It’s hard for me to say it because it’s not like Trump was actually “coherent”, he just didn’t seem like he was on death’s door.
Also, wouldn’t me saying I hate him a lot but still acknowledge he won lend more legitimacy to it? Like it’s actively working against my biases and I still acknowledge he won.
> your biases shouldn't have any impact on whether you thought someone performed better or worse than their opponent
That's arguably the definition of bias isnt it? Especially because political debates don't have objective winners or losers, declaring your bias before picking a winner in something that's only subjectively winnable does seem relevant.
This isn't a case of watching a soccer match and concluding "Gosh, I'm German, but I gotta admit Brazil won the 2014 world cup"
I do try and avoid my biases influencing my opinions on things, but almost by definition “bias” implies that I might not be fully aware of the thoughts that might be influencing.
Again, and I do not mean to repeat myself, the fact that I did concede he won the debate despite my distaste for him indicates that I am able to put them aside, at least a bit.
I find this recent kind of artificial “nuance” by simply pretending that having an opinion is somehow “tribalism” to be supremely annoying. It’s not clever, it just comes off people pleasing with the opposite effect.
Yes. Because Trump "winning" what was potentially the worst debate in US history isn't even worth a consolation prize.
This isn't even a RvD thing. I'd take back Romney, McCain or go as far back as Bob Dole. Hell, Sarah Palin was at least a pleasant form of stupid instead of malevolent. I remember when the R's at least has some minimal sense of class, but even that's out the window. This is just an embarrassment to my country at this point.
I don’t think all (or even most) republicans are stupid, but I think that Trumpism (and demagoguery in general) is a natural consequence of the Republican party’s unwillingness to outright condemn the conspiracy nuts like Alex Jones.
They’ve flirted with that kind of thinking my entire life (with the Satanic Panic and acting like Harry Potter was out to brainwash children), but it feels like the conspiratorial stuff really picked up in around 2013; that’s at least when my grandmother stopped sending me unsolicited Fox News articles and started sending me unsolicited InfoWars articles, and when she started really going off the deep end.
I agree. Their reasons pre-2016 may have been selfish at best or fundamentally misguided at worst. But I felt the worst the potential Romney era would do is slow (but not halt) gay marriage. If you don't subscribe for the conspiracies, W Bush wasn't an awful president (outside of completely throwing education under the bus... But 8 years of Obama didn't fix too much and Biden tried but got huge resistance to some starts).
There's definitely a much more explicitly hateful undercurrent in the trumpism era. I never would have expected a Charlottesville to happen so brazenly in the 21st century. Let alone the insurrection.
And on the other hand, Kamala' complexion is part of why Im worried about the D vote. Because despite much progress there are undeniably some older D's who hold prejudiced thoughts (external or internal).It undoubtedly was a partial factor leading to Hilary's loss. I really hope I'm just overreacting though.
I agree with most of what you said except for this:
> If you don't subscribe for the conspiracies, W Bush wasn't an awful president
I think he was still pretty awful; his administration basically banned stem cell research from happening in the US, he withdrew funding for anything involving climate change research, and he shares blame with Clinton for the 2008 housing crash. [1]
He wasn't quite as stupid as Trump, he didn't try and bribe a foreign official to investigate his opponents, and he didn't try and overthrow democracy with a violent mob, so I guess if that's our bar then he's pretty ok, but I think my standards are still higher than that.
[1] I'm aware that it was Clinton who signed the subprime mortgage stuff that caused it, so he definitely deserves a large share of the blame. However, the Bush administration sat on it and were happy to take credit for the short-term benefits until 2008, meaning that they weren't thinking about the long term consequences either, so I think they deserve a share of that blame too.
