US US Politics General 2 - Discussion of President Trump and other politicians

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Should be a wild four years.

Helpful links for those who need them:

Current members of the House of Representatives
https://www.house.gov/representatives

Current members of the Senate
https://www.senate.gov/senators/

Current members of the US Supreme Court
https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx

Members of the Trump Administration
https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

Yes, a child rapist such as Donald J. Trump will use his position of power to make lighthearted jokes to soften the blow over the fact that he frequently had 15-ways with Bill Clinton, Jeffrey Epstein, and 12 Prepubescent minors.

Prove it.

 

[Napoleon Bonerfart]

Prove it.

You want me to prove that the White House is posting memes about Donald Trump looking like the Pope?

I mean, most people could just go to the White House's social media accounts and take a look for themselves, but like, if you lost your hands in Vietnam and can't use a computer mouse, then, well, I didn't really have respect for veterans to begin with.

 

[UnidentifiedFlyingOrchid]

The incoherence of talking as if there really are only 2 "wings" of politics is silly. You get silly results that look like this:

Is Libertarianism far left with Anarchism? Centrist? No, no, that spectrum is all wrong! Libertarians are far right because of freedom! Then where do Anarchists go?

Everyone can agree they hate liberals.

If only they could agree on what liberals means.

After a while two big parties dominate politics for a while. A "center left" party and a "center right" party; whatever that happens to mean in that political system. Everyone else is thrown into the "far left", "centrist", or "far right" bucket depending on which of the 2 political parties can pander to them.

Politics can be reduced to friend/enemy distinction.

Pretty much. Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Carl Schmitt would agree.

tl;dr Socialism is in the Nazi's name but Democratic is in the name of North Korea and Red China. Not all socialism is Marxist.

If you're going to be putting disparate groups in one big tent you need good branding.

Trump's "Make America Great Again" is solid gold-plated political branding. No complicated "isms", spectrums or wings. Do you: like America? Want it to be Great? Think it's damaged, but can work Again? Wanna Make it so? MAGA

 

[SpergioLeonne]

That's a little much. I like Conan. He gave me a seat on the Council of Racists.

No, what? I wasn’t saying anything about @Conan
@gay porn is the best porn is the person I was calling a Reddit tier diaper sniffer

The incoherence of talking as if there really are only 2 "wings" of politics is silly. You get silly results that look like this:
View attachment 7312935
Is Libertarianism far left with Anarchism? Centrist? No, no, that spectrum is all wrong! Libertarians are far right because of freedom! Then where do Anarchists go?

Everyone can agree they hate liberals.
View attachment 7312952
If only they could agree on what liberals means.

After a while two big parties dominate politics for a while. A "center left" party and a "center right" party; whatever that happens to mean in that political system. Everyone else is thrown into the "far left", "centrist", or "far right" bucket depending on which of the 2 political parties can pander to them.
View attachment 7312961


Pretty much. Thucydides, Machiavelli, and Carl Schmidt would agree.


If you're going to be putting disparate groups in one big tent you need good branding.

Trump's "Make America Great Again" is solid gold-plated political branding. No complicated "isms", spectrums or wings. Do you: like America? Want it to be Great? Think it's damaged, but can work Again? Wanna Make it so? MAGA

every time I take a political compass test I’m like one click right and two clicks libertarian, so they’re calling me centrist

But centrist is wholly unsatisfactory, because nobody believes in wignat tier militant centrism. It’s not edgy enough

But what I think the cause is, is because I don’t even really care to use a slippery metric derived from eighteenth century France

Dead ass center is -conservatism- and the clicks away from center represent my desire to revert, to load a prior state from before everything was as fucked as it is

 

[gay porn is the best porn]

Fascism just means "communism that I don't like." The full name of the Nazi party was the National Socialist German Workers' Party. When people tell you they are socialists, you should take them seriously.

they aren't socialist, at least not in practice

 

[Balanced Boomer]

Obligatory Captain Planet posting:

 

[SpergioLeonne]

they aren't socialist, at least not in practice

The Nazi German economy was remarkably similar to the CCP economy.

You’re defining terms along the lines that they flatter your biases. “I agree” in your case means “left wing” and “I hate it” means right wing

Did either Nazi Germany or Communist China describe THEMSELVES as right wing, or was it the emerging liberal world order that described them as right wing?

 

[gay porn is the best porn]

The Nazi German economy was remarkably similar to the CCP economy.

You’re defining terms along the lines that they flatter your biases. “I agree” in your case means “left wing” and “I hate it” means right wing

Did either Nazi Germany or Communist China describe THEMSELVES as right wing, or was it the emerging liberal world order that described them as right wing?

I'm not fond of the terms right and left because they're never really clearly defined and more often than not subjective. I just put it as right=capitalist. left=communist. I wouldn't say either describe themselves as anything like right or left wing, they were just given a label by the west (US, uk, france). also describe the similarities of the CCP economy to the nazi economy you have my attention at that.

 

[UnidentifiedFlyingOrchid]

every time I take a political compass test I’m like one click right and two clicks libertarian, so they’re calling me centrist

But centrist is wholly unsatisfactory, because nobody believes in wignat tier militant centrism. It’s not edgy enough

But what I think the cause is, is because I don’t even really care to use a slippery metric derived from eighteenth century France

Dead ass center is -conservatism- and the clicks away from center represent my desire to revert, to load a prior state from before everything was as fucked as it is

One click right, two clicks liberty, but how many clicks on the z-axis?

The machine of politics has many different axises axes. Left vs Right isn't nuanced enough. Add a liberty vs authority axis? What about 3 axis? 5 axis? Break out the 12 axis machine for some real political triangulation!

When you squint and look at the 2D diagram from a certain angle you can kinda divide voters into 2 lumps. Anyone outside the reach of those 2 lumps is mostly ignored or used to paint the enemy group in a bad light.

"Centerist" mostly just means somebody either party could possibly pander to. The parties buy the cheap votes first; especially the ones that win them power (good bang for the buck). You can collectively bargain with them if you want (lobbying, voting groups, demographics, etc). They're going to try to make you pick from 2 bad options like any crooked salesman would. They start getting really worried when you start building something outside their system.

 

[TarragonRespecter]

You cannot spell the name of the ideology right. That speaks for itself.

Oh totally. My phone sucks and isn't very responsive anymore and I can't be bothered to spell check so fascism must be right wing!

>right wing Americans
>befuddled by actual right wing politics
Many such cases. - See also to how most Americans react to Monarchism.

This is a problem when you have people in "young" America trying to place political ideologies originating in "old" Europe through a Dem vs. GOP lens. From a POV of American history, "far right" politics would be akin to a lolbert slaver secessionist movement from 140+ years ago which didn't even last half a decade. By this "all variants of Fascism (or Fascism as a political concept period) is left wing because muh socialist/syndicalist" thinking, then Charles Coughlin, GL Rockwell, Charles Lindbergh, and Gerald Smith were all screaming lefties.

Fascism originates out of left wing political ideologies in Europe. I'm really not sure how you can say it's right wing when they were competing for the same voters at the same places as each other lol I'm not even going to get into German monarchism aka the actual right of that time in Germany that the commies always conveniently forget existed

 

[blackface enthusiast]

every time I take a political compass test I’m like one click right and two clicks libertarian, so they’re calling me centrist

But centrist is wholly unsatisfactory, because nobody believes in wignat tier militant centrism. It’s not edgy enough

My issue with tests like that is that they're never clear about the hypothetical in which these issues exist and are scored. Like am I supposed to answer the questions about the usage of state power or military force in relation to my view of US politics or geopolitics as they exist in real life? Or am I supposed to be answering them in a purely hypothetical ideal society where the government represents my views, preferred outcomes are a guarantee and I don't have to worry about commies slinking into power and abusing it against me? Because my answers to political compass tests are vastly different depending on the answer to that question.

 

[UnidentifiedFlyingOrchid]

My issue with tests like that is that they're never clear about the hypothetical in which these issues exist and are scored. Like am I supposed to answer the questions about the usage of state power or military force in relation to my view of US politics or geopolitics as they exist in real life? Or am I supposed to be answering them in a purely hypothetical ideal society where the government represents my views, preferred outcomes are a guarantee and I don't have to worry about commies slinking into power and abusing it against me? Because my answers to political compass tests are vastly different depending on the answer to that question.

Like Null on the abortion issue. What race is it.

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a long 𝕏 post today expressing that the MAGA base are not happy.

Trump hasn't started a war. He is making hardball threats. It is the North Korea gambit. I hope he meets with Kim again soon.

 

[Your Girlfriend's Dad]

That's a little much. I like Conan. He gave me a seat on the Council of Racists.

This immediately makes me think of Anthony Cumia jokes.

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

That random post I made the other day about fascism really bore fruit.

 

[Kulee Baba]

Oh totally. My phone sucks and isn't very responsive anymore and I can't be bothered to spell check so fascism must be right wing!

Fascism originates out of left wing political ideologies in Europe. I'm really not sure how you can say it's right wing when they were competing for the same voters at the same places as each other lol I'm not even going to get into German monarchism aka the actual right of that time in Germany that the commies always conveniently forget existed

This really does become such a meandering topic. Like it's funny to see people argue if the Founding Fathers would be conservative and liberal. And liberals will claim they would be on their side unless they want to harp on about Slavery.

Love reading about Thomas Jefferson, he was the most colorful President of the OGs. Liberals like to point out how he supported the French Revolution (which was what Marx essentially lifted wholesale conceptually). They ignore that Jefferson was put off entirely by the Reign of Terror. Is Napoleon considered Right/Far Right because he opposed the Jacobins? Do we then ignore that Napoleonic Code was one of the most progressive government reforms?

 

[SpergioLeonne]

"Centerist" mostly just means somebody either party could possibly pander to. The parties buy the cheap votes first; especially the ones that win them power (good bang for the buck). You can collectively bargain with them if you want (lobbying, voting groups, demographics, etc). They're going to try to make you pick from 2 bad options like any crooked salesman would. They start getting really worried when you start building something outside their system.

No, I mean like in a million ways, I don’t SEE myself as centrist. Nobody would ever make the mistake that I’m ok with the left as it exists.

The problem is that everyone has dumb ideas, and what appears as centrism is actually my rejecting dumb ideas from all directions.

I think where we were socially in the 80’s and 90’s when I was a kid seemed fine.. being -not- racist wasn’t performative virtue signalling about how many inches of African dick you could take, it was just live and let live, with plenty of options to live somewhere that people you didn’t like weren’t there.

I wish the economy hadn’t been so cucked, like I wish we kept manufacturing, and I wish it was still plausible to buy a house with money you just saved from a blue collar job over a few years instead of taking out a thirty year mortgage. Basically I’m content with like 90%+ of trumpism, and I think he usually is making the moves I’d like to see, he just has to decide to cross the rubicon

But what was a “right wing” policy during Bush II? Privatizing social security? I don’t want to feed the stock market like that; I think “line go up” cultism in regards to a wholly abstract conceptualization of the economy and cargo cult belief that loan liquidity = investment = gdp growth is as stupid of a model as militantly not knowing what a girl is

 

[Scuttlefuck]

Yes, a child rapist such as Donald J. Trump will use his position of power to make lighthearted jokes to soften the blow over the fact that he frequently had 15-ways with Bill Clinton, Jeffrey Epstein, and 12 Prepubescent minors.

This is exactly something Napoleon Bonerfart would say and I unironically really appreciate it.

 

[I_Am_Not_Bruce_Willis]

The latest New Republic magazine cover. Yet another example of Trump's enemies making him look awesome while attempting to do the opposite.
View attachment 7308926

Honestly, I don't think the MSM can say the right "captured the culture" when none of the major studios aren't willing to make anything for them. Compare to when the first seasons of The Simpsons were coming out, or when the Fox network started in general. The people who made it saw the tides turning, and made something to help drive it and capitalize on it. Barely anyone wants to make media for the radical right, as they keep claiming what the left wants is the future instead.

 

[Candlelight Desolation]

That random post I made the other day about fascism really bore fruit.

If anything, it showed how woefully ignorant most Americans who describe themselves as "right wing" really are about other forms of rightist politics.