RIP, Colin Powell
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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.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
@bachophile said in RIP, Colin Powell:
@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.
I don't think you could be any more wrong, if you stayed up all night and prepped for the question. IMNSHO, of course.
The GOP had been losing the Reagan blue collar workers in a steady trickle, ever since Bush the Elder. Trump brought a lot of those people back to the party. He made in-roads not seen in decades in both the black and latino vote. Because of Trump and his policies, the GOP is nearing the 40% mark in some Texas counties.
If the GOP is smart - and they usually aren't - they'd flip the script on the Dems and go after the blue and pink collar workers, while retaining most of their white middle class base. Dems could probably hang onto the cities but the GOP could garner the most states in the Electoral College, along with a majority in the Senate.
For the next 12-16 years.
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I can't see the GOP going anywhere. At least one person here claimed the Democrats were completely finished as a political force in 2016, and look how that worked out.
I'm a firm believer in the future being much the same as the past. There'll be Democrat Presidents and Republican Presidents.
I'm no expert, but...
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@doctor-phibes said in RIP, Colin Powell:
I'm a firm believer in the future being much the same as the past. There'll be Democrat Presidents and Republican Presidents.
Well, if you make that kind of argument: Every country and political system has a beginning and an end, too. It does matter in which direction a country goes. There is no natural law or anything that everything will just swing back and forth. It can also go south indefinitely.
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@jolly said in RIP, Colin Powell:
@bachophile said in RIP, Colin Powell:
@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.
I don't think you could be any more wrong, if you stayed up all night and prepped for the question. IMNSHO, of course.
The GOP had been losing the Reagan blue collar workers in a steady trickle, ever since Bush the Elder. Trump brought a lot of those people back to the party. He made in-roads not seen in decades in both the black and latino vote. Because of Trump and his policies, the GOP is nearing the 40% mark in some Texas counties.
If the GOP is smart - and they usually aren't - they'd flip the script on the Dems and go after the blue and pink collar workers, while retaining most of their white middle class base. Dems could probably hang onto the cities but the GOP could garner the most states in the Electoral College, along with a majority in the Senate.
For the next 12-16 years.
Yeah - it's interesting. Trump's politics were a mix of Bernie Sanders + nationalism.
Seems like an unstable brew.
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@klaus said in RIP, Colin Powell:
@doctor-phibes said in RIP, Colin Powell:
I'm a firm believer in the future being much the same as the past. There'll be Democrat Presidents and Republican Presidents.
Well, if you make that kind of argument: Every country and political system has a beginning and an end, too. It does matter in which direction a country goes. There is no natural law or anything that everything will just swing back and forth. It can also go south indefinitely.
Obviously, it can. Maybe I'm a bit too blasé about this as I grew up in England, which has a much longer history of stability than either the US or Germany. We haven't had a proper civil war in nearly 400 years, and have done a pretty good job of ensuring that major conflicts occurred primarily where there was a surfeit of foreigners. That being said, I think there's a real chance of the UK splitting up into its constituent parts in the medium term.
Still, we do seem to be constantly teetering on the brink of catastrophe if you listen to all the doom-mongers. I'm also left with the distinct impression that they're enjoying all the doom-mongering.
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@jolly said in RIP, Colin Powell:
@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.
You don't say.
And production is based on
....demand.
Without demand you can't make any money at the wellhead to operate those drilling rigs.
‘a-blowe yow and be-kele yow wel, and comyth up all with your ease’ ~ attributed to Henry V
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@renauda said in RIP, Colin Powell:
@jolly said in RIP, Colin Powell:
@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.
You don't say.
And production is based on
....demand.
Without demand you can't make any money at the wellhead to operate those drilling rigs.
Demand is one thing. Availability is another.
We have demand.
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
Of course you have demand as does every other industrialized country. But the rise in price is not about the USA or who or what is in the White House, it’s about the the global market and depletion of the amassed surplus:
Spring 2021
https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/4/16/historic-oil-glut-amassed-during-the-pandemic-is-almost-gone
October 2021
‘a-blowe yow and be-kele yow wel, and comyth up all with your ease’ ~ attributed to Henry V
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@renauda said in RIP, Colin Powell:
but the rise in price is not about the USA
Yeah, there's a distinct tinge of dishonesty in this harping on about oil prices, as well as the problems with supply chains. These are clearly global problems that even The Great Orange Magnificence, (Sallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa- ala ālihi wa’ sallam) couldn't have solved.
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@renauda said in RIP, Colin Powell:
Of course you have demand as does every other industrialized country. But the rise in price is not about the USA or who or what is in the White House, it’s about the the global market and depletion of the amassed surplus:
Spring 2021
https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/4/16/historic-oil-glut-amassed-during-the-pandemic-is-almost-gone
October 2021
Withdrawing oil leases on Federal lands and a ban on fracking in the U.S. has nothing to do with oil prces?
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@jolly said in RIP, Colin Powell:
@renauda said in RIP, Colin Powell:
Of course you have demand as does every other industrialized country. But the rise in price is not about the USA or who or what is in the White House, it’s about the the global market and depletion of the amassed surplus:
Spring 2021
https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/4/16/historic-oil-glut-amassed-during-the-pandemic-is-almost-gone
October 2021
Withdrawing oil leases on Federal lands and a ban on fracking in the U.S. has nothing to do with oil prces?
Someday maybe, but not today. It takes a while for fewer lease grants to turn into something that affects market price.
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‘a-blowe yow and be-kele yow wel, and comyth up all with your ease’ ~ attributed to Henry V
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@renauda said in RIP, Colin Powell:
Well put.
Agree. Having deal with companies like PTT ("national" oil company of Thailand), etc., the people of Thailand are certainly not blaming the increase in gas prices on President Biden.
