Objectively intelligent.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

There most certainly is an “other side.“

I'm not sure which is more charming -- your insistence that everyone else is polarized and cynical and is playing a part in partisan warfare, or your conceit that you are a free-thinking, independent thinker, unaligned with either side.

[SEC_Chick]

Hi all! Just checking to see if you all are enjoying the 2020 Democratic race, that now is a reprisal of the 2016 GOP primary. This time, the role of John Kasich is being played by Amy Klobuchar.

It is inevitable that Bernie will receive the largest plurality of the delegates. So he will get the nomination, or Bernie Bros will riot if he does not.

Nominating Bernie seems like a bet the House move. As in literally. This is the only possible scenario for the GOP taking back the House. I think there is a chance Bernie will win, but on the whole the odds favor a second Trump term. I know the Democrats don't care about nominating the kind of person a Republican could vote for, but Bernie is almost the candidate to make me say "screw it" and vote Trump. Almost.

We are a decadent and unserious people and it seems we are getting the candidates we deserve.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

Hi all! Just checking to see if you all are enjoying the 2020 Democratic race, that now is a reprisal of the 2016 GOP primary. This time, the role of John Kasich is being played by Amy Klobuchar.

It is inevitable that Bernie will receive the largest plurality of the delegates. So he will get the nomination, or Bernie Bros will riot if he does not.

Nominating Bernie seems like a bet the House move. As in literally. This is the only possible scenario for the GOP taking back the House. I think there is a chance Bernie will win, but on the whole the odds favor a second Trump term. I know the Democrats don't care about nominating the kind of person a Republican could vote for, but Bernie is almost the candidate to make me say "screw it" and vote Trump. Almost.

We are a decadent and unserious people and it seems we are getting the candidates we deserve.

So far, most of the Democrats who have voted have voted for someone who is not Bernie. If Bernie has the political chops that Trump showed, he will consolidate support and rally the party around him, and if can pull that off then perceptions of him will change. I don't think he's that kind of politician, and I'm not planning to vote for him when I get the chance next month.

A plausible interpretation of Bloomberg's rise is that many Democrats do care about nominating the kind of person a Republican could vote for, since they are supporting a former-/quasi-Republican.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

Hi all! Just checking to see if you all are enjoying the 2020 Democratic race, that now is a reprisal of the 2016 GOP primary. This time, the role of John Kasich is being played by Amy Klobuchar.

It is inevitable that Bernie will receive the largest plurality of the delegates. So he will get the nomination, or Bernie Bros will riot if he does not.

Nominating Bernie seems like a bet the House move. As in literally. This is the only possible scenario for the GOP taking back the House. I think there is a chance Bernie will win, but on the whole the odds favor a second Trump term. I know the Democrats don't care about nominating the kind of person a Republican could vote for, but Bernie is almost the candidate to make me say "screw it" and vote Trump. Almost.

We are a decadent and unserious people and it seems we are getting the candidates we deserve.

We moderates in the top 20% who have enjoyed a nice run and either ignored the rot among the lower 80% (Rs) or offered the lower 80% buy-offs (Ds) but offered no policies which would give these people some work and standing which would grant them a dignified existence are the decadent. That includes me and you and everyone here, most notably country club republicans and Clinton democrats.

And now we get what we deserve, what people who kick the can receive: Populism.

Stein’s Law. What cannot go on, will not. And a special gold star for the first unlearned comment that this is all one party’s fault.

ETA: We’ve also overseen a brutal commoditization of all aspects of life and a financialization of the economy that has destroyed labor’s bargaining power and rendered significant portions of the lower 80% debt serfs. (See Piketty on rentier predation of the lower classes.) 2008 was the last straw. In its wake we propped asset holders and gave everyone else scraps. The ensuing inequality gifted us Trump and Bernie.

And you’re going to fix this mess with what? A stillborn Bloomberg candidacy? A senile Joe Biden?

Get behind Bernie. He’s the only horse here.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

So far, most of the Democrats who have voted have voted for someone who is not Bernie. If Bernie has the political chops that Trump showed, he will consolidate support and rally the party around him, and if can pull that off then perceptions of him will change. I don't think he's that kind of politician, and I'm not planning to vote for him when I get the chance next month.

A plausible interpretation of Bloomberg's rise is that many Democrats do care about nominating the kind of person a Republican could vote for, since they are supporting a former-/quasi-Republican.

Isn’t Trump a former Democrat?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I'm not sure which is more charming -- your insistence that everyone else is polarized and cynical and is playing a part in partisan warfare, or your conceit that you are a free-thinking, independent thinker, unaligned with either side.

The judge is placed on a side against Trump against her will. Given the shitty hand that is, she should have played it more carefully.

Or perhaps she doesn’t care. But if she doesn’t care, why such an strong excoriation of Stone in her sentencing?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Isn’t Trump a former Democrat?

Did he ever bother to vote before he could vote for himself?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The judge is placed on a side against Trump against her will.

Note the use of the passive tense to obscure the identity of the actor.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Note the use of the passive tense to obscure the identity of the actor.

Yeah, I’m hiding the ball there. Thought I could slide that past you with passive voice in a sentence where I use the obvious actor’s name.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Did he ever bother to vote before he could vote for himself?

Guess you don’t see the irony about Dems generally?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Yeah, I’m hiding the ball there. Thought I could slide that past you with passive voice in a sentence where I use the obvious actor’s name.

You're the one who is spewing Trumpian nonsense as if it's objective truth. Trump's nonsense only sticks because people like you credit it.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Guess you don’t see the irony about Dems generally?

Nope.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You're the one who is spewing Trumpian nonsense as if it's objective truth. Trump's nonsense only sticks because people like you credit it.

I’m a bit confused. And you seem a bit unspooled.

I’m not spewing Trumpian anything. I’m telling you what Trump and his followers will do. You want to argue with me about whether Berman made a tactical error. That’s a fair argument. But when you try to defend Berman and I actually agree that what she said is not unusual in a typical judicial setting, but was unwise here, in a unique situation, you lose your mind.

The playing field is different now. Trump plays differently. Berman is an adult. If she cared to trump Trump, she’d have avoided saying what she said. But perhaps like you, she thinks the institutions still control as they did.

The rules you think apply no longer apply. And they might not ever apply again the way you think they ought to apply. Adjust yourself, or have nothing to say.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I’m a bit confused. And you seem a bit unspooled.

I’m not spewing Trumpian anything. I’m telling you what Trump and his followers will do. You want to argue with me about whether Berman made a tactical error. That’s a fair argument. But when you try to defend Berman and I actually agree that what she said is not unusual in a typical judicial setting, but was unwise here, in a unique situation, you lose your mind.

The playing field is different now. Trump plays differently. Berman is an adult. If she cared to trump Trump, she’d have avoided saying what she said. But perhaps like you, she thinks the institutions still control as they did.

The rules you think apply no longer apply. And they might not ever apply again the way you think they ought to apply. Adjust yourself, or have nothing to say.

No, you're not telling me what Trump and his followers will do. You have internalized what they will say as if it's persuasive to anyone else, which it is not, and you are regurgitating it as if it is the way the rest of us think. When you say Judge Berman was "supposed to" to act to avoid Trump attacking her, you're not describing Trump at all. You're repeating his attacks on her and saying that you believe them.

Whenever you say something like this and get challenged on it, you backtrack and pretend that you're just relating "the rules," "the playing field." That's bullshit. Trump will attack anyone and everyone who doesn't accept his dominance. He attacked Judge Curiel, who did not say anything like what Judge Berman Jackson did. When you suggest that Judge Berman Jackson brought Trump's attacks on herself by doing her job as a job, you are being naive at best. Yes, Trump's attacks are absolutely predictable. That's not an objective reality, it's a choice that Trump and his supporters are making. For some reason, their agency never enters into your thinking -- they are just a fact of nature and you spend your time lecturing the Judge Berman Jackson's of the world about how they ought to behave instead.

If, for just a second, you started from the assumption that Trump and his supporters and their decisions are the problem, then you might have different thoughts about what to do about them, and whether what Judge Berman Jackson should do as a federal judge to uphold the rule of law. You literally seem incapable of thinking those thoughts. Trump's dominance politics resonate deeply with you.

I'm sure Judge Berman Jackson was not surprised that Trump supporters attacked her. She absolutely invited attacks with her decision to say what she said. It does not even seem to have occurred to you that she knew what Stone did, she knew what she was saying, she knew that she would be attacked, and that she thought it was worth it.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Guess you don’t see the irony about Dems generally?

Have you read Blood Meridian? You should. It makes Lolita seem conservative, and Moby Dick about 300 pages too long.

Anyway, there’s a character called The Priest in it, and the Priest simply can’t think outside the rules in the Bible, in his creed, of his discipline. And then there’s this cat called Judge Holden who’s basically a redo of Milton’s Satan from Paradise List (or as Ty might like it, a sane and viciously rational Col. Kurtz). The Priest argues against Holden’s barbarism but Holden has no interest, and when pressed, he advises the Priest that the Priest’s rules are moral rules, man made rules to even the score between power and weakness, which have never really applied or mattered much.

The rule of power has always controlled. We all know that. It’s just dressed up differently, sold differently, from time to time... Trump’s disruption is just another iteration. In response to it, one must throw the rules of law and political normalcy at the moment out the window. But to say that to a lawyer is to geld him, for that’s all he’s got. His facility with those rules, those precedents.

Or as the Priest said to the Judge when the Judge advised he’d only obey the rule of power and the Priest should tell him otherwise, Nihil dicit. Trump’s daring people like Ty, stepping over lines, and Ty pleads, “You’d better follow the rules... morality matters... precedent matters. One side is wearing a white hat... one is doing its job, and is more pure, and the other is not and should not be allowed to throw the rules, the conventions, out the window... we all must play the game as I understand it, as lawyers would understand it.”

Yeah. Well, that ain’t life. That’s the life lawyers and those with reverence for systems and institutions worship. The people who change the world, even accidentally, share one common view... An assessment they can test, damage, perhaps overcome, the institutions’ enforcement capacities.

And then of course when they succeed, they go wrong and form new types of controlling institutions. And someone comes along and disrupts them, while a Ty complains earnestly that the system is worth protecting.

The cycle can’t help but repeat, endlessly. Some philosopher wrote a book about in 1916... Basically said there will always be an elite group at the top taking over thru an overt or clandestine power play, and that group is always, necessarily, going to be toppled by another, with few of them ever lasting very long.