My observation about your ideologically captured behaviour requires expansion? Everything I’ve written is on display in what you wrote. It was an entertaining and interestingly analytical look at economics that was marred by your ideologically captured diatribe on behalf of your political preference. That’s when you left intellectual honesty for a captured belief system consistently displayed by much of the disconnected coastal media. When you write of sharp divisions you fail to recognize yourself as a core part of the problem. Biden as saviour? Trump as Hitler? Gee, that’s responsible opinion writing..... for one side of a propaganda war. Honest journalism would examine records in a comparative manner. Instead you steadfastly deny what you’re doing as you do it and keep demanding I appeal to other/higher authority when I opine on what you’re doing in an artful avoidance of self awareness.
The psychology that drives that consistently engages my curiosity. Thank you
Friend: I don't "deny" anything. I say why I think what I do. Maybe my reasoning is rubbish. Maybe it's not. But it is there for people to engage with and judge and make use of. You, by contrast, declare your opinions and leave it at that. If you can't see the difference -- and see why the latter can't lead to productive conversations, while the former may -- I can't help you.
By the way, the engagement I mentioned included asking for more detail. If you find my connection of Trump to Hitler, so off-putting, feel free to say "I don't see much substantiation for that. Why would you make this (admittedly) extreme claim?" I'd be happy to elaborate. You could then judge my reasoning and evidence -- rather than haughtily dismissing me as "ideologically captured," whatever that means.
That was a fun read. The century-spaced parallels have been fascinating me since 2019.
I’m always impressed by the blindness of both political extremes sitting in their silos, and you demonstrate yours well in a couple of places..... appearing mostly that of the disconnected-from-the-real-economy laptop class.
"You're wrong" tells me nothing but your opinion. If you have a better argument to make, I'd be delighted to read it here, or point me to one you think makes the case.
A great piece. I’m currently reading Skidelsky’s biography of Keynes, and I’m right at 1923/24 ... tremendous uncertainty as to what to do, what was to come
Great read. These are historical bumps in the road we need to be reminded of when sighing our longing for the good ol’ days, and a reminder that even when ´good,’ they were also bad and just as uncertain and the times we find ourselves in. It reminds me that persons change but people don’t, tho they morph and meld like a school of fish.
The whole thing you wrote is YOUR OPINION about some events. What is it about you laptop people that any opinion that isn’t your opinion is “just an opinion”? I told you at the outset that it was an entertaining read. I’m sure THAT opinion of mine was valid because it agreed with your own.
"I think you're wrong" is only an opinion. It's like saying "I prefer vanilla ice cream." It's just a matter of taste. Other people can agree or disagree but they can't engage with it any more than that.
"I think you're wrong for the following reasons backed by these facts and sources" is an opinion that lays out its arguments and evidence, which allows other people to really engage with your thinking -- meaning to test the quality of its arguments and evidence and decide if its reasonable, if they should adopt it, in whole or in part, etc.
As for statements like "you laptop people," they're not only pointless, they're dismissive and get in the way of having meaningful conversations. You don't see me belittling "you anonymous people," do you?
Patrick Coburn makes a better argument and he knows this stuff way better than I (it's MBS not RMB) and really, for all the good we can do optimism is still free.
I prefer Patrick Cockburn's take on things. He doesn't talk about the year to come but the decade we're in. And he compares it not to it's numerical equivalent but the 1930s which called at the time "The Devil's Decade." I think we're in for that and a whole lot more. Autocracy is on the rise everywhere, as if the would be tyrants finally have the formula figured out. (The Twilight Zone final season of the original: "He's Alive.") All over Europe, the USA, China, India, Argentina. Germany, sucker-punched by "ally" US blowing up Russia's gas pipelines - following a period of rapid construction of LNG export hubs all along the Gulf coast - is turning right wing itself. So to Brazil, France, Italy, Hungary. Turkey. Saudi Arabia where mere journalists are executed with remarkable ease, still earning RMB a fist-bump from the US president. In Gaza we all watch the equivalent of Auschwitz play out on our TV screens evey night to pretty much a collective shrug, finding excuses for the slaughtering of children. It's not even a good look as we head for the exits. But sure, party on.
If it makes you feel better, I should also note that I had essential this identical exchange with many people after 9/11 and again after the 2008 crash.
Sure, it could be an elevator ride straight down to hell. But trends continue until they don't, history is stuffed to the rafters with people surprised by how things turned out, and we would be surpassingly arrogant if we assumed that we, unlike all who came before, can accurately foresee what is coming.
Sorry, your “proof” consisted of your opinions about trumps character that you just piled up and said constitute proof that he’s Hitlerian as well as appeals to your expertise in such matters of history.
That’s a sophistical argument, not factual proof
Oddly everything you ascribe to Trump are actually things that the Biden team has been actively involved in...... weaponized govt agencies, racist policies, gross abuses of civil rights etc.
I know, context right? lol
BTW, remind me of all the Hitler comparisons of trump by the laptop class that came true last time?
Let’s stick with historical facts then, not just your feelings...... and remember, the insurrection thing has been fairly well debunked, just like the “safe and effective” meme and all the others the academy has presented in the last decade.
What are the actual factual events that back up your assertion of Hitler Trump over mine that you’re operating in a silo?
I cited a recent direct quotation of Trump's -- a new phrase he has used in repeated forums -- which is literally identical with Hitler's language. Feel free to judge the strength of that evidence, but you what you did here is gross mischaracterization. Which is what you have done repeatedly. Now please let's both stop and find more productive uses for our time.
Sure, great idea. Stop with your exaggerated hyperbolic shots then.
Nothing I’ve written is “gross mischaracterization” in comparison to your opinion that what Trump said is equivalent to what Hitler in his eugenic fervour did.
There are several possible interpretations available at this point and until some clarity is offered.
It is well documented that your ideological team were calling trump Hitler prior to his 2016 win. Given the failure of those predictions, perhaps a little less certainty is best?
Anyway, thanks for the article. I’ll continue to watch a self-proclaimed superiorly intelligent cohort working as hard as they can to reelect trump because he’s playing them and they can’t help themselves...... or grasp it.
"...in comparison to your opinion that what Trump said is equivalent to what Hitler in his eugenic fervour did." I didn't write anything remotely like what you describe. Given the context -- me complaining that you are grossly misrepresent my views -- it is darkly hilarious that you would write such nonsense.
"...your ideological team..." What team, friend? And do you recall when I said I spent most of my career telling over-excited leftists to stop calling people "fascists"? I said that in 2016, and through most of the Trump years, and had leftists carp at me for doing so. True, I now call him a fascist, and yes, I say he uses Hitlerian language -- because I try to update my beliefs in light of evolving facts, and I believe his words and plans and deeds have now pushed into fascist territory. The man even incited a putsch attempt. Do you need a beer hall to be involved before you see the fascism? And, yes, his language -- in particular the "poison the blood of the country line" -- is now dipping into the Hitlerian.
See, here's the reason why your comments bother me so much: I actually do care about criticism and listening to it carefully because I know I make mistakes and I want to do better. So when someone says I have ignored substantive criticism, I sit up straight and listen carefully. And when that someone then proceeds to do the very thing he claims to be pointing out -- levelling serious accusations without providing evidence and without engaging in substantive discussion -- I get pissed right off.
You want to disagree? Super. Lay out your reasoning and evidence. I'll do the same and let's hash this out as best we can. But what you have done in this thread? Utter bullshit.
You’re presenting extremist views about one side of a bilateral situation. I’ve been attempting to have you realize that and engage in a meaningful discussion of the harms that arise from doing so especially more broadly among the class you’re embedded in. I’ve pointed out the evidence of that clearly..... Biden good, Trump literally Hitler 2.0. That’s the evidence for my hypothesis re your extremist positioning.
You give every indication of ideological capture on the subject in your responses and avoidances.
This is an online chat format, not a legal document where I’m going to spend thousands of words presenting and supporting axioms.
As a Canadian as well, I’m impressed by your skating ability.
In ending, I’ll once again point out that I thoroughly enjoyed your take on the historically interesting parallels and was simply jarred by the introduction of an extraneous extremist position
Ronald Reagan to Jimmy Carter, 1980: "There you go again." You made assertions. I responded to those assertions with arguments and evidence. You ignored my arguments and evidence. Now you're back and repeating the same assertions. Get a hobby.
That’s funny, I actually clip what you wrote and you claim it’s mischaracterized while simultaneously claiming to be ignorant of the meaning of the term “ideologically captured”.
That’s almost a dozen different ways you’ve dismissed an opinion expressed about your public stance. Virtually everything you’ve written is opinion based on opinions..... yet the idea that someone can express an opinion about the postures you present in those opinions is of no validity to you.
From the beginning, I simply asked that you present the reasoning and evidence behind your views so I could meaningfully engage those views. As I did, repeatedly. You consistently refused. And you consistently refused to engage my reasoning and evidence. Instead, you keep making these half-assed meta criticisms about how close-minded I am or whatever.
Present your reasoning and your evidence. I will engage it. But I will not waste any more time on this pointless meta merry-go-round.
Sure. First, thanks again for the dismissal of anothers opinion with your last sentence and trying to make it more highbrow this time.
“But he is at least an ordinary American politician who accepts and supports the American liberal democratic constitutional order. Unlike his opponent.”
And you still haven't bothered to even explain what you mean by "ideologically captured." Is it something other than "have an ideology different from mine"? But then, I think the only thing we've established is that you're interested in denunciation, not having a real conversation.
And again, even after I take the time to detail and explain, you ignore what I actually wrote and grossly mischaracterize my views. Why waste your time and mine?
You laid out my argument and evidence. I was commenting on the evidence you provided.
At the risk of repeating myself, when you ascribe Satanic status to someone for as little actual grounds as those for which you hand saintly status to his rival, you invalidate any claim to intellectual rigor by extension to what are otherwise interesting perspectives.
Neither one is either of those and opinions formed based on those as axioms are no more valid than those from someone decked out in a confederate battle flag and Gadsen hat claiming the Democrats run a pedo ring out of pizza joints has any other opinions not tainted by proximity.
You’re each the obverse of the same coin. You may think it rational to believe and expouse that the Donald is Hitlerian, but let me tell you clearly that the other side of that coin has just as rational an argument that Biden and the Dems are an organized pedo ring.
When both sides have turned it into an irrational team sport with few rules of engagement and no common ground, neither side sounds sane.
See, here's where you could have asked for more detail. Or clarification. If you had, I would have told you, no, I don't think Biden is "saintly," not even remotely, as my reference to "Biden, or any plain-vanilla Democrat" should have made clear. In fact, I think Biden is mediocre, at best, and long past his best-before date. But he is at least an ordinary American politician who accepts and supports the American liberal democratic constitutional order. Unlike his opponent.
I want Biden to win, and big, because he is the only one in a position to defeat Trump.
As to Trump, the list of his personal failings and flaws and crimes is too long for this space. Most importantly, he attempted to overturn an election with lies, threats, and violence. "Putsch" is a word not often used in an American context, but what he attempted on January 6th, 2021, was a putsch, plain and simple. And daily he suggests he will do worse if re-elected -- intimating he may execute a top general, promising to remake the Justice Department into a personal vendetta machine, and turning much of the civil service into a spoils system for the slavishly loyal. And most recently, he has started using language ("poisoning the blood of our country") that is not only wildly xenophobic, it is unequivocally Hitlerian. As someone with a masters degree in the history of fascism, I mean that precisely. All of this makes him much more than a mere candidate with whom I disagree. And it makes your "both sides" framing wholly inappropriate. Trump is not simply another politician seeking power within a liberal democratic constitutional order. He is an affront to that order and a danger to its very existence. I could go on at great length, piling up a small mountain of evidence, but I think this is enough to get what my argument really is and the evidence that supports it.
And by the way, I spent most of my adult life chiding others for slapping the label "fascist" here and there, and treating political opponents as Satanic enemies. One of the arguments I used was that we needed to reserve that language for the real thing.
I think this is the real thing. You may disagree. You are more than welcome to explain why, but please do so with something more substantive than what you have written here, which is little more than a polysyllabic scoff.
“That” came from this and other conversations where valid opinions that you don’t agree with were raised and dismissed by you using various devices.
The ?? “giant assumptions” ?? you slide to without pointing them out can only be based on your exact words and tone.
I’ve made very specific criticism but you are avoiding that with various devices.
I’m assuming (grand assumption?) that you agreed with what I said about the majority of what you wrote and aren’t disagreeing with that unsubstantiated opinion...... just the lack of support for the opinion you refute
What "very specific criticism"? You say I'm ideologically blinkered. How am I supposed to assess when you don't provide specifics -- laying out your argument and evidence -- but instead just keeping skipping to "but of course you would ignore whatever I wrote so let me condemn you for being close-minded"?
Again thanks for confirming my points. You’re not able to see things beyond your narrow view point in certain contexts so must invalidate a contrary opinion using the devices you do. It wouldn’t matter if I provided 10k words and an extensive bibliography to back my opinion as you would simply sidestep to avoid it and claim your own validation as you continue to do. I could just as easily point out that you provided zero validity to buttress your assertion of the sainted Biden and the demonic Trump..... merely religious-style dogma.
That wasn’t anything relevant to the real point which is how you are blind to the inappropriateness of you doing it at all in the manner you do. It renders invalid all the good writing you did right up to the point where you departed into your ideologically captured political view.
If you don’t understand that what you term “reasoning” is just backfilling after prejudgment of something I can suggest some reading on the subject.
That’s the subject I’m so far unsuccessfully engaging with you. It would be nice for you to actually engage the subject proffered rather than the canards you keep lobbing back.
I asked you to say why you feel the way you do, including specific criticisms of what I wrote. That's it. But rather than do that, and have a conversation with me, you are making giant assumptions about who I am, what I believe, and how I would react if you had that conversation. "It wouldn’t matter if I provided 10k words and an extensive bibliography to back my opinion as you would simply sidestep to avoid it and claim your own validation as you continue to do." Where on earth did that come from?
Again, my opinion, whatever it may be, is useless. It's nothing. So is yours. What matters is why I think what I do, and why you think what you do. I share why I think what I do. I'd like to hear why you think what you do. That's a civil, potentially useful conversation.
My observation about your ideologically captured behaviour requires expansion? Everything I’ve written is on display in what you wrote. It was an entertaining and interestingly analytical look at economics that was marred by your ideologically captured diatribe on behalf of your political preference. That’s when you left intellectual honesty for a captured belief system consistently displayed by much of the disconnected coastal media. When you write of sharp divisions you fail to recognize yourself as a core part of the problem. Biden as saviour? Trump as Hitler? Gee, that’s responsible opinion writing..... for one side of a propaganda war. Honest journalism would examine records in a comparative manner. Instead you steadfastly deny what you’re doing as you do it and keep demanding I appeal to other/higher authority when I opine on what you’re doing in an artful avoidance of self awareness.
The psychology that drives that consistently engages my curiosity. Thank you
Friend: I don't "deny" anything. I say why I think what I do. Maybe my reasoning is rubbish. Maybe it's not. But it is there for people to engage with and judge and make use of. You, by contrast, declare your opinions and leave it at that. If you can't see the difference -- and see why the latter can't lead to productive conversations, while the former may -- I can't help you.
By the way, the engagement I mentioned included asking for more detail. If you find my connection of Trump to Hitler, so off-putting, feel free to say "I don't see much substantiation for that. Why would you make this (admittedly) extreme claim?" I'd be happy to elaborate. You could then judge my reasoning and evidence -- rather than haughtily dismissing me as "ideologically captured," whatever that means.
That was a fun read. The century-spaced parallels have been fascinating me since 2019.
I’m always impressed by the blindness of both political extremes sitting in their silos, and you demonstrate yours well in a couple of places..... appearing mostly that of the disconnected-from-the-real-economy laptop class.
"You're wrong" tells me nothing but your opinion. If you have a better argument to make, I'd be delighted to read it here, or point me to one you think makes the case.
A great piece. I’m currently reading Skidelsky’s biography of Keynes, and I’m right at 1923/24 ... tremendous uncertainty as to what to do, what was to come
Great read. These are historical bumps in the road we need to be reminded of when sighing our longing for the good ol’ days, and a reminder that even when ´good,’ they were also bad and just as uncertain and the times we find ourselves in. It reminds me that persons change but people don’t, tho they morph and meld like a school of fish.
Now I'm worried you jinxed it.
Don't worry. I have a rabbit's foot in my pocket.
I'm predicting a resounding Trump victory just in case.
I'm thinking of putting $1,000 on it just so I'll have some slight psychological compensation to dampen the existential despair.
Someone told me years ago to always bet against your favorite sports team because winning money is consolation if they lose.
As a Chicago Bears fan, my net worth is now fifty million dollars.
The whole thing you wrote is YOUR OPINION about some events. What is it about you laptop people that any opinion that isn’t your opinion is “just an opinion”? I told you at the outset that it was an entertaining read. I’m sure THAT opinion of mine was valid because it agreed with your own.
"I think you're wrong" is only an opinion. It's like saying "I prefer vanilla ice cream." It's just a matter of taste. Other people can agree or disagree but they can't engage with it any more than that.
"I think you're wrong for the following reasons backed by these facts and sources" is an opinion that lays out its arguments and evidence, which allows other people to really engage with your thinking -- meaning to test the quality of its arguments and evidence and decide if its reasonable, if they should adopt it, in whole or in part, etc.
As for statements like "you laptop people," they're not only pointless, they're dismissive and get in the way of having meaningful conversations. You don't see me belittling "you anonymous people," do you?
Patrick Coburn makes a better argument and he knows this stuff way better than I (it's MBS not RMB) and really, for all the good we can do optimism is still free.
I prefer Patrick Cockburn's take on things. He doesn't talk about the year to come but the decade we're in. And he compares it not to it's numerical equivalent but the 1930s which called at the time "The Devil's Decade." I think we're in for that and a whole lot more. Autocracy is on the rise everywhere, as if the would be tyrants finally have the formula figured out. (The Twilight Zone final season of the original: "He's Alive.") All over Europe, the USA, China, India, Argentina. Germany, sucker-punched by "ally" US blowing up Russia's gas pipelines - following a period of rapid construction of LNG export hubs all along the Gulf coast - is turning right wing itself. So to Brazil, France, Italy, Hungary. Turkey. Saudi Arabia where mere journalists are executed with remarkable ease, still earning RMB a fist-bump from the US president. In Gaza we all watch the equivalent of Auschwitz play out on our TV screens evey night to pretty much a collective shrug, finding excuses for the slaughtering of children. It's not even a good look as we head for the exits. But sure, party on.
If it makes you feel better, I should also note that I had essential this identical exchange with many people after 9/11 and again after the 2008 crash.
Sure, it could be an elevator ride straight down to hell. But trends continue until they don't, history is stuffed to the rafters with people surprised by how things turned out, and we would be surpassingly arrogant if we assumed that we, unlike all who came before, can accurately foresee what is coming.
Sorry, your “proof” consisted of your opinions about trumps character that you just piled up and said constitute proof that he’s Hitlerian as well as appeals to your expertise in such matters of history.
That’s a sophistical argument, not factual proof
Oddly everything you ascribe to Trump are actually things that the Biden team has been actively involved in...... weaponized govt agencies, racist policies, gross abuses of civil rights etc.
I know, context right? lol
BTW, remind me of all the Hitler comparisons of trump by the laptop class that came true last time?
Let’s stick with historical facts then, not just your feelings...... and remember, the insurrection thing has been fairly well debunked, just like the “safe and effective” meme and all the others the academy has presented in the last decade.
What are the actual factual events that back up your assertion of Hitler Trump over mine that you’re operating in a silo?
I cited a recent direct quotation of Trump's -- a new phrase he has used in repeated forums -- which is literally identical with Hitler's language. Feel free to judge the strength of that evidence, but you what you did here is gross mischaracterization. Which is what you have done repeatedly. Now please let's both stop and find more productive uses for our time.
Sure, great idea. Stop with your exaggerated hyperbolic shots then.
Nothing I’ve written is “gross mischaracterization” in comparison to your opinion that what Trump said is equivalent to what Hitler in his eugenic fervour did.
There are several possible interpretations available at this point and until some clarity is offered.
It is well documented that your ideological team were calling trump Hitler prior to his 2016 win. Given the failure of those predictions, perhaps a little less certainty is best?
Anyway, thanks for the article. I’ll continue to watch a self-proclaimed superiorly intelligent cohort working as hard as they can to reelect trump because he’s playing them and they can’t help themselves...... or grasp it.
"...in comparison to your opinion that what Trump said is equivalent to what Hitler in his eugenic fervour did." I didn't write anything remotely like what you describe. Given the context -- me complaining that you are grossly misrepresent my views -- it is darkly hilarious that you would write such nonsense.
"...your ideological team..." What team, friend? And do you recall when I said I spent most of my career telling over-excited leftists to stop calling people "fascists"? I said that in 2016, and through most of the Trump years, and had leftists carp at me for doing so. True, I now call him a fascist, and yes, I say he uses Hitlerian language -- because I try to update my beliefs in light of evolving facts, and I believe his words and plans and deeds have now pushed into fascist territory. The man even incited a putsch attempt. Do you need a beer hall to be involved before you see the fascism? And, yes, his language -- in particular the "poison the blood of the country line" -- is now dipping into the Hitlerian.
See, here's the reason why your comments bother me so much: I actually do care about criticism and listening to it carefully because I know I make mistakes and I want to do better. So when someone says I have ignored substantive criticism, I sit up straight and listen carefully. And when that someone then proceeds to do the very thing he claims to be pointing out -- levelling serious accusations without providing evidence and without engaging in substantive discussion -- I get pissed right off.
You want to disagree? Super. Lay out your reasoning and evidence. I'll do the same and let's hash this out as best we can. But what you have done in this thread? Utter bullshit.
You’re presenting extremist views about one side of a bilateral situation. I’ve been attempting to have you realize that and engage in a meaningful discussion of the harms that arise from doing so especially more broadly among the class you’re embedded in. I’ve pointed out the evidence of that clearly..... Biden good, Trump literally Hitler 2.0. That’s the evidence for my hypothesis re your extremist positioning.
You give every indication of ideological capture on the subject in your responses and avoidances.
This is an online chat format, not a legal document where I’m going to spend thousands of words presenting and supporting axioms.
As a Canadian as well, I’m impressed by your skating ability.
In ending, I’ll once again point out that I thoroughly enjoyed your take on the historically interesting parallels and was simply jarred by the introduction of an extraneous extremist position
Ronald Reagan to Jimmy Carter, 1980: "There you go again." You made assertions. I responded to those assertions with arguments and evidence. You ignored my arguments and evidence. Now you're back and repeating the same assertions. Get a hobby.
That’s funny, I actually clip what you wrote and you claim it’s mischaracterized while simultaneously claiming to be ignorant of the meaning of the term “ideologically captured”.
That’s almost a dozen different ways you’ve dismissed an opinion expressed about your public stance. Virtually everything you’ve written is opinion based on opinions..... yet the idea that someone can express an opinion about the postures you present in those opinions is of no validity to you.
I hate to bring up Godwins Law but.....
From the beginning, I simply asked that you present the reasoning and evidence behind your views so I could meaningfully engage those views. As I did, repeatedly. You consistently refused. And you consistently refused to engage my reasoning and evidence. Instead, you keep making these half-assed meta criticisms about how close-minded I am or whatever.
Present your reasoning and your evidence. I will engage it. But I will not waste any more time on this pointless meta merry-go-round.
Sure. First, thanks again for the dismissal of anothers opinion with your last sentence and trying to make it more highbrow this time.
“But he is at least an ordinary American politician who accepts and supports the American liberal democratic constitutional order. Unlike his opponent.”
.......and Trump is Hitler.....
Got it, you’re not at all ideologically captured.
Pleasure talking with you.
And you still haven't bothered to even explain what you mean by "ideologically captured." Is it something other than "have an ideology different from mine"? But then, I think the only thing we've established is that you're interested in denunciation, not having a real conversation.
And again, even after I take the time to detail and explain, you ignore what I actually wrote and grossly mischaracterize my views. Why waste your time and mine?
You laid out my argument and evidence. I was commenting on the evidence you provided.
At the risk of repeating myself, when you ascribe Satanic status to someone for as little actual grounds as those for which you hand saintly status to his rival, you invalidate any claim to intellectual rigor by extension to what are otherwise interesting perspectives.
Neither one is either of those and opinions formed based on those as axioms are no more valid than those from someone decked out in a confederate battle flag and Gadsen hat claiming the Democrats run a pedo ring out of pizza joints has any other opinions not tainted by proximity.
You’re each the obverse of the same coin. You may think it rational to believe and expouse that the Donald is Hitlerian, but let me tell you clearly that the other side of that coin has just as rational an argument that Biden and the Dems are an organized pedo ring.
When both sides have turned it into an irrational team sport with few rules of engagement and no common ground, neither side sounds sane.
See, here's where you could have asked for more detail. Or clarification. If you had, I would have told you, no, I don't think Biden is "saintly," not even remotely, as my reference to "Biden, or any plain-vanilla Democrat" should have made clear. In fact, I think Biden is mediocre, at best, and long past his best-before date. But he is at least an ordinary American politician who accepts and supports the American liberal democratic constitutional order. Unlike his opponent.
I want Biden to win, and big, because he is the only one in a position to defeat Trump.
As to Trump, the list of his personal failings and flaws and crimes is too long for this space. Most importantly, he attempted to overturn an election with lies, threats, and violence. "Putsch" is a word not often used in an American context, but what he attempted on January 6th, 2021, was a putsch, plain and simple. And daily he suggests he will do worse if re-elected -- intimating he may execute a top general, promising to remake the Justice Department into a personal vendetta machine, and turning much of the civil service into a spoils system for the slavishly loyal. And most recently, he has started using language ("poisoning the blood of our country") that is not only wildly xenophobic, it is unequivocally Hitlerian. As someone with a masters degree in the history of fascism, I mean that precisely. All of this makes him much more than a mere candidate with whom I disagree. And it makes your "both sides" framing wholly inappropriate. Trump is not simply another politician seeking power within a liberal democratic constitutional order. He is an affront to that order and a danger to its very existence. I could go on at great length, piling up a small mountain of evidence, but I think this is enough to get what my argument really is and the evidence that supports it.
And by the way, I spent most of my adult life chiding others for slapping the label "fascist" here and there, and treating political opponents as Satanic enemies. One of the arguments I used was that we needed to reserve that language for the real thing.
I think this is the real thing. You may disagree. You are more than welcome to explain why, but please do so with something more substantive than what you have written here, which is little more than a polysyllabic scoff.
“That” came from this and other conversations where valid opinions that you don’t agree with were raised and dismissed by you using various devices.
The ?? “giant assumptions” ?? you slide to without pointing them out can only be based on your exact words and tone.
I’ve made very specific criticism but you are avoiding that with various devices.
I’m assuming (grand assumption?) that you agreed with what I said about the majority of what you wrote and aren’t disagreeing with that unsubstantiated opinion...... just the lack of support for the opinion you refute
What "very specific criticism"? You say I'm ideologically blinkered. How am I supposed to assess when you don't provide specifics -- laying out your argument and evidence -- but instead just keeping skipping to "but of course you would ignore whatever I wrote so let me condemn you for being close-minded"?
Again thanks for confirming my points. You’re not able to see things beyond your narrow view point in certain contexts so must invalidate a contrary opinion using the devices you do. It wouldn’t matter if I provided 10k words and an extensive bibliography to back my opinion as you would simply sidestep to avoid it and claim your own validation as you continue to do. I could just as easily point out that you provided zero validity to buttress your assertion of the sainted Biden and the demonic Trump..... merely religious-style dogma.
That wasn’t anything relevant to the real point which is how you are blind to the inappropriateness of you doing it at all in the manner you do. It renders invalid all the good writing you did right up to the point where you departed into your ideologically captured political view.
If you don’t understand that what you term “reasoning” is just backfilling after prejudgment of something I can suggest some reading on the subject.
That’s the subject I’m so far unsuccessfully engaging with you. It would be nice for you to actually engage the subject proffered rather than the canards you keep lobbing back.
I asked you to say why you feel the way you do, including specific criticisms of what I wrote. That's it. But rather than do that, and have a conversation with me, you are making giant assumptions about who I am, what I believe, and how I would react if you had that conversation. "It wouldn’t matter if I provided 10k words and an extensive bibliography to back my opinion as you would simply sidestep to avoid it and claim your own validation as you continue to do." Where on earth did that come from?
BTW I didn’t say you’re wrong, just that you’re siloed on various areas of your opinion
Again, my opinion, whatever it may be, is useless. It's nothing. So is yours. What matters is why I think what I do, and why you think what you do. I share why I think what I do. I'd like to hear why you think what you do. That's a civil, potentially useful conversation.