Here’s how Stoermer describes Liberal Nationalism and the role it plays in american politics:
There’s a belief system that combines two things — first, that change must happen through official channels (voting, courts, proper debate), and second, that this procedural faith is wrapped in American exceptionalism. The system isn’t just legitimate. It is sacred because America itself is exceptional.
Now here’s where it gets complicated. Klein says the project is “the American experiment.” Newsom builds on that. Kirk said the same things, but meant something completely different. Kirk’s American experiment would destroy Klein’s and Newsom’s — he wanted to dismantle multiracial democracy, restrict voting, and return to what he called the real Founders’ vision. That would end everything Klein and Newsom claim to value.
Yet Klein’s nationalism enables Kirk’s. By treating Kirk’s anti-democratic project as legitimate discourse within the American experiment, by claiming they share common ground, Klein validates extremism as just another voice in the great American conversation.
And I keep wondering: Does the white Christian nationalist movement understand something about liberal nationalism that we don’t? Do they realize that as long as they frame their goals in terms of the Constitution, the Founders, and the American experiment, individuals like Klein will always find common ground with them?
I found other notable liberal figures saying similar things while perusing twitter. Notably senator John Fetterman recently insisted that americans (sorry, I refuse to capitalize demonyms. Sue me) should stop calling Trump an autocrat and pleaded for toning down the anti-Trump rhetoric. To me this attitude plays right into MAGA’s hands. This is the kind of stuff that whitewashes bigotry and helps reactionaries move the Overton window further right.
I would venture that in a similar situation, on this side of the pond we would be out on the streets, striking the economy to a screeching halt. But in the US, there seems to be this nationalist bootlicking mentality that prevents people from even considering direct action, simply because they believe the system will somehow fix itself and everything will be honky dory in the end.
I can’t help but think the US of A was never truly the haven of freedom we were told it was. And as much as I appreciate the comparably stronger fighting spirit of the working class here, I’m not sure it will be enough to resist the rise of the far right here in Europe either, propped up by the ever influential american politics. I’m a pessimist, so please give me hope, or don’t. Thoughts, please?
There is also no evidence that you know what evidence is and what truth is. At least we both know that you do not know what tariffs are, what the correct immigration numbers are, what “illegal” means, what “undocumented” means, whether the border is open and so on.
keiths,
The issue is debt to GDP ratio. If GDP grows faster then debt is added then the ratio shrinks. At less than 2% per year this ration will most likely shrink. All this being said I would prefer a bill that reduces debt and does not raise taxes but goes after spending.
Erik,
These are bald assertions. I really have no confidence you understand the US political system as your claims are rarely supported.
colewd:
No, the question is whether the OBBBA worsens the debt problem, and the answer is an unequivocal yes. If you pour water into the tub, the water rises. If you add to the debt, the debt increases. The OBBBA adds $4 trillion to the debt. That means the debt increases. If the OBBBA hadn’t passed, it would have added nothing to the debt. Which is better, more debt or less?
Yes, and that has nothing to do with the OBBBA debt question. Adding debt makes the debt bigger, and the OBBBA adds debt. If you’re concerned about the debt problem, why do you support the OBBBA? How does increasing the debt help us?
You’re misunderstanding the math. The roughly 2% that you’re quoting is the annual increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio. It’s a positive number, which means the ratio is getting bigger, not shrinking. It’s at 100% now and is expected to rise to 156% over the next 30 years. For the ratio to shrink, that 2% number would have to be negative. It isn’t.
Even if the number were negative, that wouldn’t excuse the OBBBA, because the OBBBA would still add debt and move the number in the positive direction. We don’t want that. Negative is good, because negative means that the ratio is decreasing.
I know you’re scouring the internet in hopes of finding some way to argue that the OBBBA actually improves the debt situation. Give up. It doesn’t.
The math is simple: adding debt increases the debt. If you have a debt problem, you want less debt, not more.
colewd,
You said earlier:
Trump and his Congressional accomplices are increasing the debt by a whopping $4 trillion. By your standard, they are fiscally incompetent.
Can you bring yourself to say that?
I struggle to visualize progressive sales taxes. Are you favoring, for example, higher taxes on more expensive items? You deny you’re talking about income taxes, but what other taxes can be progressive? I suppose a wealth tax could be – the richer you are, the more taxes you pay even if you are a rentier.
According to Google, the current US debt to GDP ratio is 142.8%, which strikes me as larger than 2%. Maybe you’re intending to say that the OBBBA increases this ratio from 140.8% to 142.8% which maybe doesn’t sound that bad to you, though you carefully misrepresent the actual ratio.
According to polls, citizens of most European nations (the first world) are among the happiest people, who are apparently content with very high taxes combined with very high spending (on social things like education and health). It has been a Republican position for many decades that the US should both tax and spend less. As keiths keeps trying to tell you, this happy condition applies to the wealthy because they pay the taxes, but don’t get the food stamps. The problem with reducing spending is, so much of the spending happens to help people who are not wealthy. You know, the Great Unwashed. Republicans are happy to starve such people.
Flint:
I’m not advocating any particular form of taxation as long as the overall system is progressive and fair. We need a system where the wealthier you are, the more you pay when all forms of taxation are taken into account.
But yes, a luxury tax is one possibility for making the sales tax progressive. You could certainly justify a higher tax rate for someone buying a Ferrari vs someone buying a Civic, for example. There could even be different rates for different tiers of luxuriousness. But there would be an administrative cost in establishing and enforcing the rules, and someone would have to decide what goods count as luxuries.
Right. Wealth taxes can be progressive, and so can estate taxes and property taxes. You can also arrange deductions, exemptions and credits so they are progressive in effect.
Flint, to colewd:
I think the 2% he’s talking about is the roughly 2% by which the debt-to-GDP ratio increases every year. That’s an accurate figure, but the problem is that Bill is misinterpreting it. He somehow thinks that the 2% number means that the ratio will shrink:
My best guess is that he’s misinterpreting the 2% number as the rate at which debt is increasing. If that were true, then as long as GDP growth was higher than 2% annually, the debt-to-GDP ratio would shrink. The reality is way different, because the rate of debt increase is higher than 2% and higher than the rate of GDP growth.
Lemme whip up a graph to make it clear.
Here are a couple of graphs that will hopefully clear things up for Bill.
The red line is percentage debt growth by year. The blue line is percentage GDP growth. As you can see, the debt almost always grows faster than GDP, and that’s why the debt-to-GDP ratio is increasing and is expected to keep increasing. The following graph shows the history of the debt-to-GDP ratio and projections through 2055.
The red line includes the effects of the OBBBA. The green line excludes them. As you can see, the OBBBA makes the debt problem worse.
Besides his misunderstanding of the data, Bill’s logic also doesn’t make sense. He seems to think that if the debt-to-GDP ratio were decreasing, the OBBBA would somehow be off the hook. It wouldn’t. All of the bad things about it would still be bad, and we’d still be better off without it.
keiths,
If you are a policy maker this is not all you need to consider. If pulling back spending puts you in a terrible recession that needs to be considered. Improving the debt to GDP ratio is a start in the right direction.
Again I would prefer reducing the debt now but I have not seen models that show this would be prudent. I am against raising taxes and want to see government spending brought under control.
OK, fair enough. I would prefer to see higher taxes and more funding of public assistance and services, like maybe Sweden. The US actually has such a system, except the rich avoid their taxes in a variety of ways. You might note, though I doubt you can admit it, that Trump has drastically reduced the size of the IRS, and essentially eliminated the tax enforcement department. You might be aware that the IRS has had a policy of not auditing any tax return unless successful prosecution of a tax cheat stands to return more than a certain number of dollars per hour spent auditing. Which means the enforcement department was geared to examine returns from those who made a lot of money. Guess who now gets to cheat because enforcement is eliminated. Guess who influenced Trump to kneecap the IRS.
And oh yes, truly intense enforcement is performed on a purely random selection of a few taxpayers, so your chance of being selected is less than one in a million. Comey and McCabe, both subject to this enforcement, got selected purely at random, nothing political about it, Trump said so!
This, along with price controls, was actually attempted under Nixon. The inevitable unintended consequence was that the wealthy simply stopped buying megayachts, fabulous expensive jewelry and other luxury items. And thousands of ordinary wage-earners, those who worked in the luxury industries for low wages, lost their jobs. Soaking the rich must be done directly, not indirectly.
And of course price controls resulted in investment being allocated inefficiently, and the economy suffered.
keiths:
colewd:
Who said it was? Policy makers should take everything into account, but the question we are addressing is whether the OBBBA helps or hurts the debt problem. The answer is that it hurts, to the tune of adding $4 trillion of extra debt versus what we’d have if the bill didn’t pass. You’ve been desperately googling and grokking, hoping to find some way of proving that the OBBBA actually improves the debt problem, but it doesn’t. Your search is fruitless.
The debt is one of your main issues, and the OBBBA clearly worsens it. Now that you finally understand that, you might be expected (by someone who doesn’t know that you’re a cult member) to oppose it, or at the very least to criticize it for ballooning the debt, but no — you’re just looking for another excuse to support it. Now you’re arguing that increasing the debt is a good thing under the circumstances. It’s laughable.
The OBBBA cuts spending by over a trillion dollars. You were already supporting a bill that
…and now you’re saying that it
Make it make sense. What positive things does the bill accomplish that compensate for the five things I’ve listed, all of which are bad?
The OBBBA makes the debt-to-GDP ratio worse. I explained that to you yesterday. So now we have a sixth bad thing about the bill:
colewd:
Bullshit. Just yesterday you were praising the OBBBA because you thought it reduced the debt. Now you’e praising it for not reducing the debt. Make up your mind.
You don’t have to continue this charade, Bill. We all know that you aren’t judging the bill on its merits. Your only question is “What would the Dear Leader want me to say?” He would want you to support the bill, so that’s what you do, despite the fact it’s harmful across the board by your own standards.
Principle goes out the window yet again, because you are a cult member. You’re emotionally dependent on the cult leader, and the thought of criticizing him or going against his wishes frightens you. What would he think, if he knew? What would your fellow cult members think? You’re so terrified that you cannot criticize him in any meaningfully way. You still haven’t acknowledged even a single lie out of the thousands he’s told, including the new ones he churns out every day.
You claim to be an independent, but there isn’t an independent bone in your body. You’re utterly dependent on Trump. He owns you.
I wonder if grok has been programmed to praise Trump no matter what. I wonder if Erik would find colewd “intelligent” since he shows no sign of human reasoning. I wonder how Trump latches onto the emotional commitment of the cult members, most of whom are actually worse off under Trump, so they are rendered unable to identify even the most flagrant lies. I wonder if the sheer number of Bills in the US effectively prevents any possible future recovery or repair of the damage the cult cannot find fault with. Even James Carville has given up hope.
Flint:
It’s odd, isn’t it? It’s sad to me that not only are these people in a cult, but they’ve selected the lamest person for their cult leader. A guy who besides being immoral, power hungry, and antidemocratic is also insecure, immature, impulsive, and stupid. I mean, can they really not do any better than Trump? If you’re going to debase yourself by joining a cult, why not salvage a little dignity by picking a better leader?
keiths,
How do you define if someone is a “cult” member of a party?
colewd:
It’s a Trump cult, not a party cult, and a major sign that you’re a member is your inability to criticize the Dear Leader in any meaningful way. What is the harshest criticism you’ve made of him during the last few months? Seriously, ask yourself that question and tell us. I’m genuinely curious.
Meanwhile, we’re talking about the OBBBA and why you support it. What do you like about it? Everything we’ve talked about so far has been a negative, including the things you were hoping would turn out to be positive — like the idea that it improves the debt situation.
keiths,
If I don’t criticise Hakeem Jeffries so I am also in the Hakeem Jeffries cult? Do we share membership of this cult? I generally compliment Bill Clintons work on financials and do not mention his womanising. Am I now also a member of the Clinton cult?
This is what happens when you use “lazy labels” instead of real arguments. This is why the Democratic Party is losing badly.
I’ll briefly intrude here.
It is probably a religious cult, the cult of Christian nationalism. And they seem to engage in group-think.
Incidentally, I see Christian nationalism as actually very anti-Christian. They reject most of the teachings of Jesus.
Neil:
There’s a lot of overlap between the Trump cult and Christian nationalism, but I would still separate them. Christian nationalists see Trump as a means to an end, and while some of them are dumb enough to believe that he’s a Christian himself, others aren’t. They know he’s not a Christian and that he doesn’t lead a Christian life, and a lot of them have to hold their noses in supporting him. They support him because he advances their cause and not because of his personal characteristics, so I wouldn’t classify them as being Trump cultists.
The people in the Trump cult actually adore the guy, which astonishes me no end. But then again I am also astonished that Scientologists revere L Ron Hubbard. I can’t get into the head of cult supporters who are able to screen out anything negative about their leader, even when it’s right in front of them. Trump and Hubbard are objectively and obviously terrible people, but the cultists just can’t see it.
Right. That’s a hallmark of cult membership. Think QAnon and their slogan “Where we go one, we go all.”
As do many of the Republicans in Congress who call themselves Christians, Mike Johnson being the poster boy of these pious frauds. I saw an excellent speech by James Talarico, a rising Democratic star who is also a Christian, in which he blasted Republicans for their hypocrisy in calling themselves Christians while ignoring Christian values. I’ll post it if I can find it.
colewd:
No, because failing to criticize someone isn’t automatically a sign of cult membership. What’s cultish is that you can’t criticize Trump even when he obviously deserves it, for things that are indisputably true. You can’t criticize him even when he pushes a bill through Congress that completely goes against your principles. What explains your support of the OBBBA other than a slavish devotion to Trump?
No, because I (and presumably you) would be willing to criticize Jeffries if confronted with something he did that was wrong. For instance, show me an instance of Jeffries lying and without hesitation I will say “Jeffries lied about that.” During months of discussion, I have yet to see you say that even once about Trump. In fact, you’ve gone so far as to defend Trump by claiming that when he says something false, it isn’t intentional. He isn’t lying because he doesn’t know that what he’s saying is false.
As Allan and I have to keep reminding you, to argue that Trump isn’t intentionally lying is to argue that he is so lost, confused and mentally incompetent that he doesn’t belong in office anyway. Pick your poison.
If it were just mental incompetence and he were actually an honest guy, you would expect his falsehoods to go both ways — sometimes in his favor, sometimes not. You don’t see that. The falsehoods are all in his favor. He’s doing it on purpose.
That’s not to say that he isn’t also mentally incompetent. He clearly is. I think the falsehoods are a product of both mental incompetence and dishonesty, and in some instances, it’s hard to tell which. It’s one or the other, though.
Not unless you refuse to criticize him when confronted with something that deserves criticism. He lied under oath, and I criticize him for that. I assume you do too. We aren’t members of the Clinton cult (if there is such a thing).
My arguments don’t depend in any way on the fact that you’re a cult member. Your membership is a conclusion, not a premise. Where in our months-long discussion have you seen me say something like “You’re a cult member, therefore you’re wrong”? Nowhere. My arguments stand on their own, regardless of your cult status.
Note the asymmetry: I and others here criticize Trump and back up our criticisms with evidence and reason. You fail to defend Trump, and you resort to false accusations against us to justify your failure.
When you cry “TDS!” as an excuse for not responding to challenges, it’s a cop-out. When we conclude that you’re a cult member based on your behavior, it’s not.
I wonder what there is about cult leaders, and whether there is anything common among them. I’m thinking Jim Jones, Haile Selassie (the Rastafarian religion regards him as a god), Sun Myung Moon (I once had a discussion with a Moonie. Truly surreal), David Koresh, and some others. Near as I can tell, they do fill some sort of emotional need, but I can’t share that.
Incidentally, I think TDS is a real thing. How can one be indifferent to the sheer damage he’s doing to everything the country stands for? When you look at both the scope and range of what he’s wrecking – to regulatory bodies, to cabinet departments, to national health, to international law, to the military, to the judiciary, to academia, to Big Law, to minorities, to the civil service, to the Constitution, the mind boggles. Trump even has a name for this destruction – flooding the zone. More wrongdoing than anyone can keep track of, happening all at once.
A while back, there was a wonderful Doonesbury cartoon related to this. In it, the pastor is reading an announcement from the Board of Elders. It says:
The congregation is delighted, since they are all now walking the walk.
Here’s the James Talarico video I mentioned above, which is very relevant to our discussion of the OBBBA. Talarico is currently a Texas state representative who is running for John Cornyn’s Senate seat. He’s a long shot at this point, but I predict you’ll be hearing a lot about him in coming years.
The video is just a minute long and definitely worth watching.
What would Jesus do?
colewd,
No, it’s losing badly because of you cultists… 😎
Seriously, plenty of arguments have been presented; you’re impervious to them. Wait and see, big picture, TDS… but anyone uses a ‘lazy label’ that’s your ‘out’.
We have our own bizarre personality cults – both to the right and left. Nigel Farage, “Tommy Robinson” and Jeremy Corbyn spring to mind.
Farage is an odious man widely admired and disproportionately platformed by our mainstream media. He made a million quid last year alone from 12 jobs outside of his supposed role as MP for Clacton (where he is never seen). Tipped to be our next PM, inexplicably.
Robinson (a weird nom-de-guerre; his name’s Stephen Lennon) is a former football hooligan whose anti-Islamic movement has blossomed. Half his inner circle has a criminal record. Americans like Jordan Peterson and JD Vance admire him for his work exposing Pakistani ‘grooming gangs’. Yet he hasn’t exposed a single one, and prejudiced a trial (and was sent to prison for contempt as a result). Among his fans is a friend I thought better of.
Corbyn is a decent, principled man, but is unjustifiably idolised by the Left. He’ had his chance, but lost two elections and has no chance of winning. Yet his fans see him as a Messiah, and fervently believe our country, taking a lurch to the Right on the back of immigration concerns, will somehow embrace true socialism (which our present Labour government seems to have abandoned). He’ll split the progressive vote, potentially handing power to MAGA-lite grifter Farage.
Allan Miller,
Most of the arguments here are based on a desire for a more socialist and globalist US government and Trump is the opposite of that. The opposition to his policies seems logical based on the ideology of most people here. The people in your country you call out simply have a different idea than you on how our societies make progress.
The data is pretty strong that mankind’s progress is tied more strongly to the opposite of what people here are advocating for.
BTW does 1 million quid = 1 million pounds?
colewd,
I don’t recognise that analysis of the criticisms – unless you despise healthcare, or free trade, or concern about overreach and abuse of power, as ‘socialist’ doctrines.
That is a particularly banal take. Of course I disagree with people I disagree with…
Allan Miller,
Demonisation of people you disagree with is more than simple disagreement. This was a particular theme in the ID vs evolution discussions.
The Trump discussion from most here was simply an attempt to demonise him. Why should a rational person dive into the details of that attempt to manipulate?
Yeah, I’m not seeing that either; free trade is something of a libertarian idea, most socialists are not fans. Arguing that the wealth imbalance in the USA is unhealthy is not socialist; perhaps you misunderstand the meaning of the word.
It’s awfully sweet of you to say that, but you appear quite wrong about the ideology of “most ” people here.
Well, Farage and Robinson are racists, so we all disagree with their idea of ‘progress’. Except, I guess, you Bill.
Holy mackerel! I want to see this data! The data I’ve seen are impressive showing that global trade and free markets lead to progress, and that excessive wealth imbalance leads to, err how should I put this, unfortunate outcomes.
Yes. You should get out more.
DNA_Jock,
Out comes the “lazy label” in order to demonise. Show me your more than a 1 trick pony 🙂
colewd:
Add “lazy label” to the list of terms that Bill doesn’t understand and will throw out indiscriminately when cornered.
Bill, to be a “lazy label”, a label has to be lazy — a label that someone uses to score cheap points without bothering to determine whether it really applies.
Lenin was a communist. “Communist” is a label. Did I just lazily label Lenin? No, because Lenin truly was a communist. The label fits. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, is not a communist. The label doesn’t fit. Trump called her a communist (“Komrade Kamala”) during the campaign not because he had thought about it and decided that the label applied — it’s questionable whether he even knows what communism is — but because he wanted to throw some read meat to the base, giving them a bogus reason to despise her. He took the easy way out.
That’s lazy labeling, and Trump does it constantly. Referring to Jasmine Crockett and AOC as “low-IQ” is a recent example. Those women are obviously intelligent (and far more intelligent than Trump, to boot), so the label doesn’t fit. It’s a lazy label.
When you accuse us of “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, it’s a lazy label. There’s nothing deranged about our criticisms of Trump. You throw it out there as an excuse for not responding to our arguments. It’s a cop-out. A lazy escape.
When we call you a cult member, we aren’t being lazy. You truly are a member of the Trump personality cult, and your comments at TSZ testify to that. I don’t casually call people cult members. I’m doing it in your case because the label fits, and I can back it up. It’s not a lazy label.
With all of the above in mind, does it sink in that when you refer to us as lazy labelers, you are using “lazy labeler” as a lazy label?
colewd:
A rational person who disagreed with us would challenge our criticisms and show us that we’re wrong. You can’t do that, because the evidence is on our side. Thus you resort to an endless stream of excuses for not showing us that we’re wrong. This is just the latest:
You pretend that we’re being manipulative, using that as an excuse for why you, a self-styled “rational person”, won’t deign to respond to our arguments. That’s a cop-out. A truly rational person would challenge us and offer counterarguments instead of just churning out more excuses.
keiths,
I am simply pointing out the use of a label vs a substantive argument dealing with facts. Lazy label was coined here by Allan Miller.
Your strategy all along has been to demonise Trump with rhetoric most of which has not been well thought out. Now Jock uses the offensive label of racist to describe two British politicians. The left is calling Trump supporters Nazis and calling Trump Hitler.
The Democratic Party has badly lost its way. I still support certain democrats who I think are capable and have the ability to reach across the isle for compromise.
One of the democrats I supported is Daniel Laurie the mayor of San Francisco who was able to talk with Trump and come up with a plan for San Francisco. This is very different than Portland and Chicago.
Crime in many cities is a real issue and it appears many local democrats couldn’t care less.
keiths:
colewd:
No, you’re lazily labeling Jock as a lazy labeler. Do you think he’s just reflexively calling Farage and Robinson racists without thinking about whether they qualify? Here’s a suggestion: Tell Jock why you think they aren’t racists, ask him to tell you why he thinks they are, and then we can judge who’s doing the lazy labeling.
He introduced the term in late April, writing:
We’ve been using the term since then, but you evidently still don’t understand what it means. That’s why I explained it above. If you fling a label you can’t support at someone in order to avoid addressing the argument they’re presenting, that’s lazy labeling. The label substitutes (poorly) for the counterargument you should be making but are too lazy (and in your case, too frightened) to make.
You do it all the time. “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is one example. You love applying that label, but when have you ever justified it? What is deranged about the criticisms we’re making? Pick some of mine and tell me what is deranged about them. If I’m suffering from the syndrome, there should be plenty for you to choose from.
We both know how this will go. You say that most of my rhetoric hasn’t been well thought out. I’ll ask you to give some examples, which should be easy since “most” of my rhetoric qualifies. You’ll fail to cite any. You’ll fall silent, or try to change the subject, or find some other accusation to lob at me which you also won’t be able to back up. Onlookers will shrug and think “Bill failed, as usual.”
It’s boring as hell. How about trying to defend Trump for a change rather than attacking his critics? If he’s defensible, you should be able to defend him. Give it a shot for once. Yes, you’ll almost certainly fail, because Trump isn’t defensible. But won’t it feel better to try and fail than to keep running away all the time?
Do you believe that Farage and Robinson aren’t racists? If so, make your case, and Jock can respond. And if you accept that they are racists, then why are you objecting to Jock’s labeling of them? It’s a hell of a lot more offensive to be a racist than to call a racist a racist, I’d say.
The left isn’t a monolith. Most people on the left are not saying that. I’m not saying it either, nor have I seen anyone else here saying it. So what’s your point?
Your obsession with the state of the Democratic Party is irrelevant to our discussions of Trump and the OBBBA, which can be judged on their own (lack of) merits.
They didn’t come up with a plan, and Trump contributed nothing. Lurie told him that troops were not needed and that they would make things worse.
The difference is that some billionaire “friends” of Trump in the Bay Area (Marc Benioff and Jensen Huang) told him not to send troops. A competent and decent president wouldn’t need to rely on billionaires to tell him to butt out of a city where he isn’t needed or wanted, and where his presence would be against the law anyway.
colewd,
Sure, Mr TDS…
It is banal to frame it the way you did. Compare: “Adolf Hitler simply had a different idea from others as to the direction his country should take”.
Note (because I feel I have to spell everything out) that I am not directly comparing them to Hitler, but using irony to illustrate a point. I disagree with them on policy and they are morally dubious.
It is a fact that Farage has made a million … pounds from 12 jobs in 1 year. You’re normally quite down on that kind of thing from political opponents.
It is a fact that “Robinson” has convictions for violence, as well as mortgage fraud and contempt of court, and that half his inner circle has a similar record. One is a convicted paedophile. Another threatened to slit a shop worker’s throat during a robbery. But let’s not demonise ’em, eh?
Allan Miller,
These are facts that are much more convincing than “lazy labels”.
Your case against Farage looks much weaker.
colewd:
In accusing Jock of lazy labeling, you are assuming that he rendered his judgment without duly considering the facts. You have no evidence of that. You’ve concluded that he didn’t, simply because he didn’t present them to you, but that’s an invalid conclusion.
People aren’t obliged to provide their reasons every time they apply a label. I can label the Pope as “a Christian” without explaining why each time.
colewd,
A question you still haven’t answered:
And not just negatives, but negatives that go against things you claim to care about.
keiths,
Jock used a label that is typical political rhetoric. Calling the Pope a Christian is not typical political rhetoric.
colewd:
Lazy labeling is not confined to politics. If you’re calling Jock a lazy labeler for not spelling out the reasons that Farage and Robinson are racists, then for consistency you should call me (and anyone else who labels the Pope a Christian) lazy labelers. Which would be ridiculous, of course.
Also, “racist” is not a political term. Politicians can be racist and policies can be racist, but so can non-political people and projects.
Hilariously, Bill has not dared to claim that Farage or Robinson are not racists. All he has done so far is tone troll.
He knows he is out of his depth. I found the creative accounting regarding the deficit and how much the OBBBA will increase the deficit especially revealing.
His efforts to avoid engaging are epic. In the post he tone-trolled about, I attacked a number of his claims, finally noting
Rather than address any of that, the only part he chose to respond to was this:
Now, any normal person would have objected to the sly implication there, but Bill strangely chose to whine about the quite factual and well-documented claim. Awkward.