US Presidential Election 2024

[leicsmac]

17 minutes ago, Foxdiamond said:

So would you completely scrap the armed forces of the UK?

Put the strawman away before someone lights a match, my friend.

 

But to answer the question, for the moment such things have to be maintained, but they certainly wouldn't be near the top of the funding tree right now.

[Jon the Hat]

8 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Put the strawman away before someone lights a match, my friend.

 

But to answer the question, for the moment such things have to be maintained, but they certainly wouldn't be near the top of the funding tree right now.

Au contraire mon ami! If you are correct on the coming storm we will need to fight!

[leicsmac]

8 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Au contraire mon ami! If you are correct on the coming storm we will need to fight!

If it comes to that then everyone is screwed and it won't matter how hard or successfully we fight anyway, seeing as if we win all we'll be king of is the ashes.

Edited 7 November 2024 by leicsmac

[Sir Steve Howard]

37 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I would say at this point that the incoming administration has a record of actually listening to STEM sources regarding policy that is sketchy at best and laughable at worst anyway.

 

Deviating from the initial point but chuck a few examples in

[Foxdiamond]

17 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Put the strawman away before someone lights a match, my friend.

 

But to answer the question, for the moment such things have to be maintained, but they certainly wouldn't be near the top of the funding tree right now.

Trouble is just to maintain let alone update costs a lot of money 

[leicsmac]

31 minutes ago, Sir Steve Howard said:

Deviating from the initial point but chuck a few examples in

Climate change, biodiversity projects, pollution. Pretty much anything environmental.

 

Stem cell research, too. And given he intends to appoint an antivaxxer as the head of medical oversight, I wouldn't be sure there either.

 

Edit: I'm wondering where the good science policy is to be honest, other than space exploration.

Edited 7 November 2024 by leicsmac

[leicsmac]

25 minutes ago, Foxdiamond said:

Trouble is just to maintain let alone update costs a lot of money 

No doubt. But one would hope not an largely increased amount of money.

[Sir Steve Howard]

2 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Climate change, biodiversity projects, pollution. Pretty much anything environmental.

 

Stem cell research, too.

You can't say with a straight face that policies negatively affecting the environment were/are driven by advice from STEM sources?

You haven't given specific examples, just naming very wide topics.

[urban.spaceman]

2 hours ago, Otis said:

Day 2.

The meltdown continues. 

What time's the murderous insurrection?

 

Oh wait.

[leicsmac]

28 minutes ago, Sir Steve Howard said:

You can't say with a straight face that policies negatively affecting the environment were/are driven by advice from STEM sources?

You haven't given specific examples, just naming very wide topics.

No, I'm saying that the policies applied on those matters clearly have next to no input from the STEM community given they fly in the face of pretty much so the advice it has given on them.

 

Apologies if that wasn't clear, and the point being that the analytical processes and expertise of STEM experts, as valuable as it is, isn't being applied here much anyway.

[Otis]

22 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

What time's the murderous insurrection?

 

Oh wait.

I don't think anyone here is approving what happened on Jan 6th.

[Koke]

3 minutes ago, Otis said:

I don't think anyone here is approving what happened on Jan 6th.

 

Not you personally but a lot of Trump supporters were doing mental gymnastics over it for years. 

[foxile5]

5 hours ago, Sampson said:

This just strikes me  as standard “enlightened centrist” rhetoric personally. Trump isn’t offering nuanced arguments on immigration saying we aren’t building the infrastructure or integrating so need to reduce numbers while still accounting for population ageing and demographic change. He’s literally saying “America for Americans”, saying immigrants eat pets and saying he’s going to bring about mass deportation.
 

Call me a delusional lefty all you like, but I can’t see how whipping up hate against immigrants by saying the eat people’s pets is something “moderates” should be wooed by and how that is somehow the left’s fault that they are if they are pushing back against that kind of thing. The idea that Trump is the moderate vote and the Democrats are somehow less moderate and more divorced from reality than Trump like that I think is a strange argument about where you want a “moderate” position to lie. The left absolutely should be pushing back against that kind of rhetoric if you want the moderate and centre ground to stay at a reasonable place.

I don't consider myself an 'enlightened centrist' whatever that means. Just seeking to explain in some way what is a pretty brutal loss at the polls.

[TamworthFoxes]

30 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

What time's the murderous insurrection?

 

Oh wait.

That was just one or two bad apples.

Easiest way to think of it is that Trumps fans are like Millwall, the lefty lot more like Fulham.

Last minute dodgy penalty winner at Millwall and it’s not wise to walk through away fans singing “Leicester, Leicester”.

Same scenario at Fulham and you can leave the ground doing what you like and they will still smile and wish you on your way.

Hope that helps. 😂

[st albans fox]

The aforementioned James O’Brien on LBC had a take on it earlier

 

As with most elections the middle ground waverers decide the outcome (he didn’t say that but we know this )

 

Trump promised that he would make changes to make you better off 

 

Harris didn’t promise anything other than she wasn’t trump

 

that wasn’t enough to ‘trump’ (sorry) the promises from the republicans.  A lot will think that it should be but when you’re struggling financially you will generally put money first. 

[Foxdiamond]

54 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

No doubt. But one would hope not an largely increased amount of money.

Outdated equipment is probably worse than none at all

[Tommy Fresh]

I don't think lefty has been said enough in this thread

[ClaphamFox]

8 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

The aforementioned James O’Brien on LBC had a take on it earlier

 

As with most elections the middle ground waverers decide the outcome (he didn’t say that but we know this )

 

Trump promised that he would make changes to make you better off 

 

Harris didn’t promise anything other than she wasn’t trump

 

that wasn’t enough to ‘trump’ (sorry) the promises from the republicans.  A lot will think that it should be but when you’re struggling financially you will generally put money first. 

I think in general, liberal/left-wing candidates always have to work a bit harder than conservative candidates to win votes. Conservatives tend to appeal to people's economic insecurities and fears over the future, which is psychologically very powerful. Liberal/left candidates tend to be more idealistic, which is a tougher gig as even most decent human beings tend to prioritise their own families' needs over their ideals.

 

To counteract this, the liberal/left-wing need to balance their ideals with pragmatism. They need to understand the people whose votes they covet in order to appeal to them. Unfortunately this does not come naturally to them. As witnessed by the histrionic meltdown over the past few days, many liberals seem to believe that anybody who doesn't share their views on every single issue must automatically be considered a bigot/fascist/nazi, etc. So they're trying to appeal to people they basically regard with contempt, which is difficult. 

To win the election, the Democrats needed somebody with enough gravitas/intellect/charisma to appeal to those middle ground voters without descending to Trump's level. Harris was always too flaky and insubstantial to accomplish that task, so it was always going to be a long shot with her as the candidate.

[Lako42]

17 minutes ago, Tommy Fresh said:

I don't think lefty has been said enough in this thread

With most of those throwing it around actually completely unaware of what it really is. 

 

 

[Sampson]

26 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

I think in general, liberal/left-wing candidates always have to work a bit harder than conservative candidates to win votes. Conservatives tend to appeal to people's economic insecurities and fears over the future, which is psychologically very powerful. Liberal/left candidates tend to be more idealistic, which is a tougher gig as even most decent human beings tend to prioritise their own families' needs over their ideals.

 

To counteract this, the liberal/left-wing need to balance their ideals with pragmatism. They need to understand the people whose votes they covet in order to appeal to them. Unfortunately this does not come naturally to them. As witnessed by the histrionic meltdown over the past few days, many liberals seem to believe that anybody who doesn't share their views on every single issue must automatically be considered a bigot/fascist/nazi, etc. So they're trying to appeal to people they basically regard with contempt, which is difficult. 

To win the election, the Democrats needed somebody with enough gravitas/intellect/charisma to appeal to those middle ground voters without descending to Trump's level. Harris was always too flaky and insubstantial to accomplish that task, so it was always going to be a long shot with her as the candidate.

Works the other way too though. Got to say I find that centrists and moderates thinking everyone on the left thinks that “anyone who doesn’t share their trope is a fascist” is much more common trope than the actual people left of centre thinking anyone who doesn’t share their views is a fascist/stupid these days.

 

The centrists and moderates constantly talking down to the left and inferring they are stupid and calling them people who won’t listen and meltdown is definitely a much more common in political discourse these days than people on the left actually accusing others of being stupid or fascists. 

Edited 7 November 2024 by Sampson

[leicsmac]

16 minutes ago, ClaphamFox said:

I think in general, liberal/left-wing candidates always have to work a bit harder than conservative candidates to win votes. Conservatives tend to appeal to people's economic insecurities and fears over the future, which is psychologically very powerful. Liberal/left candidates tend to be more idealistic, which is a tougher gig as even most decent human beings tend to prioritise their own families' needs over their ideals.

 

To counteract this, the liberal/left-wing need to balance their ideals with pragmatism. They need to understand the people whose votes they covet in order to appeal to them. Unfortunately this does not come naturally to them. As witnessed by the histrionic meltdown over the past few days, many liberals seem to believe that anybody who doesn't share their views on every single issue must automatically be considered a bigot/fascist/nazi, etc. So they're trying to appeal to people they basically regard with contempt, which is difficult. 

To win the election, the Democrats needed somebody with enough gravitas/intellect/charisma to appeal to those middle ground voters without descending to Trump's level. Harris was always too flaky and insubstantial to accomplish that task, so it was always going to be a long shot with her as the candidate.

Yeah, this is broadly accurate.

 

The only thing I'll add is that the idealism in such cases regarding long term global plans isn't just a matter of moral whatever, over time it's actually critical to survival. How much more pragmatic can that be made?

Edited 7 November 2024 by leicsmac

[ClaphamFox]

1 minute ago, Sampson said:

Got to say that centrists and moderates thinking everyone on the left thinks that “anyone who doesn’t share their trope is a fascist” is much more common trope than the actual people left of centre thinking anyone who doesn’t share their views is a fascist/stupid these days.

 

The centrists and moderates constantly talking down to both the left and the right and calling them idiots and people who won’t listen is definitely much more common in political discourse these days.

I didn't say that everyone on the left thinks that, but it's still pretty commonplace. There was a lot of it about after the Brexit vote, and also after Corbyn was trounced by Johnson. There has also been plenty of it over the past few days. Of course, the people expressing this kind of view may not be particularly representative, but owing to social media they tend to get a lot of exposure.

 

In general, I think it's a fair observation to say that left-wing candidates tend to do better when they mix their ideals with a pragmatic sense of how most people think and feel. Blair and Obama knew that. Starmer's victory was built upon a thorough purge of the remaining Corbynites. There are lots of examples.

 

9 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Yeah, this is accurate.

 

The only thing I'll add is that the idealism in such cases regarding long term global plans isn't just a matter of moral whatever, over time it's actually critical to survival. How much more pragmatic can that be made?

Persuading people that short-term sacrifices are necessary to long-term survival (eg, with regards to reducing carbon emissions) is very difficult and a massive challenge. But it's more important than ever.

[Dunge]

42 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Yeah, this is broadly accurate.

 

The only thing I'll add is that the idealism in such cases regarding long term global plans isn't just a matter of moral whatever, over time it's actually critical to survival. How much more pragmatic can that be made?

I wonder whether it would help if there was a clearer plan and timeline for it. I know you’ll say there is one but it always feels very distant.

[urban.spaceman]

1 hour ago, Otis said:

I don't think anyone here is approving what happened on Jan 6th.

There are plenty of people approving of the person who incited it.

[Brizzle Fox]

1 hour ago, Tommy Fresh said:

I don't think lefty has been said enough in this thread

There needs to be more use of Libtard tbqh