7mo ago

Remember that?

80 comments

Right? And sure the debate wasn't good but it was also better after the first 10 minutes. And now the media is all over Biden and again amplifying trump. The Dems are infighting while Putin and xi put their feet up and laugh.
- If you watch through the debate, you can -hear- him shit himself when Biden’s mic is muted, and like..
  Look, I’m not going to body shame, and old people deal with problems of that nature sometimes. That’s cool. It happens.
  But like.. given the options, I’d rather have a president who is -usually- together and with it.. than someone so accustomed to shitting themselves they can do so mid-sentence, televised, and think nothing of it. That is not a good look internationally. Literally all the other shit he spews aside.
  
  Timestamp pls
- And now the media is all over Biden and again amplifying trump.
  Seriously. Seems like they had pre-written attacks on Biden to push as soon as it was over. Media elites appear to strongly favor Trump.

In music class, my teacher had an analogy he'd bring up occasionally: the trashy, beat-up truck on the block could be rolled down a hill sans-driver and you'd hardly noticed a difference. On the pristine rolls royce, though, the smallest imperfection would be glaring.
He was using it as an illustration that, even as we got better, it would just be more important to put the effort in, but I feel it applies well here, too. Trump is covered in so much shit, it's difficult to focus on any particular issue of his. And while Biden's far from spotless, his errors stand out so much more that he basically needs to be perfect or he gets picked apart by his own side.
- These are two very old trucks though.

The fact that I know more about US politics than my own country's politics shows what's wrong with US politics and social media.
- I think it's just a side effect to Lemmy doom-scrolling.
  
  It's not just Lemmy doom-scrolling though.
  Here's an article about the upcoming US election in my native country's national publication. There are others, I literally just searched for Trump on the front page.
  This is not a publication trying to sell you doom and gloom either, they're the least biased, most factual publication around these parts. Required by law to not hold a bias and also nationalized so there's no profit motive for ragebait.
  The US election is just considered important in many parts of the world. And to be fair, with the US being extremely important to NATO and Trump wanting to be done with NATO, aaaand many eastern-european countries being very much dependent on NATO to continue existing... You can see how Trump being elected could potentially affect tens if not hundreds of millions of people outside the US too.
  
  or its a logical result of US about to elect a pedophile rapist who has been open about disintegrating democracy. For the second time. You don’t need to doom scroll to follow such a horrific development
  
  Totally.
- i think for me it's "just" that I mostly use English parts of the internet
  ok nvm the problem's still there lol

The fact that people don't remember the vast amount of news reports on women accusing Trump shows exactly the limits of democracy.
With all the sources we have these days, information is easy to find and is available from a lot of different perspectives. It's easy to apply critical thinking by comparing different accounts of the same story. But still, people feel that forming an opinion is not their responsibility, and blame the media.
Democracy only works when a majority of people take the time to think about their vote.
- That's what they've been doing to us all for a while; keep us all so busy and focused on other issues we don't pay attention to democracy.
  
  I just got "reprimanded" today for paying attention. I commented to a friend, when she asked about plans for the holiday, that I didn't really think there was anything to celebrate at the moment. And when I tried to get her caught up on the news, I got interrupted. "You really do internalize a lot of this stuff. It's not healthy for you." Yeah, well, neither is any of the shit that's been happening. Feel free to celebrate your "personal freedom" to roam the American West in your RV and volunteer at care centers and attend RV rallies. Let me know how that "personal freedom" works out if the Freedom Units in your bank accounts run dry. Forgive me if I notice that those without enough Freedom Units don't have those same freedoms you enjoy.

It also shows how large and reactive the Russian troll farms are. Look at how busy they’ve been here just today.
And it’s going to get a lot worse.

We already know Trump is abominable. But tons of people still fall for him… so we want someone who has the strength to defeat him… It’s not complicated. Biden needs to stand aside and give Dems the best chance we can get.
- Which is who, exactly?
  
  According to the Ipsos poll, Michelle Obama, who beats Trump by 11 points.
  Even Harris polls 2 points higher than Biden, believe it or not. Biden has had the lowest approval ratings in the history of modern polling, so finding a replacement that polls better than him wouldn't actually be that difficult.
  I don't think the incumbent advantage is as meaningful when you're literally the least popular president of the 20th and 21st centuries. And, yes, that includes Trump. Think about that.
- "Let's come up with reasons to support Trump without sounding like support for Trump for 200 Alex"
  
  "Trump is a monster and I want someone who has a solid shot at fighting him so we all don't lose."
  "I'm hearing you want Trump to win."

Posting about pedophilia on social media gets you deboosted, shadowbanned, etc. Don't know if it's by design, however tech giants love governments that want to remove regulations.
- Hopefully not on Mastodon.
  
  That probably depends on the instance.

Also the fact that I'm hearing more about how Biden is unprepared to run as president for having a bad debate night while being an incredibly run-of-the-mill and mild president over the last 4 years while still incumbent is also a thing.
Seems like the debate really loosened a few screws all around.
- The convicted rapist/felon who constantly sounds like he is sundowning at every event including the debate, and openly states he will be using fascist tactics to punish his political enemies, but he does so without stuttering!
  
  ...but he does so without stuttering!
  You'd think the incoherent rambling would count against him the same way, but the rules are always different for the one on the side of capital.

But he mumbled and stuttered!
- I know, right?!!!!! We must vote for the convicted felon/rapist- that’s barely a year younger!
  
  Roughly 3.5 years younger just so we're accurate.
- But he old
  And the other one is ~1 year YOUNGer.

"grab them by the pu**y"
Donald Drumph
- I like to keep it simple. Everything aside, this is what a large chunk of the population voted in. I don't care about policies. I don't care about politics. On a core "decent human being" level a large chunk of the population is ok with this man representing them.
  Speaks volumes of every single person that supports him and the party that props him up.
  
  "We aren't supporting Trump, we're voting against Biden! You can either feel good about yourself or you can hold your nose and make a vote that actually matters."

...what? One of those things happened on national television, and the other happened on a secret pedophile island. Why would you expect to have equal knowledge about those events?
- Are you dense?
  Both of those things are public knowledge.
  But only one is front and center across almost all commercial media and one isn't.
  It is not at all a stupid question to ask why that is.
  
  Because one just happened last week! Like, c'mon man. We know Trump was connected to Epstien, the media has covered his known connections to Epstien, but they don't have evidence that he did anything with underage women (I'm sure he did, but we don't have evidence). Like, what do you want them to do? Interrupt coverage of the debate fallout out to remind everyone that there is no new information on Trump's connection to human trafficker that died 5 years ago? That's not the news.
  Edit: Oh, I see. People think that an 8 year old lawsuit is new because media literacy is dead.

But it sounds like she definitely does know more about the second thing though
- "Why do I know about
  <current topic>
  more than
  <topic that has been widely covered for years>
  ?"

I absolutely don't understand why a TV debate of two people has any influence on who will be in the office for the most powerful political position in the world. Neither does the format fit the importance, nor should the public opinion be based on a few hours of a conversation with an opponent.
Let alone that one person/the executive branch should not hold that much power and a direct vote for the president seems like an awful way to try to get a qualified person into office.
- that one person/the executive branch should not hold that much power and a direct vote for the president seems like an awful way to try to get a qualified person into office.
  A significant portion of the right believe in a Unitary Executive and that is what they’ve been working towards for decades. They believe the president has the power to control the entire federal executive branch. They’ve taken SCOTUS through activist judges and regulatory capture and can now get the rulings they want.
  Our current situation really is the culmination of almost 70 years of rightwing efforts. They've built pipelines to train and vet their bureaucrats and policy wonks. Their base is extremely mobilized and there are dozens of grassroots movements with varying interests. At the end of the day they all show up to vote for their guy(s) to push their party the direction they want. It’s worked and that party has mainstreamed extremism. If the nascent left is able to wake up and avert a crisis it'll take decades of work to undo the damage.
  I tell people as often as I can, especially my trans and bipoc friends; now is the time. Get a couple guns (a long one and a short one) and learn how to use them. Learn some basic first aid, you really just need to know how to stabilize someone. Start networking with like-minded people in your communities. The police will not protect us, they’ve proven they’ll happily club senior citizens to the ground and shoot any protesters in the face with rubber bullets while escorting a rightwing murderer to safety.
  Iran was a secular, liberal state until almost 1980 when they (mostly legitimately) elected an Islamist theocracy; it could happen here

Does anyone have the text of recently released Epstein files? I found the PDF scans but want to be able to Ctrl+F for "Trump"
- Don't pdfs have the ability to parse text? I thought that was one of their strengths.
  I could be wrong though.
  
  Depends on the PDF, though it's the norm nowadays with how good modern OCR is
- Reading this post made me nauseous:
  http://youtube.com/post/UgkxqhGSC3v2M7G6ynhUz88DXXcAtX3s2R3H?si=PAl0fAjjmi-NeOJX
- Try "Doe 174" as well

That's so weird. Maybe the party in charge should prosecute the elites for their sex trafficking crimes. Wonder why they don't do that. Who's in power right now? Oh right Joe Biden and the Democrats. Surely they don't hold any power to prosecute elites.
Remember Bill Clinton and other Democrats also being on that Epstein list... Oh we just ignore that. Wouldn't be convenient if it's both sides.
- Left or right, everyone in those files need to be on the wall
  
  Amen

Excellent point!

It's almost like one of those things took place in public, on bloody TV no less, and the other took place literally on a secret island. Weird.

Is this Democrats whataboutism moment?
- You should read up on what whataboutism is. This definitely isnt it.
  
  The Epstein files didn't show anything that wasn't already public. The media already covered the accusations against Trump during the Epstein trial. Why isn't the media talking about Biden sexually assaulting Tara Reade? Or claims by Lucy Flores, Amy Lappos, or Biden's showers with his daughter? I hate Trump as much as anyone else. It wouldn't surprise me if he was running and underage sex trafficking ring out of Mar-a-Lago. However, generally when you want to make accusations, you need a victim willing to speak out, and some proof that the claims are likely. Moreso, ultimately you need charges filed and a conviction. What Democrats are doing here is 100% whataboutism. Biden should be doing unscripted press conferences and interviews right now, but instead people are running cover for him thinking it will somehow help his poor polling.

80 comments