2024 US Presidential Election Thread

[Fezzik]

These people didn’t just drink the Kool-Aid, they’re swimming in it.

 

[Famine]

Fun that the O&CE forum regulars/staff are being called "liberals" right now, when usually it's "conservatives" or "libertarian groupthink".

Half the pre-count posts were libertarian (small "l") posters talking about voting for Harris to stop Trump. Apparently, per one Trumper, I'm a liberal fascist...

It's almost like these clowns don't know the meanings of the othering buzzwords they've been fed.

Problem is most on this forum isn't liberals. They don't support freedom of speech, freedom of opinion and right to life. Some are openly racist, support terrorism and genocide and mods aren't doing anything about it.

This is utter garbage, and smacks of "I got a warning for being a disingenuous dick, so therefore the staff are evil".

The door is in the top-right corner, so use it. We're not forcing you to stay.

Famine I'm not the one that combined my post!

I don't know what this is referring to, and yet it's the most coherent part of your post.

You told two users to board planes to Mexico if they hated the USA so much. One of them is not an American nor resident in the USA.

The wall will keep them from illegally entering without proper papers like it's supposed to be proper and simple!

A tall and curiously specific wall to accomplish that on the aircraft you referred to.

The only thing Obama's flunkies have done is raise the prices on everything and send our tax dollars for one murderer and one crazy guy to blow only to beg for more. How do you think your country will do when you have to start paying your share into NATO. I think all NATO members need to payback payments that Obama was too weak to enforce

Why are you obsessed with Obama? He hasn't been President, or even in politics, for almost eight years...

And the Gish Gallop is amazing, but not effective in text form. Trump was President for four years, 2017-2021. Was he also "too weak to enforce" these NATO payments?

 

[Scaff]

As far as Israel goes my ideal is everybody says it GOD'S chosen people so let's step back and let GOD handle it! It's high time the USA stops playing GOD.

Your god's cool with genocide I see, and no not everybody says "it GOD'S chosen people", only those too stupid to understand that all three religions in the area worshipped the exact same god.

The wall will keep them from illegally entering without proper papers like it's supposed to be proper and simple!

Not how the majority of 'illegals' enter the country, it's also been shown to be defeated with the hi-tech and complex solution of ladders.

The only thing Obama's flunkies have done is raise the prices on everything

Nope, not how inflation works, and they lowered the price on medication in a lot of cases. The government action that will 100% raise prices are Trumps planned tarriffs.

and send our tax dollars for one murderer and one crazy guy to blow only to beg for more.

Oh please do elaborate.

How do you think your country will do when you have to start paying your share into NATO. I think all NATO members need to payback payments that Obama was too weak to enforce

Tell me you don't know how NATO funding works without telling me you know how NATO funding works.

 

[Meythia]

Your god's cool with genocide I see

Lots of that can be found in "his diary". Though in same cases those who commited to his cause more likely were driven by earthly desires that his archenemy would inflict upon weak mortals in the manner of greed or lust.

The words of the diary called bible though are quite different and do not call for racism and discrimation at all, no matter the reason.

 

[DK]

As far as Israel goes my ideal is everybody says it GOD'S chosen people so let's step back and let GOD handle it! It's high time the USA stops playing GOD.
[...]

and send our tax dollars for one murderer and one crazy guy to blow only to beg for more.

Poor little Bonesaw is feeling left out.

 

[Scaff]

Problem is most on this forum isn't liberals. They don't support freedom of speech, freedom of opinion and right to life.

You don't want freedom of speech, you want freedom for the consequences of speech.

Some are openly racist, support terrorism and genocide and mods aren't doing anything about it.

Claims that you 100% can't back up.

This called protest. People should have right to protest. Absolutely the same process was supported by US government in Ukraine and Georgia, absolutely the same process was named coup by Russian federation. Only difference between two is lack of wide support from locals. Practice what you preach.

People shouldn't be charged for simply being protestors, no matter what they protests against. Those who used excessive force or vandalized something should being charged for that, not for freaking seditious conspiracy.

Revisionist history doesn't make it true.

 

[Sprite]

Nobody is holding a gun making you stay so pack your bags and maybe you can catch a flight to Mexico with the illegal border crossers

As has been pointed out I’m not from the USA darling.

I’m good old fashioned British with roots in the Viking Invasions. However to play devils advocate if I was from the USA, I’d have to seriously take a long hard look at my situation and see if I felt the need to move, maybe not from the US but at least from a very Red State to a Blue safe hold.

 

[eran0004]

I am aghast at the number of racist, hateful, and delusional comments I've seen here over the past few weeks.

No you’re not, because you clearly have no problem with electing a President who believes that immigrants are eating the pets of American families.

What you’re aghast at is the fact that your preferred candidate and his supporters are being criticised and ridiculed.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Let me ask you this what do you think GOD tells these murdered children

Nothing, god isn't real, you've been programmed to believe he is, and you don't realise it.

 

[Famine]

Nothing, god isn't real, you've been programmed to believe he is, and you don't realise it.

... and then chose to back the guy who is performative about religion: tear-gassing people out of his way so he can pose by a church with his Bible upside-down, and when even lightly pressed on his favourite passage in it just blusters and burbles his way to "it's all good", and who has had five children with three women, all of whom he's cheated on (first wife with second, second wife with third, third wife with porn star) as well as the rape he was convicted of (having said he wouldn't rape a woman because she wasn't his type - not because he's not a rapist - then subsequently mixing her up with his own wife in a photo of her) and numerous other allegations of sexual assault on adults and children connected to his association with sex trafficker and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Man's proclivities are such that he's probably paid for so many abortions in his life that he could fill a whole elementary school grade with targets, but sure he believes in women not killing life that "never had a chance".


Anyone who believes Trump believes in any god except himself, much less their own, is absolutely deluding themselves.

 

[sw3g005]

Well, not some of the newcomers to this thread.

You mean the out-and-proud Trumpers? don’t know if they think Trump is gonna bring forward fascism or if they think Trump is gonna bring something that observers may call fascism (like ”order”, ”values”, ”strong leadership”), but yeah that’s a fair point.

This just comes off as you wanting to criticize without being principled about the critique. You want them to scare people, but it's not what undecided voters care about? Or something? And it doesn't matter that it was for good reason? For some reason.

I honestly can't follow that.

I never said I wanted them to scare people. I said they technically did, whether I wanted them to or not. For you and me, they told about the fears of a future Trump administration for good reason, but the undecided voter may not be you and me. Whether it be because of how they managed their campagin or cuz of undue amounts of billionaire-paid media (or both; wonder if lacking education could also be a factor?), the undecided voter may not be able to spot the difference between the two parties. It’s not right, but if they simply don’t know better I can’t say I would blame them.

Oh, that gamble. They didn't make that gamble. That was not the campaign Harris ran. I don't know where you were, but wherever you were, it wasn't here.

I’ll admit, I didn’t follow her campaign closely. I heard bits and pieces. Thing is though, I think for most people here it didn’t really matter what kinda campaign she ran on (as long as it wasn’t too out there, that is). What mattered was that she wasn’t Trump. Whoever isn’t Trump should get the votes. And as it turned out, that wasn’t enough.

Dick did his own thing. Building a coalition of republicans is a good idea for a centrist, especially when you're campaigning on basically core american values.

It can be a good idea but I think it depends on who you coalesce with. Doing it with Cheney wasn’t a good idea – he may be critical of Trump but I think most people associate him more with his role in the War on Terror than him being critical of Trump. To be fair, I may or may not be overestimating his influence in this election, but I would not be surprised if it was a contributing factor to her defeat.

What you have missed, and I don't know how you've missed it, is that this campaign was about core American values vs. Authoritarianism. That's what the vote was about. It's about that more deeply than any other issue, economy, immigration, none of that held a candle to democracy vs authoritarianism. How do I know? Trump's concepts of a plan were garbage. And he actively undermined compromise on immigration. His supporters know this. They don't care.

It has nothing to do with parties feeling "samey". It was about whether Americans support democracy or authoritarianism, and the answer, loud and clear, is authoritarianism. I think you need to make peace with this. I have been making peace with it for the last decade or so.

...except I never missed that part? Thanks for stating the laughably obvious fact that this election indeed was about democracy vs dictatorship. I think most people here are on the same page on that one. Clearly though, 15-18 million potential voters didn’t feel the same way – they may or may not think a second Trump presidency would be that terrible, but in any case they struggle to like Biden and since Harris was VP, struggle to like her as well.
And the bit about Americans supporting authoritarianism? Uh hello, lower vote turnout? Yes it does imply they’re complicit in their support, but IDK. As I said, blaming the voters goes nowhere and solves nothing. Blaming the people who want them to either not vote or vote for them on the other hand? Blaming the people for not doing a good job attracting voters? That should be where the focus is.
Far-right parties keep getting elected worldwide not cuz the voters has suddenly turned into rabid racists, but its cuz the mainstream parties struggle to effectively lead a country in a way that’s satisfactory. They keep doing a ”managed decline”, but not something like a "managed improvement". Most people aren’t too inclined politically, they just notice what’s going on around them (and what the media says, but that’s another ballgame). If they notice that their surroundings isn’t doing great, and none of the parties except the far-right promise improvements, well guess what. They’ll vote far-right. Yes the far-right doesn’t tend to effectively lead countries either – hence why unless with hefty media manipulation they lose out after a while, but if it’s a recurring cycle, doesn’t that tell more of the far-right's opposition than anything else? That they’re unable to reliably secure leadership beyond maybe one term? It’s like the old Simpsons meme of the Democrats being ”unable to govern”. It's why Hitler won in the 1930s, it's why Trump won now. Voters may not learn from history, but clearly political parties don't learn from history either by the looks of it.

This may have been a looooong ramble (and post). I don't know what else to add so I'll leave it here.

 

[05XR8]

It's crazy how all these political experts on tv are saying Kamala didn't do enough of(add the two to four things they were saying she didn't do enough of). It's almost like victim shaming. Trump has one of a group of thirty four things that, alone, should have been enough not to vote for him and people that did vote for him, straight up sheepled through the booths.

She did more than enough. Thought about the country first. Laid out her plan. Gave reason why to vote for her. Reminded people of why Trump should not be given the oval office. He still won.

That's Trump:2; Hillary & Kamala: 00. Still boggles my mind.

 

[Famine]

It's crazy how all these political experts on tv are saying Kamala didn't do enough of(add the two to four things they were saying she didn't do enough of). It's almost like victim shaming. Trump has one of a group of thirty four things that, alone, should have been enough not to vote for him and people that did vote for him, straight up sheepled through the booths.

She did more than enough. Thought about the country first. Laid out her plan. Gave reason why to vote for her. Reminded people of why Trump should not be given the oval office. He still won.

That's Trump:2; Hillary & Kamala: 00. Still boggles my mind.

It's almost as if women are held to different, and higher standards.

I didn't really keep up with any of it - there's very little that's meaningful to me in any way other than the outcome, which has global consequences - but every time I caught something, if it was Harris it was generally positive and hopeful, and if it was the other guy it was scowling, barely literate word barf, and lies.

I mean, I get the whole, she was parachuted in late in the day to replace a shuffling corpse thing, and I'm sure people are correct when they say she seemed to move a little rightwards to capture the voters for whom 45 was just too uncomfortably extreme now and put the already centre-right voters off her a bit, but I didn't see any fundamentally bad stuff.


Apropos of doing things wrong, I assume that nothing came of the "rampant cheating" 45 said was happening in Philly? I guess either it didn't exist (therefore another lie) or they cheated better.

 

[Pupik]

Here's how I see Trump's term playing out. First I don't think he will see out the full term. I don't see his health holding out that long. Hopefully once you cut the head off of the snake, the body will die.

Sadly, I see it cut one, two more grow.

I think MAGA will try and run every single aspect of American life. Movies, tv, podcasts, books, schools, everything. They will see it as some sort of order from god that they have the responsibility to do it. He will follow through on his threat to arrest anyone that makes fun of him or mocks him in any way. He's not going to sit back like his last term and allow parodies of him. And I think that will flow down to civilian life. If I do a Trump impression or make a joke against him at work, somebody will call the local gestapo office and report me and I'll be fined or arrested or both.

They are going to try and force christian views on everybody. Creation will now be taught in all schools and evolution will be scrubbed from any lesson plans. Any teacher caught teaching any evolution will be prosecuted,. It will be like the Scopes Monkey Trial all over again.

School prayer will come back in. Just try and be the kid or kids with some intelligence and don't pray. Little Johnny and his parents will be prosecuted.

There will be Oval Office endorsed violence carried out by MAGA against anything deemed to be "bad" for society. In June you will see Pride parades attacked and people will be killed and of course, Trump will pardon them and they might not even be arrested at all. Any kind of protest at all will be met by violence. Police brutality will be encouraged and excused.

LGBTQ and Trans people will be attacked by MAGA in the hopes they can totally eliminate them from American society. Same sex marriage is definitely gone.

In the holiday season, if a Trump supporter tells you "Merry Christmas" but you reply with "Happy Holidays", you will either be attacked by them or arrested.

That's just how I see things playing out.

Let's face it, most of this momentum has already been in action for some time in Alabama.

At some point, the masses get bored and restrained ideals blossom once more, and another renaissance occurs in its place. But that might be 10-20 years from now. Or maybe today and tomorrow. Masses are easily distracted by the next shiny thing and focus goes elsewhere.

 

[Scaff]

Just in case any of the 'ever-Trumpers' here are under the assumption that most of the world thinks he's great (they don't - apart from a collection of authoritarians), a selection of headlines from around the globe (language wanrning on one).

From ‘The 2nd Dumbing’ To ‘F**k’: The World’s Most Blunt Headlines On Trump’s Comeback

Some front pages pulled no punches when it came to covering the president-elect.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Scotland's Daily Record get's my vote, but I do like the (not AUP friendly) editorial title from Die Zeit.

The Daily Mail is, of course, fully behind him, which tracks from the newspaper that brought us such bangers as "What Europe Owes Mussolini", "Hurrah for the Blackshirts", and many, many others.

 

[McLaren]

It's crazy how all these political experts on tv are saying Kamala didn't do enough of(add the two to four things they were saying she didn't do enough of). It's almost like victim shaming. Trump has one of a group of thirty four things that, alone, should have been enough not to vote for him and people that did vote for him, straight up sheepled through the booths.

She did more than enough. Thought about the country first. Laid out her plan. Gave reason why to vote for her. Reminded people of why Trump should not be given the oval office. He still won.

That's Trump:2; Hillary & Kamala: 00. Still boggles my mind.

Hence a phrase that was started towards the end of the election cycle, "She has to be flawless, he gets to be lawless."

 

[Joey D]

The wall will keep them from illegally entering without proper papers like it's supposed to be proper and simple

Just like the wall kept out the un-American traitors on January 6th?

They don't support freedom of speech, freedom of opinion and right to life. Some are openly racist, support terrorism and genocide and mods aren't doing anything about it.

Ya, you just described yourself and I'm honestly not sure why you or you other little Kremlin troll friend are still here, but it's not up to me and honestly, maybe things have been done and you just ignore the mod's advice to stop. You openly called me anti-Semitic (despite having a Jewish wife and kid), you called my wife a bad Jew, and you called one member a war criminal for merely being in the military. You constantly parrot whatever BS the Kremlin is shoveling and then hide behind comments like "wat?" while saying we don't understand what you're saying. You also continuously simp in favour of Israel doing genocide. So you're the one who's openly racist, supports terrorism, and support genocide.

This called protest. People should have right to protest.

You have a right to protest; you don't have a right to break into the Capitol building with the intent of hanging the Vice President and members of Congress. The moment anyone of those treasonist assholes stepped foot into the Capitol the military should've mowed them down since they were now enemies of the nation. Those who survived should've been hung for treason. Those outside the Capitol saying all the stupid stuff? They were within their rights to do that, and they should've been allowed to continue to spout whatever stupid ideas they had.

 

[Blitz24]

Protest ≠ the right to trespass. I really cannot believe we are still having this argument almost 4 years after the event which most of us remember happening in real time.

 

[opelgt1969]

As has been pointed out I’m not from the USA darling.

I’m good old fashioned British with roots in the Viking Invasions. However to play devils advocate if I was from the USA, I’d have to seriously take a long hard look at my situation and see if I felt the need to move, maybe not from the US but at least from a very Red State to a Blue safe hold.

I'm guessing to California with all the craziness, take a good look at the Blue states they are very few I'm in Virginia the only reason it's Blue is because of Northern Virginia. Also I'm not your "darling"!

 

[Exorcet]

Most people aren’t too inclined politically, they just notice what’s going on around them (and what the media says, but that’s another ballgame). If they notice that their surroundings isn’t doing great, and none of the parties except the far-right promise improvements, well guess what. They’ll vote far-right.

That just kind of makes it all sound like a lost cause then. If you can promise anything to people and they'll believe it, how do you sway them? How do you get them to accept reality over lies?

I don't see anything wrong with discussing how to best attract voters, but something is fundamentally wrong if people are so easily influenced by nonsense and I'd think that would need to be tackled pretty hard.

It's not surprising though. Recently I was badgered into a church for the first time in a number of years only to see people promoting death over life, faith over philanthropy, and laughable stereotypes. Not surprisingly it was also home to one of the greatest densities of MAGA hats I've seen in person. Many people have questionable decision making abilities and thought processes.

 

[Scaff]

I'm guessing to California with all the craziness, take a good look at the Blue states they are very few I'm in Virginia the only reason it's Blue is because of Northern Virginia. Also I'm not your "darling"!

Love, does this look like the flag of the US or California?