I think we agree. My position originally was only in regards to communication and mental clarity.
I do disagree with you on policy though. I don’t think Biden has everything right, but better than Trump.
My original response to you was just trying to say you weren’t arguing against my points. That is all. My argument was strictly scoped, and you expanded scope to policy.
Cool, I appreciate discussions. My view is it is just politics, nothing to get upset about. It will be around forever.
If the press was 1/5th as hostile to Biden as they were to Trump, I promise you Biden would completely melt down.
Maybe Biden is smart enough to not be hostile to the press.
Trump didn’t really have much direct press briefings (not that Biden has yet either, just stating) and had a full meltdown at pretty much every encounter usually attacking the person asking questions.
Biden’s been prone to dust ups with the press and losing his temper no doubt. He wouldn’t have near the amount of issues Trump had. For one thing if he did fuck up you wouldn’t hear about it for the next year via tweets while Biden attacked that person daily.
Oddly enough Republicans which now say enough with cancel culture and free speech is under attack had no problems with years of him attacking and threatening the press and trying to change laws so he could sue the press.
Do you think they carry the same weight? Honestly.
I dont think it’s medically safe for him to have a meltdown. Better not get that ticker going too hard.
Well when you say politician x is a socialist who wants to turn America into Venezuela or whatever I think it carries quite a bit of weight. Person x doesn’t like people of color vs person x hates America. Both are pretty damning things to say at least when used in an attack sense.
Both are overused and often not accurate. Although both can be true in many senses depending on how one defines each.
You do? How many people who were going to vote for “politician x” will be deterred by such a revelation? I’d bet zero.
How many are deterred from voting for, or even looking further into accusations of, a candidate accused of racism? I’d bet at least 5% of voters.
Given that you could never answer those questions, why ask?
Trump has been accused of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, rape, etc., and he still won the presidency.
Absolutely. Why would Republicans constantly use the attack if it didn’t have an effect? Radical socialist agenda has been used against basically every Dem since Obama came into office. It has an effect of course.
I would say you’re greatly underestimating the power of the socialist attack and placing too much emphasis on the racism one. You can find massive amounts of candidates accused of racism significantly that have had long political careers. Interesting opinion piece not sure how much of it I fully agree with but seemed appropriate to our discussion. But again I would say using racist as an attack is hardly something that comes with a guarantee of victory.
Like Robert Byrd?
What point of government redistribution would you consider socialism, out of curiosity? Say as a % of income ‘garnished’.
Socialism has a fairly specific definition. A certain % of income being taxed or garnished isn’t enough to call something socialism.
Yes. Pretending as if calling someone racist is some political death shot ignores history and even recent history. It’s the same in a long line of political attacks.
Republicans can complain about people playing the race card all day long. They have and will continue to do so. It’s a card they have played before as well. Perhaps Republicans at the same time as doing this should ask themselves as a party if their positions and rhetoric are sometimes called racist and it’s true. Democrats of course should do the same thing.
As mb says below the definition for that isn’t based on that. But I do find it annoying that government spending by Democrats is almost exclusively labeled socialist (at least since the Obama era) and government spending by Republicans pretty much never is.
If Obama was a socialist then he has plenty of company like the President before him and after him. Which is fine I don’t really care if people want to define certain people as socialists or not as long as it is consistent.
If we’re looking at personal income tax rates weren’t we far more socialist at previous times? Seems like peak socialism was roughly 1920-1980. The good old days!
That’s because taking money is only half of it. What the money is spent on is the other half. Services vs redistribution is a general way to put it. This includes corporate distribution and grants. Picking winners and losers.
It stopped in 1980? I’d say a pretty continuous decline into socialism. Wilson, FDR, LBJ years really were peaks for socialist changes. End of Bush 2 - now is another.
Farm subsidies?
Yes.