thebruinbleedstarheelblue
Well-Known Member
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they had a debate.
Just stop pretending that there was some sort of comparison or similar criteria. This was all a charade.
Where do we go from here?
- Thread starter rodoheel
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- Politics
Just stop pretending that there was some sort of comparison or similar criteria. This was all a charade.
ChileG
Distinguished Member
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You know, Trump has a record as well. It was horrific.
sringwal
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The chart is regarding real life performances.
ZenMode
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You believe you know how things worked in this situation. From the average person's point of view, nothing you've provided shows anything happening to address the border crisis until 2023. From the start of the crisis in 2021, not only was there inaction, there was also no acknowledgement of the crisis by the Biden administration until, going from memory, years later.1. Because I know how things work. It wasn't even an executive order. It was a rule passed by DHS. The interim final rule was put for public comment in May 2024, and the rule itself was announced in June. Did you read the rule or the rulemaking?
2. Before the 2024 rulemaking, there was a rulemaking in 2023 called "circumvention of lawful pathways final rule." That rulemaking was required for the May 2024 rule making to be effective. Did you know about the 2023 rulemaking? No, you didn't. So the 2023 rulemaking had to go through the rule making process, which requires agency fact finding, notice-and-comment rule making, and the publication of an interim final rule. That takes 6 months at a minimum.
The final rule was published in May 2023. You do the math.
Fact Sheet: Circumvention of Lawful Pathways Final Rule | Homeland Security
As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s work to prepare for the end of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Title 42 public health Order, which will expire after May 11, 2023, and to return to processing all noncitizens under Title 8 immigration authorities, the Department of...www.dhs.gov
3. I also read an article from a person who had been working on this policy since 2022. I can't find it right now and it's hard to google because border policy returns so many matches, but anyway you don't need to know that. All you need to do is read the rulemakings. And if you're not going to do that, then you should stop talking.
Here is a court case describing some of the procedural history. The Lawful Pathways rule was proposed as a rulemaking on February 23, 2023. So there you go. Any further questions?
Even Trump, in all of his incompetence, was able to fast track the COVID vaccine process to address the issue much more quickly than normal. I suspect that IF the Biden administration actually wanted to address the problem more quickly, they could have. Hell, if they didn't put their heads in the sand and at least acknowledge what we all knew was happening, while saying they are working on a plan, that would be something.
What is more likely the case, as it was with not selecting Josh Shapiro and Harris not going on Joe Rogan's podcast, I'd bet that not taking action on the border was about not pissing off their base. As we are consistently reminded, here and on the old ZZLP, wanting a secure border and not having the country inundated with illegal border crossers, is racist.
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sringwal
Exceptional Member
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I have been thinking a lot about this comment, so I want to circle back to it. What you are talking about is not "proof." Instead, it is your opinion, based on a mixture of selected sound bites, confirmation bias, and political spin by pundits whose job it is to convince you that your perception of reality is right (which goes back to confirmation bias). "Proof," as you call it, is in graphs and charts that are created in a way that eliminates bias.
And the "proof" of that chart is that Kamala's speeches are written at a higher lexile level (which gauge a combination of vocabulary and complexity) at a higher reading level than any president since George Herbert Walker Bush. Trump's, on the other hand, are at a far lower level than any other president in the country's history. That is undeniable.
What you are failing to also understand is that there is a difference in Trump's strategy for sharing information and Kamala's. Trump's strategy is to avoid actually talking policy. Kamala, on the other hand, brings policy in when she is able to do so. The more you speak of policy, the harder it is to give a clear, concise answer.
I've posted this a couple of times lately, but the best example I can give is from an episode of West Wing.
In it, President Bartlett is running for reelection and badly loses the first debate because he gets inside his own head, and gets wishy washy with his words, because his job is complex, and political wonks are called "wonks" for a reason. His opponent can give clear 10 word answers, and wins the first debate handily.
Bartlett's staff spends the next few weeks, with varying levels of success, trying to train Bartlett to give clearer "10 word" answer. By the time the debate rolls around, however, Bartlett still appears to be struggling with his answers.
At the debate, he changes strategy, forcing his opponent to go beyond the 10 word sound byte. This is the result.
This is the key part of the discussion:
Moderator : Governor Ritchie, many economists have stated that the tax cut, which is the centrepiece of your economic agenda, could actually harm the economy. Is now really the time to cut taxes?
Governor Robert Ritchie, R-FL : You bet it is. We need to cut taxes for one reason - the American people know how to spend their money better than the federal government does.
Moderator : Mr. President, your rebuttal.
President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet : There it is. That's the ten word answer my staff's been looking for for two weeks. There it is. Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns. They're the tip of the sword. Here's my question: What are the next ten words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Give me the next ten words. How are we going to do it? Give me ten after that, I'll drop out of the race right now. Every once in a while... every once in a while, there's a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren't very many unnuanced moments in leading a country that's way too big for ten words. I'm the President of the United States, not the President of the people who agree with me. And by the way, if the left has a problem with that, they should vote for somebody else.
Trump is the master of the 10 word answer. Notice, that his speeches are long, but he pivots after each 10 words to a new topic. He even admits as such, and has branded it "the weave," which is, essentially, his way of distracting you by having you "look over there."
Whenever you go past that point, he struggles. His world is a world of black and white. And black and white worlds, as Bartlett says, "include body counts."
Kamala's answers are filled with more nuance, but that can often make her come off as less clear. This is because we live in a world that needs nuance, but demands 10 word soundbytes that reassure us that we are right, and they are wrong.
But, in the end, soundbytes are, simply, that. A good one, such as "ask not what the country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" have the power to retrain how we think. But JFK also gave some of the most powerful, and complex, speeches of the last 100 years, and he was one of the most captivating speakers. He followed the soundbyte, 10 word answer, with 1000 more explaining the depth of what that soundbyte meant.
On top of that, being intelligent has never meant that someone is a clear speaker. Some of the most intelligent people I know, with IQs far beyond my own, are terrible speakers.
So, no. You don't have "proof" to support your claim that she inept. What you have is your opinion, which you mistake for "proof" because we live in a post-truth world., and we have now raised multiple generations who care so little about our country and the success of it that they are unwilling to engage in learning about what it is that government actually does.
And, for me, that is just downright anti-American. But, that's just my opinion.
superrific
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1. Biden didn't take action until May 2023 because that's when the pandemic authority expired. Literally, up until that point, Biden's policy was exactly teh same as Trump's. He didn't change the Title 42 policy (and wouldn't have been allowed to anyway by the 5th Circuit). I mean, the policies were exactly the same. Biden's people started working on a replacement in 2022 because the pandemic authority was going to run out.
2. As for the vaccine, the law is different there. Trump's initial fast tracking was more about funding than law, and the money was committed by Congress, and there are no complex procedures to follow for doling out research grants, basically. Up until the vaccine was fully developed, there was no law involved at all (except perhaps on the very edges).
Then, once the vaccine was developed, you're right that it required rapid approval. But the FDA law has long provided a mechanism to do just that. It's called a "fast track designation." That's literally where the term "fast track" comes from in the pharma context. That's been the law of the land for at least 25 years. And Trump didn't have anything to do with that. The vaccine makers submitted their applications to the FDA under a fast track designation. The FDA evaluated the applications and approved. That's the way the system is supposed to operate.
3. The responsibility of educated people is to educate those who didn't have our same opportunities. It is not to parrot admittedly uninformed views of "average" people and thus head down a path of ignorance.
Hopefully, you have learned something from this discussion. I've explained the facts and the law, with evidence and links as appropriate. You've asked questions. I've answered them. You can ask more if you want, and I will answer them too assuming they aren't simply combative. I've learned things from people on this board who know more than me about certain topics. I just don't understand the unwillingness of others to do the same.
And then, hopefully, you will then explain this stuff to other people you know. And that's how public discourse is supposed to work, and why it has always been the cornerstone of ordered society. We talk to each other; we learn from each other; we consider people's arguments and perspectives; and then we hopefully form informed views.
MAGA especially (and the Tea Party before it) has obliterated this process in many corners of our society. "Do your own research" is such a regrettable attitude to have. At some point, Tea Party people got it in their heads that they knew more about how things work than the people who do the work professionally. I think a lot of this started with Rush Limbaugh, and a lot of it was in response to global warming. Because, on global warming, in the 1990s we really needed to trust the experts. It wasn't something we were going to be able to observe. And you had Rush getting rich off telling people not to trust the scientists because they were bad people.
Well, now we have ultra destructive hurricanes and wildfires and the Amazon is in danger of disappearing and the ice caps are melting and all of this is actually accelerating and we can't do anything about it because a) in large measure it's too late; and b) the idiots who believed Rush Limbaugh about science are still doing their thing.
4. So what I ask of you, which is the only thing I ask of everyone on the board: stop being part of the problem. Don't read weird ideological websites that are full of misinformation about, say, the climate. Basically all scientists agree about climate change. It's not a controversy. And it has deadly real world consequences. It's impossible for 100,000 PhDs to be so stupid as to believe a load of bullshit. The reason that all scientists agree is the same reason that all doctors agree about vaccines: the evidence is incontrovertible. And if you can't assess the evidence -- which none of us on this board really can, except for one erstwhile poster -- then believe the consensus because there's no reason to think that all of those people are part of some misanthropic conspiracy.
This goes both ways. I'm not interested in left wing quackery any more than right wing quackery. Like, RFK Jr was a Dem, right? I never supported him, not one bit. Never. He's been full of shit for 20 years, and that hasn't varied with his political alliances. I have never had any time for his bullshit. I quickly got tired of the bullshit from Ibram X Kendi, and I don't defend him either. They are part of the problem.
Stop being part of the problem. That's all I ask.