2024 Presidential Election: Who should replace Joe Biden?

[Peterkin]

3 hours ago, toucana said:

The most charitable interpretation

.... Why? Since he have never once presented a charitable interpretation of anything anyone else said, he has forfeited that courtesy. Take it face value: He intends to tear up the constitution and become king by divine right. If Americans let him take this election (not so much a question of winning as how much cheating his enablers get away with) they'll be giving up their country.  

[Alex_Krycek]

3 hours ago, toucana said:

Here is the  video clip of that moment:

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/27/politics/video/trump-christian-vote-vinjamuri-nr-digvid

The most charitable interpretation is that Trump was either appealing to elderly Christian voters who won't be around to vote in 2028 -  or perhaps to those MAGA fundamentalists who regard him as the Messiah, and who think that his second coming would coincide with the 'End of Days', and the 'Rapture' of the 'Elect' into heaven ?

In that clip Trump repeatedly says "we're going to fix it so good you won't have to vote again"; I think we all know what that means.  https://www.project2025.org/

Edited July 27 by Alex_Krycek

[iNow]

“What he said is that he will end electoral fraud if he wins, and thus, in the future, Republicans won’t need all their supporters to vote to give them huge, fraud-proof margins.  (To be clear, that claim itself involves some significant misinformation.)  He was not heralding the end of democracy.”

 

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/07/im-kind-of-tired-of-this.html

[Peterkin]

uh-hu

There will be more of this twisting-and-wringing.

We heard what he said. If electoral fraud had miraculously ended in 2015, he would never have had a prayer of getting anywhere near the White House. 

[StringJunky]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

“What he said is that he will end electoral fraud if he wins, and thus, in the future, Republicans won’t need all their supporters to vote to give them huge, fraud-proof margins.  (To be clear, that claim itself involves some significant misinformation.)  He was not heralding the end of democracy.”

 

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/07/im-kind-of-tired-of-this.html

I think he's covering for Trump. I think it's plain as day what he means. If it walks like a duck... and he is a duck.

Quote

WASHINGTON, July 27 (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told Christians on Friday that if they vote for him this November, "in four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote."
It was not clear what the former president meant by his remarks, in an election campaign where his Democratic opponents accuse him of being a threat to democracy, and after his attempt to overturn his 2020 defeat to President Joe Biden, an effort that led to the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump was speaking at an event organized by the conservative group Turning Point Action in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump said: "Christians, get out and vote, just this time. "You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians."
He added: "I love you Christians. I'm a Christian. I love you, get out, you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again, we'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote," Trump said.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung did not directly address Trump's remarks when asked to clarify them.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tells-christians-they-wont-have-vote-after-this-election-2024-07-27/

 

[Peterkin]

15 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

 I think he's covering for Trump.

Of course. And there will be lots more back-walks and apologetics and 'splainings. But they can never clean up after him, because he'll keep spewing.

[StringJunky]

23 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Of course. And there will be lots more back-walks and apologetics and 'splainings. But they can never clean up after him, because he'll keep spewing.

With Harris up now against him, the contrast is much clearer for voters to see. He's a walking train wreck and sewer mouth.

[iNow]

8 hours ago, StringJunky said:

He's a walking train wreck and sewer mouth.

For many, that’s a feature not a bug.

[swansont]

1 hour ago, iNow said:

For many, that’s a feature not a bug.

Yes, but they were already going to vote for him.

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Yes, but they were already going to vote for him.

That's how the system is broken, a guaranteed vote is like a blank cheque; easy to write and hard to cash...

[swansont]

ABC/IPSOS poll

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-sees-boost-favorability-after-biden-drops-race/story?id=112306763

Harris
July 19-20: 35/46 (favorable/unfavorable)
July 26-27: 43/42

Trump
July 19-20: 40/51
July 26-27: 36/52

Vance
July 19-20: 25/31
July 26-27: 24/39

(presumably voters but not couches were polled)

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

That's how the system is broken, a guaranteed vote is like a blank cheque; easy to write and hard to cash...

Name a system that would not have die-hard fans

17 hours ago, iNow said:

“What he said is that he will end electoral fraud if he wins, and thus, in the future, Republicans won’t need all their supporters to vote to give them huge, fraud-proof margins.  (To be clear, that claim itself involves some significant misinformation.)  He was not heralding the end of democracy.”

 

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/07/im-kind-of-tired-of-this.html

I think a presidential candidate should not require such a large contingent of people continually telling you what they really meant by their remarks.

[exchemist]

2 hours ago, swansont said:

ABC/IPSOS poll

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-sees-boost-favorability-after-biden-drops-race/story?id=112306763

Harris
July 19-20: 35/46 (favorable/unfavorable)
July 26-27: 43/42

Trump
July 19-20: 40/51
July 26-27: 36/52

Vance
July 19-20: 25/31
July 26-27: 24/39

(presumably voters but not couches were polled)

Name a system that would not have die-hard fans

I think a presidential candidate should not require such a large contingent of people continually telling you what they really meant by their remarks.

Yes, but that's the thing with a personality cult. The Great Leader can talk shit and there will be dozens of acolytes on hand to try to divine what he (and it's never a she) really meant. Look at some of the garbage spouted by Mao, which was re-quoted with veneration as if it was pearls of wisdom. My personal favourite from that era was " Cadres, cadres".

Nowadays we have "covfefe". *

 

* In my household, covfefe has been adopted as a term for the decaffeinated coffee I drink these days, to manage my tendency to heart arrhythmia.  

  

Edited July 28 by exchemist

[swansont]

13 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Yes, but that's the thing with a personality cult. The Great Leader can talk shit and there will be dozens of acolytes on hand to try to divine what he (and it's never a she) really meant. Look at some of the garbage spouted by Mao, which was re-quoted with veneration as if it was pearls of wisdom. My personal favourite from that era was " Cadres, cadres".

Nowadays we have "covfefe".

  

I think large swaths of the media have displayed massive malpractice in their coverage of Trump. They filter out the nonsense to report something coherent, while for others they ignore the message and latch on to any misstatement.

 

[TheVat]

40 minutes ago, swansont said:

think large swaths of the media have displayed massive malpractice in their coverage of Trump. They filter out the nonsense to report something coherent, while for others they ignore the message and latch on to any misstatement.

 

Made worse by how random partisans, usually of the extreme variety, have become large-scale disseminators of news on FB and other social media and tend to prune down their clips of news into misleading tidbits stripped of context.  So you sometimes have an accurate report pass through two distorting filters, one an editor  crafting clickbait the other Uncle Dwayne who has spent the last two decades monitoring the network of underground concentration camps Democrats are building inside of old mines and caverns.

[Peterkin]

51 minutes ago, swansont said:

I think large swaths of the media have displayed massive malpractice in their coverage of Trump.

Specific examples of coverage that was not representative of what actually happened, or was said?

I don't actually know what the network media are doing, except through another level of filters: I see it on internet forums or on You Tube. While I'm selective in the You Tube channels i watch regularly, the odd clip pops up unbidden and i might look at it. 

Over the years - many years, since sometime in the 80's when he became a minor noise in news - I've formed an impression of Trump that is unlikely to be changed by one biased reportage or another.

[swansont]

1 minute ago, Peterkin said:

Specific examples of coverage that was not representative of what actually happened, or was said?

I don't actually know what the network media are doing, except through another level of filters: I see it on internet forums or on You Tube. While I'm selective in the You Tube channels i watch regularly, the odd clip pops up unbidden and i might look at it. 

Over the years - many years, since sometime in the 80's when he became a minor noise in news - I've formed an impression of Trump that is unlikely to be changed by one biased reportage or another.

Trump’s speech at the convention, for one recent example. Really, pretty much any speech he’s made - the gibberish isn’t reported. The nuggets of coherent points are picked out.

Saying that you won’t need to vote anymore, but the headlines are about calling Harris a bum

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-harris-attacks-bum-failed-vice-president-rcna163922

 

[MSC]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

Saying that you won’t need to vote anymore, but the headlines are about calling Harris a bum

I saw that snippet. A part of me almost wonders if there is a little bit of subconscious narcissistic internal conflict after the assassination attempt, causing little bits of self sabotage in statements like telling people not to vote. Not to mention the role paranoia will play. "Can I trust that the deepstate (Even though I clearly want to make my own deepstate of loyal fanatics) hasn't infiltrated my Security detail?" And his massive ego being torn between his desire to win the presidency and desire to not be at risk of being killed as either a candidate or sitting president. 

Self preservation is a very powerful motive, probably even more so for narcissists I don't think Trunp could ever sacrifice himself for his children in any real way as his narcissism would overcome any paternal instinct he might have.

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, swansont said:

Really, pretty much any speech he’s made - the gibberish isn’t reported.

Yes, it is, extensively, by dedicated vloggers.

2 hours ago, swansont said:

The nuggets of coherent points are picked out.

To analyze for meaning. Which you can't do with the gibberish. The man is running for the most powerful office in the world. You can hardly blame people for trying to decipher what his intentions are. 

2 hours ago, swansont said:

Saying that you won’t need to vote anymore, but the headlines are about calling Harris a bum

I don't know about headlines. What I saw was 2-3-minute contextual clips of the speech where he said, repeatedly, to Christian voters: "We'll fix it so good, you won't need to vote anymore." He didn't elaborate on what is to be 'fixed' or how he intends to do it, but it was not a positive statement about American democracy. 

I can't help but notice the perfect, unscarred, unchipped ear, two weeks after it was hit by a rifle bullet.

[swansont]

6 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Yes, it is, extensively, by dedicated vloggers.

Who are not the mainstream media. (they are not in the large swaths)

 

6 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

To analyze for meaning. Which you can't do with the gibberish. The man is running for the most powerful office in the world. You can hardly blame people for trying to decipher what his intentions are. 

You can report that he’s spouting gibberish, and that if you have to work that hard to find meaning, perhaps the spouter is not up to the job.

Also, given his many efforts to subvert the electoral process, why aren’t the obvious candidate for intentions being reported? Why the effort to make them benign?

 

6 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

I can't help but notice the perfect, unscarred, unchipped ear, two weeks after it was hit by a rifle bullet.

Allegedly hit. We don’t have an actual medical report confirming that, or detailing how much brain damage he suffered.

[MSC]

9 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

Yes, it is, extensively, by dedicated vloggers.

I think what swansont is saying is that dedicated vloggers and independent outlets, lacking the prestige of established news media outlets (which is verifiably a monopoly) don't have the sort of reach as the latter nor the same level of trust. A vlogger is an individual and can be more easily dismissed or just never reach the people who need to listen to a vlogger with great journalism skills and integrity. Vlogging and marketing are two different skills really. 

Media coverage of Trump is ridiculous in terms of scale just because people will eat up any news about Trump. It takes up a lot of the oxygen of public attention and the way it is covered completely robs the public of a chance to get answers out of a very murky campaign, with little clear policy agendas/goals other than project 2025 and internal conflict on who does and doesn't support that crap. It would rather report on Trumps string of nickname attempts for Harris instead of having the headlines repeating questions the public needs answers to leading up to an election. Like "What exactly is the Trump policy agenda when he is allegedly disavowing project 2025?"

[Peterkin]

24 minutes ago, swansont said:

Who are not the mainstream media. (they are not in the large swaths)

I know they're not the mainstream media - to which my only access is CBC. But I did think they were included in the swaths, since there are so many of them. 

27 minutes ago, swansont said:

You can report that he’s spouting gibberish, and that if you have to work that hard to find meaning, perhaps the spouter is not up to the job.

Yes, I suppose they could, if they're allowed to. I don't know what the mainstream editorial constraints are since 2002.

28 minutes ago, swansont said:

Why the effort to make them benign?

I have no idea. Maybe the bosses want it to appear so?

29 minutes ago, swansont said:

Allegedly hit.

That's kinda what I meant. Have to wonder the two dramatic little trickles of blood came from.

22 minutes ago, MSC said:

I think what swansont is saying is that dedicated vloggers and independent outlets, lacking the prestige of established news media outlets (which is verifiably a monopoly) don't have the sort of reach as the latter nor the same level of trust.

That's unfortunate. Some of them are quite a lot more knowledgeable and thorough than the newscasters I recall from US networks a few years ago when i had access to them. 

 

24 minutes ago, MSC said:

Media coverage of Trump is ridiculous in terms of scale just because people will eat up any news about Trump.

Tell me about it! I can't escape the damn intrusive pop-up screens on my monitor when I'm trying to work. Can't ever get away from that odious face.

[StringJunky]

Here's the clip shown by Adam Schiff on Twitter:

https://x.com/i/status/1817007890496102490

[swansont]

6 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

I know they're not the mainstream media - to which my only access is CBC. But I did think they were included in the swaths, since there are so many of them. 

If they are reporting things accurately, then they aren’t in the large swaths that aren’t.

Large number, perhaps, but limited reach.

Quote

I have no idea. Maybe the bosses want it to appear so?

Indeed. Almost like integrity has taken a back seat to profit. Maybe because Trump winning means more money for the bosses (tax cuts and all)

[Peterkin]

1 minute ago, swansont said:

Almost like integrity has taken a back seat to profit.

No - there could be lots of profit in controversy and diverse opinion. It's much more serious than that. And more pervasive. That's what became so obvious in the wake of 9/11. 

 

4 minutes ago, swansont said:

Large number, perhaps, but limited reach.

Perhaps so. Many young and old people now depend on streaming media. I don't know what middle-aged people are watching.

[swansont]

23 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

No - there could be lots of profit in controversy and diverse opinion. It's much more serious than that. And more pervasive. That's what became so obvious in the wake of 9/11. 

No? Manufacturing controversy isn’t a failure of integrity?