https://www.salon.com/2024/03/06/is-degenerating-before-our-eyes--maga-dont-notice-or-dont-care/
The GOP is so consumed by incoherent QAnon babble that Trump's deterioration doesn't register
This is why it's essential for those debates to happen. Yes, both men are declining mentally, but Biden can at least make a coherent argument, even if he mixes up names sometimes.
There is no excuse for either candidate to avoid debates anymore. we need to hear them talk, without prepared speeches. I will take Biden's odds on that over Trump's any day.
If Biden wins this thing, I think history will find that the reason he beat Trump twice was that he was not at all intimidated by him. He takes Trump seriously, but also has the courage to call him out for the liar he is, convincingly, without dismissing his supporters as a bunch of losers. That takes a bit of confidence that only age can bring. Maybe Bernie could have done it, but I don't think any other candidate could. Clinton absolutely failed at that.
And to clarify here. Biden is declining because we all do at that age. No one is immune to that. Trump is declining because he has abused who knows how many different drugs and fuck knows what else over the decades, add that history to age and it's never going to be good. Biden has always had a stutter and while I know you didn't mention it, it's been used a bully stick by the maggats seemingly unaware of the fact that their guy has been deranged and unable to stay on topic for years.
And your point is?
My point is that it's expected to have some mental decline by that age but I would still bet on Biden if they went toe to toe on jeopardy or at a bars trivia night. And while Biden wouldn't have been my first choice for president to begin with, he is still light years better than trump ever was even at this point and I'll take Biden over most of the current choices on the left especially because those others have zero chance of winning.
With and without the help of things like heavy drinking, drug use, lifestyle, etc, everyone ages differently. I know this from my own family and watching the world around me. Trump has been incoherent for a couple of decades now while Biden has been able to control it (for the most part).
My point is they're both fucking 80. It's really silly to ascribe one decline to age and another to drugs. Anyways Trumps still better at the snappy comeback, Biden never had that anyways, so the presidential debate is gonna be sad as fuck.
Trump has been incoherent for a couple of decades now
That's just a straight up lie. maybe 5 years and I'm not yet convinced it's not because it seems to work.
You need to work on your reading comprehension. And if you think that A) Debates and political discourse is all about the "snappy comeback" and B) Are impressed by the "insults" that trump got from school children, there is nothing more to say here.
You have a nice day now.
I agree with all of that. His issues go beyond his stutter, though. His mouth has always been a step or two ahead of his brain, and he got himself into trouble in the past saying stupid shit. He has run for President for years and years, and couldn't win until Trump made it OK to say stupid stuff.
Are you talking about Biden here? I don't remember him really running in any elections after serving with Obama. Trump is the one who had to run multiple times and only had a chance when he switched from dem to republican and got backing from putin and others, plus the msm thinking he had no chance so they used him for ratings and helped him win, yes, even the left wing media. If they had just stopped giving him attention we wouldn't be in this mess.
And what stupid stuff has Biden said? Aside from gaffs that everyone has especially when you talk as much as they do and when you are being pulled in several directions, etc.
It's tough to find a link to all the stuff that isn't over the top in its vitriol, but this is a good summary from rhe Guardian of some of the weird shit he's said, which doesn't even include the "pony soldier" thing:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/25/joe-biden-2020-public-gaffes-mistakes-history
Other politicians don't seem to step in it quite as often as he does. They don't seem quite so bad now, but that's only because Trump lowered the bar so much. Howard Dean's campaign was derailed because of a weird scream, after all. He would fit right in now (particularly since he is "only" 75....)
Biden was a front runner in 88 due to his public speaking being so exceptional. Didn't have a hint of a stutter either.
It wasn't till reporters starting questioning him about plagiarism till he had to drop out. And it wasn't because of the plagiarism.
It's because when someone challenges Biden, he's always lost his temper and started insulting them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1j0FS0Z6ho
All that IQ stuff at the start is like what trump does. And all those statistics he rattled off turned out to be lies. When they were fact checked he dropped.
But the point is, Bidens current issues with speeching isn't his stutter, he got over that while he was still a child. What's happening now is what will happen to all of us if we're lucky enough to live that long. His age is effecting him like it would anyone else.
So maybe we should run someone 20 years younger who's only 61? Younger would be better, but 81 is just ridiculous
The times he tried running for president he backed out for the blatant lies he told while running. No speech impediment forces someone to lie.
The times he tried running for president he backed out for the blatant lies he told while running. No speech impediment forces someone to lie.
[Citation Needed]
Shit, I'm 34 and I mix up names sometimes. If I had to keep track of as many people as he does, I'd mix up names all the time.
This right here. I'm (soon to be) 43 and I've always been bad with names. I drive for a living (uber, etc and my own service) I see so many people and have so many regulars that it's only the most frequent regulars and those with unique names who I could pick out of a lineup.
It is important that, eventually, they are told they are retarded losers though.... Even if Trump wins.
The person in the chair stopped being important quite a while ago. Now both parties just have lists of smart/rich people willing to implement their specific policies, and they try not to fire critically important gov employees.
I'm not both siding the issue. One side attracts all the Nazis and KKK.
Republican voters: "Does he still piss off the many, many, many groups of people we openly hate and wish harm upon more than any other candidate could?"
Well yes, but what does that have to do with effective governance?
Republican voters: "what the fuck is governance?"
This is almost word-for-word an interaction I had with a coworker yesterday. Said she voted Orange this primary because "he's the only one to fix this damn gender issue", so I asked her what she thought of his policies on foreign affairs and the domestic wage gap.
I got a double-chinned shrug and an "idunno". Lmfao our country is going to burn because a vast swath of people would rather see hundreds of thousands prosecuted for socially-engineered offenses instead of nurturing the human condition.
On a solemn note, our country's governance has become a joke. A circus of clowns too busy honking horns and throwing pies at each other to notice the tent around them is ablaze. To everyone, please, do not take our country's governance as a joke. Serious, irreversible consequences oft come from impotent or non-existent legislative power.
We stand at a precipice, so please vote. Vote. VOTE. VOTE.
I mean, you really have to hand it to Fox and the right-wing propaganda machine for so successfully turning such a stupid non-issue into the top priority for a bunch of people.
I mean it's wrenchingly sick, but they've pulled it off so well.
From the outside, I think Fox News was only able to do that because in US culture, TV and movies are more revered than anywhere else, and therefore people's opinions, when voiced on TV, are taken way more seriously than they should be.
It's hard to explain what I mean but it's a feeling of "if it's on TV, there must be something to it" which is very strong in US culture, and this enables the worst and most evil people to influence public opinion, even if they spew nothing but lies or phantasies.
As for movies, I am always totally in awe of how many movies a person in the US watches - going to the movies once or even twice a week is widespread, which is odd because most movies aren't worth watching. The rest of the days they watch even more movies and TV shows at home. I always wonder what they get from that.
Listening to Knowledge Fight (the Alex Jones analysis podcast), I learned that Jones frequently uses the plot of Hollywood movies as a source for his insane conspiracy theories about "the globalists". So it seems like he knows that many dumb Americans aren't able to differentiate between movies and reality, because they watch more movies than interact with people and matters IRL.
Don't get me wrong, I love movies and TV shows too, but nobody can tell me there's enough good ones out there to fill every damn evening of the week. I go to the cinema maybe once a year, and watch the odd TV shows maybe every 3-4 years (because I don't want to spend my time watching crap).
You got this crap all over the world, the US is just a bit further along the way. People love to get absolved of all responsibilities and the political right gives them exactly that. They are also better at information exchange, just copying propaganda techniques, that worked somewhere else.
It started before Fox, with Hate Radio. And a few other things.
But I really don't think it's a "TV is God in the US" thing at all. It's extremely normal for people to have trusted information sources. And purported news organizations have been a standard source across the world for 150+ years.
In the US (and several other places) news has become increasingly propagandized, particularly towards the far-right. People increasingly also don't care about actual truth, but what they want to be true (often based on the propaganda)
There's probably several cultural things that make Americans more succeptable to some of this manipulation, but a lot of that culture is the product of DECADES of very hard, specific work (which also led very directly to Fox News). Starting almost immediately after the Watergate scandal.
But it's also not like propaganda, and falling for propaganda, is unique to the US or throughout history. At all. Or because of TV and movies or whatever.
It's just impressive that with the US's relatively strong, free press (and freedom laws) and low government propaganda (again - relatively) that a right wing propaganda machine has been able to so massively corrupt things. And fucking scary.
It's so strange but also so obvious that Americans who love Trump have the exact same worries about the world that Putin's voters, the Russian country bumpkins, had when they still were able to vote in non-sham elections: Gender and gender roles, homosexuality, the end of toxic masculinity, etc. It's all they care about, and I think it speaks volumes about their innermost fears about their own lives.
If only they just realized as long as trans people and democrats have rights, so will they. They want so badly to be oppressed
They want both victimhood and domination, at the same time, and being able to hold that wild dissonance in their heads without alarm bells going off is what makes them Republicans. Republican media has trained them into believing that being both victim and oppressor is a perfectly valid position to hold, and because it feels good to believe that, that they deserve to be powerful enough hurt others and also bear no responsibility for that power as they are the victims of the people they want to hurt, many do.
They aren't special or anything, critical thinking and reasoning must be taught. Without that, most people rely on their feelings. The Nazis convinced massive swaths of Germans that because Jews and other groups they hated were "victimizing the German people," scapegoating them of course, the German people should allow the Nazis to murder them in their name, guilt free because clearly the german people were the victims of these scapegoats.
Herd mentality is a hell of a drug. So is Schadenfreude. American Republicans are addicted to both. Not entirely their fault either, Fox "News" and other right wing propaganda made them into what they've become over decades. Free speech weaponized into a a cancerous means of indoctrination through appealing to fear and hatred.
It's not a question of whether or not they notice, it's a question of whether or not they care. They don't vote for him because of his policies, they vote for him because he wants to hurt the people they don't like. They vote for him because "The Left" doesn't want him. He literally says his first day in office would be his Dictator Day and they ate it up.
I think they care, just not in a way normal people would - for Trump voters, it's 100% about trolling, annoying, hating, and secretly wishing dead anyone they deem to be the "outside group". And the worse Trump gets, the louder will that outside group's opposition to him be. Which in turn gives his followers great satisfaction. So they care in a negative way, along the lines of "the people we hate and want dead will be so outraged by his gaffes, the news will be soo delectable to watch tomorrow! I'll come so hard watching them rage!!"
Trump speeches may sound like listening to a four-year-old explain "The Lord of the Rings,"
LMAO
they know that he'll let them hurt who they want to hurt and they don't care about anything else. I think to a lot of them a mentally incompetent trump is a bonus because he'll be easier to steer.
I doubt that. He seems like the angry type of dementia, not the clueless wander away from the white house and start walking toward New York type.
They are fine with a Weekend at Bernie's presidency so long as it brings them closer to the theocratic hellscape they want us to live in.
He's more useful as an incoherent, babbling dementia patient. Even more if dead. They can just turn him into a literal puppet.
Is the question "why" really still a source of puzzlement to people? It's a cult. Jesus is long dead, or probably never existed, so he's even more "degenerated" than Trump, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for his followers.
Just going to take the opportunity to point out that broad (not universal) historical consensus is that Jesus of Nazareth existed, was baptised by John the Baptist, and was then crucified. It goes without saying that Jesus being the Son of God, Messiah etc. is not the broad consensus.
Is it though? It seems there is no evidence and that it is more politically correct to say that he existed.
By the same measure you could say the same thing about many other historical figures. There is enough historical documents that meet the same standards used by everyone to say that Jesus at least existed but thats pretty much it.
That was my understanding as well. I'm rather surprised to see people saying historical Jesus theory is the predominant one.
It is. Furthermore, as an atheist, I don't feel like believing in the existence of Jesus compromises my position any. On the contrary, I've confused a few less-informed Christians by telling them that I believe Jesus existed but I don't believe he was divine.
Besides that, stories like the Nativity seem to pretty much just be myth.
Oh sure. The supernatural claims need evidence and there is nothing at all for that. I used to hold more or less the same position (historical Jesus; supernatural claims are to be dismissed), but just based on cultural inertia. I honestly don't know what the mainstream historical position is at this point. In any case, I wonder what they use as evidence of the existence of the character of Jesus being a real person.
The Wikipedia article has a pretty good summary.
Essentially, we have non-Christian sources claiming he existed from only a few decades after he died. Furthermore, no ancient critics of Christianity argue that Jesus didn't exist. Then there are aspects of the story that you'd assume early Christians wouldn't want to make up. This includes him being baptised by John the Baptist. It's a little embarrassing for the alleged Messiah to be baptised by someone considered to be a normal dude. Sure Christians have kinda retconned its significance but if you were making it up whole-cloth why would you make that part of the story?
Similarly, the crucifixion. Try and take your mind back 1900 years. Crucifixion is a humiliating punishment, designed to shame criminals. If you were creating a mythical figure, in that time, why on Earth would you have him die that way? It doesn't make much sense. To suppose Jesus is a wholly mythical figure is necessarily to suppose he's an invention. Sure, maybe you could make a compelling anti-hero from the crucifixion story but you want to be fabricating the world's first universal religion. Why make your job harder by so closely associating your so-called Messiah with a method of execution often associated with petty thieves and brigands?
It's interesting to flip over to the talk portion of that page. When reading through the article, I wondered about some of the language myself. Seems I was right to read through the Talk tab...seems the best way to describe the consensus is that he was more likely to exist than not. But that's really about as strong a position as can be put forth (honestly) by the advocates of a historic Jesus.
I mean correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think I said any different? All we are reasonably sure of is:
However, any non-Christian who claims that Jesus of Nazareth was a mythical figure, as the original commenter did, discredits all of us non-Christians who find it ridiculous to believe that this man was the Messiah.
Jesus likely existed
What I find funny is scholars who analyzed The Bible have a TON of reason to believe Jesus was one of those, "THE END IS NIGH! IT IS COMING IN OUR LIFETIMES! THE END IS NIGH!" people which is
Fucking hilarious to imagine
have a TON of reason to believe Jesus was one of those,
What evidence is that? The fact that power doesn't have any reason to execute people for simply predicting the end of the world?
Removed, rule 6.
"No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning"
I mean both these fuckers can die in their sleep any day now. It's kinda bizarre 2 eighty year old men are fighting for a four year job that starts next year, and it's called a "democracy".
Bothsiding when one's an old fascist and the other just old is kinda a big giveaway that you suck ass, dude.
One of us is extremely familiar with who Joe Biden is. It's not, apparently (if you're not lying) you. Unless you meant Biden. Trumps just an old crony capitalist, crooked, but not particularly warlike.
You mean the guy who just said he backed the war on Gaza and that we need to keep going until we have achieved total victory. Yeah, he’s not particularly warlike. Fucking idiot.
You need a history lesson over who did what. It's pathetic at this point, y'all whining about the least warlike president since Carter. Indoctrinated to the point of uselessness, can't even differentiate literal facts from opinion.
Nothing you say matters, not even to yourself. Get an education before commenting again. Thank you!
An education would prevent you from thinking that's an appropriate rebuttal. I mean a real education, not a booklet listing the names of logical fallacies that cost 40-90 grand
"Not particularly warlike"
Except when it comes to allowing Russia to bulldoze Ukraine.
https://www.ft.com/content/18c5296a-f0d5-47d5-aacd-af5210d638fc
Except when it comes to letting Russia do "whatever the hell they want" to NATO members:
Or when it comes to allowing Israel to execute everyone in Gaza.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-israel-gaza-finish-problem-rcna141905
Or attacking Syria:
Or attacking our own citizens:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/nothing-can-justify-attack-portland/614413/
Removed, rule 6:
"No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning"
Even Jimmy Fallon, who tends to be cautious about mocking Trump, joked on Monday night, "It sounds like his brain got a flat," and suggested Trump's new campaign slogan should be "Trump 2024 WI-RI-BI-GYU ... AHHH."
Trump 2024
I'd vote for this dog. Bad comparison. One is a mindless idiot bumbling from treat to treat, the other a majestic dog living the best life.
Sticks for everyone! And water fountains on every street!
They just project all their failings on to 'the other', Everytime I hear magats going off how Biden is old and unfit I know Trump must have done something really done they feel the need to deflect and project. They are brainwashed into thinking admitting there is a problem is a sign of weakness, and any sign of weakness is an immediate disqualification, rather than a chance to improve.
He doesn't deserve the peace of a 6' hole. Make it 6", an open grave, and a public hole-in-the-ground bathroom.
I had time to think for a bit. Please be advised that I'm not an American citizen and the following is purely conjecture.
Basically, I believe the US is FUBAR. There are 4 possible scenarios for the 5th of November:
The article mentions, as many have before, that the "conservative" way of "thinking" has become purely emotional. So what do you think will happen if either of the three first will come true? Someone will seize the day and shout some bullshit conspiracy or another and now 20-30% of your emotionally driven population will get set to "angry" and "revenge".
If he simply wins: Mission accomplished!
Now that I've thought a bit more, even (maybe especially?) if Biden wins in a landslide, the conspiracy spin could even be made stronger. Yikes. It might be the time of troubles on a very large scale and I reaaaaaaaaaly hope I'm totally wrong with all this!
I think all of what you said, except maybe add a side of martyrdom on top of it. I've been saying since the last election, it's not Trump himself they need, he's only the figurehead to stir shit up. Get rid of him when he's outlived his usefulness and do it in a way that sets up someone who's liberal, brown, trans, gay, illegally in the country, or your choice of combination, and his followers will happily start a war and fight to the death to "avenge" him. Allow chaos to reign for awhile, then come in heavy handed to re-establish order and there go the rest of our freedoms "for the good and safety of everyone until things settle down".
There's a very good chance Trump's trial doesn't conclude until after voting day. At which point we may face the situation of having a President-Elect that is convicted of Insurrection.
We really should have just let the states ban the guy.
I don't forsee the second happening. Short of literal murder the rich dont end up in jail, and if they do its brief. Murica...
Edit "rich" but you know what I mean.
I feel like there would be parades in the streets if dude just had a massive heart attack while speaking on the road.
But then you get the conspiracy theorists saying the Deep State assassinated him. That'll make for some fireworks I'm sure.
There’s going to be stupid conspiracy theories no matter what. At least then we wouldn’t have to listen to him any more.
Yeah, pretty much everything one needs to know about what he'll do as President is laid out by Project 2025. His ability to actually govern is secondary to the apparent desire for our own little christofascist Cultural Revolution. Wheeeeee
Trump supporters are like modern day graea, but sharing only one brain cell between each other.
"i don't like him but i have to vote for him" is what i get from the republican voters that i know. many democrats have a position regarding biden that is the same.