The presidency? I have no idea who's going to win . . . but . . . .

Socialists/Communists have always known that the key to moving people away from Capitalism is to get their hands on educating just one generation of children. Control education of the young and you control what society believes.

So, yes, perhaps conservative thought and the idea of America and the the Constitution being good things is quickly becoming "out of step", but we also know why that is the case.

Did you ever analyze why you believe the things which you "know" are true? What and who influenced your certainty that what you know is good for the country just because it is "in step" with what most of the people around you believe? (Those are rhetorical questions - I'm not needing an answer.)

 

If Biden wins, the country is going to be dive bombed by Kamala-kaze.

 

I personally don't care who wins, I'm so tired of listening to the DNC cry I wish Trump would tell the whole country to kiss his ass and go relax like billionaires should do.. This country deserves the likes of Biden, it's pretty clear the old way of hard work and achievement is so out of the realm of the democrat party it would be a perfect time to let them see what and how far they will get spending other peoples money

 

I very much believe that the Constitution is a document worth protecting. And I believe America is a good country - and I think it can be even better.
Do you hate your child if you tell the child he can do better at something?

 

Until Democrats loudly and definitely denounce the Far Left's infiltration of their party, then my opinion is that the Democrat Party is a danger to America. The Far Left does not believe the Constitution is a document worth protecting, they are gaining power under the "Democrat's umbrella", and the more moderate Democrats within the party are turning a blind eye to that.

Articles like this one are creating discomfort and disdain from liberals who will "unhappily vote for Trump".

https://newrepublic.com/article/159823/constitution-crisis-supreme-court



This was the straw which broke the camel's back for James Lindsay. He is part of a group of academic intellectuals, and Liberal/Democrat ideologists, who have been discussing the destructive cultural issues being brought into America right now by the "woke" crowd. They have been dismayed that the classically liberal Democrats are doing nothing to stop the madness.

If Trump is reelected, the tipping point of voters may be Liberal Democrat "InCons" (Involuntary Conservatives) who do believe that the Constitution is worth preserving and do believe that America is a good country.


https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1318590052511854594

Lindsay got so much heat from the Cancel Culture (Far Left) as well as from moderate Democrats after publicly announcing he will vote Trump (though he was an adamant anti-Trumper up until this summer), that he felt compelled to record this one-hour explanation of his thought process.

If you actually care about the Constitution and this country as a Democrat, you should give an hour of your time to listen to this reasoned logic about why Trump is a bad choice, but Biden is a worse choice for the longer-term future of the country.

 

Do you want your white child to be taught they are inherently racist because they are white? Do you want your black, brown or yellow child to be taught that America is and always has been against them and that they will always be oppressed by America because they are black, brown or yellow?

Do we as a country want to raise children who are either perpetually ashamed of America because they are white, or perpetually feel like victims of America because they are not white? Will that education create a culture which loves the country and it's Constitution?

Again, rhetorical. Not expecting an answer. Just hoping you give it some thought.

 

this has been covered before.

Liberals want you to think like they do.
Conservatives just want you to think.

 

Very good point!

 

Good points. I have adjusted my portfolio for a contested election and a Biden win. I think forced mail in ballots will end up being a gift for Trump.

Since I live in CA, nothing will change for me regardless of who wins.

 

I haven't adjusted the 401K yet, wife wants to let it ride, we pulled about 40% out, but I'm wanting to set more on the side & wait.

What did you do to prepare for a contested election?

 

Given it's very rare the incumbent president loses re-election, I would hazard to guess Trump would win. But...who the hell really knows. No matter who wins there are going to be lots of very bummed people their guy didn't win. Wish I could see any of those reactions in real time.

 

Voters are already disenfranchised via the EC, a liberal in Mississippi has no reason to vote for president nor does a conservative in California. Any system that pushes people not to vote because their voice is ignored is bad imo.

Democrats and independents have been against the EC for several decades, Republicans were against it until recently when they saw it is the only way for them to win the presidency. It is the same with gerrymandering.

The EC worked when we were independent states, both parties have seen to it that we are no longer and are instead one uniform mass for the most part. I would fully support taking us back to what the framers intended but until that occurs the people need direct representation.

 

I went heavy on precious metals, tax exempt muni bonds, and gun manufacturer stocks!

 

I've been personally sloppy in the use of the word "Liberals" as a blanket catch all for anyone left-of-center. However, I have been listening quite closely to Liberal intellectuals since George Floyd's death. There is reason to separate "Liberals" from the "Far Left", even though most of us don't do so. It's sort of the same as "Liberals" who do not separate more classically liberal Conservatives and Libertarians from the Far Right extremists.

The idea of America as a country of individual rights and freedoms, where all people are treated equally, is a classically liberal ideology regardless of party.

The Far Left certainly does not only want, but demand, that everyone must think like they do. It's easy to project that onto everyone in the Democrat Party because the Democrat leaders and their media are pretending like the Far Left doesn't exist.

The academics I've been listening to this summer do make me take heart that there are still Democrats who do love the country and who do believe in the Constitution. These people are not politicians and are not involved in distributing biased partisan media. They are simply having conversations out of concern for the future of the country. While they do see Trump as an authoritarian threat, for the most part they agree with the right about the current extreme danger of totalitarian ideology from the Far Left.

Anyway, they seem to be coming to a conclusion that this election is between short term right-wing authoritarianism with four more years of Trump (and then he's gone) and the advancement toward the Far Left's totalitarianism under a Biden administration, which Biden is ill-equipped to even try to stop if he wanted to.

We shouldn't be so hard on "Liberals" as a whole. The thinking "InCon" Liberals just might save the Republic.

 

yes, thanks for the correction of my broad brush statement, I actually looked at that when I hit post reply the first time but was too lazy to correct my statement.

With that said, I agree, the dem's and the media together are pretending the far left isn't an issue. Hell they were desperate to try to twist and tangle the "peaceful" protests into a ball and blame the far right or the govt for their actions. For example just yesterday on GMA Michael strahan did the air quotes when discussing "peaceful' protests after his interview with the B.Brown officer trying to twist the words on one of his emails into a negative, when it was obvious (to me at least) exactly what the dude was talking about. I turned off GMA about 30 seconds after that because it was a pathetic attempt at discounting and deflecting away from what some people on the far left have done.

 

As mentioned, Democrats are opposed to the EC until it works for them, then they aren't....and vice versa.

The only people who want a popular vote and mob rule are the Socialists and Communists. If you do not associate with either of those labels and believe that the popular vote is "better", then you have been lulled into their rhetoric of indoctrination and don't realize it.

Democrats in Mississippi and Republicans in California are not disenfranchised by the EC. They are disenfranchised because they are outnumbered by the other party voters in their own states. It's really that simple.

The popular vote is what might created "one uniform mass" in the country. The EC prevents that.

People in each state have direct representation of the party voted in by the majority of voters in that state (the popular vote). That is your pure democracy. If you live in a state (or city) where the majority party by popular vote is not your party, and it is negatively impacting your life, you can move.

If there is a winner, there is going to be a loser. No way around that. It is better to have winners/losers by popular vote at the city level, followed by popular vote at the state level, than to use the popular vote at the federal level which would be punitive to the loser AND leave them with nowhere to run (move).

How can you be upset that the statewide popular vote disenfranchises members of the "out" party and then advocate for a national popular vote?

 

when I was poking around for gun manufacturer stock symbols a couple months back there was only Ruger and S&W.
I didn't buy either at the time, which turned out to be a decent idea, they were peaking at that moment, at least Ruger was, and S&W was double its value back in June. I ended up jumping on the bitcoin/blockchain train and that's been a rollercoaster.

 

We all use "Liberal" and "Conservative" broadly here. It's easy to do...and easier to mud-sling here on a forum where political divisions appear to be more extreme than they mostly are in real life conversations where we can add nuance.

I cut the cable about 12 years ago and don't watch much "news" from MSM on either side. Listening to more academic thinkers and to podcasts from people who like to talk to Liberals and Conservatives as equally valuable people, whether they agree or not, might make me an oddball, but it is giving me the perspective of optimism that perhaps America will be okay.

Most people I've been paying attention to seem to be agreeing that today's media, followed by our own elected officials, are the chief culprits in dividing Americans against ourselves. But how do you get people to believe that "their" media (or possibly their political favorite) is lying to them?

 

My oldest son did okay with cryptocurrency. I do watch it, but don't feel comfortable putting any money in. Letting it ride is fine if you have time.

 

Do you have a source for this? Because the polling I have seen shows the only party that likes the EC is Republicans and it is only recently once they became uncompetitive with direct voter metrics.

A majority of independents support elimination of the EC as well as the vast majority of Democrats and near 40% of Republicans, are all of these people “Socialists and Communists”? Buzz words do not help your point.

Which disenfranchises their voices on the national level which impacts their lives much more than state laws do.

Government has already done that, the people just have no say.

The United States is not a Democracy and it is moving further and further away from representation of the people.

Can you move away from Federal judges that influence laws although the individual that placed them has never had popular majority support, was elected by less than 1/3 of the people and may be about to be voted out of office?

If you have to ask how making pools of voter groups and then averaging them leads to less representation than a direct vote than I don’t believe I can explain it to you.

 

In relative terms it will happen soon enough anyway. At most Trump is nothing more than a temporary speed bump in the endless downward slide that the Left is pushing us along; and four years from now it's pretty much a given that the nation will return to the hands of leftists . . . um, if; that is, Trump wins this re-election bid.

 

There have been, and will be, periods in history when the majority of the people may make decisions which are not actually in their own best interests (nor in anyone else's best interest) dependent upon the fashions, fancies and trends of the day. The electoral college serves as a buffer against the highs and lows of extremes, particularly extremes of emotions.

So you can take a poll by popular vote today and ask for a popular majority opinion on whether the electoral college should be abolished and the popular majority says "yes". We may be in a period when the majority is not functioning rationally for their own best interests.

The electoral vote does not take a simple average of the popular votes of each state, as you are well aware. A weighted average where states with higher total populations (citizens and non-citizen population) have more electoral votes than states with lower populations is quite fair.

We're in a period of extreme and excitable unrest right now, unlike any since the 1960's. This is not a good time for either party to push for major changes in the structure of our system. We saw great changes in the country in the 1960's-70's by changing people minds without changing the institutional system. Change hearts and minds with truly better political ideas (and better candidates on both sides). Leave the system alone. The stalemate will shake out soon, one way or the other and the best ideas will win.

 

Sadly it just may require a crash and burn to wake people up, won't be pretty though.

 

That was not the intention of the EC — it also doesn’t do that currently. You act as if it currently stalls periods of extreme ideology, it doesn’t. Things like requiring 3/4 of a chamber to advance legislation does that. Instead it just allows a minority party to push their own version of an extreme ideology.

Of course, you — and your party — are the ones that get to determine what is in the best interests of the nation. How convenient.
There is a word for that, a few of them actually. I wonder if you even hear what you are saying.

When a person can cross state lines and their vote is weighted 3.6 times more that is a flawed system.
No one’s vote should counter almost four other voters.

Yeh, people don’t having their voices nullified by a archaic system and then being mocked over it for four years. I see many trump banners saying “f*** your feelings” or various other fun slogans and the right cheers because their reality TV star “trolls” half the nation...

Who knew that would cause unrest?

The problem with the EC is the best ideas do not win, it allows the second best ideas to win — in a duopoly second best is also known as the worst.

What would allow the best ideas to win? A third party, a fourth party, a fifth party
What would allow that? Ranked choice voting

 

There's no accounting for the position people will take once they start buying into the thinking of the left-liberals-democrats. It becomes so unrealistic you have to ask yourself how it's even possible to deny the incredible diversion of the left, at the same time grossly exaggerate the flaws of the right, and manufacture reasons to denigrate them. Sane people- logical people- run into psychological red flags if they try to do that and they clearly understand they are going off the rails.

I fully understand that many people object to Trump's personality faults. I object to them. But those are not the things that make him what he is, except in the eyes of people who see nothing else- and you can readily see their ability to control themselves is poor, just by the fact that a Trump tweet can set them off on another rant. That's a person being run by emotions, not by reason or logic.

Trump's purpose and objectives are fine with me- and were with most democrats until they got allowed the lib thinking and radicals to infiltrate them and take over. Now, they don't really have a platform. It would be folly to trust them to do anything on the basis of respecting the constitution, of maintaining law and order while working on improving the nation. None of what they are about today supports those actions. Everything Trump is about does.

WHAT you use to provide a basis for judgment matters greatly. HOW you go about trying to solve problems matters greatly. You do not pass laws, trash values and go about fixing something that's not broke... Unless you don't know any better. Children usually don't know better, which is why good parents teach them too. Today, we have a lot of adult children whose parents failed to do that job- and now they think their ideas are good just because they are their ideas. The don't look ahead, they don't learn from history, they don't learn from the failures of others around the world that chased the same wild ideas.

Thus- A vote for Trump IS a vote for sanity and improving the nation- and a vote not for Trump IS a vote for whatever lame idea flies through the cookoo's nest of the left tomorrow.
It IS an Intelligence test. A Maturity test. A Character test. A Morals test.

Yes, wow. That's what it is. It's unfortunate you are apparently unable to understand the larger picture.