MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
@kimbers post in the US election thread has me thinking where do the Republicans go from here?
Reagan - ex-actor, slightly loopy, seemed to think Star Wars was real.
Bush One - Bit loopier, had a sinister smile.
Bush Two - Dropped on his head as a child? A Texas village is definitely missing an idiot.
Trump - Man child thing with random hair placement.
Clearly the first criteria is having a forename even your grandad would think was a bit old fashioned. Hit me with your next candidates STW.
Half of the population of that country is slightly to very off kilter when compared with Western European standards of normalcy.
The Republican Party represent those people.
Trump has a world of legal pain ahead if he can't hide behind being the POTUS. It will almost be open season on him then.
They'll probably find Nigel Farage suddenly qualifies
Giuliani, isn't it?
Scary artificially rigid hair, plastic nose, Barbie makeup and called Louise.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Eckhart
Aaron Eckhart is how the gun crazies think they are and he can act. Plus suitable first name. A shoo in.
Giuliani, isn’t it?
That's a very interesting/scary prospect and a worryingly likely one too.
Trump Jr?
Wasn't BoJo born in America?
Do they want him back?
Perplexed Viking?
Dropped on his head as a child? A Texas village is definitely missing an idiot.
Bush Jnr wasn't an idiot, he was poor at giving public speeches but if you listen to man speak outside of those - he's not a village idiot. Perhaps not the sharpest tool in the box but was Clinton? He seems to have become a better man since the presidency as well - or it was just that the shhitwaks like Rumsfeld held too much influence.
and
Plus he's a mountain biker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASxHUnnmQF0
Hmmm, I was talking to a colleague in the US over the teams meeting thing the other day. I happened to ask him about the election and how could the American peoples be so coned with Trump (not withstanding our own issues with being coned, that's in another thread). Anyway I digress. America has always been partisan it seems and yes it's gotten worse recently.
We were talking about the welfare state. He went on tirade about all of these people on the welfare state high on pot and not working and having no intension of ever working. Needless to say, I won't ask again.
So what do I take from this encounter? Americans are taught at an early age if they work hard they can have a slice of the American dream. whatever that is.. They are also taught that capitalism is great and anything else is no good at all. So they bust themselves working into an early grave believing that they can reach some sort of utopia, even if they never get there they will kill themselves trying, and blame someone else for their failure.
Got to be trump's favourite golf partner- kid rock
I don't think bush junior was that bad.
In hindsight compared to trump he was brilliant
Back then according to friends in the SAS he was known as "The Package", that had been sold to the american people. However give him his due; he was really concerned about the probability of a future pandemic.
kanye2024
Judging by the voter breakdown during this election I'd suggest the next candidate might be Hispanic.
LEEROY JENKINS!!!!!!!
Has a nice ring to it, a name you could imagine being shouted aloud as a heroic president rushes in to a school to face down a dangerous gunman.
Kanye or Kid Rock are my favourites so far. Anybody posting serious things in this thread will be reported as fun sponges. The known knowns speech is enough to paint Bush two with the idiot brush all day long. Not been good at public speaking and being a bit better than Clinton hardly makes for top Leader of the free world materiel. Obama appears to have been the only sane US president in my lifetime.
One of trump's despicable children probably.
Peter from family guy seems the obvious choice
Why not Axl Rose eh?
I like the Aaron Eckhart one, we've already seen him as president in the documentary Olympus Has Fallen, and it went really really badly
trump and his family are in the shitter; the old man won't have his bully pulpit when he's doing time and his progeny will only appeal to the outer fringes so they're all irrelevant.
Pity John Oliver wasn't born in the US.
Having looked into the abyss, if the GOP liked what they saw I give you...marjorie taylor green the freshly minted QAnon believing representative for Georgia's 14th congressional district.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/04/marjorie-greene-qanon-georgia-congress-election/
Mr Burns?
LEEROY JENKINS!!!!!!!
🤣🤣🤣
The known knowns speech is enough to paint Bush two with the idiot brush
That was Rumsfeld. He's bad, but not stupid.
I still use "unknown unknowns" myself, it's a useful concept.
Surely that mad evangelical woman who has been remixed.
I'm liking the idea of making letting them have Boris back
They do have an embarrassment of nutbags to pick from, to be fair.
I've been looking at the Fox News website for a bit of balance in my election updates, the opinion pieces on there make the Daily Mail look like Socialist Worker.
Edit - But Giuliani? Nah, even before the Borat thing he came over like an anamatronic waxwork sex offender.
But Giuliani
You have to watch his hands
Jay Pritchett.
Any random choice from the local nut house.
Probably be an improvement.
funkmasterp
Full MemberThe known knowns speech is enough to paint Bush two with the idiot brush all day long.
That was Rumsfeld. And tbh, it actually did make perfect sense
Bush Jnr wasn’t an idiot, he was poor at giving public speeches but if you listen to man speak outside of those – he’s not a village idiot. Perhaps not the sharpest tool in the box but was Clinton?
George W Bush was famously the lowest IQ president to have served the US at the time he became President, with a known IQ score of 91...
Bill Clinton is a member of MENSA!
ENOUGH of this Post-Truth Bullshit please... Trump is going/gone, can we stick to the ****ing facts from now on please! 🤨
Edit – But Giuliani? Nah, even before the Borat thing he came over like an anamatronic waxwork sex offender.
Even forgetting the Borat film, the bloke is 76 already, he's 2 years older than Trump... He'll be 80 when the next election takes place!
But not forgetting the Borat film... There's a very real chance he's going to be as destitute as his chum(p) Trump any time soon, let alone the potential fallout from Sacha Baron Cohen that is inevitably due over the coming months (barely any Americans will have seen the film already, but it will gather momentum over the next 6-12 months for sure)... He might be lucky to stay out of jail!
Does anyone seriously think Donald Trump is going to go to prison?! I'm in no doubt that he should, but I'd suggest that he's more likely to win THIS election than to wind up in prison. It's probably be better for Biden that he's not locked up anyway......get him wrapped up in a myriad of 'lawsuits' and ban him off all mainstream media platforms (surely he's gone from Twitter as soon as he's not president) then let him be the 'crazy uncle' rambling to other mentalists on the nut job sections of the internet....far better than having him plastered over the news for the next four years giving him more mainstream airtime.
LEEROY JENKINS!!!!!!!
Thanks for that.
I just snorted so hard I now have half a salt & vinegar Ringo embedded up my left sinus cavity.
Ow.
with a known IQ score of 91
Keep in mind you need about 50 to be able to breathe unassisted 😆
Does anyone seriously think Donald Trump is going to go to prison?!
There's no doubt that he should... Will he though? You have a point there...
Sadly, I think the very real possibility is that the 46th President of the US won't be Joe Biden, but will in fact be Mike Pence... Trump isn't likely to stick around for 9-10 weeks to preside over whatever is left, he might just **** off as soon as he has resigned himself to defeat, and leave Pence to preside over the next few weeks. This in itself, would create a strange situation, where the outgoing President is afforded one last pardon... It's very possible that Pence could pardon Trump as Gerald Ford did Richard Nixon! 🤔
Can you pardon someone before they are charged?
Wasnt Johnson born in NYC?
Hes soon to be out of a job & his ideology can be whatever you want it to be
Shirley it’s time for that STW perennial favourite, Lance Armstrong.
A fine upstanding gentleman that the republicans could get behind.
Does anyone seriously think Donald Trump is going to go to prison?!
He is certainly going to be tied up in legal actions for years and a lot of the dirt will stick. As for jailtime - it depends what they find now he is out of the whitehouse but remember they hate tax fiddling and people do go to jail for that in the US
That was Rumsfeld. He’s bad, but not stupid.
I still use “unknown unknowns” myself, it’s a useful concept.
Haha I was going to say pretty much this. It was unwieldy but it’s a good breakdown of uncertainty.
Interestingly although I despised his presidency Bush Jnr has rather grown on me too since it ended. I heard Justin Webb tell a story where towards the end of his office he did an interview and Bush insisted on taking him on a personal tour of the White House - just the 2 of them, no aides. After 2 hours of unfettered access to the most powerful man in the world Webb said he had to start making excuses to bring the whole thing to an end - it rather endeared him to me. It hasn’t altered my views on the Iraq war one bit, but everybody who has spent any time with him, from whichever side, seems to regard him as a thoroughly decent human being.
And, he is a mountain biker 😀
Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Mike Pence. Mark Rubio
the GOP is full of Trumpian-alike popularists who have the same bonkers ideas, but scarily aren’t actually mad...Worrying times
My cousin lives in Texas (green card holder, Democrat) and has told me that Bush Jnr was actually pretty good as a governor back in the day. Apparently he was fine switching between English and Spanish in speeches and interviews and was quite eloquent. What happened when he got into higher office?
As for who would be next? I don’t think there is a doubt that Trump would have pushed for one of his to follow him if he could not change the law to allow him to run for a third term, probably Ivanka. Now though? Nope. All tainted.
One friend here is putting money on Kanye for 2024, I’m not convinced.
So what do I take from this encounter? Americans are taught at an early age if they work hard they can have a slice of the American dream. whatever that is.. They are also taught that capitalism is great and anything else is no good at all. So they bust themselves working into an early grave believing that they can reach some sort of utopia, even if they never get there they will kill themselves trying, and blame someone else for their failure.
Most folk would prefer a 'dream' than reality. And when they start to not believe the 'dream', give them an enemy (Jews, EU, Blacks, immigrants, Irish, Latino's etc) who's taking their dream.
It's worked for ever, and will continue to.
In Trump's case, they even voted for someone who doesn't pay taxes, because he gave them the dream that one day they'll* be rich enough that they won't pay taxes either.
* - spoiler alert, only criminals don't pay taxes
I think the Republican Party has some serious thinking to do. Does it carry on appealing primarily to the nut jobs, or does it try to rebase itself as more centrist. The problem is that the upper echelons of the party are now stuffed with quite a few of the nut jobs 😀
I still use “unknown unknowns” myself, it’s a useful concept.
It's a variation on Johari's Window, just draw a 2x2 grid and label the columns as things you know, things you don't know, and the rows are then questions you ask and ones you don't. So one corner of the window is things you don't know, but you don't know you don't know.
aka. Black Swan's. No normal European person questions that Swan's are white, it's just a fact. Until all of a sudden, you see an Australian Swan and it's black. You didn't know that you should even question that Swan's might not be white.
A bit like Conway's clumsy "alternative facts" statement. If I told you that Swans are black, you'd call me a liar, it's not a lie, it's just a fact from someone with an alternative viewpoint (perhaps they genuinely did believe they had higher turnout and access to better figures?). Or in Conway's case probably a lie.
The known knowns speech is enough to paint Bush two with the idiot brush all day long. Not been good at public speaking and being a bit better than Clinton hardly makes for top Leader of the free world materiel. Obama appears to have been the only sane US president in my lifetime.
Dude that was Rumsfeld - and it actually became known as a rather astute insight into risk management amongst resilience, security and epistemology types.
aka. Black Swan’s. No normal European person questions that Swan’s are white, it’s just a fact. Until all of a sudden, you see an Australian Swan and it’s black. You didn’t know that you should even question that Swan’s might not be white.
Someones been reading Nicholas Taleb material.
Serious answer - I think they will go for someone patrician with gravitas
I give you...Tucker Carlson
The Lincoln Project’s Steve Schmidt predicted that Fox News personality Tucker Carlson could be the next GOP presidential nominee.
“I think that Tucker Carlson is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024,” the political analyst told MSNBC while discussing the current presidential election and its aftermath.The Lincoln Project’s Steve Schmidt predicted that Fox News personality Tucker Carlson could be the next GOP presidential nominee.
The American dream has to be one of the best marketing / con jobs in the world, better than the North Korea brain washing.
No central structure to hate, get resentful towards, bring down. Anyone can make it, but vast majority will die trying with terrible worker rights, health care, huge debt etc.
I see them to all in on this strategy, and try do another crazy, which will fail spectacularly and cause chaos.
A lot of people are going to end up in jail under Biden as they start targeting the right wing extremists.
Black swans are used in philosophy 101, illustrating examples of logic which can be undermined by observation. Or something.
I didn't actually know about black swans until I took a philosophy degree, so imagine how blown my mind was.
I have known about black swans for almost as long as I have known about swans, and well before I first saw Swan Lake. I have never read the book, so I thought it was something to do with very rare things that you know about but discount, rather than things you didn't even know you didn't know about. Which I only learned from this thread (which is probably not the most reliable source).
Which I only learned from this thread (which is probably not the most reliable source).
How could you say such a thing?
STW is the fount of all knowledge.
timbog160
Full MemberI heard Justin Webb tell a story where towards the end of his office he did an interview and Bush insisted on taking him on a personal tour of the White House – just the 2 of them, no aides. After 2 hours of unfettered access to the most powerful man in the world Webb said he had to start making excuses to bring the whole thing to an end – it rather endeared him to me. It hasn’t altered my views on the Iraq war one bit, but everybody who has spent any time with him, from whichever side, seems to regard him as a thoroughly decent human being.
I think one of the main things about this is that however you felt about his politics, Bush did love America, and he absolutely loved the institution of the presidency, and felt it was a duty and an honour. Not in the way people say "respect the office" now which basically meant "don't criticise the incumbent even if you spent the last 10 years doing exactly that yourself" And that's not only why he wanted to show the place off and talk about the history and the paintings and such; it's also why he knew every inch of the place, all the stories and the historical significance.
Whereas, Trump occasionally did the same, and his highlights were "Where Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky... you know", complete with gestures, lots of made up stuff about himself, weirdly claiming Obama never used the Oval Office, and a completely imaginary "hole in the wall" that he had to have fixed because Obama used to watch basketball through it when he was supposed to be working. That was how he showed his respect for the presidency and the whitehouse.
Dude that was Rumsfeld – and it actually became known as a rather astute insight into risk management amongst resilience, security and epistemology types.
Oops! Good job I’m not running for president. Honestly thought it was Bush. In my defence I was rather young at the time. The speech seems like a needlessly complex way to say something quite simple to me. Plenty of other Bush madness to choose from though.
My latest nomination is for the guy in his underwear at the Four Seasons Garden Centre.
I give you…Tucker Carlson
Dear god. Pray that's not true, the man's an absolute roaster. I think I'd rather keep Trump.
The American dream has to be one of the best marketing / con jobs in the world,
It’s just a rehash of Christianity. Keep the plebs in place with their dismal life on the promise of a better after life.
You know, I was just thinking we're about due a stark raving godder like Peter Popoff. He must be about the right age too.
I think one of the main things about this is that however you felt about his politics, Bush did love America, and he absolutely loved the institution of the presidency, and felt it was a duty and an honour. Not in the way people say “respect the office” now which basically meant “don’t criticise the incumbent even if you spent the last 10 years doing exactly that yourself” And that’s not only why he wanted to show the place off and talk about the history and the paintings and such; it’s also why he knew every inch of the place, all the stories and the historical significance.
I think it's also a really good example of why you really do need to keep an open mind.
Like it or not your "Bush is an idiot" view was created by the media. You never met him to form that judgment, you just saw clips of him on the news, read the headlines, and applied a lot of hindsight. You were manipulated into that view.
The difference with Trump perhaps is that Twitter gives us a relatively unadulterated source. But how many of you actually follow him on Twitter, and how many just look at it when another media source quotes his Twitter?
Same with Thatcher, before my time, my dislike of her is probably purely the result of reading the Guardian.
My theory is that Mitt Romney will go again, the vote to impeach him provides a useful excuse to distance himself from Trump policy. Plus he's got cash behind him and is a GOP name.
thisisnotaspoon
Same with Thatcher, before my time, my dislike of her is probably purely the result of reading the Guardian.
I'll never reconcile myself with her I'm afraid. That said, she did truly believe she was doing good for the country not for herself.
I’ll never reconcile myself with her I’m afraid. That said, she did truly believe she was doing good for the country not for herself.
And therein lies the crux of the problem.
Do I think Jeremy Hunt is a fundamentally despicable person who hates the NHS, or was he just in charge of deciding where the cuts fell within the NHS and there were no right answers? Would I have a different opinion if his political career had been during the preceding 10 years of boom rather than bust.
Ditto IDS (less likely)
Ditto Cameron and Osborne (somewhere inbetween).
George W Bush was famously the lowest IQ president to have served the US at the time he became President, with a known IQ score of 91…
Bill Clinton is a member of MENSA!
ENOUGH of this Post-Truth Bullshit please… Trump is going/gone, can we stick to the **** facts from now on please! 🤨
Except you've just fallen for some "post-truth bullshit".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Presidential_IQ_hoax
Can you pardon someone before they are charged?
I think technically you can, but the courts might take that as an admission of guilt and that might make it harder for him.
I don't think there's anything in the rules that say a President can't pardon themselves (not the done thing though, but hey, thats never stopped him before), also Trump could resign the Presidency coming up to the handover, Pence could pardon him and then possibly he can magically unresign himself.
Personally, don't forget Trump would almost certainly have kept the keys to the White House if it wasn't for Covid, so I think Trump will bully the Republicans into accepting the defacto next candidate as being either Ivanka, Eric or Jared (obviously they would be there to pardon daddy/daddy-in-law from his four year court battles...).
To get this thread back on track. It has to be Ted nugent as kid rocks running mate. It's the dream team
I can also see the GOP looking at the Boden/Harris ticket and deciding to go with Pence (white, authoritarian, Christian) and a suitable Florida based Latin vote garner ... Which would be scary because he's as right-wing as trump but isn't a disorganised narcissist. Let's hope the dems can flip the senate
Romney does seem to be trying to establish himself as the voice of reason. Which, in any other year, would be quite a remarkable thing.
To get this thread back on track. It has to be Ted nugent as kid rocks running mate. It’s the dream team
I’m liking the cut of your jib. That would be an entirely new level of insanity.
I reckon the next series of The Apprentice will give us the next candidate.
In the UK many people voted for their tory constituency candidate not because they liked or believed in the candidate or party leader but because they believed in their personal understanding of small scale and local conservatism.
Same in the US but various elements have been conflated and polarised to become...you're with me or you're against me.
Polarised, personalised and completely without nuance.
Educational standards have - apparently - increased but understanding and tolerance have gone the other way.
Something of a disconnect there.
Did anyone hear gorka, trump's talking arsehole, on 5live earlier?
F me sideways - what a colossally ignorant, arrogant and loud-mouthed stroker.
Cougs...
I give you…Tucker Carlson
Dear god. Pray that’s not true, the man’s an absolute roaster. I think I’d rather keep Trump.
You read it here first.
In the UK many people voted for their tory constituency candidate not because they liked or believed in the candidate or party leader but because they believed in their personal understanding of small scale and local conservatism.
This.
I had a conversation with a neighbour and he quoted me what the Conservatives "stood for" - finance, education, law & order etc.
"Are you sure?" I asked, "because the actual evidence doesn't back you up, let's start with doubling the debt pile and then we can move onto police numbers...".
I think one of the main things about this is that however you felt about his politics, Bush did love America, and he absolutely loved the institution of the presidency, and felt it was a duty and an honour.
Nixon was a nasty piece of work, but, with the exception of Trump, all modern Presidents have served what they believed to be America's best interests, regardless of whether we agree with what they did. G.W. Bush is a very nice guy on a personal level according to pretty much everyone who has met him. He was a terrible President, but that was generally incompetence, not malice.
Until Trump, everyone had the basic decency to show some respect for their political opponents, but Trump has changed the game, that's why so many of the Republican establishment have come out against him. Previously, they had to hold their noses and pretend they didn't smell the racism of their far-right supporters, but Trump just came out and encouraged it. Having chased away any remaining moderates, the Republican Party is now dominated by nutters so their next candidate will be whoever can channel Trump most effectively. If I had to pick one name, it would be Tucker Carlson.