The New American Politics thread

[calumniate]

Kaine kind of just repeated his acceptance speech. The others though, nice! Especially bloomberg and Biden

[jammies]

Sometimes, though, you call somebody a racist because they're actually a racist.

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[savemedrzaius]

Originally Posted by Canuck-Hater

I'm gonna miss that guy. Hell of a President.

It's funny because the rest of the world basically feels the same way. But in his country they are pretty split.

[Red Ice Player]

Originally Posted by Buster

I have no interest in defending Trump's history nor his policies. As an authoritarian his ideology shares little with mine.

My claim here is simply that Trump's comments on Mexico and Muslim Immigration are not racist...and to claim otherwise is to simply participate in the confirmation bias machinations of his opposition. I find it annoying because it just adds to reducing the level of discourse even further and is responsible for the same type of partisan driven vitriol that both sides spew to try to impact the Other Team.

I'm more interested in the issues, and policy (in Trump's case bad or absent) policy, than trying to create a divisiveness through caricature-izing your opponent. It's a low form of political argument.

Huh? Trump isn't my opponent. I'm a Canadian with no skin in the game calling a spade a spade. By his words and actions during the entire birther fiasco, Trump wore his racism on his sleeve, hence I can confidently call him out on it. Meanwhile you are are arguing pointless semantics in regards to the difference between a bigot and a racist. He's both, and it's very obvious.

[dobbles]

Originally Posted by Buster

I have no interest in defending Trump's history nor his policies. As an authoritarian his ideology shares little with mine.

My claim here is simply that Trump's comments on Mexico and Muslim Immigration are not racist...and to claim otherwise is to simply participate in the confirmation bias machinations of his opposition. I find it annoying because it just adds to reducing the level of discourse even further and is responsible for the same type of partisan driven vitriol that both sides spew to try to impact the Other Team.

I'm more interested in the issues, and policy (in Trump's case bad or absent) policy, than trying to create a divisiveness through caricature-izing your opponent. It's a low form of political argument.

I'm sorry, but I find this as a lot of B.S.

You are playing on semantics, period. The dude has said rather racist things which others have brought up. So the descriptor fits. And in the cases of the examples you keep harping on, it could have simply been said that he is a bigot, xenophobe, or myriad other things. Changing the adjective would not have altered the meaning of the post.

You are stating that this mis-speak somehow shows people trying to misrepresent Trump or hit him with ad hominem attacks. It is simply people not using the correct word to describe how he is a terrible person. Unfortunately, he is so offensive to so many groups, that it can sometimes be hard to use the right adjective to describe him.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by kerriffic

Lol

The two don't even look anything alike...

[troutman]

Michael Che was oddly rude to Chris Matthews just now on MSNBC. What's up with that?

[calumniate]

I had a question which popped up in my mind which maybe there is an answer for. With the amount of lawsuits trump has faced over the years, how much money has been tied up in courts dealing with all of it? Even without an answer, my guess is that his endeavours have not been economically efficient whatsoever!

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by troutman

Michael Che was oddly rude to Chris Matthews just now on MSNBC. What's up with that?

Playing hardball?

[troutman]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

Playing hardball?

Could be - I think it goes back to Cleveland, when Chris asked Che who the best black comedian is:

https://youtu.be/juGpP2sEs8E

[calumniate]

"We don't look to be ruled" - Obama

Favourite quote of the night!

[Bunk]

I thought Obama's speech was brilliant in many levels. As a politico, it's amazing to witness someone at the top of their game like that. Just as us sports fans admire a truly great performance.

Perhaps his most damning attack on Trump was saying (paraphrasing) "what we saw in Cleveland was not particularly Republican or conservative." Smarter than trying to tie Republicans to him is trying to pry them away, which many are doing. A lot are resigned to regrouping for 2020, while not cratering their current congressional advantage.

[octothorp]

I said months ago that the ace in the hole that Clinton had was her ability to bring Obama, Bill, and Biden out and get them all doing stump speeches for her all across the country. That was before she added Sanders and Warren to her list of allies. As this convention suggests, when all of these folks are deployed across the country, targeted at the various groups they each speak to best, it's going to be really tough for Trump to keep up.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Buster

I have no interest in defending Trump's history nor his policies. As an authoritarian his ideology shares little with mine.

I agree. I don't see you defending his policies or history, just his behaviors. I don't see you doing so because you actually believe in the guy either. All I see is someone who is doing so because so many people dislike the guy. You aren't doing it because of some actual belief in the guy, you are doing it because it gets a rise out of people. I think you get off on stirring it up and this is an opportunity for you to do so by defending the indefensible.

My claim here is simply that Trump's comments on Mexico and Muslim Immigration are not racist...and to claim otherwise is to simply participate in the confirmation bias machinations of his opposition.

Two things here. You're being obtuse on the racist definition. You play pretty loose with the use of terms and concepts, but expect people to abide by the strict definition of racist when talking about Donald Trump. That's ridiculous, especially when racist is synonym and catch-all for the words that best describe Donald Trump and his behaviors in this election cycle. Words like prejudiced, anti-Semitic, ethnocentric, xenophobic, intolerant, sectarian, chauvinist, bigot, are good descriptors of Trump, and they are all synonyms for racist. His comments toward African Americans, Arabs, and Asians are just as inflammatory as his comments towards Mexicans and Muslims, and those are definitely racist, so calling him is a racist is not off base. So far the only difference between Donald Trump and David Duke is one sleeps on fine linens and the other admittedly wears them.

Second point is your use of the term confirmation bias. If you're going to expect people to use the text book term for racism in proper context then please do so with the term and concept of confirmation of confirmation bias. People are no actively searching for content that supports their preconception of Trump being a racist. I don't see anyone going out of their way to find obscure passages where Trump has said anything ridiculous. All people are doing is waiting for Trump to speak or put out a tweet, and then pointing out the inflammatory terms in his own words. That is not confirmation bias. In fact, if you are trying to play the confirmation bias card it is you who is practicing confirmation bias, by jumping on people's reaction to Trump's own words and pointing out they are calling him what they perceive him to be, they by enforcing your belief that everyone is against Trump for all the wrong reasons, the most important of which is Trump is not a racist (by your definition).

I find it annoying because it just adds to reducing the level of discourse even further and is responsible for the same type of partisan driven vitriol that both sides spew to try to impact the Other Team.

You're seriously going to try and play the reduction-of-discourse card when you are the intentionally being obtuse and repetitive on this subject?

I'm more interested in the issues, and policy (in Trump's case bad or absent) policy, than trying to create a divisiveness through caricature-izing your opponent. It's a low form of political argument.

Really? Then how about trying to discuss an actual policy position instead of sticking with this ridiculously stupid defense of Trump based on the semantic use of the term racist? It is highly annoying when people spend a whole lot of time defending someone or something, then all of a sudden change course and try to claim they are actually a high road kind of guy and we should get out of the gutter that person steered us into. Don't be that guy. Own what you are and what you've been doing.

[calgarygeologist]

I wonder what the odds are on Hillary's speech tonight going longer than Donald Trump's? I bet she goes longer than Trump.

[Senator Clay Davis]

I bet she probably goes about as long as Obama did, 45 minutes or so. Remember Trump had the longest acceptance speech in at least 40 years. She isn't a good enough speaker to go an hour and 20 minutes, and she knows it, so she'll probably look for something tighter.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

I bet she probably goes about as long as Obama did, 45 minutes or so. Remember Trump had the longest acceptance speech in at least 40 years. She isn't a good enough speaker to go an hour and 20 minutes, and she knows it, so she'll probably look for something tighter.

I know that she is not one of the best speakers but I think that she has a lot to say and will go on the offensive tonight. Plus she likes to make history so she will probably want to set the record.

[GGG]

I think it's
In the 40-50 range with lots of policy. It will be disappointing compared to Biden, Bloomberg, Bill; and the Obamas but will be effective in outlying the vision of America to address the America is on the wrong track numbers.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

I wonder what the odds are on Hillary's speech tonight going longer than Donald Trump's? I bet she goes longer than Trump.

It is going to be shorter.

There are going to be a noticeable number of people booing her through her entire speech and I think she will cut it short as a result.

[Izzle]

Rank the DNC speeches - Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

ok... I've legit sat here at my computer for 10 mins thinking of ranking them. And I cant. I suppose Barack Obama's is a slight favorite, just because its the most recent. His speech made me proud to be North American (I realize how weird that sounds). But all the speeches had amazing moments.

MO - set the tone for the entire thing. Rock solid foundation for ANY kind of speech to follow. You want sweet, she set the tone. You want powerful, she set the tone. You want patriotic, she set the tone. Wonderful speech really.

Bill Clinton - A very personal speech. Honestly, kind of a grand gesture of love on a very grand stage. The fact that the teleprompter busted at times and he kept going just showed how slick Slick Willy really was. Just an amazing speech.

Joe Biden - MALARKEY!!! I was busting listening to that line. Quite brilliant the way he took DT's signature quote "you're fired" and really turned it on its heels. Joe Biden (spoilered for swear and size):

NSFW!

Barack Obama - Damn, what a way to finish. That little smile or snicker (i dont quite know what to call it) before he roasted DT is for the ages, I could watch that all day. So many great lines - "dont boo, vote", "We dont look to be ruled", Saying that not he nor Bill were the most qualified candidate to contest for Presidency, etc . Absolute gem of a speech.

HM: Bloomberg. His was a sneaky sneaky good speech. I found myself nodding in agreement a lot more than I thought I would.

Dont know who said it, but "DT is not fit to polish John McCain's boots" was another killer line.