2020 Political Chatter

[Too Tall]

Take a moment from reasoning with each other and read this. No comment required, this is just something we all need to digest:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...=pocket-newtab

[Matthew Strongin]

I see your point, but I'll take your non-answer of a simple, straightforward question as a "no one" pays more taxes than required. A simple question, not a foolish one.

I say I don't want to pay higher taxes, and I'm the "bad guy" for saying it.

I've never been anything else but honest with what I post. Perhaps to a fault, in the eyes of the Salonista gallery.

Where does one go to pay more taxes? Serious question. I can't find anything on the IRS or Pay.gov websites about paying taxes above what's owed other than a way to make donations. Or is that what you meant? If so, yeah, I've done that and know plenty of others who do. I've also voted for tax increases for my local municipality many times. Because I'd rather pay into the system that will help improve my community, our schools, our parks and the quality of life here. Which, to be fair, ins't without personal incentive. Not only does it make my community a better place to live, it also raises our home values and all of us in the community will benefit. That's how taxes work. Contribute so that governments have the resources to make the community, state, country better and we all benefit. So, with federal income tax, I'd be happy to pay more tax, especially if we had competent leadership that wasn't going to turn around and give huge breaks to corporations and keep piling up truckloads of Benjamins at the feet of the military industrial complex.

[ides1056]

Take a moment from reasoning with each other and read this. No comment required, this is just something we all need to digest:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...=pocket-newtab

Excellent read. Now apply this to the entire world.

[jclay]

Surely there is more than one Trump supporter demographic but in rural or otherwise rough-and-tumble areas of the US I think this person's take is squarely on the money; it's certainly what I experience amongst the poorly educated peeps out in the countryside and quite easy to identify via their commentary.

**
“You all don't get it. I live in Trump country, in the Ozarks in southern Missouri, one of the last places where the KKK still has a relatively strong established presence. They don't give a shit what he does. He's just something to rally around and hate liberals, that's it, period. He absolutely realizes that and plays it up. They love it. He knows they love it. The fact that people act like it's anything other than that proves to them that liberals are idiots, all the more reason for high fives all around.

If you keep getting caught up in "why do they not realize this problem" and "how can they still back Trump after this scandal," then you do not understand what the underlying motivating factor of his support is. It's fuck liberals, that's pretty much it.

Have you noticed he can do pretty much anything imaginable, and they'll explain some way that rationalizes it that makes zero logical sense? Because they're not even keeping track of any coherent narrative, it's irrelevant. Fuck liberals is the only relevant thing. Trust me; I know firsthand what I'm talking about. That's why they just laugh at it all because you all don't even realize they truly don't give a fuck about whatever the conversation is about. It's just a side mission story that doesn't matter anyway. That's all just trivial details - the economy, health care, whatever. Fuck liberals.

Look at the issue with not wearing the masks. I can tell you what that's about. It's about exposing fear. They're playing chicken with nature, and whoever flinches just moved down their internal pecking order, one step closer to being a liberal.

You got to understand the one core value that they hold above all others is hatred for what they consider weakness because that's what they believe strength is, hatred of weakness. And I mean passionate, sadistic hatred. And I'm not exaggerating. Believe me. Sadistic, passionate hatred, and that's what proves they're strong, their passionate hatred for weakness. Sometimes they will lump vulnerability in with weakness. They do that because people tend to start humbling themselves when they're in some compromising or overwhelming circumstance, and to them, that's an obvious sign of weakness.

Kindness=weakness. Honesty=weakness. Compromise=weakness. They consider their very existence to be superior in every way to anyone who doesn't hate weakness as much as they do. They consider liberals to be weak people that are inferior, almost a different species, and the fact that liberals are so weak is why they have to unite in large numbers, which they find disgusting, but it's that disgust that is a true expression of their natural superiority.

Go ahead and try to have a logical, rational conversation with them. Just keep in mind what I said here and be forewarned.”
**

Now, certainly one could drill down and further parse things, and it doesn't absolve the DP (or more significantly it's corporate masters) of actions that have generated negative consequences for many, but from a day to day, "right now" operational perspective that analysis gets the bulk of the job done as it relates to a large portion of folks who still support Trump.

You can bet your ass it can happen here!

[Bob Ross]

**
“You all don't get it. I live in Trump country ...

John, what is the source for ^^^that?

[jclay]

Friend of a friend.

[Mark Walberg]

Take a moment from reasoning with each other and read this. No comment required, this is just something we all need to digest:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...=pocket-newtab

Thanks very much for that.
This kind of analysis is surely going to help.
Not only are are they drawing conclusions from the big data analysis, but they are doing some experiments to see if the conclusions are right or not. That is very good.
The world need more of this.

[Mark Walberg]

........... It's fuck liberals, that's pretty much it............

Well, it's that, and the low taxes.

I'd be happy to pay more taxes for the reasons that Matt states so clearly above.

But I'm not happy about paying more taxes so that those big corporations and those at the upper end that often pay little or nothing in taxes can drink first growth Bordeaux or DRC every night with dinner.

There are a lot of ways that the money available to the govt could be rearranged to target priorities differently.
Just one possible example is to stop spending money on nuclear weapons.
What good do nuclear weapons do for us?
If we just stopped making them, would Russia just take us over? I don't think so.

[Too Tall]

Noooope not gonna reply....d!mnit you made me.

John "they" are not ignorant or uneducated first off. Second, if that is so (owning the libs) than you 'splain to me how nearly the entire GOP also only cares about owning the libs.

No wait. Don't answer that, I'm going to my safe place.

[sailor]

I don’t trust the dnc to be competent in turning out the votes needed to beat trump but I want to see him out for many reasons. What organizations will best use my money for this cause.

[jclay]

Josh, read what I wrote, and what the other person wrote, more carefully. I'll be happy to reply when I'm in front of a real keyboard.

I suppose it would have been more accurate for me to have stated in my intro something like "there's more than a little truth in this, in my experience" or " there is an uncomfortable degree of truth in this".

In point of fact I did not make the statement you claim. That said it is quantifiable, in the rural counties around here (and there is absolutely no reason to think they are unique in that way) that educational levels are much reduced and I never encounter a current (that's an important specification) Trump supporter who demonstrates knowledge of related and complex factual information. What I uniformly encounter is rank demagoguery and ad-homonym attacks; absolutely nothing else.

[jimcav]

Too Tall already posted a story about this site, but it is illuminating to search:
https://tracktherecovery.org/

I just drove to Maryland and back (So Cal), and the disparity in areas is striking. Both in terms of people properly wearing masks (ie over the nose), places open (for example trying to find a place to eat after a hard mtb ride). if you click on the map by state, most areas I drove through the unemployment in the lower income segment is staggering--over 15% in nearly all states I drove through, with even worse 20-25% drop in small business open in all the states. There was general correlation for me in the COVID cases per 100k population and the attitude/proper wearing of masks. 7 cases per 100k in MD, and 29 per 100k in UT (UT had the least unemployment, which likely explains their high case rate--too open for the virus level).

I stopped to ride JEM, Goosebumps, Cryptobiotic trails in LaVerkin UT, then went to a pizza place I'd been to a year prior. Place was PACKED, no masks, no masks on those milling about outside. I was glad they had a separate side window for pick up, which was deserted--the girl inside told me to just come around and come inside to get my food, but I thanked her and said I'd just get it at the window.

The loss to the lower income workers is staggering and going to continue, while the irresponsible behavior of too many of those with money to spend is keeping COVID circulating.

[jclay]

Noooope not gonna reply....d!mnit you made me.

John "they" are not ignorant or uneducated first off. Second, if that is so (owning the libs) than you 'splain to me how nearly the entire GOP also only cares about owning the libs.

No wait. Don't answer that, I'm going to my safe place.

In a nutshell: Socially and religiously conservative people, largely but not exclusively of white European decent, are reacting to an increasing suite of challenges to their economic and cultural primacy or, in the middle and lower socio-economic spectrum, basic stability and viability. It’s not a stretch to posit that this frames the suite of motives driving the actions of the entire GOP spectrum; the root causes are manifest, growing by the year and will continue to do so; humanity and life on Earth face bona fide existential challenges. As a side note, I am utterly convinced that humanity will fail to prevent global catastrophe; if all of us actually agreed on what needed to be done it would be damn near impossible to avoid; but we don’t come remotely close to it...and I digress.

Certainly there are highly educated and accomplished people who are extremely knowledgeable and can mount sophisticated arguments in their favor; I don’t think that those would frame or think of their aims as simply “owning the libs”; I think that they simply want to maintain the (their) status quo, their power, their generally “Christian” national ideal. They are pragmatic and have a far better handle on what’s really going on; for example, I don’t think that Mitch McConnell and folks like him are so ignorant as to think that the DP truly desires the creation of a Marxist socialist state, where many in the lower socio-economic spectra truly do!

In rural areas, on the other hand, the average general educational level is much reduced as is the degree to which the inhabitants dive into the sorts of publications that explore complex and challenging historical, scientific, economic, cultural, domestic and international issues. Damn near none will read Piketty’s “Capital in The 21st Century”, Foreign Affairs magazine, William Blum, Scientific American, Chalmers Johnson, Noam Chomsky, Naked Capitalism, The League of Women Voters, or tomes on the real history of slavery and policing in the US, etc., etc., etc. Many live in difficult circumstances, are working harder and getting less, ever slipping down the economic ladder and angry at their situation; and often not unreasonably so; meanwhile the "coastal elites" are doing better. It is from the former general demographic that I encounter, daily, the “fuck the libs” sort of responses, never accompanied by any evidence of higher order thought processes or information.

And with that I suddenly realize that I really don’t care to delve further into this exercise; doing so is pointless. If this doesn’t adequately clarify my general take on the situation then cloudy it shall remain.

We have two choices in November; one horribly, dangerously corrosive and leading us into further instability; the other conciliatory, middle of the road and allowing us the opportunity to attempt stabilization of our national discourse. For my money, only the latter is a responsible choice.

[Sbti]

NYT releases pervert/traitor tax info.
Pussygrabber Tя☭mp goes further insane: "I will be strongly demanding a Drug Test of Sleepy Joe Biden prior to, or after, the Debate on Tuesday night."

[jclay]

And no John, Roe v Wade has nothing to do with my decision making, (I'm pro-choice) other than it's another "the sky is falling" outcry. It won't be overturned, period, but it's another "let's fire up the protest machine!" when a conservative, and "oh my God"- a Catholic judge is nominated.

Just like "the Dems are going to take away your guns!"---BS from the right. I'm tired of all of it from all sides, just like many of you are.

Corso (off-putting as I sometimes am I'd rather address you by your first name);

I don't know the culture or politics up in your neck of the woods but I do know the culture and politics south of the Smith and Wesson Line (some mistakenly call it the Mason Dixon Line).

Let me tell you, let me assure you, let me gua-ran-fuck-ing-tee you, having lived my 65 years down here, having seen the "whites only" signs (truly), having seen the hundreds of crosses in a church yard in St Augustine (representing aborted feti), routinely seeing church signs demanding RvW repeal and an end to the "baby killing" that down here, south of the S&W Line, Trump supporters are deadly fucking serious about over turning RvW. Overturning RvW, ending the "baby killing" is THE, let me repeat T-H-E defining issue of the vast majority of Trump supporters, both the electorate and their MoCs, Down Here.

The threat to overturning RvW is not a throw-away DP line; it is real; it is THE goal of a hell of a lot of people who have been effectively organizing and getting folks elected from dog catcher to state house to White House for decades.

There are things about which you may argue with me; about which I might actually (surprise!) be wrong. This isn't one of them.

And Biden earning your vote...I'll say it again: Violence Against Women, some reasonable proposals going forward, and if nothing else his generally amiable personality. We don't need four more years of the Orange man throwing gasoline on house fires.

[ides1056]

Surely there is more than one Trump supporter demographic but in rural or otherwise rough-and-tumble areas of the US I think this person's take is squarely on the money; it's certainly what I experience amongst the poorly educated peeps out in the countryside and quite easy to identify via their commentary.

**
“You all don't get it. I live in Trump country, in the Ozarks in southern Missouri, one of the last places where the KKK still has a relatively strong established presence. They don't give a shit what he does. He's just something to rally around and hate liberals, that's it, period. He absolutely realizes that and plays it up. They love it. He knows they love it. The fact that people act like it's anything other than that proves to them that liberals are idiots, all the more reason for high fives all around.

If you keep getting caught up in "why do they not realize this problem" and "how can they still back Trump after this scandal," then you do not understand what the underlying motivating factor of his support is. It's fuck liberals, that's pretty much it.

Have you noticed he can do pretty much anything imaginable, and they'll explain some way that rationalizes it that makes zero logical sense? Because they're not even keeping track of any coherent narrative, it's irrelevant. Fuck liberals is the only relevant thing. Trust me; I know firsthand what I'm talking about. That's why they just laugh at it all because you all don't even realize they truly don't give a fuck about whatever the conversation is about. It's just a side mission story that doesn't matter anyway. That's all just trivial details - the economy, health care, whatever. Fuck liberals.

Look at the issue with not wearing the masks. I can tell you what that's about. It's about exposing fear. They're playing chicken with nature, and whoever flinches just moved down their internal pecking order, one step closer to being a liberal.

You got to understand the one core value that they hold above all others is hatred for what they consider weakness because that's what they believe strength is, hatred of weakness. And I mean passionate, sadistic hatred. And I'm not exaggerating. Believe me. Sadistic, passionate hatred, and that's what proves they're strong, their passionate hatred for weakness. Sometimes they will lump vulnerability in with weakness. They do that because people tend to start humbling themselves when they're in some compromising or overwhelming circumstance, and to them, that's an obvious sign of weakness.

Kindness=weakness. Honesty=weakness. Compromise=weakness. They consider their very existence to be superior in every way to anyone who doesn't hate weakness as much as they do. They consider liberals to be weak people that are inferior, almost a different species, and the fact that liberals are so weak is why they have to unite in large numbers, which they find disgusting, but it's that disgust that is a true expression of their natural superiority.

Go ahead and try to have a logical, rational conversation with them. Just keep in mind what I said here and be forewarned.”
**

Now, certainly one could drill down and further parse things, and it doesn't absolve the DP (or more significantly it's corporate masters) of actions that have generated negative consequences for many, but from a day to day, "right now" operational perspective that analysis gets the bulk of the job done as it relates to a large portion of folks who still support Trump.

You can bet your ass it can happen here!

I have heard this around where I live as well. But if you did not already know that this administration entire MO was fuck-you-government, you haven't been paying attention. The guy in charge gets off on being an asshole, and this appeals to the ones flying flags, going to rallies, not wearing masks to Walmart and the like.

This dog-and-pony show is, however, a distraction from the epic thievery going on. It's all about the money.

As for paying more taxes: I called Senator Warren's office when I found out what the terms of lease I inherited after my mother died. It may be legal, I complained, but it certainly isn't fair. Equality under the Law is a cornerstone of this American experiment, and there is no way you can have a democratic society without it. Fairness matters. The Republican party decided it doesn't to them.

[j44ke]

NYTimes finally got a leaked set of tax returns.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...gtype=Homepage

[BBB]

Now that's hysterical. Hundreds of post here that make little sense other than to ridicule the President like 3rd graders, and I'm the one who needs to be "adult".

This is exactly why others who chose not to lean left have given up posting here.

I'm guilty of ridiculing the man and I certainly don't feel the slightest bit sorry for it.

The man is a vile turd who needs to be flushed away.

What I don't get is the deference. You use capital P President for a man who has abused, ridiculed and lied throughout his tenure. He doesn't deserve the respect and he certainly hasn't earned it. Sadly, leadership or positions of authority and the deference given to people in those positions (usually men) has often been used as cover to disguise gross abuses of power. Whether its Trump and his kindergarten antics through to the Catholic priest whose esteemed position allowed child abuse to flourish unchecked, people should always be sceptical of those in power and hold their actions to scrutiny. There should not be automatic deference or respect simply because an individual has ascended to a leadership position. So while Trump may be the elected leader of your country, the Mr Presidents or standing when he comes into a room should not automatically follow. He hasn't earnt it and he certainly doesn't deserve it. Would you stand for a man who'd tried to grab your daughter's "pussy"? I think not.

As for the others who chose not to lean left and giving up posting, some of the positions advocated by them were either trolling or delusional and they were called out for it. Trump was a gift from god (or whatever). Really? That's neither left nor right and just plain stupid.

[rwsaunders]

I boarded a flight from ATL-BTR this morning and the first passenger to board (active military) was wearing a MAGA hat and a God, Guns & Trump t-shirt. I’m still trying to imagine how the three subjects are linked and I wanted to ask the gent...”do you really believe that Trump supports you and your brothers/sisters in arms?”

[Too Tall]

Just wanted to say thanks John Clay. Excellent reply.