US US Politics General - Discussion of President Biden and other politicians

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Autistic Gunspergings said:
you are NOT allowed to have fun with guns. Guns are a SERIOUS HOBBY for people who take themselves VERY seriously.
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Did I say anything about whether anyone should be allowed to have fun with guns? I said it isn't helpful to do stupid shit on Youtube with guns while shouting "muh second amendment!" without putting it at risk.
 
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/14/harris-celebrity-support-useful
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Earlier this week, the much-anticipated presidential debate between Kamala Harris, the vice-president, and the former president Donald Trump took place. But one of the most newsworthy events of the night occurred after the sparring concluded, when the pop-megastar Taylor Swift took to Instagram to endorse Harris. “The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth. I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Swift wrote in her caption, under a photo of her holding a cat. “With love and hope, Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady.”

Swift’s reach was massive and immediate – fellow celebrities including WNBA breakout star Caitlin Clark and Jennifer Aniston liked the post, which amassed millions of likes in minutes. More than 300,000 new visitors went to vote.gov as a direct consequence of Swift’s post, an action she reinforced in her remarks at the VMA awards ceremony the following night: “If you’re over 18 please register to vote for something else that is important – the Presidential election.”


In the current-day social fabric, parasocial relationships rule supreme – a celebrity is not just viewed as an entertainer one may fancy and enjoy, but also an extension of a fan’s moral, social and political values. In a political context, the transitive logic of, I am a good person and I like X as my favorite celebrity, therefore they must be good as well, has a high potential to quickly evolve into, I am a good person and my favorite celebrity’s candidate is X, therefore they must be the right candidate because my favorite celebrity is also good and right.
This has been a boon for the Harris-Walz campaign, which has fought to catch up in an accelerated campaign cycle. Endorsements, celebrity-driven social media trends such as Charli xcx’s “brat summer,” and pithy talking points have served as effective placeholders as the vice-president’s election squad works to fill in the blanks of a campaign being built on the fly and which only published its policy platforms this week.

Swift is the latest to join a wave of celebrities who are using their platforms to assist Harris and Walz. Since the launch of the ticket in July, celebrity support has cascaded in, in the form of donations, social media endorsements and stars actively serving as proxy delegates. Megan Thee Stallion, for instance, launched her own affinity group, Hotties for Harris, and also performed at Harris’s Atlanta rally. “We are really doing the damn thing. I’m proud of us,” the Houston rapper said in a recent Billboard interview. “Now we just got to get out there and go vote.”

The Florida rapper Plies, who is no stranger to internet virality, has transformed his social media presence into a space for advocating for the Harris campaign, defending her against what he has perceived to be misogynist and racist attacks. “To men who look like me,” he said in an August Instagram video, “stop asking a motherfucking Black woman to explain themselves to you.”

Celeb endorsements are common in the modern political era and Hollywood elites have become public facing delegates. Notably, the disgraced music executive P Diddy launched the “Vote or Die!” campaign in 2004 through his organization Citizen Change, an attempt to thwart George Bush’s reelection. While this tradition is longstanding, the advent of social media has intensified the connections between a celebrity or influencer and their fans and consumers, and thus the potential reach and impact of these choices. Leveraging that parasocial economy via vocal celebrity advocates has been a potent short-term option for the Harris campaign to fan enthusiasm.

But ultimately, celebrities are not campaign or policy specialists, and a reliance on them can preclude straightforward engagement on issues. One glaring example is Gaza – while delegates such as the representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have alleged that Harris is actively working toward a ceasefire, the candidate’s remarks strike a dissonant tone. Harris has acknowledged Palestinians’ right to self-determination over the years – yet in campaign speeches and at the recent debate, she has undercut ceasefire rhetoric by repeating, “Israel has a right to defend itself.”

These gestures have minimized the impact of the crisis, that has been described as a genocide and are a defense of Israel’s actions in the wake of broad international scrutiny, including by the international court of justice. The euphoria following Swift’s endorsement can ultimately register as alienating to young Democrats who have been actively campaigning for attention to this critical foreign policy issue – the voice of an emerging voting demographic overshadowed by the reach and impact of one of our biggest contemporary stars.

Celebrities are undoubtedly key for drumming up political enthusiasm, but over-reliance on their reach can quickly become a double-edged sword. As the Harris-Walz campaign continues through the last two months of election season, it will need to land on a unified message that will reach all the voters it seeks to court.
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SaidNoOneEver said:
Did I say anything about whether anyone should be allowed to have fun with guns? I said it isn't helpful to do stupid shit on Youtube with guns while shouting "muh second amendment!" without putting it at risk.
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I agree that shooting at random shit you bought off aliexpress is not the most high-brow piece of entertainment but I would argue that its done a whole lot more to get people on board with the idea of gun ownership and the second amendment than hurt it. Getting people to buy a gun because they might need it at some point, maybe, is a hard sell to people.
getting people to buy a gun because you can do fun things with it, like shooting at soda cans & other random junk with friends, is a much easier sell, and opens the door to more practical conversations like self defense, SHTF talk, etc.
 
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Jet Fuel Johnny said:
As far as nuking the cities, Null, you really don't even have to use nukes. Cities are incredibly fragile. A simple power loss and damaging the roads around the suburbs will eliminate about 70% of the city AND get a good chunk of the suburbs. Hit the water, like for the California Aqueduct System, (which pulls water from all over) and you could cripple the entire state quickly. Most cities have less than 72 hours of food. The people all blathering "Well, when they run out of food they'll just go to the countryside like locusts" misunderstand just how weak someone is after 3-5 days without food, much less if you hit the water.
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I read this kinda military-wanky American apocalypse book long ago, Black Autumn it was called, and one of the things it did really well was show how if the trucks, water, and power stop everything is completely fucked within a week. Basically terrorists deploy a suitcase nuke in LA and things break down from there. And people fleeing cities was a big plot point, I won't write the cliffnotes for you but the idea is that people generally have no clue whatsoever how much we all rely on these systems all the time everyday.
 
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VeteranOfTheRetardWars said:
I read this kinda military-wanky American apocalypse book long ago, Black Autumn it was called, and one of the things it did really well was show how if the trucks, water, and power stop everything is completely fucked within a week. Basically terrorists deploy a suitcase nuke in LA and things break down from there. And people fleeing cities was a big plot point, I won't write the cliffnotes for you but the idea is that people generally have no clue whatsoever how much we all rely on these systems all the time everyday.
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NOt to mention a lot of people in the city don't really walk that far at one time.

Much less with a backpack with water, dry socks, food, and the like.

They aren't leaving the cities in their cars. The broke ass people with the hoopties will have ran out of gas or rammed each other into a massive traffic jam, run off the roads, everything else. They'll have to walk.

And really fast the sidewalks end.

They'd have to balance how far they walk with their food intake and water intake, plan their route when they can't use GPS and Google Maps, and you just know tons of them would end up drowning in like irrigation canals out of fucking retardation.
 
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Sekirodiealot said:
If that's true, than i look forward to the salts. I just hope the mail-in ballots doesn't fuck Trump again.
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Mail in ballots are non factor in majority of the battleground state. Gap between mailin ballots are also closer this election between republicans and democrats

Pennsylvania is 2-3% leaning to trump....
 
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Hey Johnny Bravo said:
If Trump wins the popular vote, the Democrats will never be able to live it down.
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Cities will burn, probably. And a new age anti-cultural shitstorm that accelerates the terrible 2016 political landscape. Things are gonna get worse before they're gonna get worse, Trump or Kamala. Best we can do is laugh and try not to fedpost because this system is dogshit and un-American.
 
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Null said:
The average piece of food you put in your mouth, if you live in the United States, has traveled 1500 miles to 2500 miles to get to you.
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What’s absolutely fucking batshit insane is it’s about 10-20% cost increase to cut that number 10x. Even at fucking Walmart! The cost difference between local foods and foods from god knows where is usually about 10-20%.

That’s not even counting being in some place you can source more things from smaller producers.

Also don’t get five acres, get at least 40 or you’re just a poor.
 
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mlanguishi said:
And of course the 'conservative' George Will shows up. These old fossils never go away.

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Will is the classic RINO - supposedly fiscally conservative (but not really) and definitely socially liberal. Another name for that type of ‘republican’ is NEOCON. He’s one of those truly arseholish RINO’s who thinks he has the gravitas and respectability to constantly lecture other people - usually Republican populists - about how they’re wrong and what they should do. He’s intensely self-interested.

Let’s hope they’re a dying breed: Liz Cheney, Karl Rove, Adam Kinzinger, Lisa Murkowski, that fahgoot Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn, and a number of others. Ted Cruz sometimes teeters on the edge of the neocon ideology but he quickly backs away from it when he’s called out, e.g. when Tucker hammered him for participating in Liz Cheney’s Jan. 6 charade.
 
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Jet Fuel Johnny said:
NOt to mention a lot of people in the city don't really walk that far at one time.

Much less with a backpack with water, dry socks, food, and the like.

They aren't leaving the cities in their cars. The broke ass people with the hoopties will have ran out of gas or rammed each other into a massive traffic jam, run off the roads, everything else. They'll have to walk.

And really fast the sidewalks end.

They'd have to balance how far they walk with their food intake and water intake, plan their route when they can't use GPS and Google Maps, and you just know tons of them would end up drowning in like irrigation canals out of fucking retardation.
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If anyone wants to see examples of what we’re on about, just look at some really bad natural disasters and how things go tits up real quick when there is no water, no power, and no way to quickly get to safety.
Just think, how many of you have enough non-perishable food for two weeks? How many of you have a reliable way to prepare that theoretical food? How many of you have the means to collect and purify water? How many of you are in a place you could fortify or defend from outside threats? How many of you can treat wounds and illnesses or even have the materials to do so? I could go on forever, but we have it real good when it comes to basic survival needs being filled by all these intricate systems and you should think about what to do in case they stop working for whatever reason.
 
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