I do believe Trump is the saviour of socialism. For the last 30 years most people have relegated the S word to the history books. Now Trump has reinvigorated it AND promoted an obnoxious brand of capitalism. Well done the Don. The 2020 Marxism-Leninism prize is yours

From socialism to oligarchy take your pick.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.the...-review/tnamp/

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/25/90589...t-socialism-is

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nymag.c...ess-trump.html

In all fairness, Joe Biden has said straight out that taxes will go up, which makes sense considering the scope of the programs proposed by his platform. Here's an analysis that indicates a 1.9% decline in after-tax income for the population in general, which is not a lot.

He also did say that he would put Beto O'Rourke in charge of a new gun control program, and the latter did say his intention was to ban guns. Of course, that doesn't mean a Biden/Harris administration would implement his policies, but the argument isn't founded on nothing.

As for freedom of religion, his platform does contain some really weird statements, like "establishing a faith-based law enforcement program", whatever that might mean. (The same page also contains the statement "he will take on the NRA and gun manufacturers to pass critical gun safety reforms and get weapons of war out of our communities", so some firearms will obviously be banned.)

Other concerns I've seen raised aren't based on statements from Biden or his campaign at all, but is rather reactions to statements from more or less extreme democratic senators like AOC, and there's no reason to believe their opinions are relevant at all with regards to the policies of a Biden/Harris administration.

This article contains the famous quote from Bernie Sanders, parroted by AOC, where they say they're not for socialism like in Venezuela and Cuba, but rather socialism as implemented in Denmark and Sweden. That makes absolutely no sense.

Ouch, it doesn't...

If you mean it doesn't contain the quote straight up, you're right. Instead, it contains an extremely charitable interpretation of it, and claims their "vision" is more "aligned" with Sweden or Denmark than Cuba or Venezuela.

That's equally false, and perhaps more importantly, not at all what Bernie Sanders and AOC has said.

I was listening last night to a BBC World Service discussion program with four participants. Guess what! Only one was pro-Trump and three (two Democrats and one Republican) were anti. To be fair, the chair kept trying to get them to discuss the point of the program which was the very pertinent question: why was this not a Biden landslide like everyone predicted? Why did so many people right across the country vote for Trump that Biden still can't claim official victory five days later? Trump got more votes than he did in 2016, many of them from Latinos. You could argue then that it was just the novelty of him, that people were fed up with politicians and maybe thought a businessman would make a better job of it. But that logic can't explain the 2020 figures. Huge numbers of people seem to actually like Trump. They like him and approve of him in spite of his weird behaviour and in spite of the high death rate for covid. Why? Nobody wanted to say.

On UK television, whenever there is something about the US election, they show a map of the states in political colours, and it's just a sea of red. There is a broad blue band down the Pacific coast, a big blue mass that is New England and a blue blob that is New York. But practically everything else is red. Of course, that doesn't help Trump in the Electoral College because all those inland states are thinly populated. But why are they all supporting him? And why does no one want to talk about it?

The polls and prediction models were so wrong they were basically useless. It was bad in 2016, but even worse this year. Pollsters claimed to have improved their methodology post-2016, but evidently they failed miserably.

The "America first" message seems to resonate with many, and the various peace agreements he managed to broker may have played a part. Perhaps not only because they were good news, but also because the reporting exposed some of the rather rampant partisanship in some media organisations.

I mean, in which universe does it make sense to look at previously sworn enemies signing a historic peace agreement at The White House and go, "Trump isn't practicing social distancing!"
Perhaps they understand that, unlike in countries like the U.K., the leader of the nation only really controls the external borders, foreign policy, and the armed forces?

Whenever a president has tried to interfere with the affairs of individual states in the past, it has always been deeply unpopular. Perhaps Trump's "hands-off" approach has earned him some support?
Because he brought back industry that was previously outsourced to low-cost nations?

Because they used to be unemployed, and now they have jobs? Prior to COVID-19, unemployment was historically low.

Because Trump's tax cuts have significantly benefited ordinary Americans?

Because many in what the U.S. calls "the black community" eventually though to themselves, "wait a minute, back when Trump was just a businessman, everybody in the black community loved him and black musicians were fighting to get him to appear in their videos. Exactly why are we supposed to consider him a racist now?"

Because the "socialism bad" message resonated with Cuban and Venezuelan expatriates, especially when all Trump had to do was point to AOC and Bernie Sanders endorsing Biden?

Yes to the socialism bad message for the Cubans and Venezuelans. Others it depends. Many just vote on one policy like Evangelicals (sorry if I offend anyone) which is just pro-life. In my area, socialsim law and order and protection from the radical left was the predominant message.

As far as I know his reelection campaign did not mention economy, middle east accomplishments or tax cuts again not in my TV land area.

Trump did have a few accomplishments to his credit but for the most IMHO exaggerated them just a wee bit. I guess I am not ordinary since the tax cuts did not benefit me nor did it really trickling down but went to stock buy back versus capital investments, on the economy more of a glass half empty since did it not tank nor was it the best ever in recent history. He brought back some industry and his policies have helped US workers but not stopped offshoring completely.

Using the word "everybody" there is quite a stretch. And how many blacks back then do you think would have been hoping for Trump to become POTUS??

I don't want to say much in this thread. I come here to read Linux stuff. It's just that the lying, the cheating, the Twitter tirades, the lack of empathy for people (especially people of color), the way he acts towards women, etc., etc., those things make it impossible for me to respect or admire the man. To me it feels like the U.S. has become a worse place since he got into office. But a lot of ugly things have come out into the open. Not sure if that's good or bad. The hatred and anger is sad to see. I'll leave it at that.

Well, that's just the problem, isn't it. Most people here would agree absolutely with what you have just said and yet Trump is holding Biden to a nail-biting finish, more people voted for him then in 2016, and a fair number of black and Latino voters (who traditionally vote Democrat) have switched to him. And I would like to know why.

True. What I meant, is "a large number of the highly visible, successful black entrepreneurs." After all, those are the people we see in the media.
I don't think anybody, regardless of ethnicity, though that was even a remote possibility.

And I'd really love to know why. Honestly.

The Biden Campaign web site asserts ("without evidence", as the media loves to say) that there's rampant racism and anti-semitism in the U.S. (link posted earlier), and implies that a) this is a recent development, and b) therefore Trump must be responsible. Where's the evidence for any of this?

Personally, I have not seen any instances where Trump has said or done something that could be considered racist. Same goes for anti-semitism. I mean, if anything the guy seems overly friendly towards Israel, and he doesn't seem to have a problem with the fact that Ivanka converted to orthodox judaism when she married Jared Kushner.

I wonder if facts even matter at this point.

Apparently whoever writes The Simpsons predicted it years ago.

PS: Biden just took Pennsylvania, so he's won barring some catastrophic legal upset.

If you'd actually read and understood the page, you'd see what that meant. It expresses concern about extremist attacks on places of worship and defines the faith-based program as mandating the DOJ to be more active in combating extremism and helping places of worship improve their security. The terminology might have been a bit strange, but one can hardly object to the goal — Wikipedia has a disquieting list of attacks on Muslims and Jews in the USA.

I'm sure they had a good laugh in the writers' room when they came up with that one. And then it actually happened.

Makes me wonder if or when when we'll see the equivalent of President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.