Octopus Overlords

On Germany: we definitely built it up as part of the Cold War effort to strengthen the Western vs the Eastern bloc. Germany is Europe’s center for industrial resources. No other country could match its steel industry, for example.

I suppose a collapsed U.S. could recover with the help of someone’s else’s Marshall Plan. Who’s buying?

El Guapo wrote: Thu Jul 16, 2020 2:37 pmI mean, obviously every historical situation is unique in some respects. But don't you think that Germany's....'leadership problems' (to be extremely kind) dwarfed the U.S.'s, at least to this point?

He died 75 years ago. I don't think that is really relevant anymore. Trump is certainly not as bad obviously but what I think he did was drive home how unmanageable our problems are. In a very different way than how Hitler did the same thing.

You seem to be saying that no one's ever going to listen to the U.S. again, and that seems to me an obviously untenable position (though how far we wind up between that pole and "everything's immediately fine on January 21st, 2021" is certainly debatable).

It isn't an absolute thing. More that they can't trust us for the foreseeable future. We've broken international treaties and smashed post-WW2 norms. They would be foolish to trust that Biden won't be followed by someone else who'll just do the same. In the meantime, bad things will inevitably happen. The United States has traditionally been the go to leadership and we will step into some situations still. And Germany is for sure well-positioned to step in to help. However there are huge risks that may spawn crises that will over match their resources. And there is a chance we won't be able to step in. I mean realistically who knows what kind of shape we will be in at the end of 2021. Hopefully we will have the pandemic under control but there is a chance it isn't. What does that world look like?

The US has been declining since 1980. Despite some hiatuses and even brief reversals, the long arc has been downward. Now, of course, we're in freefall. IDK if that can be arrested and reversed again, or merely slowed. I don't expect to live long enough to find out.

I do find it amusing that we're looking to Germany to take over. Much of 20th century Western history can be seen as trying to keep Germany divided and weak, to prevent it from overpowering Europe.

Kraken wrote: Thu Jul 16, 2020 3:41 pm The US has been declining since 1980. Despite some hiatuses and even brief reversals, the long arc has been downward. Now, of course, we're in freefall. IDK if that can be arrested and reversed again, or merely slowed. I don't expect to live long enough to find out.

I do find it amusing that we're looking to Germany to take over. Much of 20th century Western history can be seen as trying to keep Germany divided and weak, to prevent it from overpowering Europe.

I'm not sure that post-Carter was exactly the high water mark. We've been in decline since 1976. Wait, that was the end of the Nixon/Ford era. Must have been since 1968 with LBJ . . . .

I guess we've probably been in decline since 1776.

We never had a high water mark. We just had good publicity.

The high water mark would have been FDR/Truman winning WW2. That's what made us a world power. We've been rather inconsistent since then, although Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Obama had their moments. Those moments have been entirely undone by the circus in charge now, though.

I'd say the U.S. high-water mark was the early 1990s, which saw peaceful triumph over our bitterest global rival and the rise of the new-age information economy centered in the U.S. free market and technological playground.

We could be generous and say that George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton share the credit, except that the Reagan-Bush GOP legacy would spend all of the Clinton years undermining any attempt to spread the wealth through a social safety-net and infrastructural gains.

If Bush/Clinton oversaw the American zenith, Gingrich/Limbaugh were already doing everything possible to undermine it.

Greatness and decline need more defining parameters.

I view it in light of the middle class, which prospered following WW2 and remained secure until Reagan introduced voodoo economics to the GOP, along with elevating evangelicism to a political force. That set us on the trajectory that led to today -- anti-science, anti-expertise, anti-intellectual, anti-government, anti-environment, and (most momentously) pro-oligarchy. The previous Republican president (Nixon) was none of those things, for all his personal flaws. The Republican before him (Eisenhower) was downright liberal.

That's not to say Reagan started an uninterrupted linear downhill slide, but his presidency was a turning point that we never recovered from, and that's steamrolling us now.

Holman wrote: Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:36 pm If Bush/Clinton oversaw the American zenith, Gingrich/Limbaugh were already doing everything possible to undermine it.

That sums it up pretty well. I didn't vote for Clinton the first time, but I thrived like never before after he was elected. The only thing I hold against George HW Bush is his son.

Jeff V wrote: Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:04 pm The only thing I hold against George HW Bush is his son.

Well, he also gave us Bill Barr.

Sounds like Biden is getting intel briefings now. How soon before Trump tries to stop that?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... LkE-JME9r8

Joe Biden, citing intelligence briefings that he is now receiving, warned Friday night that Russia and China were both actively engaged in trying to sow doubt in the American electoral system.

“We know from before and I guarantee you I know now because now I get briefings again,” the presumptive Democratic nominee said during an evening fundraiser. “The Russians are still engaged in trying to delegitimize our electoral process. Fact.”

“China and others are engaged as well in activities that are designed for us to lose confidence in the outcome,” he added.

Others being the Orange turd.

On one hand, I have no doubt that foreign powers are sowing doubt and confusion. OTOH, I already have low confidence in the election's fairness. Am I already a stooge? If so, can I be Larry?

Oh, a wise guy, eh?

Biden leads Trump 55% to 40% in latest ABC/WaPo poll:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

Latest Economist projections:

Biden 99% chance to win popular vote
Biden 93% chance to win electoral college
Biden 353 votes, Trump 185

https://projects.economist.com/us-2020- ... lsrc=aw.ds\

The national map of states is interesting. You can see the trend of battleground and even lean Trump states such as FL, NC, and AZ moving to Biden. And Ohio, a usually strong Republican state is now a toss up. This could be (and I hope it is) a landslide.

Chris Wallace just interviewed Trump on Fox News this morning and it was devastating. See excerpts from Twitter below (move down the Twitter thread for more):

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1284 ... 46720?s=20

You wonder how much of this the FOX News crowd can take when his incompetence is shown directly to them by their favorite network.

The scary thing - Trump refuses to say he will accept the results of the election. It's one thing to say it when he was a candidate not in office next year, it's another thing when he is the incumbent president with real power.

Grifman wrote:

You wonder how much of this the FOX News crowd can take when his incompetence is shown directly to them by their favorite network.

They'll want Wallace fired for smearing their god with such lies.

He said he heard we had the lowest mortality rate in the world. I don't doubt that's absolutely true: he was told that and he heard it.

$iljanus wrote: Sun Jul 19, 2020 2:27 pm

Grifman wrote:

You wonder how much of this the FOX News crowd can take when his incompetence is shown directly to them by their favorite network.

They'll want Wallace fired for smearing their god with such lies.

It's not a matter of smearing him with lies, it's them watching his stupid responses to the questions posed in this interview.

Grifman wrote: Sun Jul 19, 2020 3:32 pm

$iljanus wrote: Sun Jul 19, 2020 2:27 pm

Grifman wrote:

You wonder how much of this the FOX News crowd can take when his incompetence is shown directly to them by their favorite network.

They'll want Wallace fired for smearing their god with such lies.

It's not a matter of smearing him with lies, it's them watching his stupid responses to the questions posed in this interview.

To us, Trump comes off deranged but to the faithful it’s just another example of gotcha journalism. He’s not the stupid one but it’s Wallace’s tricksey questioning. This is the America we live in.

Grifman wrote: Sun Jul 19, 2020 1:00 pm

You wonder how much of this the FOX News crowd can take when his incompetence is shown directly to them by their favorite network.

I imagine this video wouldn't be shown on Hannity or one of the other late night shows, which is when most of them watch Fox. Or if it is, it will be severely edited to show Trump in a great light.

Trump doubled down on acing his cognition test, and he described it in terms that make it clear it's one of the standard tests for dementia or other cognitive impairment.

He really seems to believe it was an intelligence test and that passing it means he's a genius.

I might be crazy but he seems pretty insecure.

Comedy gold is Trump insisting the test is hard, and Wallace saying it’s not as it’s a cognitive test. Trump starts protesting that it’s easy early on, but gets much harder. At which point, Wallace simply tells Trump that one of the questions asks you to count backwards from 100 by seven. As Trump starts whining and bitching at Wallace, you can hear Wallace’s voice in the background simply say “93”.

When Trump says that he found the cognitive test questions to be very difficult, for once I believe him.

It keeps on getting worser every day.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/19/politics ... tvnbT1mLoY

The latest Fox News poll has Biden with 49% to 38% lead. Quinnipiac University poll puts Biden ahead by a 56% to 34% margin with suburbanites. The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll has Biden beating Trump 60% to 35% among suburban voters.
Our early June CNN poll had Biden with a 14-point lead in the suburbs.
In the average of all the polls, Biden's ahead by more than 15 points with suburban voters. This is a historic margin, if it holds.

(I should note that different pollsters define "suburb" differently. Some use a Zip Code definition and others just ask, for example. Still, by none of the commonly used definitions, has a Democrat done as well as Biden is currently doing in them since at least 1972.)

Makes me really not want to live in the suburbs any more.

I don't know whether to be happy that the majority of the country is done with Trump, or horrified that 40% of the country is apparently OK with doing nothing about a pandemic destroying the economy while thousands die.

Sometimes progressives want to eat their own. John Kasich has been invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention on Biden's behalf. Here's a reaction:

https://www.twitter.com/RBraceySherman/ ... 3550287872

YellowKing wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:45 am I don't know whether to be happy that the majority of the country is done with Trump, or horrified that 40% of the country is apparently OK with doing nothing about a pandemic destroying the economy while thousands die.

That's fake news made up by the Democrats to get Trump. Duh

pr0ner wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:02 am Sometimes progressives want to eat their own. John Kasich has been invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention on Biden's behalf.

Is this really the progressives eating their own? The only moderate Republican they could find is Kasich? I have no problem with him personally but I'm also not female.

malchior wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:08 am

pr0ner wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:02 am Sometimes progressives want to eat their own. John Kasich has been invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention on Biden's behalf.

Is this really the progressives eating their own. The only moderate Republican they could find is Kasich? I have no problem with him personally but I'm also not female.

If Biden really wants to win this thing he needs to bring as many people under the tent as possible. The more moderate Republicans that he can bring in the better. And make no mistake about it, Kasich is a moderate Republican. One of his final acts as Governor was to Veto an Abortion Heartbeat bill because he thought it was overly restrictive and it would just cost the State litigation money as it would definitely be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court. His successor then signed it in as one of his first acts as Governor.

malchior wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:08 am

pr0ner wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:02 am Sometimes progressives want to eat their own. John Kasich has been invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention on Biden's behalf.

Is this really the progressives eating their own? The only moderate Republican they could find is Kasich? I have no problem with him personally but I'm also not female.

The progressives comment is directed to the negative response to the Kasich invite because how dare Biden invite someone who isn't 100% pro-choice to speak. I think it's brilliant that Biden wants Kasich to speak - this is the kind of thing that appeals to me as someone who voted for Kasich in the 2016 GOP primary.

pr0ner wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:26 am

malchior wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:08 am

pr0ner wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:02 am Sometimes progressives want to eat their own. John Kasich has been invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention on Biden's behalf.

Is this really the progressives eating their own? The only moderate Republican they could find is Kasich? I have no problem with him personally but I'm also not female.

The progressives comment is directed to the negative response to the Kasich invite because how dare Biden invite someone who isn't 100% pro-choice to speak. I think it's brilliant that Biden wants Kasich to speak - this is the kind of thing that appeals to me as someone who voted for Kasich in the 2016 GOP primary.

I know. You seem to be totally missing the legitimate issue raised that some might have with the invite. It isn't brilliant at all. It is tone deaf.

Scraper wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:18 am If Biden really wants to win this thing he needs to bring as many people under the tent as possible. The more moderate Republicans that he can bring in the better. And make no mistake about it, Kasich is a moderate Republican. One of his final acts as Governor was to Veto an Abortion Heartbeat bill because he thought it was overly restrictive and it would just cost the State litigation money as it would definitely be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court. His successor then signed it in as one of his first acts as Governor.

Edit: My bad. I guess I'm not seeing it strongly enough from the male perspective. Any moderate Republican even at the cost of one of the top female issues. Got it.

malchior wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:32 am

pr0ner wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:26 am

malchior wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:08 am

pr0ner wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:02 am Sometimes progressives want to eat their own. John Kasich has been invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention on Biden's behalf.

Is this really the progressives eating their own? The only moderate Republican they could find is Kasich? I have no problem with him personally but I'm also not female.

The progressives comment is directed to the negative response to the Kasich invite because how dare Biden invite someone who isn't 100% pro-choice to speak. I think it's brilliant that Biden wants Kasich to speak - this is the kind of thing that appeals to me as someone who voted for Kasich in the 2016 GOP primary.

I know. You seem to be totally missing the legitimate issue raised that some might have with the invite. It isn't brilliant at all. It is tone deaf.

I certainly get why some people would really dislike Kasich, and why it would get some people upset. But the outrage is somewhat contingent on the logic that inviting someone to speak means endorsing all of their views. Kasich would be there to speak to disaffected Republicans, particularly in the midwest (and especially Ohio). I'm sure that they would make sure that he's not going to make a pro-life pitch as part of his speech (and I doubt that he would do that anyway.

Anyway, if you follow the logic that inviting Kasich is a betrayal of the pro-choice view, then it would quickly become impossible to have a convention anyway, given the coalition nature of the Democratic Party. There are non-trivial numbers of pro-life Democrats, and there are going to be many many speakers with pro-choice views at the convention. Same with a lot of issues - to put together a national coalition, you need to include people who are going to strongly disagree on some issues but are willing to come together on others.

malchior wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:08 am

pr0ner wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:02 am Sometimes progressives want to eat their own. John Kasich has been invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention on Biden's behalf.

Is this really the progressives eating their own? The only moderate Republican they could find is Kasich? I have no problem with him personally but I'm also not female.

I'm curious - which moderate Republicans would you view as acceptable to speak? It's hard to think of any that wouldn't have views that conflict with at least one key Democratic platform (taxes, guns, abortion, etc.).

malchior wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:32 am

Edit: My bad. I guess I'm not seeing it strongly enough from the male perspective. Any moderate Republican even at the cost of one of the top female issues. Got it.

Maybe the key disagreement here is that I really don't think this is "at the cost" of the pro-choice platform. Democrats / Biden aren't altering their platform or views on abortion. It's one speaker. And for that matter, I would hazard a guess that there's going to be at least one other speaker who is pro-life (hell, isn't Biden personally pro-life but pro-choice as a policy matter?).

It's also a basic tenant of diplomacy - you have to be willing to give a little on some things you don't agree with in order to win larger concessions elsewhere. Otherwise you're just beating your head against a wall.

El Guapo wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:50 am

malchior wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:32 am

pr0ner wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:26 am

malchior wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:08 am

pr0ner wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:02 am Sometimes progressives want to eat their own. John Kasich has been invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention on Biden's behalf.

Is this really the progressives eating their own? The only moderate Republican they could find is Kasich? I have no problem with him personally but I'm also not female.

The progressives comment is directed to the negative response to the Kasich invite because how dare Biden invite someone who isn't 100% pro-choice to speak. I think it's brilliant that Biden wants Kasich to speak - this is the kind of thing that appeals to me as someone who voted for Kasich in the 2016 GOP primary.

I know. You seem to be totally missing the legitimate issue raised that some might have with the invite. It isn't brilliant at all. It is tone deaf.

I certainly get why some people would really dislike Kasich, and why it would get some people upset. But the outrage is somewhat contingent on the logic that inviting someone to speak means endorsing all of their views. Kasich would be there to speak to disaffected Republicans, particularly in the midwest (and especially Ohio). I'm sure that they would make sure that he's not going to make a pro-life pitch as part of his speech (and I doubt that he would do that anyway.

Anyway, if you follow the logic that inviting Kasich is a betrayal of the pro-choice view, then it would quickly become impossible to have a convention anyway, given the coalition nature of the Democratic Party. There are non-trivial numbers of pro-life Democrats, and there are going to be many many speakers with pro-choice views at the convention. Same with a lot of issues - to put together a national coalition, you need to include people who are going to strongly disagree on some issues but are willing to come together on others.

Jesus christ on a stick. I agree in general but Kasich *in particular* is not palatable to *many* probably *most Females* in the party and is also anti-LGBT to boot. This isn't a hard one. Seriously. This feels like a decision made without a single female voice in the room.