US election 2020

[stui magpie]

^ A ridiculous comparison. Ardern was doing fine in NZ prior to Covid. She was behind in the polls, but not by much, and another election victory was far from out of the question.

Not ridiculous at all IMHO, Ardern was far more popular abroad than at home. The Polls are an utterly reliable picture of the general populations views. Not.

Tens of millions of people are going to vote for Trump come the election. He may even win. Insulting the intelligence of all those people is little more than masturbation based on self perception of superior intelligence. A wanker in every sense. And that's the people who live in the USA.

[Tannin]

On the contrary. It is a massive mistake to blindly assume that "lots of people think X, therefore X must be true", or (a slightly milder version) "there must be something to it even if it's not 100% right", or (milder again) "they must be intelligent because holding a monumentally stupid belief despite a mountain of evidence against it is what intelligent people do.

Frankly, it is not possible to insult the intelligence of a Trump voter.

PS: I didn't say anything about Ardern's popularity abroad, simply that she was not far off the pace and retained a good chance of winning an election pre-Covid.

[stui magpie]

Look, lots of people will vote for Trump. Fact.

They will do that for a variety of different reasons. Assuming that the main one is because they are stupid is part of the problem.

As far as Ardern goes, my premise was she was more popular abroad than at home, and you called that ridiculous.

[think positive]

Look, lots of people will vote for Trump. Fact.

They will do that for a variety of different reasons. Assuming that the main one is because they are stupid is part of the problem.

As far as Ardern goes, my premise was she was more popular abroad than at home, and you called that ridiculous.

this is very true, talk to kiwis, they dont all love her! even on a worldwide photography site i talk on, we aussies rave about her and the kiwis say "you can have her!"

[Jezza]

^ I must be the only non-Kiwi who isn't a fan of her

[eddiesmith]

^Nope, definitely not the only one.

I often suggested if all those Ardern lovers thought she was so great they should feel free to move to NZ and make Australia so much better by their absence!

[pietillidie]

On Ardern, the fact people admire her externally and a percentage of people hate her internally is hardly rocket science. They have left and right, and we know that means a loud group of opponents automatically. Externally, people have no interest in that local game and go by the info filtered to them, and she does come across well in that info, especially when you have whacko wrecker Trump in the story before and after.

[Tannin]

As far as Ardern goes, my premise was she was more popular abroad than at home, and you called that ridiculous.

No.

Not in any way.

The ridiculous thing that I actually wrote about was the ludicrous notion of drawing a parallel between the egregiously corrupt and incompetent Trump and the successful and widely respected Ardern.

Ardern's popularity abroad has never had anything to do with her ability to win an election and is an irrelevancy I didn't comment on. The fact is that her Labour Party (together with its coalition partners, obviously) is in a commanding electoral position now post-Covid, but was never behind by all that much,l and right through has been popular enough to be within striking distance of winning a second term. (In my post I pointed you at the example of the Abbott and Turnbul governments which, like Ardern's pre-Covid, trailed in the polls all through their terms but (as governments very often do) managed to achieve a short-term popularity bounce for just long enough to win another election.)

Look, lots of people will vote for Trump. Fact.

They will do that for a variety of different reasons. Assuming that the main one is because they are stupid is part of the problem.

You are mistaken. I am not assuming that they voted for Trump because they are stupid. I think that there are many reasons why they voted for Trump, most of which any reasonably thoughtful observer can guess, some of them more difficult to figure out.

The logic, in fact, is the reverse of what you suggest. We don't assume that they voted for Trump because they are stupid. We know that they are stupid because we have clear evidence - they voted for Trump.

[Tannin]

A correction to the above:

It was possible for a reasonably intelligent person to make a dumb mistake and vote for Trump in 2016. OK, it was foolish in the extreme, but he did present a superficially plausible and highly emotional appeal.

Voting for Trump twice however - voting for a self-obsessed madman who has caused the deaths of more than a hundred thousand of the citizens he is sworn to protect and defend - that would be cast-iron proof of rank stupidity.

[Lazza]

The definition of insanity will be hugely relevant if they vote Trump in again.

[pietillidie]

That whole sub-culture that supports him is effectively a weirdo dysfunctional cult, and it's dragging the ship under water.

People trapped in it may not be inherently stupid, but the culture they're immersed in makes them effectively stupid. Unfortunately, that culture is a millstone around the neck of the rest of the country and now the global economy at large.

Within a wealthy Western context, they are analogous to the Taliban; backward religious fruitcakes resistant to reason and living off bum slaps and Facebook likes from other cult members.

I'm bemused by the dimwit Australians who have had their assets and earnings hammered by Trump for a good couple of years now, and yet still fawn over a malignant nutcase and the creepy sect that worships him.

Imagine, spending years hysterically carrying on about Muslims taking over the world, only to embrace the weirdo American Christian Taliban that truly are impacting the whole world. Well done, now you've just crushed the earnings of your own children graduating into the Trump-led superpower's mismanaged, unstable, incoherent, trade-war fuelled international economic disaster.

It's not hard. Think of the creepiest, vilest person you have ever met who would cheat your ailing grandmother on her death bed and lure away your underage daughter in a heartbeat. There is no way you would deal with them for a second. Now think of the Taliban dragging down entire societies with ignorance and religious nonsense. There is no way you would deal with them for a second, either. Now wonder what effing stupid internet game you think you're playing humouring this horror show at the expense of yourself and everyone else around you.

[watt price tully]

The definition of insanity will be hugely relevant if they vote Trump in again.

[watt price tully]

That whole sub-culture that supports him is effectively a weirdo dysfunctional cult, and it's dragging the ship under water.

People trapped in it may not be inherently stupid, but the culture they're immersed in makes them effectively stupid. Unfortunately, that culture is a millstone around the neck of the rest of the country and now the global economy at large.

Within a wealthy Western context, they are analogous to the Taliban; backward religious fruitcakes resistant to reason and living off bum slaps and Facebook likes from other cult members.

I'm bemused by the dimwit Australians who have had their assets and earnings hammered by Trump for a good couple of years now, and yet still fawn over a malignant nutcase and the creepy sect that worships him.

Imagine, spending years hysterically carrying on about Muslims taking over the world, only to embrace the weirdo American Christian Taliban that truly are impacting the whole world. Well done, now you've just crushed the earnings of your own children graduating into the Trump-led superpower's mismanaged, unstable, incoherent, trade-war fuelled international economic disaster.

It's not hard. Think of the creepiest, vilest person you have ever met who would cheat your ailing grandmother on her death bed and lure away your underage daughter in a heartbeat. There is no way you would deal with them for a second. Now think of the Taliban dragging down entire societies with ignorance and religious nonsense. There is no way you would deal with them for a second, either. Now wonder what effing stupid internet game you think you're playing humouring this horror show at the expense of yourself and everyone else around you.

[pietillidie]

^Or, as I've otherwise deemed Cult Whacko, fasco-protectionists:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/opin ... acism.html

I have no doubt the Khmer Rouge Hats would take up arms to kill their compatriots. That makes doing and justifying anything to win an election likely. The situation has the whiff of something ten times more dangerous than we are willing to allow ourselves to believe. If you can normalise Trump, you can basically normalise anything.

[roar]

I often suggested if all those Ardern lovers thought she was so great they should feel free to move to NZ and make Australia so much better by their absence!

Why doesn't that surprise me?