America III: Going Deutsche

[nonny]

$70,000 on hair styling... Did I read that right?

Because hmm I find that really hard to believe.

[Mayhem]

You think it should be a lot higher?

[Asura]

You think it should be a lot higher?

Maybe.

$40 for the hairpiece, and the other 69k-odd for having to physically interact with Donald Trump.

[Cassius_Smoke]

I can't imagine Elton John's wigs cost that much and they are like 1000% better then Trump's **** hair.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/29/us-debate-trump-biden-latest-2020-presidential-news

You couldn't say that Biden won the debate last night but as both he and Trump debated numerous subjects it was clearly a fail for Trump who nagged and lied and spat his dummy like a petulant child in a performance that played straight to the darkest corners of his base but offered nothing to convince the fence voters he so desperately needs. The biggest take away for him was that he appeared to support and co-opt the white supremacist movement and the Proud Boys group as he scrambled every lie he could due to his inability to pin Biden down.

[Dogg Thang]

I wonder if that will affect his more moderate racist xenophobic voter base. The centrist white supremacists.

[MartyG]

You seem to be conflating Trump's rabid core supporters (which are not in enough number to give him the presidency), with moderate Republicans voters (of which there are many about 14 % of the voting population). They aren't supporting Trump, they're supporting Republicans and holding their nose. There are less of them and every time Trump does stupid things, it chips away more and more at the nagging doubt, that smell starts getting up the nostrils.

Campaigning works. If it didn't, candidates wouldn't be spending the millions and millions of dollars it costs them.

No one here is suggesting that white supremacists are moderates in any way.

[Dogg Thang]

They aren't supporting Trump, they're supporting Republicans and holding their nose.

While they support Trump. There is no other way to look at it. They may put on a pretense of holding their nose but, if you support a white supremacist, I don't think you get to call yourself moderate. The idea that politics has shifted so far that someone who supports, validates or even just ignores that could possibly be seen as moderate is abhorrent. And to me, simply incorrect. I don't think we'll ever agree on this, Marty.

[MartyG]

Probably not, but that is simply what the definition of a moderate is - it's not my definition, it's how US politics works. Things are never that black and white - the support from that moderate section has been melting away - best way to stem that flow is by telling them they're morons, lumping everyone together in that way is stereotyping in the same way lumping all Muslims as terrorists. It's far more complex than that.

[Dogg Thang]

It's not stereotyping if they get out of their homes and vote for a white supremacist who has done all Trump has done. I'm not judging based on appearance, race, background, height, salary or anything else. I'm judging on their action. And yeah, at this point, I absolutely will lump Trump voters together because what they do speaks volumes.

[MartyG]

It's still a stereotype if distilled into an oversimplification of a particular type of person - I definitely agree that voting for Trump is bewildering given what we've seen, but to say everyone is voting for Trump because they're white supremicists is stereotyping them. 28% of the hispanic women voted for him in 2016.

I'd definitely go with the idea that all white supremacists vote for Trump - forget these people, they won't be convinced - but if you want the others to shift camp, you're not going to achieve that by lumping them in with that group and calling them racists.

[Dogg Thang]

It's still a stereotype if distilled into an oversimplification of a particular type of person - I definitely agree that voting for Trump is bewildering given what we've seen, but to say everyone is voting for Trump because they're white supremicists is stereotyping them. 28% of the hispanic women voted for him in 2016. .

I'm saying everyone who votes for Trump has to be okay with his white supremacism. It's not a dealbreaker for them, nor is a single other thing about him. This is the thing, Marty - we're dealing with actions here. His and then those who will vote for him regardless. That 'regardless' is a choice that says a lot about a person.

[cutmymilk]

I'd be shocked if Trump loses based purely on the reaction to The Rock's Twitter post backing Biden.

[MartyG]

Or they're simply unsure or unaware of what white supremacy is, or believe it to be less of an issue due to the media they consume - again, if you lump them in with those that really are in that group by telling them they're racist, you're going to have a much harder time convincing them otherwise, it further reinforces the idea that they're being lied to by certain branches of the media, they know they're not white supremacists, but they're being told that they are.

There are many problems in the US, Trump isn't the cause of most of them but a symptom of a much wider rift in society - last time Trump gave them hope that he could change things by breaking the system. The reality is he's part of that system - that's been exposed for all to see the last four years. It has chipped away at the support from his less traditional base - those that voted for him last time who were on the fence are who you need to be targetting with your messaging.

Trump won by a very very very slim margin last time and lost the populate vote by a huge one. Everything is pointing to him losing this time around, this is why the Republican party has been doing everything in its power to try and subvert the election, such as trying to rush through the supreme court pick should vote counts be disputed, or suppressing postal votes and minority voters - Trump knows he's going to struggle to win this fairly so he's stacking the deck. There are still wavering voters and Biden is being careful not to call them out for voting for Trump in 2016, he doesn't have to convice all of them, just enough.

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah, I just pretty much disagree with that. And I guess as a wider point, see the danger of adopting what seems like a 'centrist' view in a climate where the power currently lies in the hands of those who swing very far right because that centre swings right with it and is a path to extremism itself. It allows it, it refuses to challenge it, it validates it. It's happened before and it will happen again.

But we're very clearly on a different page on all this.