jmdrake
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- Joined
- Jun 6, 2007
- Messages
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TLDW; Mr. Hassan took 3 positions. 1) Donald Trump is dismantling the constitution. (Trump attacking the 1, 4, 5, 14 and possibly 22nd amendments) 2) Donald Trump is soft on crime (Pardoning of violent Jan 6 protestors including one stomped on the head of a police officer. Pardoning members of congress for financial crimes). 3) Donald Trump is ethnically cleansing Gaza.
And...the train wreck.. So a couple the opponents identified as "Catholic Nationalists" who were willing to gut the constitution to enforce their ideals. One even went so far as to praise the fascist dictator Franco and falsely claim Franco was just "protecting Catholic priests and nuns from being raped and killed." (Immediate fact check showed Franco murdered Catholic clergy who were too "liberal.") Several of the panelists found themselves agreeing more with Medhi than against him. For example the blonde at at 1:09:00 in agreed with Medhi that Donald Trump was ethnically cleansing Israel, tried to change the subject to what Trump's motivations were and if he was being controlled by someone else, tried to frame the Israel / Gaza conflict as a religious one (Medhi brought up that there are Christian Palestinians and the founders of Israel were secularists), and ultimately agreed with Medhi that the U.S. should cut all ties with Israel. There were 3 minorities on the panel, two Persians and one Latino, and all but one of them basically agreed with Medhi's points. One of the Persians tried pushing back on the ethnic cleansing point by saying Iran is the problem as to way Gaza is occupied but Medhi pointed out that the subjegation of Gaza started over a decade before the Islamiic revolution in Iran. The same Persian lost support of pretty much everybody when he tried to defend the killing of Palestinian children by saying "It's collateral damage" (some were killed by snipers so no) or "They're taught to hate Jews" (non sequitur) or "They were wearing suicide vests" (they weren't). Earlier he had taken the chair to talk about immigration and he brought up the need for vetting of immigrants, which Medhi agreed with. Medhi put him on the defensive by pointing out that one of the earlier "conservative" debaters said he wanted Medhi, and by extension the Persian republican, deported simply for being a non-white immigrant.
This one guy in the pink polo shirt really lacked self awareness. Early on when discussing immigration he stated that Medhi, who is a naturalized citizen, should be deported. Then when Medhi was talking about Trump supporting ethnic cleansing he was like "I agree with you on this. But you shouldn't be so liberal on other issues because that makes people like me vote for the warmonger." (I'm paraphrasing but that's the gist). No. The opposite is true. People like the idiot in the pink shirt keep sane people firmly rooted in the democratic party. Folks think "Hey, I'm not sold on biological men in women's sports (polls show 67% of Democrat voters are AGAINST that) but at least no democrat is suggesting that people who came to America legally and became naturalized citizens should nevertheless be deported." The worst is seeing how many of the "far right republicans" were willing to totally gut the constitution in the name of saving America. They went beyond "We should interpret the constitution the way it was intended in 1790" to "Let's just do away with the first amendment once my guy gets in office." The Franco supporting Fascist stated that he wanted authoritarianism as the form of government. Asked how the authoritarian should be selected? Why by popular vote of course! One man, one vote, one time. Asked what would he thing about the authoritarian condemning him and his family to death? He said that his hypothetical authoritarian leader wouldn't go after people like him because of the "friend v foe" concept popularized by a Nazi "intellectual." I guess today's fascists / Nazis never heard of the "Night of the long knives" where Hitler murdered a lot of his own supporters to further consolidate power?
The post debate interviews were interesting. None of the neo fascists were shown in the post debate interviews (not sure if they weren't asked, just choose not to, or their videos just weren't included). The post debate interviews ranged from "Medhi says he believes in free speech but wouldn't keep debating the straight up fascists" to "I'm embarrassed that these straight up fascists are on my side" to "How dare Medhi point out to me that some of my fellow right wingers actually hate me for being brown."
Anyway, this was as much of an eye opener for me on right wing authoritarianism as the COVID lockdowns were on left wing fascism. It's hard to say if Trump's participation in the COVID lockdowns when they started in 2020 count as "right wing" or "left wing" now that Trump has gone full communist. Or has Trump gone full National Socialist? Hard to tell.
Neither do I 
