demagogue on 8/8/2024 at 15:16
I think people are exhausted by the hysteria & constant existential threats, the country will cease to exist if the other side wins, etc., etc. People can stay outraged and existentially threatened by The Other for so long. And this guy is literally your high school social studies teacher & football coach, which everybody in every state knows. And Democrats were most vulnerable to that. TDS is still the go-to dismissal, etc. So I think it goes further than just being affable.
Also I think your last point also cuts in his favor if anything. His whole schtick is exactly not a negative "I'm not Trump" identity or existential one but a positive "We're all neighbors" line. We're all types of people sitting in the same lunchroom at high school and we can still talk to each other. I think the high school background and line is going to play well and stick better than standard politician backgrounds of CEOs & lawyers/prosecutors.
Starker on 8/8/2024 at 15:35
I don't get the impression that it's merely a shtick or that he's putting on some kind of a show. From all the clips I've seen of him, old or new, he seems to be giving off major dad energy.
demagogue on 8/8/2024 at 16:45
Oh I think it's sincere & his natural self too. By schtick I just mean that's his thing. Everybody has some schtick or another, whatever is their thing. But I guess I'm not using the term in the way it's normally understood as something artificial or put on, which I don't mean.
Nicker on 8/8/2024 at 17:46
The Dems have let tRump set the emotional tone for far too long. They have fought on his chosen ground of fear, division and hatred. They have been responding and adapting, pushing back. That is a position of perceived and actual weakness.
They are going all Sun Tzu on Don Snoreleoni. They have chosen the ground and now he must come to them. They are making him respond to their agenda and their claims.
The Dems have two, seasoned, career politicians, running two, entwined campaigns, endorsed by political heavyweights, guided by experienced advisors, staffed with inspired professionals, and funded by flush grass-roots donors.
The rethugs have two rank amateurs, Donny von Shitzenpantz and JD couch fucker. Both installed in office by their money and kept there by grift, bribes and a base who have been fleeced naked. They have no real campaign infrastructure, just DJT believing that he alone can fix everything while all he does is fuck things up even worse.
But if you think that schtick is where the real battle will be fought, heywood, Harris/Walz are already crushing tRump there.
And as far as key policies go, you forgot abortion.
On the economy, they have the record recovery and performance of the last four years to point at. Immigration is a dog whistle for tRumps rabid base. It's doesn't even register with sane people.
heywood on 8/8/2024 at 18:07
By schtick I was referring to his stage persona from his introductory speech, the jokes, calling Republicans weird. Not his natural manner of speaking. The media loves it, but he's in the honeymoon period.
The Biden campaign was tone deaf on the economy and immigration. Harris and Walz are in their honeymoon period now but will have to answer on those issues. I don't think those blue collar midwestern voters want a patronizing dad telling them they should be neighborly to incoming refugees and homeless and be happy because the economy is supposedly doing good. Trump's proposals and judgment are shit, but he feels the mood of the electorate and panders to it.
I still don't get the Walz pick. If she wasn't going to pick somebody who could deliver a swing state, wouldn't it have been better to pick a labor leader to work the midwest? What does he bring that makes him more than a net zero? I'm talking substantively, not personality points.
Nicker on 8/8/2024 at 18:19
Quote:
Trump's proposals and judgment are shit, but he feels the mood of the electorate and panders to it.
He engineers the mood of his base, so it matches his own poisoned ideas, then he panders to that, meaning himself. It's always about him.
Harris has tapped into a different mood which tRump cannot access, emotionally or with policy. He doesn't even know what she's tapped into. It is alien to him. He can't even imagine what it is because it involves service to others, providing genuine benefit of all people, being kind, joy and, most importantly, doing the hard work.
tRump thought that being president would mean interrupting his golf schedule to issue a few edicts, concocted by his sycophants, then diving into a bottomless bucket of KFC. That's was a hard day's work, for him.
Nicker on 8/8/2024 at 18:48
Holy shit. Just when you think they couldn't get any worse; Elon Musk starts a scam PAC to gather voter information in swing states, by pretending to help those people register to vote.
As Marc Elias explains, it appears that the PAC is perpetrating several, distinct and serious frauds. It uses deception to harvest personal information for purposes other than the one it claims.
Not bad enough? There's worse. If you are in a red state, it links you to voter registration sites. If you are in a swing state, there is a deliberate dead-end, creating the false impression that it is registering voters, when it isn't, thus defrauding people out of their right to vote.
There are multi-state investigations ongoing.
[video=youtube;xTyvK37j06I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTyvK37j06I[/video]
OK, the usual Trumpspects, time to strap on your Special Edition, Gold Assassination High-tops and rationalize away!
Starker on 8/8/2024 at 23:04
Quote Posted by heywood
The Biden campaign was tone deaf on the economy and immigration. Harris and Walz are in their honeymoon period now but will have to answer on those issues. I don't think those blue collar midwestern voters want a patronizing dad telling them they should be neighborly to incoming refugees and homeless and be happy because the economy is supposedly doing good. Trump's proposals and judgment are shit, but he feels the mood of the electorate and panders to it.
I don't get the feeling he's patronizing anyone, though of course I'm an outsider and maybe people in the US really feel put off by Tim Walz. I'm getting the feeling he's very well liked, though. As for the issues, the Democrats are the only ones who are talking about raising the minimum wage, giving child tax credit, supporting unions, etc -- things that actually improve the lives of people who aren't wealthy and ultrawealthy.
Lord Dampnut can promise things, sure, but quite a lot of people have already experienced how he handled things -- his years of attempting governance were full of chaos and scandals and turmoil. Some people might think back fondly on those days, as they brought excitement to their lives, but I would wager a lot of people, moderates and even some conservatives were extremely put off by it. And the campaign is not showing that he's any more disciplined this time around. And of course he didn't manage to build the wall or bring back coal jobs and his handling of the pandemic was disastrous -- he did not answer people's concerns or instil any confidence that he had the situation under control.
Die hard Magas will vote for him no matter what, but the question this time around is whether more people want a repeat of the four years under him or less. I see it being a referendum on him and if the Democrats communicate that successfully, that's enough to win, just like the tone-deaf economy and border issue ignoring Biden campaign won last time.
RippedPhreak on 8/8/2024 at 23:48
Quote:
raising the minimum wage
This has been tried before. Businesses that were already struggling just end up laying people off.
Quote:
giving child tax credit
Don't know much about this one, but Republicans like to lower taxes too.
The Democrats support unions so much they are bringing in 2 million migrants per year to undercut union pay by working for less.
Quote:
his years of attempting governance were full of chaos
Yes, there were a lot of riots in blue cities...encouraged and supported by the Democrats. As I mentioned before, Walz was governor of Minnesota during the riots, but he sympathized with the rioters and did nothing. Harris started a GoFundMe to bail rioters out of jail so they could go back and cause more destruction.
Quote:
his handling of the pandemic was disastrous
No one can ever tell me what Trump should have done differently during Covid. Shut down all flights to the USA? Put the military guarding the borders? You would have called him a fascist. Even then, Covid would have come in on cargo ships delivering goods. What Trump did for Covid was put Fauci, Birks and Walensky from CDC in charge, with carte blanche to do anything they wanted. Yet it's all
solely Trump's fault personally? Absurd.
Starker on 9/8/2024 at 00:27
And what benefit does giving massive tax breaks to the wealthy and ultrawealthy give, exactly? History has shown over and over again that it does not trickle down. The wealthy elite hoards their wealth and sits on it, doing stock buybacks and all kinds of schemes to increase their net worth instead. Republicans do nothing but increase the power of the government and the elites -- giving ever more immunity for the police and politicians and making it easier for big financial institutions to gamble with people's money without any consequences.
Biden helped the railroad workers get their sick days. On the other hand, there's nobody who's more anti-union than the Republicans and the wealthy businessmen they cater to.
Minimum wage increase is widely supported by US citizens and there are already states that have a substantially higher minimum wage than others and are not doing any worse for it. I also think that there are more effective ways of helping people in the working and middle class, but the US seems incredibly allergic to doing anything that actually helps ordinary people.
Lord Dampnut constantly undermined the messaging and response to the epidemic, saying that Covid was not a threat, it was going to pass soon, it wasn't a serious issue, etc. When it became time to actually allocate resources and effectively respond to the disaster, he made it a free for all, where every state had to competitively bid on scarce resources, thereby driving up the price even more. What he should have done, for example, was to immediately invoke the Defense Production Act to help supply the frontline workers and hospitals. Instead he dragged out the response for weeks and months, forcing people to come up with their own makeshift solutions, trying to reuse and sterilize disposable masks, etc.
