lolz.
They sure do to Trump…
That is separate from what my point was.
My point is that polls are not coming in consistently showing trump in the 50s. In reality they are coming in and averaging low 40s.
You are right in that it’s the election that counts. The reality is that the electoral college requires that the Dems have significantly better popular vote to ever have a chance of winning the electoral college. Other factors are also at play too.
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Agreed, Too many rabbit holes to go down and @Mufasa keeps making new threads. I can do only on political thread at at time at work!
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Mufasa keeps making these juicy threads, and I love to argue.
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Hey man, I do understand socialism. I’ll be honest, our thread goes way back, and I think I may be talking about several posts back, and you may be talking current posts, and vice versa. I am not even sure what we are arguing about at this point.
I think we both agree that democracy in some form is necessary, and authoritarianism is what we see out of the worst countries, and it’s rise in the USA is frightening.
I think our main disagreements are around where the balance lies. That is okay. We on the same page?
Yeah this just isn’t true. Obama’s first two terms averaged around 53% approval. Trump’s average is currently sitting at 43.9. If you understand statistics you’d know that you wouldn’t want to simply look at one poll to determine these numbers.
Trump’s highest approval ratings averages are the lowest in presidential history.
He’s basically the most unpopular President since the data has really been tracked.
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That’s gas on the fire.
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Couldn’t help it. The post was so wrong.
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The problem we have is you don’t know what socialism is other than how I’m been told it’s now being defined in the US. That’s ok although I do have a problem with the normalization of the term, and I’d advise people to be cautious when listening to what self-professed socialists tell them… We can always agree to disagree.
The thing is you keep arguing with me when I tell you that it was what led to the fall of Russia, China and all the other countries up to present day Venezuela.
I understand the text book definition too. I just argue that the public’s working definition may be more important. We can disagree here.
I also argue that it is only a portion of the text book socialist agenda that has possibly caused the downfall of those regimes. The portion I feel is at fault is authoritarianism. I feel many of the principles can be used as long as the society avoids authoritarianism, and maintains democracy.
What I fear in the USA is that democracy is under attack by trump’s authoritarian tactics, voter suppression, and gerrymandering to name a few things.
You cannot possibly understand it if you don’t get that socialism is, by definition, authoritarianism in marxism.
That is what I just said. I understand that the text book definition of socialism includes authoritarianism. I agree that the text book definition of socialism is not something I want.
What I’m arguing is that they got the authoritarian rule portion wrong, but other parts are worth looking at, as long as democracy is preserved.
Look, like I said, if you just say you’re talking about socialism like how average US people interpret it, we can completely drop this topic.
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Hahahahah.
The Obama administration FUNDED the FSA and all those other “moderate” fighters who all turned into jihadis, Thanks McCain.
BTW every OIF/OEF veteran saw that one coming a mile away.
Let’s do that. You see where I’m coming from, and I see your point as well.
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You ran off last time we debated Syria. I don’t think anyone forgets your warm feelings toward Assad, your embrace of conspiracy theories that the regime didn’t employ chemical weapons (and your shrug to chemical weapon use period), and your weak grasp of the foundational facts of the war.
Any objective analyst looking at American strategy to combat ISIL will find that Trump didn’t reinvent the wheel. Rather, he worked upon the strong foundations laid by the prior administration and accelerated Operation Inherent Resolve by loosening up the rules of engagement (which was arguably militarily unnecessary and increased collateral damage). Mosul, for instance, was well on the way to liberation by the time Trump took office.
If anything, Trump has undermined American counter terrorism though his reckless and hateful rhetoric, his disregard for civilian causalities, gutting the State Department, dismantling the Countering Violent Extremism program, ending the CIA’s support of moderate rebel factions (Timber Sycamore), which served as a green light for Russian led forces to go on to obliterate rebel held cities, and threatening to abandon Syrian Kurds (the predominant anti-ISIL military force) to Turkish aggression by his impulsive announcement to withdraw US forces from Syria. This is why SecDef Mattis resigned.
This account is simply false and reflects a poor understanding of the course of the war.
The first documented use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime was the sarin attack on Ghouta - a suburb of Damascus - on 21 August in 2013.
Think about that. Shelling a suburb of your capital city with military grade nerve agents. Does that sound like a self-assured government on the cusp of victory?
Russia didn’t intervene until the defeat of regime forces in Idlib province in 2015. In fact, it was because the opposition had grown so strong (largely as a result of the CIA’s covert arms program, know as Timber Sycamore) that the Kremlin determined it had to directly become involved to prevent an important ally from being toppled.
Change “republican” to “ignorance of history” for accuracy.
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Your argument is grossly reductionist, not to mention inaccurate. Vetted groups the fall under the FSA and SDF umbrellas received training and military equipment. They didn’t “all” join Al-Nusra, who they fought alongside against their common enemies. The US also supported the YPG (go ahead and google it for the first time) extensively. It’s hard to characterize that group’s efforts as anything but an unqualified success vis-a-vis ISIL. If anything, the program accomplished remarkable things given how many restrictions were placed on it but a cautious Obama administration. It’s interesting to think about the course of the war had CIA provided sufficient anti-aircraft weapon systems to rebels to combat Russian air power. Recall the Mujahideen’s success against Soviet forces in Afghanistan via Operation Cyclone.
No. It was an actual Reagan era tactic to turn liberal into a dirty word.
Don’t try it. There’s too much ground to cover to start back there!
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