SlowBoy
21d ago
Who has access to voting machines? Lots of people, presumably. It's not like we have a full list of all election workers who stand near a ballot. I went and voted early this week, there were two ballot machines, in the hullabaloo it would have been easy for someone to stick a USB in. How would you feel about the scenario, "My biggest enemy managed to get the BIOS password to my machine AND dozens of people have unsupervised access to my machine, and one of those people could or could not be my worst enemy."
SlowBoy
21d ago
In a secure operation, only a few people would have access to important passwords (like bios). Now, everybody has access to those passwords. The list of people who could be suspected of tampering with a ballot machine goes from documented individuals with a need-to-know to... everybody. And there would be lots of people with legitimate reason to handle a ballot machine who would not have legitimate reason to know those passwords. Lots of people handle ballot machines!
We know how to secure systems in this country, we do it all the time. If these passwords belonged to drones being used in Ukraine, the officer in charge wouldn't say, well, mistakes happen, but five day delays are normal, we shouldn't worry about Russia hacking into our systems, etc. etc.
SlowBoy
21d ago
And the people who install or maintain those machines would have access to all that information. A very small conspiracy could hijack voting machines. Slip in a USB, run a program, and it's done. Machines have to be updated and maintained all the time anyways. And it's totally feasible to write a program that infects other USBs plugged into the device: Infect one machine, and then some third unknowing party who maintains the machines ends up infecting more.
It would be very easy to do! How do we know that this isn't being done? We would need a thorough audit of machine votes and record systems, and that's a right-wing Republican dangerous conspiracy that undermines trust in our sacred democracy.
SlowBoy
23d ago
It was a rally where racial insults and epiphets were thrown around
Name some
SlowBoy
23d ago
I really don't think this matters all that much, except maybe to knock out the last gasp hopes of the Kamala campaign. (The Puerto Rico joke also didn't matter, mattered even less, except that it gave some Kamala operatives final hope for one last great push.)
There have been a thousand stories in the recent past where more and more of the American public is criticized by America's elected officials. What's one more? But somebody's going to lose this game of hot potato eventually, and Democrats are going to have a generational struggle to fix things if they're the last ones holding it.
SlowBoy
26d ago
We have years of Trump being in office and speaking with veterans and their families and they all come away talking about how much love Trump gave them. If you aren't familiar with Trump's well-documented love of the average soldier, you are either misinformed or uninformed.
I just posted a public tweet where Trump complains about Sessions not investigating Hillary, 2 months before Sessions was out. You know, that thing we were talking about that Trump supposedly dropped the investigation out of the kindness of his heart? Any response to that?
Sure, what's the actual wording of Trump's tweet:
“‘Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.’ Jeff, this is GREAT, what everyone wants, so look into all of the corruption on the ‘other side’ including deleted Emails, Comey lies & leaks, Mueller conflicts, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr, FISA abuse, Christopher Steele & his phony and corrupt Dossier, the Clinton Foundation, illegal surveillance of Trump campaign, Russian collusion by Dems – and so much more. Open up the papers & documents without redaction? Come on Jeff, you can do it, the country is waiting!”
This is not some blanket call to prosecute Hillary: this is the observation that, far from being a Justice Department that claims to be neutral, they are seriously investigating Trump while not touching amyone else. Hillary ran her own classified email server, Trump did not collude with Russia, which did Jeff Session's FBI investigate? Remember that Sessions was coerced into recusing on the logic that since he participated in Trump's campaign he couldn't be a neutral observer. Thankfully, after that, the FBI was totally politically neutral throughout the Trump presidency.
I listen to a bunch of podcasts. Joe Rogan is probably in the top ten.
If yoh listen to dozens of podcasts but can't listen to Trump talking about the Lincoln bedroom... it sounds like you like slop. I guess that's your perogative.
SlowBoy
27d ago
It's a great interview as a long-form conversation. Rogan and Trump go down many interesting paths, and both talk uninterrupted at length at various times. If you're still living in soundbite culture, I think that reflects worse on you than the interview. People are going to be talking about this for years.
SlowBoy
27d ago
Joe apparently didn't want to do this because he was worried it would end up being fluff or making Trump look good.
Joe said in the interview that he knew he wanted to do the interview as soon as Trump got shot. He goes on to say he wanted to wait for dramatic timing.
SlowBoy
27d ago
I think the Biden admin gets a lot of (bad) credit for the Ukrainian situation, but I will grant that it's a different category from the kinds of conflicts US presidents have gotten involved in until now. (For one, putting American soldiers in forever wars is extremely unpopular, there's some part of the body politic that thinks it's a great deal for us to only have to fight by proxy.)
SlowBoy
27d ago
Biden, to his credit, also didn't start any wars, probably because he is genuinely upset over the pointless loss of his son. That doesn't mean Biden was lucky or had marketing, it means he resisted the strong temptations of the MIC to manufacture new excuses to go to war. Which is Trump's credit! Every prior president going back 40 years started a new war, until Trump. It's not as though we have a sudden shortage of conflicts over which we could have gone to war.
SlowBoy
27d ago
He got attacked for using cemeteries for photo-ops, which is the opposite of respecting the military.
Guy goes to a funeral for families of veterans killed during the current administration. You have to dismiss this as a "photo op" because it's very good evidence that Trump has respect for the military. Oh no, he didn't follow some stupid rules about the correct official procedure for comforting grieving families, he just went to the funeral and spent time with the families, it's just a photo-op.
I'm not referring to your or Trump's general impression of McCain as a person. I'm referring to Trump's comments on McCain's military service. Coming from a guy who couldn't serve due to "heel spurs."
McCain was a horrible person who used his military service as a rhetorical shield to make war anywhere the MIC could make money. Trump rightly points out that McCain's service wasn't even all that honorable, he was a rat. Insulting McCain as a scumbag is no more disrespecting the military than mocking Rosie O'Donnell is hatred of women.
I'm not referring to his business deals, I'm referring to the way he treats his staff. Trump is unusually unable to retain staff.
Name a person you think would not have been fired except for Trump being a manchild. The reason Trump got rid of so many people is that so many of them were horrible. The reason so many of them were horrible is that DC is full of them.
This was Mueller conducting a government investigation and publishing his finding in a report. That comes with penalties for lying.
You are naive.
SlowBoy
27d ago
In addition, Trump was in NYC real estate, which from the nadir in the 1970s has seen valuation growth far exceed equities.
Trump created some of the most valuable property in the world, and the construction of Trump Tower inspired a renaissance in New York City architecture at a time when the city was considered to be dying and gone. Were these broader trends that would have happened without Trump? Maybe, but he's a huge part of it. Judging the success of NY real estate independent of Trump is like saying Coke should have closed up shop and just bought Pepsi.
The fact remains that his business performance is pretty poor
Trump is one of the richest men in the world. There are only something like 3,000 billionaires. If what he did wasn't all that impressive, there should be a lot more out there, an order of magnitude more. Why doesn't every guy with a reasonable fortune invest it all in the S&P 500, they're all underperforming the market.
Yes you can, especially in a relatively liquid market like NYC real estate. Investments are always judged against the broader market, what’s your point?
This is silly. You can't just liquidate tens of millions of dollars and sit on your ass for forty years. You have to live on something, you have to do something, you don't just throw money at the market. It's a full time job, managing money, and then you end up doing deals and making investments anyways. "Instead of spending years lifting weights, you would have performed better if you'd spent that time working out instead." Now imagine saying that to Arnold.
SlowBoy
27d ago
Probably some of the tech visionaries, if Elon comes anywhere close to Mars then his companies, some of the most valuable anywhere in the world, would be currently dramatically undervalued. Trump wants to dramatically expand energy and construction and those are good bets. Tariffs are intended as a policy to increase American manufacturing, which could imply a genre of good investments. If RFK is able to effectuate change at FDA it'd be good to bet on the health of the average person, and maybe against the worst excesses of big pharma.
SlowBoy
27d ago
ontinue being utterly addicted to it, and I also recall them being unconditionally defensive up until the point of the Musk takeover (which they resisted and continue to resist). If they wanted it de
In many cases they do use the same exact phrases in the headlines, converging on the same single words. There absolutely have to be journalist groupchats where some of the more cynical are coordinating.
SlowBoy
28d ago
I think this was a made-up attack line from cynics right when Trump ran, it's very obviously not true, very silly, and reflects badly on the people who believe it. It doesn't work like that, you can't just liquidate your whole net worth and invest in stocks and sit around earning money.
https://fortune.com/2015/08/20/donald-trump-index-funds/
Here's one estimate from 2015. They claim that Trump would have made money if he'd invested everything after 1988 -- yeah no, that's silly, he'd already turned his father's business into a major real-estate empire by then. You can't just play this game by picking any arbitrary year. Now that you've been massively, phenomonally, unbelievably successful, you're really a failure because the stock market beats you after this arbitrary date.
Here's one where Forbes concludes that Trump had beaten the market significantly, up until corona. Which means, at this point, we get to point and laugh at the failure of Donald Trump: haha, you lost valuation while you were president of the United States. You shluld have cashed it all in and bet on black Donald.
SlowBoy
28d ago
You're too jaded to see what's right in front of you. The billionaire rocket space man sees it. A Kennedy sees it. Vivek, JD Vance, Tulsi, etc. The Trump coalition is made up of many of Trump's worst former enemies, because he's a literal anime hero. This is why America is the greatest country on earth, because we believe in the power of friendship, we're going to fix the entire world, it's cringe all the way down. Trump started a movement and this is how the future will remember us: the Trump Era. The Trump Era was when we had Michael Jackson and Muhammed Ali and the internet and Trump. The Trump Era was either the era where Elon Musk brought mankind to Mars, or the last era where people dreamed big enough to believe it was possible. They had coca-cola, and big macs, and monster trucks, and guns. They were the fattest, loudest, dumbest, sickest, most foolish, most gullible, most annoying people on Earth. They did the most important things that have ever been done. They were the greatest people on Earth.
SlowBoy
28d ago
As a place where you can get rich? Sure. But he also seems to sneer at military service.
The guy has done dozens if not hundreds of events with vets and their families, he loves them, they love him, what are you talking about? He got attacked for going to Arlington and all of the vets there defended him. The Atlantic ran that story about Trump refusing to pay for a Mexican soldier's burial and the sister of the guy called it insulting and said that Trump was deeply moved. There are stories like these happening all the time, but these are two from just the last week.
Remember his attacks on McCain?
McCain was a horrible person!
I think he's used to getting his way,
The guy has been in business for sixty years, that involves doing a lot of business, a lot of deals. Supposing that Trump is just this manchild-lik baby who is "used to getting his way" is TDS.
According to the Mueller report he tried to get Sessions to go after Clinton but Sessions refused (pdf page 319). It would easily fit that he wasn't actually able to go after Hillary and is under investigation himself, so of course now he's going to say investigating former presidents is bad.
Obviously Trump is a political actor so we can't take his word at any sort of face value, but Robert Mueller, the esteemed Robert Mueller, not at all a political actor, his report says that Trump is bad! And we have to believe that.
According to the Mueller report he tried to get Sessions to go after Clinton but Sessions refused (pdf page 319). It would easily fit that he wasn't actually able to go after Hillary and is under investigation himself, so of course now he's going to say investigating former presidents is bad.
You sound like someone who hasn't actually watched Trump speak. Go watch any of his recent podcasts or interviews. He talks about it. He feels genuinely saved by God. He talks about religion in terms he didn't talk about before. It's not that cynical.
Most of the things he tried on his own initiative didn't seem to go anywhere.
North Korea, ISIS, border wall, tax cuts, border security, tariffs, NAFTA renegotiations, deregulation. The political class in DC spent years fighting this guy, he got a lot done, and now everything that the politicians spent years kicking and screaming trying to fight gets counted as a flaw of Trump's because we can't admit that Trump was actually competent. You just linked me a document written by Robert Mueller as part of a 3-year hoax meant to completely undermine Trump's presidency, and then rhetorically throw up your hands, gee, boy, Trump couldn't get a lot done, must because he's not a get-a-lot-done kind of guy.
SlowBoy
28d ago
I don't think he has a plan to become dictator, because that would be too much planning.
Go listen to the Joe Rogan interview or something, the career Donald Trump has had requires oodles of planning, the man is simply smart enough that he can plan and improvise on the plans and execute faster than most of the people around him. The idea that Trump can't plan or won't plan out of some personal foible is TDS. The man is one of the most successful people on the planet, that doesn't just happen.
Honestly, if there is any Trump-related derangement going on, your hagiographic description of him as if he's one of the greatest Americans to ever live strikes me as far more detached from the reality of the man.
The man took his father's modest real estate business in Queens and turned it into a premire luxury empire in New York. He convinced dozens of successful men to back his moonshot Trump Tower project, which he turned into a symbol of strength that revitalized the entire city. He built a tower at the city at the center of the world and put his name on it. Celebrities lined up to live there. The Trump name became synonymous with luxury all over the world. How many people could do that? There is not a single person having this discussion, here, twitter, TV, cable news, blogging -- capable of doing any of that, and Trump had a big enough vision to see it all from the beginning.
Trump turned that into an incredibly lucrative real estate empire, doing constant deals, being involved in projects all over the world, synonymous with luxury. He dated supermodels, consecutively, raised a family with them. Did business all over the world, went bankrupt a few times, reinvented himself in reality TV, casinos. The man is involved in hundreds of projects that don't reach
Fine, none of that means anything, he's just a businessman at this point, and we have lots of those. But within that world he's been incredibly, exceptionally successful, one of the richest men in the world, objectively loaded with one of the most interesting biographies in American history. His uncle had the Tesla patents and was a professor at MIT. His third wife was a Slovenian supermodel.
Then he gives all that up to run for President, and he runs on the message that the American dream is dead, and nobody believes in it anymore, but that's wrong, we're the greatest country on earth, and we're going to be greater than ever before, we have the people and the factories and the talent and the work, and that's what America is, and it's so easy, I've done it myself and I will teach you.
I don't think this is being hagiographic: The man is so ludicrously competent and successful that few people are even capable of judging it. Nobody wants to believe it, everyone has to be cynical and above-it-all. The man is just constantly working on hundreds of projects that nobody hears about, and so we just hear about Trump steaks or the University or some other silly throwaway remark he didn't consider important at all, and we talk about these trivial nothings. It's so much easier to believe that he's a conman, or that cynicism is warranted and valid and always good -- and it sounds ridiculous to say: Actually, Trump is good, and that doesn't come with qualifications or criticism, because he's right. He's right about everything, we have the capacity to be great and he's done it before and he's going to show us.
Donald Trump is literally rewriting history, this is how people are going to think about it in the future. In 2015 he started the primary with 1%, and he took that and grew it into one of the most successful political movements in American history, he reignited the imagionations of millions of people. Nobody fifty years from now is going to remember Trump Steaks, or Stormy Daniels, or whatever the controversy du jour that cynics are talking about in the corner. People are going to remember that this man saved his country, he got shot in the head and chanted "Fight, fight, fight!," you don't know how to win but I will teach you, we can be greater than ever before, you're not ordinary, we are the greatest people on Earth. We talk like he talks now, we think about him constantly, some of his worst enemies have become his greatest allies. If Naruto Uzumaki was real and in the world, I woudln't sit around saying, gee, this Naruto guy has a lot of flaws, I need to be rationally critical of him, maybe he's done some cool things but he's not that great, really. I would say, wow, amazing, how can I be more like this guy? And this is what Trump is, this is what he does, he's the main character. That's the world he's creating, and instead of sitting on the sidelines scoffing at how at least I'm not a sycophant, I'm rational, look at me, I can say something negative about Trump -- I'm going to admire everything the man is capable of and figure out how to be more and more like him. That's actually the only way to Make America Great Again, to dream bigger than ever before because we are the greatest people of all time, ever, in the whole history of the human race, and it's our task to build the new world.
SlowBoy
28d ago
but if anyone who thinks he's a con, a huckster, and yes, corrupt enough to become dictator if handed the opportunity has irrational TDS
Yes, thinking that Donald Trump is going to become a dictator is TDS. Likewise, in the fields of construction reality TV politics business and marketing he's probably one of the most successful Americans ever. The guy redefined construction in Manhattan and turned his properties into a billion-dollar empire, spending a life constructing properties and projects all around the world, synonymous with luxury, just the ones in the public consciousness, then he got bored and did reality TV and dated supermodels and became President of the United States in his 70s -- sure, he's a conman because he did Steaks or whatever. Yeah, Trump really didn't do anything all that interesting really, and you're perceptive to see right through his little deception game.
Dude, I'm sure you really believe that and having read your posts over the last few months, there isn't much else I can say that would be charitable, but I will say that if Trump becomes president I will genuinely wish for him to prove you right and me wrong.
We have rockets that can land on towers in the air now. We are going to build a spirit of building things again, we are going to make America great again, greater than ever before. We have the capacity, we have the smartest people in the world, we have factories lying empty ready to turn on, we have so much potential, nobody has ever had potential like we have. America is the New World, the Classical era and the Renaissance have nothing on what we can do.
Maybe not. And what is your glory? Chanting "MAGA" at doubters?
My friends and I are some of the smartest people in the world, and some of those people are even here on this forum, and I believe we can all move forward onto great and glorious things.
SlowBoy
28d ago
no major wars broke out on his watch
Wars aren't an act of God that just happen, the last dozen major wars America has participated in were all designed by politicians. Is Trump "lucky" that he didn't decide to decapitate Gaddafi? Maybe he got lucky that he didn't invade Iraq?
So what I’m left with is an incompetent ruler with excellent branding.
I'm watching the Joe Rogan interview right now and it's fascinating -- Trump talking about political deals, environmental impact, construction, entering the White House, tariffs and the economy, etc. etc. -- and then I go on The Motte and some guy says that Trump is obviously incompetent because he didn't do whatever it is you're personally in favor of.
and he’s really not that much different from GW Bush or Bill Clinton.
That's half the point, right? That Trump is a 90's Democrat and the left went crazy and so he became a Republican. But that's also a silly self-limiting frame, because Trump is obviously better than both GW Bush and Clinton. (Ruby Ridge, "Read my lips," etc.)
SlowBoy
28d ago
I do not have TDS, I do not think he is Literally Hitler, but I do think he's a con, a huckster, an embarrassing buffoon who I believe actually loves America as much as I believe he goes to church on Sunday and has ever read the Bible in his life. I think he totally would become an absolute dictator if he could manage it, but it would require too much effort and political acumen and cunning, which he does not have.
That's just TDS with extra steps. You think Donald Trump doesn't love America? You think he wants to become a dictator? The man is pretty open and forthcoming in recent podcasts and interviews, he talks about not wanting to charge Hillary for precedent it would set, not wanting to replace the Secret Service with his own bodyguard, how the assassination attempt has made him reconsider his relationship to God, etc.
He has a huge personality and charisma, and some people think that translates into him being a skilled politician. He's not. He's got performer's instincts and a gift for graft.
I cannot possibly imagine what your definition of "skilled politician" would be that completely excludes Donald Trump. Ten years ago the man was a political laughingstock and he now leads one of the most significant political movements in American history.
This doesn't really make him unique among American presidents, but it makes him uniquely bad in this time and place.
Before Trump, we were wailing about wokes and the death of civilization and riding the decline. Now a significant part of the country not only believes in Making America Great Again, but Greater Than Ever Before. Trump managed to add to this coalition a literal Kennedy, working class blue collar union workers, tech CEOs, evangelicals, and the long-forgotten spirit of American endeavors.
I can't convince you to believe the things I believe, I guess, but I think it's your attitude that's wrong with America today, not Trump's. Win or lose Trump is doing glorious things and awakening a spirit that wants to build America and make it great again. You will never do anything glorious.
SlowBoy
28d ago
The man got shot in the head and then stood up, faced the crowd, and pumped his fist changing "Fight!" He ran for President and destroyed any chance of a peaceful quiet retirement because he felt called. He didn't have to do any of this.
Instead of positing that a promise unfulfilled is some kind of cowardice (because Trump can never be imagined to possess any good qualities), why not just suppose Trump changed his mind? You can say he changed his mind for bad reasons, you can even suggest that you would have done a better job if you want.
This poll is a complete outlier in the wrong direction. It's not just that it's different from all other polls (which are probably herded to a close split 50-50 so nobody has egg). It's that it's totally divorced from every other fundamental. Republican early turnout is up, voter registration is up, enthusiasm and endorsements are up. Trump is the most popular he's ever been, he's bringing Democrats like Gabbard and RFK onto MAGA, he's got billionaire and tech endorsements, Muslims in Dearborn and Minneapolis are endorsing him, he's filling out rallies in New Mexico and New York. Trump got 40M views on Joe Rogan, Kamala wouldn't even go. If Kamala was winning in Iowa, why isn't she campaigning there? Tim Walz is in the state next door, it would be trivial for him to go. They're campaigning in Pennsylvania. And wouldn't Kamala be more popular? Major newspapers are withholding endorsements, her rallies are tepid at best, shouting broke out at one because attendees didn't get their promised Beyonce concert. It's possible this poll is right and every other indication is wrong -- but then, aren't the crosstabs of this poll awfully convenient? Republicans are apparently shifting further left than Independents, and after 4 years of Biden-Harris, inflation, immigration, and Ukraine, voter's biggest concern is... Abortion? In Iowa?
This is too much, it's not worth taking seriously. Maybe, really really, everything else is wrong and this one poll is right, but it's not very likely. I don't know why this poll gets so much credulity here. It's like listening to a LLM, which has no experience of the world, and has no reference or context. It's possible this one outlier poll is right. But it's exceptionally unlikely. And in the world of crazy outlier predictions, there are lots of other outliers that are just as credible.
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