Month Thirteen: Oil Barons | Dad, How Did You Meet Mom? | Barack Hussein Obama

[Salodin]

To be fair to all parties, half of us are describing cheating as undemocratic and antisocial behavior, and the other half is talking like cheating is only technically cheating if they are literally and purposefully messing with turned in ballots.

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[Andalusian girls]

Will Durant was a famous historian and philosopher who once wrote,

"If you wish to converse with me,” said Voltaire, “define your terms.” How many a debate would have been deflated into a paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms! This is the alpha and omega of logic, the heart and soul of it, that every important term in serious discourse shall be subjected to strictest scrutiny and definition.

bg makes me think of that quote often

[Tyche]

I mean, the undemocratic cheating is already happening. All that's left is ballot manipulation, canceling elections, or federal voter intimidation.

[Tymon]

I have nothing of nuance to add to the last few pages of discussion other than laughing at the idea that "everyone" would be repulsed by voters getting dragged away by ICE.

Dawg, Republicans have been fantasizing about being able to do that shit for decades. Rush Limbaugh used to go on epic hours long rants about how Blacks and Mexicans were "allowed" to be transported to voting locations and "allowed" to vote.

All they would have to do is go on TV and say they're hauling away all of the people voting for dead people or voting twice or voting illegally or whatever and 95% of Republicans would not only be fine with it but would probably help drag them out themselves. It's been a policy goal for generations.

I have no particularly passionate opinion on whether or not they'll actually do it though. It's just funny how so many of y'all continue to think that there's some kind of red line that will crash all of this down if it is crossed. There isn't. The focus needs to be on galvanizing as many people to vote as possible. Dems can and will win on the backs of pissed off sane people who are more motivated to vote than they were before. There is absolutely nothing that Trump or any Republican could do that will make them lose a material number of GOP voters. You cannot convince me otherwise.

[Tymon]

Oh wait my bad there is one thing. He can kill them. He did a great job of that in 2020 and look where it got him.

[Tyche]

If you're going to make the argument that voters are going to lay down to the violent removal of American minorities from voting, you have to argue that the response in Minnesota for illegal immigrants wouldn't extend to American minorities.

That seems asinine to me.

[arus2001]

At this point, just expect the worst and be surprised when republicans somehow go even lower. Otherwise, the mechanical integrity of elections is only as good as the morals of those involved in the process. This will not be the first election where the GOP's results could be fairly called into question, it's just that we're expecting it this time because they're posturing to do so.

[Tymon]

I'm not sure what you mean by lay down, but if you're trying to say I mean that a huge amount of voters won't be pissed, then you misunderstand me. Everyone that is mad about Minnesota is going to be Mad+1 with augments about that, should it happen.

And everyone that is laughing about Minnesota and churning out gross memes and flooding social media ad nauseum with jokes and FAFO comments from their truck cabins is going to do exactly the same thing if minorities start getting dragged out of voting booths.

The point is that there's not some kind of arbitrary line of toxicity where somebody that thinks ICE killing people in MN is hilarious but somehow the voting stuff is bad and will make them not vote or vote Dem. That's just not gonna happen. The needle isn't moving because of this stuff. Hence why I said the focus needs to be on getting as many people out to vote as possible by any means necessary.

[Tyche]

To be clear, I'm not saying I don't believe Republicans won't try to cheat or dump mountains of propaganda leading up to the election.

I'm highly skeptical of the fears people have given here such as Trump's polling being irrelevant (it's not) and ICE presence curbing turnout (I've only seen evidence of the contrary). And I'm skeptical that straight up ballot manipulation would be effective and I've given the reasons why I think that. Doesn't mean I believe they won't try.

[Karbuncle]

I'm not sure what you mean by lay down, but if you're trying to say I mean that a huge amount of voters won't be pissed, then you misunderstand me. Everyone that is mad about Minnesota is going to be Mad+1 with augments about that, should it happen.

And everyone that is laughing about Minnesota and churning out gross memes and flooding social media ad nauseum with jokes and FAFO comments from their truck cabins is going to do exactly the same thing if minorities start getting dragged out of voting booths.

The point is that there's not some kind of arbitrary line of toxicity where somebody that thinks ICE killing people in MN is hilarious but somehow the voting stuff is bad and will make them not vote or vote Dem. That's just not gonna happen. The needle isn't moving because of this stuff. Hence why I said the focus needs to be on getting as many people out to vote as possible by any means necessary.

Yah, this is kind of where I'm leaning. The needle is moved as far as its going to move after the recent murders by ICE. I don't think them posting up at Voting Centers or even dragging people out of them is going to make anyone else out there change their mind on ICE's actions if they haven't already turned on them for the murder and then the President shitting on the your 2A rights, I mean if the President and all his PR goons telling Republicans "Bringing a holstered, legal firearm to any protest or event means ICE can kill you" isn't losing him voters, nothing is going to.

I mean we still have good people out there standing up to them and I dont think that will stop, but I also don't think if whats happened so far hasn't changed your mind, theres anything that will. I mean some folks are just conditioned to submit to a higher authority no matter what they say. Its why Republicans prey on Religious voters for a very good reason and why they still make up such a large portion of their voting base despite Republican ideology and politics being completely devoid of any of Bibles actual teachings.

Either way, I wish I shared the optimism a few of you are showing, but even if we win the next elections in a Blue Wave the like the country has never seen before, getting super majorities in every area... I mean... then what? Nothing is going back to normal, we're never going back to a time before Trump. We've burned bridges with allies and fucked global trade in ways that will take decades to repair and I don't think we'll ever fully repair it because Trump's shattered the illusion of a functioning government with checks and balances, he's destroyed the idea that courts and laws can protect us from a run-away President. I mean we're one despot away from doing this all over again, and likely worse now that the practice runs are out of the way... and every single one of our Allies has to account for that now.

I mean our media is compromised, theres an elite cabal of pedophiles our highest forms of justice refuse to prosecute or act on, every illusion we've had as a people regarding our governments ability to regulate and resist authoritarian rule is completely fucking gone, and I don't know how we recover from it.

And even past all that, we have to live with the fact a large portion of our population is itching for a Hitler-like figure to come along and wipe out all of their brown neighbors and make America whiter.

[Tymon]

I am honestly a lot lower and more doomer about voter apathy than anything else. Republicans overtly rigging the election and daring the people to do something about it isn't even really in the same conversation.

I intend to harangue every single fucking person I know even barely to vote. I know for sure probably 60% of them don't. If we roll into the next election and get a shock result and find out that turnout sucked on the Dem side AGAIN then there's truly no saving us.

[Tyche]

I'm not sure what you mean by lay down, but if you're trying to say I mean that a huge amount of voters won't be pissed, then you misunderstand me. Everyone that is mad about Minnesota is going to be Mad+1 with augments about that, should it happen.

And everyone that is laughing about Minnesota and churning out gross memes and flooding social media ad nauseum with jokes and FAFO comments from their truck cabins is going to do exactly the same thing if minorities start getting dragged out of voting booths.

The point is that there's not some kind of arbitrary line of toxicity where somebody that thinks ICE killing people in MN is hilarious but somehow the voting stuff is bad and will make them not vote or vote Dem. That's just not gonna happen. The needle isn't moving because of this stuff. Hence why I said the focus needs to be on getting as many people out to vote as possible by any means necessary.

I don't think social media memes are a particularly good gauge of the overall voter sentiment, especially true when 95% of them likely do not live in Minnesota nor are affected personally by it as would be the case if ICE started violently dragging out black people from your local voting booth.

Turnout is affected by the general, fuck I hate this word, vibes of the constituents. If Trump and his policies were massively popular, Republicans would have a good turnout. When they aren't massively popular, people will be more prone to stay home if they believe it won't matter. It doesn't have to be about converting voters. Pissed off voters vote. Complacent voters or voters who believe their sinking popularity makes voting irrelevant wouldn't have the same turnout as if the GOP was hugely popular with a booming economy. The argument that the "needle isn't moving" because of these unpopular policies is not supported. At all. In any election we've recently had.

[Tyche]

Actually, I take that back. I do believe we will probably see a reasonably significant shift in Latino voters that went for Trump. Polling has shown him losing support among his own Latino voters, which practically carried him to a win. Then there's the deportation of 1500 S Florida Cubans and the election of a democratic mayor in Miami. They've also been among the most vulnerable to today's economic conditions.

Not great, especially for the new Texas map which relies heavily on Latinos continuing to trend to the GOP.

[Obsidian]

Instead of justifying why you said his polling is irrelevant or how ICE presence would affect the election, you wrote two long paragraphs citing a fear that you couldn't even be bothered to define what exactly the fear should be. And where did I ever mention that I hope (or think) Trump would have some reflective epiphany? Like...what are you trying to argue there, because it's nothing I brought up. I thought I was clear on what mechanisms I think would make it hard to straight up steal the election, and none of it had anything to do with Trump. Statistics, blue state audits, hired lackeys facing state charges rolling.

Dancing around the argument by feigning ignorance is too tiring for me to want to continue to shit up the thread. You know why people think his approval ratings don't matter; both because he just won a general election to the surprise of pollsters (and BG posters) everywhere, and because even if they do matter, electoral interference may render the point moot. You also know what the fear is; that he either won't get crushed in the midterms like his approval ratings suggest, or that it won't matter if he does because he has already captured most of the enforcement mechanisms meant to stop him and has already and repeatedly shown a complete disregard for the institutions beneath him. State charges aren't stopping ICE from executing people in the street. State charges aren't stopping FBI raids on voting centers. State charges aren't stopping illegal deportations or enforcing court-ordered injunctions. State charges aren't stopping unauthorized military action in foreign countries.

Dismissing these concerns as "he's not serious this time" or "THIS set of checks and balances will stop him for sure" is what is truly asinine. He will almost certainly try, and he may even fail. Acting like the possibility of his success is zero when he has thus far trampled over every barrier in his way is true ignorance, and that ignorance is almost as dangerous as he is.

[Tyche]

Oh man, I love when fresh data drops mid-discourse that supports your argument.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/04/polit...rackdown-polls

Two new polls from Ipsos and Quinnipiac University are the first high-quality surveys conducted completely after Pretti’s death. The first shows Americans overwhelmingly view his killing as involving “excessive force,” while the second shows voters overwhelmingly see the shooting as “not justified” — with those responses even more pronounced than after Renee Good’s killing by an ICE agent earlier in January.

And the reason that percentage has dropped is almost wholly due to Republicans.

While 54% of Republicans said the use of force against Good was “necessary” back in mid-January, that number dropped all the way to 33% on Pretti’s killing.
(Another 24% of Republicans said the force against Pretti was “excessive,” while a plurality — 43% — said they weren’t sure.)

The Quinnipiac poll is similar. While its poll last month showed registered voters said Good’s shooting was “not justified” by 18 points, its new poll shows they say Pretti’s shooting was “not justified” by 40 points — 62%-22%.

And again, Republicans were the big movers. While 77% of them said the shooting of Good was “justified,” just 55% say the same of Pretti.

[Tyche]

Dancing around the argument by feigning ignorance is too tiring for me to want to continue to shit up the thread. You know why people think his approval ratings don't matter; both because he just won a general election to the surprise of pollsters (and BG posters) everywhere, and because even if they do matter, electoral interference may render the point moot. You also know what the fear is; that he either won't get crushed in the midterms like his approval ratings suggest, or that it won't matter if he does because he has already captured most of the enforcement mechanisms meant to stop him and has already and repeatedly shown a complete disregard for the institutions beneath him. State charges aren't stopping ICE from executing people in the street. State charges aren't stopping FBI raids on voting centers. State charges aren't stopping illegal deportations or enforcing court-ordered injunctions. State charges aren't stopping unauthorized military action in foreign countries.

Dismissing these concerns as "he's not serious this time" or "THIS set of checks and balances will stop him for sure" is what is truly asinine. He will almost certainly try, and he may even fail. Acting like the possibility of his success is zero when he has thus far trampled over every barrier in his way is true ignorance, and that ignorance is almost as dangerous as he is.

You sure do love to write excessively to argue things that were never argued.

[Salodin]

I am honestly a lot lower and more doomer about voter apathy than anything else. Republicans overtly rigging the election and daring the people to do something about it isn't even really in the same conversation.

I intend to harangue every single fucking person I know even barely to vote. I know for sure probably 60% of them don't. If we roll into the next election and get a shock result and find out that turnout sucked on the Dem side AGAIN then there's truly no saving us.

Or they cheat and make it look like Democrats did not turn out when they actually did. Kind of like how it felt this past presidential election.

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[Xno Kappa]

If it wasn’t for the fact we’ve been posting on this forum for almost two decades I’d be convinced the lot of you were bots at this point.

[Tyche]

Also, saying Trump won to the surprise of pollsters and voters is such an egregiously stupid fucking thing to say. Bruh, were you here for the threads leading up to the election that constantly pointed to all the aggregates suggesting a trump win was completely possible. The graph looked like a god damn VT rhythm with how up and down it was. Fuck, we had daily Nate silver updates.

Also, it's a moot fucking point because, again, all actual evidence as opposed to your feelings show that his approval rating in Nov 24 is not what it is today. Which seems really fucking clear to anyone who has seen Democrats over perform their 2024 results by an average of like, 15 points. It's almost like his popularity matters.

[Tyche]

Wrong thread