Upcoming election 2024: Donald Trump vs Kamala Harris, who are you voting for and why? If you're not based in the US, who would you choose and why? Historically it seems most of SEN is liberal, but nonetheless, I'm curious to hear peoples' stance on the current political scene in the US.

liberal? You don't have to go that far. Just don't vote psychopaths

I am looking forward for these elections to be over so my subreddits don't keep getting spammed with them!

If I was American, here is who I would vote for: Kamala. Why?

1. She is a black woman - get that checkbox crossed off. Never before had a female President. It will be a big moment in history and who knows maybe the feminine take will end up improving the country in ways never thought possible.
2. She is young - Trump is like ancient as shit. What is he, pushing 80? That's insane. Why would you want some doddering old fool with that much power? You already had to endure multiple years of that shit with Biden. You really want to go through that again?
3. Okay these reasons aren't for Kamala but they're anti Trump, which in an election is kind of the same thing: Trump is now a convicted criminal. Not a good look. He lies a lot, I mean WAY more than the usual for a politician. He lies blatantly about things that are dangerous to lie about - like that the elections were rigged somehow, even though multiple independent sources have verified they were not. That is dangerous as shit as it undermines the entire democratic process. Additionally, Putin and Xi Pin seem to love him, which should set off major alarm bells. If the biggest enemies of the free world love him why does that not freak you the hell out? Can you imagine how long Trump would have lasted during the Red Scare years? What the hell happened yall?
4. I probably align with more democratic views than republican so I side there. Especially as republicans are more pro religion than democrat (based on stats i have read).

Here are some of my views which you tell me are left or right:
1. Immigration - it's bad. It facilitates exploitation and is only done because capitalists want constant growth and try to artificially prop-up population growth by bringing in immigrants constantly because the rest of us want to have less kids not more. Wages go down we all pay for this. In addition, some of these people are coming with the baggage of their cultures in their mind - wrongthinking ideas like the muslims etc with their absolutely backwards views on women's rights, sexual rights and so on. Why the absolute F do you want to bring these people in.
2. Religion - god isn't real. This entire concept is based on a fiction and it needs to go for that reason alone. Like at best it's just a giant waste of time for everyone involved, or accidentally beneficial even though it's grounded in a falsehood, at worse it's downright dangerous to humanity and can bring out the absolute worst in us ie suicide bombing.
3. Climate change is real, it's happening, and we are causing it, and we need to stop it before we fry ourselves all to death.
4. The LGBTQ folk weird me out and hell maybe that makes me a homophobe but I believe they deserve the right to do their own thing and to not be bashed on the streets and to get married if they want (though marriage I think is also just some dumb archaic concept that we still do because of religion's impact on our culture)
5. i hate all the doom and gloomers with a passion. never give up never surrender. keep working toward a better world, a better humanity. Even if u think the nukes are about to drop or the world is about to overheat u shuldnt just give up u shuld fight to the end goddammit. Humanity shouldn't just die out here on this rock we should get a chance to explore the galaxy! And we have made great progress already, just read Stephen Pinkers the better angels of my nature if u dont believe me. There is a new concept i learned the other day which i think is important: it's about crimes against the unborn, and i'm not talking about abortion. i'm talking about the people who have yet to exist. u shuld be trying to live ur life so that those people will thank u, not curse u.

It's not a swear word, ya know?


I'm with ya there, election years are always annoying. Will be nice to get it all over with.



This tends to be a more conservative/republican party view. Conservatives are more in favor of border control.


I'd say conservatives tend to be more heavily associated with religion, but every president I can think of on both sides has been a big fan of saying "God bless America". Personally, I'm not religious either and can't say that I feel either party really shoves their religion down my throat. I'd say we could loosely classify yours as a more liberal ideology, or at least not conservative.


This is another one that I'd say is liberal leaning, but it's also complicated. Tesla's are one of the biggest brands of EVs and Elon Musk supports Trump. From talking with some of my more conservative family members, I'd say the argument from that side of the fence isn't so much that climate change isn't real, they're just more skeptical about some of the methods being used to avoid it. Things that are often brought up are points about the total impact of systems such as manufacturing EVs since there are major issues like battery waste & disposal and the energy for recharging the vehicles still has to come from somewhere, and it's usually still fossil fuels.


This seems pretty moderate, still leaning left. Liberals definitely support the LGBTQ community more strongly. Mostly what I've seen from conservatives lately has been centered around transgender people, and it hasn't been so much hate as a belief that they are experiencing mental illness. Obviously it depends on the individuals though, there's always some who are more hateful. Another hot button issue has been transgender people (specifically those born as men who transitioned to women) competing in sports. Conservatives feel it's unfair for someone born with a man's body to compete in women's athletics.


You lost me a bit. Not sure what you're talking about here is associated with either political party.

I know, I'm a pretty liberal person myself, but when you talk to some Americans you get the impression it is.

I don't know if I'm gonna vote.

As for the particular candidate on either side:

It's a total joke Kamala was put on the Democrat ticket, also compounded by the fact it was a joke Biden was put there too. It really irks me that everyone just went along with what was very obviously just a shoved down your throat nominee, back then and now.

Tbh it's just a gross product of a 2 party system which churns out people you don't know, care about, like, or actually want to vote for on both sides each year. But, imo, the democrat side is the greater offender currently.

Trump was not what was supposed to be forced down our throats previously; the republican half of our stupid system probably wanted Jeb Bush to be there, but Trump forced his way in, which was almost kinda like a breath of fresh air; but on the other hand, he's just a random outside-of-the-sphere-of-what-people-would-actually-want dude and not the most qualified person; he just got to where he is because of money.

This time though he's also just sorta shoe horned his way and now leads most of the republican party, so it's like just the same.

So really we're just voting for either party, and imo neither reflects the will of the people in any accurate way.

That all being said: typically republican views align more with my views; however, probably the more significant things going on right now are wars in Ukraine and in Israel, and I think we should 1000% fully support Ukraine and Israel, and republicans want to not support Ukraine (??? just vague promises 'the war will end before I take office' from Trump ???) which is giga dumb. I might vote democrat, but also they support stuff I don't, and the audacity to shoe horn in random crap candidates is so offensive and over the top I also don't want to vote for them.

So whatever. I might throw away my vote on RFK just because it doesn't matter anyway.

I share a lot of the sentiments from your post. I voted Biden in 2020 and have been continuously disappointed with his administration since then. I'm very unhappy with the direction our country has gone the last four years. My hometown has basically become a disgusting homeless drug den, my girlfriend doesn't feel safe walking down the street anymore. We have panhandlers at every corner and drug addicts passed out in the streets. Crime is up, police are completely disheartened and absent as a result of all the hate they've gotten. They aren't all bad, anyone who says all cops are bastards is very limited and narrow-minded in their thinking. Trans-women are fighting to unfairly dominate natural born women in sports. Inflation is out of control. Our rushed exit from Afghanistan was a huge embarrassment. Medical freedom has come under serious threat. Pharmaceutical companies continue to rake in billions and not be held accountable for anything. All the while, we've had a senile man at the helm who can't even complete a sentence without a teleprompter.

Kamala doesn't inspire me even a little bit. As you said, it just feels like she was thrown at us last minute once the liberal party had to finally admit that Biden was too senile for the job. And the fact that they let it go that far, trying to pull the wool over our eyes and say he was doing just fine has been nothing short of infuriating. I also have issues with her history when she was a DA. And her promises for what she'll do in office are a joke. One I saw today was her claiming she'll reduce grocery prices day one. She's been in a position to do something about it for almost four years now. I have no faith that moving from VP to president would make her any more effective.

The liberals latest campaign to dismiss Trump and Vance as 'weird' has also left a bad taste in my mouth. It feels very childish, like an insult high schoolers would throw around. It feels like the last resort of a desperate party. There's no inspiration there, just fear mongering.

I was leaning towards voting for RFK personally. He's the candidate who truly inspired me. On the flip side, voting independent felt like nothing more than making a statement, at least in the current state of things. Dunno if you heard, but RFK dropped out a couple days ago and endorsed Trump. From the way he said it, they share a lot of views. There's also some talk that Trump is willing to offer RFK a position on his cabinet, but AFAIK that has not been confirmed. I'd love to see RFK in a position in Trump's cabinet where he can truly enact some of the positive changes that he wants to. He obviously never had a chance to truly be president.

Trump's not my favorite, but once I started actually listening to what he says rather than other peoples' rendition of it, he didn't seem as radical anymore. I don't agree with all his views, but overall I feel like he and the conservative party better represent my interests than Kamala and the liberal party. The state of the economy is a big one for me. I made less money during Trump's administration, but I could afford way more. Certainly didn't have to be hyper-analytical every time I went to the grocery store to make sure the things I was purchasing fit the budget like I have to today. And I'll admit, Trump's antics have grown on me. He's interesting and has a unique persona, not just another bobble head spouting the same tired political jargon. He's also been remarkably consistent over the last 30-40 years which is rare for a politician. I watched some videos of him talking back in the 80's and his views and language were practically identical to what he says today. Pretty much any other politician, particularly liberal ones, continuously contradict themselves if you look back in their history. I haven't fully committed yet, but I'm most likely voting Trump this time around.

There's a YouTuber, Charlie Cheon, who mirrors a lot of my sentiments in this video.


Let's get weird, boys

What else is voting, if not that? If you want actual influence you have to get into politics yourself. If you don't, 'making a statement' is the only thing you can do. If you don't like the current offers, just don't vote them.

I don't understand why people think their vote is "wasted" when they don't go for the most popular options. Propaganda? Because if everyone just voted for whom they actually wanna see, the voters had actual power to punish a party for bad candidates, thus candidates would improve in the sense they at least put up more popular ones.
But as long as their propaganda ensures that 80% will vote 'what they always vote' or if they are cheeky 'Rep or Dem, depending on who's currently less shitty' they ensure status quo which is a little better, but not much better than no choice at all.

Also purely statistically speaking going for the most popular option makes your vote count relatively less, meaning it would be just one of dozens of millions, whereas otherwise it could be one of a million or so. (Numbers made up, I have no idea about actual vote counts.)


It's funny how the ai can't decide if Trumps jacket is open or closed.

Oh and btw. it's not the party that's to blame for the things going wrong (crime, poverty), it's capitalism - at least in its current unregulated (too little) form.

Need I say more?

This surely has to get way too much attention for how much of a non-issue it is (in the grand scheme of all the other major major problems you raised). (1) they're a tiny subset of populations so how much impact is this even going to have? F all. (2) It's sports, a form of entertainment, why do govts even need to be getting involved on such a trivial matter? Let the sporting companies like FIFA etc sort it out (3) who cares about womens sports anyway.

Analogy is like you saying, "OMG nukes could start flying in europe or middle east, the world economy is collapsing!, oh and I dropped my toast facedown this morning!"

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 26 2024, 9:54 am by Oh_Man.

Kamala is brat 😌💅

I agree with what you're saying, that's why I was leaning towards voting RFK. I figure if we don't start actually voting for independent candidates then we're contributing to this broken two party system. To me the argument for voting on one of the popular candidates is that if it's a close race and you prefer one of them to the other, then enough people choosing to vote for their favorite of the two might actually make a difference. Particularly since I live in a swing state (we sometimes go red, sometimes blue) with a good number of votes in the electoral college it feels like votes here are a bit more impactful.


For sure, it's a pretty silly video overall


I don't completely disagree with this either. At the same time, I have seen a severe decline in my hometown over the last four years, which in all fairness is more due to our liberal city council than our liberal president. Around the time of the George Floyd incidents, city council opted to defund the police and public sentiment has been really harshly critical towards all of them, and these days we can't keep police officers on the force. They also neglected to implement any other systems to deal with the issues and things are getting out of control around here. I imagine it might be hard for you to see from my perspective as I doubt you've experienced this sort of change firsthand. I have a lot of respect for the way socioeconomic issues are handled in Europe (limited knowledge, but the systems over there seem good), and I'd like to see more of that here. That being said, from my experiences in recent years, I don't have faith that our liberal politicians are leading us there. The issue I'm describing with cities turning into homeless drug dens is becoming fairly common in liberal cities. Ultimately, I do believe drug use should be decriminalized and there should be less focus on capitalism, but I believe we need to get there in a way that doesn't cause more harm than good on the journey.



Fair enough. I'd say doom and gloomers aren't associated with either party. It's more a symptom of people being completely disenfranchised with the terrible candidates presented to us.


That's fair. For me, I see a lot of issues with the current state of the trans movement and that is an easy example to point at in a brief format, but I agree that particular issue is relatively trivial in the grand scheme of things. It's a huge topic that I don't want to dive too deeply into, but I'll try to clarify my thoughts. Also lmao at point #3.

First off, it's worth mentioning that I've always liked LGBTQ people and believe they should have all the same rights and freedoms as anyone else. That being said, I have concerns that the current state of the movement is causing societal harm, particularly when it comes to influencing young people into making huge life altering decisions that they can't come back from. Kids are especially susceptible to influence from outside sources and teenagers in particular tend to have poor long-term decision making capabilities. When I was a teenager, I thought all sorts of dumb stuff that if I had been able to act out, I would have regretted it now. I've seen this pattern in others as well. A relevant example is my boss' daughter, we'll call her M. When M was in high school, her friend group was all lesbian (or at least thought they were, I don't know them or their lives today), and M decided that she was, too. She had never actually been with a guy, she essentially just wanted to fit in. Once M graduated high school, she found a man she truly loves and realized she's not a lesbian after all. They're getting married this year. So in this case, all's well that ends well, there were no permanent changes from her mistaken teenage belief. Let's suppose the situation was a bit different and she thought she was trans and started early on HRT (hormone replacement therapy). This type of therapy comes with potentially serious side effects, and the effects may not be reversible if someone ends up regretting their childhood decision. I recognize that it's a complicated issue and that the reverse can be true--someone going through puberty who identifies as trans is stuck with an irreversible change, too. I'm not sure what the right answer is, but I'm concerned that our youth is being overly influenced by the trans movement and that many children may be making decisions they regret for the rest of their lives. I believe we should be spending more resources focusing on understanding why so many young people today are suffering from gender dysphoria. In the 18-29 age group, 2% are identifying as trans and 3% as non-binary (source). This article goes into more depth about some of the issues I'm concerned with.

That was way more detail than I intended to go into It's all interesting to talk about, but it may be a while before I respond further simply due to RL time constraints. My original intention was just to hear other folks' perspectives anyway, ended up yapping more than I intended.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 26 2024, 3:44 pm by Ultraviolet.

I get it for a swing state. Often just a couple thousand or tens of thousands that make a difference. But this is a problem of the flawed voting system. It makes it basically so not every vote counts the same.

Yeah, stupid plan imo. The root cause for unjust police violence is racism and a system that doesn't punish it. What you need is better training, vetting and actual punishments for abuse of autority. That probably costs more money.

However I can see it for heavily armored vehicles and other excessive force equipment. So probably redirection of funds would be appropriate. I mean I get it, you still wanna have an ace up your sleeve if shit hits the fan, but this should be a really rare exception and not standard equipment for every police station.
The focus should be on prevention. Deescalatory mindsets for the higher ups immediately, fighting reasons (poverty, racism) as a long term strategy, so you don't need the heavy equipment.

I don't see why a liberal government couldn't implement these, so I don't think being a liberal is the problem, but tackling the problem in a wrong way. But I get it, if they don't get results they need to go.

Trump is a literal rapist. Found liable of sexual abuse in a civil court by a jury. I'm sure his lawyers would belabor the point that he was not found liable specifically for legal rape, but "He [the judge] added that the jury clearly found that Trump had 'raped' her in the sense of that term broader than the New York Penal Law definition." https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-carroll-judge-rape/

34 felony convictions. Convicted felon and rapist - and that's just the tip of the iceberg. How anyone who has been informed on his conduct can vote for him, is beyond me.

I think some things should go beyond "republican vs democrat" and this is one of them.


Just realized this is actually in Serious Discussion, so here are associated press links for neutrality:
https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-carroll-trial-fe68259a4b98bb3947d42af9ec83d7db
https://apnews.com/article/trump-trial-deliberations-jury-testimony-verdict-85558c6d08efb434d05b694364470aa0

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Aug 27 2024, 3:06 am by Vrael.

I gaurantee Ultra doesn't believe he is voting for a rapist.

He is voting for a decent persom who is a victim of false charges by the deep state.

I don't think these are good reasons to vote for a candidate: race and gender, at least, are not factors in what makes a good leader or builds a good administration around them. I will concede that a cognitive decline due to old age is a valid concern, and I too would prefer candidates far younger than Trump and Biden, though not enough to say it takes priority over policy.


Biden was selected through a primary election cycle, both for 2020 and for 2024: he was the one Democrat-registered voters selected as their nominee. That process is the result of a well-funded campaign, and unless enough people get involved to change that process, the status quo will remain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2024_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries

As for the swap for Kamala, it's unorthodox, but the candidate with the second-most votes from the Democratic primaries was Dean Philips, which probably doesn't alleviate your "people you don't know" concern. This was a mess of the DNC's own making: when Biden originally campaigned in 2019, he and the DNC indicated that he would be a one-term president and not seek reelection. If they had stuck to that, we could have had a proper primary, though it's likely Kamala would have been the front-runner for it, being a familiar name as Vice President. How different would you feel if Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigieg were the nominee instead?


Kamala and Trump both support Israel, with Kamala calling for increased aid. Kamala also supports aiding Ukraine, while Trump has waffled on his answer (going between cutting all support back in June to more recently supporting a free Ukraine), and Republican voters are generally against providing aid to Ukraine. If foreign aid is your most important policy, Kamala would be the preferred candidate.

In any case, RFK Jr. is an odd choice. Despite his pro-Israel and neutral stance on Ukraine, he wants to significantly cut aid and military spending across the board. But if you feel like his other policies make up for that, feel free to protest-vote.


I would recommend paying closer attention to your local politics than looking at the federal level for a lot of these concerns. Even at a federal level, what solutions do you have in mind? Presumably you're looking at policies that remedy these issues on a broad scale, though I don't know which policies from the Biden administration you attribute to these recent changes.

Homelessness, drug use, and crime are strongly associated with poverty, so perhaps the concern is economic policy? If you look at inflation rates, you would see inflation was at its worst in 2022, partway through Biden's administration. Biden blames Trump, Trump blames Biden, and economists blame global supply chain disruptions from COVID-19. And indeed, we've seen a sharp drop in inflation around the start of 2023. However, that doesn't mean prices go down: it just means they stop rising as quickly.

As for what policies Kamala and Trump are platforming on for addressing the issue, the best I can find is that Kamala wants to introduce federal regulations to ban price gouging (which it isn't the job of the president to introduce bills), and Trump wants to cut taxes, increase tariffs, and "crack down" on immigration (not sure how this one in particular would help lower prices of goods and services, though). In truth, I don't think the President has as much influence over inflation as people believe, which is probably why neither platform seems very compelling. When you look at the inflation rates by country, you'll see similar inflation trends around the world for these years: https://gfmag.com/data/economic-data/worlds-highest-lowest-inflation-rates/


Are you blaming Trump for signing the Doha Accord, or Biden for not reversing it? Over 80% of US troops were already withdrawn by the time Biden was inaugurated.


I'm not familiar with the term "medical freedom". Are you referring to right to refuse vaccines? Or the right to have an abortion? As far as I know, no candidate is advocating for vaccine mandates: both Kamala and Trump advocate and support vaccines. Trump has dismantled the federal right to an abortion, so if that's what you meant, I can understand the reasoning.

Big Pharma is a good concern, and one that the candidates don't seem to like talking about. And why would they? Both parties receive sizeable campaign contributions through pharmaceutical PACs. Trump's administration introduced the FDA Drug Competition Action Plan, though I can't find any concrete numbers on how that impacted prices on medication, but he also introduced a model that allowed participating Medicare Part D plans to cap insulin to $35/month. Biden's administration expanded this and made the $35/month insulin mandatory for Part D plans as well as Part B cost sharing plans as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. The Biden administration also negotiated lower prices on several drugs covered by Medicare recently.


What issues do you have with her as a District Attorney? Her stance against capital punishment? Upholding state law above her own personal beliefs? Diversion programs? Strictness on truancy? I'll admit I'm not very familiar with her history as a DA, but the worst I've heard was that she was particularly harsh on minor drug offenders.


This is the most ridiculous statement I've seen in this thread. You cannot with a straight face be saying the "liberals" are the childish name-callers next to Donald Trump, and to elevate the word "weird" to fearmongering is an incredible leap.

Show me the Kamala Harris (or any Democrat, no, ANY other politician) equivalent article to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_Donald_Trump


If charisma makes a good presidential candidate, RFK Jr. is fine. RFK Jr. claims to be open-minded and willing to change his opinion on things but repeatedly sticks to debunked, harmful conspiracies. He ran on a platform of cutting military spending by 50%, he believes that gun control in the US and Switzerland is equivalent and comparable, his solution to the housing crisis is the same situation that led to the 2008 housing market crash, and more. It's actually fascinating that he got as much support as he did.


Trump is also a charismatic person, so much so that you don't notice the bad taste in your mouth when he insults his opponents like a childish high schooler, or all the fearmongering.

Has he been remarkably consistent that long? He was close friends with the Clintons and was a Democrat in the early 2000's. And, if you are to believe him, he said that the economy does better under Democrats:

If he still holds those views, it seems like he would be advocating for his opponent.


The sad fact of the matter is that a lot of votes don't matter at all due to the winner-takes-all nature of the Electoral College. If you don't live in a swing state, your vote does not matter: no amount of campaigning, grassroots movement, protest voting, etc. will influence the election results, and analysts won't bother looking at your state. Candidates don't even use their campaign funds on many states, since it's guaranteed to go one way or the other. Getting rid of the Electoral College and going by popular vote would be a start to get more votes to actually matter (even though it conversely makes 'swing states' matter less), and having a ranked voting system could potentially get us out of our two-party system, but the people that have the power to make these changes won't do it because it would only detract from their own election success.

---

Anyway, who am I voting for? The candidate and/or party that best aligns with my political beliefs, according to https://www.isidewith.com/.

Women's Health
Me: Women have a right to an abortion, contraception should be made accessible, and health services like Planned Parenthood should be funded.
Kamala: Pro-choice. Planned Parenthood's services reach far beyond abortions and can save many lives through cancer screening, prenatal services, and adoption referrals.
Trump: Pro-life, but allow abortion in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother or child. The government should not give funds to any organizations that perform abortions.

Same Sex Marriage
Me: Yes
Kamala: Yes
Trump: Yes

Tax The Rich
Me: Yes
Kamala: Yes
Trump: No

Decriminalize Drugs
Me: Yes, and release non-violent offenders, and increase funding for mental health.
Kamala: Yes, and retroactively reduce sentences for those already serving time
Trump: No

Supporting the Patriot Act
Me: No
Kamala: Yes, but limit the scope of the government's powers
Trump: Yes

Single Payer Healthcare System
Me: Yes
Kamala: No
Trump: No, the government should not be involved in healthcare

Universal Basic Income
Me: Yes, replace/simplify existing welfare programs and reduce administrative costs
Kamala: No
Trump: No

Abolish Electoral College
Me: Yes, and switch to a ranked voting system
Kamala: Yes
Trump: Yes

Raise Minimum Wage
Me: Yes
Kamala: Yes, and make it a living wage
Trump: No

Increase Gun Regulation
Me: Yes, stricter checks especially regarding mental health
Kamala: Yes
Trump: No, and the government should pass a national "stand your ground" law

Decrease Police Funding
Me: Yes, allocate funds to mental health services and workers
Kamala: Yes, replace police with unarmed community based responders for non-violent calls
Trump: No, increase funding and training for police departments in higher crime rate communities

Should Convicted Criminals Vote?
Me: Yes
Kamala: Yes, except for felons convicted of murder or violent crimes
Trump: No

Should Police Wear Bodycams?
Me: Yes
Kamala: Yes
Trump: No, it should be a police department's or officer's choice to wear one

Should We Build A Wall At The Mexico Border?
Me: No, and anyone who thinks this is a practical idea needs to look at a map
Kamala: No, this would be too costly and ineffective
Trump: Yes, and Mexico should pay for it

Private Prisons
Me: No
Kamala: No, private prisons will sacrifice quality of care and rehabilitation services for profit
Trump: Yes


I'm a leftist, not a liberal, but between the two candidates, it's Kamala Harris, and it's not even close. Even when overlooking all of Trump's character flaws, compulsive lying, 34 felony criminal convictions, childish insults, and being a rapist, his policies are just worse. And even if I don't look at policy and look at character, Trump fills his cabinet positions with family and friends, whereas Biden (and presumably Harris) fills positions with experienced, reliable talent. RFK Jr. allegedly approached both parties before dropping out to see who he had a better chance of securing a cabinet position with, so the fact that he endorsed Trump tells me that Kamala has more integrity.

Do I think Kamala can take her rhetoric and act on all of it as President? No, since half of what she's promising are legislative changes. But of the things she can accomplish, I think it's a move in the right direction. Her foreign policy seems fine (though I wish we had a candidate that would also sympathize with the Palestinian civilians), and while I wish she had a more clear plan on the immigration issue, at least she's not planning on dumping billions of dollars on an ineffective wall and talking about mass deportations that would destabilize areas of the country that rely on migrant workers.

Plus, the economy generally does better under Democrats. Donald Trump told me that.

Post has been edited 6 time(s), last time on Aug 27 2024, 2:35 pm by Roy. Reason: Fix encoding issues

I suspect you're right, which is why I added the qualifier about anyone "who has been informed". Some surprising people close to me have voted for this guy and their opinions have largely been based on an image where he is a maverick and victim of the (already corrupt) system. A lot of people think this election and the past two have been "business as usual" as it pertains to politics because certain news outlets have downplayed the seriousness of Trump's very anti-democracy politics (and more importantly, the U.S. system of separation of powers in government prevented complete catastrophe when he was in office). I have sympathy for many people who voted for him, because I can understand how the spin of the media can make any fool look like a good person, (and any good person look like a fool), but I think a lot of people in the Trump camp would be disgusted if they had the full picture.



Roy pointed out a quintessential example of this:
Go watch any right-leaning 'news' for half an hour (remember - its not "Fox News" - its "Fox News Entertainment" because their own lawyers argued in court that no reasonable person would believe the things they have to say at face value https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2019cv11161/527808/39/) and you'll get a bunch of folks sitting around with exactly this opinion laughing about how childish the left is and how bad and ineffective of an insult 'weird' is, while somehow ignoring that Trump is by far the worst childish name-caller in living memory. You get all the feels, and none of the facts. A lot of people respond to those emotions, and haven't been trained to deal with this insidious psychological manipulation. Disclaimer: I don't mean to say the left doesn't do this same sort of thing sometimes, but we're talking about Trump at the moment.

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Aug 27 2024, 1:51 pm by Vrael.

Vrael, Roy, I won't be directly responding to your posts, but know that I've skimmed them and will read them more thoroughly once I have a bit more time. I am taking your points into consideration. The only point I'll briefly respond to, just to show that I am reading in good faith is the one about the 'weird' campaign. I didn't express that point very well, and I agree with your feedback on it completely.

After some consideration, I have decided to withdraw myself from this thread in the interest of peace and harmony. My intention was simply to engage in a calm, peaceful discussion of divergent viewpoints based in mutual respect. I'm a swing voter and was hoping to get more information from the liberal side since I've personally become disenfranchised with them of late. To you guys here, I sincerely appreciate the thougtful, level-headed responses. Roy, in particular, has given me a lot to review and think on. Oh_Man, I appreciate the benefit of the doubt. Nude, I always appreciate our private conversations immensely. Zoan, it's nice to see someone who also seems to be feeling disenfranchised with the current situation. Vrael, nothing specific, but I appreciate you, too. Thank you all. From the vitriol and disgust I've received in messages on Discord, I feel it's best to step away. I consider many of you friends, and I don't want to cause any further upset or confusion. To anyone who was upset, I'm sorry for any distress that expressing my current views caused for you. My goal is always to choose love and acceptance and this decision is founded in that goal. I wish you all the best and will focus my energies in this community back to what brought us all together in the first place: our love of StarCraft. Cheers.

If it's any help towards harmony, Ultraviolet, I can't speak for everyone of course, but I am not angry or upset that you have the views you've written. Each of us is surrounded by a unique information stream, the collection of people, tv programs, books, magazines, and literal (digital) information streams and so forth, and we color this information based on our past experience and our current state of life. Being annoyed that things were cheaper under Trump than Biden, for example, is an experience that anyone can (well, should be able to) relate to regardless of left or right. My anger lies with the people who will not be fair about why things are this way - in this case Trump, and the right wing elites who have(are) helped(ing) him, and are doing their damndest to make sure otherwise reasonable people get inundated with their cherry-picked sugar-coated version of events. They'll yell so loudly that things were better under Trump, and completely omit the fact that much of the state under a current president is due to the president before (and not even the president before, but the whole administration before, congress, courts etc) - it takes a few years for things to swing up or down. By the same logic, bad prices under Biden can largely be laid at Trump's feet. There's plenty of reasonable argument to be had on the topic of course - I could be wrong about that generalization for instance - maybe by the 2nd or 3rd or 4th year of a president's term the principle doesn't really hold, or you can start to get into some specific policies or make a point about how that generalization doesn't hold and things like the time bombs the previous parties left, and so on and so forth. But my point is today that the right wing elites** in our country are not coming anywhere close to being fair about this information and its root causes, and I am angry at them for that, and I wish we could hold them accountable somehow.

On the topic of anger, among his many other crimes, I am also furious at Trump for staining the reputation of our country in the eyes of the world. The U.S. has never been perfect (far from it in fact), but in the post-WWII-era there had never been any real question of who the leader of the free world was - the President of the United States of America. During his tenure in office, the world had to turn to Angela Merkel of Germany. It was a turning point and the whole West is diminished because of it.

Edit:
**Right wing elites meaning the actual candidates, the people who are actually rich enough to run for office, people who own news outlets, et cetera. When it comes to blame, I think the average right wing American might be part of an echo chamber, but for the most part they're as much a victim of these elites as the rest of us

Post has been edited 8 time(s), last time on Aug 30 2024, 11:25 pm by Vrael.

Kamala is too right wing for me, but if I were American I'd vote for her reluctantly, since the alternative is christo-fascism and becoming a second-class citizen 🤮 .

Let me know when you guys repeal the 2nd amendment, require training and licensing to own firearms, ban private prisons, nationalize healthcare, regulate drug prices to match their worldwide market value, enshrine and enforce voting rights + voting access for all citizens no exceptions (no requirements, no registration, no travel, no lines, no ID, >1 week of advance voting period, 1 month mail in period), electoral reform so it's no longer 2-party, automatic tax filing, enact strict food regulation for ingredient use and naming, enact strict environmental regulations, increase taxes on big businesses and the wealthy, abolish taxes for people making under $40k, have nationalized cross country high speed rail services, stop invading other countries, stop supporting nations and groups committing war crimes, stop committing war crimes yourself, enshrine the right to bodily autonomy (abortion), increase police training time to 3000 hours (up from 672 hours), require behavioural background checks for officers, abolish qualified immunity and eject any judge that so much as mentions it, force officers to be held to a higher standard than the average citizen (for each day a citizen would be jailed, an officer should be jailed twice as long), abolish capital punishment, eject judges that show any political collaboration, adopt housing first policies, reduce copyright length to 30 years from publish date (down from 75+ years), abolish slavery, make law enforcement related quotas illegal, abolish civil asset forfeiture, and more probably.

As far as I'm aware, Kamala Harris isn't doing any of that.



FWIW kids aren't ordering a sex change at Wendy's and getting HRT the next day. It is not that easy to do and anything that says otherwise is misrepresenting the reality, with the exception of one-off failures by some individuals to follow proper protocols, but this exists in all services and industries (i.e. person gets wrong organ removed and other mishaps, that's not a trans issue, that's a process and accountability issue). The standard process is years of therapy and use of puberty blockers until they are an adult (or if they start questioning while an adult they still go through years of therapy before transitioning). You wouldn't "start early on HRT", you would start early on puberty blockers to prevent puberty into the wrong gender, while you question yourself and go through therapy, that way even if it's 5 years later you can back out while you're getting older. In your example the waiting period and opportunities to back out would have been sufficient. This is exactly why puberty blockers shouldn't be banned (in case of the UK). Transitioning is the last resort when all else fails.

Wait till you learn about Republicans.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Sep 26 2024, 1:47 pm by Heinermann.