If I may quote Harlan Ellison: “Everybody has opinions: I have them, you have them. And we are all told from the moment we open our eyes, that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Well, that’s horsepuckey, of course. We are not entitled to our opinions; we are entitled to our informed opinions. Without research, without background, without understanding, it’s nothing. It’s just bibble-babble. It’s like a fart in a wind tunnel, folks.”
To take an opposing debating position, maybe someone in North Korea might claim that it’s more important to hold firm to your socialist principles than to worry about material things?
At some point you have to decide that some opinions are absolute bullshit, some opinions are based on feelings, some opinions are based on some facts, some opinions are almost entirely fact-based etc…or you can take an “You have your opinions, I have my opinions, and since all opinions are equal what I say is just as valid as what anyone else says” approach.
You’re free to go to a concentration camp in North Korea where people who accidentally sneezed on a photo of Kim Jong Un are being tortured and starved alongside their grandkids and have that debate with them.
Now I see why that job in Marketing with Carnival Cruises didn’t work out 
As I said, it was a debating position. I am not saying that I hold that view. 
Fair enough. But the line between subjective and objective gets blurry. Can you really say that living in an impoverished dictatorship full of torture and terror is subjectively better than living in a wealthy democracy with advanced human rights?
Subjectively, the only people who benefit from the dictatorship are the tiny minority of people in power who enjoy the power and wealth that comes from such a toxic system. For 99.9% of citizens, their lives are worse off. If that system worked so well and people enjoyed it, why do they even need torture? Norway doesn’t need to use torture and terrorism to keep their citizens obedient, because the citizens like the system there. Nations that use concentration camps and torture to keep their citizens obedient use that tactic because the citizens may rebel against the ruling class because they don’t like the system.
To me, its objectively better to live in a nation with human/civil/political rights. Just like its objectively better to not suffer from a chronic pain condition.
Subjectively, Cadillac is better than Lincoln. Objectively, human rights are better than being tortured.
Then just to clarify, do you oppose this view?
That was really the point I was making.
Personally I agree with your values.
But if one takes a step back to a philosopher’s (or alien’s?) point of view, can any political ‘fact’ really be called objective?
This is sort of just semantics, and not worth getting into a major debate, I think.
To me, whether something harms or benefits sentient organisms capable of suffering is an objective value. But yeah, it is semantics. Of course then you run into issues of utilitarianism. Murdering Hitler in 1890 would’ve caused his mom a lot of suffering, but it would’ve saved the world far more suffering.
If there are aliens, they are likely pro-social. Meaning they evolved to work together in groups and tribes. No solitary life form would ever develop advanced technology necessary for interstellar travel. You need millions/billions of life forms working together as a group for multiple generations to reach that level of technological advancement. Being pro-social requires the ability to value the well being of others. So any space alien will, on some level, likely have something akin to empathy.
Anyway, this isn’t meant to distract from OP. But to me, there is objective bad, and objective bad is suffering among sentient organisms with nervous systems complex enough that they are capable of suffering. That includes animals other than humans, eventually we will need to restructure society and life to reduce animal suffering too. But again, there are issues of utilitarianism. Are 100 sentient creatures capable of suffering worth it to save a million sentient creatures capable of suffering?
I guess you could argue that suffering among sentient life forms is a subjective good/evil and not an objective one. After all, natural selection invented suffering. But as a sentient life form capable of suffering, I prefer to think of it as an objective good/evil.
My point is that because I’m approaching this issue from the perspective of a sentient life form with a nervous system capable of suffering, I view suffering among life forms with a nervous system capable of suffering as objectively bad. But again, from the perspective of the laws of natural selection, suffering among sentient life forms is a good thing since it discourages behavior that reduces survival and fitness.
To bring this back to the OP: they are starting from the premise that Trump is a dangerous, incompetent loose cannon. With which I agree.
But they are also making the assumption that this is self-evident, and just providing some ‘facts’ could convince an undecided person to agree.
Alas, it isn’t self-evident.
We live in a swarm of warring memes; have done since at least since the renaissance.
I happen to like the scientific egalitarian views of the enlightenment.
As do probably most posters here.
But we have to accept that some people don’t.
Some radical islamists, for example, seem to believe that it is moral or even mandatory, to kill infidels. And hold that belief strongly enough that they will die for it.
I think you really have to ask yourself what you want out of this protest, whether you’re likely to get it, and what it will cost you.
Are you trying to convince your GD not to get married? Good luck with that, and see what it gets you. Most likely, minus a granddaughter and possibly a daughter.
Are you trying to convince them that you’re in the right for making their wedding all about your political beliefs? Again, good luck with that, but it’s probably not happening.
Are you just trying to vent your frustration at them? Not sure what you think that will get you.
I’ll be the first one to agree that Trump is as awful as this thread suggests, likely even worse than that. But I would step back and ask yourself what there is to be gained by reading the riot act to your engaged granddaughter. The answer is nothing. With that being the case, you’ll come out equally well keeping your mouth shut. This will ensure that you’re still in their lives if they someday have a change of heart. But if you piss in the punchbowl now, you’re hardening their views both in favor of Trump and against you.
Up to you, but I’d keep my silence and distance, because while I agree with your sentiment, I see nothing but downside in delivering a grandstanding lecture about how you disapprove of your new family member.
I don’t think that is accurate. The OP said that he wanted to make his daughter, the mother of the engaged granddaughter, understand why this is important for the OP. He does not say he’s trying to convert anyone. On,y that he wants them to understand why it’s important to him.
I don’t get that from a re-reading.
Seems to me that the OP really wants to convert the potential bride, not just ‘explain why it is important to the OP’?
As others have said: least said, soonest mended. Best to keep politics out of family conversation.
He says a version of this a couple of times.
The goal isn’t to change the beliefs of the hardcore MAGA people. That isn’t possible*. The goal is to convince moderate and poorly informed people of how evil Trump is, to create divisions between hardcore MAGA supporters vs moderate republicans and apathetic people. The problem isn’t just MAGA, it is the fact that a lot of moderate republicans and apathetic people enable MAGA.
If you understand cluster B personality disorders and toxic family dynamics, you can see what is happening more clearly. America is in a nationwide abusive relationship with a cluster B republican party. On one side is the cluster B leaders and their enablers and flying monkeys. MAGA are the golden child, leftists/democrats are the scapegoat. On the other side are the people who realize this is a toxic, dysfunctional system and want out. The goal isn’t to win over the Cluster B types or the golden child types. That’s not possible. The goal is to win over the people too apathetic to care or who realize something is wrong but keep suppressing that feeling. At the very least, if we can help isolate the cluster B enabler/golden child types, we can cause them some isolation so they are less able to harm others.
There are facts.
Fact: Trump has been accused of sexual abuse many times. Being found guilty in court for rape.
Fact: A girl claimed Trump violently raped her with his friend Jeffrey Epstein when she was 13
Fact: Multiple mental health professionals have said Trump suffers from a condition called malignant narcissism which is a mix of sociopathy, narcissism, sadism, paranoia, etc all rolled into one.
Fact: Trump lied 30,573 times in his first 4 years as president.
Fact: Donald Trump makes fun of veterans
Fact: Donald Trump makes fun of his religious base for being gullible idiots
Fact: Trumps policies like tariffs, deporting migrant workers, alienating our economic allies, etc is driving up the cost of living and making life les affordable.
The list goes on.
*I mentioned how there is nothing Trump can do to drive away his base. There is. He can come out in support of multiculturalism. Trump is popular because he supports the status and privilege his in-group base experience.
If Trump starts openly supporting equality for non-whites, non-christians, women, LGBT, immigrants, etc then his base will turn on him. If anything, leftists should be conducting psychological false flag operations designed to target his MAGA base by saying Trump is in favor of multiculturalism.
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Did you hear, Trump wants to give $10 billion in aid to Gaza as an apology for how badly they’ve been treated by the west for the last 80 years. He also wants to give 500,000 Palestinians visas to live in the US.
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Did you hear, Trump wants to increase funding for Black lives matter. He now admits black people have been badly abused by the police and need extra protection from being mistreated.
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Did you hear, Trump said that muslim immigrants make our nation stronger and diversity is our strength
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Did you hear, Trump said that white supremacy is a cancer on society, and that we need to all embrace diversity and be more inclusive.
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Trump is endorsing a program to subsidize black people in the inner cities to buy guns, because they need guns to protect themselves from abusive police and white racists.
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Trump wants to increase the punishments for men accused of rape and domestic violence against women.
etc, etc, etc
Also on the left, we should be encouraging divisions between white Trump supporters and latino Trump supporters. A lot of latinos who supported Trump think they are white enough to be accepted by MAGA. We should be encouraging MAGA to promote their anti-latino bias so latinos learn that they will never be accepted as ‘white’ by MAGA no matter how hard they try to pass.
What makes you think his supporters wouldn’t just consider that more “liberal fake news”?
A lot of venezuelan and cuban immigrants who support Trump are currently being targeted by the Trump admin. They thought they were white enough to get a pass, and now they’re finding out that they aren’t.
All I can say is I’m happy I don’t have any version of this issue in my family.
As for trying to convince poorly informed people… well, go for it if you want to spend your time doing that. But if they are already not very interested in following news, it seems unlikely they would have much interest in anything I might have to say either.
And with that, I bow out of this thread.
There are a few things I don’t like about Trump and what he has done so far to America…
• Like when he incited an insurrection against the government,
• mismanaged a pandemic that killed over a million Americans
• separated immigrant children from their families, and now they are lost in the bureaucracy.
AND…
• tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church
• tried to block all Muslims from entering the country
• got impeached
• got impeached again
• had the worst job record of any president in modern history
• pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden
• fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia
• bragged about firing the FBI director on TV.
AND…
• took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community
• diverted military funding to build his wall
• caused the longest government shutdown in US history
• called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate”
• lied nearly 40,000 times and still lying.
AND…
• banned transgender people from serving in the military
• ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions
• vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers
• refused to release his tax returns
• increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion
AND…
• had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history
• called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers
• coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist
• refused to concede the 2020 election
• hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House
• walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl
• called neo-Nazis “very fine people”
• suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID
AND…
• abandoned our allies, the Kurds to Turkey
• pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans
• incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic
• withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords
• withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal
• withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was designed to block China’s advances
• insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter
• pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op
AND…
• failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies
• called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries
• called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation”
• claimed that he single-handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere
• forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader
• believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
• berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe
• suggested the US should buy Greenland
AND…
• colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges
• repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people.”
• claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID, we’d have fewer cases
• violated the emoluments clause
• thought that Nambia was a country
• told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public
• called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “p—y” for following the Constitution
• nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet
• nominated a corrupt head of the EPA
• nominated a corrupt head of HHS
• nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department
• nominated a corrupt head of the USDA
AND
• praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies
• refused to allow the presidential transition to begin
• insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death
• spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president
• falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote
• called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone-cold loser”
• falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year
• considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions
• mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID
• locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones
AND…
• used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus”
• hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses, including his campaign manager and national security adviser
• pardoned several of his shady associates
• gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressmen who amplified his batshit crazy conspiracy theories
• got into a telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!)
• had a Secretary of State who called him a moron
• forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history
AND …
• botched the COVID vaccine rollout
• tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him
• charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties
• constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate
• claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear
• called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas”
• used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise
• opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling
• got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers
AND…
• claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US
• ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings
• blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining
• redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle
• got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters”
• threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution
• botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico
• threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them
• pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes
• thought that the Virgin Islands had a President
• drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane
AND…
• allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing
• rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos
• pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID
• rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers
• held blatant campaign rallies at the White House
• tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man
• refused to attend his successors’ inauguration
• nominated the worst Education Secretary in history
• threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted
• attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci
AND…
• promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t)
• allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues
• struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble
• called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ”
• threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders
• went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic
• claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,”
• seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution
• demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director
• praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles
• completely gutted the Voice of America
• placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service
AND…
• claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower
• suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country
• suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public
• overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported
• reduced the number of refugees the US accepts
• insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames
AND…
• gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential Medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address
• named as head of federal personnel a 29-year-old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties
• eliminated the White House Office of pandemic response
• used soldiers as campaign props
• fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him
• demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade
• hired a shit ton of white nationalists
• politicized the civil service
• did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government
• falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts
AND…
• claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won
• insulted reporters of color
• insulted women reporters
• insulted women reporters of color
• suggested he was okay with China’s oppression of the Uighurs
• attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him
• summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election
• spent countless hours every day watching Fox News
• refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas
• hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer
• tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him
• acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney
• attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a woman who accused him of sexual assault
AND…
• held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present
• didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin, so the US had to find out via Russian media
• stopped holding press briefings for months at a time
• “ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power
• led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform
• claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers
• tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course
• suggested that the government nuke hurricanes
• suggested that wind turbines cause cancer
• said that he had a special aptitude for science
• fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure
• blurted out classified information to Russian officials
• tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida
• fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban
• hired Stephen Miller
AND…
• openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago, where everyone could hear them
• interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel
• abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war
• tried to get Russia back into the G7
• held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden
• seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive
• lost 60 election fraud cases in court, including before judges he had nominated
• falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t
• shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies
• still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan
• still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure Weeks"
• forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID
AND…
• told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”
• screwed up the Census
• withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic
• did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule, “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,” allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act
• seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican
• stood before the sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win
• constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president, which presumably includes four who were assassinated and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump
• claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened
• said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake
• claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him
• claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President,
AND…
• created a commission to whitewash American history
• retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain
• claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun, even though there was an armed security guard there
• hired a senior staffer who cited the nonexistent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims
• had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others
• bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties
• apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House
• stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians
• falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police
• said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about
• tried to rescind protection from DREAMers
AND …
• gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic
• tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax
• said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states
• deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented
• claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln
• touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile, which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all
• retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile
• forced through security clearances for his family
• suggested that police officers should rough up suspects
• suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs
• tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender
• suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher
• nominated a climate change skeptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy
• retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden had played a song called “Fuck tha Police” at a campaign event
AND…
• hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags
• accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address
• claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia
• mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault
• obsessed over low-flow toilets
• ordered the re-release of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release
• called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek)
• hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech
• took advice from the MyPillow guy
• claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists
• said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition figure
AND…
• falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent
• announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria, which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest
• insulted the leader of Canada
• insulted the leader of France
• insulted the leader of Britain
• insulted the leader of Germany
• insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!!)
• falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues
• blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually
• continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders,
• said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked
• left a NATO summit early in a huff
• stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of five knows not to do that
• called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary
• refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise
And I can’t remember many other things at the moment.
Copy and paste to your heart’s content.