An article that has proven to be timeless.

[jknowgood]

That's an extremely popular talking point at the moment.

We used to say “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.” Now we are all entitled to our own facts, and conservative media use this right to immerse their audience in a total environment of pseudo-facts and pretend information.

The talking point is true. Harris won't even answer a question.

 

[Billiejeens]

You bring all the intellectual rigor to your post that I expected. None.

Your worldview is shaped by such a small subset of society that it is fruitless to be rigorous with you.

 

[berg80]

People will always make excuses for their debt of their guy. Same old same old.

Some call this the closing of the conservative mind. Alas, the conservative mind has proved itself only too open, these past years, to all manner of intellectual pollen. Call it instead the drying up of conservative creativity. It’s clearly true that the country faces daunting economic troubles. It’s also true that the wrong answers to those problems will push the United States toward a future of too much government, too many taxes, and too much regulation. It’s the job of conservatives in this crisis to show a better way. But it’s one thing to point out (accurately) that President Obama’s stimulus plan was mostly a compilation of antique Democratic wish lists, and quite another to argue that the correct response to the worst collapse since the thirties is to wait for the economy to get better on its own. It’s one thing to worry (wisely) about the long-term trend in government spending, and another to demand big, immediate cuts when 25 million are out of full-time work and the government can borrow for ten years at 2 percent.

 

[Billiejeens]

Methinks you doth protest too much.

You don't

 

[berg80]

The talking point is true. Harris won't even answer a question.

You realize the talking point will be meaningless when the next one is born, right?

 

[Billiejeens]

If you believe banks are representatives of the "demented left" have at it and enjoy your rant.

The banks themselves had very little free will role in it.

Government was fully the cause.

(not having an answer for that - you will laugh)

 

[pknopp]

Some call this the closing of the conservative mind. Alas, the conservative mind has proved itself only too open, these past years, to all manner of intellectual pollen. Call it instead the drying up of conservative creativity. It’s clearly true that the country faces daunting economic troubles. It’s also true that the wrong answers to those problems will push the United States toward a future of too much government, too many taxes, and too much regulation. It’s the job of conservatives in this crisis to show a better way. But it’s one thing to point out (accurately) that President Obama’s stimulus plan was mostly a compilation of antique Democratic wish lists, and quite another to argue that the correct response to the worst collapse since the thirties is to wait for the economy to get better on its own. It’s one thing to worry (wisely) about the long-term trend in government spending, and another to demand big, immediate cuts when 25 million are out of full-time work and the government can borrow for ten years at 2 percent.

When you call me "conservative" you are just lashing out.

I supported 90% of what Candidate Obama ran on. I then supported maybe 10% of what President Obama actually did.

Borrowing (which we still have done nothing to do to pay back despite promise after promise after promise to make the rich pay their fair share) is part of the reason for the spike in inflation which again, hurt the poor and middle class.

 

[pknopp]

The banks themselves had very little free will role in it.

Government was fully the cause.

(not having an answer for that - you will laugh)

I will laugh at the absurdity of your claim. But as I noted before, people will make excuses for anything.

 

[jknowgood]

You realize the talking point will be meaningless when the next one is born, right?

It won't be meaningless until she answers a question. Which will probably be after the election.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

3. Fox News and Talk Radio
Extremism and conflict make for bad politics but great TV. Over the past two decades, conservatism has evolved from a political philosophy into a market segment. An industry has grown up to serve that segment—and its stars have become the true thought leaders of the conservative world. The business model of the conservative media is built on two elements: provoking the audience into a fever of indignation (to keep them watching) and fomenting mistrust of all other information sources (so that they never change the channel). As a commercial proposition, this model has worked brilliantly in the Obama era. As journalism, not so much. As a tool of political mobilization, it backfires, by inciting followers to the point at which they force leaders into confrontations where everybody loses, like the summertime showdown over the debt ceiling.

But the thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics. Outside this alternative reality, the United States is a country dominated by a strong Christian religiosity. Within it, Christians are a persecuted minority. Outside the system, President Obama—whatever his policy errors—is a figure of imposing intellect and dignity. Within the system, he’s a pitiful nothing, unable to speak without a teleprompter, an affirmative-action phony doomed to inevitable defeat. Outside the system, social scientists worry that the U.S. is hardening into one of the most rigid class societies in the Western world, in which the children of the poor have less chance of escape than in France, Germany, or even England. Inside the system, the U.S. remains (to borrow the words of Senator Marco Rubio) “the only place in the world where it doesn’t matter who your parents were or where you came from.”

conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics.

Dude!

 

[kyzr]

People clap at the end of comedy routines all the time..

Was this the one where he said his Jan 6th rally was bigger than 1963 Marin Luther King's March on Washington....

The thing is, Trump actually believes that... His supporters will try and say he is trolling the left but that routine is very old and very stale... The guy just fucking believes it...
He says to his staff that was a huge crowd, must be the biggest crowd ever, bigger that Martin Luther King's. His staff go 'Yes, Boss'.. He has surrounded himself with these type of people feeding reenforcing this shit. Trump is now delusional on the most basic of facts.

Best thing for Trump to do is, at the start of October, ring Kamilla and agree to pull out of the race and keeps the campaign war chest, if he gets a full pardon. The fuck off playing golf. That would actually be quite smart...

How about we wait to see how the debates pan out?

If Kamala confirms she's a moron then Trump can start planning his move back to the WH.

 

[SeaMajor7]

You do remember Senator Gramm? The one who lead the "reforms" that lead to the collapse.

I hold the same contempt for RINO's as I do the demented LEFT, and YOU!!!

 

[berg80]

When you call me "conservative" you are just lashing out.

I supported 90% of what Candidate Obama ran on. I then supported maybe 10% of what President Obama actually did.

Borrowing (which we still have done nothing to do to pay back despite promise after promise after promise to make the rich pay their fair share) is part of the reason for the spike in inflation which again, hurt the poor and middle class.

The inflation spike was due to the post COVID lag in production failing to meet demand once the world's economies opened up in response to the development of effective vaccines. If borrowing was a factor causing an inflation spike the US would have had one when trump added $8T to the debt.

 

[Auld Phart]

Are you sure they weren't trained seals?

Are you sure they weren't trained seals?

if they were, the Navy trained them

 

[Muhammed]

I invite everyone to read it. Frum is an excellent writer, having some prescient observations that translate well to today's goings on.

Your mental retardation makes you easily brainwashed by fake news propagandists like Frum.

 

[berg80]

How about we wait to see how the debates pan out?

If Kamala confirms she's a moron then Trump can start planning his move back to the WH.

If you are pinning your hopes for another disastrous trump presidency on a poor debate performance by Harris then what happens when Don once again reveals himself to be an ill-informed, boorish simp?

 

[berg80]

Your mental retardation makes you easily brainwashed by fake news propagandists like Frum.

Thanks so much for another valuable contribution to the discussion.

 

[pknopp]

I hold the same contempt for RINO's as I do the demented LEFT, and YOU!!!

Always with the excuses.

 

[pknopp]

The inflation spike was due to the post COVID lag in production failing to meet demand once the world's economies opened up in response to the development of effective vaccines. If borrowing was a factor causing an inflation spike the US would have had one when trump added $8T to the debt.

No, the inflation was over years and years of horrible economic policy.

Econ 101. You can't pump trillions into an economy and not get inflation.

 

[berg80]

The talking point is true. Harris won't even answer a question.

This is, unfortunately, not merely a concern for Republican voters. The conservative shift to ever more extreme, ever more fantasy-based ideology has ominous real-world consequences for American society. The American system of government can’t work if the two sides wage all-out war upon each other: House, Senate, president, each has the power to thwart the others. In prior generations, the system evolved norms and habits to prevent this kind of stonewalling. For example: Theoretically, the party that holds the Senate could refuse to confirm any Cabinet nominees of a president of the other party. Yet until recently, this just “wasn’t done.” In fact, quite a lot of things that theoretically could be done just “weren’t done.” Now old inhibitions have given way. Things that weren’t done suddenly are done.

For example, a Senate majority leader refusing to hold a confirmation hearing for a SC nominee 11 months before the end of a president's term.