Politics - your views

[Rsandee]

I would be surprised if some people cared so much about those topics they'd decide not to vote rather than vote against Trump whose stance is "harder" on both topics. Not to mention the vote that would be lost from more moderate people. I think there's something much deeper here.

Maybe, we can only theorize about it. I do know that if I were an American democrat I would think twice before voting for someone like that on my ballot. It's enabling their stranglehold on the duopoly and gives them the green light to keep doing this stuff over and over again. I don't think there are enough differences to warrant lesser of two evils voting as they're both pretty dang bad.

[DaveRattlehead]

I don't doubt that Trump has crazy ideas and has said some real outrageous things both in his current campaign and in his campaign 8 years ago, but I think people are greatly exaggerating the consequences of his victory, both his admirers and his detractors.

Is he going to “save the West”? No, that kind of thing is bullshit. Is the U.S. going to become a fascist state? No, we are not going to see the reincarnation of Hitler, in 2016 that was also greatly exaggerated. Is the U.S. war policy going to change? No, the U.S. is going to continue to look out for its interests, no matter who it might harm. Are there going to be deportations, as there always have been? Most likely. Is the United States going to care about climate change? No, the only thing it will care about is its industry, just as it always has been. Will it be an extremely rich country? Definitely. No matter who governs, the United States will still have a good economy.

Taking into account all these variables... I don't think there are going to be big changes, neither for the U.S. nor for the rest of the world.

[Greengoop]

I think a lot of Americans take politics way too seriously, and that energy has been passed to us, just assuming Trump’s victory is a lot worse than it actually is

[Hunchman801]

I think Dave's post summarizes the situation pretty well, I've got nothing to add!

[Rsandee]

I don't doubt that Trump has crazy ideas and has said some real outrageous things both in his current campaign and in his campaign 8 years ago, but I think people are greatly exaggerating the consequences of his victory, both his admirers and his detractors.

Is he going to “save the West”? No, that kind of thing is bullshit. Is the U.S. going to become a fascist state? No, we are not going to see the reincarnation of Hitler, in 2016 that was also greatly exaggerated. Is the U.S. war policy going to change? No, the U.S. is going to continue to look out for its interests, no matter who it might harm. Are there going to be deportations, as there always have been? Most likely. Is the United States going to care about climate change? No, the only thing it will care about is its industry, just as it always has been. Will it be an extremely rich country? Definitely. No matter who governs, the United States will still have a good economy.

Taking into account all these variables... I don't think there are going to be big changes, neither for the U.S. nor for the rest of the world.

I completely agree 100%.

[dr_st]

I sense here a general belief that no matter who is at the helm - things change very little.
I actually don't think it's as little as you suggest, but of course, one shouldn't expect things to be 180 degrees different across the board. If every new government changed everything completely, the system would collapse pretty quickly.

Still, I believe Trump's administration is going to be quite different than Biden's and than Harris's would have been. I also think it's going to be mostly for the better, and evidently most Americans thought so too. It is very unusual for a Republican candidate to win the 'popular' vote, but Trump has done just that, and, given the high level of animosity many Americans feel towards him personally, this tells you a lot about what they thought about Harris and/or the performance of the outgoing government.

[Hunchman801]

Well, that was expected, but it already looks like things aren't going to change too much with regard to the government's approach to Big Tech.

[Rsandee]

I sense here a general belief that no matter who is at the helm - things change very little.
I actually don't think it's as little as you suggest, but of course, one shouldn't expect things to be 180 degrees different across the board. If every new government changed everything completely, the system would collapse pretty quickly.

Still, I believe Trump's administration is going to be quite different than Biden's and than Harris's would have been. I also think it's going to be mostly for the better, and evidently most Americans thought so too. It is very unusual for a Republican candidate to win the 'popular' vote, but Trump has done just that, and, given the high level of animosity many Americans feel towards him personally, this tells you a lot about what they thought about Harris and/or the performance of the outgoing government.

Oh there are definitely going to be some changes, it's just that people have been vigilant about Trump's second term since he lost against Biden. In truth, many people feel like this election has been going on for 8 years already since Biden was supposed to be a 1 term president (his own words). This longer than normal timespan allowed people to come up with a lot of doom scenarios that were undoubtedly encouraged by both legacy media and internet personalities, such as a fascist dictatorship as a direct result of Trump being reelected. Of course he will make changes, maybe even some big ones, but nothing on such a scale.

[Adsolution]

I'm kind of curious what the poll is asking... because I agree that it won't make a huge difference (to most Americans at least) who wins, but that doesn't excuse the laundry list of horrendous things he's done, so yeah I'm going to call him bad. It's not "whatever" to me seeing a country appoint this kind of person as their president.

Obviously no cartoonishly massive changes are going to happen, but just because something doesn't affect everyone doesn't mean it doesn't affect anyone. Those affected by the Roe v Wade overturn for example (which I think Trump is responsible for, as he appointed many of the people who made it happen), they lost what they see as a valuable human right. Others affected by other policies will too. I think those people are where the discussion should be, I don't know why I see so many people (I don't meam here, I mean everywhere) meander about how he isn't literally hitler or something, as if that's where the conversation stops rather than starts.

[Master]

I'll be honest, I didn't think things would be too drastic come the election results, but the signs I'm getting right now is that things are far more drastic than initially thought. I'll be curious (read, kinda concerned) about the consequences of all these EOs that have come out in the last fortnight.

[Adsolution]

I'll be honest, I didn't think things would be too drastic come the election results, but the signs I'm getting right now is that things are far more drastic than initially thought. I'll be curious (read, kinda concerned) about the consequences of all these EOs that have come out in the last fortnight.

Yep
This disgusting asshat validates and encourages everyone being as braindead as possible, and it's working perfectly. Combined with how awful Canada's being doing, more and more people are starting to worship him. A number of my friends have become indoctrinated too, this is horrible.

[Master]

Yep
This disgusting asshat validates and encourages everyone being as braindead as possible, and it's working perfectly. Combined with how awful Canada's being doing, more and more people are starting to worship him. A number of my friends have become indoctrinated too, this is horrible.

Considering the spat he had with Canada earlier this week, that genuinely surprises me. I'd have thought the net effect would have been folks being put off after that.
Not saying I'm feeling particularly optimistic with the effects here either, truth be told, it feels like some of the worst folks are being emboldened.

[Hugo]

Donald appears to be an unavoidable, symptomatic knee-jerk reaction to the spirit of today, in both good ways and bad. He is the break at the snooker table, setting all the parts into motion. To quote Morning Brew:

It’s not easy getting China, Russia, the UK, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt all to agree on something, but President Trump’s proposal to turn Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East” has done just that.

You know, a lot of people want change and they campaign and protest to varying degrees of success. But change on a grand scale has lots of moving parts, and some of those moving parts you don't really want to move. They are going to grind and cause friction. They might be morally questionable.

I'm not an apologist for anything he has done or might do, by the way. I'm saying that real change and growth are painful processes, and in the case of some judgements, if one does not repress their empathy these processes cannot move forward. For example the two-state solution that so many people insist on is a pipe dream so long as those involved in the conflict do not seek it themselves. But those pushing this solution apparently wish to be virtuous angels who save nations.

[Pirez]

I'm not an apologist for anything he has done or might do, by the way. I'm saying that real change and growth are painful processes, and in the case of some judgements, if one does not repress their empathy these processes cannot move forward.

Yes, I agree : it's easier to undergo change if you stop caring about the people that are put in the meatgrinder in the process. This is not the sensible and rational take you think it is.

One may ponder, for instance, why we would put the United States in charge of all things when
a) They are ostensibly pro-Israël in every step of the way, including funding them for fifty years are giving them military grade weapons and bombs that would embarass Oppenheimer himself
b) For those of us who were there in the immemorial times of 2003, there's evidence to suggest that the US barging in and proclaim peace in the Middle East is a process that has a huge potential to backfire, and that's without taking into account the fact that the country is now led by an 80 year-old slug bailed out of his masterful skills of bankrupting casinos and sports league by christian fundamentalist and oil executives, and of course the richest edgelord in the world who doesn't even care to deny that he openly does nazi salutes at political events.

But you are ultimately correct : change on a grand scale has lots of moving parts and moving them cause friction. It's just easier when the painful processes doesn't involve us.

[Hugo]

Yes, I agree : it's easier to undergo change if you stop caring about the people that are put in the meatgrinder in the process. This is not the sensible and rational take you think it is.

Hm, but my take is that it's better to separate Israel and Palestine so that people are no longer put in the meatgrinder. My point was that a lot of politicians who may be a lot more likeable for their shows of empathy and solidarity never really accomplish anything. They just send out constant aid and weapons, which is like walking in circles.

Am I wrong? This really does seem to be what has happened so far, but maybe I need to learn something.

I am no fan of Donald or Elon. But I think they are going to do evil things and good things. That's the best I can put in words.

[dr_st]

Hm, but my take is that it's better to separate Israel and Palestine so that people are no longer put in the meatgrinder. My point was that a lot of politicians who may be a lot more likeable for their shows of empathy and solidarity never really accomplish anything. They just send out constant aid and weapons, which is like walking in circles.

Am I wrong? This really does seem to be what has happened so far, but maybe I need to learn something.

That's a very simple and largely correct view of the situation, one that is absent in most of the political swaps.

I watched Trump's announcement and he had said it several times in different words - all these other solutions were tried and what did they accomplish? If you keep doing the same thing over and over, you'll just end up in the same place. And most will agree that it's not a good place.

[Pirez]

Hm, but my take is that it's better to separate Israel and Palestine so that people are no longer put in the meatgrinder.

If you look at which country recognizes the existence of Palestine, you'd be surprised to find out that most of the world already think they are separate, but this doesn't prevent what the United Nations has described many times as a genocide. But the countries that remain hellbent on not recognizing Palestine, you'll find with disturbing correlation, are the one who supply Israël with money and weapons the most. Also Israël is so reasonable in this state of affairs that they bombed part of Lebanon as well, attacking what is universally regarded as a sovereign country because "there might be some terrorists there". They threatened strikes against Jordan, Iran and even Egypt before the G7 threatened to withdraw funds and weapons, at which point Israël whined that doing so was antisemitic.

But there's no point of comparison. Hamas did some heinous shit and deserve to be punished for it. But the result of the punishment begets 1 in 60 palestinian killed and 1 in 5 in the state of starvation, all the while encouraged to go even further by the elected parliament of Israël that dabbled entirely into divine-ordained expansionism, something that is lauded so heavily by Trump he threatened to do the same to Canada, Greenland and the UK.

Also, if we are going with your argument that two people that hate each other should not share the same country, why are belgian people not committing massives acts of murder? Wallons and Flammands do not even share the same language and spend their respective time shitting on the other, yet they are allowed to coexist.

My point was that a lot of politicians who may be a lot more likeable for their shows of empathy and solidarity never really accomplish anything. They just send out constant aid and weapons, which is like walking in circles.

My point is that direct interventionism has already been tried and failed. Both in Afghanistan in 2001 and Irak in 2003. The situation always ended up worse after the US left. And it's not just the US : the interventions in Syria in 2011 and in the Sahel in 2015 also were failure to bring up peace, with pockets of terrorism always being more vile as a result. So I ask : on what grounds would you expect it to be different this time?

[Hugo]

My point is that direct interventionism has already been tried and failed. Both in Afghanistan in 2001 and Irak in 2003. The situation always ended up worse after the US left. And it's not just the US : the interventions in Syria in 2011 and in the Sahel in 2015 also were failure to bring up peace, with pockets of terrorism always being more vile as a result. So I ask : on what grounds would you expect it to be different this time?

Yes, your point is the moral crux of all this. Even if the two were forcibly separated, the bad blood between them remains. Even if somehow this plan went through with minimal causalities, it's only a matter of time before vengeance is sought and blood is shed again, of course by the Palestinians as it is the more powerful Israel/USA that gets its way.

And I imagine it is that same oppression that led to those hellish terrorist attacks on those innocent people.

Well, to be clear, the solution I advocate is the permanent solution (I just realized how bad that sounds...) What I mean is Israel and Palestine making peace - not a ceasefire arranged by a third party - but an actual voluntary sacrifice. The will to say I love my enemy. The path to such a result could be theorized endlessly, but it can only come from the Israelites and Palestinians themselves.

It is a big enough struggle with the psychology of a pathological individual, let alone nations at war. So what Donald's proposition represents to me is the possibility of moving in a direction (I won't say "forward"...) rather than moving in circles. Maybe you are right, but I'd like to at least hear some viable suggestions from others.

[Rsandee]

I'm not sure how much of this gut feeling I'm having should be vocalised because I'm really not quite sure what is happening yet; almost a month into his presidency. Yes, on one hand I see Trump "overstepping" his role as a president, but at the same time he's acting like how presidents were acting in the past. I totally disagree with how he is handling Gaza, or the way he was talking about "DEI workers" concerning the last two plane crashes. I don't think tariffs will help the average US citizen out either, I think it will make groceries more expensive if anything. One thing that does give me a spark of hope though is how essentially the Biden government is being audited. I'm no fan of Elon Musk, the opposite if anything, but a lot of stuff is coming to light which was not voted for by citizens nor disclosed to US citizens. I'm happy to see more transparency in that regard. One thing as well that I'm waiting for are the declassified JFK files, I know it has no real tangible meaning to anyone so it wouldn't make a difference to me while voting, but I'm excited to see them finally declassified nonetheless.

[Hunchman801]

[...] and of course the richest edgelord in the world who doesn't even care to deny that he openly does nazi salutes at political events.

He clearly doesn't care about much and should probably have made that effort, though honestly I fail to see how this is more than an over-expressive hand-over-heart gesture. What connection would there be between Musk's antics and Nazi ideology anyway?

If you look at which country recognizes the existence of Palestine, you'd be surprised to find out that most of the world already think they are separate, but this doesn't prevent what the United Nations has described many times as a genocide. But the countries that remain hellbent on not recognizing Palestine, you'll find with disturbing correlation, are the one who supply Israël with money and weapons the most. Also Israël is so reasonable in this state of affairs that they bombed part of Lebanon as well, attacking what is universally regarded as a sovereign country because "there might be some terrorists there". They threatened strikes against Jordan, Iran and even Egypt before the G7 threatened to withdraw funds and weapons, at which point Israël whined that doing so was antisemitic.

But there's no point of comparison. Hamas did some heinous shit and deserve to be punished for it. But the result of the punishment begets 1 in 60 palestinian killed and 1 in 5 in the state of starvation, all the while encouraged to go even further by the elected parliament of Israël that dabbled entirely into divine-ordained expansionism, something that is lauded so heavily by Trump he threatened to do the same to Canada, Greenland and the UK.

I am absolutely horrified by the loss of life and the inhuman conditions suffered by the people of Gaza and, to a lesser extent, Lebanon, but I think it is important to put things back into perspective here.

First of all, the qualification of Israel's actions as a genocide is highly controversial and emerges mostly from politicized groups rather than experts on the subject, such as historians, among which the consensus appears to be quite the opposite.

But most importantly, on the one side you have a powerful country that makes use of heavy retaliatory violence with little to no regard to collateral casualties, while on the other, you have a terrorist organization of religious fundamentalists that directly murders, rapes and kidnaps civilians as a primary target: how can one not come to the conclusion that, morally speaking, the latter is orders of magnitude worse?

It's great that we are more and more sensitive to collateral damage. After all, just 70 years ago in Europe, there wasn't much a debate: more than 67,000 civilians were killed by Allied bombings in France alone, and this number of dwarfed by the number of victims of the same bombings against Axis powers, with estimates in Germany and Japan alone ranging from 750k to 1.1M civilians. Dresden and Tokyo certainly remember. Just like the dead of Gaza, most were probably just innocent citizens who did not take part in the actions of the murderous regime that ruled their country at the time. The bottom line here is that there's no trivial way to deal with such problems, which raise a lot of ethical questions, and are made even harder when the regime in question uses civilian homes and infrastructure such as hospitals to shield their terrorist operations.

Now as for Lebanon, I don't think the situation can be summarized as "there might be some terrorists there". The country is half-ruled by another fundamentalist terrorist organization, literally a state within a state, which operates in complete impunity since it was allowed to remain the sole armed militia in the country after the end of the civil war. Hezbollah senior leadership was never convicted for the assassination of Rafic Hariri, for example. It doesn't help that the militia in question is mostly funded by a neighboring obscurantist regime that has oppressed and murdered its own people since it took power in 1979.

None of that is meant to excuse Israel's disregard for the loss of civilian life caused by their operations, but when one is criticized, I think it only makes sense to remind everyone what they're up against.

Also, if we are going with your argument that two people that hate each other should not share the same country, why are belgian people not committing massives acts of murder? Wallons and Flammands do not even share the same language and spend their respective time shitting on the other, yet they are allowed to coexist.

That's because Belgium was designed as a multi-ethnic state from its inception: in fact, it was designed as a buffer state between France and Germany. You'll find that in general, the only multi-ethnic or multicultural states that are not plagued by conflict are the ones that were designed as such by the peoples that populate it. I can't think of a single counterexample, whether it's the countries whose borders result from post-imperialism partitions or even developed countries such as Western European ones where recent mass immigration results in cultural tensions, particularism, violence and even acts of terrorism.

My point is that direct interventionism has already been tried and failed. Both in Afghanistan in 2001 and Irak in 2003. The situation always ended up worse after the US left. And it's not just the US : the interventions in Syria in 2011 and in the Sahel in 2015 also were failure to bring up peace, with pockets of terrorism always being more vile as a result. So I ask : on what grounds would you expect it to be different this time?

It is certainly hard to argue against that.