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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   30012 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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Maybe very slightly, but I'd still have been pretty unhappy. It's within the realm of possibility, though unlikely, that DeSantis could convince me to vote for him. Newsom I hold in about as much contempt as I hold Harris.

Then I don’t know what you are asking for. DeSantis is quite clearly an exceptional governor. He doesn’t just mouth certain positions but excels at running government and was tested under extreme pressures during covid era and came through with flying colors. He is pretty much the definition of “serious politician.” So if the complaint is “we don’t have serious politicians” why sour on DeSantis?

Well, I do have criteria beyond seriousness. Like I'd actually like to be ideologically aligned with them. Obviously I'm unlikely to vote for a right-winger unless he's just that awesome or his opponent is just that terrible.

Sure. But RDS is that awesome and Harris is just that terrible. It seems your concern isn’t really about Trump; it is about Harris.

It's both. Honestly kind of baffling to me that I wrote a long, admittedly heated post about how much I dislike both of them, and because my disdain is not 100% perfectly balanced (or, let's be real, because I have any disdain at all for your candidate), the conclusion is that I don't have real concerns.

RDS awesome? I agree that he's serious and capable; that doesn't mean I agree with his politics. A smart and capable politician can still be working towards ends I disagree with.

No I’m calling out your fake both sides here. You would generally hate anyone on the R side. But yet your post was basically “both candidates suck because they aren’t serious.” But when you peel the onion back a bit it isn’t the seriousness that you object to on the R side; it is the policies. Which of course that’s reasonable! But say that—don’t complain about candidate quality.

You're wrong. I don't generally hate everyone on the R side. Don't know what else to tell you, since you clearly prefer to construct an imaginary opponent who believes what you say they believe and not what they say they believe.

If it were DeSantis vs. Harris, my post would not be "both sides suck because they aren't serious." I'd be unhappy about the unserious, woke, midwit Harris vs. a right wing candidate who will enact other policies I don't like.

I don't hate Desantis. Really, I don't hate Trump, at least not in a personal way. I hate very few people. Even the people who make it clear how much they'd like to poke me in the eye with a sharp stick.

Conflict theory has its uses and I understand why people find it comforting and affirming, but it often fails as an accurate model of your opponents.

So describe the kind of Republican you’d like?

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.

Do you even read before you start banging your keyboard? No. I have voted for Republicans in the past (not often, but occasionally) and I just said I could be persuaded to vote for DeSantis. (In a DeSantis vs. Newsom match, for example, or DeSantis vs. Harris, I might hold my nose and vote for DeSantis.) I wrote a lengthy post about how I am not "voting blue no matter who."

Sorry I was unclear. It was an either question between the two, not whether you'd prefer either two to the current slate. But still, you've kind of answered what I was trying to get out. You go through such a long rant about how uniquely bad these two candidates are; but the next two most likely are 'maybe very slightly' better?

Well, not sure how to quantify "very slightly better." Yes, I think the entire slate of both parties has been pretty shitty for the past few years, but Trump and Harris are pretty much the nadir, IMO.

Trump and Harris are pretty much the nadir, IMO.

Actually, Nader’s last run for president was in 2008.

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