Biden vs. Trump debate

[hollodero]

(07-02-2024, 10:57 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Did you see any military participation? 
Maybe I missed that report from MSM.

Well, no. I for one question whether the involvement of the military is necessary to use the term "coup". What word would you prefer to describe demonstrable attempts from a president to turn unfavorable election results around? Detached from Trump, just to establish a terminology.

[Dill]

(07-02-2024, 10:39 AM)M Wrote: After several years it was still a big money sink, we needed to get out. I know you love to blame Trump, but Biden could have reversed course and didn't.

Rather than just repeating that I "like to blame Trump," tell me what's wrong with my analysis?

Trump went to the Taliban to discuss US withdrawal and cut the A-stan Government out of the loop True or false? 
The government rapidly collapsed after that. True or false?
That collapse affected the exit under Biden. True or false?

(07-02-2024, 10:39 AM)M Wrote: Coup again, why are you changing it to a coup? It was clearly not a coup. But i know it fits your narrative to keep calling it that. It was a peaceful protest that turned into a riot. People on the left keep trying to change it to make it appear worse than what it was. So everytime now you call it a coup, i'm going to correct you. *god this could take a whle.

I know you love to exonerate Trump from blame.

Clearly it fits your narrative to claim that an attempt to remain in power after losing an election is not a coup.

So correct this--Trump and his staff and the RNC in 7 states forged a list of Trump electoral votes to be presented to Pence during certification--at the same time the mob reached the Capitol.  True or False. Do I have that wrong?

[Dill]

(07-02-2024, 10:57 AM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Did you see any military participation? 
Maybe I missed that report from MSM.

Maybe you missed the definition of a coup? 

Andy Craig from the CATO Institute walks us through the definition of "coup" as Political Scientists understand and use the term. Here are some excerpts.
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Yes, It Was an Attempted Coup: Getting this right isn’t just semantics. It’s also crucial to how we respond to what happened.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/yes-it-was-attempted-coup#

...Too Stupid To Be a Coup?

Writing for the Mercatus Center’s Discourse magazine, Michael J. Ard offers a reasonable case against calling Jan. 6 a coup attempt. Unlike some, he is not at all interested in minimizing or excusing what happened that day or how Trump incited it. Rather, his argument is that the whole affair was simply too disorganized, delusional and poorly planned to count as a real, serious attempted coup. As Ard puts it, “We know that this Trumpian ‘coup attempt’ depended on arcane procedures and ‘magical thinking’ and was ill‐conceived and poorly coordinated.”

...But none of those aspects, as such, really preclude the label “coup attempt.” To reach a conclusion on that, we must look at the goals of the plot, not the competence with which it was executed. In short, the riot at the Capitol cannot be considered in isolation.

...To start, we need some definition of a coup and thus what it means to attempt one. A reasonable starting point would be the extra‐legal seizure of power. The end goal of a coup is placing some person or group of people in control of the state—specifically, people who would not otherwise be in that position under the uninterrupted operation of existing constitutional law. The two irreducible elements are the seizure of power and doing so unlawfully.

That, however, leaves things too broad. We do not speak of the American Revolution as a coup; it was a revolution. A coup takes place on a smaller scale, though the boundary is admittedly fuzzy. Coups are typically brief in time—hours, days, perhaps weeks at the most. And they are committed by a relatively small number of people at or near the seat of power. A coup is less about occupying territory, as one might in a war, and more about assuming physical control of the seat of government.

Most often, this involves the military, not just in acquiescing to the result but in actively producing it. Still, a military coup is not the only kind of coup. A palace coup, for example, might involve only the support of the palace guard. And a coup might not even involve those currently holding government offices at all, if we regard a putsch as a kind of coup, which it is usually reckoned to be.

Nor does a coup necessarily involve violence, though the threat of it is there, as it always is behind state power. This possibility is particularly relevant for the kind of coup we speak of when it comes to Trump: an auto‐coup, in which an incumbent head of state leads a coup against the existing constitutional order. Such coups are often examples of a bloodless coup, though not always. Bloodless coups do happen and are generally recognized as still falling under the label “coup.”

It’s the Goal, Not the Competence

After the 2020 U.S. presidential election was over, and at the very latest, after the Electoral College had voted in mid‐December and all of Trump’s court appeals had been exhausted, there was never any legal way for Trump to remain in power. It is this aspect of the events of Jan. 6 that makes referring to that day as a mere riot insufficient. “Riot” fails to convey the scope and gravity of the matter.

The United States did indeed suffer an attempted coup at the hands of the former president, but this coup attempt was not limited to what was done by the mob of Trump supporters at the Capitol. Rather, the entire effort to overturn the election was an attempted coup. Jan. 6 was its culmination but also the moment of its final failure, after which its leader admitted defeat and effectively surrendered, conceding that the lawful transfer of power would take place.

This broader understanding of the attempted coup even includes the hypothetical scenario in which Congress somehow sided with the objections made by Sens. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and other dead‐end Trump supporters in Congress to counting electoral votes from disputed states. This gambit might have observed the form of a legislative procedure—a hollow imitation of lawfulness. But it would have been entirely illegitimate and unconstitutional all the same, a violation of not only the statutory Electoral Count Act, but also, more importantly, the legitimate powers of Congress under the Constitution.

Such a hypothetical outcome would not have constituted a “non‐coup” route to keeping Trump in power; it would have merely represented congressional complicity in a successful coup.
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................

And the recent SCOTUS ruling, aptly named Trump vs the US, pretty much insures Trump will never be held accountable for his coup attempt.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(07-02-2024, 11:06 AM)hollodero Wrote: Well, no. I for one question whether the involvement of the military is necessary to use the term "coup". What word would you prefer to describe demonstrable attempts from a president to turn unfavorable election results around? Detached from Trump, just to establish a terminology.

I think a large part of the disconnect regarding how to define the events of 01/06 and other attempts is that the Dems grossly overstate how serious the event was while Trump supporters grossly understates the events.  Also, while there were certainly participants who knew what they were doing was wrong, there was a sizeable contingent who legitimately believed the election was stolen, a coup as well.

Of the two groups I think the election stealers side is the more egregious one, but both groups really muddy the waters which, ironically rather downplays the events overall.

[Mike M (the other one)]

(07-02-2024, 10:49 AM)BigPapaKain Wrote: So you're blaming Biden for Trump slow playing Covid, letting it run rampant, and then telling his cultists to not take the vaccines?

The early vaccine was far from perfect, people were still getting it multiple times that did take it. 
I didn't get the vaccine early on, and I didn't get it that whole time, til Jr went back to school in 2021, then he got it and brought it home to me and i did get 2x from that and was already vaccinated by that point as well. 

So my opinion is that it was rushed, and wasn't as effective and we were led to believe, but each to his own there.

[Dill]

(07-02-2024, 12:03 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I think a large part of the disconnect regarding how to define the events of 01/06 and other attempts is that the Dems grossly overstate how serious the event was while Trump supporters grossly understates the events.  Also, while there were certainly participants who knew what they were doing was wrong, there was a sizeable contingent who legitimately believed the election was stolen, a coup as well.

Of the two groups I think the election stealers side is the more egregious one, but both groups really muddy the waters which, ironically rather downplays the events overall.

How does one "overstate" an attempted coup, the first in US history?   

And duped Trump supporters "legitimately" believed the election was stolen?

You present yourself as occupying some balanced middle ground, separate from "both sides" who "muddy the waters," 
while yourself consistently "downplay[ing] the events overall," elsewhere regularly comparing the Capitol riot to George Floyd protests in Portland
and Minneapolis, exactly as "one side" does. Imagine a general who cannot see the threat differential between an attack on his own command center
and an attack on an outpost.

Seems to me more likely that a large segment of the population then and now has not grasped the implications of an attack on the foundational
legitimizing act of democratic government. Or they do and don't care. They are prepared to put the attacker back in office with greatly enhanced 
power, knowing his penchant for criminal, anti-democratic behavior.  

[Dill]

(07-02-2024, 01:05 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: The early vaccine was far from perfect, people were still getting it multiple times that did take it. 
I didn't get the vaccine early on, and I didn't get it that whole time, til Jr went back to school in 2021, then he got it and brought it home to me and i did get 2x from that and was already vaccinated by that point as well. 

So my opinion is that it was rushed, and wasn't as effective and we were led to believe, but each to his own there.

You may have misunderstood what the vaccines were expected to do.

Medical experts expected the vaccine to reduce the number of people who got sick,
and among those who got sick, to reduce the severity of the disease.  

That's why mortality rates were higher among those who did not get the vaccine. E.g., in Europe, deaths were
reduced 57% between Dec. 2020 and March 2023.  1.4 million lives saved.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.12.24301206v1

232,000 deaths could have been prevented in the US during the same time period, but were not for lack of vaccination.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10123459/

The "rush" to create vaccines saved lives. Anti-vaxx propaganda cost lives.

[FormerlyBengalRugby]

(07-02-2024, 10:49 AM)BigPapaKain Wrote: So you're blaming Biden for Trump slow playing Covid, letting it run rampant, and then telling his cultists to not take the vaccines?

Slandering DJT supporters, who would have guessed people on the left would do that?

Covid was political football, unfortunately, if we recall things properly. Operation Warp Speed than all the democrats panned and saddled with "vaccine hesitancy" and refusals to take the shot, until Joe Biden was in charge, then it flipped the other way. Except I recall DJT getting booed when he spoke in support of taking the covid shot in front of crowds when Joe Biden was President.

I would say they both dropped the ball to different degrees. If you are saying one did worse than the other, how would you qualify that? Some might say DJT did much better because he was working from zero with minimal knowledge of the virus, and Joe Biden took over with accumulated information and orginization for mass injections of the population being in place.


If we are tossing covid stones, also recall extended lock downs and extended time periods of kids taking Zoom classes, with the end result of abysmal test scores for the nations children to quantify the damage done and small businesses closing down.

[FormerlyBengalRugby]

(07-02-2024, 02:04 PM)Dill Wrote: You may have misunderstood what the vaccines were expected to do.

Medical experts expected the vaccine to reduce the number of people who got sick,
and among those who got sick, to reduce the severity of the disease.  

That's why mortality rates were higher among those who did not get the vaccine. E.g., in Europe, deaths were
reduced 57% between Dec. 2020 and March 2023.  1.4 million lives saved.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.01.12.24301206v1

232,000 deaths could have been prevented in the US during the same time period, but were not for lack of vaccination.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10123459/

The "rush" to create vaccines saved lives. Anti-vaxx propaganda cost lives.

Initially everyone was told the shot would stop the transmission of covid and if you had the shot, you could not pass covid on. Pro shot propaganda, proven false.

[HarleyDog]

(07-02-2024, 02:18 PM)FormerlyBengalRugby Wrote: Initially everyone was told the shot would stop the transmission of covid and if you had the shot, you could not pass covid on. Pro shot propaganda, proven false.

The Dems handled Covid the same way they do everything else. By trying to instill fear into the hearts of voters. Their lies cost people lives, jobs, and mental well-being. No different than how they're running the election campaign. 

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(07-02-2024, 01:50 PM)Dill Wrote: How does one "overstate" an attempted coup, the first in US history?

By overstating it.  It being the first does not greaten, or lessen its severity.  If you used a scale from 1-100, 1 being no coup attempt at all and 100 being outright civil war then the Trump attempt would possibly break single digits, and not by much.  It doesn't make it better, but it doesn't make it as bad as people like you prefer to view it.   

Quote:And duped Trump supporters "legitimately" believed the election was stolen?

Of course.  Or are you prescient and know that every single one of them didn't actually believe the election was stolen?  That would be quite impressive.

Quote:You present yourself as occupying some balanced middle ground, separate from "both sides" who "muddy the waters," 
while yourself consistently "downplay[ing] the events overall," elsewhere regularly comparing the Capitol riot to George Floyd protests in Portland
and Minneapolis, exactly as "one side" does. Imagine a general who cannot see the threat differential between an attack on his own command center
and an attack on an outpost.

Yes, if you are on one side and Luvnit is on the other I am most assuredly the "middle ground" as you chose to put it.

Quote:Seems to me more likely that a large segment of the population then and now has not grasped the implications of an attack on the foundational
legitimizing act of democratic government. Or they do and don't care. They are prepared to put the attacker back in office with greatly enhanced 
power, knowing his penchant for criminal, anti-democratic behavior.  

Seems to me you're just as hysterical as those you deride.  It's not just MAGA types who are ready to reinstall Trump as POTUS.  Your complete blindness to that being yet another symptom of your radical leanings.

[Mike M (the other one)]

(07-02-2024, 11:15 AM)Dill Wrote: Rather than just repeating that I "like to blame Trump," tell me what's wrong with my analysis?

Trump went to the Taliban to discuss US withdrawal and cut the A-stan Government out of the loop True or false? 
The government rapidly collapsed after that. True or false?
That collapse affected the exit under Biden. True or false?

Bush and Obama already screwed the Pooch in Afghanistan.

By the time Trump came along, the majority wanted out of the war. 

Biden comes along, who according to you and many others, is very good at Foreign Diplomacy, and just pulls us out as well and then 11 days later, Taliban is back in charge of the country. Biden should have seen that coming and done something to prevent it. Just like how he would have done a better job handling COVID... l

(07-02-2024, 11:15 AM)Dill Wrote: I know you love to exonerate Trump from blame.

Clearly it fits your narrative to claim that an attempt to remain in power after losing an election is not a coup.

So correct this--Trump and his staff and the RNC in 7 states forged a list of Trump electoral votes to be presented to Pence during certification--at the same time the mob reached the Capitol.  True or False. Do I have that wrong?

If it was a coup, why wasn't he tried for attempting a coup? 
He wasn't tried for that at all. 

What he did was stupid, especially with out evidence of his claim.
I guess according to the SCOTUS he was within his rights as a POTUS to do that. 

Some of the problems i have with all of that, is that the Jan 6 Committee was comprised of Dems and Anti-Trumper R's. Apparently things that were originally submitted were missing when an R that supports Trump was promoted to the committee. Now take the simple fact that the media had already been caught lying by this point about Trump. So even though we know some things, just seems that there's more to the picture than we are being told. Otherwise it should have been a 100% slam dunk kinda thing.

Take that how ever  you like but that's my take on that. 

[jmccracky]

So, if it wasn't a coup attempt.....then what would you call it if Pence didn't certify the election? Trump was perty dang pissed at Pence. No matter how you slice it, what Trump did just sowed more division in our country. 20 years ago, anyone left or right or center would not tolerate Trump being mad at the
certification of a democratic election.

I know some are gonna say "But Dems sow division too!", but this post is about Trump.

[Mike M (the other one)]

(07-02-2024, 01:50 PM)Dill Wrote: How does one "overstate" an attempted coup, the first in US history?   

And duped Trump supporters "legitimately" believed the election was stolen?

You present yourself as occupying some balanced middle ground, separate from "both sides" who "muddy the waters," 
while yourself consistently "downplay[ing] the events overall," elsewhere regularly comparing the Capitol riot to George Floyd protests in Portland
and Minneapolis, exactly as "one side" does. Imagine a general who cannot see the threat differential between an attack on his own command center
and an attack on an outpost.

Seems to me more likely that a large segment of the population then and now has not grasped the implications of an attack on the foundational
legitimizing act of democratic government. Or they do and don't care. They are prepared to put the attacker back in office with greatly enhanced 
power, knowing his penchant for criminal, anti-democratic behavior.  

I'll be clearer this time so that you don't have to keep posting. The vaccines felt like a big pharma money grab to me. 

[hollodero]

(07-02-2024, 12:03 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I think a large part of the disconnect regarding how to define the events of 01/06 and other attempts is that the Dems grossly overstate how serious the event was while Trump supporters grossly understates the events.  Also, while there were certainly participants who knew what they were doing was wrong, there was a sizeable contingent who legitimately believed the election was stolen, a coup as well.

Of the two groups I think the election stealers side is the more egregious one, but both groups really muddy the waters which, ironically rather downplays the events overall.

Well, in this instance I feel you are downplaying the events by pointing to others allegedly contributing to said downplaying of the events. Imho, there's a point where Democrats overstating things, groups muddying the waters or the earnesty of the Capitol rioters can not really factor into the evaluation. Which is why I'm rather unconvinced by all those side fronts. Also, I have a hard time accepting the overstating the event's importance part. I can not even imagine that a chancellor here who lost an election would knowingly send violence-prone supporters to our parliament with a stolen election lie, and then would do nothing but send incendiary tweets while the parliament is already stormed and gallows are erected for someone who does not comply with chancellor's unlawful wishes of not certifying the results. This is actually stuff for the history books - including that Trump went off that free of consequence and sailed through the next primary.

The whole picture of the coup attempt, of course, goes even beyond Jan 6 and Trump's deeds and wishes on that day, it's also (and maybe even more clearly) Raffensperger and fake electors and then some. I'm fairly convinced that pretty much everyone would have called these things in their total sum a coup attempt in theory, without knowing about R or D and before they actually took place. It's only now that the R people rather imply that it was not that bad and the real scandal is that Democrats did not let Jim Jordan on the Jan 6 committee etc. All legitimate critizisms of faulty liberal narratives aside, I feel this is an instance where the conservative side deserves critizism for deflecting and belittling Trump's coup attempts by all rhetorical means necessary.

Which is also why I would keep asking what to call a clear effort to overthrow an unfavorable election, if not a coup attempt (eg because the military was not involved or because it did not succeed or whatever reason there is for not calling it a coup). 

[hollodero]

(07-02-2024, 05:07 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: If it was a coup, why wasn't he tried for attempting a coup? 
He wasn't tried for that at all. 

Well, he is prosecuted in Georgia for conspiracy to overturn the election results, and had Mrs. Willis not been so gleefully unprofessional that case might have had a good chance.

And conspiracy to overturn election results, imho, is akin to a coup attempt.

[Luvnit2]

Since my name was interjected by SSF, for the record I have said the election was not stolen by voter fraud. I said it was stolen due to our government working with the DNC to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story. Biden's get handed a letter with 51 signatures saying to not trust the Hunter Biden Laptop as being legit, may be Russian disinformation.

NY Post was banned from Facebook after posting a factual story. Later we find out government was telling social media to be on alert for Russian disinformation. So, 2 times Russia was inserted by Democrats to change the direction of an election.

Now fast forward and NY Post was correct and all the social media companies who banned the HB laptop story were wrong. But our government n=knew the truth about the HB laptop being legit a year prior to October 2020, yet let the letter speak to the public as truth.

How is that not taking sides and election interference by the US government?

[HarleyDog]

(07-02-2024, 07:21 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: Since my name was interjected by SSF, for the record I have said the election was not stolen by voter fraud. I said it was stolen due to our government working with the DNC to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story. Biden's get handed a letter with 51 signatures saying to not trust the Hunter Biden Laptop as being legit, may be Russian disinformation.

NY Post was banned from Facebook after posting a factual story. Later we find out government was telling social media to be on alert for Russian disinformation. So, 2 times Russia was inserted by Democrats to change the direction of an election.

Now fast forward and NY Post was correct and all the social media companies who banned the HB laptop story were wrong. But our government n=knew the truth about the HB laptop being legit a year prior to October 2020, yet let the letter speak to the public as truth.

How is that not taking sides and election interference by the US government?

[FormerlyBengalRugby]

(07-02-2024, 07:21 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: Since my name was interjected by SSF, for the record I have said the election was not stolen by voter fraud. I said it was stolen due to our government working with the DNC to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story. Biden's get handed a letter with 51 signatures saying to not trust the Hunter Biden Laptop as being legit, may be Russian disinformation.

NY Post was banned from Facebook after posting a factual story. Later we find out government was telling social media to be on alert for Russian disinformation. So, 2 times Russia was inserted by Democrats to change the direction of an election.

Now fast forward and NY Post was correct and all the social media companies who banned the HB laptop story were wrong. But our government n=knew the truth about the HB laptop being legit a year prior to October 2020, yet let the letter speak to the public as truth.

How is that not taking sides and election interference by the US government?

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(07-02-2024, 07:21 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: Since my name was interjected by SSF, for the record I have said the election was not stolen by voter fraud. I said it was stolen due to our government working with the DNC to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story. Biden's get handed a letter with 51 signatures saying to not trust the Hunter Biden Laptop as being legit, may be Russian disinformation.

NY Post was banned from Facebook after posting a factual story. Later we find out government was telling social media to be on alert for Russian disinformation. So, 2 times Russia was inserted by Democrats to change the direction of an election.

Now fast forward and NY Post was correct and all the social media companies who banned the HB laptop story were wrong. But our government n=knew the truth about the HB laptop being legit a year prior to October 2020, yet let the letter speak to the public as truth.

How is that not taking sides and election interference by the US government?

Dude, fair enough.  I retract the comparison in this regard.  In your case at least.