RIP, Colin Powell
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@jolly said in RIP, Colin Powell:
Between Trump and Biden, I'd vote for Trump.
Yeah, but your current choice isn't between Trump and Biden, it's between Trump and a bunch of other Republicans. Do you seriously think that Donald Trump is the best that the GOP has to offer?
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@doctor-phibes That brings up a question that's been bugging me for some time now. Why has it been Trump/Biden, Trump/Biden, Trump/Biden? Is there seriously no one else in the whole political class that the parties can float?
Seriously???
If there's a rational explanation for this, I'd accept it. But what am I missing?
ETA later: I am an idiot. (Shut up.) It's the parties who control the nominations, and the parties will not permit split loyalties, fearing to dilute their chances of a W. It's been shown that candidates who go their own way don't succeed. We learned that with Perot. He came close enough to leaving a mark, and I think that scared the parties.
Trump started out on his own, but that didn't last long. After hanging back to see if Trump could garner viability, like the true bravos they are, the Republicans adopted him joyfully.
Trump's excellent salesmanship skillz trounced Perot like the Saints trounced the Packers recently.
(Translation for you poor benighted souls who see not the wonderfulness that is football: Trump had the skill to beat poor Perot like a big bass drum.)
So, nobody will gain a foothold without party support -- no matter how excellent they would be.
That's the true shame of it.
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@doctor-phibes said in RIP, Colin Powell:
@jolly said in RIP, Colin Powell:
Between Trump and Biden, I'd vote for Trump.
Yeah, but your current choice isn't between Trump and Biden, it's between Trump and a bunch of other Republicans. Do you seriously think that Donald Trump is the best that the GOP has to offer?
Nope, but I think he still has enough support that he can win enough primaries for the nomination and then you're down to an A/B choice.
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That would be great but we’ll probably never see such a thing again in our lifetime.
When you shake someone's deep sense of self-worth, leaving a scar in their ego, they will persistently try to diminish you through petty arguments & obsessive captious criticism of your actions, just to soothe the wound.
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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@copper said in RIP, Colin Powell:
If such a thing happens I'd expect the person to come from outside the world of politics, a movie star or athlete maybe
Caitlyn Jenner springs to mind, as does the feeling that we get the politicians we deserve.
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@jon-nyc said in RIP, Colin Powell:
That would be great but we’ll probably never see such a thing again in our lifetime.
Yep. At least until the war.
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@klaus said in RIP, Colin Powell:
@jon-nyc said in RIP, Colin Powell:
That would be great but we’ll probably never see such a thing again in our lifetime.
Why not?
Short, nearly tautological response is “that’s not what GOP voters want”.
When you shake someone's deep sense of self-worth, leaving a scar in their ego, they will persistently try to diminish you through petty arguments & obsessive captious criticism of your actions, just to soothe the wound.
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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@89th said in RIP, Colin Powell:
@jolly said in RIP, Colin Powell:
@klaus said in RIP, Colin Powell:
You'd rather saw off a feat of yours than saying anything even remotely critical of Trump, don't you Jolly?
Nah, but the street flows both ways. Nobody criticized Powell for taking a shot at Trump. No, people ballyhooed the statement.
Was Trump being an ass? Yeppers. Was he being vindictive. Yep.
But until coverage is meted out fairly, it doesn't bother me tremendously. And as my grocery bill climbs, as I pay more at the pump and as we receive more mandates from Washington Central Planning, I find myself missing ol' DJT more and more.
Warts and all.
LOL you think he could've controlled any of that?
Actually, I think Trump would have improved things quite a bit. Gas prices would definitely be better as we would be drilling a lot more of our own. He definitely would have ended the unemployment benefits sooner, which would have lessened the labor shortage by at least a degree or two. He would have reached out to the California Ports well before this point to increase efficiency and also worked on temporary easing of the union restrictions in California. If that hadn’t worked he would have worked at getting ships to go to other ports.
Don’t forget that his administration accomplished amazing things at getting manufacturers and retailers to to serve the public in incredible ways during the early days of the pandemic. The testing mechanism, the hundreds of thousands of ventilators built, Operation Warp Speed… How much of that is accomplished as quickly as it was under a Biden Administration?
No, Trump’s problems were always what he said, not what he did.
The really sad and scary part of all of this, in my opinion? I don’t think a Republican can win on a national level anymore without breaking the rules like Trump did. If Trump had acted like we all would have wanted him to act, we would be in Hilary’s second term right now.
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@klaus said in RIP, Colin Powell:
I'm not a fan of Biden. My hope for the US is that the GOP finds a new candidate for the next election and wins. A principled and serious candidate who tries to unite and not divide. Conservative but not tea party.
Agreed. Kasich was a good example of this in 2016. The problem is the primary process rewards candidates like Trump when its so fragmented or crowded on the stage. As @Jolly said, I very much could see Trump winning the next primary round because of this very dynamic.
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@lufins-dad said in RIP, Colin Powell:
No, Trump’s problems were always what he said, not what he did.
At the presidential level, what you say also results in what you did. People follow.
I remember at the state of the union in January 2020 I was thinking "damn, this guy has a heck of a successful presidency... all signs were pointing up.", then he went down the rabbit hole of being impeached twice, firing FBI directors, watching folks around him quit or be jailed, denying covid and delaying a substantial response, refusing to accept an election loss, etc...
Had he handled COVID better he would've won the 2nd term, and had he handled his landslide loss better, there would've been a brighter future for the GOP.
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@89th said in RIP, Colin Powell:
had he handled his landslide loss better, there would've been a brighter future for the GOP.
The bemusing -- for want of a better word -- thing about how he handled the loss is the absolute predictability of how he handled the loss. There is no doubt whatsoever as to what he would do next after the result: challenge the vote. It was like night follows day. He'd have done this regardless of what his handlers found. As there have always been irregularties in voting, and as the average citizen has no way to discern the degree of it, his handlers did not need to be rocket surgeons to find enough of a hook for him to hang his hat on.
Then came the rhetoric, the noise, the relentless pound, pound, pound, and his followers fell in line like good soldiers.
You can get anybody to believe anything if you repeat it often enough.
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@lufins-dad said in RIP, Colin Powell:
Gas prices would definitely be better as we would be drilling a lot more of our own.
Drilling has little to do with gas prices at the pump.
‘a-blowe yow and be-kele yow wel, and comyth up all with your ease’ ~ attributed to Henry V
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@jon-nyc all true but even with all the nutjobs, a la MTG, Boebert, et al. floating around, ...i dont think the GOP can field a candidate (eg... Im thinking Desantis, Cruz, or even Pompeo, ) who could try to be a trump clone. simply because no one will be as good as the original in terms of sheer narcissism, so any MAGA-like candidate will be a poor substitute for the original and will be unable to gather the momentum and enough clout to bring the party together.
DJT not only lost the election but destroyed the republican party.
a shame. it wasnt such a bad party, at least in theory.
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@renauda said in RIP, Colin Powell:
@lufins-dad said in RIP, Colin Powell:
Gas prices would definitely be better as we would be drilling a lot more of our own.
Drilling has little to do with gas prices at the pump.
Yeah, but production does.
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
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