My general thoughts are that economic stability and relatively equal prosperity leads to societal liberalization.

When there is instability and large wealth gaps this causes unrest. An educated population can channel this unrest to fix the causes. An ignorant, resentful or traumatized population can be manipulated to scapegoat an “other” for these issues by demagogues and populists.

It should not be surprising that American far right gained so much ground right after the Great Recession, when they could blame all the problems on a black president.

Trump was an unexpectedly convenient figurehead for an increasingly fascist Republican Party, but in no way a foundational or central figure. After all, he spent most of his term parroting and enacting whatever some far-right fascist said on Fox and friends. He temporarily led the party, purged some unbelievers, but is not necessary for its continuing fascist slide. In fact at this point he’s detrimental since the fascists don’t need an idiot broadcasting the republicans plan to subvert democracy.

McConnell is just fine calling every democrat a crazed socialist trying to destroy America, he’s just better at delivering that message directly to republicans while acting like he’s a reasonable moderate when CNN asks him questions. He can just dog whistle his way through every subject, where the general voter cant decode the fascist undertones while the base hears it loud and clear.

What were we talking about again?

Oh yeah. Fuck bill maher, but also give peace a chance.

To be fair, Trump has his cult who will like him no matter what. That same cult will hate Biden no matter what.

He may be wrong but at least he's smug.

To be fair, Biden isn't even trying to give anyone a reason *not* to hate him. Neither are the rest of the Democrats. They are sitting on their hands and pretending to be obstructed, which should have been predictable.

>>>Biden favorable/un-favorable polls from 538:
42.6/52.4

>>>Trump favorable/un-favorable polls from 538:
42.4/52.7

>>>I'm not sure if this is an example of liberals' remarkable ability to be delusional (see HRC putting more resources into states like Florida than PA and WI), or their weird fetish for un-forced compromise. Both?


Whatever you want to to tell yourself, ashtar, but it seems pretty obvious to me that if the Dems were truly delusional about Biden, Biden would be doing better in the polls.

You're a bad faith troll, and when you turn out to be right about something, you'll be a bad faith troll who turned out to be right about something. Not something to aspire to, IMO.

I voted for Biden because he wasn't Trump, and he still isn't. There was a brief moment at the beginning of his presidency when i was hopeful that he might be a great president, and if you want to find those posts and embarass me with them, go find them and knock yourself out. I'm glad you're having a good time. But he's still not Trump, and I'm still glad about that..

Did anybody see how John Oliver punked the Biden fans last night? It felt good to be holding accountable, but you still suck.

JHM: Maher's starting point was that republicans are abandoning Trump. The polls indicate that this isn't the case. "Delusion," in this context, refers the inability of certain liberals to accept that a lot of Americans (unfortunately) like Mr. Trump.

Maybe you should start a blog where you can just exposit your thoughts and feelings without the need to follow a conversation interrupting the flow?

No, I'm fine.

But did I start a blog. Better than a blog, actually. It's a subreddit.

Because I didn't bother to watch the video, I was unnecessarily annoying to ashtar. As you can imagine, I have learned my lesson.

>>>Trump was an unexpectedly convenient figurehead for an increasingly fascist Republican Party, but in no way a foundational or central figure. After all, he spent most of his term parroting and enacting whatever some far-right fascist said on Fox and friends. He temporarily led the party, purged some unbelievers, but is not necessary for its continuing fascist slide. In fact at this point he’s detrimental since the fascists don’t need an idiot broadcasting the republicans plan to subvert democracy.

Trump isn't an original thinker, you could even argue that hes not a thinker, but he's absolutely central. You need to remember that in the 2016 primaries, the runner-up was Ted Cruz. Parroting the bases's favorite TV shows is why the base loves him. He appears before an angry mob, and whatever gets the biggest cheer becomes policy. "Build the Wall" is a great example of that. Think about Lee Atwater in 1988, laughing about manipulating the idiots for votes. What would he think to see them running everything, and dumber than ever?

And now, of course, Trump is their biggest weakness. You can be sure that Ted Cruz believes (rightly) that as party leader he can guide the GOP better in terms of policy, and also believes (wrongly) that America just hasn't seen enough of his Simpsons impressions to understand what a cool guy he is. Ted Cruz couldn't take down Trump in 2016, and who are the sexy charismatic figures rising in the GOP ranks right now? Lauren Boebert? Matt Gaetz? Parroting Fox News Hosts means that Fox News hosts are always going to love him.

I think the moment where I finally said Fuck Bill Maher Forever was when he opened up last years season with a nice friendly chat with Kellyanne Conway. This was all a whole lot more interesting and relevant before YouTube.

Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy Bill's show?

@JHMF You should have started seeing that Maher was a goonish neolib a long time ago. He dated Anne Coulter, ffs.

what do you think her pussy tasted like? diet soda?

If I say "Dick", am I being transphobic? Never mind.

>>>@JHMF You should have started seeing that Maher was a goonish neolib a long time ago. He dated Anne Coulter, ffs.

Not the vocabulary I would have chosen, but of course I did, since the 90s.

So what YouTuber has been feeding you all that deep dish about who's been canoodling with Anne Coulter?

@JHMF They dated in the 2000s, and have been besties for two decades. This isn't some arcane thing, it's old news.

How would you describe Maher then? He's a neolib at best, "got mine, am rich, don't care" libertarian at worst.

He also gives a platform to IDW shitheads, so I'm not sure if you're actually defending this asshole or just not making a proper point.

How does Maher still even get considered to be a lib? Because he smokes pot? Otherwise the guy seems to be a bog-standard 1990s conservative like Joe Scarborough basically.

America's right wing is pretty much fascist and anything left of that is lib in their eyes.

>>>>@JHMF They dated in the 2000s, and have been besties for two decades. This isn't some arcane thing, it's old news.

I was just fucking with you.

>>>How would you describe Maher then? He's a neolib at best, "got mine, am rich, don't care" libertarian at worst.

It was like 3-4 months ago that I was finally curious enough to look up "neoliberal", so I just haven't been thinking in these terms all this time. I would have said "a liberal/libertarian who doesn't care about being consistant." I would say that's pretty close to the same thing, would you agree?

>>>so I'm not sure if you're actually defending this asshole or just not making a proper point.

Well, I wasn't making a point, I was responding to yours.

I was this guy.

>>>I think the moment where I finally said Fuck Bill Maher Forever was when he opened up last years season with a nice friendly chat with Kellyanne Conway. This was all a whole lot more interesting and relevant before YouTube.

WAIT, you were responsing to that post, you know that was me!

The "fucking with you" teacher has become the "fucking with you" master.

(shit that's not right.)

I don't have an ideological litmus test for TV shows, but it was the antivax stuff that finally took me from "Fuck this guy" to "Fuck this guy FOREVER". Never mind that it takes 7 seconds to google something. He has people working for him. Over years, he should have been curious enough to learn something about a public health controversy he was discussing on television.

Fuck him. Up the ass. Forever.

>>>To be fair, Biden isn't even trying to give anyone a reason *not* to hate him.

Something Crackersmack and Biden have in common.