[JamieG]

This might tax him a bit

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/27/new-york-times-publishes-donald-trumps-tax-returns-election

The original NYT piece OMM linked 2 posts up is well worth a read. In another world it would be revelatory, and the immorality of the president paying less than $1000 / year income tax on billions of dollars in revenue would have an impact on his popularity (Nixon, anybody?).

However,  unfortunately it will make little if any difference to the election.  A great chunk of his voters care only about the supreme court judges and being able to overturn abortion rights and gay rights.  I agree though,  I read the NYT report.

I think for a large proportion of his base it isn’t even that complicated. It completely boils down to us vs them and literally nothing will ever convince them they are backing the wrong horse. Because then they’d have to admit they were wrong. I don’t think it’s about intelligence either. I’m sure many of his supporters are relatively smart. It’s blinding stubbornness. We’ve all met people like that. Who will never admit they made a mistake. This tax reveal won’t change their mind.

[TobyD]

I think for a large proportion of his base it isn’t even that complicated. It completely boils down to us vs them and literally nothing will ever convince them they are backing the wrong horse. Because then they’d have to admit they were wrong. I don’t think it’s about intelligence either. I’m sure many of his supporters are relatively smart. It’s blinding stubbornness. We’ve all met people like that. Who will never admit they made a mistake. This tax reveal won’t change their mind.

Brexit voters perhaps?

[tomtom]

I’ve deliberately not watched any debate footage - thinking it would wind me up too much.

Having read a couple of reports I suspect I was right - and it sounds a tight mess. Did anyone watch it or part of it?

I wonder if Trump is going for a similar strategy to last time by suppressing turnout by making folk so disaffected with the whole thing.

[Anti]

There's an interesting book called Mistakes were made but not by me, talking about cognitive dissonance. I imagine a lot of Trump supporters double down on their view the more they're told it's wrong, because then they're wrong and bad. It's easier to pretend Trump isn't so bad for them.

[andy popp]

Did anyone watch it or part of it?

Christine stayed up to watch - just a complete shitshow apparently. I've seen other people float the idea that it's an attempt at voter suppression but I can't see it. I don't think he knows any other way. The reality is that he is the one behind and in need of winning new voters. I can't see anything he did last night doing that.

[tomtom]

Did anyone watch it or part of it?

Christine stayed up to watch - just a complete shitshow apparently. I've seen other people float the idea that it's an attempt at voter suppression but I can't see it. I don't think he knows any other way. The reality is that he is the one behind and in need of winning new voters. I can't see anything he did last night doing that.

Good effort.. I woke at 2am (unrelatededly) and contemplated watching - then swiftly decided no.

Watched some clips this morning - he is just a horrible shouty man. Problem is - that does eventually win over (in what you remember) to what Biden said...

[andy popp]

You did the right thing. I plan to stay up (or probably go to bed and then get up) on the 3rd, even though I doubt there will be a result.

Hard as it is to believe there are undecided voters and he didn't do anything to win them over. No-one else will have moved camp and I suspect Dems will now be even more motivated to remove him. 

[teestub]

Now they know his form of over talking and interrupting, it seems like they just need to change the format of the debates: have only one mic on at a time so only either him or Biden can talk in an proper answer and response style. I know this won’t happen as there’s no way he’d agree to anything that wouldn’t play to his ‘strengths’.

[JamieG]

I believe the next debate is a town hall style debate with questions from voters. So it will be a bit more difficult for him to just shout down everyone, since this would look really bad. One thing to talk over an opponent, but looks much worse to just talk over 'undecided' voters. I think he struggles with the town hall format.

[tomtom]

I believe the next debate is a town hall style debate with questions from voters. So it will be a bit more difficult for him to just shout down everyone, since this would look really bad. One thing to talk over an opponent, but looks much worse to just talk over 'undecided' voters. I think he struggles with the town hall format.

Hopefully with a female compare.

[JamieG]

Apparently it is someone called Steve Scully from C-Span. Details here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_debates#Second_presidential_debate_(Adrienne_Arsht_Center_for_the_Performing_Arts)

[andy popp]

I think he struggles with the town hall format.

He tried interrupting a member of the public at a recent town hall in Philadelphia and she told him to let her finish.

Town halls play to Biden's strengths.

[Oldmanmatt]

This is an interesting perspective:

https://gen.medium.com/i-lived-through-collapse-america-is-already-there-ba1e4b54c5fc

Aside:

I was fortunate enough (? This is in part an ironic statement) to spend a few months in Sri Lanka during the tail end of my RN service; in fact, I was still there when I officially became a civilian again in April’96. ( I was even more fortunate to preserve my friendship with one of the Clearance Divers I got to know, even into our Dubai days. Strange to see that tough and determined warrior become a paunchy, jolly, swimming coach for rich Arab kids. My guess is he would echo the sentiments of the article).

[seankenny]

This is an interesting perspective:

https://gen.medium.com/i-lived-through-collapse-america-is-already-there-ba1e4b54c5fc

Aside:

I was fortunate enough (? This is in part an ironic statement) to spend a few months in Sri Lanka during the tail end of my RN service; in fact, I was still there when I officially became a civilian again in April’96. ( I was even more fortunate to preserve my friendship with one of the Clearance Divers I got to know, even into our Dubai days. Strange to see that tough and determined warrior become a paunchy, jolly, swimming coach for rich Arab kids. My guess is he would echo the sentiments of the article).

This is an interesting article and whilst it rings true from my visits to Sri Lanka during the end of the war period, I don't think what the author is describing is actually collapse. It wasn't even, for many Sri Lankans (Tamils excepted, of course) the worst period of the war. My partner lived there as a teenager in the mid-90s and it was really grim: Colombo was regularly shut down for days at a time and everyone would have to hunker down at home with no idea what was happening after various explosions hit the city. And yet talking to slightly older relatives the late 1980s was even worse. The country was run by Premadasa who was a thug and a gangster, and there was a three-way civil war between the government, the Tigers and the JVP, a communist guerilla group. All of them abducted boys and either press ganged them into fighting, or murdered them. My stepmum recently told me how she was at home one evening with her niece and nephew and a gang of thugs  - government? JVP? who knows? - prowled around outside shouting in through the window for them to come out and bring them any boys. She had to stand by the door with a four foot stone pestle in her hands ready to try and kill them if they entered, and I have no doubt that my stepmum - whose maiden name meant "fighting lion" - would have given it a bloody good go.

I think any society in which it is fairly unremarkable that a perfectly ordinary woman is prepared - for very good reasons - to bash someone's brains out with a kitchen implement is one that is quite profoundly sick. This was particularly the case in the Premadasa years, and less so now I feel, though I'm not totally confident saying that. The past isn't even past, etc, and the horrific act of violence that ended the war may well come back to haunt the country. 

But I don't think Sri Lanka was a society in collapse, in the way that say Syria, Afghanistan or South Sudan are or have been. Maybe in the northern Tamil areas, which saw an awful lot of refugees, but certainly not in much of the country. People lived in fear and under great stress and uncertainty. But the state carried on providing most basic functions, healthcare and education were good, transport was fine in most of the country. Social structures endured and hadn't broken or become perverted, eg people got married for perfectly normal reasons, rather than giving protection to vulnerable girls, drug running had not become the major business of the country, etc. Things had not regressed, unlike say in Congo where parents have to explain to their mystified children what the rusting railway tracks once carried.

In case it's not clear, I really love Sri Lanka, and I also really like America, but to me whilst the article is over-egging things a little, some of the same sickness that took hold of the former also seems to be well rooted and flourishing in the later.

[Johnny Brown]

Interesting, agreed on the over-egging. Either bombs are going off around you or they aren't. Would seem to be a fairly major distinction. US not quite there yet...

[Oldmanmatt]

Interesting, agreed on the over-egging. Either bombs are going off around you or they aren't. Would seem to be a fairly major distinction. US not quite there yet...

I think “collapse” in societal terms exists on a continuum that ranges from “Troubles” (Basque country, deepening to NI), through “Civil war lite” and all the way down to utter rout. I’d put Sri Lanka at the lighter end of the middle ground, at least when I was there, compared to Lebanon, that I brushed up against a couple years earlier (at the end of the deepest troubles there) and the even briefer visits to the “Former Yugoslavia” (mostly second hand tales for me) of that decade. Syria, sounds awful, as does Afgan and I’m secretly quite glad not to bear the burden those of the generation that were or are involved there. Autumn of ‘92, I spent in West Africa, Ivory Coast and Nigeria, but only on the ships supporting operations or in the High Commission in Lagos. Still, eye opening for for a 21 year old...

I would characterise all of those places as “collapsed”.

I don’t think the writer is over-egging, I think he’s trying to warn his audience how far along the continuum the US has already slipped.
I tend to agree with the author, I think.
I’m not sure it would take a huge amount of increased “outrage” to tip the US off the edge.

There’s another poster on this forum, who has (I believe) deeper insight on both NI and (fmr) Yugoslavia, though.

[seankenny]

Interesting, agreed on the over-egging. Either bombs are going off around you or they aren't. Would seem to be a fairly major distinction. US not quite there yet...

I think “collapse” in societal terms exists on a continuum that ranges from “Troubles” (Basque country, deepening to NI), through “Civil war lite” and all the way down to utter rout. I’d put Sri Lanka at the lighter end of the middle ground, at least when I was there, compared to Lebanon, that I brushed up against a couple years earlier (at the end of the deepest troubles there) and the even briefer visits to the “Former Yugoslavia” (mostly second hand tales for me) of that decade. Syria, sounds awful, as does Afgan and I’m secretly quite glad not to bear the burden those of the generation that were or are involved there. Autumn of ‘92, I spent in West Africa, Ivory Coast and Nigeria, but only on the ships supporting operations or in the High Commission in Lagos. Still, eye opening for for a 21 year old...

I would characterise all of those places as “collapsed”.

I have a stricter definition of "collapsed" which doesn't include high levels of violence, either political (NI, SL) or non-political (Mexico), and see it more as a question of state capacity and governance. For example, early modern Europe was really violent, including lots of political violence, but although those states were by our standards weak, they had not collapsed completely. In fact they were expanding and building their capacities in nearly every sphere. Northern Ireland was awful, but it didn't "collapse" as far as I understand it: elections were still held, infrastructure was working, territorial integrity remained (indeed, clearly too much territorial integrity), etc. Whereas Lebanon, as you say, terrible, Beirut a complete mess, lots of refugees, many millitias running different bits of it, Israeli invasion, etc.

I made a very short visit to Afghanistan under the Taliban, and a slightly longer one in 2009 when Kabul was almost a different city. The first visit was mind-bendingly awful, I have since visited a bunch of other failed states and this was by far the worst. Driving from the Khyber Pass to Kabul felt safe-ish, at no point did I think I was going to get shot (taxi driver was beaten up for having a music cassette in front of us, but the Taliban parked the car under the shade of a tree so we didn't get uncomfortably hot whilst they did it) but the country was completely and utterly fucked. It wasn't just that everything was damaged or destroyed - lamposts bending over like drooping flowers, miles of derelict villages - but that the society was in bits. Millions of refugees, no health service, not really any police, all that stuff. And by all accounts it had been even worse a few years before.

To me, "collapsed" societies are fairly rare and extremely unpleasant, whereas having high levels of political violence together with a fraying of the state has been a pretty common situation, if declining in prevalance today. You mention West Africa, and there's also an interesting distinction to be made between collapsed states and ones that were never really there in the first place, but that's perhaps for another day.

I don’t think the writer is over-egging, I think he’s trying to warn his audience how far along the continuum the US has already slipped.
I tend to agree with the author, I think.
I’m not sure it would take a huge amount of increased “outrage” to tip the US off the edge.

There’s another poster on this forum, who has (I believe) deeper insight on both NI and (fmr) Yugoslavia, though.

It definitely seems - from a distance - that the US has slipped a long way towards authoritarian rule and/or persistent, low level political violence. I think (hope!) that it's a long way from being tipped "off the edge", because I'm not sure how many of its citizens are actually willing to die for their political cause. How much of the militia activity we are seeing is cosplay and how much is a genuine violent political movement that will last when it faces an armed enemy, I have no idea. One imagines that the US police and intelligence services have a sense of this.

[Oldmanmatt]

Actually, this is really worth a split, isn’t it?

I think it’s fascinating and would like to hear others opinions and experiences around the topic.

I get Sean’s strict definition and accept I’m conflating “collapse” of democracy, with an utter end to any sort of organised society.

Edit:

On the last point, which Andy had similar thoughts on a few weeks ago.
I believe the decent into really quite violent insurrection and even all out civil war, can be quite a bit quicker and require a smaller percentage of the population to actively participate; than we would like to imagine.

I think you can learn as much from the nations that managed to dodge the bullet, Romania post revolution (given their ethnic Hungarian and Moldovan populations and the tensions that still exist) for instance, as you can from those that saw greater collapse.

 

[tomtom]

Also depends on your location and your lens.... ??

Someone in SW Afghanistan might piss themselves laughing at the idea that the US is falling apart (in comparison to their lot) - whereas it may seem that the world was disintegrating when peeking over the white picket fences of a small Minnesotan town...

Equally you mention Sri Lanka (Sean) and note that in the Tamil areas it may well have been a shit load worse...

etc.. etc..

[TobyD]

To drag the thread back into its subject... (although I read all the above posts with considerable interest)
I watched some clips and listened to some excerpts from the debate and found it profoundly depressing.  Trump really is planning to literally bully, lie and cheat his way back into office to continue a campaign of nepotism,  corruption and tax evasion.  American society may not be in collapse, but coherent mature political discourse is fucked.
The one glimmer of hope was Biden's exasperated exclamation of "will you shut up man" I think he spoke for most people there, even though he didn't exactly cover himself in glory otherwise. 

[andy popp]

So, does he have it?

[andy popp]

Yes, he does.

[Offwidth]

Any news on Pence as they were both potentially exposed? If the President and Veep both become seriously ill the constitutional position on who is next in line is a scary prospect for the Republicans. There have already been calls for Pelosi to consider protective isolation.

[Oldmanmatt]

So, does he have it?

Sympathy vote ploy?

Is it BS?

Unfortunately, I’m so jaded by all this, this is my first reaction.

[andy popp]

No, no news on Pence yet. I know the line of succession if the President and then the VP become too ill to serve. But I don't know what happens if the President is too ill (or not alive enough) to run. Can Pence run? He's on the ballot, but only as the VP candidate.

In any case, he is now out of active campaigning for at least two weeks and the next debate (15th) is almost certainly off, leaving this week's ugliness to be the abiding memory. And, of course, it reveals just how stupid everything he has said about the pandemic has been.