Yes, your 2nd example is Sincere Septimus (Dr. Septimus Jekyll if you will), while the first one comes from the caricature Mr._Septimus_Hyde, who will be posting very seldom in future, I hope.
***HOWEVER, the OP of this thread was entirely sincere (the final sentence was a bit tongue-in-cheek) and I’m confused that anyone can read it and think otherwise. *** Certainly OP isn’t supportive of Republicanism or Trumpism.
(Often at SDMB I feel that Dopers react to a thread title without reading OP. Is that what happened here?)
I DO think the Board needs a Trump defender to improve debate. Yes, Jim Peebles is an imbecile or a lying hypocrite or (most likely) both. But maybe that’s all that’s available in the way of Trump defenders.
I’ll probably wind up voting for Trump; I didn’t see much point in going in for debate until the Democrats actually settle on a candidate to run against him, but, hey, (a) feel free to kick off a debate in Elections this early, if you’re so inclined; and, what the heck, (b) feel free, hereabouts, to hang an insulting label or two on me.
:dubious: On the one hand, it’s good that a Trump supporter has managed to grasp that sex is supposed to be consensual. On the other hand, it’s kind of worrisome that the concept is so novel to him that he thinks it needs to be explicitly stated, like a habitual shoplifter announcing that he’s got a bag of “legally purchased potato chips”.
Of course, it would be more worrisome if we had any reason to think that LAZombie’s claim was anything but entirely fictional.
A vote for Trump and the Republicans is now a vote for corruption, less freedom and less action on health care, climate change and many other items.
IMHO any insults coming to Trump supporters and current Republican leadership are now self-inflicted because a lot of issues now are being looked at by the right with willful ignorance so as to allow them to continue to support ignorant and reckless people in power.
Well, The Other Waldo Pepper thinks it’s a debate worth having. But not until the Democratic Party has picked it’s candidate. Surely the contrast will be made more clear on that day when all or Trump’s history will be wiped clean from collective memory and consideration. Until such time, it’s impossible to know which trivial flaw of the Democratic Party candidate must be sharply drawn into focus and blown completely out of proportion.
You’re giving up the argument before it even starts: leading off with a flat claim that Trump’s history will be wiped clean from consideration, and then announcing that the other candidate’s flaw will be trivial. Why frame it that way? I’d sure like to think I will take the guy’s history into consideration, and compare it to a flaw that won’t be at all trivial; if you’re already declaring the situation to be the other way around, then I’ll be arguing in good faith while you and yours, uh, aren’t?
You’re right that I think it’s a debate worth having. Do you?
Are you arguing that a candidate who manages to make it through the Democratic nomination process is reasonably likely have a flaw “that won’t be at all trivial” in comparison to Trump’s established record of incompetence, venality and malevolence?
Such as what, for example? What are some specific plausible instances of characteristics that you’d consider flaws in a Democratic candidate that would incline you to vote for Trump instead?
I mean, at some point this sort of “bothsidesist” determination to reserve judgement as long as possible starts coming across as less judicious than flat-out delusional.
For one: is the candidate in favor of decriminalizing illegal border crossings? That strikes me as specific and plausible, and it’d incline me to vote for Trump instead.
You don’t need a Democratic candidate to defend Trump’s virtues. You could simply come out and tell everyone what you think they are. But you didn’t. You chose to punt so you could pick nits about whomever the Dems choose. Not only that, you specifically said you’d “probably vote for Trump”, without even knowing who that candidate would be. Which tells me, you aren’t really serious about the debate you propose. You just want to postpone until you know which potential weakness to focus on to distract from your actual intent - which is to vote for Trump, regardless. So no, despite your protest, I see no ‘good faith argument’ coming from you.
All this beating around the bush. Let’s cut to the chase. Which Democratic candidate in the current field, with a realistic chance of winning, would you vote for instead of Trump? Note, realistic. Not somebody you can later claim you’d have voted for had not the Dems forced you to vote for Trump. Also, keep in mind, Joe Walsh (R) or a write-in is an option you can exercise, but notably have not considered or offered.
I’m not out to “defend Trump’s virtues”. I’m guessing I’ll be comparing him to the other candidate in, to coin a phrase, a lesser-of-two-evils contest; and, while I’m not yet sure which candidate it’ll be, based on what I’ve seen I can already play the odds to figure — in all seriousness — that it’ll probably wind up being one that I already think falls short in that comparison.
But that lesser-of-two-evils comparison — to be mulled in good faith — is, as it happens, my “actual intent”; if the other candidate does wind up being someone who comes out ahead, then I’ll gladly vote against Trump instead of voting against the Dem. That’s why I think the debate will be more interesting when it gets more specific; but if anyone wants to open a thread in Elections now, then, again, I’m amenable.
Well this is a nice test of your critical thinking and to check if you are capable of figuring out that many of your sources of information are misleading you.
Context shows also that even the non candidates that would go for decriminalization are not even saying that, only that people fleeing violence, dreamers and others should not be declared to be criminals when they deserve better treatment than the one coming from racist Trump staff members that still remain in his administration.
Wait, you think that merely supporting a policy where illegal entry into the US ceases to be a criminal offense makes a candidate worse than Trump?
You do realize that even with decriminalization illegal border crossing would still be a civil infraction and the crosser would still be liable to deportation, right? And that in fact, most illegal entrants are deported via civil proceedings without ever being charged with the border-crossing crime?
What is it about the criminalization—not just illegality, which AFAICT no Democratic candidate is opposed to, but actual criminalization—of unauthorized border crossing that you think is so important?
It’s alarming to think how many actual or potential Trump supporters probably imagine that decriminalization of illegal border crossings is the same thing as a full-scale open-border policy with no controls on border crossings whatsoever. Absent that misunderstanding, I really don’t see why anybody would consider a policy of allowing criminal prosecution for illegal border crossing—a policy that is ineffectual, inconvenient, expensive and infrequently implemented—to be a non-negotiable election issue.
In other words, criminalization of illegal border crossing is arguably a fundamentally stupid policy that inarguably isn’t even implemented in most cases of illegal entry, and would massively overburden our court system if applied consistently to all cases. And yet, The Other Waldo Pepper, the continuation of this policy is so important to you that you would be inclined to vote for Trump over any Democratic candidate proposing to discontinue it.
Is it possible that you are one of those storied but heretofore unknown to me, “Voted for Obama before I voted for Trump”, unicorns? Pardon me if you’ve already said you are and I didn’t happen to remember or notice from your previous posts.
Oh as I would say: it is now just plain ignorance and even Trump’s misinformation why he would vote that way, we’ll see if the evidence shows if he is willing to remain ignorant going forward.
Not yet, I’m not; I voted for Obama, but I haven’t yet voted for Trump. If the Dems put up a candidate who declares for decriminalizing illegal border crossings, then I’ll presumably wind up being a Voted For Obama Before I Voted For Trump guy.
In light of your previous question: are there any Dem candidates who have a realistic chance of winning the nomination but haven’t so declared? Klobuchar, maybe? How about Bloomberg? Politico apparently has them down as not having declared for that, so I could be convinced to vote for them if that’s so.
I’m still wondering whether you’re aware that decriminalizing unauthorized border crossing is not the same thing as making unauthorized border crossing legal.
…I didn’t say anything about “open borders”; I don’t know why you’re mentioning that in reply to my post. It strikes me as genuinely weird that you’d mention that in reply to my post. That bit about “abandoning border enforcement” — yeah, again, not really getting why that’s a go-to response either.
I mentioned decriminalizing illegal border crossings; why the heck are you bringing up this other stuff, instead of discussing, y’know, that?
