1 hour ago, Bill said:

Oh my God MAGAts, shut the hell up about voter fraud. You’re killing the conservative cause. 
 

It’s Fn Bizarro 2016 liberal whining. Just shut up. 
 

there’s no GD voter fraud. 
 

Why the hell haven’t the centrists on both sides rose up and snuffed out the extremists is beyond me. 

They won't listen.  Only Trump can silence that crowd. 

46 minutes ago, NVeagle said:

"Irregardless" (   listen to Rhodes), rules for thee not for me; such hypocrisy by the Media; ask Flynn; FISA reports coming next.

I think you should go complain about all this on Parlor.

22 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

In many respects, Biden is coming into a pretty good situation.  The economy is recovering and appears to be on pace to boom after Covid.  The market has reacted very positively to Biden's win and big business seems generally happy.  Small business, on the other hand, is in a state of desperation and badly needs stimulus.  If I were Biden I'd very publicly ask Nancy to play ball now to try to get something through before his inauguration.  That way, Biden gets credit for the action, but not the added debt.  He can also point to the stimulus as an example of his ability to bring people together and get things done.   

As I've stated before, by the time Biden is inaugurated I think we will be distributing vaccine and the most at risk among us should be protected.  Biden's job then becomes managing the the country out of the pandemic, ensuring that the virus is held at bay and keeping the economy rolling.  The media will likely shift the narrative from cases to death rate and help him here. 

All that being said, I think he will have two major challenges.  This first, and most obvious is delivering for the progressive left.  In many ways it would be better for Biden if the Senate stays Republican.  This gives him the ability to push for more lefty policies to give the impression that he is progressive but very little of that will pass...leaving him with a legacy that is palatable for the masses.  If the Senate flips blue, he is going to have to manage the expectations of the progressives with the clear, more moderate expectations of the nation.  To be honest, I don't think Biden is a strong enough leader to manage this second scenario...but time will tell. 

The second challenge is that the white working class is going to become difficult and loud once they realize that Trump really did lose.  Biden was largely selected because he can speak to this demographic.  He's going to need to find a way to deliver for them to try to bring at least some of them back into the democrat fold.  Unfortunately, I think he will do this through labor, which has always been his wheelhouse (and also the place I disagree with him most).  Re-establishing the connection with the white working class and doing it through the unionization is going to be a difficult task for him...but one that will pay dividends in the polls if he can do it. 

As long as the mainstream dems (like Biden) move away from race/identity politic and cultural/social issues; and focus on the economy and jobs, they'll be fine.   Biden needs to stamp out AOC and her crowd.  I think Kamala was a bad choice too - because Biden would have gotten more votes if he picked someone liked Duckworth.  People think Kamala will be all BLM (even though she wasn't like that as a prosecutor).     

11 minutes ago, caesar said:

As long as the mainstream dems (like Biden) move away from race/identity politic and cultural/social issues; and focus on the economy and jobs, they'll be fine.   Biden needs to stamp out AOC and her crowd.  I think Kamala was a bad choice too - because Biden would have gotten more votes if he picked someone liked Duckworth.  People think Kamala will be all BLM (even though she wasn't like that as a prosecutor).     

For once, I completely agree with you.  However, nothing in recent history suggests to me that they are able to do move away from identity politics.  The nation clearly hates it and they need a new, unifying direction. 

1 hour ago, Bill said:

Oh my God MAGAts, shut the hell up about voter fraud. You’re killing the conservative cause. 
 

It’s Fn Bizarro 2016 liberal whining. Just shut up. 
 

there’s no GD voter fraud. 
 

Why the hell haven’t the centrists on both sides rose up and snuffed out the extremists is beyond me. 

i have been against the right as you toss down white claws and fire off knuckle children to my little pony, you Fng clopper. 

I kind of doubt there will be a significant stimulus or possibly any at all now. McConnell holds the power and I don’t expect him to even allow a vote. 

50 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

They won't listen.  Only Trump can silence that crowd. 

we may not always be on the same page, but i think you try to keep it as unbiased as possible. 

 

i know i seem tough on the GOP, but that's my political party, that's the one i can make a difference in, that's the one i can hopefully help back from the fringe. 

7 minutes ago, Alpha_TATEr said:

i have been against the right as you toss down white claws and fire off knuckle children to my little pony, you Fng clopper. 

The last thing I downed in one sitting was a whole bottle of Whistle Pig, so go F yourself. 
 

If you can’t do that, then throw it into your post menopausal wife missionary style then complain when she wants to cuddle you afterwards even though it’s because your five minutes of Cialis induced missionary humping didn’t get her off. 

7 minutes ago, Jsvand12 said:

I kind of doubt there will be a significant stimulus or possibly any at all now. McConnell holds the power and I don’t expect him to even allow a vote. 

With senate race in Georgia it may beneficial if he can pass something before then.

2 minutes ago, Bill said:

The last thing I downed in one sitting was a whole bottle of Whistle Pig, so go F yourself. 
 

If you can’t do that, then throw it into your post menopausal wife missionary style then complain when she wants to cuddle you afterwards even though it’s because your five minutes of Cialis induced missionary humping didn’t get her off. 

i see you thought you were writing in your journal again and worried about your inability to deliver in the bedroom. 

you should work on that, your wife told me the cost of batteries is getting to be too much. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bah, wife joke. 

1 minute ago, Alpha_TATEr said:

i see you thought you were writing in your journal again and worried about your inability to deliver in the bedroom. 

you should work on that, your wife told me the cost of batteries is getting to be too much. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bah, wife joke. 

She’s a wife but she isn’t mine. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bah, other guy’s wife joke. 

11 minutes ago, Alpha_TATEr said:

we may not always be on the same page, but i think you try to keep it as unbiased as possible. 

 

i know i seem tough on the GOP, but that's my political party, that's the one i can make a difference in, that's the one i can hopefully help back from the fringe. 

I honestly think Trump killed the traditional GOP, and I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.  At the risk of saying anything positive about Trump (I know that's not allowed here)...I think the Republican party that will come out of his presidency is much better poised for the future.  More diverse, more domestically focused, more economically mixed, anti foreign war, more socially tolerant...etc, etc.  If they can just be more open to environmental issues (without fully embracing the climate change hysteria) and a few other topics that are important to moderates I think they have a winning ticket.  

16 minutes ago, Talkingbirds said:

With senate race in Georgia it may beneficial if he can pass something before then.

I thought the same thing about before the general election but he didn’t care then. Doubt he will now. 

12 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

I honestly think Trump killed the traditional GOP, and I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.  At the risk of saying anything positive about Trump (I know that's not allowed here)...I think the Republican party that will come out of his presidency is much better poised for the future.  More diverse, more domestically focused, more economically mixed, anti foreign war, more socially tolerant...etc, etc.  If they can just be more open to environmental issues (without fully embracing the climate change hysteria) and a few other topics that are important to moderates I think they have a winning ticket.  

i think there are def some horrible traits that came from trump. they have to dump those as well as grasping the ideas you mentioned to really come out of this IMO. i didnt disagree with all of trump's ideas,  but his methods were trump 101 which if you know his history, this is the type of environment he longs for, divisive and distracting. 

 

that said, i am wondering who could step up from the right to run in 2024. what do you think about tim scott ? 

2 minutes ago, Alpha_TATEr said:

i think there are def some horrible traits that came from trump. they have to dump those as well as grasping the ideas you mentioned to really come out of this IMO. i didnt disagree with all of trump's ideas,  but his methods were trump 101 which if you know his history, this is the type of environment he longs for, divisive and distracting. 

 

that said, i am wondering who could step up from the right to run in 2024. what do you think about tim scott ? 

Trump's demeanor was absolutely awful, no question.  This alone created enormous problems for both him and for the country.  But from a policy perspective and from a party evolution perspective I think some good things happened on his watch.  Was he directly responsible for all of them?  No.  But they happened none the less.  

I like Tim Scott a lot.  I like his upstart story, I like his politics and I think he'd be great for the nation.  But, I think the Republicans are going to have a real dilemma on their hands now and I'm not sure that Tim Scott will solve it.  They've got to figure out how to re-unite the party but still keep the Trump voters on board.  Biden is going to be working hard to re-engage with the white working class over the next four years.  In that sense I think the Republican's need to run Haley or someone who was more connected to Trump.  That may lose them some votes too...but with this new mail in voting trend, they can't afford to lose any of this white working class vote.  

All that being said, a Haley with a Tim Scott as VP pick would be a pretty powerful one two punch.  

16 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

I honestly think Trump killed the traditional GOP, and I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.  At the risk of saying anything positive about Trump (I know that's not allowed here)...I think the Republican party that will come out of his presidency is much better poised for the future.  More diverse, more domestically focused, more economically mixed, anti foreign war, more socially tolerant...etc, etc.  If they can just be more open to environmental issues (without fully embracing the climate change hysteria) and a few other topics that are important to moderates I think they have a winning ticket.  

I'd like that to be the case, but I think a lot of Trump's appeal was "sticking it to the liberals", at least on the fringes.

I agree that in some areas the GOP has made inroads: younger black men & Cuban-latinos at minimum are more open to the GOP. broadly, I think Latinos in Texas especially seemed less engaged - they don't appear (though I haven't dug into numbers as they've gotten bigger) to have come out for Trump, but they also didn't really turn out for Biden in big numbers. Democrats were worried about that even going into the election; engagement among latinos along the Texas border was not as high as they were hoping, and turnout was depressed election day.

the left has this delusion that minorities are themselves immune to holding racist views or at least do not find "racism" to be central to their identity, and find themselves shocked when latinos and young black men "vote against their interests" ... that's a problem that the left has, but I don't believe that translates to the right being more socially tolerant, I don't know. I think it will be a trick for the GOP to go from a guy who winked-and-nodded at white nationalist groups to selling itself as socially tolerant. I think there's a chance, but the GOP has to re-invent itself there in some fashion. I do hope they do it so that I can vote for a healthy GOP again, we'll see what happens; the way some big names on the right are positioning themselves in the aftermath (especially Cruz) do not bode well. they're already trying on Trump's persona. I just hope it doesn't work.

I do think, as I've said repeatedly, that Trump did a fine job diagnosing some of the problems we have in terms of offshoring and making sure we map out an economic future for people without college degrees. this is something that has caused me angst for quite a while. Trump's solutions, however, were reckless and foolish, and I fear they've taken us back not forwards in terms of ensuring a place for skilled and unskilled labor. 

we should have stayed in the TPP. we should have done everything we can to gain more leverage against China and other partners. we should be pushing for fair trade policies that both serve to lift up the working conditions of those abroad as well as serve an interest here at home - to ensure that our workers can compete on more equal footing. Trump did none of this, instead engaging us in a trade war that has cost Americans both in jobs and in higher costs of consumer goods. 

he was a very poor negotiator. 

I just hope to see both parties come out of this marginalizing the fringes and fighting for the centrist/moderate voter again. stop trying to paint the left as socialists and the right as fascists; the bell curve is still well and alive, and most of us are not on the edges, even if the bell curve has been skewed a bit by social media. I'm hopeful that when people learn to deal with the onslaught of information (and misinformation), that the full normalized curve returns in force and the extremists are relegated to rants on parler/etc.

7 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

Trump's demeanor was absolutely awful, no question.  This alone created enormous problems for both him and for the country.  But from a policy perspective and from a party evolution perspective I think some good things happened on his watch.  Was he directly responsible for all of them?  No.  But they happened none the less.  

I like Tim Scott a lot.  I like his upstart story, I like his politics and I think he'd be great for the nation.  But, I think the Republicans are going to have a real dilemma on their hands now and I'm not sure that Tim Scott will solve it.  They've got to figure out how to re-unite the party but still keep the Trump voters on board.  Biden is going to be working hard to re-engage with the white working class over the next four years.  In that sense I think the Republican's need to run Haley or someone who was more connected to Trump.  That may lose them some votes too...but with this new mail in voting trend, they can't afford to lose any of this white working class vote.  

All that being said, a Haley with a Tim Scott as VP pick would be a pretty powerful one two punch.  

im not huge on haley, but man, what a ticket that would be for the GOP. talk about a culture change. 

8 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

I'd like that to be the case, but I think a lot of Trump's appeal was "sticking it to the liberals", at least on the fringes.

I agree that in some areas the GOP has made inroads: younger black men & Cuban-latinos at minimum are more open to the GOP. broadly, I think Latinos in Texas especially seemed less engaged - they don't appear (though I haven't dug into numbers as they've gotten bigger) to have come out for Trump, but they also didn't really turn out for Biden in big numbers. Democrats were worried about that even going into the election; engagement among latinos along the Texas border was not as high as they were hoping, and turnout was depressed election day.

the left has this delusion that minorities are themselves immune to holding racist views or at least do not find "racism" to be central to their identity, and find themselves shocked when latinos and young black men "vote against their interests" ... that's a problem that the left has, but I don't believe that translates to the right being more socially tolerant, I don't know. I think it will be a trick for the GOP to go from a guy who winked-and-nodded at white nationalist groups to selling itself as socially tolerant. I think there's a chance, but the GOP has to re-invent itself there in some fashion. I do hope they do it so that I can vote for a healthy GOP again, we'll see what happens; the way some big names on the right are positioning themselves in the aftermath (especially Cruz) do not bode well. they're already trying on Trump's persona. I just hope it doesn't work.

 

 

 

im married to a 1/2 cuban woman. now while she has no racist traits at all, her father's family is another story. people would be surprised i think to know how prejudice latinos can be, especially when it comes to mexicans. 

49 minutes ago, The Norseman said:

I honestly think Trump killed the traditional GOP, and I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.  At the risk of saying anything positive about Trump (I know that's not allowed here)...I think the Republican party that will come out of his presidency is much better poised for the future.  More diverse, more domestically focused, more economically mixed, anti foreign war, more socially tolerant...etc, etc.  If they can just be more open to environmental issues (without fully embracing the climate change hysteria) and a few other topics that are important to moderates I think they have a winning ticket.  

14 minutes ago, Alpha_TATEr said:

im married to a 1/2 cuban woman. now while she has no racist traits at all, her father's family is another story. people would be surprised i think to know how prejudice latinos can be, especially when it comes to mexicans. 

yeah there seems to be a belief among some leftists that minorities either cannot be racist, or if they are that's ok. 

it's ridiculous.

18 minutes ago, Alpha_TATEr said:

im married to a 1/2 cuban woman. now while she has no racist traits at all, her father's family is another story. people would be surprised i think to know how prejudice latinos can be, especially when it comes to mexicans. 

Homophobia, too, still runs rampant in the Latino community, and to a slightly lesser extent, the black community as well. I think the left generally has blinders on to this reality.

1 minute ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

Homophobia, too, still runs rampant in the Latino community, and to a slightly lesser extent, the black community as well. I think the left generally has blinders on to this reality.

this is the victim mentality that I loathe.

the left views any minority as a victim.

gives very little agency to minorities as a whole, and positions themselves as the 'white saviors' of them.

and to be sure, the victim mentality among the right runs strong as well: white males are now the victims (just ask the proud boys), and conservatives in general are the victim of everything. 

6 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

yeah there seems to be a belief among some leftists that minorities either cannot be racist, or if they are that's ok. 

it's ridiculous.

so true and again, i cant stress enough how much other latinos despise mexicans. 

but yeah, the left thinks they have no issues in their ranks when it comes to racism. that mind set is part of the reason we can't get beyond the racial divide.

1 minute ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

yeah there seems to be a belief among some leftists that minorities either cannot be racist, or if they are that's ok. 

it's ridiculous.

I don't think it's that [blank ethnicity] can't be racist. Anyone can get that brain-rot. It's just from country-to-country, a matter of when the ruling power (or majority) uses it to keep their boots on the neck of minorities for political and social power.  If Cubans (or anyone else) were the majority, and trying to protect their place on the political/social totem pole, trying to enforce the rules that grandpa made,  it would be the same dumb narrative. It's just that when you're not in power, the racism is just stupid lazy ignorance...and when you are in power, it becomes policy.

3 minutes ago, Lloyd said:

I don't think it's that [blank ethnicity] can't be racist. Anyone can get that brain-rot. It's just from country-to-country, a matter of when the ruling power (or majority) uses it to keep their boots on the neck of minorities for political and social power.  If Cubans (or anyone else) were the majority, and trying to protect their place on the political/social totem pole, trying to enforce the rules that grandpa made,  it would be the same dumb narrative. It's just that when you're not in power, the racism is just stupid lazy ignorance...and when you are in power, it becomes policy.

politicians will use whatever they can to divide a nation if it suites them. if it's not racism it'll be something else.

as the country has gotten less racist, the tool used to divide has been the culture war and rural/urban divide. where once someone could appeal to "the whites" and win, that has proven to be a losing political strategy (at least when done overtly), now the political parties have moved on to something else.

so Trump convinced the rural folk that ivory tower liberals / coastal elites hate their guts, and they believed that he would be helping them.

that he hasn't is immaterial - Trump can always fall back to the "I tried, but the swamp/liberals/etc. are stopping me! you need to send me more money and vote harder!"