The_Nybbler
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User ID: 174
Because we weren't born yesterday. The NYT is not some fringe; they're a major institution in the progressive machine that Kamala is a part of. And they are notorious for message discipline. If the NYT takes a shot at you, it's that machine taking a shot at you.
As for Trump's "democratic backsliding", I will note there is one party which attempted to remove their major opponent from the ballot in several states, had said opponent criminally convicted with the assistance of people from the Justice Department, and continues to make a mockery of the law by prosecuting him with an unauthorized prosecutor on the Federal level, and it's not the Republicans.
Members and allies of said party also attempted to violently disrupt the 2017 inauguration and physically interfered with the confirmation hearings on at least one of his appointed Supreme Court justices. Further, Democratic-allied members of the government bureaucracy both supported false information (e.g. the Steele dossier) and falsely denigrated true information (the Hunter Biden laptop) under the color of their authority. They also "partnered" with social media to suppress the Biden laptop story among others. The party which presents the by far the greatest threat to democracy is the Democrats.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
18hr ago
Scott being against Trump is one thing. Scott willing to support Harris is another. Scott was canceled by the establishment she is the titular head of. He is a traitor to himself, in the sense of adhering to his own enemies and giving them aid and comfort. That's a horrible thing, and the next time he gets canceled, I will not be in the least bit upset.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
1d ago
I'm pretty sure the British are done with the colonial game, which is too bad as they were one of the better players.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
1d ago
There is no allied-ish government, because the Palestinians have antagonized every possibility. The other Arab governments are happy for them to be a weapon against Israel, but they sure as hell don't want responsibility for them. Iran wants them even less.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
1d ago
Puerto Rico also literally has a trash problem (because its government is not just corrupt but incompetent)
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
2d ago
One might vote for a Romney, but not a Trump.
Not exactly. One might publicly flirt with the idea of voting for a Romney, before deciding to go ahead and vote for the Democrat after all.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
2d ago
So are we in a thermidor right now? Does this mean that the world has achieved peak bioleninism or will it be like 2016?
No. The tide continues to come in, even if one particular wave recedes.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
5d ago
This isn't a real argument at all. It's a sop to blue tribe "rationalists" (and others of similar beliefs) who can see all the problems with their preferred team, but cannot bring themself to consider voting for the other team. This kind of argument gives them a "rational" reason to keep voting Democratic. They fall for it every time, because they want to believe it. We saw it pushed for Biden too, where it had a somewhat better fig leaf. It turned out not to be true (right Admiral Levine?), but that doesn't matter; whatever gives permission to keep voting for Democrats is fine.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
5d ago
So when it comes down to it, all the nonsense about Trump's particular badness is irrelevant. It's "vote blue no matter who". You blame the MAGA people for driving the grownups out, but you'd take a Democrat over a Republican "grownup" anyway, so there's no reason a Republican should care about your ranking between MAGA and grownups.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
5d ago
Undertaxed? I was unaware that economists agreed on some optimal non-zero amount of taxation for purely economic reasons.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
6d ago
Trump got along just fine with Theresa May, as I recall. But in general, the Euros will be happy with any Democrat and dislike any Republican, regardless of anything; this is a group which includes those gave Obama a Nobel Peace Prize for not being George Bush.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
6d ago
The phrases "Worse than Trump" and "Like Trump but worse" are going to be VERY common in 2028. And you will disappointed.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
6d ago
Why are average people reading news then?
Because it makes them feel informed. And aligns them with their friends, co-workers, and acquaintances who also want to feel informed.
As it becomes more obvious to average people that a given source isn’t accurate, then it’s really only useful to the choir
The average people are the choir. People who care about the ground truth rather than the pravda are the weirdos, dissidents, and heretics. If the NYT starts telling them that IDF soldiers are headshotting kids in Israel, they start believing worse things about Israel. Even if they wanted to check, they can't, and they don't want to.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
6d ago
And it's entirely the fault of both parties for putting us here. The Republicans, for letting MAGA cultists take over the party and drive all serious grown-ups out, and the Democrats, for letting bad faith woke identity politics take over everything. And both of them, for turning us into a gerontocracy that very effectively shuts younger candidates out before they can even sniff a primary.
You should save some hatred for the "serious grown-ups" of the Republican party, who were both unable to defeat Democrats and also unable to maintain the respectability of the Republican party, leaving Trump's "fuck respectability" minimax strategy the only way to keep the party viable at all.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
6d ago
But it’s not exactly right. If you’re in a fact-selling business, being right is at least a small part of credibility.
Then they're not in a fact-selling business, because it isn't. Even if they were, their readers will never check the facts.
Which is why they’re failing as the source of information for the rabble who no longer believe what’s on 60 minutes and in the NYT or the mainstream press. And where that ends up is these “credible sources” can no longer see their purpose and therefore are abandoned.
No. Where that ends is pretty much here, where a majority still believe the NYT and 60 minutes and such, and some minority believes instead in Fox News and the Daily Caller. Eventually the majority group will take over Fox and bring some subset of the minority back into the fold.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
6d ago
I kind of agree here which is what makes this move so baffling. They know they’re not going to affect the outcome with this move, and they know that this kind of stupid reporting is only going to hurt their credibility.
If it doesn't make sense, and they keep doing it, and the disastrous results keep not happening, then perhaps your model is wrong. I think the part you've got wrong is thinking that their stupid reporting will hurt their credibility. Their credibility does not derive from them telling the truth. It derives from being credible institutions endorsed by credible institutions. Since the people behind them in fact control all the credible institutions, as long as they keep toeing the party line they will not lose credibility.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
7d ago
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
7d ago
Toleration, not celebration, should be the order of the day.
Perhaps intolerance should be on the table as well, particularly if it is spread via social contagion.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
7d ago
eventually, blue tribe parents winning over to supporting republicans will cause a change in political support.
Meet Mr. Eventually.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
7d ago
A couple of weeks ago in the weekly attempt to enforce consensus on the election issue there were plenty of practical ways. Thing is, they all involved actually taking things seriously, not having a prior of 0 on cheating, and not trying to paper over the problem to maintain the appearance of the integrity of the system. As long as your solution set is limited to "keep doing insecure elections, refuse to disallow obviously fishy things like ballot harvesting, and have no remedy when election laws are violated e.g. by ejecting observers or having the observers not be able to object", yes, you can't convince one side that things are on the up and up.
To that side, what you're asking is "how can we cheat outrageously and have the result be accepted by you?" and obviously the answer to that is "you can't".
Or, to quote @naraburns in that earlier thread, 'Because my answer to your question is "Well, it could stop rigging elections."'
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
8d ago
It's meaningless. The majority puts out their report saying "nothing to see here", there's a minority report saying "TOTAL FRAUD!!!!11111", and nothing changes except the "nothing to see here" people have another authority backing up their claims.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
8d ago
Yep. All the "solutions" are predicated on the idea that nothing can be done about any fraud, therefore the thing to be done to preserve the integrity of the system is to discredit anyone claiming there was any fraud.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
8d ago
although I’m calling anything with Freon outside of the realm of what a homeowner can do even if good with tools
Before they made you get a license, and for a lot of people long after, homeowners did do their own work with Freon. It's not rocket science, it's just reading gauges.
The_Nybbler
Does not have a yacht
8d ago
Such a commission would certainly be a whitewash, with all the Ds and all the never-Trumpers working to make sure nothing was exposed whether it was there or not.
"If you want law enforcement, don't complain when you get anarcho-tyranny instead". Yes, this strategy keeps "working", but it doesn't actually solve the problem better enforcement would.
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