Politics & Stuff

[cosmicway 1,333]

1 minute ago, NikkiCFC said:

It will be really interesting 4 years. That's for sure. And about military threats... they may reject his orders. 

To win the nomination back in 2016 he just had to adopt the extermist profile - given also his character.
To continue like this as president I did not expect, but who knows ?
Anyway project 2025 will not be for him personally unless he becomes a dictator like Franco-Pinochet.

[Vesper 30,224]

1 minute ago, cosmicway said:

That depends.
Hillary did not try again but she was getting of age and she was too much venomed.
Mondale - Dukakis - Mitt Romney also did not try again.
There are only two comebacks in recent history, tricky Dicky and Trump, yet I don't see why not.

Dems no longer give 2nd chances to losers in terms of POTUS

she cannot win POTUS IMHO, not now, not in 2028

her chance was now

America rejected her on balance, and rejected her for a madman!!!

My 'Big 7' 2028 Dem POTUS frontrunners:

IN NO ORDER (just alphabetical)

Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky
Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Secretary of Transportation
John Fetterman, U.S. senator from Pennsylvania
Wes Moore, governor of Maryland
Gavin Newsom, governor of California
Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania
Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan
 

for the Republicans

barring Trump insanity 

I think the clear favourite for them is

Brian Kemp, governor of Georgia

with Vance in 2nd place

[NikkiCFC 8,335]

2 minutes ago, Vesper said:

 

Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Secretary of Transportation

Unfortunately America is not ready for woman and won't be ready for gay person as well. 

[Vesper 30,224]

7 minutes ago, NikkiCFC said:

Unfortunately America is not ready for woman and won't be ready for gay person as well. 

yes, I agree unfortunately

but he (IF he runs) will deffo be in the mix in the Dem primary

same for Whitmer (female)

[NikkiCFC 8,335]

12 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

To win the nomination back in 2016 he just had to adopt the extermist profile - given also his character.
To continue like this as president I did not expect, but who knows ?
Anyway project 2025 will not be for him personally unless he becomes a dictator like Franco-Pinochet.

This is problem with democracy. PhD doctor and redneck who works as garbage man votes count the same. And hillbillies are majority. Trump loses huge in every big city where educated people live. Manhattan center of universe he got just 17%. And it's a pattern everywhere. Erdogan loses Istanbul and Ankara but wins in the end because of suburban people. Even greek philosophers knew this is bullshit.

Socrates's point is that voting in an election is a skill, not a random intuition. And like any skill, it needs to be taught systematically to people. Letting the citizenry vote without an education is as irresponsible as putting them in charge of a trireme sailing to Samos in a storm.

Socrates, the first critic of Democracy: "Foolish leaders of Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequaled alike." He believed that not everyone has right to vote. He saw voting as a skill acquired by wisdom

[NikkiCFC 8,335]

4 hours ago, robsblubot said:

Another 4 years of "easy mode" for US comedians.

Speaking of pros for Trump win for me Colbert monologs are on top. 

[cosmicway 1,333]

The evolution of racism in the 20th-21st centuries
----------------------------------------------------------
In the beginning things were pretty mean. Not like during the centuries of slavery but pretty mean - antisemitism everywhere and seggregation.
Racism then became murderous but also received a big knock in the teeth with the second world war.
After that war strong alliances were built and people started becoming friendly to one another.
Remnants continued to exist, the old imperial attitudes, but gradually eroded.
Today in sport at least exhibitions of racism are not allowed and the perpetrators are severely punished by the authorities.
Yet there exists a rival process going on in paralled and racism returns.
This is because the strong bonds of the WWII alliances are gradually forgotten and distanced in time.
Brexit and Trump were the two huge victories of this rival process.
The former allies are called the ... peoples of nowhere, garbage islands and things like that.
In a reciprocal fashion as well if you like.
So right now we are entering a really dangerous phase. I don't know what will happen but it is getting very dangerous.
Also with incompetent Trump in power -and other similar entities- I expect terrorist activities will increase, thus pouring oil over the fire.


 

[cosmicway 1,333]

1 hour ago, NikkiCFC said:

This is problem with democracy. PhD doctor and redneck who works as garbage man votes count the same. And hillbillies are majority. Trump loses huge in every big city where educated people live. Manhattan center of universe he got just 17%. And it's a pattern everywhere. Erdogan loses Istanbul and Ankara but wins in the end because of suburban people. Even greek philosophers knew this is bullshit.

Socrates's point is that voting in an election is a skill, not a random intuition. And like any skill, it needs to be taught systematically to people. Letting the citizenry vote without an education is as irresponsible as putting them in charge of a trireme sailing to Samos in a storm.

Socrates, the first critic of Democracy: "Foolish leaders of Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequaled alike." He believed that not everyone has right to vote. He saw voting as a skill acquired by wisdom

This was the subject of a long debate we had here.
To me at least it looked as if Socrates and Plato were right, but looking at it from a wider philosophical perception no.
The Socrates fans essentially think thus: With the right to vote restricted to the educated people only we are going to have elections without commies, blackies and antivaxers. It will be New Democracy versus Pasok and as Pasok is "Pasok - USA" now, there will be no problem.
That's a bit naive however. What will happen is it will start like that but then the Pasok-ND technocrats with the Oxford degrees will secretly band together and using their old trickery will oppress the rest. So again we do not have a perfect society (I mean of course they will all have real Oxford degrees, not bought from the internet like they do now).

Of course the subject of Socrates-Plato's ideas was never debated seriously.
The Tories wanted the pocket boroughs and they did n't care about university degrees and things like that.
From the other side the whigs wanted just universal suffrage so they could defeat the Tory cheats one day.
So it was never debated at large and we do not have a clear philosophical answer.


(*) You know of course that Plato's uncle was one of the thirty tyrants, Kritias. Those tyrants were imposed on Athens by the Spartans after thir victory in the Peloponnesian wars. Eventually the Athenians revolted and killed them all.
But before the revolution, Kritias was suggesting to the rest of the tyrants to adopt a more progressive profile to gain the trust of the population. For this the other tyrants put him to death, so Kritias has stayed in history as the "good tyrant" and in the revolution there were in fact 29 tyrants to be killed.

Edited November 6, 2024 by cosmicway

[cosmicway 1,333]

There is also the Trump slogans:

Make America great again

Why is America not as great as it was ? When was it greater ? Immaterial - but the slogan catches.

Also

Trump will fix it

That's always a winner. Works on everybody.
You can't win in the football pools ? - Trump will fix it. The girl next door plays hard to get ? - Trump will fix it.
Our psychology reponds thus. What is in need of fixing may be that the country needs more fishing trawlers but my problem is the girl next door and Trump will fix it.
In Greece our Alexis Tsipras was one of the masterminds in "fix it" propaganda.
 

Edited November 6, 2024 by cosmicway

[Vesper 30,224]

Trump will soon speak

MSNBC free stream

https://livenewschat.eu/politics/

[cosmicway 1,333]

2 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Trump will soon speak

MSNBC free stream

https://livenewschat.eu/politics/

That's a better listen:
 

 

[Vesper 30,224]

The Republicans are trending (atm, thsi could change) to have 55 US Senate seats to only 45 for the Democrats

that number may go up to 56 to 44 if Rosen loses NV (razor thin atm, after she was up 4)

 

Disastrous, as in the 2026 midterms the only Republican seats at risk are these 2 (thus meaning it is impossible for the Dems to retake control)

Maine    Susan Collins (if she retires the Dems win it)

North Carolina    Thom Tillis

 

and the bad news could get worse 

as the Dems have these 3 seats in real danger

in order of most danger:

Georgia    Jon Ossoff (by far the most likely of any sitting Senator in either party to lose in 2026, although as staed above, IF Collins in Me retires, the Dems take that seat back, finally)

Michigan    Gary Peters

New Hampshire    Jeanne Shaheen

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

Older than Biden when he took office - oh and hes going to stop the Russo/Ukraine war over night. Sure....

[cosmicway 1,333]

The big key to win elections is promises.
All you have to do is find them.
You don't have to fulfill the promises and your promises can be as vague as you like.
But you have to find them.
One possible world record is Andreas Papandreou in 1981.
Promises to abolish university entrance exams, so everyone could go to university without having to pass exams.
So as those exams were called "panhellenic exams" he says to the crowd "we shall abolish the panhellenic exams".
Afte becoming prime minister what does he do ?
The exams stay but are now called "pan-elladic exams".
Promise kept.

[Vesper 30,224]

[cosmicway 1,333]

2 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Older than Biden when he took office - oh and hes going to stop the Russo/Ukraine war over night. Sure....

By surrendering. He can do that.

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

Dodging a second head to head with Harris saved him, if he cant interrupt,and be rude, his intellect free brain is exposed

[robsblubot 3,595]

Just like the conspiracy theories which are never wrong—Trump won and no missiles have been fired… 😃

While I don’t believe in conspiracy theories one bit, I do trust in following the money. My dad was a cop, so I learned a lot from that perspective and I do believe we are in an era where unelected leaders have a lot of power given their worldly influence.

I hope smarter and far more successful people will be in charge, given that their support doesn’t come cheap. Musk isn’t trumps friend for ex. Peter thiel isn’t there for the ride either.

Is this the end of the career politician?
contrary to some  I do think Bidens term was disastrous. And at the same time Kamala as a glorified unknown VP, wasn’t a strong candidate.

Also suspect ID politics played a very big role in this election. DeSantis became very popular on that. 

[cosmicway 1,333]

7 minutes ago, robsblubot said:

Just like the conspiracy theories which are never wrong—Trump won and no missiles have been fired… 😃

While I don’t believe in conspiracy theories one bit, I do trust in following the money. My dad was a cop, so I learned a lot from that perspective and I do believe we are in an era where unelected leaders have a lot of power given their worldly influence.

I hope smarter and far more successful people will be in charge, given that their support doesn’t come cheap. Musk isn’t trumps friend for ex. Peter thiel isn’t there for the ride either.

Is this the end of the career politician?
contrary to some  I do think Bidens term was disastrous. And at the same time Kamala as a glorified unknown VP, wasn’t a strong candidate.

Also suspect ID politics played a very big role in this election. DeSantis became very popular on that. 

Yes, but this will go to history as a victory of prejudice and sheer demagoguery, it's destined to go to history like that,
It does n't mean Trump will destroy America, maybe we are going to have colonies on Mars by the end of his term for all we know, but will stay in history as the victory of prejudice and sheer demagoguery.

Edited November 6, 2024 by cosmicway

[robsblubot 3,595]

12 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

Yes, but this will go to history as a victory of prejudice and sheer demagoguery, it's destined to go to history like that,
It does n't mean Trump will destroy America, maybe we are going to have colonies on Mars by the end of his term for all we know, but will stay in history as the victory of prejudice and sheer demagoguery.

Like I said I tend to go for the simplest explanation: Kamala wasn’t a very strong candidate tied to a weak president. Democrats have lost the plot. And Trump is definitely *popular* 😉

the fact that the Jan 6 perpetrator has won is really sad for what we thought democracy was, but evidently some disagree that what congress does is democracy.

and to emphasize, I can’t imagine Musk’s support comes cheap.

Edited November 6, 2024 by robsblubot