2016 U.S. Presidential Elections: The Circus Is In Full Swing

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So, US has no radicals. Then tell Republicans, quit calling Dems, Radicals. And quit lying in general. :lol: Free speech is not freedom to lie. Also private companies are not subject to the Constitution. Twitter is within its rights to ban Trump and anyone else who lies as much as he does.
All politicians lie. Obama was the single best liar and manipulator I've ever seen. The problem that people seem to have with Trump isn't actually that he's a liar, it's that he's a bad liar. And the concept of "lying" is essentially unregulatable, because what constitutes a lie? If a person absolutely believes something, and are wrong, does that make them a liar if they talk about it? Therefore any regulation of perceived lies is based entirely on having irrefutable proof of that person (e.g voice recording, but even this is increasingly useless in the digital age) admitting that they don't believe the **** that they said.

Also private companies may be subject to freedom of speech laws. It all depends on whether or not the "space" in which they operate can be considered a "public space". I vaguely remember private companies being told that they can't restrict freedom of speech on their property, at one point, in one ruling. Twitter holds a de-facto monopoly on shortform/soundbite social media, and anybody can sign up and start posting freely. Whether or not that constitutes a "public space", I don't know, since very few laws we can draw from ever intended to deal with the digital forums.
 
The problem that people seem to have with Trump isn't actually that he's a liar, it's that he's a bad liar.

The problem that I personally have with Trump right now is that he just promoted a coup attempt. Even before this, the main issue I had with him is that he is absolutely unstable and not fit to run his own businesses, let alone a country. Other people's mileage might vary.

As far as your other point, maybe this is what you were thinking about?

 
All politicians lie. Obama was the single best liar and manipulator I've ever seen.
You are confused by propaganda. Obama was certainly not famous for lying unless you watched Fox News 24/7 during his era, themselves supporters of many anti-Obama lies, including Trump's Birther bull****.
Trump set new standards for lies per day for an elected politician, but you gloss over it as if he was a victim of his own incompetence. I bet you didn't mind his sweet lies and never, ever was prepared to call him out on that. But yeah, that Obama, amirite.
 
As far as your other point, maybe this is what you were thinking about?
That might've been it. I probably shouldn't have mentioned it since it's like a decade since I read it, I can't really remember.

it's the fascist coup type stuff for me too, yeah.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the feeling that you didn't like him before recent events either, lol.



You are confused by propaganda.
An interesting irony, but okay.

Obama was certainly not famous for lying unless you watched Fox News 24/7 during his era, themselves supporters of many anti-Obama lies, including Trump's Birther bull****.
Trump set new standards for lies per day for an elected politician
How many lies(or rate of lies) are acceptable for a president, or other high ranking leader, in your opinion? Whenever it's a politician we like telling lies, we have a habit of calling it rhetorical hyperbole, and when it's a politician we don't like telling lies, we call them lies. I have the unfortunate position of liking politicians and candidates on neither side, which means no matter where I go I get bombarded with the hysterical. I simply use the same criteria.

but you gloss over it as if he was a victim of his own incompetence. I bet you didn't mind his sweet lies and never, ever was prepared to call him out on that. But yeah, that Obama, amirite.
I seem to be somewhat rare as a political observer in that I never took Trump literally or seriously. I knew his primary goal was to stroke his own ego, and establish himself as an historical figure. Going into the start of his presidency, the only policy point I knew he would accomplish was tax cuts for him and his buddies, which is essentially all that we got. I don't "mind his lies" any more or less than I mind the lies and political crap of other self-serving politicians, which is lots. But I don't go in for the partisan hysteria now any more than I did when I listened to idiots call Obama a communist for 8 years.
 
How many lies(or rate of lies) are acceptable for a president, or other high ranking leader, in your opinion? Whenever it's a politician we like telling lies, we have a habit of calling it rhetorical hyperbole, and when it's a politician we don't like telling lies, we call them lies. I have the unfortunate position of liking politicians and candidates on neither side, which means no matter where I go I get bombarded with the hysterical. I simply use the same criteria.

I have no problems with recognizing that Obama lied, or that Biden lied, when they do (and to be honest, I don't even like either one all that much). But you are not really being objective if you say that Trump lies just like other politicians before him did. You simply aren't, that is not a matter of opinion.




Honestly, it's not even the amount of lies, it's what he lies on and why he does it. I don't recall Obama saying that Trump was actually born in Germany, or that there was election fraud in 2016 (and please don't give me the whole "Russiagate hoax" spiel because that doesn't compare even remotely to what is happening today).

And what really bothers me about this, is that you (and others with the same attitude) are normalizing Trump's behavior. I am also not sure why you don't take him seriously. He has been the President of the US, has been for four years, and is currently doing anything he can to start a civil war in this country so that we can enjoy his presidency for longer. Seems pretty serious to me. Or you know, if you think it's all a joke here's a full hour of Trump being the adorable prankster that he is.

 
I have no problems with recognizing that Obama lied, or that Biden lied, when they do (and to be honest, I don't even like either one all that much). But you are not really being objective if you say that Trump lies just like other politicians before him did. You simply aren't, that is not a matter of opinion.

Honestly, it's not even the amount of lies, it's what he lies on and why he does it. I don't recall Obama saying that Trump was actually born in Germany, or that there was election fraud in 2016 (and please don't give me the whole "Russiagate hoax" spiel because that doesn't compare even remotely to what is happening today).
Trump said that the 2016 was going to be rigged against him and then he won. Things like this are why I don't take him seriously. His strategy is to spin lies, misrepresentations, hyperbole, and outrage into a set of what you might call fighting game combos, so that whatever provocative **** he said this time distracts from the **** he said previously, while getting his supporters emotionally invested. You may be forgetting, he comes from reality TV, and his attempts to draw support is essentially to try and turn American politics into a form of a reality TV show. As a political strategy, this worked. I certainly wouldn't agree that it is ethical, but politics was already broken before he came along. Like I said a few pages ago, Trump is impossible in a stable and cohesive society.

And what really bothers me about this, is that you (and others with the same attitude) are normalizing Trump's behavior.
Half of politically interested America are normalizing Trump's behavior when they voted for him. I didn't, and wouldn't. Don't waste your time trying to lay this at my feet. If America's political system and society are so fundamentally broken that politics can degenerate to this extent that the election is between a guy who can't talk properly half the time because he has dementia, and an orange narcissist, and it is the most voted-in election(by percentage of eligible voters) since 1900, and either one of these two joke candidates win: that has nothing to do with me. ~47% of American voters voted for Trump. Assuming you are an American: you have a lot more to worry about then "people like me". Why don't you people try and be introspective as to how you got to this point in the first place, and what drives that half of your country to vote the way that they did.
 
Well, you are half right. I am from Italy and moved to the US a few years ago. And a lot of what you just said is true. Trump is the symptom, not the issue. He is basically highlighting all the cracks that are present in the American society.
 
We can move to another level of difficulty and say that in US politics you, for example, need congress and the senate to do things. If you want a progressive leader to win and enact progressive policies in Kentucky and the majority of US states, you cannot campaign on Green New Deal, etc. You have to pick electable candidates that represent the people. Obama was an ultra-progressive technocrat, but he had to reign himself in if he wanted to remain a representative of the people and remain in office to do progressive ****. You can characterize that as dishonest, but it seems more dishonest to compare it to Trump's dishonesty.

Wtr free speech and constitution. I haven't read too much on it personally, but its good to bear in mind that the SC and the constitution are reinterpreted not always consistently and not always accordingly to the intent of the written text, but rather in view of social advances (depending on the judge, among others).
 
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This is out of my scope and I can't do much research right now. It's a good article, but I know it makes some bold assumptions that were never settled. Either way, finance is not the only determinant of progressiveness.

What's funny to me is that the respective authors of the Washington Post and Wallstreet Journal articles both agree that the Obama-Biden economy wasn't that great (disagree), but one argues that it was because it wasn't progressive enough, whereas the other because it was too generous.

Mr. Obama’s contribution was to make the Main Street recovery more difficult with mistakes the Biden Democrats seem set on repeating. Chief among these was the $800 billion “stimulus” spending bill in 2009 that was supposed to galvanize a rapid recovery. But the shovel-ready projects weren’t ready. Most of the money was spent on income and social-worker transfer payments that did nothing to change incentives to work and invest.

The payments also penalized work in the name of supporting laid-off workers. One signature policy was a significant extension of unemployment benefits, to 99 weeks, that paid people not to work long after the recession ended. Sound familiar? Measures ranging from expanded eligibility for food stamps to means-tested subsidies for mortgage borrowing punished people who worked more.


That being said, Obama inherited a complicated crisis, and I'm extremely generous to how I interpret him given how complicated and politicized finance and economics can get.
 
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An opinion piece from WSJ is predictably ideological (it's Murdoch's henchmen being anti-Democrat). Maybe try more neutral and factual financial analyses from media like the Financial Times or similar?
Two things from the Obama-era recovery that I remember from Trump vs. Obama debates were that the job creation that Trump took credit for started under Obama and that Obama consistently made the budget deficit lower, until Trump exploded it again with his tax cuts.
 
Fair enough! First thing I could find that was relatively objective when searching for ''Obama economy'', but which wasn't about Trump.
 
The only thing really progressive about Obama was the fact that he was a black man. He inherited a recession caused by the previous administration. He reacted to it fairly well but was not always right. Still the economy recovered well.
As far as Trump not being the cause of the present situation, I don't buy it. There have been white supremacists in the US since before there was a country. Two main right wing militia groups, Proud Boys and boogaloo boys did not exist before Trump became president where he could use Twitter to inform and incite them. Saying Trump is a symptom and not a cause is, I believe, missing the point.
 
Saying the Obama administration did a poor job on the economy is really funny
when he took over from an administration that just watched as the economy tanked.
Mainly caused by two laws (or rather the removal of them) in 1999 and 2000 during the Clinton administration
(the Glass-Steagall legislation from 1933 that was repealed in 1999 (as the Financial Services Modernization Act)
and the now famous Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000).
 
To clarify, I don't think that Obama was a bad president. I just don't think that he was all that progressive, and that he missed some big opportunities during the time when he actually had control over things.

Trump on the other hand has done a fantastic job at accelerating the disintegration of the country.
 
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