Everything is Political

[pabs]

I'm in the middle of a very, very interesting article on Trump, and all the trouble he faces should he lose the election (the article's in last Monday's edition of The New Yorker), by Jane Mayer (A REPORTER AT LARGE), titled "GAMING THE ENDGAME"

I can post it here or I can provide a link to a pdf version of it. Anyone interested just send me a PM.

[rischka]

Excellent interview w AOC in yesterday's NYT as well

Report from deep in the red zone: things seem surprisingly calm. Some concerns that Biden is an 'environmentalist' (if only) and perennial 'they're coming to take our guns oh my!'

Haven't seen a single MAGA hat since the election. Also I'm a Democrat but I did not choose Biden; looks like older black voters in the south did. They don't trust white people and who can blame them. Yes the election was far too close for comfort but I'm still basking in the illusion of democracy,

[rischka]

crap. they've got the courts to take up a case in pennsylvania alleging they were not allowed to observe the count. there will be a complete audit in pennsylvania. all this is just delaying tactics. but if the race had been much closer and they pushed hard enough they could well overturn it esp given SCOTUS. this is chilling

mcconnell and some other GOP senators are supporting trump's claims now -- someone has to take the MAGA hat in 2024. how are dems expected to work with these people who clearly don't believe in democracy and enabled a fascist. their goal is permanent white minority rule. note that AZ and GA STILL haven't been called... because they have republican governors who trump has been in contact with. if they really wanna see american cities burn, go right ahead and overturn this election

https://twitter.com/AaronBlake/status/1 ... 14496?s=20

https://twitter.com/costareports/status ... 25024?s=20

fucked up y'all. civil war 2 electric boogaloo

[Pretentious Hipster]

Btw liquid I probably hate NYT more than you lol with stuff like this

https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/stat ... 0717982720

[kanafani]

rischka, stop obsessing over this! Relax, it’s over. Go watch a good noir, stop checking Twitter

[Monsieur Arkadin]

I don't read them because of their stupid paywall... but I saw the headline and had a really good laugh about it.

[rischka]

rischka, stop obsessing over this! Relax, it’s over. Go watch a good noir, stop checking Twitter

you're right ofc. trump is just blowing smoke. it's really dangerous. and stupid. but just about what we should expect *sigh* ok i'll make pizza and watch a film

[kanafani]

rischka, stop obsessing over this! Relax, it’s over. Go watch a good noir, stop checking Twitter

you're right ofc. trump is just blowing smoke. it's really dangerous. and stupid. but just about what we should expect *sigh* ok i'll make pizza and watch a film

That’s the spirit! Mental health break. Or try to enjoy the comedy. Honestly at this point it’s more stoopid than dangerous

[---]

Btw liquid I probably hate NYT more than you

yeah it never ceases to amaze me how right-wingers are ALWAYS saying shit about how cnn/nyt/democrats are marxist

there is NOTHING marxist about america's "left-wing" establishment or the media that carries water for it....which is why marxists HATE these entities

[flip]

just curious to know, when it comes to domestic us news, which sources people find more factually reliable than, say, nyt and cnn, and how they've arrived at that opinion

reporting on us foreign policy is a different category of thing for me, so that's not what i'm asking about

[Lencho of the Apes]

The Guardian has always seemed quite trustworthy to me.

Just read this, which might be of interest, "No Matter the liberal metric chosen, Bush/Cheney's administration was far worse than Trump's."
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/no-mat ... 2XtannYJzo

[pabs]

Also I'm a Democrat but I did not choose Biden

You did vote for him though, didn't you? Just to make sure Trump didn't win, right? Or did you end up voting for a third candidate with practically no chance of winning the presidency?

[pabs]

"People close to Trump fear he’s spiraling into rage and hurting his legacy, as well as the Republican Party" - NBC headline.

Does anyone else find this headline funny?

[rischka]

yes of course i mean in the primary which is how the party chooses a candidate. very happy to be part of my state's long awaited 'blue shift'

also the fact that fox called my state so early and enraged the orange man enough to call murdoch personally and demand satisfaction which wasn't forthcoming was just icing on the cake that's when i knew it was going to be all right still a damned stressful vacation though.

a trumpie at work today told me it's not over til it's over. i replied, it's over when the orange man cries

[pabs]

The moment I saw Arizona shifting to blue I thought "godamn!! - r's done it! "

[rischka]

yup i texted jerry -- hey i turned my state what's happening in texas. he says he's become a communist

https://twitter.com/whstancil/status/13 ... 37057?s=20

this is a structural problem and lencho is correct. the system only gives the appearance of 'working'

trump may be done but the problem hasn't gone away

https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/132595 ... 91616?s=20

[thoxans]

which sources people find more factually reliable

imo pbs newshour provides more solid coverage in 60min than all the 24hr 'news' cycles of cnn, fox, and msnbc combined

[flip]

The Guardian has always seemed quite trustworthy to me.

Just read this, which might be of interest, "No Matter the liberal metric chosen, Bush/Cheney's administration was far worse than Trump's."
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/no-mat ... 2XtannYJzo

on the subject of reliable sources, glenn greenwald's representations of sam harris have been so flagrantly and knowingly dishonest that i wouldn't trust anything he says.

it takes a moment of thought to disprove that headline's claim. in four years, trump appointed more conservative supreme court justices than bush did in eight. there are all kinds of other metrics i'd call 'liberal' -- first amendment protection, anti-corruption, etc -- on which trump obviously fails when compared to any recent administration. then there are clear failings greenwald acknowledges -- the failure of the trump response to covid, say -- but tries to handwave away with specious equivalency arguments. the article's thesis is that bush was "far worse" than trump "no matter the liberal metric chosen". you can't prove that by comparing trump's pandemic response to belgium's, which is what the article does. you can only prove that by comparing trump with bush. and when bush faced a potential pandemic (h5n1/bird flu), he activated a $7 billion response plan before a single case was detected in the usa. i'm not one to support bush policy, but his administration's response to covid would at least have been somewhat competent, and based on input from actual experts.

i was a regular guardian reader when i lived in london, and in general most of its reporting seemed good to me. i'm curious if you've found any differences in factual reporting about us politics when comparing guardian articles with nyt ones.

[Pretentious Hipster]

More bullshit from NYT

https://twitter.com/catcontentonly/stat ... 0434755586

[kanafani]

it takes a moment of thought to disprove that headline's claim.

Setting aside 'liberal metrics' and other narrow measuring systems, I think it is absurd to say that the Trump administration did more harm than the Bush administration. No need to look any further than the calamity that descended upon Iraq to make that call. This in my opinion remains the greatest crime of this century, and everyone involved should be treated as a war criminal (and that of course would include Joe Biden; his contribution to the Iraq war is shameful). Trump did not do anything that even approaches this in damage, though he did try to start WWIII with Iran. It just did not happen.

[Pretentious Hipster]

Trump did bomb Yemen more than Obama and Bush combined. Of course, it's only a fraction of the damage done in Iraq, I just find it funny yet sad because the one thing he was better at than Hillary during the 2016 debates was him saying he wouldn't bomb other countries, and then pulls off that shit.

[kanafani]

Trump did bomb Yemen more than Obama and Bush combined.

Sure, all three are guardians of the empire. But if we must rank them... The Bush neocon project of reorganizing the Middle East through war is on a different level compared to what came after it. Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006 (fully supported by Bush and Condi) should also be seen in this context. The fact that Bush has been rehabilitated by the liberal media into a nice old man who likes to paint tells you all you need to know about the establishment Democrats.

[Pretentious Hipster]

Trump did bomb Yemen more than Obama and Bush combined.

Sure, all three are guardians of the empire. But if we must rank them... The Bush necon project of reorganizing the Middle East through war is on a different level compared to what came after it. Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006 (fully supported by Bush and Condi) should also be seen in this context. The fact that Bush has been rehabilitated by the liberal media into a nice old man who likes to paint tells you all you need to know about the establishment Democrats.

Oh god don't get me started on liberals whitewashing the sins of George Bush just because he did some covid video. I had to unfollow Mehdi Hasan when he tweeted in support of Bush.

That's what scares me about Biden's transitional advisory board. Cindy McCain, Susan Rice, and Pete Buttigieg are all fans of imperialism, especially in the middle east, so Biden's cabinet might be a disaster for foreign policy.

[Silga]

I think Susan Rice is one of the most experienced diplomats in the US and I hope that Biden will appoint her as the Secretary of State. Maybe she can rectify what Trump/Tillerson/Pompeo did.

[Pretentious Hipster]

https://thetalon.ca/susan-rice-is-a-war ... re-at-ubc/

[kanafani]

I think Susan Rice is one of the most experienced diplomats in the US and I hope that Biden will appoint her as the Secretary of State. Maybe she can rectify what Trump/Tillerson/Pompeo did.

Easy for you to say, Silga! I think the chances of her sending drones to Lithuania are slim

Just getting us back to talking to Iran will be a good thing. This will reduce the suffering of the Iranian people, and will bring down the level of tension in the region in general. It will have direct positive implications on Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen... I expect the drone murders to continue though. Since a Democrat is in office, the media won't blink an eye about them. Business as usual. Come to think about it, they didn't blink an eye about them with Trump either. In fact the only time the MSM praised trump was when he was acting "presidential" by bombing some brown people in the middle east. Again, tells you all you need to know about this class of establishment people.

[flip]

I think it is absurd to say that the Trump administration did more harm than the Bush administration.

to be clear - i roughly agree with your characterization of the iraq war, and i wasn't saying anything that contradicts what you said. i was disputing the letter of greenwald's claim, that "no matter the liberal metric chosen", bush was worse than trump. it's absolutely true that by some important liberal metrics, bush was worse. but it's trivially easy to find important metrics along which trump was worse.

i could be persuaded i'm factually wrong about this but: it seems plausible there are two things that work in trump's favour, if you compare what his administration did to what past ones did. for one, his administration was largely incompetent, a consequence of trump's 'drain the swamp' ethos, which led him to replace a lot of competent functionaries with corrupt people who didn't know what they were doing, and who thus couldn't effectively do the things they wanted to do. and for another, their ostensible philosophy was isolationist (whether it actually was is a separate question). because of that philosophy, it's possible their administration killed fewer innocent people in other countries, started fewer wars, etc, than others. but i think we often don't even learn all the facts about those types of things for years, and it's not even a very considered opinion, so i might be wrong.

[rischka]

they may still get their war on. trump just replaced his defense secretary and pompeo is a huge iran hawk (and evangelical) dangerous times

also sending a bunch of hardware to UAE because they recognized israel. i expect he'd love to provoke a war for biden to deal with

it would give the boys something to do overseas so they wouldn't commit so much domestic terrorism maybe one possible bright side

greenwald is around the bend imo. going on tucker carlson pushing this bogus hunter's laptop story is just sad. maybe fox will give him a show tho

[rischka]

wonder what's happened to karl and if he still thinks toxic masculinity isn't a thing

the margin of bush-gore was like 750 votes when SCOTUS stopped the recount. trump wants to overturn 50,000 votes

head of our corona virus taskforce vp pence is going on vacation. i guess he wants to stay out of it

[...]

Talking about Trump's legacy before he's even out of office is premature at best and the metric used misses a great deal of the point of what makes Trump so dangerous. The threat Trump poses or maybe posed if you're an optimist is the destablization of the US internally by inciting racial tensions and through disregard for the constitution and all other established principles of governance within the US. That may indeed prove some immediate benefit to parts of the world where the US exerted illegal or otherwise immoral methods of influence, but should Trump's or just trumplike corruption and division continue within the US, then predicting what happens next both within the country and abroad becomes exceptionally difficult as the military machinery isn't going to disappear and major shifts in global power structures don't necessarily suggest greater global stability.

If you want to fine tune the claims to deny Trump the full influence and place it on all the associated trends that accompanied his rise to power, that'd be fine, but he is a major representative element those trends converged around here in the US and to some important extent abroad through his example. Until there is some sense of greater stability, in whatever form, I'm not willing to close the book on Trumpism as there are far too many who still support it and who've adopted his distorted view of the world and abandoned any sense of common good. If that just affects the US and not the rest of the world in any great measure, I wouldn't begrudge anyone outside the US from celebrating, even if internally those that suffer most would be likely to deserve it least. People in the US have long ignored everyone else, so turnabout would only be fair play, but the major, and perhaps only, real skill Trump had is in sowing chaos and coming out of it unscathed. That is, after all, the real power of privilege, it shields you from suffering right up until complete systemic collapse, at which point all bets are off for everyone.