schamspeare
Claire McNab@schamspeare I really hope this makes you feel smug and good.
Because that's the only possible good that can possibly come from mocking voters who have been deceived.
@2legged Do you have much sympathy for folks who had ample opportunity to figure out what kind of person Trump was and who, motivated by hatred, decided it was worth voting for him again — despite his boorish character, despite his proclivity toward self-enrichment and corruption, despite the lies that had already been told? I don’t! If you’re deceived repeatedly and keep coming back for more, or if you’re willing to hold your nose because his enemies are your enemies, the fault redounds to YOU.
@schamspeare Do you have much sympathy for people for people who reoeatedly vote for Dems who maintain a vast global war machine, who smashed social welfare in the 1990s, and are wholly owned by corporate money?
Or do you recognise that in a depraved system of imperialism, people are presented with a barrage of mendacious propaganda on behalf of two types of fascism, and face hideous choices between two types of horrors?
@2legged No, I refuse to accept a “both sides are equally bad” argument here. People who voted for Trump because they didn’t like Biden’s stance on Gaza, for example, made a ridiculously tortured calculation that it would be better to trust the convenient promises of a morally hollow man, a thief, a liar, an opportunist, a criminal, a fascist, a fool for a single issue. Trusting that his campaign promises were worth something. No. Bullshit. Character matters.
@schamspeare I did say that both sides are bad. I did NOT say that both sides are EQUALLY bad.
Biden poured extraordinary quantities of arms, funding, and diplomatic support into Gaza. Are you really condemning people who refused to vote for a genocider? Really?
@2legged I’m saying Harris was the lesser of two evils. Give Trump half a chance and he’ll be just as bad a “genocider.” He would do exactly the same thing. Look who’s allying with Israel to attack Iran now. What about his failure to back Ukraine? He could have brought about an end to that war by exerting pressure on Russia, the clear aggressor. But no, he loves a dictator. What about his threats to NATO and specific threats to NATO countries? What about his anti-democratic measures in the US?
@2legged If you look at the big picture and the long term, Trump is the greater danger. I have no doubt the chaos he has ushered in will cause harm on a scale that will dwarf whatever Biden did. You can criticize US foreign policy at large for its no-questions-asked support of Israel—that goes back decades. I’ll take a flawed man who is trying his best to do right in the world over a corrupt and tyrannical boor, who lies and cheats and is only in it for himself. One is immeasurably worse.
@schamspeare like many others, you make a case that Biden/Harris was the lesser if two evils.
Burpt like most defenders of he Dems, your focus on that comparison comes at the price of failing to acknowledge how deeply evil Biden/Harris was.
The case for the extreme worseness of Trump relies on zooming in so close that you miss most of the scale. It's as if there was a scale of 0 to 100 with BH at 92 and T at 96, but yu see only the last ten marks, and BH at 2 vs T at 6.
@2legged I don’t think Joe Biden is evil. I think people who become president find that, even with the best of intentions, they have to leverage US power and alliances for what they deem the most beneficial long-term outcome, making for uncomfortable compromises. I’m not saying Biden escapes culpability, mind you.
I do not put Trump in the same category. He is a malign force in the world, a deeply immoral man. The extent of the evil he does will only depend on whether he is given enough time.
@schamspeare I'll be blunt.
If you don't see the deep evil of designing an era of mass incarceration, as JB did, I fear for your soul.
If you don't see the deep evil of enabling a genocide, as JB did, I fear fir any society in which you walk free.
I could make a much longer list, but those two points illustrate how extreme the situation is.
@2legged Yeah, many people were like you and voted for Trump or abstained from voting for Harris because they didn’t like Biden. And now the US is a fascist dictatorship with plans for territorial conquest and a force of instability so strong that other dictators are given carte blanche to expand and make war. I know who I think will have had the most detrimental effect on the world. We haven’t seen the extent of it yet. If you would have been the type to vote Trump, that’s for your conscience.
@schamspeare You are back on the full righteous fervour of your narcissism of small differences.
#ChrisHedges:has a good summary: MAGA offers the fascism of the oligarchs and the christofascists, while Dens offer corporate fascism.
The USA is an empire built on genocidal conquest and murderous racism. That imperialism has changed shape many times, but it has never waned. Your treatment of Trump as a unique monster is based on a fantasy version of history in which there was a virtuous USA.
@2legged No, I’m back to *you can have your opinion and I can have mine.* I was giving myself an off-ramp from a discussion I was not enjoying. My opinion is the same one I expressed in my original post and the same one you replied to, saying I’m smug and, now, righteous and narcissistic. I haven’t, for the record, said anything derogatory about you. I guess I’m righteous enough that I don’t care to keep discussing politics with someone who resorts to insults and whose opinion I didn’t seek out.
@schamspeare you chose to start with sneering at people who didnt majevthevahe choce of evils that you made, and I challenged that. So cut the injured innocence crap. And you suggest that I would have voted fir Trump, even tho I have expressed nothing but contempt fir him.
You are clearly deeply wedded to the moral superiority of your corporate fascists over the oligarchic fascists. And no, I didn't call you a narcussist. Go read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences