O/T:- Covid Trump

[BigFatPie]

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I don’t have all day to spend on NCM providing instant responses to every question you ask, but I'll respond as and when I wish to.

Apologies, I wouldn’t demand an answer off anyone, just some sort of answer in your previous posts, but thanks for the attempt.

[i961pie]

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I don’t have all day to spend on NCM providing instant responses to every question you ask, but I'll respond as and when I wish to.

As 1961pie said, trying to encapsulate the views of over 70 million voters or even several thousand protesters into a few paragraphs is not an easy task for someone who doesn’t even live in the USA. Drillerpie has made a very good effort to do so and I generally think his observations are fair. There will no doubt be many other factors too.

I am not “ducking” the issue of the latent racial tension which is well documented in American society, but neither am I fixating on it. Amongst the Trump voters there will be hardline racists who will never engage with Biden and with whom it is probably impossible to reason in general. Likewise, I doubt even the most conciliatory of Republicans would get far in trying to open up a constructive dialogue with Antifa and their like.

However, there will be millions of Trump/Republican voters who are not racists and Q Anon conspiracy theorists. That’s why I focused on the broader strategic point that Biden must try to engage with as many of these disillusioned (but not deranged) voters as he can. He needs to listen and try to understand their views and concerns. He must avoid the mistake of dismissing all Trump voters as a bunch of racist, gun-toting, bible-bashing, violent loons.

Given the generally calm and constructive tone of the new President I don’t think he will adopt a dismissive attitude. It doesn’t appear to be in his nature. His problem may be whether some of his Democrat/’progressive’ colleagues will be as constructive, or whether their instinct is to ignore, deride, or even punish a significant portion of the population for holding views that differ their own.

Let's face it if the majority of Trump voters are racist/ republican and conspiracy theorists then America is lost, there is no hope.

[upthemaggies]

I'll take a wild guess that the majority of people who vote Republican do so because they are seen as pro-family and pro Christian values, which is why millions of non-whites vote for them.

[drillerpie]

By the way Driller, I’m interested in what you think would have happened if that been a BLM protest last week?

This is going to disappoint you, but I haven't changed my mind much from when it was all happening, which was that there were so few police officers there that I don't know what they were supposed to do with a mob that size.

If they had used their handguns on the crowd, they would've been able to fire however many shots they had on them but then they would've been lynched.

When the George Floyd protests were taking place last year, in terms of police reactions I saw everything from policemen taking the knee, policemen walking hand in hand with protestors, police using megaphones to tell the protestors they supported them, to police standing back while some very serious violence was perpetrated at those protests, all the way to completely unnecessary police brutality against peaceful (black and white) protestors.

I imagine you want to focus on the latter, and say that was not only standard but also because of the colour of the protestors' skin. I've also seen a meme shared by my 'progressive' (inverted commas deliberate) friends on social media which shows the National Guard at a BLM rally while the police got the red carpet out for Capitol insurrection, which invites the reader to believe the difference is due to the skin colour of the participants.

I think this is deliberately misleading. The photo of the National Guard was reportedly taken after several days of protests in Washington, so to use it as a comparison for an event that was just starting is disingenuous in my opinion.

There was a white woman shot during the Capitol insurrection, and there were plenty of black policeman who didn't shoot. The National Guard, when they eventually arrived inside the Capitol, did pretty much exactly the same what they did when they were instructed to clear the path for Donald Trump's bible photo-op, which is fire tear gas and other non lethal munitions and wade into the area until it was clear.

There is a lot to consider around this event, but I don't personally think racialising it is useful or helpful.

[Elite_Pie]

To answer BFP's questions about Trump voter concerns, I'd say that election fraud is the main one right now.

It seems like quite a lot of Republicans are convinced that electoral fraud really happened, but I'm equally convinced that it's just sheer desperation from Trump. He will never, ever admit that he was beaten fair and square, so he thinks if he repeats it often enough many of his diehard supporters will be taken in, and it looks like they are.

Every single claim has been thrown out by the courts, but there is one deciding factor for me. If it really was possible to rig a US election, does anyone seriously think that Joe Biden would be the one to take advantage rather than Donald Trump?

[Borg elite]

For what it's worth I think you are right bfp.

[upthemaggies]

It seems like quite a lot of Republicans are convinced that electoral fraud really happened, but I'm equally convinced that it's just sheer desperation from Trump. He will never, ever admit that he was beaten fair and square, so he thinks if he repeats it often enough many of his diehard supporters will be taken in, and it looks like they are.

No different to Hilary Clinton saying the Russians fixed the last election. Some people still believe that.
I can see this being par for the course from now on in US elections no matter who wins until democracy collapses. Seems both sides are now gagging for a dictatorship and totalitarianism,

[BigFatPie]

It seems like quite a lot of Republicans are convinced that electoral fraud really happened, but I'm equally convinced that it's just sheer desperation from Trump. He will never, ever admit that he was beaten fair and square, so he thinks if he repeats it often enough many of his diehard supporters will be taken in, and it looks like they are.

Every single claim has been thrown out by the courts, but there is one deciding factor for me. If it really was possible to rig a US election, does anyone seriously think that Joe Biden would be the one to take advantage rather than Donald Trump?

The concerning thing is that like the villains in scooby doo who were only caught because of those ‘meddlin kids’ Trump was only stopped by those meddlin courts.

A less stupid authoritarian might pull it off next time.

[drillerpie]

No different to Hilary Clinton saying the Russians fixed the last election. Some people still believe that.
I can see this being par for the course from now on in US elections no matter who wins until democracy collapses. Seems both sides are now gagging for a dictatorship and totalitarianism,

I think there is a difference, in that an FBI enquiry found that there was an effort by Russia to influence the election, that there were several members of Trump's inner circle who were in contact with people close to the Russian government and security services, who then lied about these contacts. Trump was also found to have deliberately obstructed the investigation. There was some truth to that allegation, although it's obviously a stretch to say it was the deciding factor, as Hillary Clinton was very unpopular with a large number of voters.

The allegations Trump is making seem to me to be completely unfounded.

[drillerpie]

The concerning thing is that like the villains in scooby doo who were only caught because of those ‘meddlin kids’ Trump was only stopped by those meddlin courts.

A less stupid authoritarian might pull it off next time.

I agree that in the same way that Covid 19 has showed us how inadequate our preparations for a pandemic were, Trump has showed us how many constitutional safeguards rely on people in power having some modicum of decency and overriding concern for the nation.

BFP can I ask you for your considered opinion on the same question you asked me?