57 replies to this topic

[Redezra]

Well, I think they're both pathological liars. My criticism of you was that you were implying that somehow Clinton was different from the ordinary American politician in this respect, and in particular, different from her good friend Mr. Trump who she is currently defaming in the popular press in return for his doing the same.

 

You can't be an effective politician without being able to play fast and loose with the truth. Any organisation structure requires this capacity. As such, I don't actually see this as a bad feature of a person. Trump is just extremely bad at it.

[Shokkou]

Well, I think they're both pathological liars. My criticism of you was that you were implying that somehow Clinton was different from the ordinary American politician in this respect, and in particular, different from her good friend Mr. Trump who she is currently defaming in the popular press in return for his doing the same.

She is exceptional in how prolific and demonstrably bad she is at it, to the point where she lies even when there is no apparent gain to be made by doing so and the overwhelming likelihood of being called out should have drastically outweighed whatever benefit she could have been hoping to achieve (three words: dodging sniper fire). Furthermore, the simple fact of the matter is that judging them by the same standard on this is a fool's errand as they are not playing the same game. Clinton is attempting to run as a statesman. She wants to be judged as a statesman, and by that standard she is sorely lacking. Trump on the other hand is running as a showman, and whether you love him or hate him he is running an impressive show.

Edited by Shokkou, 24 May 2016 - 04:21 AM.

[Haflinger]

You see, I don't think you guys are understanding the situation. Clinton and Trump are not competing. They're friends. If either one of them wins, they both win.

[Redezra]

Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos

[Thrash]

[Shokkou]

You see, I don't think you guys are understanding the situation. Clinton and Trump are not competing. They're friends. If either one of them wins, they both win.

The thing is if nothing changes under Clinton's "leadership" no one will be surprised. If Trump wins and the establishment can't at least pay lip service to solving the problems people are angry about, then this trend of people waking up to the establishment's game will continue.

[Haflinger]

Yeah I'm not convinced about that. I can quite see the Clinton 2020 campaign going "Hey Trump didn't work out, come back to us."

[Shokkou]

I don't see that happening. Too many people distrust her, and rightly so. She has had so much handed to her on a silver platter up till now and yet her own very obvious failings are doing her in. If Trump's presidency doesn't go well, I find it hard to believe he'll manage a second shot. That means she'll be facing someone else, and that someone will likely incite less anger than Trump and probably won't be able to hold a candle to the laundry list of proven lies from Clinton.

 

Face it. She rose to the top this time around because it was handed to her on a silver platter, but she is not electable. I think what we're seeing here is the Democrats going through the same failure to adapt while pushing the same tired agenda that we saw the Republican party going through in the past. You had a good run. You ran the ball as far as you could, but it's fourth down and trying to run it now just wasn't the smartest move. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the next 10-20 years of Republican dominance.

[Haflinger]

Note that that strategy ("Come back to us, we're different from those Republican crazies") is exactly what won Mr. Clinton his reelection; in 1994, lots of people were predicting the same thing you're predicting now. But Gingrich and the government shutdown handed it back.

 

Now I don't think Gingrich was in cahoots with the Clintons. But Perot was, and Trump is too.

[Shokkou]

Bill did not have two failed presidential bids and a proven track record of deceit behind him at the time either. She's running out of steam. This campaign will be the peak of her political career. It's all downhill into obscurity from here.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

Really, Haf? You really think this is all some Machiavellian scheme? I dunno. That seems awfully far-fetched. First of all, it's unnecessarily complex. And it's risky — there's no guarantee of success, and it puts a tremendous amount of faith and trust in Trump. Hard to imagine the Clintons having that level of trust in anyone.

 

No, I think it's exactly what it looks like: the two worst candidates in history. And frankly, I think it's gonna be Trump. I hate to say it, but Americans usually get the president we deserve. We deserve Trump. 

But my guess is that all kinds of crazy shit is gonna happen between now and election day. I kinda can't wait.

[Shokkou]

It seems farfetched, but looking at it not as a show to get Clinton into power but to maintain the status quo for the establishment? Certainly a possibility. The thing is however that if this is all some show the establishment is putting on, they still need to convince people the things they're angry about are being fixed. If Clinton wins then they don't have to do that, because no one will be expecting it anyway. If Trump wins and it is all an establishment show then sure. They've managed to eke out another victory, but at a cost. More and more people are starting to see the men behind the curtain, and they'll need to put in work to patch up the holes in their breaking facade. The momentum is starting to build up against them though, and I think at this point everything they're doing can only delay the inevitable. Trump, whether he intends to be or not, is merely a means of adding to that momentum.

[Redezra]

Tbh, whenever someone treats their elective government like some kind of cohesive system designed to keep the people down, all I can think of is this:

 

[Shokkou]

Tbh, whenever someone treats their elective government like some kind of cohesive system designed to keep the people down, all I can think of is this:

That's a very simplistic way of putting it. It wasn't designed to do this, but when you have one system going along for over two hundred years and human nature is in the mix... eventually things are going to get to a place where those in power do a little here and there to consolidate their power. The goal isn't to keep people down but to prop certain people up, it just so happens that the end result is very similar.

 

Oh and to pre-empt the inevitable response to the "human nature" bit, no matter how far down the line you go at some point your computer has to have gotten its programming from a human.

Edited by Shokkou, 25 May 2016 - 11:41 PM.

[Redezra]

I think that indicates why the idea of "sending a rich powerful person to deal with the rich powerful people" is fucking retarded.

[Shokkou]

I mean, I think it's ridiculous that these people who already make fucktons of money anyway also need massive salaries taken from the taxpayer. No senator, representative, or president is going to go broke if we cut their salary.

[Redezra]

But this is the problem with giving people control of their own paychecks.

[ᗅᗺᗷᗅ]

It's called the Deep State, and it is an amalgamation of the bureaucracies, both public and private, that control the levers of power in the United States. The Deep State exists independent of political parties, although of course its operations are influenced by whatever political flavor du jour happens to be ascendant in Washington at the time. The Deep State is insidious because it has no leader, no overt cohesiveness, its existence is based on something far more basic — self interest. The Deep State has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo in order to justify its own existence. It is a self-sustaining cycle of shit, and almost exactly what Dwight D. Eisenhower (a Republican) warned about in his farewell address.

 

Hillary Clinton is not a threat to the Deep State. Donald Trump could be. That being the case, the Deep State cannot allow Trump to be elected. They will use every means at their disposal to prevent it. If that means that the Trump phenomenon ends with a gunshot, well, you heard it here first.

[Redezra]

I'm hearing Threw It On The Ground again...

 

 

But honestly, what you call the "Deep State" is just, as Shokkou so aptly pre-empted, human nature. There's no cohesive plan, there's just a bunch of people with awesome power, and as good ol Palpatine said, they are only afraid of losing that power. Treating it like the Illuminati or something just makes you seem paranoid or immature, which is why I don't like it.

 

Trump is like Zaphod Beeblebrox. Loud, annoying, clueless as to the place real power lies, and honestly only going to cause problems for the people who elected him. I cannot stress this enough, the vested interests in America are safe, they have won this election. They'd be safe under Sanders too, tbh, they'd just be forced to pull their weight for once.

[Shokkou]

But this is the problem with giving people control of their own paychecks.

Well sure. When you put a bunch of people in a room and tell them they get to make the rules, of course one of those rules is going to be "pay us a lot." One random thought I just had, which I'm sure has flaws because everything has flaws, is to set the salary for all these people to the annual earnings of the average American sans outliers. Then every month or quarter there would be a referendum where everyone would vote on a simple question "are you satisfied with the performance of [politician]?" They then get a percentage of their salary based on their approval rating. If they get a low approval rating one month or quarter, sucks to be them. You satisfied 36% of your constituents so you get 36% of your paycheck.

 

I'm hearing Threw It On The Ground again...

 

 

But honestly, what you call the "Deep State" is just, as Shokkou so aptly pre-empted, human nature. There's no cohesive plan, there's just a bunch of people with awesome power, and as good ol Palpatine said, they are only afraid of losing that power. Treating it like the Illuminati or something just makes you seem paranoid or immature, which is why I don't like it.

 

Trump is like Zaphod Beeblebrox. Loud, annoying, clueless as to the place real power lies, and honestly only going to cause problems for the people who elected him. I cannot stress this enough, the vested interests in America are safe, they have won this election. They'd be safe under Sanders too, tbh, they'd just be forced to pull their weight for once.

Sanders has no more inherent power to coerce the "vested interests," as you put it, to pull their weight than Trump would. The simple fact of the matter is that Sanders has failed to command the attention of the media the way Trump has, and that's why he fell behind his race while Trump locked his down handily. Whatever you think of the two, one of them has the ability to direct attention where he wants it and that is ultimately how one gets things done in the current climate.