MudMan

The game has changed because Republicans will stick with the coup party. That's my whole point.

If your political rival is willing to violently disrupt the process when they lose you're not having a fair and free election, and "valid criticism" becomes a distant second priority to... you know, going back to a situation where you get to have a democracy with fair and free elections.

That's the shift the Stewart approach refuses to acknowledge. And when I say "stubbornly naive" I mean that acting under the fiction that the rules are followed and things will behave how they're supposed to can be an inspiring, powerful thing. It can shame those who would flip-flop or gloss over procedure or principle to stick to the norms and conventions that keep society afloat.

But there's no shaming Trump and no shaming the trumpists. And if you're still hoping to inspire them into reasonableness when the death cult of the rapist orange fascist is actively telling you... what is it this week? That he will fund a completely unaccountable Gestapo? Well, you're being idealist right into democracy's collapse.

And to be clear, I'm not worried about your vote. I'm worried about the vote of the people who haven't gotten the memo, or are in the process of sliding down the spiral of fascism but aren't there yet. And I'm sure worried about the Rashida Tlaibs and the Berniebros and the leftists who will gladly butcher anything short of ideological purity and stay at home because "nobody has earned their trust".

If you or Stewart think voting for Biden exempts you from being part of that issue.... well, it doesn't. It doesn't under normal circumstances, arguably, but right now we're very far from that point. It's not like this hasn't happened before. That's why I keep going back to "but her emails". Was it valid criticism? Yes. Did it kill thousands of people during the pandemic? Also yes.

Is the tradeoff worth it? What will the "it's reasonable to ask if Biden is too old" body count be?

Yeah, I keep hearing the "you don't get how big it is" thing, too.

I get how big it is.

European agriculture workers just reversed EU-wide policy as recently as last week by blocking major roads throughout the continent with tractors. They didn't even agree with each other (half those guys are pissed at the other guys for being too competitive), and the regulations they opposed were climate protection regulations, among other more reasonable things, so this isn't necessarily a feel-good story.

But they won.

They didn't even have to try that hard, honestly. Besides mild traffic jams and some tense standoffs with police it was all pretty mild. And yet politicians across the entire continent, over multiple countries, were terrified of the optics of working class people protesting in loose coordination, especially with right wing parties trying to co-opt their anger.

I get how big it is. The size is not the reason.

Yeah, ok.

I don't want to speak for the OP, but... I'm guessing that's what they're saying.

I mean, this issue is not on the ballot elsewhere. Even conservatives who are actively trying to dismantle public health care won't dare suggest that they want less public health care. At most they'll tell you they found ways to invest more and then turn around and give that money to private managers. You certainly broke through the propaganda. I don't think I've spoken to an American anywhere who has made a case for the current health care system. Polls suggest this issue, among other "aren't Americans weird" stuff are wildly impopular with the actual population.

But I also constantly hear from Americans that it's impossible to turn it around, that candidates who support these common sense moves are unelectable and that there is nothing they could ever do about it.

That part is what I don't get. I mean, I'm familiar with elections not going my way, it happens to everybody, but holy crap. There's a reason why this is not on the ballot elsewhere. You wouldn't need an election to figure this out. Even in countries with the bare minimum of democratic guarantees and no money you would have the mother of all endless riots under these circumstances.

Me, personally, I'm not so much judgemental of the American public as I am baffled at their defeatism and conformism.

To be clear, I think being part of the problem isn't the same as being malicious, hostile or stupid. I think being stubbornly naive about the system working the way it's supposed to has its uses. It's a powerful tool to get the corrupt to shy away from breaking the rules if enough people assume the rules will be followed.

But I also think we punched through that wall like a bunker buster dropping from orbit years ago and a lot of the US is a toad that has been simmered to being full-on al dente by this point. Well meaning people hoping to get through this as if it's... you know, an actual democratic election are part of the problem despite themselves.

Honestly? The real feeling I get from this is being scared for the future. I do know that there are powerful forces seeing a business opportunity in that status quo that can be exported. And you can see the impetus towards eroding the safety nets here following marching orders from the far right, anarchocapitalist mothership all throughout the world. In some of the countries I've lived in there is already a push towards this model, just moderated by the existence of some sort of universal health care. Sure, even the bare minimum of public service care takes a TON of the edge off. Those ER bills are what some of my friends in those places paid for, say, having major surgery or good care while having a baby... but it's a slippery slope.

Best guess, the left of the democrats in the primaries, for a start.

It's not that you lack politicians who agree with the changes that are needed, it's that they are seen as less electable than the guy who did tons of fraud and at least one confirmed rape, somehow. I don't know that Americans are "bad people", but the fact that these common sense positions aren't the default, centrist view across both major parties is baffling.

It's a clumsy way to put it, but it's not wrong that the lack of universal consensus around these things in the US is confusing and unreasonable.

Stewart wasn't retired, mind you. He's had a show for the past two years. He only recently got cancelled for speaking of subjects Apple didn't like.

Also, please don't rehash our conversation. It's still written up there. The only possible purpose of that exercise is to put together a straw man. I remember what I said.

You could have skipped to the last line, which is where we disagree and where I think democrats and their larger sphere of influence are repeating a catastrophic mistake.

He's a campaign staffer. You're a campaign staffer. Everybody is a campaign staffer until such time as the opposing force isn't a fascist cult of personality.

If you don't see that, you're part of the problem. If Stewart is back to pretending that he can "restore sanity" by acting as if the other side had legitimate concerns that should be heard, he's part of the problem. That's not the game we're playing anymore. If you didn't realize the rules had changed when Trump won the first time, surely you must have noticed after January 6th, or when the poll numbers of the, again, actual rapist refused to climb down.

So no, his honest statements aren't irrelevant. They're a drop in a pond of, once again, information warfare. The wilful blind spots and bothsideism may be naivete or disingenuous misinformation, but my entire point is at this stage it doesn't mater. They don't belong. We're past those. You either play the game we're all playing or you're playing for the other guys.

Yes. I don't care about his mind.

He can speak his mind at home. He's been doing that for years.

Can we at least agree that Stewart's mind has many things in it, and choosing to turn a specific one into a TV show is a conscious decision? I'm not gonna convince you that we should be treating this entire election as an act of information warfare at all times, that much is clear, but man, for the sake of a shared reality, at least let me shake off the blindfold where framing is a random event and the most notorious political voice in a generation lacks any sort of influence.

If Jon Stewart doesn't shape the political viewpoint of at least some liberals, then what the hell is he doing on TV? He can't possibly be "injecting sanity into the discussion" and also be a completely harmless, neutral event in the political conversation.

Trump is just as old. Ask a Republican, a conservative pundit or a vaguely conservative voter and Trump is the peak of the human form, strong as an oak and in full posession of superhuman intellectual prowess.

You want to complain that a candidate is old? That's the one you are supposed to be focusing on.

For the record, Sanders didn't criticise Clinton. His followers did. Ruthlessly. Constantly. With this exact playbook. He tried to stop them and we all realized in horror he couldn't. The berniebros didn't lose the 2016 election, because they didn't really influence much either way, but they sure as hell didn't help.

What nobody is saying is that if you go into a test with a near-empty ink cartridge your hipsterism has outpaced your skill.

Refill that stuff going in or bring a second pen, you pleb.

Dragged out by whom?

Because we all watched and nobody did anything meaningful. The trumpies didn't even win the last election and were willing to overrun the Capitol to complain about it being stolen. At some point all the violent fantasies have to either trigger some action or get realistic.

For now with "everybody shut up about Biden's age and go vote when the time comes" I'd be just fine. Because, in case we forget in all the fervor, that stuff would also not have been a problem had Cinton won.

It's intentional from the Republicans, and that's fair.

It's the amount of slack and the "just asking questions" and the "it's reasonable criticism" from the centre and the far left that is the problem. Trump is running after having judges confirm that he raped a woman, committed fraud and tried to commit a coup, and the entire party and their base rallies around him against all evidence.

Biden is old and Clinton was moderately technically clumsy and the dem base is out there going "huh, maybe you make some fine points, actual fascists".

It is infuriating. It'd be funny if it weren't terrifying.