Merged 2024 Election Thread

[johnny karate]

Amazing display of a severe lack of education. To compare Jefferson Davis to Pol Pot is ridiculous. Though they were both Democrats. I'd allow you that much.

Trying to follow the argument here: Is a monument to Jefferson Davis bad or good? If it's bad, why do you defend it? If it's good, why are you pointing out he was a Democrat? And if Jefferson Davis being a Democrat is relevant, why is it that only modern Republicans defend his monuments?

 

[Hercules56]

It seems destruction of property has become a tool of the Left more and more. I would suggest that understanding History and historical places would be a much better way of improving one's self. Try to focus on understanding rather than destruction.

As an example I would submit the current destruction of Gaza and Ukraine. Surely we can agree war is wrong. To allow war is wrong. Yet this never ending wars theme among Democrats seems to survive. How is that possible? Why do you support funding foreign wars or US participation? Wouldn't peace be better? That alone is reason to vote for Trump against Biden.

You had no problem when Republican Bush declared war on Iraq, even though they never attacked us.

 

[Stacyhs]

Trying to follow the argument here: Is a monument to Jefferson Davis bad or good? If it's bad, why do you defend it? If it's good, why are you pointing out he was a Democrat? And if Jefferson Davis being a Democrat is relevant, why is it that only modern Republicans defend his monuments?

Someone needs a history lesson. Saying Davis was a Democrat is like saying Lincoln was a Republican. Technically true, but completely dishonest as Southern Democrats in the 1860's were pro-slavery Conservatives. The two parties basically switched ideology while keeping their names. This is why the South, which was a Democrat stronghold until the 1960's and the Civil Rights movement, became overwhelmingly a Republican stronghold.

The Republican party was originally founded in the mid-1800s to oppose immigration and the spread of slavery, says David Goldfield, whose new book on American politics, The Gifted Generation: When Government Was Good, comes out in November.

“The Republican party was strictly a sectional party, meaning that it just did not exist in the South,” he says. “The South couldn’t care less about immigration.” But it did care about preserving slavery.

After the Civil War, the Democratic party’s opposition to Republican Reconstruction legislation solidified its hold on the South.

“The Democratic party came to be more than a political party in the South—it came to be a defender of a way of life,” Goldfield says. “And that way of life was the restoration as much as possible of white supremacy … The Confederate statues you see all around were primarily erected by Democrats.”

Up until the post-World War II period, the party’s hold on the region was so entrenched that Southern politicians usually couldn’t get elected unless they were Democrats. But when President Harry S. Truman, a Democratic Southerner, introduced a pro-civil rights platform at the party’s 1948 convention, a faction walked out.

These defectors, known as the “Dixiecrats,” held a separate convention in Birmingham, Alabama. There, they nominated South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, a staunch opposer of civil rights, to run for president on their “States’ Rights” ticket. Although Thurmond lost the election to Truman, he still won over a million popular votes.

It “was the first time since before the Civil War that the South was not solidly Democratic,” Goldfield says. “And that began the erosion of the southern influence in the Democratic party.”

After that, the majority of the South still continued to vote Democratic because it thought of the Republican party as the party of Abraham Lincoln and Reconstruction. The big break didn’t come until President Johnson, another Southern Democrat, signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

 

[Aridas]

Someone needs a history lesson. Saying Davis was a Democrat is like saying Lincoln was a Republican. Technically true, but completely dishonest as Southern Democrats in the 1860's were pro-slavery Conservatives. The two parties basically switched ideology while keeping their names. This is why the South, which was a Democrat stronghold until the 1960's and the Civil Rights movement, became overwhelmingly a Republican stronghold.

To add to this little side track a little, Pol Pot would fairly certainly be far more aligned with present day MAGA Republicans than he would be with present day Democrats, regardless of what it may or may not have been in the distant past before the Southern Strategy flipped a bunch of things. His adherence to left-wing ideals was superficial, at best and, well...

Pol Pot's government was totalitarian,[415] and he has been described as a dictator.[416] Pol Pot desired autarky, or complete self-sufficiency, for Cambodia.[417] Short suggested that Pol Pot had been "an authentic spokesman" for the yearning that many Khmer felt for "the return of their former greatness", the era of the Khmer Empire.[418] Chandler noted that Pol Pot, like previous Cambodian leaders, emphasised the belief that Cambodia was purer than other nations.[419] The party leadership has been described as xenophobic.[420] Pol Pot repeatedly stated or implied that Cambodians were an intrinsically superior group to other ethnic or national groups and that they were immune to foreign influences.[421] Short also noted that the Khmer Rouge generally regarded foreigners as enemies; during the Cambodian civil war, they killed numerous foreign journalists whom they captured, whereas the Vietnamese Marxists typically let them go.

A lot of rather familiar MAGA themes there, really.

 

[Brainster]

I find it ironic/hypocritical that the same people who claim taking down Confederate monuments is 'erasing history' are the same people who have no problem with FL's teaching standard that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Talk about erasing history...

Look up Robert Smalls some time. You won't regret this read.

 

[Paul2]

Look up Robert Smalls some time. You won't regret this read.

I read a bit past his daring escape. One cool customer.

 

[Resume]

Look up Robert Smalls some time. You won't regret this read.

I read a bit past his daring escape. One cool customer.

I was going to ask why this story isn't a movie but I see a biopic might be in development.

 

[dirtywick]

hopefully they never tear down the monument of his owner

 

[Brainster]

I read a bit past his daring escape. One cool customer.

Did you get to the part where he moved back after the war and purchased his former master's home (which had been seized for non-payment of taxes)? That, to me, is the cherry on the top of the whole story.

 

[Stacyhs]

Look up Robert Smalls some time. You won't regret this read.

Interesting read.

 

[Brainster]

Here's an article talking about how slowly the Trump campaign is ramping up for the general election, compared to Biden's efforts:

Widely praised for its professionalism and effectiveness throughout the primary phase of the 2024 election, Trump’s political operation has been slow to pivot toward the general election in the weeks after executing a hostile takeover of the Republican Party’s national political machinery. In fact, the former president’s team has rolled back plans under previous leaders to add hundreds of staff and dozens of new minority-outreach centers in key states without offering a clear alternative.

They may not be clear about it, but the alternative seems to be using the money Trump is raising to pay his legal bills.

Meanwhile Biden is busy:

This month alone, Biden opened 100 new offices and added more than 350 new staffers in swing states from Arizona to Georgia to Pennsylvania, according to campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa. That’s in addition to the Democratic president’s existing battleground-state staff of 100 that was already in place.

 

[Aridas]

Mmm. This is a decent jab from the Biden-Harris campaign.

America deserves better than a feeble, confused, and tired Donald Trump.

In other election news, Kennedy picked a VP. Of more interest, Kennedy picked a very rich VP who can likely now use a lot more money for their Republican-made spoiler campaign. In more gossipy notes about Kennedy's VP pick, reportedly, she's rich in in large part because of her former marriage to a Google co-founder. A former marriage that she supposedly ruined when she slept with Elon Musk.

 

[Brainster]

Mmm. This is a decent jab from the Biden-Harris campaign.

I see the push out there to say that Trump's just as senile as Biden. It might work, because DJT is certainly prone to embarrassing statements.

In other election news, Kennedy picked a VP. Of more interest, Kennedy picked a very rich VP who can likely now use a lot more money for their Republican-made spoiler campaign. In more gossipy notes about Kennedy's VP pick, reportedly, she's rich in in large part because of her former marriage to a Google co-founder. A former marriage that she supposedly ruined when she slept with Elon Musk.

Reportedly? She's certainly rich due to her former marriage to Sergei Brin. As for the rumor about her and Musk, both deny it. I don't support Kennedy and reports indicate she's as nutty as he is about vaccines, so thumbs down on the candidacy, but based on her beliefs, not what she did in her private life.

 

[Aridas]

I don't support Kennedy and reports indicate she's as nutty as he is about vaccines, so thumbs down on the candidacy, but based on her beliefs, not what she did in her private life.

Sure. Thumbs down on the candidacy because of the beliefs, not the private life. I think that's pretty much a given. Said rumor would still haunt the field, though, regardless, making the pick all the more odd if it was an actual serious bid for the Presidency, rather than an attempted spoiler run.

 

[Stacyhs]

I don't support Kennedy and reports indicate she's as nutty as he is about vaccines, so thumbs down on the candidacy, but based on her beliefs, not what she did in her private life.

But ELON MUSK?

 

[Stacyhs]

Last night Biden raised over $25 million. His campaign war chest has more than twice what Trump's does. And he didn't even have to sell NFT trading cards, gold trainers or Bibles to do it. Speaking of his NFT trading cards:

Donald Trump's digital trading cards have been pulled from sale until the end of the year.

A source from NFT trading platform OpenSea confirmed to Newsweek that the cards had been removed from their platform but did not elaborate as to why.

Regarding the cards being pulled, the OpenSea source told Newsweek: "This collection, Trump Digital Trading Cards, is non-transferable until December 31, 2024. This means the collection is disabled for secondary market buying and selling until that date. Because this is enforced by the creator, we're unable to override this."

 

[Orphia Nay]

Last night Biden raised over $25 million.

“Three presidents... and none of them are here [in New York] to go to court” - Stephen Colbert at the event attended by Biden, Obama, and Bill Clinton.

 

[Aridas]

To poke back for just a moment to ChrisBFRPKY's "peace" argument, there's a particular line from ISW that sums it up fairly succinctly.

Russia is hijacking and substituting key concepts of Western debate about this war, such as notions of peace and defense, contributing to Western category errors about both.

There's a notably longer analysis that backs that up, but I don't think that there's much cause to delve deeply into it at the second.

Of note when it comes to the "endless wars" bit, too -

America’s past wars are distorting America’s understanding of Russia’s war against Ukraine. US concern about endless wars is a result of its experiences in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. But US debate about the risks of a long war in Ukraine revolves around a profound category error in discussing this war as if the United States were fighting it.[39] The United States is not fighting in Ukraine and should not discuss the costs to the United States as if it were. Ukraine, a US partner, is fighting this war against a US adversary. It is not a US proxy — Ukraine is fighting for its own reasons, not ours. And Ukraine has never asked for American soldiers to fight — only for material and financial support. US psychological scars from previous American conflicts have no place in discussions about what the United States should do vis-a-vis Ukraine.

Suffice it to say that phrases like "peace" and "endless wars" are being used wrongly by ChrisBFRPKY and there's identifiable cause for where much of that's coming from as a general matter. Control the premises being used and predictable assessments will generally follow, even if the premises are farcical on real examination.

 

[Paul2]

To poke back for just a moment to ChrisBFRPKY's "peace" argument, there's a particular line from ISW that sums it up fairly succinctly.



There's a notably longer analysis that backs that up, but I don't think that there's much cause to delve deeply into it at the second.

Of note when it comes to the "endless wars" bit, too -



Suffice it to say that phrases like "peace" and "endless wars" are being used wrongly by ChrisBFRPKY and there's identifiable cause for where much of that's coming from as a general matter. Control the premises being used and predictable assessments will generally follow, even if the premises are farcical on real examination.

Astute. Nicely done.

 

[dirtywick]

defending democracy isn't exactly at the top of republican priorities these days. i'm not even sure it's a factor in their israeli support, and ukraine isn't part of some end days christian prophecy.