The Republican party is stupid because it supports new, unreliable, costly energy sources and the replacement of reliable cheap sources. No, it's the Dems.
The Republican party is stupid because it supports the spending of an additional $6T that would support unions and bail out blue states and need to be borrowed. No, it's the Dems.
The…
The Republican party is stupid because it supports new, unreliable, costly energy sources and the replacement of reliable cheap sources. No, it's the Dems.
The Republican party is stupid because it supports the spending of an additional $6T that would support unions and bail out blue states and need to be borrowed. No, it's the Dems.
The Republican party is stupid because the head of such party nominates people to important positions like Justice of SCOTUS and V Prez based on race and sex. No, that's the Dems.
The Republican party is stupid because numerous members supported the 'defund the police' movement in 2020. No, that's the Dems.
The Republican party is stupid because it wants to simply wipe away tens of thousands of dollars of debt due to the Treasury for college expenses for no apparent reason except that people don't like being in debt. No, that's the Dems.
The Republican party is stupid because its leader encouraged illegal aliens to come to the US, resulting in a flood of millions of illegals who are then shipped around the country. No, that's the Dems.
The Republican party because its members and fellow travelers rioted for months and caused over a billion dollars of damage in summer 2020. No, that's the Dems.
Only a totalitarian cancels an idea. I don't agree with anything he said, but why are you afraid to give him a platform? We must beat the marxist left in the marketplace of ideas; we will not beat them by canceling them. Let them play that game. It's not a winning strategy.
"Why would you give this guy a platform?" is a very left wing thing to say. Also, Jonathan Haidt doesn't need a whole lot of help getting his message out. He's pretty popular.
Well. While the Democratic Party is stupid, let us not forget that the Republican Party is stupid as well. Perhaps, at this moment not as stupid, but it has been more stupid in the past at times and there is nothing preventing it from being more stupid in the future. When I voted for Obama in 2008 it was largely because of the stupidity of the Republican Party with regard to the Iraq War. Now, when it comes to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it’s the Democratic Party’s turn being stupid. But just like with the Iraq War, the support for the indiscriminate financing of this new war is largely bipartisan and only barely opposed by one of the parties--in this case a handful of Republicans.
Being a loyal Democrat or Republican is a vice. On some of the most destructive things to America, the parties agree. Such as the the general apathy about the national debt and the value of corporate cronyism to their power and wealth.
To be fair Jonathan has some pretty good insights some times. I really liked "The Righteous Mind" And I like what he's trying to do with Heterodox Academy.
Just a wild guess here, but maybe - just maybe - Haidt noticed that the Republicans in Congress were unable to muster the courage to impeach a President who tried to steal an election so as to remain in office, broadcasting lies about it being rigged, and even going so far as to encourage rioters at the capital hoping to thwart the peaceful transfer of power.
Perhaps Haidt even noticed that "structural stupidity" then led Republican to ostracize the few moderates among them who actually *did* vote to impeach.
Trump encouraged the riot at the Capitol less than various Democratic politicians encouraged riots in 2020. Yet Haidt does not hold the Democratic Party equally accountable for not impeaching those politicians. Haidt has not to my knowledge condemned the Democratic Party for not impeaching Shumer for encouraging violence against Supreme Court justices.
The failure for many “liberals” at seeing the sins in the Democratic Party that they see in the Republican Party is substantial part of the poison that pollutes the political climate of our country.
Until more of the American population frees itself from factional delusions our progress as a country will be hampered and it could plausibly even lead to catastrophic degeneration. Haidt is not helping dissolve those delusions.
It wasn't just the Capitol riot. It was ALL the election lies that Trump told, and his attempt to steal the election that meant he should have been impeached.
Not to mention his dereliction of duty where he refused to send in the national guard why he watched the rioting on TV, oh while commenting that "maybe they should hang Mike Pence)
There is no good evidence he attempted to “steal” the election. He attempted to overturn the election based on really bad legal reasoning. Which, I think people are permitted to use very bad legal reasoning. The amount of lies that Trump has told simply does not add up to the number of lies, or specifically the gravity of lies, that Biden and Democrats regularly indulge.
The 4 years Trump was in office every Democratic politicians supported the lie that Russian collusion was the cause of Hillary losing. And we have good evidence that Hillary actually created and spread lies related to that lie. Trump lying, while horrendous, simply isn’t anything special. Politicians lie all the time, and they sometimes tell worse lies, and the Democratic politicians are often guilty of those worse lies. Yet Democratic apologists like Haidt don’t see it.
I do actually agree though that impeaching Trump over dereliction of duty when he learned about the riot (and did not immediately go to the Capitol and address his delusional folllowers) would have been legitimate. That was utterly disgraceful. That’s not what Democrats tried to do though. Instead they invented bullshit about an attempted “coup”.
And also, Biden has already done plenty to deserve impeachment as well -- particularly his actions and lies related to Afghanistan.
The Democratic Party is not “structurally sane” like Haidt would like people to believe. That is in fact insane.
You have me confused with someone else. I voted for Trump in 2020 because I didn't like what the Democrats had done, or what they wanted to do.
But Trump's actions were beyond despicable. He told repeated lies that they election was fraudulent even though his own attorney general (and campaign manager for that matter) told him he lost.
Then he tried to implement a plan to steal the election.
Then if all of that wasn't more than enough, he sat there for hours watching rioting in the capital and refused to call in the national guard. That's dereliction of duty.
He should have been impeached and prevented from every holding public office again. And probably charged for trying to get the GA secretary of state to help him steal the election
I’m not sure why you think I have the wrong person. I voted for Jorgensen in 2020. I’d be be saying the same thing regardless of who you voted for.
Our country was and is in no danger of an actual successful coup or violent possession of the government by Trump or any of his supporters.
I also think Trump’s behavior was disgraceful in his negligence after he knew of the riots. Although I’m not aware of any good evidence to suggest that what was standing between the National Guard being deployed or not was Trump. The security fail that day was unfortunately due to Congress, the Capitol police, the FBI, the Defense Department, the Army, and Trump. Incompetence was the order of that day. And, yes, by Trump, negligence. Nevermind the national guard -- Trump should have been there himself once he was told by McCarthy that the people rioting was “his people.” Instead he let many of his supporters there to behave like hooligans and thugs without rebuking them. I imagine out of spite. From Mccarthy’s report Trump thought at first it was Antifa. I can hardly imagine he wanted Antifa to succeed at overthrowing the government.
From testimony from Walker we hear that some of the army chiefs responsible for authorizing the DC guard delayed it out of concern for it making the Guard look bad. They were afraid of the political backlash of sending in the Guard and the media blaming them for being authoritarian. Which actually makes sense abeit it sounds stupid. After a year of riots in which the media spent condemning the police and the guard for the overuse of force, the army chiefs were concerned about “the optics.”
Yes I suspect Trump could have overridden the stupidity of the Army had he the sense and the desire, but ultimately Guard troops were not missing there simply because Trump didn’t care.
“But you have to go back to check from past years with respect to signatures. And if you check with Fulton County, you’ll have hundreds of thousands because they dumped ballots into Fulton County and the other county next to it.”
Did you read the transcript of Trump’s call with Raffensberger? We have it. That’s a piece of it above.
My impression is of a man who thinks he can’t lose and is adamant on finding the ballots that are being hidden from him or that were faked. There is no clear indication that he thinks Raffensbeger should -- or would -- cheat to find those ballots or clear indication of any suggestion he should. He is though certain that if he looked for them and let Trumps lawyers look at some data they could find them. But he thinks Raffensberger is hiding stuff or willfully not trying to uncover the truth. It’s hard for me to pick apart what he is lying about and what he actually believes. I don’t know if he can do it himself.
Come now. It wasn't "just" the ridiculous legal reasoning. Trump laid the groundwork for his false claims for months prior to the election, claiming the only way he could lose is if the election is rigged! He did this on Twitter, he did this in speeches, he did this from the White House itself.
Trump tried to pressure election officials in states to do his bidding, most infamously telling Brad Raffensberger, GA's secretary of state, "What I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than [the 11,779 vote margin of defeat] we have, because we won the state."
On January 6th itself, even *after* the chaos at the Capitol, he spoke of his "sacred landslide victory".
He repeatedly broadcast the most insane conspiracy theories - anything that would gin up his base into believing that he had actually won the election.
This was not just a matter of bad legal advice. This wasn't just another case of "politicians lie all the time". The was the only time in the history of this nation that a leader refused to submit to the orderly transfer of power.
That the Republicans couldn't impeach him after all that (even Cocaine Mitch hoped that "The Democrats will take care of the son of a bitch for us"... but then didn't vote to impeach) speaks to the "structural stupidity" of which Haidt spoke.
Funny how when Trump said "peacefully and patriotically" the left knew that wasn't what he really meant.
I think the Dems have done an awesome job of cleansing their ranks of those who aren't on the far left bandwagon.
Now, can you please condemn Sen. Shumer for inciting the assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh, and call for his impeachment (or at the very least another sham investigation)?
If you read the book "Rigged", by Molly Hemingway. you will, if you have logical integrity, conclude the election was rigged - and not just on election day.
Republicans need to accept that counting the votes is more important than casting the votes; Dems have. I do have to admire the Dems for their enthusiastic embrace and operationalization of that Stalin maxim.
Can *I* please condemn Senator Schumer for his "reap the whirlwind" comments?
Sure, no problem, but I'm not sure what that accomplishes. I, Seth B, random guy on the internet with an owl avatar, hereby condemn Schumer for his comments. They were terrible.
Can I call for his impeachment for it? I'm not that sure he merits one, so I'll decline your invitation here, but I wouldn't be in the least bit upset were that to happen.
The Democratic Party and some of the people who supported the Democratic Party did more to try to “steal the election” than Trump, and was much more successful. I’m not talking about ballot fraud--I’m talking about the active suppression of information on public channels of communication. That use of power is much more concerning to me than Trump’s ridiculous attempt at getting Congress to agree to overturn the election results. You seem pretty convinced that Trump deserved impeachment but don’t seem equally appalled by the unethical behavior of Democrats.
If Trump deserves an impeachment for “instigating a riot”, Shumer certainly deserves one for “instigating an assassination plot.” Shumer certainly didn’t tell people to bring a whirlwind with peace when he made his original comment. And of course how about all the Democrats who tried to get Trump ousted from office between 2016 and 2020 with ridiculous accusations about collusion with Russia or quid pro quos? They were trying to “overthrow an election.” Where are the courageous Democratic politicians going after Adam Schiff? Do you not care about the lack of “courage” most democrats have over not impeaching Democratic politicians who have done or said something heinous? When will more Democrats have the courage to acknowledge their legacy of slavery?
The notion there is something special about Republican Party vices that the Democratic Party doesn’t share or even manifest to a worse degree is erroneous.
The most powerful elements in both parties are currently primarily driven by corrupt motivations.
I'm afraid I don't know what you are talking about in your first paragraph. Maybe the Democratic party succeeded in keeping that information from me. Could you be more specific? (But no Hunter Biden, please. Even Ted Cruz admitted of that story, "I don't think it moves a single voter.")
In your second paragraph, you are comparing apples and oranges. Yes, Schumer's statement was terrible, but it was also a ten-second outburst for which he later apologized, saying "I should not have used the words I used yesterday. They did not come out the way I intended." No pattern suggests Schumer was seriously "instigating an assassination plot". There's no "Eastman Memo" in which a lawyer comes to Chuck Schumer's office and explains to him how to knock off a conservative SCOTUS justice. Adam Schiff is just one of many losers in the House of Representatives. He commands no "base". He has no real power individually. As for Democrats having "the courage to acknowledge their legacy of slavery", man, that's Robin DiAngelo's territory! 😄
Given that every major Democratic politician would, if asked about America needing to better acknowledge its legacy of slavery, confirm that America does in fact need to better acknowledge it, and that the Democratic Party has recently began multiple commissions on exploring America’s legacy of slavery, the territory is not simply DiAngelo’s, it is the primary narrative that Democratic politicians use to demagogue black people. Which is precisely why it would require enormous courage for any Democrat who wasn’t just an apologist for the Party of Slavery to actually encourage the Democratic Party to take the primary blame for the legacy of slavery that it so frequently appeals to for votes and scape goats upon America in general.
A poll was done asking Biden swing state voters if they would have still voted for Biden had they known of various information about Biden, including stuff related to the Hunter laptop, and 16% said has they known of that information, they would have not voted for Biden. That would have been sufficient for Biden to have lost the election. What information is suppressed or amplified by the major media sources, including social media, can have dramatic affects on voting outcomes. And the major media organizations primarily support the Democratic Party, as do the major social media tech companies, which use algorithms to manipulate what information is presented to their users, and that includes search engines such as Google and Bing.
So yes, if you weren’t aware of this, it’s quite possibly because the information that you are receiving has been manipulated by people who support the Democratic Party. Or you could have known but just don’t care because you are a tool.
And what does Schiff’s status have to do with whether he should be impeached? He has had enough power to vote for increased defense budget every time it was proposed for his entire career. I think that is sufficient power to warrant impeachment. And if he is such a loser, impeaching him should be very easy, yet Democratic politicians apparently don’t even have the courage for that.
As for Schumer, I don’t actually have confidence he was instigating an assassination plot, but if I applied the same lack of rigor and logical consistency people apply to what Trump said to his supporters that is supposed to be evidence of instigating the riot, Schumer I could confidently find him guilty. Him apologizing wouldn’t matter in Trump hating land--Trump explicitly told his followers to be peaceful and that doesn’t matter at all to those who think he instigated violence. Thus your excuse for Schumer is worthless: Schumer is just a two faced liar that really wanted the Supreme Court justice assassinated and knows that he can say violent things then apologize and people like you will buy it, but some followers will understand what he really wants, and that’s a dead Supreme Court justice. See how I can mimic the thinking of a person who hates Trump beyond all rationality? Sounds like you have that bug.
That MRC study to which you linked would make a beautiful object lesson in an Intro to Statistics class when discussing the need for careful research design if you hope to obtain meaningful results - and not just propaganda - from it. It perfectly illustrates the "garbage in, garbage out" maxim. Such leading questions!
An example:
"At the time you cast your vote for president, were you aware that Joe Biden chose as his running mate and successor Kamala Harris, rated the most left wing Senator in America, even more leftist that Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist?"
or this:
"At the time you cast your vote for president, were you aware that under President Trump's policies, the U.S. last year became energy independent – exporting more crude oil than we imported – for the first time in recorded history?"
Gee wiz! These were the sorts of questions used to butter up the respondents (all of whom were on the internet by the way - and no mention is made of how the respondents were obtained in the first place) over and over before asking them, "Well... now that you know that Biden is the Devil and that Trump is an angel, would you still - if you had to do it all over again - have voted for that terrible man Biden?" Needless to say, these survey results are worthless - purely on research design grounds. It's a parody of a professional survey.
More importantly, now that Biden has proven what a terrible choice he was, many are now anxious to distance themselves from him. So maybe the 17% were merely regretting foolishly voting for Biden.
Unfortunately that doesn’t say anything about how impactful the suppression of it was on voter behavior.
Albeit, I have a hard time believing that the suppression and manipulation of information doesn’t have a significant impact on what people vote for, or just believe about anything.
And the laptop story is just a single instance of a much broader behavior of censorship or suppression of information on behalf of Democratic Party narratives. It of course happens on things like Fox on behalf of Republican Party narratives, but given that the Democratic Party has the support of tech companies and most corporate journalism, the scale is just greater.
Do you think active suppression or manipulation of information by powerful organizations does not affect political behavior? For example, I don’t think the Chinese government does it just because the CCP is evil. It is effective.
And really, after the 2016 election, much of the Democratic Party was convinced that were it not from Russian interference, largely in its spread of misinformation on social media, Trump would have not won. It seems like there is agreement that what information people are privy to has an impact on elections. There is disagreement though about who is most responsible for the suppression and manipulation of information. I think it is the worst from people who support the Democratic Party.
I certainly do think suppression and manipulation of information can affect political behavior. We're in agreement there. And yes, the more respectable media outlets obviously tilt leftwards - often to a nauseating degree. I'll even agree with you that it was foolish of the usual media suspects to tiptoe around the Hunter Biden stuff, even if I also think the story itself was absurdly overblown by some right-wingers and wasn't going to change *anyone's* mind about who to vote for in the 2020 election.
But the right's "media suppression" narrative reminds me of the left's "voter suppression" narrative. It's not that there's nothing there, it's just that the something is small and has been magnified all out of proportion. This isn't China. This isn't Russia. It is trivially easy in the USA to obtain right-slanted media - running the gamut from solid reporting and piercing analysis to OpEd drivel and going all the way down to Tucker-style conspiracy theories and worse. To cite just one example, the Facebook pages that get the most engagement tend to be, week in and week out, dominated by right-wingers - and often trashy ones at that. (https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10)
If one wants to know what people on the right (or left) are saying about any topic whatsoever, one can find it with ease. Media suppression really isn't a problem in this country. That's not to say that the media landscape is healthy - it isn't - but media suppression isn't the problem.
Yes, there was a foolish sense among some Democrats after the 2016 election that Trump somehow hadn't really won. I dearly wish he hadn't won, but he did, fair and square. Still, we had an orderly transfer of power. Hillary Clinton gave her concession speech on November 9, 2016. Obama showed Trump around the White House.
Nothing to see: Book Review: ‘Rigged’ and ‘Our Broken Elections’ - WSJhttps://www.wsj.com/articles/book-review-rigged-and-our-broken-elections-11637019090
I dropped my subscription to the WSJ a few years ago when it became clear to me that they are more interested in protecting the government than protecting the truth.
So I don't know what that article states, but I can state the Hemingway's book is extremely well researched and documented.
Did you catch the very recent article in which US cybersecurity states that Dominion voting machines can be hacked?
But don't worry, they are "sure" it hasn't happened yet. wink wink...
"University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman, who wrote the report on which the advisory is based, has long argued that using digital technology to record votes is dangerous because computers are inherently vulnerable to hacking and thus require multiple safeguards that aren’t uniformly followed. He and many other election security _experts have insisted that using hand-marked paper ballots is the most secure method of voting and the only option that allows for meaningful post-election audits."
From the article to which you linked: "The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, or CISA, said there is no evidence the flaws in the Dominion Voting Systems’ equipment have been exploited to alter election results. The advisory is based on testing by a prominent computer scientist and expert witness in a long-running lawsuit that is unrelated to false allegations of a stolen election pushed by former President Donald Trump after his 2020 election loss."
Yet you introduced this by writing "Dominion voting machines hacked".
Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation - false
Big Tech didn't collude with Dems to control social media - false
2020 election was the most transparent and secure in history - and yet, Dems tried to push through election reforms...if 2020 was the most transparent and secure in history, why is election reform needed?
Voting machines can't be hacked - false
Voting machines weren't hacked - ???
It will take months for the Taliban to take Afghanistan - false
Afghanistan withdrawal was a success - false
Massive borrowing won't cause inflation - false
Inflation is transitory - false
Gas price increase is Putin's fault - false
The COVID vaccine will protect you - false
The COVID vaccine will keep you from getting sick - false
The COVID vaccine will keep you from getting really sick - false
The COVID vaccine is safe and effective - false
Facemasks work - false
Lockdowns work - false
I don't believe anything that comes out of DC. You shouldn't either. It is so bad, I'd be skeptical if they said the sky was blue.
His 'Coddling of the American Mind' was pretty good, although his recommendations were all wrong, and I agree that we don't hear enough balanced discussion. But we are inundated with so-called progressive propaganda. That he cannot see that means he is not self-aware, but self-righteous.
This is a sincere question. How do you think his recommendations were wrong? I'm speaking as someone who is trying to help kids who have been affected by this. Incidentally, I am of the opinion that Haidt has a huge blind spot/bias about the GOP, but let's find a way to press on together and solve these problems before things get any worse. OK?
The Republican party is stupid because it supports new, unreliable, costly energy sources and the replacement of reliable cheap sources. No, it's the Dems.
The Republican party is stupid because it supports the spending of an additional $6T that would support unions and bail out blue states and need to be borrowed. No, it's the Dems.
The Republican party is stupid because the head of such party nominates people to important positions like Justice of SCOTUS and V Prez based on race and sex. No, that's the Dems.
The Republican party is stupid because numerous members supported the 'defund the police' movement in 2020. No, that's the Dems.
The Republican party is stupid because it wants to simply wipe away tens of thousands of dollars of debt due to the Treasury for college expenses for no apparent reason except that people don't like being in debt. No, that's the Dems.
The Republican party is stupid because its leader encouraged illegal aliens to come to the US, resulting in a flood of millions of illegals who are then shipped around the country. No, that's the Dems.
The Republican party because its members and fellow travelers rioted for months and caused over a billion dollars of damage in summer 2020. No, that's the Dems.
Why would you give this guy a platform?
Only a totalitarian cancels an idea. I don't agree with anything he said, but why are you afraid to give him a platform? We must beat the marxist left in the marketplace of ideas; we will not beat them by canceling them. Let them play that game. It's not a winning strategy.
"Why would you give this guy a platform?" is a very left wing thing to say. Also, Jonathan Haidt doesn't need a whole lot of help getting his message out. He's pretty popular.
Well. While the Democratic Party is stupid, let us not forget that the Republican Party is stupid as well. Perhaps, at this moment not as stupid, but it has been more stupid in the past at times and there is nothing preventing it from being more stupid in the future. When I voted for Obama in 2008 it was largely because of the stupidity of the Republican Party with regard to the Iraq War. Now, when it comes to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it’s the Democratic Party’s turn being stupid. But just like with the Iraq War, the support for the indiscriminate financing of this new war is largely bipartisan and only barely opposed by one of the parties--in this case a handful of Republicans.
Being a loyal Democrat or Republican is a vice. On some of the most destructive things to America, the parties agree. Such as the the general apathy about the national debt and the value of corporate cronyism to their power and wealth.
To be fair Jonathan has some pretty good insights some times. I really liked "The Righteous Mind" And I like what he's trying to do with Heterodox Academy.
But yes, those partisan blinders will get ya
Haidt is a really smart guy. I have no idea what group he is talking about when referring to the political parties; he seems to have it backward.
Maybe it's "long covid"?
Just a wild guess here, but maybe - just maybe - Haidt noticed that the Republicans in Congress were unable to muster the courage to impeach a President who tried to steal an election so as to remain in office, broadcasting lies about it being rigged, and even going so far as to encourage rioters at the capital hoping to thwart the peaceful transfer of power.
Perhaps Haidt even noticed that "structural stupidity" then led Republican to ostracize the few moderates among them who actually *did* vote to impeach.
Who knows? Could be!
Trump encouraged the riot at the Capitol less than various Democratic politicians encouraged riots in 2020. Yet Haidt does not hold the Democratic Party equally accountable for not impeaching those politicians. Haidt has not to my knowledge condemned the Democratic Party for not impeaching Shumer for encouraging violence against Supreme Court justices.
The failure for many “liberals” at seeing the sins in the Democratic Party that they see in the Republican Party is substantial part of the poison that pollutes the political climate of our country.
Until more of the American population frees itself from factional delusions our progress as a country will be hampered and it could plausibly even lead to catastrophic degeneration. Haidt is not helping dissolve those delusions.
It wasn't just the Capitol riot. It was ALL the election lies that Trump told, and his attempt to steal the election that meant he should have been impeached.
Not to mention his dereliction of duty where he refused to send in the national guard why he watched the rioting on TV, oh while commenting that "maybe they should hang Mike Pence)
There is no good evidence he attempted to “steal” the election. He attempted to overturn the election based on really bad legal reasoning. Which, I think people are permitted to use very bad legal reasoning. The amount of lies that Trump has told simply does not add up to the number of lies, or specifically the gravity of lies, that Biden and Democrats regularly indulge.
The 4 years Trump was in office every Democratic politicians supported the lie that Russian collusion was the cause of Hillary losing. And we have good evidence that Hillary actually created and spread lies related to that lie. Trump lying, while horrendous, simply isn’t anything special. Politicians lie all the time, and they sometimes tell worse lies, and the Democratic politicians are often guilty of those worse lies. Yet Democratic apologists like Haidt don’t see it.
I do actually agree though that impeaching Trump over dereliction of duty when he learned about the riot (and did not immediately go to the Capitol and address his delusional folllowers) would have been legitimate. That was utterly disgraceful. That’s not what Democrats tried to do though. Instead they invented bullshit about an attempted “coup”.
And also, Biden has already done plenty to deserve impeachment as well -- particularly his actions and lies related to Afghanistan.
The Democratic Party is not “structurally sane” like Haidt would like people to believe. That is in fact insane.
You have me confused with someone else. I voted for Trump in 2020 because I didn't like what the Democrats had done, or what they wanted to do.
But Trump's actions were beyond despicable. He told repeated lies that they election was fraudulent even though his own attorney general (and campaign manager for that matter) told him he lost.
Then he tried to implement a plan to steal the election.
Then if all of that wasn't more than enough, he sat there for hours watching rioting in the capital and refused to call in the national guard. That's dereliction of duty.
He should have been impeached and prevented from every holding public office again. And probably charged for trying to get the GA secretary of state to help him steal the election
I’m not sure why you think I have the wrong person. I voted for Jorgensen in 2020. I’d be be saying the same thing regardless of who you voted for.
Our country was and is in no danger of an actual successful coup or violent possession of the government by Trump or any of his supporters.
I also think Trump’s behavior was disgraceful in his negligence after he knew of the riots. Although I’m not aware of any good evidence to suggest that what was standing between the National Guard being deployed or not was Trump. The security fail that day was unfortunately due to Congress, the Capitol police, the FBI, the Defense Department, the Army, and Trump. Incompetence was the order of that day. And, yes, by Trump, negligence. Nevermind the national guard -- Trump should have been there himself once he was told by McCarthy that the people rioting was “his people.” Instead he let many of his supporters there to behave like hooligans and thugs without rebuking them. I imagine out of spite. From Mccarthy’s report Trump thought at first it was Antifa. I can hardly imagine he wanted Antifa to succeed at overthrowing the government.
From testimony from Walker we hear that some of the army chiefs responsible for authorizing the DC guard delayed it out of concern for it making the Guard look bad. They were afraid of the political backlash of sending in the Guard and the media blaming them for being authoritarian. Which actually makes sense abeit it sounds stupid. After a year of riots in which the media spent condemning the police and the guard for the overuse of force, the army chiefs were concerned about “the optics.”
Yes I suspect Trump could have overridden the stupidity of the Army had he the sense and the desire, but ultimately Guard troops were not missing there simply because Trump didn’t care.
“But you have to go back to check from past years with respect to signatures. And if you check with Fulton County, you’ll have hundreds of thousands because they dumped ballots into Fulton County and the other county next to it.”
Did you read the transcript of Trump’s call with Raffensberger? We have it. That’s a piece of it above.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-transcript-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/2768e0cc-4ddd-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html
My impression is of a man who thinks he can’t lose and is adamant on finding the ballots that are being hidden from him or that were faked. There is no clear indication that he thinks Raffensbeger should -- or would -- cheat to find those ballots or clear indication of any suggestion he should. He is though certain that if he looked for them and let Trumps lawyers look at some data they could find them. But he thinks Raffensberger is hiding stuff or willfully not trying to uncover the truth. It’s hard for me to pick apart what he is lying about and what he actually believes. I don’t know if he can do it himself.
Come now. It wasn't "just" the ridiculous legal reasoning. Trump laid the groundwork for his false claims for months prior to the election, claiming the only way he could lose is if the election is rigged! He did this on Twitter, he did this in speeches, he did this from the White House itself.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1536363725711626240
Trump tried to pressure election officials in states to do his bidding, most infamously telling Brad Raffensberger, GA's secretary of state, "What I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than [the 11,779 vote margin of defeat] we have, because we won the state."
On January 6th itself, even *after* the chaos at the Capitol, he spoke of his "sacred landslide victory".
He repeatedly broadcast the most insane conspiracy theories - anything that would gin up his base into believing that he had actually won the election.
This was not just a matter of bad legal advice. This wasn't just another case of "politicians lie all the time". The was the only time in the history of this nation that a leader refused to submit to the orderly transfer of power.
That the Republicans couldn't impeach him after all that (even Cocaine Mitch hoped that "The Democrats will take care of the son of a bitch for us"... but then didn't vote to impeach) speaks to the "structural stupidity" of which Haidt spoke.
Yes, all those are true. He just can't see the insanity in his own party
Or not...
Funny how when Trump said "peacefully and patriotically" the left knew that wasn't what he really meant.
I think the Dems have done an awesome job of cleansing their ranks of those who aren't on the far left bandwagon.
Now, can you please condemn Sen. Shumer for inciting the assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh, and call for his impeachment (or at the very least another sham investigation)?
If you read the book "Rigged", by Molly Hemingway. you will, if you have logical integrity, conclude the election was rigged - and not just on election day.
Republicans need to accept that counting the votes is more important than casting the votes; Dems have. I do have to admire the Dems for their enthusiastic embrace and operationalization of that Stalin maxim.
Can *I* please condemn Senator Schumer for his "reap the whirlwind" comments?
Sure, no problem, but I'm not sure what that accomplishes. I, Seth B, random guy on the internet with an owl avatar, hereby condemn Schumer for his comments. They were terrible.
Can I call for his impeachment for it? I'm not that sure he merits one, so I'll decline your invitation here, but I wouldn't be in the least bit upset were that to happen.
As for Mollie Hemmingway's book, I'll get to it after I've finished this one, in the same genre: https://www.amazon.com/Elvis-Alive-Book-Audio-Cassette/dp/0944276318/ref=sr_1_7?crid=LCV9S2BAQHTV&keywords=elvis+is+alive&qid=1655256250&sprefix=elvis+is+aliv%2Caps%2C333&sr=8-7
you sound like a sexist...
Hemingway's book is extremely well researched and documented. Facts matter, but not to everyone.
The Democratic Party and some of the people who supported the Democratic Party did more to try to “steal the election” than Trump, and was much more successful. I’m not talking about ballot fraud--I’m talking about the active suppression of information on public channels of communication. That use of power is much more concerning to me than Trump’s ridiculous attempt at getting Congress to agree to overturn the election results. You seem pretty convinced that Trump deserved impeachment but don’t seem equally appalled by the unethical behavior of Democrats.
If Trump deserves an impeachment for “instigating a riot”, Shumer certainly deserves one for “instigating an assassination plot.” Shumer certainly didn’t tell people to bring a whirlwind with peace when he made his original comment. And of course how about all the Democrats who tried to get Trump ousted from office between 2016 and 2020 with ridiculous accusations about collusion with Russia or quid pro quos? They were trying to “overthrow an election.” Where are the courageous Democratic politicians going after Adam Schiff? Do you not care about the lack of “courage” most democrats have over not impeaching Democratic politicians who have done or said something heinous? When will more Democrats have the courage to acknowledge their legacy of slavery?
The notion there is something special about Republican Party vices that the Democratic Party doesn’t share or even manifest to a worse degree is erroneous.
The most powerful elements in both parties are currently primarily driven by corrupt motivations.
I'm afraid I don't know what you are talking about in your first paragraph. Maybe the Democratic party succeeded in keeping that information from me. Could you be more specific? (But no Hunter Biden, please. Even Ted Cruz admitted of that story, "I don't think it moves a single voter.")
In your second paragraph, you are comparing apples and oranges. Yes, Schumer's statement was terrible, but it was also a ten-second outburst for which he later apologized, saying "I should not have used the words I used yesterday. They did not come out the way I intended." No pattern suggests Schumer was seriously "instigating an assassination plot". There's no "Eastman Memo" in which a lawyer comes to Chuck Schumer's office and explains to him how to knock off a conservative SCOTUS justice. Adam Schiff is just one of many losers in the House of Representatives. He commands no "base". He has no real power individually. As for Democrats having "the courage to acknowledge their legacy of slavery", man, that's Robin DiAngelo's territory! 😄
Given that every major Democratic politician would, if asked about America needing to better acknowledge its legacy of slavery, confirm that America does in fact need to better acknowledge it, and that the Democratic Party has recently began multiple commissions on exploring America’s legacy of slavery, the territory is not simply DiAngelo’s, it is the primary narrative that Democratic politicians use to demagogue black people. Which is precisely why it would require enormous courage for any Democrat who wasn’t just an apologist for the Party of Slavery to actually encourage the Democratic Party to take the primary blame for the legacy of slavery that it so frequently appeals to for votes and scape goats upon America in general.
As for the Hunter Biden story that you think doesn’t matter. https://cdn.mrc.org/TPC-MRC+Biden+Voter+Messaging+Survey+Analysis+Nov+2020_final.pdf
A poll was done asking Biden swing state voters if they would have still voted for Biden had they known of various information about Biden, including stuff related to the Hunter laptop, and 16% said has they known of that information, they would have not voted for Biden. That would have been sufficient for Biden to have lost the election. What information is suppressed or amplified by the major media sources, including social media, can have dramatic affects on voting outcomes. And the major media organizations primarily support the Democratic Party, as do the major social media tech companies, which use algorithms to manipulate what information is presented to their users, and that includes search engines such as Google and Bing.
So yes, if you weren’t aware of this, it’s quite possibly because the information that you are receiving has been manipulated by people who support the Democratic Party. Or you could have known but just don’t care because you are a tool.
And what does Schiff’s status have to do with whether he should be impeached? He has had enough power to vote for increased defense budget every time it was proposed for his entire career. I think that is sufficient power to warrant impeachment. And if he is such a loser, impeaching him should be very easy, yet Democratic politicians apparently don’t even have the courage for that.
As for Schumer, I don’t actually have confidence he was instigating an assassination plot, but if I applied the same lack of rigor and logical consistency people apply to what Trump said to his supporters that is supposed to be evidence of instigating the riot, Schumer I could confidently find him guilty. Him apologizing wouldn’t matter in Trump hating land--Trump explicitly told his followers to be peaceful and that doesn’t matter at all to those who think he instigated violence. Thus your excuse for Schumer is worthless: Schumer is just a two faced liar that really wanted the Supreme Court justice assassinated and knows that he can say violent things then apologize and people like you will buy it, but some followers will understand what he really wants, and that’s a dead Supreme Court justice. See how I can mimic the thinking of a person who hates Trump beyond all rationality? Sounds like you have that bug.
Oh, no. It 𝘸𝘢𝘴 Hunter.
That MRC study to which you linked would make a beautiful object lesson in an Intro to Statistics class when discussing the need for careful research design if you hope to obtain meaningful results - and not just propaganda - from it. It perfectly illustrates the "garbage in, garbage out" maxim. Such leading questions!
An example:
"At the time you cast your vote for president, were you aware that Joe Biden chose as his running mate and successor Kamala Harris, rated the most left wing Senator in America, even more leftist that Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist?"
or this:
"At the time you cast your vote for president, were you aware that under President Trump's policies, the U.S. last year became energy independent – exporting more crude oil than we imported – for the first time in recorded history?"
Gee wiz! These were the sorts of questions used to butter up the respondents (all of whom were on the internet by the way - and no mention is made of how the respondents were obtained in the first place) over and over before asking them, "Well... now that you know that Biden is the Devil and that Trump is an angel, would you still - if you had to do it all over again - have voted for that terrible man Biden?" Needless to say, these survey results are worthless - purely on research design grounds. It's a parody of a professional survey.
More importantly, now that Biden has proven what a terrible choice he was, many are now anxious to distance themselves from him. So maybe the 17% were merely regretting foolishly voting for Biden.
The survey was conducted in November 2020, after the election, but before Biden took office.
Actually, I think your criticism of the poll is valid. As far as polls go, admittedly it is poor.
There is another poll I’m aware of by Rasmussen simply asking whether voters think the laptop story is important, and about 2/3 claimed it was.
https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/march_2022/hunter_s_laptop_from_hell_is_an_important_story_voters_say
Unfortunately that doesn’t say anything about how impactful the suppression of it was on voter behavior.
Albeit, I have a hard time believing that the suppression and manipulation of information doesn’t have a significant impact on what people vote for, or just believe about anything.
And the laptop story is just a single instance of a much broader behavior of censorship or suppression of information on behalf of Democratic Party narratives. It of course happens on things like Fox on behalf of Republican Party narratives, but given that the Democratic Party has the support of tech companies and most corporate journalism, the scale is just greater.
Do you think active suppression or manipulation of information by powerful organizations does not affect political behavior? For example, I don’t think the Chinese government does it just because the CCP is evil. It is effective.
And really, after the 2016 election, much of the Democratic Party was convinced that were it not from Russian interference, largely in its spread of misinformation on social media, Trump would have not won. It seems like there is agreement that what information people are privy to has an impact on elections. There is disagreement though about who is most responsible for the suppression and manipulation of information. I think it is the worst from people who support the Democratic Party.
I certainly do think suppression and manipulation of information can affect political behavior. We're in agreement there. And yes, the more respectable media outlets obviously tilt leftwards - often to a nauseating degree. I'll even agree with you that it was foolish of the usual media suspects to tiptoe around the Hunter Biden stuff, even if I also think the story itself was absurdly overblown by some right-wingers and wasn't going to change *anyone's* mind about who to vote for in the 2020 election.
But the right's "media suppression" narrative reminds me of the left's "voter suppression" narrative. It's not that there's nothing there, it's just that the something is small and has been magnified all out of proportion. This isn't China. This isn't Russia. It is trivially easy in the USA to obtain right-slanted media - running the gamut from solid reporting and piercing analysis to OpEd drivel and going all the way down to Tucker-style conspiracy theories and worse. To cite just one example, the Facebook pages that get the most engagement tend to be, week in and week out, dominated by right-wingers - and often trashy ones at that. (https://twitter.com/FacebooksTop10)
If one wants to know what people on the right (or left) are saying about any topic whatsoever, one can find it with ease. Media suppression really isn't a problem in this country. That's not to say that the media landscape is healthy - it isn't - but media suppression isn't the problem.
Yes, there was a foolish sense among some Democrats after the 2016 election that Trump somehow hadn't really won. I dearly wish he hadn't won, but he did, fair and square. Still, we had an orderly transfer of power. Hillary Clinton gave her concession speech on November 9, 2016. Obama showed Trump around the White House.
Nothing to see: Book Review: ‘Rigged’ and ‘Our Broken Elections’ - WSJhttps://www.wsj.com/articles/book-review-rigged-and-our-broken-elections-11637019090
I dropped my subscription to the WSJ a few years ago when it became clear to me that they are more interested in protecting the government than protecting the truth.
So I don't know what that article states, but I can state the Hemingway's book is extremely well researched and documented.
Did you catch the very recent article in which US cybersecurity states that Dominion voting machines can be hacked?
But don't worry, they are "sure" it hasn't happened yet. wink wink...
Dominion voting machines hacked - Link, please.
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-05-31/cyber-agency-voting-software-vulnerable-in-some-states
Found one:
"University of Michigan computer scientist J. Alex Halderman, who wrote the report on which the advisory is based, has long argued that using digital technology to record votes is dangerous because computers are inherently vulnerable to hacking and thus require multiple safeguards that aren’t uniformly followed. He and many other election security _experts have insisted that using hand-marked paper ballots is the most secure method of voting and the only option that allows for meaningful post-election audits."
https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-technology-georgia-election-2020-a746b253f3404dbf794349df498c9542
Whoa there.
"X is possible if something remains unaddressed"
is hardly the same as
"X has occurred".
From the article to which you linked: "The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, or CISA, said there is no evidence the flaws in the Dominion Voting Systems’ equipment have been exploited to alter election results. The advisory is based on testing by a prominent computer scientist and expert witness in a long-running lawsuit that is unrelated to false allegations of a stolen election pushed by former President Donald Trump after his 2020 election loss."
Yet you introduced this by writing "Dominion voting machines hacked".
That was their title. It should probably read 'hacked in tests'
Whose title?
The title of the AP piece to which you linked is "Cyber agency: Voting software vulnerable in some states".
Trump colluded with Russia - false
Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation - false
Big Tech didn't collude with Dems to control social media - false
2020 election was the most transparent and secure in history - and yet, Dems tried to push through election reforms...if 2020 was the most transparent and secure in history, why is election reform needed?
Voting machines can't be hacked - false
Voting machines weren't hacked - ???
It will take months for the Taliban to take Afghanistan - false
Afghanistan withdrawal was a success - false
Massive borrowing won't cause inflation - false
Inflation is transitory - false
Gas price increase is Putin's fault - false
The COVID vaccine will protect you - false
The COVID vaccine will keep you from getting sick - false
The COVID vaccine will keep you from getting really sick - false
The COVID vaccine is safe and effective - false
Facemasks work - false
Lockdowns work - false
I don't believe anything that comes out of DC. You shouldn't either. It is so bad, I'd be skeptical if they said the sky was blue.
Ah, you believe the 2020 election was rigged 𝙖𝙣𝙙 you are an antivaxxer? Impressive! Can you, like Lin Wood, achieve the conspiracy theory trifecta? Mr. Wood apparently also believes that the Earth is flat.(https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/who-are-you-going-to-believe-lin-wood-or-nasa/ar-AAYpwnk)
You say you'd be skeptical if "they" said the sky was blue. I do not doubt that.
His 'Coddling of the American Mind' was pretty good, although his recommendations were all wrong, and I agree that we don't hear enough balanced discussion. But we are inundated with so-called progressive propaganda. That he cannot see that means he is not self-aware, but self-righteous.
This is a sincere question. How do you think his recommendations were wrong? I'm speaking as someone who is trying to help kids who have been affected by this. Incidentally, I am of the opinion that Haidt has a huge blind spot/bias about the GOP, but let's find a way to press on together and solve these problems before things get any worse. OK?
TDS is a terminal disease and Haidt is one of its most fervent superspreaders. Low bar in academia these days.