief, which has turned its adherents into religious zealots. There's no arguing with True Belief, and True Belief does not compromise, it is in possession of the Truth. It gets to the point Megan brought up in The Witch Trials, really; the people of Salem weren't fools, they were highly educated and intelligent, and yet, they still fell prey to a moral panic. I give you, the Progressive Left. Democracy is on the ballot, we're witnessing the rise of fascism, Donald Trump will end elections forever, and every other whack-a-doo thing they believe, and by golly they're the only ones who can stop it!
I agree and yet some of my former colleagues in public education believe that Trump will be the end of democracy. The lack of critical thinking from supposedly educated people is astonishing. Yet they are teaching your children!! Yikes!!
This has always been true though. There's never been a time when people don't absolutely see the world differently. What's different was people used to keep their politics to themselves, out of the workplace, out of schools, out of the NFL and sports, and certainly out of medicine. But now, the left side of this group has taken over all the institutions on the management and administrative levels. Corporations also have been selling social causes as a marketing ploy (and profiting handsomely from it too). We're at the point of Planet Fitness dictating our morality: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13206823/Planet-Fitness-trans-locker-room-video-alaska-response.html. (The dude on the photo on the right, BTW, is the 'woman" PF is so adamant in their protection against middle-aged ladies and 13 y.o. Girls from: https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1767391548889849885?s=20). And at PF, women aren't allowed to wear tank tops cut at mid-riffs, and guys aren't allowed to wear tight tank tops, because that would be fat shaming other out-of-shape members or something and make them feel uncomfortable. Literally this is where we're at.
I don't care how people think and what their politics are personally. We've always had political divide and always will. What is abhorrent today is only one side is dictating how we must all behave. And threats are everywhere that something might happen to us if we don't toe their line. And there's not nearly enough public push back to stop it.
Well said and true, differences have always been there! There does need to be more public pushback. I watched Tucker Carlson's recent interview with Chris Cuomo. It was a wonderful display of the humanity of each and seeing clearly the worldview that leads them to why they believe the things they believe. The thing that stood out was how Carlson is very unconcerned with what people think about what he says or does while Cuomo appeared to be very taken by employers and the public opinion. Personally I think that Carlson's approach leads to more pushback and open dialog and discussion.
Because the right (especially Trump) just laughs at people on the left. They don't shun people on the left and if met up in person, might even invite you in for a beer. The left OTOH has branded people on the right as "deplorables". The new lepers to be shunned and best to be isolated and kept inside leper colonies (ie red states). The left would break off relations with anyone who openly admits they're on the right and/or for Trump, including families. The "inclusive" party is anything but.
We hear a lot about people losing families and friends over politics. But that's quite a mischaracterization I think. It's almost always the left breaking up the family relationship or friendship, and terminating employment. It's rarely (if ever happens at all) people on the right who throw tantrums and walk away, or terminate people from jobs on basis of WrongThink.
I like being in my leper colony and I wish “the others” wouldn’t come here for their vacations!
Not to mention moving here!
That's been my observation also.
I noticed something interesting on Facebook after the 2016 election. Lots of Democrats were saying, "If you voted for Trump, Unfriend me!"
But here's the most interesting part: a lot of centrists (included me) were saying, "Whoa, wait a minute, isn't that kind of extreme? That you're going to utterly reject longtime real-life friends and family members because you disagree with how they voted?" Those centrists GOT UNFRIENDED by those Democrats just for speaking up as a voice of reason.
That was one of the early indictors of just how unhinged Leftists were becoming.
Basically it is a fanatical cult. I think there are a lot of people that are going along with the cult, but don't fully buy in, but at this point they are in too deep or too worried about how trying to break away would totally upend their world (if all of your friends/family/co-workers are cultists, they tend to not make it easy to leave).
Its quite a trap that the Dems have created.
I don't know if people are going along and don't buy in, as much as the cult is using language in such a deceptive way and also changing the meanings without people on the left actually knowing meanings have changed. The cult employs a three-prong strategy. First is media blackout to keep their sheeples in the wrap. Second is Newspeak, where they change definitions and meanings of language to deceive (eg; "diversity" is a word used for decades and people think they know what it means, without knowing that now it's revised into the madness that is DEI) and also new language to slowly indoctrinate until there's no way back anymore (eg: "unhoused", "undocumented", "uterus-havers" etc.);. Finally, if the first two attempts failed, brand any and all dissent as "Trump!" "Right-wing". The last one is quite potent.
I've seen this strategy work in real life time and again. Especially the last prong. The minute "right wing" is mentioned, anyone with an ounce of doubt would suddenly become true believers.
And in all fairness, I'm going to go out on a limb and say conservatives and Trumpers bear some blame for this. I see them saying all the time some version of "I told you so" (not in exact words but many variations of, combined with "why are you still voting for those people?"), with a dollop of blame. Granted, they have a good point. But it's not a strategy to winning people over. I've never seen them make a case why blacks and minorities should vote conservative (and I think they can make very strong cases, but they won't because it's "playing racial politics"). And they do prioritize the pro-life fraction over women, even to their own election detriment. Beyond that, they do vote consistently in ways that, rightly or wrongly, are perceived as being against the interests of women. (If that's not true, they never bother to explain how and why.) The top makes no effort to bring more voters into the fold (and to some extent they don't want to because they don't want "RINOs"). They're just sitting waiting for them to come over on their own....or not. At the grassroot level they enjoy more "nyah nyah we told you so enjoy Biden's America" .
The difference between the left and the right is the left's strategy is, at the moment, much more effective. They branded "right wing" as something equivalent of diseased. And the right plays right into their hand by refusing to defend themselves. At times, they even wear that brand as a batch of honor.
The lefts advantage is ‘ends justify means’. How do ‘ conservatives ‘ defend themselves? The constitution for the most part. Unfortunately few know what it says.
Don't much disagree with any of that. Sucks that we have to play this like a contest instead of people just voting their conscience. But once anyone starts using tactics, everyone has to do it.
And not only are they the only ones who can stop it, they have a MORAL DUTY to do so…which has led to some of the greatest atrocities in history.
Here’s what I hate. I have an acquaintance who is a Democrat who tries to act like she’s open minded about Republicans. For example, she says she’d be open to voting for some Republicans, like Liz Cheney or Adam Kisinger or Nikki Haley. So I told her they were all war mongers and why would she vote for war hawks? Because they are never Trumpers?? And that’s more important than being pro-war? No answer. She’s an idiot. Sorry, not sorry.
It's easy to say you would "be open to" voting for someone who's never going to appear on your ballot.
Ha, ha... "sorry, not sorry".
A Democratic friend said he would vote for a Republican candidate if there was one not so extreme as Trump. I asked him if he voted for Romney or McCain. Crickets.
I voted for Romney and McCain and was hoping Haley would do better.
I am a baby boomer NYer who has seen Trumps act for decades and think of him as a weasel and narcissistic phony..Yeah good oldCaptain Bone Spurs
I'd be curious your thoughts regarding Miranda Devine's article in today's NY Post revealing that Letitia James is essentially doing what she accused Trump to be doing with regard to the American Irish Historical Society building at 991 Fifth Ave. Again, the great hypocrisy - Trump paid back the lenders while she is protecting the Society as they do not pay back a $3 million loan based on an inflated valuation of the building!
Another exhibit for Ripley's Believe It Or Not!! :)
I got no love for Tish or any of the NYC DAs
David - I'm from California and echo your thoughts. I've voted for Trump two times, both reluctantly, all the while fulling knowing he's a mixed bag. A blow-hard, thin-skinning, infantile, narcissist... who, by the way is the more conservative of the choices. As much as I don't want to, if he's the candidate for the GOP, I'll likely vote for him again... reluctantly.
I am a boomer and when Viet Nam was going on we protested. went to Canada and did everything we could to avoid the draft. it was (then) what was done to escape being killed or maimed in a war no one wanted bone spurs, near sightenness, fallen arches. whateverworked.. now we see that as a bad thing. then it your duty to avoid the draft..
Sorry pal I was drafted 12/65 did not go to Nam. Was in West Germany but have zero respect for punk Trump whose daddy paid for fake doctor for bone spurs letter
My Republican in-laws are in upstate New York and they hate Trump. They have voted Libertarian each time he's been on the ballot and will be voting Libertarian again in November.
I hear you but in NY it doesn't matter cause the Dem will win but in a swing state that would help Trump
Well, I'd be open to voting for some Democrats like ... hmm, I just can't think of a Democrat analogy to Cheney or Kinzinger.
Tulsi Gabbard, maybe? Could have been Krysten Sinema before she jumped ship.
Gabbard also left the Democrat Party.
I could vote for Clinton 1994 again. Or JFK.
Me too, "T". Clinton today would be far more aligned with the GOP than the Dems. JFK would without a doubt, be a Republican.
Agreed. The late Senator and Governor Fritz Hollings (D) from my state of SC, who died in 2019 and whom Joe Biden eulogized, wouldn't recognize the D party of today. He last won election in SC in 1998.
I couldn't vote for Clinton, for the same reason I didn't vote for Trump in 2016.
Sinema is gorgeous and also a free thinker
On futher reflection, I think I could vote for Alan Dershowitz.
Vote Grover Cleveland: Now more than ever.
Manchin? Kennedy?
The Dems loved Kinzinger so much they gerrymandered his seat away. Just like they had so much respect for Justin Amash voting to impeach, which they showed by heavily promoting his extremely dangerous super-pro-Trump opponent in the primary.
If Trump were in power now, and he is sending weapons to Israel in aid of its defence after the terror attacks of Oct 7, would he be considered a war monger then?
Kathy: your comment is divisive and maybe you don't realize it.
Vicki, it’s my comment and my opinion. You can interpret it any way you please.
And it certainly doesn’t win new voters to the candidates she supports. When your candidate is no longer viable, insulting the voter is pretty tone deaf. Most aren’t going to turn to your guy when you insult and name call them.
In an election that’s going to need every vote, deepening the divide only sends voters to the competition. I’m not stupid enough to choose the candidate whose backers label me as an idiot or a war mongerer. But
Not going to win with those tactics.
I’m not interested in convincing anyone to vote for a particular person or party. It’s their choice. But I do think it’s disingenuous when a Democrat says they’d vote for Liz Cheney. It’s a lie, plain and simple.
Liberal friend insists that walls don't work despite the fact that I have to stop at the guard shack to be cleared before I can get into his neighborhood.
Liberal friend insists that there is actually more than one definition of the word 'defund'.
Liberal friend meltdown over orange man bad. I asked what Trump policies worked to undermine our collective success? No answer.
Me to liberal friend: What the hell is going on with these caravans coming to our border wearing 'Let us in Joe Biden' tee-shirts? Liberal says: That's just Fox News propaganda.
The county my store is in banned plastic bags (despite studies showing that it doesn't reduce plastic waste). When I mentioned to a customer the other day that I couldn't give her a bag, she started going off about Trump and how he is such a danger to this country. This is how insane these people are.
Reminds me a video I saw on Twitter when gas prices were rising far and fast. A middle-aged female was having a literal meltdown in her car about gas prices, AND SHE BLAMED the Far Right for it. The complete disconnect from reality is an ongoing problem on the Left.
I always use plastic grocery bags. Then I take them home and use them to clean up after my dogs, thereby helping the environment.
Progressive Toddlerism is the chronic wasting disease of logical thinking.
plastic bag bans are ridiculous. along with the plastic straw ban.. but at 10 a bag and $$ going directly to the store. the checkers sure do push them. the best is where the "self checkouts" ask. how many bags did you use.. uhhh none. ( taking 5 or 6)_LOL
Bags cause a fair but more waste than straws and tend to end up in oceans/rivers. There's a much stronger environmental case for banning plastic bags than straws.
nope. almost every item in the grocery now is wrapped in plastic. lettuce ? in a plastic bag.. carrots same.. look at the plastic used by wal mart and costco to shrink wrap the loads brought in. my little plastic bag ( always reused) is not the problem
More accurately, Progressive friends.
“Friend”? Or acquaintance.
Friends, which makes it so bizarre and disappointing. Smart people that staunchly adhere to factually inaccurate, non-reality based arguments. And the thing is, we have all seen and heard exactly the same things.
we have progressive friends like this. when we invite them over to have dinner with us at our house, we inevitably just talk about tv shows, movies, music and the food and wine.
I have difficulty not thinking to myself, "you're an idiot" and "if this is what you think, how can I trust your judgment". Definitely awkward because those responses are so wildly absurd.
This is a left wing characteristic of gaslighting. The gaslighting is not only of other people but of themselves. They are unknowingly caged by self-craziness, in a world where up is down and down is up.
This thinking is astoundingly anti-smart. Up is down and down is up...yes, indeed!
Trump's lockdown policies really injured our economy before Biden took over. Funny how both sides fail to give him credit for that. Nobody wants to honor him for Operation Warp Speed either.
I must have missed the 'Trump lockdowns'. I do give credit to Biden for mandating shots and show your papers or lose your job and be excluded from society. "Get the shot and you will not get or give covid."
Who was president in March of 2020? The state of emergency we entered was Trump's decision. Just like his decision to not end the emergency powers of the state or fire Fauci even as a sitting duck president with nothing to lose. Like his decision to continue to promote the "Trump shots" everywhere. If you have any record of Trump begging people not to take them or apologizing for what he accidentally dragged our country into--and forgot to end before leaving office--please share it.
I voted for Trump twice. I'm willing to admit he took me in too. He was playing 4 D chess--with all of us.
The libs have the MSM. Populists have Trump.
As I recall, the MSM was constantly screaming that Trump wasn't doing enough to lock down the country. They constantly accused him of being anti-vax as soon as the vaccine was available (although they had been screaming, shortly before, that they wouldn't take a vaccine created under his Presidency).
It was the state governors who made the lockdown policies. My state didn't have any, because our governor is a conservative Republican.
I was NOT pleased that Trump allowed Fauci and the CDC and the governors of Blue states to implement totalitarian Covid policy. It was a massive failure of leadership on his part. But no matter what Trump had done, the Leftist MSM would have called it the wrong thing.
I'm no fan of Trump, but you're barking up the wrong tree to blame him for everything that happened with Covid.
Yes, the MSM was saying a bunch of horrible things about Trump. And they were ridiculously untrue too. That's what struck me as odd. They kept calling him anti vaxx and telling those who followed their lies that Trump was telling his followers not to get vaccinated. Yet Trump was very proud of the shot he had pushed through. He repeatedly told his followers that they should get vaccinated, though he was not in favor of mandates. Fox and Newsmax passed this narrative to a lot of conservative Boomers who only go online for FB. And the alt media told Trump's followers that though Trump was our savior we should not take the jab he was so proud of and promotes everywhere to this day.
None of this made sense till I viewed it in light of controlled opposition. The Bolsheviks used this technique when they took over Russia.
As far as draconian lockdowns, I discovered one of the biggest reasons governors and mayors did it. Federal funding. Signed by the executive branch.
If you recall, nobody seemed to know what covid was or what it would do, not even the experts at the CDC, NIH/NIAID despite having spent their entire careers studying coronavirus. The initial cautious approach seemed reasonable. The shot clearly provided the salve hysterical democrats longed for. Trump never said, "take the shot and you won't get or give covid" nor did he mandate the shot despite being derided for not being more aggressive in pushing for people to get it. Unfortunately, he did rely on Fauci's sloppy 'science' and should have fired him as evidence was more than clear that lockdowns, social distancing and masks were ineffective. Trump's shot was overwhelming accepted without question by libs, lib media, Biden and Harris who were fervently demanding everyone take it. And here were are, Biden's CDC is now pushing a 10th shot.
You'll recall both Biden & Harris said they would not get the 'Trump shot' and the pharma companies delayed the release until after the election.
Interesting because it was the Trump admin that exonerated them of any future liability.
Populism is one step away from fascism. Trump, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orban,....
Not sure of your message; best to go slowly and carefully in your analysis.
By definition populism covers a broad range of political stances to include any body of people standing up to 'the elite.'
Occupy Wall Street & BLM can be labeled as populists.
Trump allowed the lockdowns but was not the author or agent of them. He chose to trust the scientific institutions that own that responsibility, which was the right choice for a president who is not a medical scientist.
Deborah Birx and the Chinese government are the ones responsible for our lockdown policies, among others.
Warp Speed was mostly Pence, the unsung hero of the pandemic, who consistently did the right thing, humiliated stupid scientific bureaucrats, took no money for it, and wanted no credit. Pence is the last vestige of American integrity.
Pence would make a great president, but lacks the charisma to get elected. Unfortunately.
There are things the right stonewalls on. The main one being abortion -- people have really strongly-held opinions about it. In general, I find political no-homers or dissidents probably the most open-minded of all.
I wish I could find the poll on abortion I saw recently. It showed the conservatives (or Republicans if you prefer that designation) were pretty flexible on the timing allowed for an abortion. I think it was up to three months.
Today's divisive problem is built on all-or-nothing thinking. A substantial number of people think less extremely, but news about them isn't appealing to MSM readers.
If it was the one I'm thinking of, it was like 30% of Republicans think abortion should never be allowed under any circumstances while 70% are flexible about it. The problem is those 30% control the purse strings of major donations. That (and gun control) are the only two "right-wing" social policies that have major funding backing them up, which is why GOP leadership tends to be so inflexible on that.
Meanwhile, any funding that once went to, say, a free speech organization is now directed towards Democrats who want to censor. Therefore, few Republicans are willing to stand up for free speech. Similarly, there's no major anti-DEI/anti-woke organization besides maybe AFL (and they have their hands full), so Republicans are generally willing to give in on that front.
I agree. "Follow the money" for a lot of issues and it becomes more clear why we keep hearing from extremes. Someone pointed out to me that if you follow the money for transgender ideology, it will explain why all the support. I read recently that a lot of nonprofits are really PACs. Also, they are consulting groups that can go into schools or businesses, for example, as speakers on social issues.
Having been born and raised in New Orleans, I know a little about the populace. And the politics. I have no idea who was throwing the party, but it sounds like an average group there. Some are sensible, others not so much. Removing Robert E. Lee’s statue from Lee Circle—which has, of course, been renamed—wasn’t the work of moderates. Nor is the renaming of city streets. The Big Easy has become quite a racist place. Try running for mayor if you’re white. Hasn’t been one since 1972.
I still have family there, but it’s hard for me to imagine a scenario in which I’d move back. Food’s quite good, though.
Mitch landrieu was mayor from 2010 to 2018. But he’s a democrat so I get your point
I’ve never been entirely clear in Landrieu’s race.
Are you crazy? You think Landrieu is black? Or mixed? You can't possibly be "born and raised in Nola" and be that ignorant of the Landrieu family. I grew up with the Landrieu family around the corner and hung out with Mary on the weekends. My mom went to Loyola with Moon and Verna. Good grief. Who are you?
I moved to NOLA in 1992 for college; My first time experiencing racism was in my classroom at Loyola, by my black professor (1994). But that’s not the first thing I think of when recollect on my couple of years at that college: it’s the amazing food…there’s only one sin in that town and it’s bad food.
Don’t forget Mitch Landrieu… white mayor of NewOrleans 2010-2018.
It’s a smelly pit
Yes. But with really good food.
Looking forward to this series. I’ve always thought that if journalists would get out in the real world and talk to real people, they would see we don’t all hate each other as much as they think (or try to get us to).
How about politicians talking to real people outside their echo chambers!!
Not enough money in it.
Haha- remember when they were going to do that after Trump won in 2016? It lasted about 3 weeks!
Really? Don't remember that. I DO remember that that they were going to emigrate...
As soon as russiagate got made up and disseminated the whole “need to understand why America rejected Hillary” disappeared and it became RESIST pussy hat time.
My daughter is involved in a club at her uni called Bridge. It’s for anyone interested in politics. No matter which party you support or if you’re independent you’re welcome and treated respectfully. They have lively but respectful discussions on a variety of topics. They moderate the debates between college dems and college republicans.
Recently she met a young man and they started dating. He’s from the DC area. I was told that when he mentioned to his father he started seeing a nice girl at school his father asked “Is she a crazy MAGA?”
She’s bringing him home for Easter. I am so tempted to wear a bright red cap! 😂
You should wear the hat and take a picture of you two together and then send it to his dad. If the kid sticks around, then he’s a keeper.
Don't be a shit disturber. Let the relationship develop.
I wouldn’t. I’m just very happy for her that she found someone she seems to really like.
A friend of mine married a man who loves Trump. She makes him swear not to mention it around her Democrat family as they would go apeshit!!
But isn’t that the illuminating point? That Trump
Voters might actually be decent people, too?
I think her fear, and it is her family so I assume she knows them well, is that they wouldn't be decent in return.
Interesting choice then, to marry someone unlike her family in that regard…
I'll have to ask her about that next time I see her.
They’d never see the irony in calling Trump supporters “hateful” but refusing to be around any
Ben, I look forward to your correspondence. I believe most of us (that majority you speak of) already know that the country isn't as divided as the pundits lead us to believe.
Gee.
interview people at city council hearings? Nah
School board meetings? Nope
on the streets in Inglewood or Oakland or Naperville or Denver or Brooklyn? Can’t, I don’t like slipping in that stuff on the sidewalk.
Ask the governor of colorado why he scheduled a special election on exactly the same day as the primary? Of course not.
Gonna wait until everybody’s good and drunk and then start asking questions about peace and love. Really groovy
As someone who actually worked elections, I can assure you that two important reasons to schedule special elections for the same dates as regular ones are the cost and logistics. Special elections in this case add almost no cost and no staff, no need to run around and recruit volunteers. I see no malice in the action of the governor, at least the primary reason is not a desire to get Boebert, she is very good at hurting herself.
Since they redistricted her too, it is far closer to malice
Naperville???
Great city, 30 miles southwest of Chicago. I lived there for 30 years, then moved to Phoenix.
I knew that -- lived in Mundelein many years. Question was how it managed to be in the list in which it was found.
Ah, fellow Chicagoan! No idea, maybe he lived there too?
That would be recovering Chicagoan. Sir. (Though back when I lived there it was still a pretty neat place. (I thought the Symphony under Sir Georg was the best of the best.) Aside from the politics, of course. Which finally killed it.)
Politics are killing Chicago AND Illinois deader'n disco. I moved to Phoenix, AZ, two years ago and am quite happy I did. I love many things about Illinois, but insane taxes and politics are not part of that.
"Ben is a sane, hilarious voice who......."
Sure in "Bari- world." The rest of us find him more than a bit cringey and mildly amusing - at his best. Like the self-described "class clown" in high school, who plays the dork and then manically looks for adoration. And talk about a predilection of stereotyping......
Most people are interesting precisely because we are not stereotypes. And the only thing that will get most of us fighting mad is trying to dictate what we must feel and say. People and a government who do that will rue the day.....Otherwise. live and let live.
That's how I feel about Ben, too. Just won't/can't watch his videos. He is not as clever as he thinks, and does not come across as an honest broker. His video editing is amateurish and deceptive
If you don’t watch him, how can you critique him? Do you mean you stopped watching?
Yeah…not wild about it. There was nothing groundbreaking or particularly funny or interesting about this. The one thing I did like was his asking what the interviewee thought his/her own political group gets wrong and what the other gets right. That was a good and thought-provoking question, but for me, even that was ruined by the predictability of the answers (“abortion!” “Lower gas prices!”).
I promised not to throw rocks -- yet... but I can still admire a well-crafted phrase.
The problem is not the electorate, the problem is those politicians and a media that drumbeat the stereotypes and outright twist and lie about what is said, and the hidden agenda behind legislation. There are plenty on both sides of the aisle that do this, most recently it occurred right here about statements made by Mark Robinson, republican nominee for Governor of NC. Either the writer never listened to his entire speech for the context (bad journalism) or purposefully took him out of context to say he supports fascism and putting women back in the kitchen. Completely opposite of what he said. This kind of stuff makes me want to vomit and it's so prevalent in the news and commentary garbage generated that I trust very few writers. The electorate has to somewhat trust what the journos are writing and saying, and the journos with an agenda (most of them) need to go look in the mirror to see where the hate is generated. The above video was nice in that you didn't steer, lie or try and "destroy" anyone.
Another example just this weekend. Trump uses the word bloodbath and in less than 24 hours all MSM, democrats and of course Pelosi, are out decrying his threats to democracy!
Then you watch the actual video for the context. What were they watching?
my almost 18 year was talking about this last night. she said that people are melting down about what he supposedly says and then posting a link so you can watch it, and when you watch, it doesn't say at all what they claimed in their panicked headline. she was like, "how much of an idiot are you to claim something and go as far as to post the link to watch something that doesn't say what you claim it says?" we raised a critical thinker, and for that i'm quite happy! unfortunately (and she'll tell you this herself) her generation are fools and she has zero confidence in her peers for the future.
Another example is the recent teenage brawl that has a girl in the hospital in critical condition. The usual suspects are pounding race, as the girl in the hospital is white and her attacker is black, with a screen shot to get the natives worked up. The hard-to-find video shows another black girl pulling the attacker off the white girl on the pavement, and then she gets attacked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdSn6doB2_A
That was hard to watch!
Yes, but at least onr girl tried to help.
Excellent example. It makes no difference what they watch, all effort is spent on how it can be taken out of context and used to attack and distract.
“What they watch.” The collective “they” sounds a bit attacky.
Perhaps look at your motivation for your interpretation. "They" are the people who try and turn us against each other, the war tactic Ben seems to be trying to undermine.
Considering MSM is failing with very few people actually watching the opinion news I have to wonder why they still play off of all the histrionics and BS??? Just report the news already.
I think the problem is that anyone that wants to do real journalism doesn't work for MSM. So they don't have anyone left to do it....and likely don't know how to do it. You see, journalism is work. It requires research and doublechecking data, and finding more sources. So time consuming. Much easier to make up opinion pieces.
It seems most journalism today is just reading your TwitterX account and writing about what some moron no one ever heard of posted there.
The bloodbath distortion is a perfect example. Their agenda isn't to report news but to support a specific agenda. And their misleading/dishonest reporting gets amplified via late night talk shows and The View.
Just like the "fine people at Charlottesville. Clearly Trump was talking about the monuments dispute but the dorks in the media made it seem like he was supporting the nitwits with tiki torches. Remember the old comment about a lie going twice around the world before the truth even laces up its boots. The leftist press lives lies. Because the basis of their world view is the lie told by Marx.
Agreed! I think it takes a lot to look for real writing and be able to sift thru the garbage and then to even go a step further to look for that one the other side of the arguments/aisle you generally follow makes for a lot of work. It's sad but true. Most people live off junk food journalism and that gets to be a problem.
Ben seems to have finally gotten a handle on not mocking the people he's interviewing. Or maybe it's that he didn't quite dare to do that in NOLA the way he did in Iowa.
I’m anxious to see thefp get on this ground. Most of us already know this, yet it seems surprising to the urban coastals when they discover it. I wrote a short piece on this a couple years ago that I was proud of…
https://open.substack.com/pub/joelelorentzen/p/we-the-silent?r=1p5p1m&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Pace, Ms M! True dat, but I, for one, will refrain from throwing rocks until there's a target. (I suspect that there will be many.) But the laddie seems to be trying. Don't forget that no one's been taught to be an actual newspaperman for 20 years or so. Popcorn suggested.
"Don't forget that no one's been taught to be an actual newspaperman for 20 years or so."
You make an excellent point. Bari needs more Gen-Xers on her crew. We remember how things used to be.
I like Ben, but I agree with this, I wish TFP had more conservative reporters for better balance.
Straight-up reporters would be nice -- do you suppose that there are any still this side of the daisies? The whiff of "influencers" pervades.
I am also relieved by this improvement.
One main point- no matter who represents the right politically- the left will hate. And not just hate but will make ultimate enemy #1. They cannot let loose with power, even for a year or two. That is why we are so divided. It’s the lefts way or total destruction.
This. If Haley had somehow managed to get the nomination the same leftists praising her as the moderate alternative would immediately turn their guns on her, call her the brown face of white supremacy etc.