Board 8 > Biden | 40,962,735 | 57.64% | Trump | 27,258,817 | 38.36% [Ng Election Tracker!]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Take it to political containment, folks. This thread's about the election.

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KanzarisKelshen posted...

You think you keep track of the news in my f***ing continent better than me?

were you telling us to learn US history an hour ago or did I make that up

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I don't know guys this looks like a close one. I'm gonna walk away from this thinking I can't make up my mind between red and blue. They seem so equal.

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We're gonna have to get someone who doesn't live in any particular continent to make a call here because these sources are too biased.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

You mean Trump winning and delivering the economy weve ever had?

I see this as an absolute win!

https://stayhipp.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/MD6-1.jpg

I mean why havent they convinced US?

If youre so confident that good arguments beat bad arguments, why are there still so many bad arguments
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Tom Bombadil posted...

were you telling us to learn US history an hour ago or did I make that up

I was Tom. Any discussion about politics has to start with understanding your own history. I can tell you about multiple major human trafficking busts within my country, some even civilian-led, and I can tell you when the numbers spiked (not 2019, in case you're wondering). When you practice what you preach, you get to call other people out on it.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

Its just too hard to do the job right now, said Hugo, who makes his living as a people smuggler, or coyote, guiding migrants on the often-perilous journey from Guatemala through Mexico to the U.S. border.

No, I mean a latin american news outfit reporting on this subject. I'll even take nonreputable ones. Just confirm they exist at all.

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Do you know US history better than Americans though?
it's entirely possible you do, we kinda suck at that

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UltimaterializerX posted...

Aggregated trends on social media specifically designed to mimic to manipulative and addictive behavior of gambling.

Swipe down to refresh was legitimately modeled after casino slot machines.

So Twitter broke the marketplace of ideas, which until then was working as intended? Ok
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UltimaterializerX posted...

Fascism is the tactics used by Antifa rioters. Bigotry is think how I say or else.

Ill let you figure out which side of the aisle is attracting the latter ;)

And there is no Nazi problem in America. In fact, racism from white people is so rare that people are constantly faking hate crimes just to pretend racism exists. Did people seriously already forget about the garbage Jussie Smollett tried to pull? Bubba Wallace? Lebron James?

Ah, so the...*checks notes* anti-fascist protestors are the real fascists, and not the...*checks notes* armed government employees starting riots so as to inflict violence upon people who have a first amendment right to protest. Gotcha.

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Lopen posted...

I figure if the third party can start breaking into a reasonable percentage in enough states we'd at least investigate redoing the system a little bit. There is some value to that. If enough third party supporters leave the "throwing the vote away" mindset it could happen.

Why are you assuming they wouldn't just redo the system to make it harder for 3rd parties?

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UltimaterializerX posted...

You mean Trump winning and delivering the economy weve ever had?

I see this as an absolute win!

https://stayhipp.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/MD6-1.jpg

How do you define "best economy"?

Keep in mind that the stock market does not equate to meaningful gains for your average American, as evidenced by the fact that the pandemic has cost us millions of jobs, while the wealthiest Americans have actually INCREASED their net worth in the past year.

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Tom Bombadil posted...

Do you know US history better than Americans though?
it's entirely possible you do, we kinda suck at that

I'd have to go head to head with Plum to confirm that in this case. I can tell you though that anyone arguing the current political climate stems from poor rightwing precious babies being mistreated is fooling themselves. There was a concerted effort from the ruling class to radicalize voters as they started to lose ground that gradually built up and led to the creation of the Tea Party and the Suicide Caucus. The argument that leftwing activists and progressives were responsible for it actively ignores historical record, and moreover requires you to make several huge assumptions about how the republican leadership somehow influences the republican boots on the ground less than their opponents. If that seems believable to you I don't know what to tell you.

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Yeah it's interesting to hear Lopen believe in the system that much. I usually pegged that guy as cynical but in real life he's quite the optimist!

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masterplum posted...

Comparing politics to nazism is ridiculous. Im obviously talking about normal politics.

spoilers: the 45% of the country voting for trump arent all nazis

And the 42% who voted for Hitler weren't all Nazis either, nor were the greater number who didn't support, but tolerated him, because they were mainly concerned with their own well-being, many thought the KPD (German communist party) were a greater threat and many believed that Hitler would moderate himself once he got into power (famous last words). This should serve as a lesson for what ordinary, well-meaning people can enable. I'd really recommend doing some reading on the politics of Weimar Germany and early Nazi Germany, because there are some firm warning signs for fascism in the current era. "They Thought They Were Free" is possibly the definitive account, I really recommend it.

So, is Trump a fascist? Let's look at common definitions and characterisations of fascism.

Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian and nationalist political philosophy, characterised by adhering to a "strong leader" wtih a protectionist, corporatist, and capitalist economic policy that rejects liberal democratic norms. So far, 100% there. It is typically anti-liberal and anti-communist, strongly supports militarisation of the culture, uses populist appeals and anti-expert rhetoric, and is usually supported by racism and anti-immigrant sentiment. So yes, Trump would be a fascist according to these.

Now Ulti claims that most fascists in America are left wing but this is impossible, as fascism is an inherently right wing ideology - a big part of that economic policy is based around capitalism and suppressing the unions. He most likely actually means authoritarians, and left wing authoritarianism is absolutely a thing, most famously Stalinism. Now, I really don't think there are that many Stalinists in the United States. On the other hand, look at what I wrote above and tell me you don't recognise some people.

Lastly, on the subject of voting third party if you live in a safe state. If fascism in the United States is to be defeated, Trump needs to be utterly crushed to the point where the Republican party recognises that it needs to change to survive. This means that Biden basically needs to run up the score and give Trump a record-setting defeat, just winning isn't enough. You need to totally reject the ideology. Now this isn't enough on its own, there also needs to be social healing afterwards, but for now wherever you are I'd say vote for Biden ro get that margin as high as possible.

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Id say Trump is more a wannabe fascist than a successful one like Hitler
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Oh shit is this the new Politics Containement topic
I just wanted to read some election results

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Republicans hate being called fascistic because ultimately the far-right is the group with the thinnest skins in America, more likely to throw a tantrum than actually listen.

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this is the politics containment topic for people that avoid the politics containment topic

whether that makes it better or worse is up to you

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Jakyl25 posted...

I mean why havent they convinced US?

If youre so confident that good arguments beat bad arguments, why are there still so many bad arguments

They did convince us. Trump won the election.

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red sox 777 posted...

They did convince us. Trump won the election.

They didnt convince even 50% of the nation

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While there is something in that, Hitler was a legitimate idiot who failed at grabbing power many times before he actually got it. Nazi Germany was an incompetently led organisational nightmare, and he was largely seen as a joke before taking power. And bear in mind, Weimar Germany had much stronger democratic systems than the US. Hitler never got a majority electorally. He gained power because the centre and centre-right gave it to him to stop the left.

There is actually an upside to comparisons to Hitler if they're earned, because the man is a massive cautionary tale.

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KanzarisKelshen posted...

I can tell you though

alrighty fair thanks

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The Nazis had a paramilitary organization that outnumbered the German army (the size of which was capped by the Treaty of Versailles) 30:1 in numbers. Hitler lost his last election for the German presidency, and the Nazis never won a majority of the Reichstag in a free election. The other parties vote to give him emergency dictatorial powers, which he used to end the democratic system.

And yes, the first thing Hitler did when he became chancellor was to get the KPD banned. A political party that opposed him.

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Jakyl25 posted...

Id say Trump is more a wannabe fascist than a successful one like Hitler

I wanna say Trump has no ideology even if he wouldn't mind authoritarian levels of power. Does that make him different from "true fascists" or have fascists leaders risen in the past just for their own personal gain? Is it possible to tell the difference?

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Lightning Strikes posted...

While there is something in that, Hitler was a legitimate idiot who failed at grabbing power many times before he actually got it. Nazi Germany was an incompetently led organisational nightmare, and he was largely seen as a joke before taking power. And bear in mind, Weimar Germany had much stronger democratic systems than the US. Hitler never got a majority electorally. He gained power because the centre and centre-right gave it to him to stop the left.

There is actually an upside to comparisons to Hitler if they're earned, because the man is a massive cautionary tale.

Is this a joke? Weimar Germany had stronger democratic institutions than the US? The country whose democratic institutions lasted 13 years before collapsing had stronger institutions than the one which has lasted over 230 years, and is modeled in large part on a system (UK) that has lasted 800ish years?

You can argue that the UK/US system is not fair, but history has proven that it is extremely stable.

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pjbasis posted...

I wanna say Trump has no ideology even if he wouldn't mind authoritarian levels of power. Does that make him different from "true fascists" or have fascists leaders risen in the past just for their own personal gain? Is it possible to tell the difference?

No, Fascism doesn't have an ideology to begin with. I recommend reading Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism essay, he explains it pretty well.

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Hyper-nationalism is definitely some kind of ideology though? I thought that was a necessary feature.

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pjbasis posted...

Yeah it's interesting to hear Lopen believe in the system that much. I usually pegged that guy as cynical but in real life he's quite the optimist!

Well I'm optimistic in some ways, but I don't believe in the system because too many people don't believe in the system. The system will not change because no one is willing to throw away their vote outright (while still being motivated enough to cast the vote to begin with, which is the big gotcha) to make that statement against the system-- they'd rather just make their mostly worthless vote instead.

If everyone did "the right thing" though I think the statistics would be too compelling to just ignore.

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red sox 777 posted...

Is this a joke? Weimar Germany had stronger democratic institutions than the US? The country whose democratic institutions lasted 13 years before collapsing had stronger institutions than the one which has lasted over 230 years, and is modeled in large part on a system (UK) that has lasted 800ish years?

You can argue that the UK/US system is not fair, but history has proven that it is extremely stable.

Except literally all that shows is that it doesn't matter how strong your institutions are if the right social conditions exist. That is my entire point.

There is absolutely nothing in the UK system that gives it any kind of stability. It is in reality one of the least stable systems because it has precisely one rule: parliament cannot bind future parliaments. Everything else is entirely in the hands of parliament, it is absolutely sovereign, and not represented by fair democratic systems. It is a disaster waiting to happen, and we're seeing some of that now with the sheer scope of the corruption that is happening. Not fascism, but deep, and more importantly open, corruption and there's nothing anybody can do about it.

The reason these systems lasted so long is because of social conditions, not political systems.

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pjbasis posted...

Hyper-nationalism is definitely some kind of ideology though? I thought that was a necessary feature.

Umberto Eco

If we still think of the totalitarian governments that ruled Europe before the Second World War we can easily say that it would be difficult for them to reappear in the same form in different historical circumstances. If Mussolinis fascism was based upon the idea of a charismatic ruler, on corporatism, on the utopia of the Imperial Fate of Rome, on an imperialistic will to conquer new territories, on an exacerbated nationalism, on the ideal of an entire nation regimented in black shirts, on the rejection of parliamentary democracy, on anti-Semitism, then I have no difficulty in acknowledging that today the Italian Alleanza Nazionale, born from the postwar Fascist Party, MSI, and certainly a right-wing party, has by now very little to do with the old fascism. In the same vein, even though I am much concerned about the various Nazi-like movements that have arisen here and there in Europe, including Russia, I do not think that Nazism, in its original form, is about to reappear as a nationwide movement.

Nevertheless, even though political regimes can be overthrown, and ideologies can be criticized and disowned, behind a regime and its ideology there is always a way of thinking and feeling, a group of cultural habits, of obscure instincts and unfathomable drives. Is there still another ghost stalking Europe (not to speak of other parts of the world)?

Italian fascism was certainly a dictatorship, but it was not totally totalitarian, not because of its mildness but rather because of the philosophical weakness of its ideology. Contrary to common opinion, fascism in Italy had no special philosophy. The article on fascism signed by Mussolini in the Treccani Encyclopedia was written or basically inspired by Giovanni Gentile, but it reflected a late-Hegelian notion of the Absolute and Ethical State which was never fully realized by Mussolini. Mussolini did not have any philosophy: he had only rhetoric. He was a militant atheist at the beginning and later signed the Convention with the Church and welcomed the bishops who blessed the Fascist pennants. In his early anticlerical years, according to a likely legend, he once asked God, in order to prove His existence, to strike him down on the spot. Later, Mussolini always cited the name of God in his speeches, and did not mind being called the Man of Providence.

Italian fascism was the first right-wing dictatorship that took over a European country, and all similar movements later found a sort of archetype in Mussolinis regime. Italian fascism was the first to establish a military liturgy, a folklore, even a way of dressingfar more influential, with its black shirts, than Armani, Benetton, or Versace would ever be. It was only in the Thirties that fascist movements appeared, with Mosley, in Great Britain, and in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Yugoslavia, Spain, Portugal, Norway, and even in South America. It was Italian fascism that convinced many European liberal leaders that the new regime was carrying out interesting social reform, and that it was providing a mildly revolutionary alternative to the Communist threat.

Nevertheless, historical priority does not seem to me a sufficient reason to explain why the word fascism became a synecdoche, that is, a word that could be used for different totalitarian movements. This is not because fascism contained in itself, so to speak in their quintessential state, all the elements of any later form of totalitarianism. On the contrary, fascism had no quintessence. Fascism was a fuzzy totalitarianism, a collage of different philosophical and political ideas, a beehive of contradictions. Can one conceive of a truly totalitarian movement that was able to combine monarchy with revolution, the Royal Army with Mussolinis personal milizia, the grant of privileges to the Church with state education extolling violence, absolute state control with a free market? The Fascist Party was born boasting that it brought a revolutionary new order; but it was financed by the most conservative among the landowners who expected from it a counter-revolution. At its beginning fascism was republican. Yet it survived for twenty years proclaiming its loyalty to the royal family, while the Duce (the unchallenged Maximal Leader) was arm-in-arm with the King, to whom he also offered the title of Emperor. But when the King fired Mussolini in 1943, the party reappeared two months later, with German support, under the standard of a social republic, recycling its old revolutionary script, now enriched with almost Jacobin overtones.

I'm letting Eco speak for me here because he's a wiser man than I'll ever be, and much more capable of synthesis besides. If you want a more detailed dissection of it from someone who both lived it and studied it, PJ, go here: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/

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Lightning Strikes posted...

Except literally all that shows is that it doesn't matter how strong your institutions are if the right social conditions exist. That is my entire point.

There is absolutely nothing in the UK system that gives it any kind of stability. It is in reality one of the least stable systems because it has precisely one rule: parliament cannot bind future parliaments. Everything else is entirely in the hands of parliament, it is absolutely sovereign, and not represented by fair democratic systems. It is a disaster waiting to happen, and we're seeing some of that now with the sheer scope of the corruption that is happening. Not fascism, but deep, and more importantly open, corruption and there's nothing anybody can do about it.

The reason these systems lasted so long is because of social conditions, not political systems.

The UK system was much more stable when it was being used as a model for the US. At that point, the House of Lords was an equally powerful house with full veto powers. The King provided another veto point (while King George III never refused assent to any bills passed by the UK Parliament [although he did refuse assent to bills passed by colonial assemblies] it was well understood that he had the right and power to do so). A change to the law required the alignment of the Commons, Lords, and King - all of which had different selection systems. The Commons were elected. The Lords inherited their seats, or the King could create new peers. The Crown was inherited.

That is what the US tried to replicate, and it was successful. We have 4 centers of power - the House of Representatives (elected by the people directly), the Senate (originally elected by the state legislatures), the President (elected by the electoral college), and the Supreme Court (chosen by the President and Senate together). The point is not to be fair, but to provide stability by making it very hard to change the law.

By contrast, revolutionary France and Weimar Germany had one, all-powerful institution - the National Assembly for France and the Reichstag for Germany, with the Presidency in Germany holding some additional power but nothing like veto power over the Reichstag. And those systems collapsed on timescales orders of magnitude faster. And yes, the UK today has this problem, but it's only been 109 years since the Lords lost its absolute right of veto and only 20-something years since the selection process for the Lords was dramatically changed. As recently as Edward VII, it was contemplated that the cabinet might all resign because the King rejected their advice.

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Lopen posted...

If everyone did "the right thing" though I think the statistics would be too compelling to just ignore.

I think I disagree with the premise that there are so many people who would vote third party in the first place. Most people just aren't that engaged with politics beyond choosing what side of a two-way aisle they should be on.

KanzarisKelshen posted...

I'm letting Eco speak for me here because he's a wiser man than I'll ever be, and much more capable of synthesis besides. If you want a more detailed dissection of it from someone who both lived it and studied it, PJ, go here: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/

That's funny I actually googled it and read that article before you posted anyway. Lots of reference to other names and figures made it hard to understand everything, but I think I understand the main takeaway. I don't think that I agree that fascism doesn't have an ideology, it just can have multiple. Or maybe it's better to say that certain types of ideology end up going the route of fascism. Fascism is a way to politically organize around certain demographics.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

If you cut off a friendship over politics, you have something seriously wrong with you. That is cult behavior. Miss me with that nonsense. I happily talk with anyone from any walk of life. You beat bad ideas with good ideas, not with youre an asshole and I will dig my heels in and never talk to you again.

Logic like this let Brutus saladify Caesar in Mid-March.

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That's funny I actually googled it and read that article before you posted anyway. Lots of reference to other names and figures made it hard to understand everything, but I think I understand the main takeaway. I don't think that I agree that fascism doesn't have an ideology, it just can have multiple. Or maybe it's better to say that certain types of ideology end up going the route of fascism. Fascism is a way to politically organize around certain demographics.

Bingo. The key thing with Fascism is that it doesn't have an inalterable core the way say...socialism does, for example, or monarchism, or even imperialism. The ideological conceits are simply a way to organize people to seize power, and thus can be altered freely. That's why we say it has 'no ideology'. It's not that it's actively ideologically void, but rather that there is no part of itself it will not compromise in its search for power.

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Trump doesn't stand for anything. Conservatives are so desperate to oppose the left they ally with him because simply being racist and misogynist is synonymous with standing against political correctness to them.

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Tag.

How do I block someone who already has me blocked?

Not gonna be able to follow the topic with all this Ulti.

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I always saw Florida being deceptively more Republican than what the polls are showing. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up closer to Ohio/Texas than Pennsylvania so we could see a situation where Arizona and North Carolina go blue, but Florida stays red.

Regardless, if Florida does go red it is very likely Trump will lead the electoral college on Wednesday morning and we will engage in maximum chaos if Biden flips enough states with the advance votes to win.

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Remember when Ulti told us we needed two weeks of groceries and that Covid 19 was made in a lab

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50 walked back his Trump "support" and said "Fuck Donald Trump" like the very next day, and Ice Cube has basically said he wasn't sure who he's voting for and wants to work with whoever is in power regardless.

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pjbasis posted...

You can actually train yourself to have an open mind and discuss legitimately, but yeah that's not most people.

that's fair, but that's more reflecting on yourself. Clearly we both agree that hoping that the crazy troll you're 'talking with' online is one of those people is... uh... not a winning bet

pjbasis posted...

nooo ulti's self-satisfaction is hitting critical levels someone counter himmmmmm

speaking of which, someone's not using the blessed ignore feature correctly


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