The Political & Philosophy Thread

[HamburgerBoy]

Wait, Trump saying Russia will be rewarded by the American press if they can find the deleted emails live on television is the key proof that they colluded to help secure the presidency for Trump?

To Dems it is.

The whole thing is silly anyways. Leaking Dem emails is no different than leaking NBC hot-mike footage for Pussygate. The Democratic Party is a private organization, even if Trump directly paid the Russian government, it's not treason, just some kind of aiding & abetting + hacking case.

 

[CiG]

.....

 

[Dak]

scarequotesdrevilmeme.jpg.

 

[Einherjar86]

Wait, Trump saying Russia will be rewarded by the American press if they can find the deleted emails live on television is the key proof that they colluded to help secure the presidency for Trump?

No, it's not "key proof." As I already said, there's no proof (yet, but who knows if there is).

I'm saying that it can't be insignificant when a candidate running for presidency makes promises to a foreign government on live television, even if he can turn right around and say "But I wasn't being serious--I can't help it if they wanted to interfere!" That shouldn't matter, but Trump says things in a way that's semantically ambiguous (that is, it's so ridiculous that his claims to insincerity actually work). He basically just makes the promise in the open, and so it can't be questionable because he's not trying to hide anything! Pretty incredible strategy (in more sense than one).

And it's not treasonous, but it just might be interfering in an election.

If that's what you meant, there is literally nothing there.

 

[Dak]

What did he promise from himself? What's ambiguous about saying the press will reward them? It can't be what "reward" means; it must be what "press" means!

Nevermind that the interference in the election is finding the emails that probably weren't a big deal and probably weren't unsecured cause nothing Clinton did was bad anyway. If I were more interested I'd go back and dig up all that pre-election apologizing you did for those emails which now are so important that their retrieval could have interfered in the election, yet were not a big enough deal for the FBI to press charges, and even mentioning them was reason enough to fire Comey for interfering in the election, unless Trump does it because Comey was investigating him for interfering in the election, which he did by suggesting that someone find those emails since the FBI wouldn't.

Your groupthink "logic" is so convoluted it's past warranting a tuckerface meme.

 

[CiG]

Making promises and saying the press will reward you are practically completely different things. Trump has no ability to make the press reward anybody for anything.

 

[Einherjar86]

No, he doesn't--which is why that's clearly not the meaning behind his comment. It's a ridiculous thing to say, so why say it?

Again, plausible deniability. His comment was a virtual promise that Russia would receive fair treatment from America, i.e. from Trump.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Or, alternatively, you could stop being illiterate and realize that 'promise' has more than one meaning, including meanings which allow the statement to make perfect sense.

 

[The Ozzman]

Or, alternatively, you could stop being illiterate

I lost it there

 

[CiG]

Dumbest conspiracy theory ever.

 

[Einherjar86]

Or, alternatively, you could stop being illiterate and realize that 'promise' has more than one meaning, including meanings which allow the statement to make perfect sense.

Or, alternatively, you could stop being illiterate and realize that "promise" has more than one meaning, including meanings that allow Trump to claim semantic ambiguity, which also makes perfect sense. See how that works too??? omg, it's like your point made my point.

It's funny to watch you try and argue about language and meaning.

Dumbest conspiracy theory ever.

It's not really a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory projects outlandish causes for actual effects with minimal circumstantial evidence. In this case, it's simply a matter of reading what's on the surface. Most if not all of Trump's comments operate in this way--that is, they assume a surface appearance of ambiguity and multiplicity of meaning. He's able to explain his words one way to one group of listeners and entirely differently to another group. So in this case, it's just a matter of realizing what his comment implies for Russian listeners. It's clear he adores Putin, so it's not a stretch to assume he wanted the comment to be interpreted a certain way by Russian ears.

EDIT: to put this another way, I don't there was any conspiracy when Trump made this comment because it didn't involve any conspiring. It involved a medium in the form of an ambiguous comment that Trump (maybe) hoped would deliver a particular message, while being defensible in other contexts. It's a pretty fascinating linguistic phenomenon, honestly.

 

[CiG]

Okay Mr. Red Scare 2.0 lmao.

Well, if it turns out to be true that Trump colluded with Russia to secure the election you'll at least be able to say "told you so" as everything falls apart.

 

[Einherjar86]

That's all I ever wanted...

 

[Dak]

Well, supposedly Cohen implicated him for violating campaign finance laws, which every major media site save Fox is tripping over themselves to explain 400 different ways about how THIS IS IT. They've been doing this monthly for approaching two years no, so consider me not convinced. I have no doubt he knowingly had some women paid off, just not sure how that contributes to impeachment proceedings. Billy set the precedent here; if you can't get kicked out for adultery and lying about it, why for campaign finance?

Vox ran an article pointing out that the investigations of Manafort and Cohen show how bad the US legal system is concerning white collar crime. I agree, and it's a huge shame that bankers in 2008 pretty much all got off scot-free. But discovery of illegal financial doings when looking for "collusion" is a different sort of miscarriage of justice.

 

[Dak]

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-20/why-trump-s-extreme-politics-will-outlast-him

If Tyler Cowen is to be believed, better buckle up for politics in the coming years, Trump or no Trump (I agree but have some additional reasons):

All of a sudden, Americans are getting used to the idea that extreme political change is possible, for better or worse, and that means many of them will demand it. In the Trump Era, if I may call it that, it is harder to tell your base that big changes just don’t happen that easily.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Or, alternatively, you could stop being illiterate and realize that "promise" has more than one meaning, including meanings that allow Trump to claim semantic ambiguity, which also makes perfect sense. See how that works too??? omg, it's like your point made my point.

It's funny to watch you try and argue about language and meaning.

Except you explicitly excluded the possibility of multiple meanings, you lying illiterate.

Making promises and saying the press will reward you are practically completely different things. Trump has no ability to make the press reward anybody for anything.

No, he doesn't--which is why that's clearly not the meaning behind his comment.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

@Dak The exact opposite seems likely save for some monumental Great Depression-esque event. The more polarized the parties become, the less they accomplish anything. Trump couldn't/wouldn't even pass funding for The Wall(tm) when he had all the cards in his hand to do so in terms of Repubs in Congress. The issue too, of course, is that neither party is a homogeneous suite and only a small percentage of Republicans really want what Trump promised, as do Dems and what Sanders promises.

It's actually remarkable how weak, meaning willingness to use all their power and work on the cutting-edge of politics, that most American presidents have been since Nixon. Reagan tried for a bit but after his first two years, he was basically neutered as well. If/when Congress turns blue, Trump will probably have a legacy of the most impotent full-term presidency in a really long time. Like, I don't even know how long, I was going to say Hoover but he actually made and pushed some then-striking tax increases and public works programs in huge contrast to Harding/Coolidge, even though FDR ultimately made him look like Ron Paul.

 

[Einherjar86]

Except you explicitly excluded the possibility of multiple meanings, you lying illiterate.

My comment isn't suggesting that his remarks have only one meaning, but that their contradictory and ambiguous nature inevitably renders certain meanings nonsensical and logically incomplete.

I'd call you an illiterate, but you're really tarnishing the word.

 

[Dak]

Ein proving his favorite theory that interpretation of a statement doesn't have to take into consideration the intended meaning of the author/speaker. Trump means whatever liberals want him to mean, whether it's that the press means himself, or statements about specific people or groups apply to whoever they want. They can't be wrong!

@HamburgerBoy Well the neutering of radical candidates can only occur when other politicians aren't afraid. I think that's underlying his point.

 

[Einherjar86]

Ein proving his favorite theory that interpretation of a statement doesn't have to take into consideration the intended meaning of the author/speaker.

Intended meaning is virtually and practically worthless when the remarks make no sense in the first place.