SlowBoy
2mo ago
JD Vance folded, said that he was making things up to get the conversation going.
That's not exactly what he said.
Trump hasn't mentioned it once more.
So what? Trump is a busy guy. He isn't exactly backing off. He just had to deal with the fallout of a second assassin. Then he gives appearances and interviews. I could post a 20-minute monologue Trump just made connecting Tariffs, the Afghanistan pullout, China selling weapons, and the destiny of Michigan and its auto industry to be even greager than it has ever been.
The point was fumbled, and memory holing is the best strategy.
What point was fumbled? The Biden-Harris is bringing in millions of illegals under TPS and dumping them in small towns. They drive down wages and are a strain on basic social services. They kill people with reckless driving. Landlords use them to drive out tenants for more money. And some of them are even eating pets.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
This sounds like an argument against cheap social media simulacra, not humor.
I know the kind of conversations you're talking about, and either the other person is immature, or covering up social awkwardness with humor. I have a lot of good friends who don't talk like this.
I'm mildly surprised this hasn't been discussed in the main thread. But I guess I can predict how it will go.
I'm a fan of the autotunes and dance remixes personally. There are several good ones, including one I'm partial to where the guy autotunes a howling dog as a backup singer. Would really enjoy going to a good dance party and hitting a few strides to "They're eating the cats, they're eating the cats" between Chappell Roan or something.
Edit: As an addendum, the second-best meme of the cycle is the series of coconut tree dance remixes from Kamala's announcement PR team meme blitz, for the same reason.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
I don't have a problem with it spilling into this thread and I think we're actually on the same side here -- I just think it's really a waste to sit around worrying about every element of it. "Bully" here is a shorthand for, something like, I think this kind of thinking is bad for you and should be discouraged and I personally
SlowBoy
2mo ago
I don't know if saying this is against the rules, so I'm trying to say this politely: I think this kind of posting needs to be bullied. Low-effort whining about how the minutiae of every debate moment and quip is a depressing state of mind. It's extremely tiresome -- Trump raised himself from private citizen to President of the United States by shitposting and debating, backseat driving is extremely tedious.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
Putting aside I guarantee in the late 19th century there was in fact plenty of examples of massive population changes,
19th century immigrants weren't getting flown in on taxpayer dime while being eligible for massive welfare and benefits. 19th century immigrants brought a lot of crime and ethnic mafias. Many of the worst ended up leaving America.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
When the Biden administration came in they tore up Trump's agreement with the Taliban in their desire to avoid ever giving Trump credit. Then followed the debacle. Trump deserves the "blame" for starting this chain of events, but hes right to note that Biden could have handled events better -- for example, not leaving all our weapons for the Taliban to pick up off the ground.
Criticizing America's poor leadership is one of the great themes of Trump's tenure in politics.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
This is one of the worst kinds of post. You can't even clarify what "might be exaggerated" before you go on to imply that your enemies are lazy. Are there not 20,000k migrants? Yeah, whatever, let's talk about the real problem: some comment I read online somewhere.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
The three stools of Trump's original 2016 campaign were: illegal immigration, tariffs, and ending wars.
Tariffs were so successful that Biden continued many of them.
Ending wars was so popular that Biden also basically didn't start any new wars.
Illegal immigration: when Trump took this up in 2016 he was the only GOP politician talking about it, now it's mainstream. The wall went from being violently opposed to routine funding in Kamala's budget.
Trump is the most popular politician in America.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
Also, why would you want Trump to come down for either nuclear or crypto?
Why would you not want the President of the United States to be on your side?
SlowBoy
2mo ago
Bring up Hannibal Lecter in your own answers (seriously what's the deal with that)?
What do you mean what's with it? It's a joke in a laugh line Trump has given in a few speeches. It's not esoteric.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
"This is why you can't have a woman as president, the're too nasty." Trump loses hard on comments like this.
Well, he didn't say that for Hillary.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
Trump is the moderate realignment candidate, this is why he's backing off abortion and being endorsed by Kennedy, Tulsi Gabbard, and Elon Musk. The odds of Trump using a racial slur are zero, because like his decorum or not he comes from a generation that finds such things unspeakable. (If he didn't say it about Michael Jackson or Muhammed Ali why would Trump wait 80 years and then start dropping slurs now?)
His biggest vulnerability on that front is that he's surrounded himself with extremist weirdos who have fairly radical ambitions
Like the Biden administration? Like Kamala?
SlowBoy
2mo ago
Polls in 2016 and 2020 had Trump ten points behind. He wasn't. Now polls have him tied or ahead. He's going to win.
Kamala is abad candidate. Her early stage momentum is over. There will probably be new twists and astroturfs and a few October Surprises. It's hard to predict exactly what's going to happen. But two months ago Democrats felt terrible about Kamala becoming the nominee, and I suspect that's the baseline to which they will return.
Also I don't think Trump is playing defense. The man does not stop. He was hit in the head with a bullet and then started a fight chant. He allied with RFK the day after Kamala's speech at the convention. To the extent the secret service will let him he's still giving packed rallies promising mass deportations. Meanwhile they're trying and failing to put this man in jail. Nothing has stopped him. Abortion is a speed-bump and if the media isn't talking about him it's because they're trying a new way to beat him. It won't work.
I'm voting Trump and I'm having fun.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
Kind of a shame really, because it's not as though genuine corruption dries up and goes away forever. You can't bribe politicians, but you can hire their children, or donate to their foundations. Maybe someone can make a case that cracking down on gifts is good -- cracking down on explicit bribes is good. But any culture that facilitates gift-giving is personal and human and doing something more than just facilitating efficient market transactions.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
but the Republicans had just spend 2 and a half years looking into Obama's comments after the Benghazi attack. The fact that people who seemed passionate about that at the time couldn't even adequately explain to me what the scandal even was tells you all you need to know.
Americans working at the Libyan embassy died after it was invaded by a crazed mob. Turns out the Obama administration had advanced notice this was possible, but chose not to increase security. After the incident, to cover their asses, they framed the maker of an unrelated anti-Islam documentary for inciting the mob, and prosecuted him. Then, in the years that followed, they all insisted that nothing untoward had happened whatsoever, and it was all a case of "Republicans pounced". A microcosm of Obama's (Hillary's) Libya policy, which replaced a dictator with a broke country that has become a civil war, an open-air slave market, and a transit hub for migrants into Europe. "We came, we saw, he died." Now, ten years on, Democrats have successfully convinced themselves that nothing happened and talking about Benghazi is proof that the speaker is some Republican crank who probably tends toward conspirwcy theories.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
This is a pretty weak justification for what turned out to be a total media fantasy and witchhunt.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
he's never really gained much from debates, he's just treaded water.
This is a pretty bizarre standard, because generally debates don't matter much at all. Who remembers the 2008 or 2012 debates? As I recall Romney was generally considered to win a few debates against Obama, but it didn't really matter and nobody cared. Trump, by contrast, used the 2015 debates to win the primary, the 2nd debate with Hillary to revive his campaign after the Billy Bush tapes, and now his debate with Biden to force an unprecedented mid-election switch. Declaring that Trump is a bad debater is one of those stylistic preferences, where people who already don't like Trump conclude he isn't actually good at anything.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
Trump has been subjected to intense public scrutiny. He speaks in public over and over and over again. We know what it would look like if he were senile: his handlers would hide him from the public and run a front-porch campaign, as they did with Biden, as they're essentially doing with Kamala.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
The longer Kamala speaks uninterrupted, the more incoherent she appears. Thus, her teams wants the debate to be a continuous conversation: She interrupts Trump, he interrupts her, and she doesn't get bound up in 2 minute rambling answers. This is the opposite of Joe, who can no longer adapt quickly to a live conversation, so they wanted closed mics so he could recite rehearsed answers.
The twitter PR spin (that comes from Kamala's handlers, almost certainly not Kamala herself) is just spin. I think you have to be very credulous to believe that Trump is scared of debating Kamala Harris. Likewise, I don't imagine that Kamala's brain trust is a brilliant team of superplanners. They probably just figured this was an attack line that sounded good. I don't think it is.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
What are you talking about? Trump speaks in public regularly and gives frequent interviews. These interviews are more critical than anything Kamala Harris or Joe Biden are subjected to. Trump was literally just shot in the head at a rally and had the presence of mind to stand up and pump his fist yelling, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" Before that, he debated Joe Biden in conditions that lead to Biden having to resign from the race. He was just at Arlington and gave several appearances in public there. What decline? Trump isn't hiding.
SlowBoy
2mo ago
https://x.com/greg_price11/status/1829250723659559419
Kamala: "The climate crisis is real that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time."
Kamala Harris is probably the stupidest major parth candidate of the last 30 years. Hillary, for all her flaws, was cunning and smart. Once people internalize that Kamala isn't smart -- she wants to tax unrealized gains, she wants to end gasoline cars, she can't fix the border -- people will not accept Kamala as "less of a disaster".
SlowBoy
2mo ago
In 2016, at this time, Trump was supposedly -10.
In 2020, at this time, Trump was supposedly -10.
Now, polls have Trump around -2 to +2. He looks great in swing states. The indictments consolidated support, the assassination attempt consolidated support, and RFK's endorsement represents a new base of support. Trump looks better than he's ever looked, his favorables are better than they've ever been, 4 years of Biden makes Trump's presidency look even better in hindsight -- and somehow, all I hear on the Motte is how Trump is definitely, for sure, this time, we mean it, decisively, finally, no joke, losing.
There's also this tweet of a Springfield city manager saying he bas received complaints about people losing their lets:
https://x.com/GrageDustin/status/1836178999178866766
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