We are heading towards an Idiocracy!

[pochercoaster]

i'm on my phone, typing in a hurry before work, so apologies for shitty typing and/or bad phrasing.

Hillary is ok as far as presidential candidates go, while Trump is a repugnant egomaniac (to put it lightly) with atrocious policies.

Yes, calling them both equally bad is ridiculous. I mean trump is possibly a serial rapist.

But i wonder how much of hillary's policies she'll actually stick to. Like she had that "superpredators" thing and oposed lgbt stuff in the past. She changed her mind, which ia good, but is that because she actually cares now or is just because that's closer to the status quo and most advantageous for her? Functionally maybe it doean't matter, but ehhh. If it's the latter it's just the continuation of the bare minimum amount of liberalism required of the democrats, which frankly isn't a hell of a lot.

Also i don't know anything about #6 because i dont keep up with politics. Is WW3 possibly a thing now?

I don't think i'll ever be excited.for another presidemt after obama. Not until we have a liberal black female candidate ot someone's mexican grandmother running.

Edit: also if that stuff about supporting legislation that put black people in jail is legit (i havent done much research) i feel really icky acknowledging how itd be a milestone for her as a woman to be president. Because its representative of feminism's racially oppressive past (well, and present.) Like how early feminists fought for the right for white women to vote and then opposed black womens rights. Thats a thing.

[Solid Snake]

I won't speak to the rest of your concerns, which are entirely legitimate criticisms of Hillary's less-than-impeccable, less-than-leftist history, but as for this nugget:

Originally Posted by pochercoaster

Also i don't know anything about #6 because i dont keep up with politics. Is WW3 possibly a thing now?

...Not really. Putin isn't quite crazy enough to attempt a nuclear war just to achieve his ambitions.
What's actually happening is that Russia is utilizing a combination of convoluted geopolitical coincidences to try to establish itself as Europe's predominant power again, generally at the expense of the European Union (and, insofar as the US and the EU are natural allies, this will impact the United States.)

Where Trump plays into it is that he and his ignorant, misinformed base of racist nitwits are so scared shitless by ISIS, Al Qaeda, Muslims in general and the threat of 'radical Islamic terrorists' that the Kremlin rightly believes that a President Trump would strengthen ties with Russia as the Russians have been 'fighting Islamists' for ages upon ages in Chechnya. Russia's duped poor Trump -- not the brightest bulb when it comes to foreign affairs -- into lumping all the rebels in Syria and Iraq into the same ISIS category, and therefore Trump believes that Russia and Assad are fighting against the 'bad guys', and therefore Russia is the 'good guy' in their Syrian operations.

The real world, of course, is a complicated place, full of shades of grey and incongruities. Hillary Clinton understands this, and generally understands what Putin's trying to accomplish, and understandably opposes his ambitions. Donald Trump doesn't understand much of anything, so Putin sees him as a lovable pawn he can manipulate. Hence, all the e-mail leaks.

Here's some basic bullet points:

- Russia's brutally oppressed the people of Chechnya for some time now. In the wake of September 11 and the rise of Islamic terrorism elsewhere, Putin's generally tried to justify Russia's very anti-Muslim efforts as part of a broader global battle against radical elements of the Islamic faith. Furthermore, Russia's been squabbling with Turkey for some time -- the two are far from friends, ever since the days when Tsarist Russia negotiated with the UK and France to retake Constantinople for the glory of Orthodox Christianity in the days of the first World War (before the revolution forced Russia to withdraw from the conflict.) Subsequently, Putin generally likes the idea of a geopolitical narrative where the civilized world is pitted against Muslims as such a narrative enables Russia to advance regional policies at the expense of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Sunni Muslims in general, and their own Muslim minority populations, who often are oppressed and radicalized into becoming terrorists.

- Russia's been needling NATO and the EU for some time now, gaining territory (Crimea) and influence in eastern Europe by virtue of their willingness to look down upon and defy international legal norms. The war in eastern Ukraine, where Russia's overtly supported rebel forces (and utilized the conflict to justify stealing Crimea outright) is the most brazen example, but Russia's propped up a proto-dictatorship in Belarus and has openly threatened the Baltic states. Countries like Poland and Lithuania are justifiably terrified of Russian meddling as it's really no secret that Putin would seize on any pretext to try to cobble together the old Soviet territories -- if not through outright annexation, then at least through political alliances through an EU counterweight.

- As for the EU, financial issues, Greece's economic calamities, countries like Italy standing on the brink of their own serious depression, Brexit...there's a lot of issues with the European Union, which Donald Trump views as an awful globalist political institution, and which liberals (like myself) generally view as the best hope for Europe's future. (Damn you, UK, you've made a terrible mistake there.) A Trump victory in America would generally be seen as a terrible sign for Europe's future as it, along with Brexit, would support a narrative that liberal institutions and forces throughout the western world in general were at risk of collapsing as nations turned inward and embraced ultra-right wing, nationalist, anti-immigrant, anti-economic integration movements. If Europe turns against itself, and nations like the United Kingdom, France and Germany went their separate ways and valued their own interests over the broader interests of western Europe as a whole, Russia would be able to seize and exploit the power vacuum.

- Trump wants Russia and the US to be buddies, but he's going to cave into basically every one of Putin's demands. It'll be sold to Americans as a natural byproduct of America and Russia uniting against Islamic extremism. In reality, Putin will oppose both ISIS and moderate Sunni Syrian rebels in Syria, resulting in propping up Assad's repressive government; Assad would then surely respond with concessions to Russia in exchange for Russia's undying support through their Civil War. A Russian-Syrian pseudo-alliance would then give Russia more opportunities to antagonize Turkey, who'd now be sandwiched between rival states to its north and south, and the entire situation would weaken the Sunnis generally, as well as weaken reformist movements throughout the Arabic world that have propped up in the wake of recent pro-Democracy movements against autocratic states there.

- Trump will frame this all to Americans as: Huzzah! ISIS is vanquished!!! But other radical Islamic movements would invariably replace it, just as ISIS 'replaced' Al Qaeda, and there would still be threats of terror attacks on American soil. The real net change would be Russia rising as a hegemonic power in eastern Europe, the Middle East and East Asia, at the expense of America and its traditional allies, as Trump would be seen by foreigners in general as weak and easily manipulated, and even his election -- before you get into his domestic economic policies -- would have disastrous impacts on the value of the dollar abroad.

Basically: A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for this asshole, who among other things is currently oppressing the LGBT community within his own borders, and who probably daydreams about returning Russia to its old Soviet borders and reliving the 'glory' of an autocratic state where all opposition to his rule is brutally cut down through a mix of assassinations, media restrictions, and old-timey corruption and bribery.

But, the good news is: He's unlikely to risk a global military conflict to make all this happen! He's more behind-the-scenes and he's too rational and intelligent a geopolitical actor (unlike Donald Trump, ironically) to risk any action that would seriously result in nuclear weapons being launched or a destabilizing ground conflict where he'd fight forces more organized than, say, Ukraine's.

[pochercoaster]

I can't rep Snek

On my lunch break so not gonna type a proper response but thank you, that is extremely informative.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

I think part of what we should understand when looking at Russia and Putin especially is that he idealizes the Soviet era for his country. He sees, and pursues a return to strength, security, political solidarity. The projection of Russian influence rather than Russia being influenced.

It's hard to tell at this point whether he's also got enough realism to be able to to avoid the failures of the military focused planned Economy that the Soviet Union had, or whether he'll repeat those mistakes and dump the Russian Economy into the toilet to churn out arms.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by guy

I think part of what we should understand when looking at Russia and Putin especially is that he idealizes the Soviet era for his country. He sees, and pursues a return to strength, security, political solidarity. The projection of Russian influence rather than Russia being influenced.

It's hard to tell at this point whether he's also got enough realism to be able to to avoid the failures of the military focused planned Economy that the Soviet Union had, or whether he'll repeat those mistakes and dump the Russian Economy into the toilet to churn out arms.

Putin's economic policies may actually be the most sane aspect of his platforms, which isn't much of an endorsement of those policies as it is a condemnation of Putin's atrocious social and foreign policy stances, as well as his general aversion for any kind of transparency, his opposition to free speech (he'll even assassinate his opponents) and his love for an autocracy led by the force of his personality.

That's not to say I disagree with you, more that I really wouldn't mind the idea of Russian leaders desiring to 'project influence' if they had more sane and capable political parties leading the charge. The problem I have with Russia right now isn't that I favor American hegemony and want to restrict any competition to America's global predominance, I'd actually love to live in a world where say, the EU was a viable socialist counterweight to bad American policies. Cold War baggage aside I actually prefer times in world history when there's more than one global superpower at the highest level of projection, it's generally better than the alternatives when a single power dominates and is uncontested. The problem is Putin and his cronies and their beliefs, he's just not the guy I'd want leading any nation to a return to 'strength and solidarity.'

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Oh, don't get me wrong. I'm saying that he idealizes those things in the same sense of the phrase that some conservative American politicians might idealize the past of our country. There's some percentage (Big or small) of people who say "Make America Great Again" while picturing the years of segregation or ignoring the HIV epidemic. Either in spite, because, or in ignorance of those things.

Putin want those things because that's what he sees of the soviet era. He doesn't care about the downsides because they never effected him. He's at the root a special kind of horrible person that I sincerely hope loses all power and influence as soon as possible. Not the least of which because the more he solidifies the grip on power that he has, the more likely it becomes that he will find someone with the force of charisma and dedication to autocracy to become his successor.

[Solid Snake]

Welp, folks.
The FBI is trying to manipulate the media with the timing of this newest 'revelation' (of e-mails Clinton did not write nor host on her private server, apparently?) and swing the election for Donald Trump.
Let's just let that little factoid sink in for a second here.
Real life is now officially more strange than any sci-fi prediction of what the year 2016 could've possibly been like

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

My understanding is the FBI director tried very carefully to inform people that there were three new emails that he felt obligated to include in the investigation, which "May or may not" lead to anything.

It's media and conservative outlets that latched onto this big pile of nothing as something.

[Kim]

This isn't news, but this is an interesting article about a kid who used to be a major figure in white supremacy/white nationalism because that's what he grew up in and I feel that's relevant to the Trump shit cuz to be honest without the groundwork white supremacists laid down Trump wouldn't be as successful today.

There's no one segment of the article that I feel can be quoted without the whole, so just go read it if you want.

[Tev]

Originally Posted by dude guy fella bro steve

My understanding is the FBI director tried very carefully to inform people that there were three new emails that he felt obligated to include in the investigation, which "May or may not" lead to anything.

It's media and conservative outlets that latched onto this big pile of nothing as something.

More accurately, during the course of investigating the Anthony Wiener scandal, the FBI came across email from a Clinton aid that had nothing to do with the Clinton email scandal. The FBI director, being Republican, then sent out a vaguely worded memo to the Republican heads of various House and Senate committees that basically boiled down to "I testified that we had seen all the emails and closed the Clinton case, while that was technically true then, I for some reason feel obligated to inform you that we found some other emails that we're not sure tie to the case at all so we're reopening the case on the off chance that they do, even though we need to get court orders and permissions to even look at those emails and it'll be a thing that takes longer than the few days we have before this election. Oh, and also, pretty please don't leak this vague email to the press and spin it as us finally finding pay dirt against Clinton and ruin her chances in the election. *Wink Wink*"

And as soon as it was sent, those said Republican committee members leaked it all over the place and spun it as finding the smoking pile of WMD's that they'd been digging for forever, even though nobody has even seen those emails yet, or even know for sure which aid sent them. They literally could be pictures of cute kittens and wedding photos for all we know so far. Many in the Media has been (rightly) crucifying the FBI director for so blatantly handling information about active cases like this in order to swing the election.