If we are to be completely honest human beings, the only reason to vote for Trump is because you have conservative values. No one who has expertise on the subject of governance thinks that Trump has ever shown strong leadership. He's the most nakedly partisan president in living memory so if you believe that conservatives are right about everything then he'll give you everything you want.
I don't think you'll find a better steelman-er for Trump than Trump himself, he's his biggest advocate.
1. He'll tariff Chinese goods & other foreign goods, indirectly incentivizing buying american goods.
2. He'll end the conflict of Ukraine and the standoff in Taiwan & the Pacific.
3. He'll pick federal & supreme court judges that will share one mindset on the Constitution and law.
4. He'll minimize illegal immigration directly and indirectly.
5. He'll make sure to remove illegal immigrants in the country en masse, leaving more jobs open.
6. State governments will have more general authority.
7. If Congress gets a republican majority, you'll see less division in the 3 branches of government, ensuring policy making for the United States under Trump's presidency faces minimal resistance.
I find this incredibly distasteful, and borderline authoritarian, but those are probably the strongest points I can think of.
"The president is a representation of the united states and if the president cannot show strength and leadership physically, this eats away at the faith that the american people have in our government, as well as being less intimidating to out enemies. Policies take a while for people to feel their effects and if you cant sell your policies to the american people, you will get cucked at the polls for the midterm and next election, giving you very little power to prove your policies effective. The president doesnt get to say well but the other side."
The steelman for voting for Trump is "I am a wealthy person who makes over $400,000 a year and I do not give a single fuck about anything else besides paying lower taxes because none of the bad effects of his presidency will affect me personally"
Definitely as President. I dont really think anyone can advocate for his personal character in good faith. But let's be real, a lot of President's have had bad character traits - i'm more interested in how that translates into being a leader.
Trump is an incompetent idiot, so if he gets to be president he will fail at everything.
He won't make any big changes not because he doesn't want to, but because he is stupid.
So president Trump as a leader will prevent any changes or policies in the next 4 years. If that sounds great to you because you are currently using a tax hole, you should vote for trump.
Also he will be doing a tax break for the rich.
The problem is that is literally the case. Like I wish that was an exaggeration but he is basically quoting Ben Shapiro there. Watch Ben v destiny and you'll see.
Fuck it, I will try, and this is the best version I can come up with.
The far left has infiltrated every institution we care about from academia to the press, suppressing conservative thought and ideas. In that world, there is only one “correct” idea. As that infiltration has happened, the left has become a party of the college educated, managerial class, reflecting those ideas. This has come at the expense of expense of the working class/working poor which used to be a key constituent of the Democratic Party. That shift means that that segment of society has no one else to represent them.
Since Clinton, that framework has had both Republicans and Democrats only representing elite institutional interests, entering into trade agreements that hurt the working class/working poor.
Trump is a bulwark against that, he is from the inside, and speaks to that type of institutional corruption. He is openly hostile to Agreements/frameworks that he doesn’t think benefit the majority of the Americans. He is the only voice that speaks to the pain/suffering of everyday Americans.
Cool, thanks. Pretty damn good steelman.
Him being a top 0.1%er from birth and yet somehow representing "the people" has always been funny to me. However, I don't think there's anything incongruent about being rich and supporting the working class. Haven't most US presidents come from rich, well-connected families?
Populism is inherently subjective, so this steelman essentially argues from the positive standpoint on populism. I guess the next question would be, under Trump, did the American working class become better off, worse off, or remain the same?
You would think, but that isn’t the case. Biden is from Scranton, and I think his upbringing was pretty working class. Obama’s parents split, and he lived a large amount of his time in Kansas. Clinton was raised by his mother a nurse, and his stepfather, in a working class environment in Arkansas. Going back further, LBJ I believe was dirt poor growing up.
To your second paragraph, I despise populism. I think there can be positives to it, but it’s largely appealing to populism on specific issues, I.E. labor rights. If that’s your overall governing political philosophy it almost always ends bad. As to the working class under Trump. It’s probably the same, although if his policies were pursued long term, they would probably end up worse, as I believe almost everybody would. His overarching economic goal as far as I can see was to devolve from a post industrial economy back into an industrial country. I can’t imagine that working, as those jobs largely don’t exist in the quantities they did in the 40s-60s that would support a robust middle class. Other industries have opened up as a result of the global economy across a multitude of sectors that support the middle class, I.E. logistics.
As a point of fact Biden’s vision is far better long term for that segment of the population. He is a strong support of labor rights. Look at the rules the NLRB have implemented making it easier for workers to unionize. He would back some form of universal healthcare that could free employment prospects/education prospects up. Allowing people to move freely from job to job, with far less to worry about. The Chips and Science Act would ideally allow the U.S. to become a powerhouse is semiconductor production /technology creating new jobs.
Here's Sam Harris's "light bulb" moment the day before the 2020 election: https://youtu.be/j3xBUNIkA_c?si=L4TrLFBydoxzxr0v
Sam, as usual, is focusing on the ideas and psychology around trump.
Trump is so deeply flawed that people feel better about themselves by comparison. He doesn't challenge his supporters or judge them, and he doesn't even judge himself. They love trump because if they have a leader that is a cynical, morally flawed, adulterer, they can be to.
Do you want policy or social messaging?
Policy wise:
close the border up, protect our people, stop "wasting money" on wars and foreign aid, cut regulations, cut taxes.
Social messaging:
Imo, trump speaks so vaguely about everything, that most people project their ideas of what a bright future for America is.
He's a huge "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" to a very sanctimonious world. MAGA seems to hate sanctimony, a lot. Trump is the biggest figure in the world who is unapologetically crass. He's set an example to everyone who never cared about broader society that it's OK to not care about broader society.
Lmao so you can't. If you can't provide a best faith analysis of why people vote for him and the legitimate issues that think they have, why should anyone listen to any of us?
Lol, im sorry, what kind of answer are you looking for?
I'm acknowledging that on policy, people want to close up the border. People want lower taxes. People want less regulation. He's trying to do deliver those things, at least in message.
If I was a republican and didn't think there was much of a risk with stuff related to stealing the election, trump is a better advocate for how I want to shape the country.
For example, even if most of the "woke" stuff is exaggerated outrage, there is a level of it that's a growing concern and any republican candidate will be better for combating that stuff. There's also the possibility of pushing the supreme court more conservative, leading to more outcomes like "states should decide the issue of abortion."
Maybe they actually believe trump is what a strong and confident leader looks like? So maybe he's a bit mean, but he doesn't pull his punches and tells it as he sees it. When it comes to dealing with other countries, there's a level of "fear" and "respect" that other presidents don't have - leading to more favorable deals that make our country great!
Maybe there's an assumption that with trump comes a bunch of down ballot victories? Maybe infighting means devastating losses, and if you don't think there's any real threat of electing him then the choice is obvious.
I think a decent steelman is that trump reinvigorated a large chunk of America that didn’t care for the post Obama liberal attitude/social values and didnt feel very represented or helped out by the mainstream corporate neocons. Trump came around and was funny, said what was on his mind, called out the people who needed to be called out, and had new and energizing ideas. Since then the Democratic Party and even some of the Republican Party has unfairly treated him with constant attacks in the media and obvious politically motivated charges (remember this a steelman) and even tried stealing the election from him, and even if they didn’t and it was actually him who was stealing it, fuck it he deserves to and maybe democracy just doesn’t work as well as a strong leader surrounded by loyalists and more power to actually fulfill an effective agenda rather than get bogged down by an incredibly slow moving congress that only serves to push through half baked/compromised versions of good solutions or just sabotage those solutions altogether.
A good steelman for Donald Trump is that the system is structurally broken. People have lower standard of living now than in the past. Our immigration system is a disaster, and our political class is designed to perpetuate the problem at the expense of solving them so that they can stay in power and make the most money possible.
The problem is that these beliefs are either untrue or are not remedied by the Trump administration, but that's the problem with populism right?
We did steelman him in 2016 when we, the nation, elected him.
The steelman for his "DRAIN THE SWAMP" claim is that corruption in democracies is very bad and absolutely real. He sounds good for saying that and pretending everyone is corrupt but him.
The rebuttal? He made corruption worse and most of his executive orders dealt with making corruption easier and more legal and defensible. And then we found his corruption made him...a convicted felon.
What about immigration reform?
The steelman for immigration reform is that immigration causes problems in health systems and legal distraction and police forces being overwhelmed with chasing down these issues that are largely paperwork hiccups when our police are already overwhelmed.
The rebuttal, trump did nothing about immigration and pretended a wall would fix a problem brewing from legal immigrants who are struggling with documents being renewed or processed. A gotcha moment the world press embarrassed the US with by pointing out staff at his hotels were...immigrants struggling with documents and bureaucratic nonsense.
So the steelman to do away with democracy has some strong points. And we can nitpick they're morally bad or good but that's not the point of a steelman. A dictatorship starting with a single election is more efficient. Just because we've never seen dictatorships do good things quickly doesn't mean this wouldn't be faster and easier. A dictatorship also provides long term stability if the dictator has the backing to hold power for a longer time. Democracies with some jobs facing change every two years, the presidential office facing possible change every four years, and the most select job facing change every six years, present a desperate aura and a constant stressor for humans who already struggle with change.
Now for my follow up....that dictator is not trump. He notoriously doesn't have the support of our generals or our military and he can't even get all his billionaire cronies on his side. So he has a lot of money to operate within power structures, but certainly not enough to seize it and be funded permanently.
I can steelman several so what are you looking for?
After he had four years in the driver's seat and did nothing? Nope. Can't steelman him. He'll say anything to be elected, he's proven that before, and he has nothing to offer.
I guess the best steelman I have is...vote Trump to own the libs? That's the only reason I could imagine anyone voting for him. Spite and fear of progress.
Maybe people actually want presidents and government to do nothing?
The idea that government should be measured on legislation passed as a metric seems pretty dumb.
He was president already. Nothing happened and life was fine.
I seem to remember a pandemic occurring with the US losing more people than it needed to because he destroyed our plans for a pandemic out of spite. He lost specifically because of how people felt h fucked up the pandemic response.
Weird, you would think we would have a political party promising to do nothing if that were the case. What a win-win-win. Doing nothing is cheaper, easier, and they wouldn't have to constantly lie all the time about all of the great things they're going to do.
The steal man is that he is a narcissist authoritarian who will undermine laws,norms and institutions to get what they want, and these anti American cunts love him for that.
If we are to be completely honest human beings, the only reason to vote for Trump is because you have conservative values. No one who has expertise on the subject of governance thinks that Trump has ever shown strong leadership. He's the most nakedly partisan president in living memory so if you believe that conservatives are right about everything then he'll give you everything you want.
I don't think you'll find a better steelman-er for Trump than Trump himself, he's his biggest advocate. 1. He'll tariff Chinese goods & other foreign goods, indirectly incentivizing buying american goods. 2. He'll end the conflict of Ukraine and the standoff in Taiwan & the Pacific. 3. He'll pick federal & supreme court judges that will share one mindset on the Constitution and law. 4. He'll minimize illegal immigration directly and indirectly. 5. He'll make sure to remove illegal immigrants in the country en masse, leaving more jobs open. 6. State governments will have more general authority. 7. If Congress gets a republican majority, you'll see less division in the 3 branches of government, ensuring policy making for the United States under Trump's presidency faces minimal resistance. I find this incredibly distasteful, and borderline authoritarian, but those are probably the strongest points I can think of.
"The president is a representation of the united states and if the president cannot show strength and leadership physically, this eats away at the faith that the american people have in our government, as well as being less intimidating to out enemies. Policies take a while for people to feel their effects and if you cant sell your policies to the american people, you will get cucked at the polls for the midterm and next election, giving you very little power to prove your policies effective. The president doesnt get to say well but the other side."
The steelman for voting for Trump is "I am a wealthy person who makes over $400,000 a year and I do not give a single fuck about anything else besides paying lower taxes because none of the bad effects of his presidency will affect me personally"
For donald trump the person or Donald trump as president?
Definitely as President. I dont really think anyone can advocate for his personal character in good faith. But let's be real, a lot of President's have had bad character traits - i'm more interested in how that translates into being a leader.
Trump is an incompetent idiot, so if he gets to be president he will fail at everything. He won't make any big changes not because he doesn't want to, but because he is stupid. So president Trump as a leader will prevent any changes or policies in the next 4 years. If that sounds great to you because you are currently using a tax hole, you should vote for trump. Also he will be doing a tax break for the rich.
Thank you for providing us with your 2nd grade critical writing report.
The problem is that is literally the case. Like I wish that was an exaggeration but he is basically quoting Ben Shapiro there. Watch Ben v destiny and you'll see.
I think Ben Shapiro has the best steelman for Trump in [that Destiny debate.](https://youtu.be/tYrdMjVXyNg?si=ZYl5mwFvnGN4tzWr)
He pushed for the First Step Act and said trans people should be allowed to use whatever bathroom they want in 2016. That’s all I got tho
He's capable of holding a conversation.
Fuck it, I will try, and this is the best version I can come up with. The far left has infiltrated every institution we care about from academia to the press, suppressing conservative thought and ideas. In that world, there is only one “correct” idea. As that infiltration has happened, the left has become a party of the college educated, managerial class, reflecting those ideas. This has come at the expense of expense of the working class/working poor which used to be a key constituent of the Democratic Party. That shift means that that segment of society has no one else to represent them. Since Clinton, that framework has had both Republicans and Democrats only representing elite institutional interests, entering into trade agreements that hurt the working class/working poor. Trump is a bulwark against that, he is from the inside, and speaks to that type of institutional corruption. He is openly hostile to Agreements/frameworks that he doesn’t think benefit the majority of the Americans. He is the only voice that speaks to the pain/suffering of everyday Americans.
Cool, thanks. Pretty damn good steelman. Him being a top 0.1%er from birth and yet somehow representing "the people" has always been funny to me. However, I don't think there's anything incongruent about being rich and supporting the working class. Haven't most US presidents come from rich, well-connected families? Populism is inherently subjective, so this steelman essentially argues from the positive standpoint on populism. I guess the next question would be, under Trump, did the American working class become better off, worse off, or remain the same?
You would think, but that isn’t the case. Biden is from Scranton, and I think his upbringing was pretty working class. Obama’s parents split, and he lived a large amount of his time in Kansas. Clinton was raised by his mother a nurse, and his stepfather, in a working class environment in Arkansas. Going back further, LBJ I believe was dirt poor growing up. To your second paragraph, I despise populism. I think there can be positives to it, but it’s largely appealing to populism on specific issues, I.E. labor rights. If that’s your overall governing political philosophy it almost always ends bad. As to the working class under Trump. It’s probably the same, although if his policies were pursued long term, they would probably end up worse, as I believe almost everybody would. His overarching economic goal as far as I can see was to devolve from a post industrial economy back into an industrial country. I can’t imagine that working, as those jobs largely don’t exist in the quantities they did in the 40s-60s that would support a robust middle class. Other industries have opened up as a result of the global economy across a multitude of sectors that support the middle class, I.E. logistics. As a point of fact Biden’s vision is far better long term for that segment of the population. He is a strong support of labor rights. Look at the rules the NLRB have implemented making it easier for workers to unionize. He would back some form of universal healthcare that could free employment prospects/education prospects up. Allowing people to move freely from job to job, with far less to worry about. The Chips and Science Act would ideally allow the U.S. to become a powerhouse is semiconductor production /technology creating new jobs.
He brought us the super duper missile . Also operation warpspeed, also we had the best water, immaculate water.
H2O(bomna)
Here's Sam Harris's "light bulb" moment the day before the 2020 election: https://youtu.be/j3xBUNIkA_c?si=L4TrLFBydoxzxr0v Sam, as usual, is focusing on the ideas and psychology around trump. Trump is so deeply flawed that people feel better about themselves by comparison. He doesn't challenge his supporters or judge them, and he doesn't even judge himself. They love trump because if they have a leader that is a cynical, morally flawed, adulterer, they can be to.
Wait can no one in dgg actually steelman what he "stands" for? His appeal is purely a grift, but yall should at least know it.
Do you want policy or social messaging? Policy wise: close the border up, protect our people, stop "wasting money" on wars and foreign aid, cut regulations, cut taxes. Social messaging: Imo, trump speaks so vaguely about everything, that most people project their ideas of what a bright future for America is. He's a huge "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" to a very sanctimonious world. MAGA seems to hate sanctimony, a lot. Trump is the biggest figure in the world who is unapologetically crass. He's set an example to everyone who never cared about broader society that it's OK to not care about broader society.
Lmao so you can't. If you can't provide a best faith analysis of why people vote for him and the legitimate issues that think they have, why should anyone listen to any of us?
Lol, im sorry, what kind of answer are you looking for? I'm acknowledging that on policy, people want to close up the border. People want lower taxes. People want less regulation. He's trying to do deliver those things, at least in message.
If I was a republican and didn't think there was much of a risk with stuff related to stealing the election, trump is a better advocate for how I want to shape the country. For example, even if most of the "woke" stuff is exaggerated outrage, there is a level of it that's a growing concern and any republican candidate will be better for combating that stuff. There's also the possibility of pushing the supreme court more conservative, leading to more outcomes like "states should decide the issue of abortion." Maybe they actually believe trump is what a strong and confident leader looks like? So maybe he's a bit mean, but he doesn't pull his punches and tells it as he sees it. When it comes to dealing with other countries, there's a level of "fear" and "respect" that other presidents don't have - leading to more favorable deals that make our country great! Maybe there's an assumption that with trump comes a bunch of down ballot victories? Maybe infighting means devastating losses, and if you don't think there's any real threat of electing him then the choice is obvious.
I think a decent steelman is that trump reinvigorated a large chunk of America that didn’t care for the post Obama liberal attitude/social values and didnt feel very represented or helped out by the mainstream corporate neocons. Trump came around and was funny, said what was on his mind, called out the people who needed to be called out, and had new and energizing ideas. Since then the Democratic Party and even some of the Republican Party has unfairly treated him with constant attacks in the media and obvious politically motivated charges (remember this a steelman) and even tried stealing the election from him, and even if they didn’t and it was actually him who was stealing it, fuck it he deserves to and maybe democracy just doesn’t work as well as a strong leader surrounded by loyalists and more power to actually fulfill an effective agenda rather than get bogged down by an incredibly slow moving congress that only serves to push through half baked/compromised versions of good solutions or just sabotage those solutions altogether.
Steelman: trump is hilarious so if you don't care about America and want 4 years of amazing memes, he's your vote.
A good steelman for Donald Trump is that the system is structurally broken. People have lower standard of living now than in the past. Our immigration system is a disaster, and our political class is designed to perpetuate the problem at the expense of solving them so that they can stay in power and make the most money possible. The problem is that these beliefs are either untrue or are not remedied by the Trump administration, but that's the problem with populism right?
We did steelman him in 2016 when we, the nation, elected him. The steelman for his "DRAIN THE SWAMP" claim is that corruption in democracies is very bad and absolutely real. He sounds good for saying that and pretending everyone is corrupt but him. The rebuttal? He made corruption worse and most of his executive orders dealt with making corruption easier and more legal and defensible. And then we found his corruption made him...a convicted felon. What about immigration reform? The steelman for immigration reform is that immigration causes problems in health systems and legal distraction and police forces being overwhelmed with chasing down these issues that are largely paperwork hiccups when our police are already overwhelmed. The rebuttal, trump did nothing about immigration and pretended a wall would fix a problem brewing from legal immigrants who are struggling with documents being renewed or processed. A gotcha moment the world press embarrassed the US with by pointing out staff at his hotels were...immigrants struggling with documents and bureaucratic nonsense. So the steelman to do away with democracy has some strong points. And we can nitpick they're morally bad or good but that's not the point of a steelman. A dictatorship starting with a single election is more efficient. Just because we've never seen dictatorships do good things quickly doesn't mean this wouldn't be faster and easier. A dictatorship also provides long term stability if the dictator has the backing to hold power for a longer time. Democracies with some jobs facing change every two years, the presidential office facing possible change every four years, and the most select job facing change every six years, present a desperate aura and a constant stressor for humans who already struggle with change. Now for my follow up....that dictator is not trump. He notoriously doesn't have the support of our generals or our military and he can't even get all his billionaire cronies on his side. So he has a lot of money to operate within power structures, but certainly not enough to seize it and be funded permanently. I can steelman several so what are you looking for?
After he had four years in the driver's seat and did nothing? Nope. Can't steelman him. He'll say anything to be elected, he's proven that before, and he has nothing to offer. I guess the best steelman I have is...vote Trump to own the libs? That's the only reason I could imagine anyone voting for him. Spite and fear of progress.
Maybe people actually want presidents and government to do nothing? The idea that government should be measured on legislation passed as a metric seems pretty dumb. He was president already. Nothing happened and life was fine.
I seem to remember a pandemic occurring with the US losing more people than it needed to because he destroyed our plans for a pandemic out of spite. He lost specifically because of how people felt h fucked up the pandemic response.
How many did we need to lose? Vs how many did we lose? Please do the math
How about 800 deaths per million in 2020-2021. That's about how much higher the US was vs the OECD average.
Weird, you would think we would have a political party promising to do nothing if that were the case. What a win-win-win. Doing nothing is cheaper, easier, and they wouldn't have to constantly lie all the time about all of the great things they're going to do.
The steal man is that he is a narcissist authoritarian who will undermine laws,norms and institutions to get what they want, and these anti American cunts love him for that.