Mazder wrote:Because for some reason we believed China wasn't a complete mess of incompetence and could contain it to Wuhan.
Oh how naive we ARE.
China has a very effective propaganda network in the west, as we've seen. That, plus the WHO being in their pocket, and the west's ridiculously naive ways, is why it spread. Japan and South Korea know better than to trust internationalists, and thus, combined with their more collectivist societies, were able to snuff it out easily.
FrozenShadow wrote:And the worst part in all of this is that sadly Trump might actually win the incoming election again. But again, he won't win because he is better candidate. If he wins, it's because Democrats has yet again chosen horrible opponents for him. Then again, I don't think it matters all that much. Right now US is totally divided, if not outright broken. And you can't fix it, as long as US continues with 2 party system. There needs to be 3rd party, so that democrats and republican are forced to work together, not literally fighting against each others like they do right now. In recent years, it has mattered, if democrats or republicans has won elections, America as a whole has lost every time.
Well, yeah. The consequences of post-WW2 globalism ideology are beginning to break down the nation. Western liberalism cannot coexist with it. So either we transition into a secular humanist authoritarian state, where the citizen is an economic unit with very limited autonomy but plenty of luxury, we balkanize, which is unpleasant if we look at the Balkans, or some variation thereof.
But the principles of individuality, freedom of speech, faith, social and economic mobility, it's directly antithetical to the country the Democrats, and most of the GOP, are trying to build. Trump was the first real public rebuke of that, but he's only President. A bunch of black bloc LARPers and angry blacks are able to force more actual governmental change, by violence and destruction, than a fucking peaceful transition of power has done in decades.
Our government as is _is_ the third party. Mutually incompatible beliefs, working together, to get little and nothing done, until the ghouls in the press put enough pressure on them to act hastily. Or the courts legislate from the bench. That's compromise.
Mazder wrote:So....what the hell is even going on in Portland?
Last I heard the whole business at the Courthouse was deemed by trhe Federal defenders there an "Unlawful Assembly".
The protesters have been going on for 50+ days now. They went after federal property, ripping down barricades and some sort of arson. Feds deployed DHS, since Portland is within 100 miles of the border and their jurisdiction. Since every cause adores a martyr, this has inflamed tensions.
Sinekein wrote:It indeed looks like the Trump campaign has finally found a direction, it probably has something to do with him changing campaign directors - I think before it was a guy that was here in 2016 already, but an election campaign and a reelection campaign are two different things and you can't very much blame everything on the opposition when you're the one in charge and the Senate is on your side.
Now it is obvious Trump is going to be all-in on the law and order card, at the moment he looks much more like your usual conservative candidate. The question is how many indecisive voters it will sway to his side. He has spent four years polarizing the public opinion in a "with us or against us" mentality, so it looks a bit late to try and bridge the gap towards moderates, but if there is enough chaos it might work.
However, Biden is a moderate Democrat. And when he was VP there never was nearly as much chaos as there is right now, so he will have rather handy counterarguments if he starts being attacked on that front.
Congress is bicameral and the executive is purposefully muzzled by the other two branches, as we fought a war to get rid of kings. Wielding his power has been challenged and blocked at every turn, outside the narrow range of unequivocal authority, and even then. But yes, he should have been far more aggressive with action, because the reaction would have been identical, but more progress would have been made.
Hard to say, because I imagine the Shy Tory effect is very strong right now, but we'll get a clearer picture soon.
Biden also swore to pick a brown female for his VP, and it seems unlikely he would be physically capable of serving a full term. Which is why his campaign was smart to hide him away while Trump has to deal with corona and riots, nothing Biden could say or do would help him more than keeping his mouth shut.
He's a neoliberal, clearly, but with the authoritarian left gaining massive power in a very short period of time, who knows what he'd do in practice. I mean, swearing to put someone in the Oval Office once you step down solely on the basis of their essential traits is the opposite of liberalism. And if wins on the old status quo + "brown women have innate positive traits that white men and women don't," we're in uncharted waters. Where do you go from that?
