How the Democrats win in a Landslide

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I posted the example earlier where Hannity tried to get Trump to push this narrative but he fell into one of his rambles instead. It's got Hannity and the online bots pushing it. Read into it what one will, indeed.

I think they know the Ukraine angle is fizzling so this is the new attack vector. For example from Politico:

On Monday he [Trump] said if Biden is elected, “They are going to put him in a home and other people are going to be running the country.” At a “town hall” on Fox Thursday, Trump cited verbal stumbles by Biden and asserted, “There’s something going on there.” Friday morning on Twitter he said Biden would destroy Medicare and Social Security “and not even know he’s doing it.”

So. Yeah. They pretty much have their pet issue nailed down. If Biden gets the Democrat nomination the soundbites from any Presidential debate will be looped like crazy on Fox and throughout the Conservative universe.

But is that any different any side does? I still guffaw at the Clown’s makeup, and legitimately believe you’d have to be semi-insane to think that’s the look you present to the world as the President.

Whatever the case may be, I do think Biden demonstrates cognitive decline, but I’ve had that hot take since his campaign started hence my preference for other candidates.

- Doc

[_honorentheos]

He was pretty far down my list as well. As of last Wednesday he was still only second of four. But in a race between him, Sanders, and Gabbard...welp. Its where we are.

Did I mention I blame the two party system for this situation?

[_honorentheos]

In front of the last two crazy pages of blah blah blah because...there was an actual discussion taking place.

Does the revolution/civil war happen before or after universal healthcare is implemented?

I tracked down a PDF copy of The Battle for Spain. Here's the introduction in full:

‘A civil war is not a war but a sickness,’ wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. ‘The enemy is within. One fights almost against oneself.’ Yet Spain’s tragedy in 1936 was even greater. It had become enmeshed in the international civil war, which started in earnest with the bolshevik revolution.

The horrors in Russia had undermined the democratic centre throughout continental Europe. This was because the process of polarization between ‘reds’ and ‘whites’ allowed both political extremes to increase their own power by manipulating fearful, if not apocalyptic, images of their enemies.

Their Manichaean propaganda fed off each other. Both Stalin and Goebbels later exploited, with diabolical ingenuity, that potent combination of fear and hatred. The process stripped their ‘traitor’ opponents of their humanity as well as their citizenship. This is why it is wrong to describe the Spanish Civil War as ‘fratricidal’. The divisiveness of the new ideologies could turn brothers into faceless strangers and trade unionists or shop owners into class enemies. Normal human instincts were overridden. In the tense spring of 1936, on his way to Madrid University, Julián Marías, a disciple of the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, never forgot the hatred in the expression of a tram-driver at a stop as he watched a beautiful and well-dressed young woman step down onto the pavement. ‘We’ve really had it,’ Marías said to himself. ‘When Marx has more effect than hormones, there is nothing to be done.’

The Spanish Civil War has so often been portrayed as a clash between left and right, but this is a misleading simplification. Two other axes of conflict emerged: state centralism against regional independence and authoritarianism against the freedom of the individual.

The nationalist forces of the right were much more coherent because, with only minor exceptions, they combined three cohesive extremes. They were right wing, centralist and authoritarian at the same time. The Republic, on the other hand, represented a cauldron of incompatibilities and mutual suspicions, with centralists and authoritarians, especially the communists, opposed by regionalists and libertarians.

Ghosts of those propaganda battles of seventy years ago still haunt us. Yet the Spanish Civil War remains one of the few modern conflicts whose history had been written more effectively by the losers than by the winners. This is not surprising when one remembers the international sense of foreboding after the Republic’s defeat in the spring of 1939. Anger then increased after 1945, when the crimes of Nazi Germany came to light and General Franco’s obsessive vindictiveness towards the defeated republicans showed no sign of diminishing.

It is difficult for younger generations to imagine what life was really like in that age of totalitarian conflict. Collectivist ideals, whether those of armies, political youth movements or of trade unions, have virtually all disintegrated. The passions and hatreds of such an era are a world away from the safe, civilian environment of health and safety, and citizen’s rights in which we live today. That past is indeed ‘another country’. Spain itself has changed completely in a matter of decades. Its emergence from the civil war and Francoist era has been one of the most astonishing and impressive transformations in the whole of Europe.

This, perhaps, is why it is unwise to try to judge the terrible conflict of seventy years ago with the liberal values and attitudes that we accept today as normal. It is vital to make a leap of the imagination, to try to understand the beliefs and attitudes of the time–whether the nationalistic, Catholic myths and the fear of bolshevism on the right, or the left’s conviction that revolution and the coercive redistribution of wealth could produce universal happiness.

Such passionately fought causes have made it far harder to be objective, especially when one looks at the origins of the war. Each side is bound to want to prove that the other started it. Sometimes even neutral factors tend to be neglected, such as the fact that the Republic was attempting to carry out a process of social and political reform in a few years, which had taken anything up to a century elsewhere.

The actual events during the war, however, such as the atrocities committed and the details of the repression that followed, are now beyond serious contention, thanks to the immense and scrupulous work of many Spanish historians in local archives and cemeteries. Most of the military details, including the squabbles between republican commanders, are also clear with the opening of previously secret files in Russia over the last dozen years.

We have, too, a much more precise view of Soviet policy in Spain. Yet, inevitably, the interpretation of many facts is still going to be swayed by personal opinion, especially the chicken-and-egg debate of the causal chain that led to the war. Do you begin with the ‘suicidal egotism’ of the landowners, or with the ‘revolutionary gymnastics’ and rhetoric which inflamed the fears of bolshevism, pushing the middle class ‘into the arms of fascism’, as the more moderate socialist leaders warned? A definitive answer is beyond the power of any historian.

Some are strongly tempted to consider that the Spanish Civil War could not have been avoided. This contravenes that informal yet important rule of history that nothing is inevitable, except perhaps in hindsight. On the other hand, it is very hard to imagine how any form of workable compromise could have been achieved after the failed left-wing revolution of October 1934. An increasingly militant left could not forgive the cruelty of the Civil Guard and the colonial troops, while the right became convinced that it had to pre-empt another attempt at violent revolution.

Other even more unanswerable questions remain important, if only because they can provoke us into seeing issues from an unaccustomed perspective. The ideals of liberty and democracy formed the basis of the Republic’s cause abroad. Yet the revolutionary reality on the ground, the impotence of the Spanish parliament, the Cortes, and the lack of respect for the rule of law on both sides, must be looked at carefully.

Republican propaganda during the civil war always emphasized that its government was the legally appointed one after the elections of February 1936. This is true, but one also has to pose an important question. If the coalition of the right had won those elections, would the left have accepted the legitimate result? One strongly suspects not. The socialist leader Largo Caballero threatened openly before the elections that if the right won, it would be open civil war.

The nationalists tried from the very beginning to pretend that they had risen in revolt purely to forestall a communist putsch. This was a complete fabrication to provide retrospective justification for their acts. But for the left to claim that the nationalists had launched an unprovoked attack against law-abiding democrats is disingenuous.

The left had often shown as little respect for the democratic process and the rule of law as the right. Both sides, of course, justified their actions on the grounds that if they did not act first, their opponents would seize power and crush them. But this only goes to show that nothing destroys the centre ground more rapidly than the politics of fear and the rhetoric of threat.

Some argue that words cannot kill. But this becomes less and less convincing the more one looks at the cycle of mutual suspicion and hatred, all enflamed by irresponsible declamation.

In fact, the right-wing leader Calvo Sotelo was assassinated because of his own deliberately provocative speeches in the Cortes. It is also important to consider whether the rhetoric of annihilation tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. General Queipo de Llano threatened in one of his notorious broadcasts from Seville that the nationalists would execute ten republicans for every one of their own men killed. This proved in the end to be not that far from the mark.

One must also not forget

Largo Caballero’s declaration that he wanted a Republic without class warfare, but to achieve that a political class had to disappear. This was an obvious echo of Lenin’s openly stated intention to eliminate the bourgeoisie.

But would a victory of the left in say 1937 or 1938 have led to a comparable scale of executions and imprisonment as under Franco? It is, of course, impossible to tell, and one cannot judge entirely by the Russian civil war, but it is still a question which must not be brushed aside. The winner in any civil war, as several historians have argued, is bound to kill more because of the cycle of fear and hate.

All these complex and interrelated issues show how it is impossible to separate cause and effect with scientific precision. Truth was indeed the first casualty of the Spanish Civil War. The subject has suffered from more intense debate and more polemics for longer after the event than any other modern conflict, including even the Second World War. The historian, although obviously unable to be completely dispassionate, should try to do little more than understand the feelings of both sides, to probe previous assumptions and to push forward the boundaries of knowledge. As far as is humanly possible, moral judgements should be left to the individual reader.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

He was pretty far down my list as well. As of last Wednesday he was still only second of four. But in a race between him, Sanders, and Gabbard...welp. Its where we are.

I’m in the same boat in that I like The Bern’s big ideas, but they’re just not going to happen without some very serious consequences that I’m sure we’re not ready to accept as a body politic. Even if he does get the center-Left to bite, I can’t see how any of this works with half the country so diametrically opposed to what he’s proposing. I’d rather a decent, together, responsible adult just get elected, be a good spokesperson for us, and works to govern that’s more about budgets than whatever the “F” is happening right now.

- Doc

[_Jersey Girl]

What I notices in Biden is that when he's public speaking under pressure trying to whip up the people and speaking fast, he messes up.

When he's speaking in an interview or like tonight when he's addressing his current win, he's perfectly fluent and cogent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpf0Pr8G7Gs

So sue me. I don't think the man has dementia. He and Trump both make mistakes when they're fatigued and speaking publicly.

Does Biden make significant mistakes that lead me to believe that he's not fit for office?

No, I don't see it. So...Let's go Joe.

[_Some Schmo]

Every single time a Trumptard brings up Biden's gaffes, someone needs to tell them to go listen to the damned buffoon in the White House and remind them that whatever idiotic thing he says, he actually means to say.

Biden may be slipping, but Trump was born damned stupid.

[_Xenophon]

Every single time a Trumptard brings up Biden's gaffes, someone needs to tell them to go listen to the damned buffoon in the White House and remind them that whatever idiotic thing he says, he actually means to say.

Biden may be slipping, but Trump was born damned stupid.

I think the one problem with this is that, as EA and others have pointed out, our news media is basically complicit in covering up just how bat-crap crazy Trump sounds a lot of the time. By covering every Biden gaffe, misspeak, or stutter by explicitly calling it out while also heavily editing Trump's comments to sound lucid you're left with a world where you can really only see how bad it is if you actually read or watch Trump's speeches directly. I'm reluctant to think that the average voter is willing to do that.

[_Gunnar]

I think the one problem with this is that, as EA and others have pointed out, our news media is basically complicit in covering up just how bat-crap crazy Trump sounds a lot of the time. By covering every Biden gaffe, misspeak, or stutter by explicitly calling it out while also heavily editing Trump's comments to sound lucid you're left with a world where you can really only see how bad it is if you actually read or watch Trump's speeches directly. I'm reluctant to think that the average voter is willing to do that.

That worries me too. Why does so much of the mainstream media sometimes seem more reluctant to report Trump's gaffes than those of Democrat leaders--especially, it seems, the more progressive ones? Sometimes it seems that the Fox News division is actually more forthcoming about criticizing Trump's misstatements and failings than the supposedly more liberal media outlets. Chris Wallace, for example, has not been particularly shy about criticizing Trump or his advisors and aides when he thinks they mispoke or messed up.

[_Xenophon]

That worries me too. Why does so much of the mainstream media sometimes seem more reluctant to report Trump's gaffes than those of Democrat leaders--especially, it seems, the more progressive ones?

I think there are probably 2 primary reasons they do this. The first being a desperate attempt to appear "neutral" to a wider audience they naïvely believe that being easier on Trump is the correct call. The second I think is due to the bubble that most media personnel live in. "Everybody already knows who/what Trump is" is a pretty common trope in opinion pieces concerning the President. We touched on that a bit in the "Towards a New Nationalism" thread but it is a fairly common theme. When you surround yourself with mostly like-minded individuals and sources it can be easy to forget that a fair portion of the electorate is generally pretty unplugged from the news and has the attention span of a goldfish. There are probably some other things weighing in, like trying to appear civilized and polite, but in my opinion those are the primary drivers(it isn't like I'm breaking new ground here, we've discussed this a few times on the board).

Sometimes it seems that the Fox News division is actually more forthcoming about criticizing Trump's misstatements and failings than the supposedly more liberal media outlets. Chris Wallace, for example, has not been particularly shy about criticizing Trump or his advisors and aides when he thinks they mispoke or messed up.

I'll have to take your word for, I avoid the big 3 outlets like the plague. I might point out that one commentator on an entire network does not actually make for a balanced broadcast though. I also wonder if they might call out some of the smaller mess ups in order to provide credibility to their defense of the bigger issues at hand.

[_Gunnar]

That worries me too. Why does so much of the mainstream media sometimes seem more reluctant to report Trump's gaffes than those of Democrat leaders--especially, it seems, the more progressive ones?

I think there are probably 2 primary reasons they do this. The first being a desperate attempt to appear "neutral" to a wider audience they naïvely believe that being easier on Trump is the correct call. The second I think is due to the bubble that most media personnel live in. "Everybody already knows who/what Trump is" is a pretty common trope in opinion pieces concerning the President. We touched on that a bit in the "Towards a New Nationalism" thread but it is a fairly common theme. When you surround yourself with mostly like-minded individuals and sources it can be easy to forget that a fair portion of the electorate is generally pretty unplugged from the news and has the attention span of a goldfish. There are probably some other things weighing in, like trying to appear civilized and polite, but in my opinion those are the primary drivers(it isn't like I'm breaking new ground here, we've discussed this a few times on the board).

You're right, of course. I do remember seeing both of those points discussed before.

Sometimes it seems that the Fox News division is actually more forthcoming about criticizing Trump's misstatements and failings than the supposedly more liberal media outlets. Chris Wallace, for example, has not been particularly shy about criticizing Trump or his advisors and aides when he thinks they mispoke or messed up.

I'll have to take your word for, I avoid the big 3 outlets like the plague. I might point out that one commentator on an entire network does not actually make for a balanced broadcast though. I also wonder if they might call out some of the smaller mess ups in order to provide credibility to their defense of the bigger issues at hand.

Also plausible points, and I certainly didn't mean to imply that the occasional criticisms of Trump by some Fox reporters were nearly enough to make for a balanced broadcast.