US 2024 Presidential Election

[Agema]

You don't have a leg to stand on criticizing commentary you have no intention of ever consuming.

Well, that's the funny thing - you're right that I almost never watch that sort of stuff, except that happens to an exception where I did watch large chunks of it, and it genuinely is as bad as I feared it would be.

Just to give you an idea (this I got from a review), do you know he even gets a load of his citations wrong? This sort of thing is a real giveaway of pseudointellectualism. The trickery at core, to give an appearance of serious research that doesn't actually exist.

There is a ton of push back on the right when Trump says stupid things.

Note Dirty Hipster's reply, which cuts to the core of the matter.

Just think about the word "pushback": it suggests some opposing force to block, resist, restrain. But you never never block, resist or restrain. Trump just breezes straight through and past you and there is never any consequences. So it's not pushback, is it? It's virtue signalling.

 

[Silvanus]

Trump Mobile announced the T1 mobile phone in June 2025, made in America, accepting prepurchases with a $100 deposit. 590,000 people put down those deposits.

At least 4 shipping deadlines are now well in the past. And the terms have been updated several times since those orders were placed. "Made in America" became "America-proud design", which is of course legally meaningless. And a disclaimer has been added stating that deposits don't constitute a purchase, but an opportunity to buy "if" the product is eventually made, at their discretion. No refunds obviously.

The images of the T1 on the website were photoshopped Samsungs.

Nearly 600,000 Buyers Paid $60 Million for a Gold Trump Phone That Has Never Arrived

Trump Mobile's T1 phone, launched in 2025, has yet to deliver to customers, raising concerns over deceptive practices and prompting calls for a federal investigation.

www.ibtimes.co.uk

 

[tstorm823]

Funny how the Nazis and the white supremacists feel so comfortable within the Republican party, must just be a coincidence.

They don't. They hate the Republican party. Even those that would vote Republican don't like it.

It's like if I said "Funny how the communists feel so comfortable within the Democratic Party." Only someone who has had actual zero exposure to communists would say that. Only someone with actual zero exposure to Nazis would say something this completely ignorant.

 

[tstorm823]

Well, that's the funny thing - you're right that I almost never watch that sort of stuff, except that happens to an exception where I did watch large chunks of it, and it genuinely is as bad as I feared it would be.

Just to give you an idea (this I got from a review), do you know he even gets a load of his citations wrong? This sort of thing is a real giveaway of pseudointellectualism. The trickery at core, to give an appearance of serious research that doesn't actually exist.

Give an example of a citation he got wrong. "The reviews told me he cited things wrong" is not gonna cut it.

 

[Agema]

Give an example of a citation he got wrong. "The reviews told me he cited things wrong" is not gonna cut it.

Okay. At some point, he references Aristotle's "Politics" with a quotation from page 34 of the particular translation he uses. Except the quotation isn't on page 34 of that book, it's on page 9. And he does it a lot: it is very sloppy scholarship. It also makes it much harder to check and analyse his work, that's why actual scholars take their referencing seriously.

On the bright side, at least despite these citations being wrong, the quotations do at least exist. However, he does a great deal of the sorts of things you complain about: cutting quotations to remove important bits, or selecting quotations from sources that oppose his conclusions.

 

[Hades]

Matt Walsh's piece there has a stance, but it is not historically illiterate.

I suppose history is large enough to support a wide variety of stances. But that is speaking in general. On the specific issue of slavery mister Walsh would be defending or whitewashing an issue generally seen as a great evil and an issue proven so unsustainable a bloody war broke out because of it. Charitably speaking a defense of such a subject might require talents bigger than that of Walsh.

I like to view videos critiquing the bungling attempts of far right influencers venturing into history and am often left unimpressed with them. Its clear as day that rather than any true interest inn history they mainly just use it as a tool to support their own argument and do not mind twisting the facts to support their narrative. But to their mild credit all sides approach history this way. We are all prepared to learn from history only on the condition they prove right what we already believe. That said the far right is genuinely more egregious and tone deaf about it.

Our own far right likes to use imagery of William of Orange and his fellows to support their stance despite those being defined by a tolerance and religious freedom the far right would completely abhor.

On a more flattering note the far right in America does seem at least somewhat self aware in regards to history. They self identify with the confederacy which is actually a very apt comparison. Their reverence for the founding fathers on the other hand is rather tone deaf and unlikely to be welcomed by said founding fathers.

 

[Silvanus]

I suppose history is large enough to support a wide variety of stances. But that is speaking in general. On the specific issue of slavery mister Walsh would be defending or whitewashing an issue generally seen as a great evil and an issue proven so unsustainable a bloody war broke out because of it. Charitably speaking a defense of such a subject might require talents bigger than that of Walsh.

As far as I can tell, Walsh isn't defending slavery. He's talking about how slavery existed outside the transatlantic slave trade, and making a 'whatabout' argument that therefore the transatlantic slave trade is overblown or unworthy of focus.

Its essentially just whataboutism, aimed at a strawman (the description states, "we were told slavery was America's unique sin"-- were you? By who? I've literally never heard anyone claim slavery was unique to America).

 

[tstorm823]

Okay. At some point, he references Aristotle's "Politics" with a quotation from page 34 of the particular translation he uses. Except the quotation isn't on page 34 of that book, it's on page 9. And he does it a lot: it is very sloppy scholarship. It also makes it much harder to check and analyse his work, that's why actual scholars take their referencing seriously.

On the bright side, at least despite these citations being wrong, the quotations do at least exist. However, he does a great deal of the sorts of things you complain about: cutting quotations to remove important bits, or selecting quotations from sources that oppose his conclusions.

Selecting quotations from sources that oppose your conclusions is a good thing. An argument that can only stand on explicit agreement is a weak argument.

9 to 34 is a pretty enormous gap, but quotes from identified references that can be verified but with page discrepancies sounds like there might just be different printings of the book. That is not what I was expecting when you said miscited references, I thought it was going to be completely misattributed quotes. Sounds to me like it was not historically illiterate.

I suppose history is large enough to support a wide variety of stances. But that is speaking in general. On the specific issue of slavery mister Walsh would be defending or whitewashing an issue generally seen as a great evil and an issue proven so unsustainable a bloody war broke out because of it. Charitably speaking a defense of such a subject might require talents bigger than that of Walsh.

That piece does not defend slavery. The argument is that there was wider scale slavery with more horrifying practices for longer periods of time across the globe. I believe his description of American slavery was "really bad". It is made against the pretense that people think of slavery as a uniquely American issue, and you may consider that to be a strawman that he's arguing against (I don't from an American perspective, I've heard "America's original sin" enough times), but the thing about strawman arguments is that even if they are dishonest, they are so by misrepresenting opposition in a way that accepted truths defeat them, it's not an argument for thinking it's historically illiterate.

 

[Silvanus]

(I don't from an American perspective, I've heard "America's original sin" enough times),

?? "America's original sin" doesn't mean its uniquely American.

 

[tstorm823]

?? "America's original sin" doesn't mean its uniquely American.

Well, you see, an apostrophe with an s after it indicates possession. This can be read simply as something you have, or it can be something you have at the exclusion of others, depending on context. If one wanted to say this issue plagues all nations and cultures historically, the phrase would be "humanity's original sin", but it isn't, thus implying through context that the problem is uniquely American.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Its essentially just whataboutism, aimed at a strawman (the description states, "we were told slavery was America's unique sin"-- were you? By who? I've literally never heard anyone claim slavery was unique to America).

It does seem a common complaint amongst people trying to downplay transatlantic slavery, that nobody apparently is ever told that slavery existed elsewhere.

 

[tstorm823]

As far as I can tell, Walsh isn't defending slavery. He's talking about how slavery existed outside the transatlantic slave trade, and making a 'whatabout' argument that therefore the transatlantic slave trade is overblown or unworthy of focus.

Its essentially just whataboutism, aimed at a strawman (the description states, "we were told slavery was America's unique sin"-- were you? By who? I've literally never heard anyone claim slavery was unique to America).

It makes sense that you wouldn't hear these things, you live in a different country.

And it's not just whataboutism, there are real debates going on in the present that rest on the premise that America somehow owes for its past crimes. Chances are reasonable you might have similar arguments to Walsh if there were serious talks about the UK paying reparations for events centuries ago.

 

[Silvanus]

Well, you see, an apostrophe with an s after it indicates possession. This can be read simply as something you have, or it can be something you have at the exclusion of others, depending on context. If one wanted to say this issue plagues all nations and cultures historically, the phrase would be "humanity's original sin", but it isn't, thus implying through context that the problem is uniquely American.

That is completely ridiculous.

To begin, it did not plague all nations and cultures. For that reason and many, many others, the phrase "humanity's original sin" is not appropriate.

But that's almost besides the point. The idea that a possessive apostrophe indicates unique ownership is just guano. If i said, "the Russian army's issue is logistics", only a complete fool would conclude i was arguing nobody else suffered poor logistics. Its just so obviously, transparently not what that means.

 

[Agema]

9 to 34 is a pretty enormous gap, but quotes from identified references that can be verified but with page discrepancies sounds like there might just be different printings of the book.

Wow. I guess centuries of academia never thought of a way to handle that. Oh wait, of course they did: cite edition and date of publication.

And even then, he surely wouldn't manage to keep doing it again and again. Unless he were incompetent. Or maybe he offloaded the work to ChatGPT, although that's really another way of saying he was incompetent.

Sounds to me like it was not historically illiterate.

Well then, likely possibilities from here are:

1) You haven't watched the video, in which case I quote back to you (#8,119): "You don't have a leg to stand on criticizing commentary you have no intention of ever consuming. You looked at the title, made your assumptions, and considered those assumptions to be a functional argument... You are flaunting your own ignorance."

2) You have watched the video, and you declined to put it under the most basic scrutiny

3) You have watched the video and you did scrutinise it, but turns out you're as incompetent as Matt Walsh.

So what's your pick?

That piece does not defend slavery.

Technically true, and yet at the same time it is, absolutely and unequivocally, an apologia for US slavery. He can say US slavery was "really bad", but the whole of the video is to make the argument "it was not that bad".

 

[tstorm823]

But that's almost besides the point. The idea that a possessive apostrophe indicates unique ownership is just guano. If i said, "the Russian army's issue is logistics", only a complete fool would conclude i was arguing nobody else suffered poor logistics. Its just so obviously, transparently not what that means.

I did say that context was important. Phrasing is also important. If you had instead said "Logistics is the Russian army's issue", it carries a greater implication that you are speaking of something specifically Russian. A bit like "your problem is X" means that you have the problem X, but "X is your problem" is saying that it isn't my problem.

Wow. I guess centuries of academia never thought of a way to handle that. Oh wait, of course they did: cite edition and date of publication.

And even then, he surely wouldn't manage to keep doing it again and again. Unless he were incompetent. Or maybe he offloaded the work to ChatGPT, although that's really another way of saying he was incompetent.

I'd imagine he offloaded that particular work to lower level employees of the Daily Wire. Even if he pulled together all the information, Matt Walsh is not putting together the graphics in his videos.

1) You haven't watched the video, in which case I quote back to you (#8,119): "You don't have a leg to stand on criticizing commentary you have no intention of ever consuming. You looked at the title, made your assumptions, and considered those assumptions to be a functional argument... You are flaunting your own ignorance."

2) You have watched the video, and you declined to put it under the most basic scrutiny

3) You have watched the video and you did scrutinise it, but turns out you're as incompetent as Matt Walsh.

So what's your pick?

Not only did I watch the video, I watched the criticism video that you watched as well while tracking down your complaints. You've seen like 5% of the original interlaced with petulant level criticism, and you still have already admitted that his sources were real, and sort of implicitly that his facts are accurate.

Technically true, and yet at the same time it is, absolutely and unequivocally, an apologia for US slavery. He can say US slavery was "really bad", but the whole of the video is to make the argument "it was not that bad".

Let me throw a parallel thing at you. Iran has been including a bunch of Epstein in their anti-US propaganda lately. Epstein was convicted of crimes with girls as young as 13. In Iran, 13 is considered a legally marriageable age for girls. It is laughable that the Iranian government is putting that in their propaganda. It is not a defense of Epstein to laugh in their face.

 

[Chimpzy]

Trump says he will send ‘Election Integrity Army’ into every state for midterms

Republican National Committee recruited thousands of volunteers to assist in poll watching during the last election cycle

www.independent.co.uk

Phew, my relief is palpable

 

[Silvanus]

I did say that context was important. Phrasing is also important. If you had instead said "Logistics is the Russian army's issue", it carries a greater implication that you are speaking of something specifically Russian.

If you're reading exclusivity or uniqueness into these statements, frankly that's on you. Its not implied by a possessive apostrophe under any basic understanding of the English language.

 

[tstorm823]

Trump says he will send ‘Election Integrity Army’ into every state for midterms

Republican National Committee recruited thousands of volunteers to assist in poll watching during the last election cycle

www.independent.co.uk

Phew, my relief is palpable

Poll watchers are a perfectly normal, well established election practice.

 

[Agema]

Not only did I watch the video, I watched the criticism video that you watched as well while tracking down your complaints. You've seen like 5% of the original interlaced with petulant level criticism, and you still have already admitted that his sources were real, and sort of implicitly that his facts are accurate.

So in that case you have chosen option (3), and that reply explains your profound ignorance and incompetence.

That a source is "real" does not mean the facts are accurate, because sources are not necessary accurate. After all, this is a most basic trick of pseudointellectualism and pseudoscience - take the form of academic output without the substance. Quality comes awareness of the wider body of sources, and evaluating them rather than cherry picking. Hence my point that if Walsh can't even get the form right, what are we supposed to think about his substance?

Following the above and your description, I am therefore very doubtful you have seen the review I looked at. (Or you are more dishonest or incompetent than I gave you credit for).

Let me throw a parallel thing at you.

Why? It's not just petty whataboutery, it's barely relevant.

 

[Chimpzy]

Poll watchers are a perfectly normal, well established election practice.

Indeed, it is very important that the fraud the Demoncraps will attempt be spotted and stymied.