The Joe Biden Drops Out thread

[Topgunben]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

No offense Bellamy, you always seemed like a pretty intelligent guy so I’m pretty shocked that you could be dumb enough to actually think four more years of Trump would be a good thing for this country (and this is speaking as someone who largely votes Republican)

What other option is there?

[Bardp1999]

Originally Posted by Topgunben [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What other option is there?

Exactly - democrats refuse to run a viable candidate for some reason - Hillary and Uncle Joe - /BARF

[Jimjam]

Originally Posted by Bardp1999 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Exactly - democrats refuse to run a viable candidate for some reason - Hillary and Uncle Joe - /BARF

Sorry mate, but you have to have faith in the institutions. Biden and Trump are the best options America has to offer. Democracy is a meritocracy so whichever you choose will do fine.

[BlackBellamy]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

No offense Bellamy, you always seemed like a pretty intelligent guy so I’m pretty shocked that you could be dumb enough to actually think four more years of Trump would be a good thing for this country (and this is speaking as someone who largely votes Republican)

Thank you and no offense taken from that second part.

I've been interested in Trump's management style and digging around I found a curious thing. You see, the President's day is extremely structured. Every minute, every meeting, every call, everything planned and directed and he's just hustled from one thing to the other. It's always been like that. When Trump came in, he added blocks of unstructured time to the calendar. Chief of staff John Kelly instituted "executive time" after Trump complained that he didn't have enough time to think. Think about that. Trump has been a top executive and manager all his life and he came in and the first thing he realized is the President didn't have time to think. He couldn't just kick back for three hours and think about what was going on, to let the mind wander, to associate.

Executive time is for people who are in charge of the system, the other way the system is in charge of you. The last President who had executive time was Reagan and now he has an airport and an aircraft carrier named after him. Maybe if the other Presidents had time to think they wouldn't be digging so many fresh graves in Arlington every past administration.

How is this going to look to the rest of the world? Trump is showing real leadership on containing China and Russia, he motivated NATO, he's got good relations with Turkey again, Iran is shut down, no US soldiers are dying in numbers anywhere, Afghanistan is quiet, maybe for good this time. We're super solid with the UK. All of Trump's foes have been disgraced; Macron let pension negotiations devolve into two years of riots, Canadian blackface guy is toast and that German broad lost all credibility for Germany failing to lead the EU and just lost tons of US troops and money to Poland. I would like to point out absolutely zero peeps from North Korea since Trump went down there and choked that fat bastard in private (Trump got 55 soldiers remains back to be buried here with their families after 65 years of waiting simply because no previous administration would even hold talks with the Norks).

Internally, illegal immigration down. Children separation down. Until the Chinese Virus hit the economy was super duper solid. Crime down in every category until the Democrats lost their minds and stopped telling the police to arrest people. If you think the Democrats would have done better with Covid just a reminder that they were united in condemning his travel ban, which as everyone understands is the single most effective method of containing transmission.

What's not to like? Forget the hypocrisy and the lies and nepotism. I'm not going to accept any arguments like that considering the last three Presidents before him were corrupt lying fucks as bad or worse than him.

I understand a lot of people are personally offended by Trump. It's not on me they can't separate the job from the man. It's not on me that vast swathes of idiots ascribe some sort of Messiah status to the position, that the man has to be some sort of guiding light for a population obviously reared without any proper father figures so they need some Golden Father to make things right in their lives. The man is an executive, a manager, and a war leader. I'm very happy with the last one obviously and I don't see him doing worse on the first two than anyone I can remember. So far not a single embassy worker has been gunned down by terrorists while we frantically made lots and lots of phone calls. No one has waved around a glass vial full of sugar as an excuse to murder a quarter million Iraqis. Not a single airliner has been shot down by our trigger-happy missile frigate captains. Not a single Crimea has been invaded by Russia (thanks weak-ass bitch Obama). Speaking of whom, not a single government official has been caught on a hot mike telling Putin that they will be free to ignore US voter's wishes after the election because fuck them let's do some business.

I voted for Trump in 2016 because I hated Hilary more than I didn't want a fat affable liar television personality in charge. I'm voting for Trump this year because I approve of the job he did. And this in spite that the mindless partisan opposition that was way more fervent than anything Obama ever faced.

[zodium]

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[Patriam1066]

Originally Posted by zodium [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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Shouldn’t have a dog with no savings, shouldn’t be obese and diabetic

[cd288]

Originally Posted by BlackBellamy [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Thank you and no offense taken from that second part.

I've been interested in Trump's management style and digging around I found a curious thing. You see, the President's day is extremely structured. Every minute, every meeting, every call, everything planned and directed and he's just hustled from one thing to the other. It's always been like that. When Trump came in, he added blocks of unstructured time to the calendar. Chief of staff John Kelly instituted "executive time" after Trump complained that he didn't have enough time to think. Think about that. Trump has been a top executive and manager all his life and he came in and the first thing he realized is the President didn't have time to think. He couldn't just kick back for three hours and think about what was going on, to let the mind wander, to associate.

Executive time is for people who are in charge of the system, the other way the system is in charge of you. The last President who had executive time was Reagan and now he has an airport and an aircraft carrier named after him. Maybe if the other Presidents had time to think they wouldn't be digging so many fresh graves in Arlington every past administration.

How is this going to look to the rest of the world? Trump is showing real leadership on containing China and Russia, he motivated NATO, he's got good relations with Turkey again, Iran is shut down, no US soldiers are dying in numbers anywhere, Afghanistan is quiet, maybe for good this time. We're super solid with the UK. All of Trump's foes have been disgraced; Macron let pension negotiations devolve into two years of riots, Canadian blackface guy is toast and that German broad lost all credibility for Germany failing to lead the EU and just lost tons of US troops and money to Poland. I would like to point out absolutely zero peeps from North Korea since Trump went down there and choked that fat bastard in private (Trump got 55 soldiers remains back to be buried here with their families after 65 years of waiting simply because no previous administration would even hold talks with the Norks).

Internally, illegal immigration down. Children separation down. Until the Chinese Virus hit the economy was super duper solid. Crime down in every category until the Democrats lost their minds and stopped telling the police to arrest people. If you think the Democrats would have done better with Covid just a reminder that they were united in condemning his travel ban, which as everyone understands is the single most effective method of containing transmission.

What's not to like? Forget the hypocrisy and the lies and nepotism. I'm not going to accept any arguments like that considering the last three Presidents before him were corrupt lying fucks as bad or worse than him.

I understand a lot of people are personally offended by Trump. It's not on me they can't separate the job from the man. It's not on me that vast swathes of idiots ascribe some sort of Messiah status to the position, that the man has to be some sort of guiding light for a population obviously reared without any proper father figures so they need some Golden Father to make things right in their lives. The man is an executive, a manager, and a war leader. I'm very happy with the last one obviously and I don't see him doing worse on the first two than anyone I can remember. So far not a single embassy worker has been gunned down by terrorists while we frantically made lots and lots of phone calls. No one has waved around a glass vial full of sugar as an excuse to murder a quarter million Iraqis. Not a single airliner has been shot down by our trigger-happy missile frigate captains. Not a single Crimea has been invaded by Russia (thanks weak-ass bitch Obama). Speaking of whom, not a single government official has been caught on a hot mike telling Putin that they will be free to ignore US voter's wishes after the election because fuck them let's do some business.

I voted for Trump in 2016 because I hated Hilary more than I didn't want a fat affable liar television personality in charge. I'm voting for Trump this year because I approve of the job he did. And this in spite that the mindless partisan opposition that was way more fervent than anything Obama ever faced.

Trump has very little to do with the stock market. Most Presidents have very little to do with the stock market. The economy is generally cyclical over a range of decades and Trump just happened to be elected when the economy was good. In fact, as someone who works on Wall Street it's funny to watch people here groan when Trump opens his mouth because you never know when it might cause the market to tank for a couple days (e.g., the Christmas crash a couple years ago). The economy was going to go down regardless from COVID, you're right, but Trump has greatly exacerbated that as a result of his complete and total failure to admit that he messed up and start trying to get this under control. He thinks if he just pretends like the virus doesn't exist and tells everyone to just go back to normal during a pandemic that everything will be fine. That's not the way it works. To me, the COVID situation is the most critical point, because politics aside I think the most important trait for a President to have is to be able to be a strong and confident leader during times of major crises (regardless of what party they are in). Trump has proven he is not that (and continues to prove it multiple times a week with the things he says and a complete unwillingness to really seriously listen to science). I mean, he has Jared Kushner of all fucking people leading the COVID taskforce lmao.

The Democrats panned the travel ban because he just limited it to China when he first instituted it despite the fact that it was spreading like wildfire in Europe.

China and Russia are contained? Lol what? And North Korea? What positives did we get out of that? We legitimized them on the world stage and they said they'd do X, Y, and Z and then did none of that and we were like "oh alright then well if you don't want to that's fine."

Okay, other Presidents have been bad in the past. And? What does that have to do with anything? Saying you can't criticize Trump for all the fucked up stuff he's done because someone else was bad in the past is like saying I can't criticize a pizza place for bad pizza because I've had bad pizza someplace else at some point in my life. Sorry, but speaking here as a Republican I can absolutely say with confidence that I do not think anyone has come even close to the level of outright corruption Trump has displayed. Pardoning his friends who were going to jail for obstructing investigations into him, making the DOJ fire prosecutors who are investigating him, removing IGs and replacing them with cronies so that there is significantly reduced oversight over anything, refusing to fund the US Postal Service because to try and prevent mail in voting (which is actually pretty ironic considering a recent poll showed more Republicans (especially older ones, which make up a big portion of his base) are planning on mail in voting than Democrats), the list goes on and on.

I was hopeful when Trump was elected in 2016. And I think he has done some good things here and there, but the vast majority has been bad and he has proven that he is unfit to lead during a severe crisis. Not to mention the fact that due to his tax reforms I know pay 5 figures more in taxes per year than I did under Obama...like lol what? Obama taxed me less than a Republican President? Repealing Trump's tax reforms alone would be enough to get me to vote against him.

[Trexller]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I do not think anyone has come even close to the level of outright corruption Trump has displayed.

Forget Watergate, Nixon was backdoor dealing with the South Vietnamese government prior to his election, at the time LBJ could not prove it because he obtained that evidence illegally.

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worth noting, roger stone's sentence was only commuted, he is still convicted.

[cd288]

Originally Posted by Trexller [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Forget Watergate, Nixon was backdoor dealing with the South Vietnamese government prior to his election, at the time LBJ could not prove it because he obtained that evidence illegally.

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worth noting, roger stone's sentence was only commuted, he is still convicted.

And if a Democrat president had done what Trump did with Stone far right Republicans would be ripping him for it the same way people are ripping Trump. Let's not play pretend here.

Even if I had been considering renewing my support for Trump, the latest stuff with the USPS (refusing to fund so mail in voting isn't possible, appointing a Trump donor as postmaster general who has tens of millions in stock in USPS competitors, and now the dismantling of many mail sorting machines across the country to reduce the ability to process mail in ballots) is the last straw to me. I may be a Republican, but what's more important to me is the legitimacy of our Democracy and our justice system. Trump has attacked both for his personal interest to an absolutely unprecedented degree. We are no longer the America we are supposed to be. We are no longer a legitimate free Democracy if Trump can do these things without repercussion.

[BlackBellamy]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I can't criticize a pizza place for bad pizza because I've had bad pizza someplace else at some point in my life.

Sure you can! But it's the same pizza wherever you go. Biden pizza. Clinton pizza. Obama deep dish, but it's all the same. Trump is the Hawaiian pizza of pizzas. Everyone has an extreme opinion about the ham and pineapple, there is no middle ground. But at least that last pie is fun.

Trump is corrupt. Here is my list of recent administrations in corruption order: Bush II, Clinton, Nixon, Johnson, Trump, Obama, Ford, Bush I, Reagan, Carter. He's right in the middle for me. Opinions might differ, but I place low-level self-aggrandizement and nepotism a lot lower on the scale than blatant pay-for-play Clinton Foundation shenanigans or starting a war and actually legalizing torture so that your friends in Halliburton can get paid.

I hear your points. Most of them are just opinions like mine. You say he handled the Covid crisis badly and his focus is wrong but I disagree. I don't think anyone would have handled it any better and that too much reliance on scientists is a good way to get yourself killed. Like the Sith, scientists only think in absolutes. Scientists shouldn't be in charge of anything. You say he's pardoning people who obstructed investigations, but personally I'm absolutely horrified what happened to Roger Stone and I wouldn't have Trump's discipline in waiting until afterwards to commute his sentence. I don't think anyone other than Stone that Trump pardoned was in any way involved with him.

The only thing I'm going to have to disagree hard on a factual basis is the international situation. First your comment about legitimizing the Norks. North Korea is a legitimate sovereign nation-state and has been for a very long time. They have a border, armed forces and a government; they have international relations such as they are, they trade, and most importantly they can back up their nationhood with a giant pretty mushroom cloud. Not talking to them, not having relations with them is childish spite that does nothing except make them shoot missiles over Japan to show everyone they're still there. Trump went there, he talked to him a couple of times, they exchanged letters and sent a visitor back, it was real nice. Where is the disgrace? Oh we're descending to their level oh noes. We're not at their level. We're the mightiest of them all, but we should show some respect. We bombed the fuck out of them in the 50s and they came back stronger than ever. They took their respect, framed it, put it on the wall and stopped making noise. They've been recognized by the Master MC, the dream of every tin-pot nation and aspiring rapper everywhere.

I can give back on China, but you have to admit they hate him and haven't made any aggressive moves because they're not sure what he'll do. It was Obama's failed pivot-to-Asia that enraged them with our explicit talk of containment and their reaction was to build a dozen islands and claim the entire South China Sea. I like Trump's method, where he's just shitting on them constantly and banning their companies and arresting their executives and keeping them off-balance. I guess I'll take my containment like that.

But for Russia, you gotta pay attention. He fucked them economically. His sanctions screwed their off-shore oil business, they put a halt to the nearly-complete gas pipeline, and if you notice the ruble, which was on a solid run-up in the years before he got elected (thanks flexible Obama!) went into a free-fall in 2016 and has been doing pretty bad until very recently. Militarily I already mentioned the NATO expenditures, but we're also selling lethal weapons to the Ukronazis (I can't resist calling them that), and we effectively moved the eastern NATO border closer to him by 400 miles. There are US armored brigades practicing in Lithuania. Do you know the Poles are going to be getting the Abrams tank? Putin knows. His best buddy Lukashenko is having some kind of big crisis, and it's partly because our friends in the Ukraine (read: the CIA) put out ads in the Belarus media asking for Russian ex-soldiers who had combat experience in the Donbass to work as 'security' guards in some foreign land like Morocco for big bucks, and when they had 33 of them they put them up in a hotel, had them miss their flight, put them up in another hotel this close to Lukashenko's residence and then informed the Belarussian security forces that these guys were plotting a coup and the poor saps were promptly arrested and this caused a giant giant stink which destabilized everything because an enraged Putin pulled his support. The best is that the Ukraine immediately demanded formal extradition of those 33 guys because they were obvious Donbass war criminals, and those are some trials that Putin wants to avoid at all costs. Well played deliverers of lethal aid to the Ukraine, well played! There is a small chance that the Belarussian situation might cause the downfall of Putin. Now that would be some tasty four-dimensional cake!

We could do better than Trump, sure. I mean it's possible. I can't think of a single qualified individual in the entire world that could do the job better though. I mean I don't know everyone of course, but I'm given candidates by the parties, by the media, and they're like here you go, these are the men and women, go choose among them. I looked at everyone they gave us in 2016 both parties, and now 2020 same thing and what have you got? Not a single person with the executive experience, with a tough management style, no one with force and energy. No one just speaking their minds. All just a bunch of fucking caretakers and pretenders and one aging Communist. Every single one of them looks like a person who can't act until they confer, until they reach consensus, until enough people lick their assholes to tell them how right they are.

What saddens me the most I think is not the lack of qualified challengers for Trump but that there is no one waiting in the wings. Think about 2024. Who we're gonna get? Beto again? Haley? Gaetz? I mean I'm ready to vote for another television personality or whatever. Too bad Captain Picard can't run. Avery Brooks is gonna be 76, otherwise a sure vote from me. Brad Pitt? So handsome and just the right age but...yeah no. I wish Marlon Brando was alive. He knew about respect.

At least the spirit lives on.

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