I know people hate getting into political discussions, but I substitute politics for morals. At least in this current environment. For example, I can have a conversation with a conservative, but I simply do not see eye to eye with a republican, because I no longer believe their party is morally acceptable. Even though I am still a registered republican, from back when that was the same thing as "conservative" and they were still the party of small government. Today though, there is only one candidate who is morally good. You may not like her, or agree with her on everything. Hell, you don't even have to vote for her, it's certainly not my place to tell you what to do. But supporting trump, in my view, means that you are selfish, racist, misogynistic and morally bankrupt. And there is no point arguing with someone like that, because they are the worst kind of person, and we would do best as a society to ignore them.
I dislike "racist" as a label, because it's incredibly subjective to a situation, and infuriatingly difficult to prove. You could say someone is a Nazi in the 1930's, because they were affiliated with the political party. Saying they are a Nazi now isn't as straightforward. My grandmother was taught in her public education that black people were inferior to whites in every way, and that was never refuted, only eroded. The source of that "information" could have came from racist prejudiced people, pseudo science like phrenology or it could have been derived from research that had no way of isolating a bias against black people as it was expressed systematically. Was my grandmother racist? Or was she biased? Were her opinions influenced by her education, upbringing and environment or was she, innately, racist? It's an impossible thing to verify, and there's not enough David Dukes out there to make it easy on us. Is Trump racist? I think so. He supposedly got into politics out of spite due to a barb from Obama, and his history with things like the Central Park Five makes a strong case for him having some issues with people who don't look like him. Are Trump voters racist? I think that's a stretch. You can vote for dozens of reasons, and certainly avowed or "open" racists support Trump and his policies. If you vote for him, you are comfortable being aligned with them. I think the ignorance of Trump's prejudice is inexcusable. You're voting for a racist, and it's a valid question to understand why that's acceptable to you. I don't think voting for a racist equals you're a racist. Ditto the misogyny. I'm still at a loss for why Trump's obvious moral failures are so commonly accepted. His lying, his cheating, just every aspect of his character is a liability and it doesn't seem to matter. To me, that's a failure of the media and to some extent the Justice Department, and our various checks and balances. I saw first hand his administration commit crime after crime, and it just didn't matter.
This man's lies has led to more people in my field straight up dying unnecessarily during COVID, the idea that he doesn't give a shit if he gets someone killed isn't new, it's just disappointing. He needs the public to believe it's acceptable to threaten a fed, because that's exactly what he's going to need them to do in January. At some point, we need to hold the assholes putting a microphone in his face accountable. Fuck him, fuck anyone who supports him, and fuck anyone who thinks his bullshit is worth anyone's time.
But see that's where I make the equivalence. If you are supporting someone who wants mass deportations, then you are also supporting mass deportations. If you are supporting someone who courts nazi-sympathizers and encourages political violence, then you also are okay being in the presence of nazi-sympathizers and see political violence as a solution to problems. For me, I don't like that Kamala supports fracking. Does this also mean that I support fracking since I support her? Well, sure. I'm voting for her and her platform, so I'm giving that my stamp of approval. I don't like it, but I can't hide from it.
I’m with you here. For me, I can hold my nose on things like waffling on certain policies, or being cringy here and there. Sometimes her retail politics is bad. But on the whole, I think she would be better for the country than Donald Trump. And it’s not even close. I personally believe Trump is an absolute buffoon who doesn’t really know much about anything. When he speaks, he sounds like he’s giving a book report on a book where he only saw the cover. Has no grasp on fundamental economic concepts like a tariff, and is most likely compromised by foreign bad actors. He likely thinks that asylum seekers are coming from insane asylums. I can’t hold my nose on shit like that. I’m not scared of him per se, but I am terrified of the people he will surround himself with. I think he would allow Ukraine to get completely overrun and would sell out our allies in a heartbeat. He’s even negotiating policy with Bibi right now. There’s just no comparison in my eyes.
This is where I'm at with all of it. I don't really buy the campaign tagline of it being the end of democracy if we democratically elect someone. However, even if he was a normal human politician and supported everything I support 100% except Ukraine, I still wouldn't vote for him. That is the paramount issue for me because I sincerely believe that if Ukraine falls to Russia, there would be a WW3. I would rather not go fight in a war in Europe or have my son do so (or anyone else's). I get the appeal of isolationism, particularly after the country is exhausted from 20 years of war in the Middle East, but Russia winning in Ukraine is an apocalyptic scenario that I do not want to see play out at all. Foreign economic policy is basically a moot point. There is functionally no real difference between the Trump Admin and the Biden Admin trade policies with regard to other nations.
I'm still annoyed that I haven't seen any prominent figure make the argument that if you allow nuclear blackmail to succeed ("we're invading Ukraine, and if you enter the war on Ukraine's side with your conventional forces, we'll escalate to nukes"), that's a genie you absolutely cannot put back in the bottle. It would immediately break every security guarantee we've given to a non-nuclear-armed country (basically the entire US nuclear umbrella, plus likely countries like South Africa, Saudi Arabia, etc) and kick off a mass proliferation event as those countries immediately started nuclear weapons programs. At minimum we have to provide material support to Ukraine, if only to demonstrate that a country invaded by a nuclear power won't be immediately thrown to the wolves.
Good thing the nation is arguing about which candidate served more fries at McDonalds, I was concerned something important might enter the public discourse.
do you believe that the average voter is smart enough to understand what is happening in Ukraine, and the implications thereof? NOT care about, which is a sliding scale, I mean just even like a base level "I have an idea of what is happening such that I can explain it to others." I'm of the belief that the AVERAGE American voter only cares about their immediate self (not even their children or spouse), and even at that level is not smart enough to understand how each candidate's proposed policies will ACTUALLY affect them.
This is mostly my take as well. In my view, the President's abilities regarding foreign policies and diplomacy are the most important. In my opinion, the office doesn't have as much immediate domestic influence. In my opinion, Harris has plenty of experience with domestic issues, however I am not convinced on her foreign chops.
It's not really about intelligence, at least not directly. People acting in their own self-interest is the bedrock for rationality or rational choice theory in economics. People will make preferential choices based on a variety of factors, but always to their own benefit, and will continue to do so regardless if they have a little information or a ton of information. Even if they think they are making a choice for the greater good, they are still doing if it's personally beneficial even if they don't realize it. Behavioral economics (somewhat) pushes back on this by suggesting that people will make altruistic choices, but generally if their personal cost is low.
Okay, I guess "unqualified" wasn't the right term. My complaint with Harris is more along the lines of whether she's really the best person the Dems could come up with, who has a good chance at beating Trump. You know who was really qualified to be president? Hillary Clinton. But she lost to the guy that didn't even study for the test, in part because she's an unlikable person. If Trump wins, I am 100% going to blame the Dems for pushing Kamala, just like I blame them for pushing Hillary in '16. Huh, I would have had you pegged for a Russia apologist.
In an open primary, knowing what I know now and assuming the same names that have been around for a while, I would have gone with either her or Buttigieg.
There was an open primary. She had 3% of the vote (IIRC) and was out before Iowa. I am 100% not voting for Trump but I agree with Dixie. The Dems coronated a very unlikeable person which is why this is even a toss up. I am not a Newsom fan at all, being that I live in CA and don't like what he's done but damn, he would've dragged Trumps ass. I think it would've been such a landslide that there would be no way the MAGA cult could claim election fraud.
Harris unfortunately has a similar charisma problem to Clinton. But I don't think anything would have been "such a landslide." A huge majority of Trump supporters literally don't care about facts, truth, real policy, etc. It's pretty tough to argue someone out of an opinion when provable, supported, objective truth is not something they believe in. Opinions and feelings override what exists in reality. Similarly, I highly doubt any margin of victory would prevent the cult from claiming election fraud.