Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Reminder- right after the Greenland gambit I had a call with some higher ups in a big Danish company. It's a tiny country so anyone high up in a company probably knows the President or grand pubah or whatever they got.

They said Denmark would probably trade Greenland for California. I told them I bet Trump might take that deal. I dunno if anything is moving forward, but don't assume you'd be part of the "we" that's get to visit Nuuk Visa free. instead you'll be visiting as a foreigner, and from an area I think Trump might ban from visiting the US.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

California's GDP is about 7x Denmark's (and 1/7 of the US). If the question is, would I take independence from the USA and the gift of a small Baltic kingdom to boot, well, why not? I like butter cookies and havarti, and mid-century modern furniture.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Everything you say here is mostly stupid, but what is particularly stupid is the idea that people who are really opposed to Trump are somehow strengthening him. You play at repeating variations of this without ever explaining how it might be true. Neither you nor anyone else ever suggest that right-wing whackos somehow strengthened Obama (for example) in the opposite way.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

It's really stupid to assume that each Presidency is an analogue for the next or the previous one, but since this is the kind of middle minded analysis you offer, I'll play. (Why not?)

The resistance to Obama actually did help Obama. The more they alleged crazy shit about him, the more he ignored them and motored along in the center.

As the crazy went crazier, he stayed cool and detached. The loons who called him a socialist were marginalized, ignored. They got no traction against him. He effectively looked at them and, as if he'd a magical remote, turned the channel. Or hit the mute button.

By his second term, even those who disagreed with him politically thought he was a respectable statesman and gave him credit for shepherding us through the economic crisis.

So yes, Obama was strengthened by the crazies. He looked like one of the few adults in the room more and more as the Fox news nuts frothed around him.

Trump is strengthened a bit differently of course, as unlike Obama, he is as crazy as the crazies who attack him. He isn't able to trade on being the statesman who is above the lunacy of the rabble at his ankles. But he still has a decent trade on which he capitalizes, and it's this: "I'm a bull in a china shop, no doubt. But I'm shaking shit up. And these people who are after me are a mix of deranged social warrior idiots on one side, and sleazy swamp bureaucrats on the other." And let me tell you something - something Less and Icky have hinted at but won't say directly to you because you're an insufferable person to debate with - That Message Resonates. And it resonates most in the old Blue Wall states that matter, Florida, and Texas.

I'll repeat it, in the hope that it permeates the concrete between your ears: Trump's argument that he's a change agent up against bizarre and clueless progressives and "swamp" people is, in marketing terms, "sticky." It works. It works really fucking well. And the progressive counter message - yelling about alternatively overheated and nebulous concepts like "saving democracy from fascists," or "justice for abuses of power" - however true and noble those aims might be (along with being alternatively deluded and naive), Does Not Stick the Same Way. It's in the bin with Things Ignored, like the Never Trumpers' messaging in 2016.

You don't know what "stupid" is because you measure it incorrectly. Stupid and smart are measured in results. Nothing else counts.

ETA: The Velvet Underground is bit of an exception to that last rule. Once can be smart too early or at the wrong time, and Wall Street types will tell you that's as bad as being dumb. But Lou Reed wound up quite well off in the end.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Opposition to Obama did not actually help him get things, though, even if you thought he looked more like an adult.

The opposition to Trump helps mobilize his base. He plays on that. But his base is only 40% of the country. Trump's message certainly resonates with conservatives.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Obama passed ACA then the Tea partiers took the House. The rest of Obana’s Presidency was crippled, he did not pass another budget or bill he was happy with. So no the haters didn’t help him.

And the fact that you agree Trump is nuts sort of means you agree some of the attacks on him are legit. The dems have the house so things are going in the right direction.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I think it helped him win over moderates in 2012.

Re that 40%, it’s all about placement. The popular vote could be 5 million more for the Ds in 2020 and Trump could still win. That’s another problem with the progressive messaging. Too much preaching to the converted.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Obama won again in 2012 against a moderate. The tea party faded, and his approval ratings increased. This was not a crippled President in terms of electability.

Attacks on Trump are legitimate. And there’s also eventually an actual wolf in the fable about the boy who cried about them.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Every one of these candidates was poor. Can we determine who was poorest?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Beto has no clothes

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

And Pete “we are this close to a ban?” Seriously?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Biden needs to step down.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

If you can’t bother to be minimally informed, stop talking.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

It's a fine theory, except that he did worse in 2012 than in 2008.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I have google too.

Do I need to explain why this doesn’t refute my assertion?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Objection: Relevance.

Don’t offer the retort it makes a fine doorstop, or you can wallpaper a walk in closet with it.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Beto’s a clown. He makes Trump appear intelligent.

I didn’t watch, but Warren and Pete have more brains than the rest combined. He’s too normal and moderate and green to get elected. She’s too serious about real change.

WTF are Biden’s people doing putting Hunter our for an interview? He admitted Burisma’s offer to him was sketchy. Now the media has to walk back the “nothing to see there” story on him.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

2, and he is so internally inconsistent (except when viewed through the lens of his business interests and which strongman he likes), e.g. saying he is withdrawing the troops from Syria b/c he wants the U.S. out of the Middle East, while increasing our presence in Saudi Arabia.

LessinSamarkand, Uzbekistan

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

As I mentioned earlier, I care. So I will actually offer some constructive criticism. Here is what I imagine when I see the words you wrote above. I imagine that I have accidentally stumbled across the Instagram page for a failed salesmen who is trying to re-cast himself as a motivational speaker. Under his screen name, where his bio info should be, is the following: "Student ~ Teacher ~ Speaker ~ Listener - Thinker." His latest post is a posed picture of the guy, whose name is Ryan, standing on stage with a wrap-around microphone on, pretending to speak to an audience. Behind him is a screen on which is displayed an oversize image of the wannabe-motivational speaker as he appears at that moment on stage, and this creates a kind of hall-of-mirrors, infinite douchebag effect. His loud checked shirt is open one too many buttons. And while he thinks his comically disheveled hair and two-day beard create the image of a man who is too hard at work to worry about appearances, they actually just betray his all-consuming cocaine addiction. His eyes are sunken and dull, and his smile is hollow. At the bottom of the post, superimposed over the picture, are the following words, in all-caps bold Helvetica: "Stupid and smart are measured in results. Nothing else counts."

Do better.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Hey look, we can all agree!

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Damn. You paint exactly the image I had, except that I imagined his shirt open two too many buttons and you could see that he hadn't been able to get the yolk-and-grease stain off the shirt from the breakfast he ate at a dive three blocks from the hotel because the hotel breakfast was too expensive.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

This whole make-them-pay-for-our-military-or-at-least-bribe-me thing is like a bad 80s sci-fi where the world is run by mercenary olligarchs. Can someone float the idea of hiring immigrant soldiers rather than putting them in tents and then profiting off selling their services to Saudi Arabia? At least that would lighten up things at the border, especially if we start using child soldiers.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I'm not sure why you think Obama's opposition helped him, except for the fact that you love being a contrarian, but your assertions aren't helping.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

He doesn't always explain himself very well, but I don't think he would have sent the troops to Saudi Arabia if he thought there'd be combat.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

You guys are harsh.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

You are just bitter because sebby gets better results than you- you both get paid the exact same for your Political Lawyer chatting posts, but sebby rings the cash register more!

No offense.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Surely because of all the opposition to his posts.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

How is success measured in politics?

So if one succeeds by playing to the dumb, is he dumb? On the other hand, if one fancies himself smart but fails to connect and so loses to his opponent who plays to the dumb, is he still smart?

Try this. You’ve two options:

1. You get lots of what you want, but people don’t respect your intellect;
2. You get the satisfaction of having others tell you you’re smart, but you don’t get the material success you want.

Which would you pick?

Stated otherwise, are you the kind of person who values most what others think of their abilities? Because that’s how you seem to measure “smart.” And that is a valid measurement. But it’s also an insecure measurement.

Smart as you measure it is cheap. Millions of people shake their heads every month and wonder why they can’t pay the mortgage with it.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Obama’s opposition was so unhinged, so similar to the current extreme left, and the extreme left under Bush II, and the extreme right under Clinton, that I suspect it drove a lot of moderate voters to show up and vote for him.

People were legitimately afraid of having the GOP gain control of the Presidency after four years of the party’s insane attacks on Obama.

Can I prove that more moderates voted for Obama in 2012 than otherwise might’ve because of his crazed opposition? No. But Romney was milquestoast, classic centrist. And the Tea Party was surging. I know lots of GOP operatives were alarmed by the tea party at that time. And if those people were freaked, I can only imagine how disturbed true moderates might have been. And the FIRE industries were totally afraid of the tea party. I suspect a quiet Obama increase among moderates appeared in 2012.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

A lot of moderates voted for Obama in 2008, and he won states like Indiana and North Carolina. (I didn't need to Google that -- I remember it!) In your view, then, he had a lot of Tea Party opposition over the next few years, and then in 2012 fewer of those moderates voted for him, he got a smaller share of the vote, and he did not win Indiana or North Carolina, and this somehow shows that the opposition to him helped him. Now it's possible that if you flesh this out a lot more, it will somehow make sense, but I think you have to acknowledge that the basic facts here make your view silly.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

How do you assume the loss of certain states or overall lower vote share was attributable to loss of moderates? I think you're making assumptions that can't be proven.

Obama could have lost other categories of voters and actually increased the number of moderates. You'd have to break out all the different types of voters to prove or disprove your point or mine.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Yes, he could have, but you have pointed to nothing that supports that view. A priori, you can't point to Obama's results in 2012 as saying that opposition helped him when he did worse in 2012 than in 2008. Which is why I said that "it's possible that if you flesh this out a lot more, it will somehow make sense." It's conceivable that the opposition to Obama helped him win over moderates, and that for entirely unrelated reasons his support from his base weakened, but you haven't said anything that would prompt someone else to believe that. It's conceivable that Hank is a IOT Roomba with AI features who is pretending to be a lawyer and a storyteller on this board, but my pointing out that possibility is hardly going to persuade even a credulous onlooker like Adder that it's true.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Tax fraud? Who would have thought?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

The fact that you seem to think the point of my post was to dispute the substance of your statement about how to "measure smart" only further strengthens my belief that you are completely phoning it in.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Wait, you're saying Hank isn't?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

The least surprising reveal of potential criminality ever.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

We need to be able to run against Trump’s corruption. Hunter means Biden can’t. Joe needs to drop out.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

80% of them need to drop out, and their true motives are belied by the fact they haven’t. But Joe needs to drop out for reasons having nothing to do with his son. If you were the candidate Trump would come up with something you did that was criminal. Background noise. We need someone that can ignore his shit, and respond in a way that makes clear he is an idiot and crazy. And with Joe the q becomes which one is more insane?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Don’t even disagree.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Recently, Trump has repeatedly released things that he thought would make him look good that, uh, don't at all. Like the memo about the call with the Ukrainian President. And the letter he sent (allegedly) to Erdogan. And the tweet with the picture of Pelosi today. His judgment for such things seems seriously off, when it used to be so good. It feels like he is delaminating. Is it the brainworms?