Trump: Illusion, Mist and Bought?

[Aianawa]

if it look like hate, sounds like n feels like hate, it may be a banana.

we have the best eclipsyic members here lol.

[Emil El Zapato]

and I thought it was a piano...I learn something new everyday...

[Dreamtimer]

I really can't listen to Trump for anything that counts as 'a while'.

I've never been able to listen to our Presidents for very long. Politics and speeches mostly lose my attention. I do like TED talks, but they're not speeches in the traditional sense.

It's the policy and the human effects that get the reactions from me. So I have to at least keep track of what our leaders are doing since they work hard to eff things up for regular folks.

[Wind]

For a second imagine USA having a truly good leader, in every sense of the word. One with common sense, decency, empathy.

One who would care about the people and not cause chaos. One that your country hasn't seen at least in half a century.

Those are the kind of ones that usually get a bullet in the head.

Yeah... Isn't it ironic.

[Octopus Garden]

Aragorn,

I hate that people hate your hate. I just hate it!

[Octopus Garden]

Kind of difficult for me to "hate" Trump. He is such a lousy villain. I like my villains to be quietly malevolent..articulate, refined-- but with an undercurrent of pure malice. The right wing can't even do villainy correctly. I hate his stupidity and narcissism but the man himself? He's kind of beneath contempt.

[Octopus Garden]

For a second imagine USA having a truly good leader, in every sense of the word. One with common sense, decency, empathy.

One who would care about the people and not cause chaos. One that your country hasn't seen at least in half a century.

Those are the kind of ones that usually get a bullet in the head.

Yeah... Isn't it ironic.

Very hard to imagine...but I can remember Kennedy, just barely...and Jimmy Carter. One was murdered and the other suffered death by media.

[Dreamtimer]

Carter has ended up in a position of respect for his life's work. I'm young enough to remember him but not Kennedy. Nixon was the cause of my seeing my Dad cry for the first time. My Dad was a Republican and was ashamed.

All I have is imagination. Reagan was an actor.

We've weirdly come full circle as far as that goes...

[Catsquotl]

Aragorn,

I hate that people hate your hate. I just hate it!

wosers..

[Chester]

I have one question for you, Vern...: how come you never post any videos (or articles) from non-alt-right sources?

I have one question for you, Aragorn...: how come anything that pops up on this forum that seems to represent anything that does not fit the extreme progressive socialistic ideology you so strongly embrace prompt you to label it as "alt-right" in this forum?

[Aragorn]

I have one question for you, Aragorn...: how come anything that pops up on this forum that seems to represent anything that does not fit the extreme progressive socialistic ideology you so strongly embrace prompt you to label it as "alt-right" in this forum?

Oh, I can't answer that, Chester, because I wasn't even aware that I'm an "extreme progressive socialistic ideologue". As the matter of fact, I have only recently expressed my disdain ─ on more than one thread ─ for self-proclaimed social justice warriors and their invasive thought policing. If you think I'm extreme, then I'd like to introduce you to a couple of other people I'm acquainted with.

Insofar I know, all staff members here attempt to approach political issues from a non-partisan perspective, and that includes myself. Furthermore, only one of our staff members is actually a US American. That leaves five other staff members ─ myself included ─ who are not US American. And granted, we might have a slightly progressive slant ─ in the sense that we promote peace, tolerance and egalitarianism ─ but we're certainly not extreme in that regard.

But hey, if you're going to be kicking someone around, then it might as well be me. That way, you won't be kicking around all those other people who've all observed the same thing regarding where Vern sources his political videos ─ all of those are from pro-QAnon and pro-Trump sources. And I would very much like to see you deny that either Donald J. Trump or QAnon are from the far-right, just as I would also like to see you deny that the far-right/alt-right is where all of the paranoid misinformation comes from. Like for instance those images of Antifa supposedly releasing dangerous animals from a zoo (which were still shots from the movie "12 Monkeys"), or the video footage of Chinese state operatives shooting Covid-19 patients in the street (which was a scene from the movie "Contagion"). And let's not forget the doctored photos of Michelle Obama, in which they were trying to suggest that she's actually a male transvestite and that Barack Obama would be gay.

You don't see that kind of thing coming from the left, do you? Unless of course it's a "false flag"-type of publication, in which the right publishes something defamatory about their own while making it appear as if it comes from the left. And the same is true for the troublemakers among left-wing protests. Those people are not left-winged at all ─ they are far-right infiltrators whose job it is to make the left look violent.

But hey, perhaps I'm defending the left a little too much again here, thereby only feeding into your prejudices and misunderstandings about me. I make it no secret that I'm mildly progressive ─ and the whole forum with me ─ but the keyword is mildly. I repeat that we dislike social justice warriors and thought control just as much as we dislike racism and hate speech. If it appears differently, then it's only because you haven't been paying attention, and perhaps also because the alt-right has always tried to gain an upper hand here with far more fanaticism than the left ever has. If the left does it, then I will reprimand them just the same ─ and I already have, but then we have to come back to the topic of "paying attention".

But, I'll bounce the ball right back at you, with this: the only people who have ever called me "extreme left-wing" throughout my life were all adherents of the far-right. And to them, I would indeed be "extreme left-wing", because they're so far removed from the center that even Genghis Khan himself was still a socialist in their eyes.

[Fred Steeves]

Aragorn,

I hate that people hate your hate. I just hate it!

And in turn dear lady, I truly hate that in this day and age one still has to hate, that people hate Aragorn's hate.

Don't you just hate when that happens?

[Wind]

Haters gonna hate.

[Emil El Zapato]

I love it...

[Dreamtimer]

Lifting the veil from the Illusion:

There's no sign of 'hidden' Trump voters

Even though the national polls were accurate in 2016, one of the complaints I hear most often about the polls is that Trump's supporters are either lying or won't talk to pollsters. Polls like Ipsos get around that argument because they use machines (e.g. they're done online) to conduct the interviews. There's no reason to lie to a machine. If Trump was doing significantly better in these non-live interview polls, then these critics of the polls may have a point.
The evidence indicates these detractors are, at least in this moment, wrong. There's no sign of shy Trump voters. Trump doesn't do any better in polls without a live interviewer.
The average of national surveys (accounting for the fact that some pollsters survey more often) this week from pollsters who didn't have a live interviewer put Biden up over Trump 50% to 39% (10 points unrounded). That's a huge advantage and very similar to the latest live interview poll average that has Biden up 51% to 41%.

From Harry Enten, formerly of fivethirtyeight.