OBJECTION!

Very decent chance America just nukes everyone on the way out out of spite

Profitable for the rich. Defense for the rich. Both are points against.

• strong profitable defense contractors

Why the hell is this supposed to be a point in favor? I don’t support the military-industrial complex, because I’m not a right-winger or a hawk.

I’m aware. I’ve never voted Republican in my life and don’t intend to.

You’re trying to own me by intentionally misgendering some other random person. I hope you feel good about yourself. All you’re doing is proving my assumption about you correct and vindicating me. You showed me everything I did here was 100% correct and justified and I would do it again.

I’m also the guy who started all this.

Then edit your comment.

Yeah, if your goal is just to wallow in misery and jack off about how right you (think you) are.

It’s pretty much in line with the “Lizardman Constant,” named after a poll that 4% of Americans think the world is run by lizard people. You can ask anything in a poll and you’ll pretty much always get around 4% trolling or whatever.

I’m not here to generate solutions, no idea why you keep asking for one.

Then your political position is worthless on it’s face.

An example of how she could’ve distinguished herself successfully…

I already did. She could’ve said that the administration wanted to do more about inflation but was held back by Republicans in Congress. She could’ve also pointed a finger at the rich and say that she would do more to confront them and stop price gouging.

I’m not trying to present a plan… God knows

Ok, well some of us actually do have ideas on how to win and haven’t resigned ourselves to this defeatist martyrdom nonsense. So, like, maybe we should toss out your ideas at least for a while and give mine a try, since they involve a practical, coherent strategy adapted to the present situation which you have no answer for.

Like why on earth would I ever come around to your position if you can’t even come up with a theoretical solution to the most important political questions of our time? If even you see your political project as a sinking ship, I’m sure as hell not coming aboard.

Should be easy, given that the US has a much stronger propaganda platform than Russia no? /s

Of course, the US government has a stronger propaganda platform in the US than Russia has in the US. Political parties are not the US government though, so it’s not really relevant to how a political party can promote a message.

It’s almost as if despite this being shown across all media, a massive amount of voters were still manipulated by foreign & right-wing propaganda into ignoring/dismissing it.

Or they just didn’t see it or pay attention or they didn’t believe Trump would do it based on their own reasoning. People can believe different things from you without the need to insert a malicious actor to explain the disagreement.

But ok, your position is that nobody has both the willingness or capability to counter foreign/right-wing propaganda. So, as I’ve asked several times now, what is your solution to this situation? Because it seems like your solution is just to whine about it.

should be easy for you to give an actual example then.

An example of her… not doing that? I already did, when she was asked in an interview what she would do differently.

No, it was easy because people are dumbasses

Again, what’s you’re plan to account for people being dumbasses? If people are dumbasses, and you want politicians to keep running campaigns as if they weren’t, then the inevitable result of what you want is that you lose.

basic facts like how the economy is performing and covid caused global inflation is “complex economic explanations” now?

Yes. How “the economy” is performing doesn’t necessarily reflect on the average person’s lived experiences as they watch prices go up and don’t own enough stocks to really benefit from that. I don’t recall Kamala ever actually bringing up covid as the reason for global inflation, which was probably smart doing so probably would’ve just increased covid skepticism, it would’ve played right into their hands. It’s no surprise that the right was able to cut through that rhetoric by talking about the price of eggs and such.

I really feel like you’re underestimating the challenge of communicating ideas to a broad population. Any message you want to communicate, you should imagine someone acting in complete bad faith trying to present you in the worst possible light and shouting over everything you say, because that’s what cable news is, and it’s also what political content on platforms like Twitch and YouTube are like, except then they don’t even have to bring you on at all, they can go through clips and shit cherry-picking and taking things out of context. I can shout “YOU DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY BECAUSE THE BILLIONAIRES TOOK IT” and that’s a lot more likely to get through than like, “You don’t have any money, but you could have even less money, and actually if you compare our inflation levels to the global median you’ll see that it was actually unavoidable,” which can easily be distorted and shouted down.

These distinctions completely change the meaning. “Being able to predict” vs “being able to prove to a broad population” are completely different things. Of course it could be predicted, I certainly did, but that doesn’t resolve the question of how you get the message out on a large scale and convince people of it. Even if you and I could see through it, he still had plausible deniability, making it not necessarily the most compelling angle to hit people with.

If you’re suggesting that she should’ve thrown Biden under the bus in her response, then it’s not absurd at all.

As I explained, she wouldn’t have had to throw Biden under the bus, unless you consider “distinguishing herself from him in literally any way” to be “throwing him under the bus.”

Ah yes, all of a sudden voters are aware of the facts “oBviOusLy” lmao. Let’s just pretend that whatever real or imagined failures of the Biden campaign weren’t successfully thrown onto her. zzzzzzzzzz

It was very easy to associate her with the real or imagined failures of the Biden campaign because she did nothing at all to distinguish herself from them.

Too many Americans are just too dumb and misinformed, that much is clear.

Almost as if complex economic explanations either go over people’s heads, don’t reach them, or they don’t believe them. I wonder if there’s some kind of simpler, but also true narrative that would acknowledge people’s struggles while blaming them on people much more responsible for the situation than random minorities. Something like, blaming the rich. But no, can’t do that, because Bernie Sanders is too tankie for you.

Again, what is your actual strategy for addressing the problem of uninformed voters? I just gave you mine, yours seems to be “lose, but it’s ok so long as you were right.”

You said “nobody could’ve predicted that Trump would put project 2025 heads into government”. So shove your forgiveness up your ass you tankie clown. Don’t patronize me.

That’s a lie. Link the comment where you think I said that.

This is just a dogshit tankie take.

I guess Bernie Sanders is a tankie now 🤣

Trump filled his cabinet with billionaires and was supported by the richest man on earth. Nobody cares about this “blame the rich” nonsense, evidently.

I already explained this. When the options are, “You are struggling, and the reason you’re struggling is minorities” vs “You’re not struggling, it’s all in your head, the economy’s doing fine actually,” people are inclined to listen to the narrative that tracks with their lived experience. If you want to actually compete with that narrative, you need another explanation of why people are struggling, ideally a simple one, and that’s where a leftist narrative is necessary.

Ah yes, I know that in your world of non-existent morality this would’ve had an easy counter. But shitting on your current boss by making up nonsense about how he actually did things poorly (when he didn’t) doesn’t come easily for people who are more genuine/honest than you

The idea of Kamala Harris being more genuine/honest than me is too absurd to even take offense at, it’s just hilarious.

I guess you got what you wanted then. Kamala chose to fall on her sword and “do the right thing” and now you can pat yourself on the back for being on the side of the good guys while the right takes power and fucks up all the stuff you claim to care about. If we keep getting such “noble” people, then the right’s dominance is assured for the foreseeable future. How important is stuff like Ukraine to you, really, if you’re fine with that result? Seems to me you’re fine with them being sacrificed as long as your side keeps it’s hands clean.

Not that it would even “dirty her hands” to simply offer some kind of policy. The Biden/Harris administration was constrained by a divided government, she could’ve said they wanted to go further with stuff but were held back. Is that not the truth?

Also, for the record, my position is not that morality doesn’t exist, just that you have to set it aside when assessing the world as it actually is.

Also, isn’t the obvious answer to anything Kamala could say “why didn’t you do/push for that policy as the vice president?”

Because the vice president doesn’t have much power? Obviously.

Engaging in and furthering the decay just to win isn’t the way to go. Clear out the trash so that democracy can actually function. Ridding ourselves of this dogshit disinformation environment and returning to normal politics isn’t “idealist”, we’ve been there not too long ago.

Yes, we were there not long ago. And then we proceeded from that state into this one. Even if we could somehow return to that state, the root causes that pushed us into this one would still remain.

But you don’t seem to have any actual plans for achieving the change you want in the first place. You just seem to want politicians to fall on their swords for no reason so they can be heroic martyrs and you can revel in your “correctness” about things. I guess I owe you an apology, when I tried to explain to you what could’ve been done differently in order to win, it was under the assumption that you actually wanted to. If you just want to whine about things not being the way you want them to, idk what to tell you, you do you ig.

my class interests

spare me the tankie cringe

Lmao. Even just talking about class is tankie, apparently.

If I’m just comparing how shit the Russian gov is vs the US gov, your interests aren’t relevant in the first place.

I’m not, and that wasn’t what the conversation was about.

Why stability/security in the West/World is vital for prosperity and won’t be possible unless Russia is defeated

“Defeating Russia” sounds extremely destabilizing. Do you genuinely want to eliminate the country through military force? That’s completely insane, they’re a nuclear power, you’ll end all life on earth. There will be no “security” “stability” or “prosperity” in a nuclear wasteland.

So possibility A is a nuclear wasteland, possibility B is just letting them have the country and going on with our lives. I’ll take option B, thanks.

Yet you think it was super difficult to predict Trumps relationship to Project 2025 lmao.

Never said this, you’re lying. What I said was that it was difficult to convince voters to connect Project 2025 to Trump.

I’ll forgive your lie because it seems like you’re genuinely incapable of distinguishing between those two propositions, but if you continue lying about what I said, I’m walking away. Lies are a pet peeve.

Tell me, how do you know that supporting Ukraine properly doesn’t result in Russia’s defeat in, say another year

Because of my assessment of the situation. It’s a stalemate, there’s no realistic possibility of them reclaiming all their lost territory in the next year. Russia will win a stalemate because they’re more materially invested in the conflict than the US. Eventually, the US will get bored and stop caring about it, Russia won’t.

or that surrendering them doesn’t result in death camps all over Ukraine for years?

How do you know Ukraine winning wouldn’t result in death camps all over Ukraine for years?

Yes, because they’re heavily brainwashed by foreign and right-wing propaganda. Just waiting for you to finally concede this basic fact.

Sure, some people are, but the broader trend is people following their perceived material interests.

The fact that the candidate outed himself as a senile removed should have the material impact of shifting votes to the opposition.

😑

I don’t know why I’m bothering. It’s always this “should” nonsense. It’s completely irrelevant to understanding voter behavior.

It did not have the impact you want it to have because people vote according to their material interests, and Trump’s various antics did not make them change their minds about which candidate was in line with their material interests. Because they were directly, materially affected by inflation, and not by “Trump dancing.”

And how exactly should Kamala distance herself realistically from the administration she herself was in? Do you think you can come up with some gem of an insight that all the top advisers failed to see? Cool

Of course I do. Those “top advisors” are the same incompetent morons that bungled the Clinton campaign.

You have to provide an alternative explanation to the right’s narrative. When things are bad, people look for who to blame, the right tells them to blame immigrants, while liberals tell them not to blame anyone because things are fine, actually. It’s no wonder people go with the narrative that actually tracks with their lives experience of material conditions. The solution, the way to answer the right’s narrative, is to blame the rich, the billionaires who are hoarding wealth and price gouging and who were (in part) actually responsible for inflation. The democrats don’t want to do that though because they would risk alienating their rich donors.

Even if they weren’t willing to do that, Kamala was directly asked what she would do differently than Biden on the economy and had *absolutely no answer," which was an extreme political fumble. Saying virtually anything would be better than that. She is a terrible politician with poor political instincts, which is why she bombed out of the 2020 primaries despite being the frontrunner.

YES I AM. I’m not sure why you insist on pretending the current state of US politics is a normal reality that people are meant to just conform to

What I’m saying is that reality and the current state of US politics should be recognized for what it is. And it’s impossible to do that if you keep injecting your ideas about what should be into analysis of what is.

where you can still calculate what the right move is or isn’t according to any kind of rules that make sense.

Because you can. You just have to view things through a materialist lens rather than an idealist one.

Not sure why you think this hyper-cynical teenage view is any less of an inane and immature lens than “saturday morning cartoons”

“People persue their own interests” is not a “hyper-cynical teenage view” lmao.

I never positioned the conversation as being about who is exploiting YOU more though. You keep inserting your own personal interests as if it should be the compass when comparing the US and Russia, idk why.

Again, it’s not about me, it’s about my class.

And it’s not a “compass for comparing the US and Russia.” Compare them all you like, it doesn’t concern me. What does concern me are, you know, my class interests. If you want to ask me to set aside my own interests in favor of your opinions about morality, then you have to make the case for why I should.

“We should abandon it because it’s going to be abandoned anyway” is circular logic nonsense.

No, it’s seeing the writing on the wall. I don’t control public opinion, I can’t change the fact that people are losing and will continue to lose interest in Ukraine, that’s just a fact of life. And given that that’s going to happen, the best thing to do is to cut losses as soon as possible.

The point should be people realizing that it’s best, even just for their own self-interest, for Ukraine to win.

Then make the case, because you haven’t. All you’ve done is talk about how they’re the bad guys and pulled out an unrelated example from 80 years ago that’s resulted in disaster every time it’s been used as an example.

You have no idea if supporting or surrendering would result in more or less deaths.

Of course I do. I mean, to the extent that it’s possible to predict any events. It’s the deaths from surrendering versus the deaths from surrendering plus the deaths from however long the war keeps going.

The moral fiber of politicians for example, is and should be a concern because it does have an impact in pHysiCaL rEaLiTy.

Even that statement is missing the point. “Is and should be a concern.” You can be concerned about it all you want, but we’re talking about how voters will and have behaved, and their behavior has clearly demonstrated that an insufficient number of people care about such things for it to be decisive. Should they care? I don’t care whether they should care.

To clarify, sure, Trump’s character has an impact on material reality once elected, but we’re discussing voter behavior, which doesn’t necessarily see that connection or care as much as they perhaps should. But how much they “should” care is an altogether different question from how much they do care.

Oh really? was it Kamala that ranted about Haitians eating pets? danced for 40 min onstage to ave maria and ymca like a senile kook?

Did those things have a direct, material impact on broad segments of the population? Maybe some Hatians faced more discrimination and were alienated, but that’s a hell of a lot fewer people than were affected by inflation, so the impact it had on the outcome of the election was probably negligible.

She shouldn’t have to distance herself from the Biden administration because the administration objectively did a good job.

And there you go again. Whether she should or shouldn’t have to is irrelevant, you’re drifting off into “ought’s” again. Regardless of whether she should have had to, she did have to.

It’s really hard for you to admit that people are just uninformed

I already said that they were ages ago. In fact, I was the one who first pointed out that “a wave of global inflation caused incumbent parties in many countries to lose elections.” You only assume I can’t “admit” it, despite me explicitly telling you it, because you can’t wrap your head around the fact that *even though they were uninformed, Kamala still failed to make the case to them." Again, unless you can wave a magic wand and cause uninformed voters to become informed, you’re just complaining about how reality works.

This is also another opportunity for you to realise that morality actually exists and is something to account for.

I never said it didn’t. What I said is that we have to be able to look at reality rationally and objectively without our preconceptions of what “should” be true getting in the way of things.

Also, I’m very confused about what you even mean by this or how it’s in any way a response to what I said.