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

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Shot, a NYT op-ed:

Why Are Democrats Jilting G.O.P. Voters Who Want to Like Them?
Candidates are leaving potential Republican converts without options.

By Ericka Andersen
Ms. Andersen is a freelance writer in Indianapolis.

Chaser:

[Anderson] is a longtime rightwing operative, writer for The Federalist, and former "Online Media Director for GOP House Leadership under Vice-President Mike Pence." So you can tell she's ready to consider voting for a Democrat!

link

[Tyrone Slothrop]

I've got to say that on some level, I agree with some of Trump's foreign policy instincts. I would rather we did not have troops in Syria (and, for that matter, we should acquire Greenland). But even where I agree with his aims, he certainly manages to fuck it all up in the execution.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Are the "Resistance/Left" and the mainstream media identical in your mind? Of course not. Please try to be clear whom you are blaming for what Trump does.

You complain about my English, but you deploy language like a cluster bomb. You said that if Trump becomes a dictator, his opponents "bear some responsibility." No. They don't. Trump and his supporters bear the responsibility, not the people opposing him, much in the same way that a rapist is "responsible," not the victim who was out late drinking. If you are going to use words that carry moral freight, you have to actually engage with questions of right and wrong, as much as you would prefer to do horserace politics.

Since normative concepts like responsibility are not your cup of tea, you'd rather talk about which tactics will work against Trump. The problem with having this conversation with you is that you insist on pretending that Trump's opposition is monolithic. Trump has a lot of opponents, and not only do they not share a set of common beliefs, they also do not coordinate closely with each other. Notwithstanding your fixation on referring to "the Left" as if naming it makes it so, we are not talking about Leninists here. So it is inevitable that different Trump opponents will try different things, some of which will work better for him. That is a fact of life in a democracy. For example, many of the intelligence sources that Taibbi talks about are almost certainly not even Democrats, let alone of the Left.



Exactly. You can't stop them from reacting. When they don't have real things to react to, they make up fake things.



When Gandhi arrives to save us, let me know.



What do you think I'm fixated on? Please describe my views to me, as I am unfamiliar with whatever the fuck you are talking about.

“Resistance/Left” means everyone enraged. It’s a shifting group. It pulls from loads of different subgroups, but’s generally everyone who’s intensely interested in this person and his antics. (If you read the Mueller Report, you might want to see a therapist.).

Responsibility carries no moral freight. It’s a logical construct.

Trump has a ton of opponents. His moderate sensible opponents are not enabling him. The stupid opponents who’d cheer along with Maddow and that sort of tripe, who call for his jailing, who’ll violate Godwin’s Law, are like the lunatic fringe in the early 70s who got Nixon re-elected.

The middle is exhausted with Trump. But it is more exhausted with the Hunt for Trump. I live in an alleged battleground state. I’m exhausted with him and his enemies so much I don’t even read about him. I like Taibbi and Greenwald because they poke holes in the people who support him and are after him.

Unfortunately, there are few to talk with on those points. Instead I hear about morals and norms. Had an interesting discussion with anyone on those things lately?

Less called it. Expect a China “deal” timed to create a boom next year. Four more years.

I’ll be in the broadcast booth. Free beer.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I've got to say that on some level, I agree with some of Trump's foreign policy instincts. I would rather we did not have troops in Syria (and, for that matter, we should acquire Greenland). But even where I agree with his aims, he certainly manages to fuck it all up in the execution.

We owe the Kurds. That is immoral. But hey, after HW fucked them, maybe this just “fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice... well, uh... ya can’t get fooled again.”

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

“Resistance/Left” means everyone enraged. It’s a shifting group. It pulls from loads of different subgroups, but’s generally everyone who’s intensely interested in this person and his antics.

There really is something deeply the fuck wrong with you.

TM

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I've got to say that on some level, I agree with some of Trump's foreign policy instincts. I would rather we did not have troops in Syria (and, for that matter, we should acquire Greenland). But even where I agree with his aims, he certainly manages to fuck it all up in the execution.

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.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

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.

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.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

“Resistance/Left” means everyone enraged. It’s a shifting group. It pulls from loads of different subgroups, but’s generally everyone who’s intensely interested in this person and his antics. (If you read the Mueller Report, you might want to see a therapist.).

Responsibility carries no moral freight. It’s a logical construct.

Trump has a ton of opponents. His moderate sensible opponents are not enabling him. The stupid opponents who’d cheer along with Maddow and that sort of tripe, who call for his jailing, who’ll violate Godwin’s Law, are like the lunatic fringe in the early 70s who got Nixon re-elected.

The middle is exhausted with Trump. But it is more exhausted with the Hunt for Trump. I live in an alleged battleground state. I’m exhausted with him and his enemies so much I don’t even read about him. I like Taibbi and Greenwald because they poke holes in the people who support him and are after him.

Unfortunately, there are few to talk with on those points. Instead I hear about morals and norms. Had an interesting discussion with anyone on those things lately?

Less called it. Expect a China “deal” timed to create a boom next year. Four more years.

I’ll be in the broadcast booth. Free beer.

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.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

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.

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.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

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.

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

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.

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.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

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.

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.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

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.

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.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

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.

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.

[Hank Chinaski]

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

[Hank Chinaski]

Beto has no clothes