Doesn’t the thread itself, as seen in the title, depict similar?
FWIW, in my case, I am criticizing Trump and his political rivals. My point is that they are similar. See my previous posts for details.
I don’t ignore the similarities. I know they exist. But there are significant differences that one needs to ignore to make good your initial proposition in this thread.
And given some of your ridiculous generalizations (“Clinton like to laugh when it comes to death and suffering”) the judgment you are displaying is highly suspect.
My initial proposition is that U.S. policies have been driven primarily by a combination of neoconservatism and neoliberalism since the Reagan administration. Although both ideologies had been present long before that (e.g., the military industrial complex coupled with interfering in other countries using foreign policies and military intervention since the end of WW2, and both the Bretton Woods system and structural adjustment impositions, plus financial aid with strings attached) and promoted by either political party, it was only from the Reagan administration all the way to the present one (including that of Trump’s) that both ideologies were employed significantly in tandem by both parties.
If you do more research, you will find out that Clinton, as a former official and ally of the Obama administration, and her political rivals, as well as other officials in various agencies, not to mention elected officials (including Presidents, of course), have been involved in such and beyond (as seen in the relationships between the defense industry, Wall Street banks, top corporations and lobby organizations, top law firms, and career politicians) for many decades.
I gave those “ridiculous generalizations” because I assume that most forum members know at least the basics of over six decades of U.S. warmongering, onerous trade agreements and foreign policies, and more, as exposed in the NS Archives, the Pentagon Papers, wikileaks, and various books by Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, and others, which is why I did not find the need to explain to you and to others what you could easily find out by yourself.
In any event, I hope that you can go back to what you already know about this and then research and read some more to understand my point, which is that one cannot wish that “Trump [can] just go away” because he is symptomatic of a U.S. government characterized in the manner I described and that won’t go away, either.
So anyone to the right of Trotsky is just a carbon copy of Reagan, and their stances on social issues are 100% irrelevant because none of them directly affect straight white males.
Got it.
You keep coming back to certain ways the US parties and candidates have followed a similar path in certain respects while ignoring major differences in other respects. That simply isn’t enough to make good your initial proposition. Your last post does nothing more than repeat the particular area of similarity with which you are obsessing, while ignoring major areas of difference.
Finally, if you think the “you’ll agree with me if you just do more research” strategy will work around here, you are very, very badly mistaken. It’s just an attempt at an argument from authority, but even more pathetic because you are pretending you are the authority.
And that inherently means you are defending them. You can say you’re not, but that’s the only possible outcome when you claim two entities are the same. It inherently makes the worse of the two look better, while making the better of the two look worse. That’s the entire point of this rhetorical strategy. It allows you to defend someone without directly defending them.
Trump failed at COVID-19. He had the pandemic department of the government shut down. He allowed the PPE stores to be depleted. He claimed that all the danger about the virus was a hoax. Then, when it showed up, he had no plan on how to recommend dealing with it, which is why all the states had to fend for themselves. He even stole equipment that the states got for themselves.
He refused to wear a mask for himself, out of some macho pride or something, and then jumped on and actively encouraged the anti-mask and anti-lockdown protestors. And that is the single biggest reason that US has been unable to get a handle on this: the science-deniers. Studies suggest that we could save 50,000 out of every 100,000 dead with masks. Even if we are conservative, and say Trump only doubled the antimask sentiment, that’s one quarter of the deaths due to Trump’s actions—actions that no other president would have performed.
The pandemic is the single most important thing going on right now. Ignoring that while claiming that “both sides are the same” is ridiculous, and only serves to defend Trump.
And that’s without getting into how he believed in fascism and authoritarianism, tried to silence the press, put children in cages, and staged a coup on the United States government when he lost the election.
No one can take you seriously if you try to act like he’s the same as Biden or Clinton or Obama or Bush or Reagan or Cater or…
Just a bare smidgen of a strawman there, right? 
What major differences are you talking about? Previous admins from Reagan onward and involving both political parties have been promoting the ff. since:
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Deregulation leading to more financial speculation, and let the public pay for it. Why do you think the 2008 crash took place, and who do you think paid for the bailouts? By 2012, the GAO estimated them at over $16 trillion. And don’t forget various tax breaks and provisions benefiting the rich.
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Use the military and foreign policies to coerce other countries through various means, including intervention. What do you think those 800 military installations and bases worldwide are for? Why do you think the country has military spending levels on a scale that dwarf those of others? And structural adjustment and other onerous policies?
That very much describes neoliberalism and neoconservatism and involves both parties. The goal is to protect the U.S. dollar, otherwise the full effects of the Triffin dilemma take place, and those soaring debts come home to roost. Put simply, the U.S. has to borrow and spend heavily and continuously and then use that to guarantee any economic growth.
Debt levels are now at around $70 trillion, and that’s excluding up to $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities. And all that took place during Trump’s term and long before Trump became President.
So, if you think you’re hysterical remarks about “ridiculous” arguments and trying to turn things around by claiming that I’m no authority without proving anything in your posts, then you’re very, very badly mistaken. What’s clear in this case is that your childlike world-view of good and evil, with your favorite politicians being good and Trump representing some “evil empire” or “axis of evil”, is clearly based on incredible levels of naivete. And since you now just pulled the “I don’t have to do research” because “you’re just pretending you’re an authority on thiis issue” card, then I don’t see the point in trying to convince you to learn how these two ideologies have permeated a Washington that essentially works for Wall Street for decades.
Once again you focus on one area namely economics with what is now beginning to appear like willful blindness to other areas that have been pointed out to you.
Look I get it - there are areas of substantial similarity between D’s and R’s in the particular policy area to which you refer. You really don’t need to type out another post about this. What you need to do is get to grips with the points made by others about other areas in which the parties differ.
I don’t think you understand my argument, so I’ll recap it here: both the Republicans and the Democrats have been promoting two ideologies–neonconservatism and neoliberalism–since 1982, even though both emerged separately much earlier: neoliberalism after WW2 when the U.S. dollar was used a global reserve currency, giving the U.S. immense power, and neoconservatism during the early 1960s but stemming from beliefs that the U.S. should not be isolationist and must help other countries to become free (especially from the Iron Curtain) but using that as a pretext to control others and to gain from such. Hence, decades of supporting coups, military intervention, onerous military deals, and so on.
The claim that I am inherently defending them applies to almost everyone, and that defense has been going on for around seven decades. Perhaps the only time when people fought back was during the Vietnam war, but after that the protests diminished. By the early 1990s, even the liberal press became a warmongering one.
So, what does that have to do with Trump and COVID-19? Right now, there is a sizable number of U.S. citizens who don’t want to wear masks, don’t want to be vaccinated, don’t want lockdowns, don’t want to be told what to do, and are now attacking Biden. One caught in a world where Democrats are good and Republicans (and Trump) are bad will obviously want to believe that this has to do with only Trump supporters, and thus problem only started in 2016: hence, the thread title, which implies that if Trump can just go away, then everything will be fine.
And yet Biden’s ratings are dropping, and yet some argue that this anti-authoritarian stance stems from beliefs of self-entitlement, which is why similar appeared even before Trump became President. That’s why one NBC report hinted that the anti-vaccine view, for example, stems from the 1976 swine flu response mess. And more revelations about gain of function research (trust in the science, right?) and how the same warmongering press tried to bury news about that has only made matters worse.
And then there’s Afghanistan.
Are you now realizing that this issue involves more than just Trump, and that the implication that if he just goes away then everything will be fine doesn’t cut it?
Not just economics but foreign policy and the military industrial complex! Re-read my previous posts carefully.
I don’t think U.S. policies changed significantly the past three decades. That’s because although most of its people are very anti-authoritarian they also live in an economy that is controlled mostly by the rich, with Washington working for Wall Street.
That’s why one news source was right in reminding people that the anti-vaccine view might have stemmed from the 1976 swine flu mess, and with revelations of funding for gain of function only making matters worse. And all those decades of prosperity and material freedom, themselves built on decades of heavy borrowing and spending guaranteed by a dollar needed by everyone else worldwide:
has led to a society driven primarily by self-entitlement, materialism, and paranoia (against Russia, China, Iran, and anyone else who’s considered authoritarian). Given that, why then should one be surprised by the U.S. response to a pandemic?
In the end, calling for Trump to just go away won’t cut it, because the causes of such and more involve even Trump’s political rivals. Why else would the same media also spend efforts reporting on politicians ordering people, for example, to wear masks but violating their own mandates?
Ask your LBGT friends if they agree.
Not anyone, just Reagan and subsequent Presidents, and the Establishment that that they worked for. One can see that in incredible debt levels accumulated across the decades, military expansionism, deregulation leading to the 2008 crash and more, and very high levels of resource and energy consumption from a populace that appears to be driven by exceptionalism.
Given that, one should not be surprised by the U.S. response to this pandemic during the Trump and now Biden admins, not to mention what happened in Afghanistan, etc.
That proves my point: what amounts to major changes in the U.S. are superficial, e.g., issues over gender and religion. The political and economic base of that society remains the same: an economy mostly controlled by Wall Street, Washington working for the latter, and necessitating perpetual warfare to keep the dollar propped up.
Even the LGBT issue is monetized, as seen in ESG scorecards.
You just keep typing out the same stuff over and over. You need to stop assuming you are the smartest most well informed person in the room and consider that maybe people here are reading what you are writing, and do understand the point you are making, but don’t agree that point is the beginning and the end of the debate. Once again, you really, really don’t need to type it out again. We get what you are saying. Really.
The issue is that you consider every issue other than the point you are making to be superficial, and others here don’t accept that. Typing out your point again is not going to help.
The civil rights of millions of people are “superficial”?
I can’t respond to that in this particular forum.
No, they’re not. As other posters have pointed out time and again, just because the two parties between Reagan and Trump shared a lot of the same assumptions about economics and foreign policy doesn’t make their differences, or subsequent controversial changes in US society, “superficial”.
This is incoherent as well as wrong. No, it’s not true that more people nowadays are becoming aware of the similarities between the two parties. That was reasonably true back in June 2000 or thereabouts, but for the last several years, the Republican Party has been moving drastically rightward and greatly magnifying its differences from the Democrats.
It would be more accurate to say that the main shift in popular perception right now is that even those who identify as non-partisan and/or Independent are becoming aware that the two parties are more different than most imagine. The conventional wisdom of “bothsidesism” is being strongly challenged.
And none of that is the reason Trump “can’t go away”. He can’t go away, as others have noted, for the very pragmatic reasons that it’s to his advantage to stay connected with his gullible fanbase as long as he can, and it’s to the media’s advantage to exploit his trainwreck notoriety as long as they can.
Can Trump just go away?
No, he can’t. The technology to send people to the Phantom Zone doesn’t exist in the real world. We’re stuck with Trump as long as he’s alive.
So can we just ignore Trump?
Theoretically yes. But it would be a bad idea. Trump and his followers are people we should be keeping a close eye on at all times.
That is suspicious! I mean, that’s not what those things are for, right?
I agree with a lot of what you post in terms of the general criticisms re US domestic and foreign policy, but are you saying that now, in 2021, that there’s virtually no difference between the two parties? Do you think it doesn’t really matter who wins the next one or two federal elections? I would disagree there. There are very real differences that matter. I just hope we don’t get sunk by moderates or centrists.