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Again I just don't think any of this is particularly relevant. Trump didn't get elected by colluding with Russia. Trump got elected because he articulated a s

by skohan 5y ago

Again I just don't think any of this is particularly relevant. Trump didn't get elected by colluding with Russia. Trump got elected because he articulated a salient message which resonated with many Americans. If you think Hillary Clinton's emails had more to do with the result of the election than NAFTA's effect on the rust belt, the opioid epidemic, the skyrocketing costs of healthcare and education, and the handling of the 2008 financial crisis then I would have a lot of trouble understanding your reasoning. I just don't think it's productive at all to fixate on Trump as some sort of bogeyman. He's merely a symptom of our dysfunctional government. The endless pearl-clutching and regurgitation of Russia-gate and January 6 is not particularly interesting to me. If we don't want another trump, the best thing we could do is reform elections to combat minoritarian rule, reform the legislature so it can actually function, and pass some simple, obvious reforms to improve the material conditions of working people.

ModernMech 5y ago
I don't think it's relevant either, not at the moment anyway, not after 1/6. But the collusion happened and we need to stop pretending it didn't. > If you think Hillary Clinton's emails ... I would have a lot of trouble understanding your reasoning. I would say all of those things you listed would be my personal list of grievances against Hillary Clinton. I think it put her toe-to-toe with someone fundamentally unfit for office. But when I talk to Trump voters, their grievances include almost none of the points you listed. In order they are almost invariably: 1. E-mails, 2. Benghazi, 3. her proximity to Bill Clinton. That's just my experience anyway, maybe it's not generalizable. But it's not surprising, as this is roughly the proportion of time spent on each topic in the media, particularly on Fox News. They didn't focus on the cost of education or the opioid crisis. They did focus on NAFTA a bit, but more so than anything it was e-mails they focused on. Just look at the peak here of search terms that drop off after the election: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2016-01-01%202017-01-01&geo=US&q=NAFTA,emails,opioids,benghazi https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2016-01-01%202... > The endless pearl-clutching and regurgitation of Russia-gate If you think the reaction to the events laid out in the Mueller Report and the Senate Intel report amount to "pearl clutching", then you admit it's above-board to work in lock-step with a foreign government to hack your electoral opponents, and that it's fine to then leverage your privileged position to cover it up. If that's your stance, say so. That's fine. What's not fine is to minimize what happened as "pearl clutching". A thing happened and it has serious implications that drive directly at the dysfunction of our government. We have to be lucid about those implications. Just don't be surprised when a Democrat does it in the future, I wouldn't put it past them. That's what normalization of this stuff does. > If we don't want another trump, the best thing we could do is reform elections to combat minoritarian rule, reform the legislature so it can actually function, and pass some simple, obvious reforms to improve the material conditions of working people. I know you said you've been out of the country for almost a decade, so maybe you have not followed how dysfunctional things are now. None of what you suggest will be signed into law. Maybe some election reforms will squeak through, but even then they might just patch a 19th century old electoral count act, and even that is going to be a massive ask. Meanwhile, Republican state legislatures are removing all of the barriers that caused their "Green Bay Sweep" plan to fail on 1/6, giving themselves full partisan control of state election boards, which used to be nonpartisan. Again, you can call that uninteresting pearl clutching, but at the same time I will note that you are living in a functioning democracy, whereas we here in the homeland are currently classified as a backsliding democracy due to the GOP agenda. It's very interesting to those of us who are still here. I'd be very interested to hear the take of older Germans you know about 1/6, as to whether they also think the consternation is pearl clutching.
- skohan 5y ago
  Yes exactly, this is what I'm talking about: > None of what you suggest will be signed into law. > Republican state legislatures are removing all of the barriers that caused their "Green Bay Sweep" plan to fail on 1/6, giving themselves full partisan control of state election boards, which used to be nonpartisan. These are real problems. If you ask me, you homelanders should avoid spending one minute longer clutching your pearls over a tin-pot dictator who was only a symptom of the problem, and focus 100% on trying to find solutions for real problems.

by skohan 5y ago

ModernMech 5y ago

I don't think it's relevant either, not at the moment anyway, not after 1/6. But the collusion happened and we need to stop pretending it didn't. > If you think Hillary Clinton's emails ... I would have a lot of trouble understanding your reasoning. I would say all of those things you listed would be my personal list of grievances against Hillary Clinton. I think it put her toe-to-toe with someone fundamentally unfit for office. But when I talk to Trump voters, their grievances include almost none of the points you listed. In order they are almost invariably: 1. E-mails, 2. Benghazi, 3. her proximity to Bill Clinton. That's just my experience anyway, maybe it's not generalizable. But it's not surprising, as this is roughly the proportion of time spent on each topic in the media, particularly on Fox News. They didn't focus on the cost of education or the opioid crisis. They did focus on NAFTA a bit, but more so than anything it was e-mails they focused on. Just look at the peak here of search terms that drop off after the election: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2016-01-01%202017-01-01&geo=US&q=NAFTA,emails,opioids,benghazi https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2016-01-01%202... > The endless pearl-clutching and regurgitation of Russia-gate If you think the reaction to the events laid out in the Mueller Report and the Senate Intel report amount to "pearl clutching", then you admit it's above-board to work in lock-step with a foreign government to hack your electoral opponents, and that it's fine to then leverage your privileged position to cover it up. If that's your stance, say so. That's fine. What's not fine is to minimize what happened as "pearl clutching". A thing happened and it has serious implications that drive directly at the dysfunction of our government. We have to be lucid about those implications. Just don't be surprised when a Democrat does it in the future, I wouldn't put it past them. That's what normalization of this stuff does. > If we don't want another trump, the best thing we could do is reform elections to combat minoritarian rule, reform the legislature so it can actually function, and pass some simple, obvious reforms to improve the material conditions of working people. I know you said you've been out of the country for almost a decade, so maybe you have not followed how dysfunctional things are now. None of what you suggest will be signed into law. Maybe some election reforms will squeak through, but even then they might just patch a 19th century old electoral count act, and even that is going to be a massive ask. Meanwhile, Republican state legislatures are removing all of the barriers that caused their "Green Bay Sweep" plan to fail on 1/6, giving themselves full partisan control of state election boards, which used to be nonpartisan. Again, you can call that uninteresting pearl clutching, but at the same time I will note that you are living in a functioning democracy, whereas we here in the homeland are currently classified as a backsliding democracy due to the GOP agenda. It's very interesting to those of us who are still here. I'd be very interested to hear the take of older Germans you know about 1/6, as to whether they also think the consternation is pearl clutching.

skohan 5y ago
Yes exactly, this is what I'm talking about: > None of what you suggest will be signed into law. > Republican state legislatures are removing all of the barriers that caused their "Green Bay Sweep" plan to fail on 1/6, giving themselves full partisan control of state election boards, which used to be nonpartisan. These are real problems. If you ask me, you homelanders should avoid spending one minute longer clutching your pearls over a tin-pot dictator who was only a symptom of the problem, and focus 100% on trying to find solutions for real problems.