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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Biden's strange long-term goodness on trans issues legitimately doesn't make sense to me. Eh, could just of been one decent conversation with a trans person early in his career that stuck with him. And I mean he's not the most principle guy ever, and his principles are all pretty centralist, but his not like Trump or McConnell or anything he does genuinely seem to believe in at least some stuff, and it's possible trans stuff just really resonated with him on his general human rights beliefs for what ever reason. Stuff to do with his beliefs about self determination and/or self identity, or what not. Like it's unexpected and really cool, but there doesn't necessarily have to be some big secrete behind it, sometimes some rights issues just resonate with people more then others.
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# ? Jun 18, 2024 15:59 |
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Biden's strange long-term goodness on trans issues legitimately doesn't make sense to me. Ironically I really do buy into the belief that he is a genuinely nice person who is just incredibly naive and weird. I know a few women that worked for him who I would describe as incredibly confident and take no poo poo types, including a few active in the LGBTQ+ community and all of them have nothing but good things to say and even explain that his weird thing with touching people is just him being really oddly emotional. We talk about Clinton and Obama's being these great empathetic leaders but apparently he's really a person that wants to see the good in every single human being he comes across to the point of idiocy. His crime/war stuff is more abstract for him; I think there's dehumanization in how those groups are characterized that is different than LGBTQ+ rights that allows him to be more clinical. But that's just my read.
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Mellow Seas posted:The arguments you guys are putting forward are 100% reliant on the idea that "the Democrats" is an entity that makes decisions, and it's not just a coalition of hundreds of people who disagree on a ton of things, and disagree about a ton of strategy! Organizations are not sentient. Directing the party isn't like driving a car, it isn't even like steering a tanker, it's like building a road with no blueprints and then convincing people to go down it. "Herding cats" is the phrase that's become part of political lexicon, whether as an excuse or as a descriptor. Do you think it's a force of nature that so many state Dem parties are massive trainwrecks these days, to the extent that they're allowing races in areas that Biden won to go uncontested by not putting up candidates to challenge Republicans this year?
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Blindeye posted:Ironically I really do buy into the belief that he is a genuinely nice person who is just incredibly naive and weird. I know a few women that worked for him who I would describe as incredibly confident and take no poo poo types, including a few active in the LGBTQ+ community and all of them have nothing but good things to say and even explain that his weird thing with touching people is just him being really oddly emotional. We talk about Clinton and Obama's being these great empathetic leaders but apparently he's really a person that wants to see the good in every single human being he comes across to the point of idiocy. I mean we have at least one very prolific example of a woman who worked for him who would not agree that he's a genuinely nice person or that his touching is acceptable, I don't get why you'd "buy into" this view of him and it's really weird to me that you think he can be all these wonderful things while having a horrible record for his views on crime and war get shrugged off as just being "different" in some intangibly clinical way, as well.
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Mischievous Mink posted:I mean we have at least one very prolific example of a woman who worked for him who would not agree that he's a genuinely nice person or that his touching is acceptable, I don't get why you'd "buy into" this view of him and it's really weird to me that you think he can be all these wonderful things while having a horrible record for his views on crime and war get shrugged off as just being "different" in some intangibly clinical way, as well. He just slipped Ms. Reade an innocent, overly affectionate finger!
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Even just assuming the most banal explanation, that he thinks transpeople are people and just generally supports it, doesn't really explain why this issue is the one he landed on and is relatively inconsistent with his political approach to other issues. It doesn't threaten capital to promote trans rights. He was ahead of the curve on gay rights, too. The latest yougov poll has some frightening results for voters' sentiments on trans rights, so it'll be interesting to see which Dems (including Biden) will continue to advocate for them in light of public blowback. Best case scenario, the embrace of such rights by a leader who has kowtowed to bigots & capital for the vast majority of his political life will help shift public opinion.
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The other weird thing that Biden has been very vocal and very consistent on for 40 years is being anti-British and pro-Ireland, even to the point of taking pictures with the head of the IRA, supporting Sinn Fein, and calling out the BBC for anti-Irish bias. Even as President, decades later, he is still doing a weird "BBC is anti-Irish" schtick. https://twitter.com/Fiona_Harrigan/status/1504443465786134529 He's become a weirdly beloved figure in the Republic of Ireland and a hated figure in Northern Ireland. quote:“He’s playing a game he’s not going to suffer from. It’s the people of Northern Ireland who are going to suffer from his rhetoric," Park, 72, said this month at a loyalist parade led by the Orange Order — a Protestant brotherhood whose yearly July 12 demonstrations celebrate the 1690 defeat of Catholic King James II, by his Protestant rival, King William of Orange. quote:Biden has never hidden his fondness for the Republic of Ireland, with his penchant for quoting Irish poets, and he has publicly recounted how mistreatment at the hands of the British prompted his forefathers to immigrate to the United States. quote:The administration is insisting that London respect an agreement with the European Union that draws a customs border in the Irish Sea between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland. Transrights and violent revolution against the British are two very strange issues to pick to be your bedrock political beliefs. There is at least a very direct and clear logical line for how he came to the Irish stuff, though.
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Willa Rogers posted:It doesn't threaten capital to promote trans rights. He was ahead of the curve on gay rights, too. He was slightly ahead of the curve on gay rights, but he was exactly on the curve for most of the 90's. Except for being slightly ahead on gay rights and lightyears ahead on trans rights, he has pretty consistently just moved to wherever the center left of the party is on all other social issues. If you count the death penalty as a social issue, then I guess he was ahead of the curve there too (or technically, way behind the curve, because his position on capital punishment is still a minority position.) It's just weird that this is the one issue he was way, way, way, ahead on, when he took a very "safe" and "meet in the middle" approach to most other issues in his career. If it is all service to capital that drives his decisions, then why would this issue - back when it was an extreme minority position with no political benefit - be the one he went with? Other issues that don't threaten capital he has wavered and changed with time. And on other issues he routinely took the "safe" option of joining the crowd on whatever the issue was. It just is a very strange tact in general, but especially so given Biden's political career on most other issues. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Mar 17, 2022 |
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It is amusing how Obama and Biden bailed out so many businesses and banks during the last recession and now industry is purposefully greedy to the point of wanting to sink Biden probably because of pushing Build Back Better and just plain greed. Can’t trust capitalists.
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The NYT has filed a lawsuit against the State Dept. to get records of correspondence involving Hunter Biden and other shady characters like Giuiliani & Freeh; State tried to slow-walked the release into spring 2023 decided to go ahead sooner bc of the lawsuit:quote:The US Department of State said it'll hand over email records mentioning Hunter Biden to the New York Times after the publication sued the federal agency. I just noticed that the hearing is scheduled for today.
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I mean, say what you want about Republicans but those motherfuckers know where their bread is buttered and don't hold back poo poo. The democrats seem to be always seeking an ideal "high road" and I suppose it could be argued they have a bigger and more diverse tent but good lord the most passionate members with the most aggressive stances on progressive values and policy are allowed to be branded as radical pariahs. We keep getting dragged to a center that consistently moves further right because all we seem to do is start out compromising. See the ACA for instance. Or the "$2000" checks. In my lifetime, the only 2 democratic presidents who really at least SPOKE to the things I care about or even pretended to are Carter and Obama. They weren't great but I'll take them over whatever this is we have now. If we're going to fail this badly and on this level then Jesus Christ at a bare minimum call these shitheads out, go HARD and at least give your base something to fight for and get motivated about. And on top of that we always seem to somehow have one person Leibermaning things up.
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Republicans use fear and xenophobia to ripenup their base, and it's a hell of a lot easier to blame the powerless than it is to fight the powerful.
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Star Man posted:Republicans use fear and xenophobia to ripenup their base, and it's a hell of a lot easier to blame the powerless than it is to fight the powerful. The Dems are the powerful, and represent the powerful through their legislative actions. Otherwise party framing sounds like that bogus interview answer to the question about one's biggest fault: Dems like to think of themselves as just too noble & decent to win pearly seats among voter-populace swine, when they're just as beholden to capital as the GOP. There are reasons other than fear & xenophobia to not vote for Democrats, in other words.
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BiggerBoat posted:I mean, say what you want about Republicans but those motherfuckers know where their bread is buttered and don't hold back poo poo. The democrats seem to be always seeking an ideal "high road" and I suppose it could be argued they have a bigger and more diverse tent but good lord the most passionate members with the most aggressive stances on progressive values and policy are allowed to be branded as radical pariahs. We keep getting dragged to a center that consistently moves further right because all we seem to do is start out compromising. See the ACA for instance. Or the "$2000" checks. Democrats know where their bread is buttered too. They can't go hard against Republicans because they both serve the same masters, Democrats carefully excised class conflict from their talking points for a reason.
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CommieGIR posted:Commiegirl? LOL I typed "CommieGIR' and it autocorrected .. Forgive me please, 'twas early
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BiggerBoat posted:I mean, say what you want about Republicans but those motherfuckers know where their bread is buttered and don't hold back poo poo. The democrats seem to be always seeking an ideal "high road" and I suppose it could be argued they have a bigger and more diverse tent but good lord the most passionate members with the most aggressive stances on progressive values and policy are allowed to be branded as radical pariahs. We keep getting dragged to a center that consistently moves further right because all we seem to do is start out compromising. See the ACA for instance. Or the "$2000" checks. At the risk of getting back into the rotating conspiracy/villain argument, Manchin himself along with multiple people investigating back at the start of his bullshit have said that there's about 4 to 12 (Some number like that) Democrats that are way more conservative than what the Democratic party would allow and that his complaints were originally* because he was acting as the front man for them so they could avoid not getting kicked out of their positions. So basically, he's a representative of the part of the party that wants to be controlled opposition to the Republicans, by his own admission. ![]() So basically, to put it another way, there's a small number of Dems that need to be unseated to avoid this bullshit. Alternatively, electing 2 to at most 5 or more progressives from Republican held areas would put these assholes feet to the fire and probably make them toe the line for fear of losing their jobs. I wish I could find the article that went into this again, since it'd be very helpful for understanding and planning how to get these assholes out of the party. The good news to this is that this is a pretty damned cowardly and self interested position to take. So just a bit more of a majority would basically make them capitulate and actually be willing to work for party interests. There's no martyrs for Republican interests there, just the desire to profit at the expense of the party they claim to be a part of. So vote some Republicans out and get a bigger majority and things will be better for everyone, is all I can say to that. *Prior to him very loudly going all in on being buddies with billionaires in his state and out of it that are heavily Republican --- something that probably made the party establishment back down, since there was a risk that he'd switch the control of the senate over to the Republicans. Hilariously enough, the idiot doesn't seem to understand that he's probably being set up for a fall by the Republicans/their donor base. More than likely that one coal/oil baron multi-millionaire/billionaire that was telling him to "stand tall and be proud" and all that was sending money to prospective Republican challengers for the next election. So really, it was less, "Be proud TL;DR: Manchin is not that different from Sinema in that respect. ![]() Archonex fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Mar 17, 2022 |
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BIG-DICK-BUTT-gently caress posted:LOL I typed "CommieGIR' and it autocorrected .. Forgive me please, 'twas early No no, I meant that post in a jest, made me laugh. Anyways: People, unless Tara Reade is suddenly in the news, or we're going into primary season and there's relevant voting Current Events, please try to get back on topics with US Current Events.
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Willa Rogers posted:It doesn't threaten capital to promote trans rights. He was ahead of the curve on gay rights, too. To be more accurate, it doesn't threaten capital to promote "negative" trans rights, ie preventing discrimination and violence to trans people. "Positive" rights are another issue, such as easing the financial burden of transitioning or helping the large number of impoverished or homeless trans people. I suspect that he's not too keen on that sort of thing, but it would be nice to be proven wrong about that ![]() MLK talked about this sort of thing. How he had a ton of supporters when he was fighting against segregation and discrimination, but as soon as he started talking about reparations and economic justice, a lot of people turned against him. Fister Roboto fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Mar 17, 2022 |
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Jeff Weaver was the one who thought a good strategy to win the primary was to try and only get 25% of the vote. So, it is not too surprising that he thinks this is a good idea. The surprising part is that other people are apparently on board. https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1504449862535892992 Hypothetical 2028/2024 runs this far out are always silly, but surely the left-wing can use the next 2 to 6 years to get organized and get money to someone better than the guy who thinks Soylent could be the cure for world hunger and poverty? Or who is concerned about the FDA regulating "genuine homeopathic products" out of the market? https://twitter.com/reprokhanna/status/1433939541610618881?lang=en Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Mar 17, 2022 |
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it is interesting to see that the Young Up And Comer democrat script these days keeps featuring flirting with the anti-vax homeopathy crowd wonder what that's about, is there some consultant somewhere who thinks they're an easily poachable demographic?
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Genuine homeopathic products are widely available, you can get water everywhere including a direct feed into your house
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Fister Roboto posted:To be more accurate, it doesn't threaten capital to promote "negative" trans rights, ie preventing discrimination and violence to trans people. "Positive" rights are another issue, such as easing the financial burden of transitioning or helping the large number of impoverished or homeless trans people. I suspect that he's not too keen on that sort of thing, but it would be nice to be proven wrong about that Yeah, I thought of including something along those lines in my post, but others who have pointed out how M4A and housing security would help trans people has led, in the past, to trans posters stating itt that they first want to be assured they won't be murdered (a hierarchy-of-needs pov) and since I'm not trans I don't feel comfortable arguing against that. I believe very strongly, though, that ensuring human rights like healthcare & housing would help everyone, and especially under-served & marginalized communities, and I agree that capital will continue to block such efforts until the point at which they're forced to accede to them.
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:it is interesting to see that the Young Up And Comer democrat script these days keeps featuring flirting with the anti-vax homeopathy crowd Americans are straight dummies and need to feel coddled. If a little conspirituality is all it takes to yank them away from Qanon and we get better FDA purity standards on quack medicine, which is going to exist either way, I’ll take it. Khanna is an empty suit, but cannot possibly be worse at the job than Biden. ‘24 is obviously going to have some kind of dark horse challenger to Biden, might as well get somebody younger than Bernie who isn’t constantly attacked by their own party (Omar) on the ticket. At least somebody is trying something different than what we’re getting now.
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Willa Rogers posted:It doesn't threaten capital to promote trans rights. He was ahead of the curve on gay rights, too. Out of curiosity, what is the sample for polling for that poll? As in, what areas of the country did they poll in, and was their an equal number of respondents amongst Democratic party members and Republicans? If there was a 2022 poll I can't find it (in fact, another one last year has 72% of the respondents saying they believe people who are trans are being discriminated against, suggesting that something got hosed up with the latter poll) if it was in 2022. The one in 2021 doesn't have any info on who they asked and clearly included Republicans as a group being questioned, which could drag the results down. Notably, the way they talk about asking conservatives suggests that maybe they were polling Republicans and the areas they cluster in. Which...Uh, yeah. Not a good idea in getting results demonstrative of the rest of the country outside of whatever cult-like stuff related to christian nationalism, white supremacy, etc, etc, is actively being pursued by the elites of the party and the people talking to average people on the regular. This is especially true if they polled areas that are predominantly evangelical, which at this point might as well be "anti Democracy, pro supremacy" given some of the antics of that group as of late. quote:1,000 US adults were surveyed via YouGov from August 25 – 31, 2021. The responding samples are weighted to be representative of the US population. [url]https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/0t1ndevuyu/toplines_Transgender_Issues_20210825[1431].pdf[/url] 59 questions were also not reported. Which if they were trans related could have shed light on if there's any crossover between people who believe that trans people are being discriminated against and the people who want to discriminate in policy. Sounds like a bad poll to me, though maybe i'm missing something? Archonex fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Mar 17, 2022 |
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I don't think that limitations on who can run for or hold office are generally good idea. But, I would be fully in favor of banning anyone who is still talking about how the entire world will be eating Soylent soon in TYOOL 2022 from holding office.
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The Politico story about Khanna is funny bc Dems are starting to show flop sweat over 2024:quote:Democratic officeholders are reluctant to speak publicly about their ambitions in a potential open race in 2024 out of concern that they could undermine the president, who has said he plans to campaign for a second term if he is in good health. There are also sensitivities surrounding Vice President Kamala Harris, who is atop the list of possible candidates but faces skepticism from some party insiders who fear she cannot win a general election. That sentence about Harris is diplomatic to a fault, lol. This quote is also funny, bc Khanna assumes that Trump will be the GOP candidate: quote:“I’m not running in 2024,” Khanna said. “I fully expect the president to run and intend to support him strongly. If for some reason he didn’t, that would be very disappointing, but there are a number of other candidates who I think I could get behind who would make sure that the Democrats beat Donald Trump.”
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Nix Panicus posted:https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1504073842871963653?s=20&t=OrDQ-a8X6elVMbYkATIoXQ Oh look another reason why we should nationalize the energy sector.
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Honestly that seems like a safe assumption unless he's in jail and/or dead
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:I don't think that limitations on who can run for or hold office are generally good idea. But, I would be fully in favor of banning anyone who is still talking about how the entire world will be eating Soylent soon in TYOOL 2022 from holding office. I'm sure we can find something as bad or worse for every other candidate, starting with Biden's obvious one.
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Archonex posted:Out of curiosity, what is the sample for polling for that poll? As in, what areas of the country did they poll in, and was their an equal number of respondents amongst Democratic party members and Republicans? See questions 93-100 here; I read it a couple days ago but my interpretation was that although voters support non-discrimination for trans people, solid majorities are against the more granular issues, when asked. The poll was taken March 12-15, 2022, with n=1500; other methodology particulars are on the last page. eta: It does seem, though, that voters are comfortable saying that they don't know trans people or know about trans issues, so there could be lots of room for education on the granular stuff. Age (especially 45+) also seems to be correlated with views, in addition to party ID (or lack thereof). Willa Rogers fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Mar 17, 2022 |
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CommieGIR posted:No no, I meant that post in a jest, made me laugh.
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World Famous W posted:Is there a reason you brought up moving on from Reade, seeing as she was used directly as response to someone else brought up on Biden being a "nice guy"? She wasn't brought up out of the blue and throwing on your mod hat for her specifically is kinda of weird Because there has yet to be a case where Tara Reade discussion didn't sour quickly, especially in this thread. The warning was more to be wary with where discussion was going.
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Honestly, the methodology on the poll seems fine. But, the result that 22% of Americans use gender-neutral pronouns with people they know seems crazy high.
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CommieGIR posted:Because there has yet to be a case where Tara Reade discussion didn't sour quickly, especially in this thread. The warning was more to be wary with where discussion was going. It sours because people don't like to be reminded that they spent 4 years bashing conservatives for elevating a rapist to the highest office in the land, then turned around and did it themselves. But since when were topics forbidden because they hurt people's feelings?
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CommieGIR posted:Because there has yet to be a case where Tara Reade discussion didn't sour quickly, especially in this thread. The warning was more to be wary with where discussion was going. But I've said my piece on this enough and will move on after this
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It's annoying because I get why you don't want to have endless derails about it, yet it's the obvious response to things like "homeopathy is disqualifying." We can't have good things, but we absolutely must accept the mediocre things, because what are you a jerk who wants bad things?
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Honestly, the methodology on the poll seems fine. That response heavily skews by age, as many of the responses in that section do; more than twice as many 18-29 year olds than 65+.
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Willa Rogers posted:See questions 93-100 here; I read it a couple days ago but my interpretation was that although voters support non-discrimination for trans people, solid majorities are against the more granular issues, when asked. One thing i'll note is that that appears like they really did poll some ultra conservative bigots. To give an idea of it, one question is literally ""Do you identify as a feminist?". Only 17% of men answered yes. Only 30% of women answered yes. There's also a lot of question presentation errors in there. They ask if you know of the medical issues that trans people go through but there's no indication what a given person thinks is educated about the subject. Nor is there any attempt to qualify what educated means, or even do the dubious act of prompting to answer yes if they have actual medical knowledge about it instead of vicious bigots rumor mongering about the subject. Someone who hears from their pastor that those sinning trangenders are going to pervert your kid and get them into surgery along with whatever formulaic bullshit every minority has to go through to get even a bit of safety from people like that could easily have been told that kids who are trans get mutilated in surgery as minors (Not true.) as a regular thing and could have answered yes on it and no one would be the wiser. At best, that question is suggesting that a lot of people are falling for evangelical and white supremacist lies about how being transgender works. Which means that there needs to be more education loudly broadcasted on the subject. Edit: This really seems like a bad poll that polled people who are very conservative, though i'm not done reading through it yet. Without knowing what the political and religious affiliations of who they polled are, what the spread of respondents was like, and where they are geographically located it's hard to say if this is an accurate representation of the country at large. Though it does paint a dismal picture of whoever answered this poll in that way, so hopefully they aren't representative of the majority. (Given that 72% of people answered that trans people are being discriminated in 2021, i'd say it isn't. Maybe they primarily polled people aligned with the other 28%? Archonex fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Mar 17, 2022 |
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Bishyaler posted:It sours because people don't like to be reminded that they spent 4 years bashing conservatives for elevating a rapist to the highest office in the land, then turned around and did it themselves. But since when were topics forbidden because they hurt people's feelings? You know exactly why it sours, and its usually because its used, on both sides, as a way to bludgeon each other over 'Voting for rapists', which results in neither conducive arguments or worthwhile discussion. World Famous W posted:I could believe that if d&d mods hadn't literally said they, to paraphrase, "wanted everyone to forgot about it" And I've said what I've said: Watch it with Tara Reade chat.
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# ? Jun 18, 2024 15:59 |
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Harold Fjord posted:It's annoying because I get why you don't want to have endless derails about it, yet it's the obvious response to things like "homeopathy is disqualifying" Soylent isn't homeopathy. Soylent is a full meal in a one-step process with everything the body needs to thrive that is disrupting the very concept of a meal after an engineer who views food as a time-consuming hassle resolved to treat it as an engineering problem and successfully biohacked the concept of nutrition with a new meal replacement paradigm.
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