Those who say he is “pressuring countries for dirt to influence the 2020 election” know he is actually asking for help with corruption pre-2016, which Trump has explicitly stated. So why do they continually say he is “looking for dirt to influence the 2020 election”, which is a motive that is absent any evidence?

Nosferatu, what's your point even?

I’m suggesting that opponents are worried what Trump will find.

I would report this but hey you are a moderator, go figure :brow:
Ah, what the hell...

Sensible and civil as ever :up:

You're just driving your s**t wagon around, nose4, its contents your thoughts on these matters. If it's my road, you don't get to use it, for abusing sense, courtesy and decency, and the privilege. Why do you not just stop being a troll and start contributing to the discussion as I suspect you can, but for your unfortunate and regrettable personality!

We mod each other, you're welcome to report me.

But I'm quite serious. That's the banal rubbish that the personalization and moralization of politics leads to. "Bad people do Bad things. Trump does bad things. He is a bad person. He should stop doing bad things; We should be angry at the Bad man who does Bad Things". It's political reasoning for the Disney channel. Like, if that's the extent of one's political acumen, you may as well join his rallies for all the good one does.

Not that it's anyone's fault. Thinking politically is hard, and most people have been specifically trained not to. Raised on a steady diet of personality politics, people are shit at thinking politically, and this includes almost everyone here.

We mod each other, you're welcome to report me. — StreetlightX

Already done.
Not that it will make much difference.
Edit : Well, it seems that the post I flagged up has been deleted.
But will it make a difference to the underlying attitude...

I can express my thoughts on these matters all I want, Timmy, like everyone else. The problem is not that I can’t do so, it’s that you don’t want to hear it. Grow some skin, pal, you’re completely threadbare.

Oh gee whiz bad people will do bad things wow such insight so wise.

Lowest. common. denominator. — StreetlightX

This has nothing to do with anything I actually said, but your response is a fine example of the problem of reasoned deliberation that I did address.

The post has now been deleted. But glad you kept it as an example.

You're right let me rephrase:

Someone who is xenophobic will favor policies that keep them out. Someone who believes that we should help those is need will favor policies that allow them entry. — Fooloso4

How about: "When things are put into water, things become wet"; or, "when shapes are round, they have no sharp edges". When story time at the Disney channel is over, maybe someone can say something about Trump that isn't an infantile platitude passed off as 'reasoned deliberation'.

This isn't a question of principles, this is one of strategy. It is the obsessional concern with Trump's character that is, when not naive, actively harmful to alleviating the worst of his administration's maleficence. You don't fight a black hole by pointing out over and over again that it sucks. — StreetlightX

Right. So how do we fight a black hole? And is it always the right choice to be purely pragmatic when it comes to politics or is there a place for principle?

Those who say he is “pressuring countries for dirt to influence the 2020 election” know he is actually asking for help with corruption pre-2016, which Trump has explicitly stated. So why do they continually say he is “looking for dirt to influence the 2020 election”, which is a motive that is absent any evidence? — NOS4A2

I am curious, how are motives established, in your opinion?

I am curious, how are motives established, in your opinion?

I’m not a lawyer so I cannot say with certainty, but certainly we do not establish motives by taking his political opponent’s word for it. He made his motives explicit countless times now, and the transcript gives force to it.

He's totally innocent, true. But it makes no difference. The powerful New England elites have set a clear path to defeating him. The impeachment inquiry allows them to broadcast fake news regarding his supposed lawlessness.

No political donations required. All funded by the US government itself. Diabolical, huh?

I wouldn’t say he’s innocent. Clearly someone is lying, and that person may be Trump.

wouldn’t say he’s innocent. Clearly someone is lying, and that person may be Trump. — NOS4A2

No he's innocent.

It looks like Adam Schiff received 4 Pinocchios for his false claim that he or his committee didn’t speak to the whistleblower before the complaint was lodged. Why would he lie about that? DNC fingerprints all over this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/04/schiffs-false-claim-his-committee-had-not-spoken-whistleblower/

How about: "When things are put into water, things become wet"; or, "when shapes are round, they have no sharp edges". — StreetlightX

On the one hand you claim that character and morality are of no importance and on the other when it is pointed out how they are factors in policy deliberation you claim that it is obvious.

You can continue floundering and covering it up with insults and noise but I am done.

There is no DNC. Trump, who as we all know was born with both male and female genitalia, is an alien who is able to control time.

Right. So how do we fight a black hole? — Echarmion

You create a fucking star. At least one of the things this means is that you depersonalize politics, entirely. If you find yourself talking about Trump's personality, stop, because you're making things worse. If you find yourself indulging in Russian plots and Ukrainian subterfuges, stop, because you're making things worse still. If you find yourself treating politics like a Game of Thrones episode (What has Pompeo said now? Which secret document was leaked today?), stop, because you're a fucking cancer on a polity and you ought to be cut out like the tumour you are. If it's not something that can be changed - if it's not something open to the action of political agency - then shut. the. fuck. up. because you may as well be blabbering on about the latest Entertainment Weekly gossip rag.

What's happening in the courts? What has ICE been doing? Which regulatory rollbacks have been passed today, and what effects have they had? Is Warren's industrial relations labour package something worth supporting and discussing among friends and colleagues? Does it look like Roe is going to survive the next sitting term of the supreme court? Is your discussion democratic? Or is it about a bunch of millionaires in high places playing in the shady corridors of power? If it's the latter, give up your rights now, because you don't deserve them.

Of course you can. And I, at least in theory, can come and piss on your leg. Doesn't mean I should, or even that the possibility is any warrant at all of desirability, but the same applies to much of what you write. And I have a high tolerance for nonsense, but not for liars or those who facilitate them or their ideas. I confess too that Trump has been an education as to what the bad man is and can and will do.

I am persuaded that the man being bad enough, the badness itself "proves" whatever defense against him and his badness is necessary. If you excuse the dog that bit you, there's a good chance it will bite you again or worse. As to Trump, it remains to be seen what his limits are. He may just suddenly fold; lacking that, I fear he is capable of as much harm as his office is capable of - certainly in personal terms, but he also access to buttons. And his corrupt cohort won't be a help.

On the one hand you claim that character and morality are of no importance and on the other when it is pointed out how they are factors in policy deliberation you claim that it is obvious. — Fooloso4

They are of no importance because they are obvious. Trump's depravity is a political fact. It's an emblazoned sign with goddamn sparklers shooting out it's every orifice. Pointing it out over and over again expecting something new to happen is wishing upon Aladdin's genie. Personality politics is not 'sophisticated'. It's a death rattle of people unable to talk about anything of differential significance.

Of course you can. And I, at least in theory, can come and piss on your leg. Doesn't mean I should, or even that the possibility is any warrant at all of desirability, but the same applies to much of what you write. And I have a high tolerance for nonsense, but not for liars or those who facilitate them or their ideas. I confess too that Trump has been an education as to what the bad man is and can and will do.

I am persuaded that the man being bad enough, the badness itself "proves" whatever defense against him and his badness is necessary. If you excuse the dog that bit you, there's a good chance it will bite you again or worse. As to Trump, it remains to be seen what his limits are. He may just suddenly fold; lacking that, I fear he is capable of as much harm as his office is capable of - certainly in personal terms, but he also access to buttons. And his corrupt cohort won't be a help.

I have yet to be bitten. In fact that ol’ dog is working night and day to make the reasons I voted for him a reality. That’s all that I ask for in a president. I don’t require, nor do I want, the public relations and political correctness of former times to cloak what goes on in Washington. I reject the public/private views of former politicians.

I think your fears are warranted. But I have yet to be persuaded about his “badness”. I do worry about his lack of principle and his tendency to pragmatism, but am fairly certain he loves his country and the people in it.

fact that ol’ dog is working night and day to make the reasons I voted for him a reality. — NOS4A2

I'm just like you. I don't care if he's from outer space. I just want to go back to the 1960s where I very well may belong.

Politics is about the exercise of power. Morality erases considerations of power. As one of my favourite writers put it - morality is dead politics. Morality elevated to political principle issues in injustice, always. This is not the place for this discussion though. — StreetlightX

This doesn’t help, and saying this isn’t the place is no excuse. Who’s the writer you mention? I’ll look it up myself. A search for “morality is dead politics” didn’t lead to an author.

I'm just like you. I don't care if he's from outer space. I just want to go back to the 1960s where I very well may belong.

Hey, many of Trump’s opponents still pretend it’s the 60’s, so you’re not completely alone.

many of Trump’s opponents still pretend it’s the 60’s — NOS4A2

How so?

Raymond Geuss, Outside Ethics - a book incidentally all about how treating politics on the model of morality is more or less the height of folly. But yeah, I didn't come into this thread to chastise everyone about talking about irrelevant bullshit only to make it a discussion of political theory. The exact phrase is 'dead ethics', if you really want to look it up.

Edit: Sorry, the phrase is in Politics and the Imagination, specifically in the essay 'Moralism and Realpolitik'.

Identity politics (and by close extension, anti-Trumpism) is, in my view, a consolation prize for those who missed the civil rights era.