Trump vs Hillary

[rah]

Your factory worker tale is exactly what I was talking about when I said 'higher rate of failure than in the past'.

[Elok]

Ah. I assumed you meant "lower rate of failure," ie of suicide. If you look back, you'll notice I said nothing of oppression. Only that they're doing quite badly, which they are. And everybody looks down their noses at them for it. Now, this hardly excuses them for supporting a mendacious crypto-fascist demagogue, but if we can understand where Hitler came from we can at least try to understand how Trump came to be, without any Marie Antoinette bull**** about the vile commoners being tiresome again.

[rah]

Ah, reading it back, I can understand the confusion.

The only point I would make is that even though The Dumpster is mimicking some of the successful campaigning strategies of Hitler does not mean that He would turn into a Hitler type leader. It seems a lot of people try to make this claim.

[Elok]

No, like I said, he's more Putin than Hitler. I meant that as an extreme example; we don't excuse the German people for aggressive war and mass murder, but we do understand the factors--hyperinflation, national humiliation, recession--that made them so miserable they were willing to listen. Trump is much less menacing than Hitler, yes, but that doesn't mean we can treat him as the result of petulance, or ignorance, or some other factor that amounts to a meaningless whim. That anger came from somewhere, and it's not going away even if he does.

[Lorizael]

The only point I would make is that even though The Dumpster is mimicking some of the successful campaigning strategies of Hitler does not mean that He would turn into a Hitler type leader. It seems a lot of people try to make this claim.

I've been wondering about this lately. Clearly, almost every time you might say that a candidate is "like Hitler," you're going to be wrong. However, anyone who might have said that Hitler is "like Hitler" would have been right (and possibly a time traveler). And if a Godwinizer can be right on purpose (that is, not just a broken clock), then there are occasions when we need to listen when people say a candidate is Hitler-ish. Is this one of those times? I have no idea.

[rah]

I would lean towards no. I think he's more just looking for adulation and not world conquest.

But yeah, one must always consider it.

[ZEE]

Rah, Kidicious just completely humiliated and PWNed your ass again.

Please, for your sake, log off the forum. NOW.

Go play a game of Parcheesi instead.

[pchang]

Yes, Saddam never outright said he had nuclear weapons because he knew that would almost certainly invite an immediate attack to prevent him from using them. However, he halts all co-operation with UN inspectors in 1998. After his nephew defected, we knew he had chemical weapons and was trying to test some biological weapons. We also know he increased funding to former Iraqi nuclear researchers and gave them all raises. Then in late March 2003, he gave a talk to his generals where he implied he had some new secret weapon.

Bush heard what he wanted to hear, but Saddam gave him all the the reasons to believe that Bush wanted. It is easy to say afterwards that Saddam had chemical weapons, no biological weapons, and no nuclear weapons, but at the time there was great uncertainty. Saddam thought uncertainty and fear would protect him, but it was just the opposite.

[Berzerker]

according to weapons inspector Scott Ritter the CIA was using the inspections to target Saddam and the Iraqis figured it out, thats why the inspections ended and Clinton told the inspectors to leave the country so he could bomb more brown people

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Yes, Saddam never outright said he had nuclear weapons because he knew that would almost certainly invite an immediate attack to prevent him from using them. However, he halts all co-operation with UN inspectors in 1998. After his nephew defected, we knew he had chemical weapons and was trying to test some biological weapons. We also know he increased funding to former Iraqi nuclear researchers and gave them all raises. Then in late March 2003, he gave a talk to his generals where he implied he had some new secret weapon.

Bush heard what he wanted to hear, but Saddam gave him all the the reasons to believe that Bush wanted. It is easy to say afterwards that Saddam had chemical weapons, no biological weapons, and no nuclear weapons, but at the time there was great uncertainty. Saddam thought uncertainty and fear would protect him, but it was just the opposite.

Power of propaganda. (not that I ever doubted it).

[Sava]

Believing someone else's lie isn't the same thing as lying.

oh yeah poor hillary the victim

so ignorant
much deniability

not like her husband was the president for the previous 8 years
having the same access as the dubya did, basically
having access to the same intel

[pchang]

Intel is mostly educated guesses that changes constantly.

[giblets]

Bernie lost, suck it

[Kropotkin]

I do not think he lost exactly. While you have to have a pretty bloated self-esteem and a certain level of megalomania to come up with the idea to run for US President I find it unlikely that Bernie Sanders aim was to win the nomination. It might be a naive and uniformed opinion from a foreigner but there might be other goals in the life of a politician than ending up on a coin. It is my take on the issue that Sanders is in it to move Hillary Clinton and the Democratic parties platform to the left and that this is the main reason why he is taking this "lost cause" all the way to the convention.

[MichaeltheGreat]

You are evincing precisely the attitude that got us Trump in the first place. The white working class is in miserable shape; middle-aged white guys have something like the highest suicide rate of any demographic. The jobs they used to depend on are gone, and nobody much seemed to give a damn about it. Now they've flexed enough muscle to upend the GOP, and they know they're not completely helpless. If they lose, they won't simply go "aw, shucks" and resume blowing themselves up in DIY meth labs while the nation returns to business as usual. The very fact that they've turned to someone as blatantly dishonest and absurd as The Donald (most of whose supporters readily admit he's scuzzy, conceited, corrupt, shallow, etc., but he gets their love anyway b/c Dammit He's On My Side) shows that they're desperate. At a minimum, they'll find someone else to channel their rage in much the same way for the next election cycle. At worst, well, a lot of them have guns, and you'd likely find that a lot of the cops are on their side . . .

I am a middle aged white guy. So I've had a lot of middle aged white guys yammer away at me thinking I'm automatically on their side. The world ****ing changes, and you adapt or get run over. They don't get that, so they want a guy who says he's going to bring them back to their personal Camelot. It ain't happening.

Their overpaid rustbelt factory jobs for GM or US Steel are long gone and they ain't comin' back. Peasantry is a mindset, and that underedumacated demographic qualifies. They're all worked up over the eebil brown hordes and uppity women with unshaved legs and Gawd knows what other boogeymen that have been unleashed since that Kenyan Soshlist got elected by the do nothing takers. It's nothing new, go back to the Know Nothings.