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Well, obviously not an appreciation for the distinction between evidence and opinion. The fact is that there is clear, uncontroverted evidence that Donald Trump has profited directly from his presidency, and no clear evidence that Joe Biden did. Not everything is symmetrical in politics, and it's not always "both sides."
Or more generally, the current state of affairs is somehow justifiable?
In other words: “I don’t have to do the right thing until everyone else does the right thing.”
do - it’s ok for me to be corrupt - because there is at least one person that’s also corrupt while(len(corrupt) != 0)
In short, they are ok with corruption.
Even if you're inclined to believe the conclusions, this should recognizably be a silly rant and I don't want to live in a world where we justify sloppy arguments if we agree with the conclusions. If it triggers your defenses to the point where you can't see that this is a poor rant, it could be instructive to copy/paste it into an LLM and ask for an analysis or some counterarguments.
> Trump actually isn’t corrupt? Or Biden was actually secretly as corrupt as Trump is?
Incredible to me that you could think this is anywhere implied. Maybe you understand something better than I do, but I submit that it's brainrot to think my comment was somehow "Trump is not corrupt and/or Biden is equally corrupt".
However, the question of whose corruption rises to the level where a person is morally suspect if they don't speak out, is one that certainly cuts conveniently, isn't it?
I don't really think you realize how that initial post comes across, because I'm re-reading your previous and struggling to come up with any other interpretation besides "both sides are bad".
If you are intending to say something different than that, maybe try stating it directly rather than sarcastically
> Even if you're inclined to believe the conclusions, this should recognizably be a silly rant ... If it triggers your defenses to the point where you can't see that this is a poor rant, it could be instructive to copy/paste it into an LLM and ask for an analysis or some counterarguments.
It seems to be triggering your defenses as well, to be frank. The primary claim:
> "A big reason that Republican voters were able to justify voting for Trump and open corruption was that they were bombarded with claims that there was a "Biden crime family" in office for four years."
Is essentially how I'm keeping my sanity living amongst people who voted for Trump. The only way I could find it justifiable is that somehow people believed that corruption wouldn't be this bad, or it was just as bad under Biden. I also know that there's a large contingent of nihilistic, psychopathic, "libertarian", chauvinistic technocrats that probably had no problem voting for Trump because they genuinely believed they would be able to make more money under a Trump presidency rather than a Harris presidency - but I choose to believe there are more people who were misled about relative corruption levels rather than pure psychopaths.
In the age of LLMs, it's pure negligence to let your perspective be this uninformed and low-resolution. And it's violence against the attentions of others to share it with them, to be hyperbolic.
If this is your honest, best faith rendering why 50% of the country votes differently than you, then I recommend you leave politics alone. If you won't try and understand why people are the way they are, and instead are going with "they're all too stupid to know they're being fooled, unlike me" then yes, this is an unhealthy worldview which can damage your sanity.
Unfortunately, being more aware than - and immune to being fooled than - the majority of a specific voting bloc is not a historical anomaly. Take, for example, the Jews who were privileged and fortunate enough to have the foresight to flee Europe during the rise of Nazism. They saw the writing on the wall, and were wise to the foolishness and depravity that was on the horizon.
Most populist movements are very much the case of “they’re all too stupid to know they’re being fooled, unlike me” - although I wouldn’t necessarily use the word “stupid” and I wouldn’t necessarily limit it to “me”.
Everyone thinks they know better than others, and that's why their group and way of thinking should lead. Because of this, reasonable people ought to feel the need to present results, or at least make credible and compelling arguments, for why their way should prevail. All I'm seeing here is hackneyed, and very strained, WW2 analogies. And weepy moralization.
The only thing exceptional here is the gall you're showing, in suggesting that these tired, middling arguments are reasons why actually "the voting booth is wrong and I'm right, even though I (presumably) value democracy"
The most corrupt things Biden has done were: 1. Hide the extent of health issues. Par for the course in politics at this point for some reason. This is broadly just downstream of him believing he could continue before a precipitous health decline as election season began 2. Pardon his son who was teed up by the Republican world to be target number 1 for low level drug and tax charges.
Trump on the other hand has made literally billions of dollars since starting his presidency, not to mention the fortunes of his family and various associates. 100x is not even just a few orders of magnitude off.
There are immigrants who commit crimes. Sure, it's not _every_ Mexican is a rapist and we're probably talking about basis points of basis points here. But it's a foundation.
Hunter Biden did get money from people who wanted access to Joe Biden. Sure, Joe didn't actually help them out. But it's a foundation.
The problem isn't the unfoundedness it's that it's extrapolated beyond what the foundation supports.
The purpose of creating a "Biden crime family" was to implicate Joe Biden in the actions of his son without needing any evidence that Biden himself traded on his presidency (because there was none). I see the point you're trying to make, but evidence that Hunter traded on his dad's fame simply isn't evidence of any wrongdoing by Joe Biden.
Regarding immigrants, unless it is shown that they commit crimes at a higher rate than the rest of the population---and it hasn't---that isn't a foundation either.
If I make the claim, immigrants cause crime and I show a bunch of mug shots of immigrants who were arrest for crimes. That's a foundation.
The solution isn't to pretend things aren't foundations. The solution is go expand the equal air-times rules so that if you want to argue for political change (official immigration policy) you have to allow the other side to show arguments of immigrants commit crimes below average.