Then there is this infamous quote in 2022.
> "Hunter Biden literally could have had the corpses of children in his basement – I would not have cared."
I understand he is being hyperbolic, but honestly it wasn't that obvious though, because the aforementioned crash outs. He also allowed everyone to be quote mine him. It is an unforced error.
Generally I find Sam Harris tbh to be not particularly that interesting anyway. He gets a lot of mileage (like a lot of these personalities) from his elocution. He makes him sound insightful than he really is.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are both rival elites vying for power to enrich themselves and their circle via the apparatus of the Republican and Democratic parties. They are both reprehensible, for different reasons. Voting for Trump was a middle finger to both establishment parties in the US (the Republicans didn't want him running for the party). There are no good guys here. They were both shit.
The fact Sam Harris couldn't wrap his head around the fact that people were fed up of public figures that are similar to himself is embarrassing. He appeared to do very little introspection on the matter. He is a public figure.
Cory Doctorow, on the other hand, is another left-wing intellectual that did understand the sentiment and has made an effort to understand people he deeply disagrees with. Guess whose ideas are more relevant currently? It isn't Harris; Harris is irrelevant these days.
Bullshit. Trump is the logical outcome of republican party project. Vote for him was vote literally for that.
Republican politicians did not liked hia style, but did liked his project, supported and created project 2025, live the violence and all of that.
The corruption was making Trump cool to these people.
> There are no good guys here. They were both shit
Not nearly in the same way. Not even close. And Trump voters knew that.
I don't understand why people like yourself come up with this stuff. There are loads of clips from 2016 where people were saying this. It's 10 years later, and I am still having conversations where we are denying the reality of what happened; it is bizarre.
> Republican politicians did not liked hia style, but did liked his project, supported and created project 2025, live the violence and all of that.
Project 2025 is a thing from the Heritage Foundation and wasn't a thing back in 2016, because it was published in 2023. You are just repeating stuff you've heard on the TV/YouTube.
The Heritage Foundation has been moving towards Paleo-conservatism since about 2021. The Paleo-cons were ejected/rejected from the Republican Party in the Buckley days.
I was talking about the 2016 campaign. Back in 2016 (not 2024), the Republican establishment didn't want him there. Pretending otherwise is asinine.
> The corruption was making Trump cool to these people.
People liked Trump because he's brash and loud and has an attractive wife who used to be a model. He has a ridiculous hairstyle. He flew in on a massive jet that has his name on the side of it.
He also trolled/manipulated the media constantly, which was pretty funny on the face of it. E.g., I remember he was going to talk about Obama's birth certificate or something like that, and he got CNN to broadcast his entire rally, and he mentioned it for like 5 seconds at the end.
I am English, I live in the UK. My mates and I would get some beers and watch the Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump debates late at night to see the shit show. It was really funny. "What is old Donald going to say this time?!".
I understand that doesn't appeal to everyone, but a lot of people like this stuff. I won't lie, I kind of liked it as well at the time.
Compare that to someone like Jeb Bush or even his opponents, Hillary Clinton; there was no momentum, no hype.
Malcolm McLaren is quoted as saying, "Pro-wrestling is real, and politics is fake." You need to keep that in mind when watching any political coverage.
> Not nearly in the same way. Not even close. And Trump voters knew that.
No, they didn't. What people like is that he was talking about stuff they cared about and they believed he was speaking for them.
It is 10 years later, and people like yourself are still misstating what people were saying and have done no introspection.
Trump voters aren't evil. You really need to do introspection because you still don't seem to understand why there were major political upsets, both in the US, UK and EU.
You are doing exactly what many people were criticising Sam Harris for. I was fed up of it back in 2017, and you and Sam haven't learnt anything.
It is one of the reasons why I don't bother talking to people about stuff like this, because you can't look past the surface, and you make no attempt to understand what happened.
Claim it was rejection of both parties is self serving bullshit. It feel good sound good story and nothing more.
> which was pretty funny on the face of it. E.g., I remember he was going to talk about Obama's birth certificate or something like that, and he got CNN to broadcast his entire rally, and he mentioned it for like 5 seconds at the end.
That one is waaay more about "black man not valid American" thing then about "funny" in an abstract way.
> rump voters aren't evil. You really need to do introspection because you still don't seem to understand why there were major political upsets, both in the US, UK and EU.
Yes they were making bad choices, knowingly. Really, that is their choice. You need to do introspectiom if you still need to defend them and their choices.
There is really no reason to play this "only left of center can be criticised, impossible for far right and Trumpians to do something bad" game.
> I spent quite a lot of time reading and interactimg with conservatives and republicans. I am from that environment.
I don't believe you. I am not conservative; I am not American, and I can tell you haven't.
> Claim it was rejection of both parties is self serving bullshit. It feel good sound good story and nothing more.
Why? Because you say so? I don't even understand how it is "self serving bullshit". People were fed up with run-of-the-mill politics. Even on the left wing you had many people that were radical (that have become less so over time) entering into politics around that time.
I also must have imagined reading all the comments and seeing all those videos that people posted around that time, specifically on the theme that they were voting for Trump because they believe he was something different.
I remember listening to many hours of people just talking in Skype, Google Hangouts and similar places at the time. I get really annoyed when people try to gaslight me about events that I was paying a lot of attention to at the time.
> That one is waaay more about "black man not valid American" thing then about "funny" in an abstract way.
I think it is funny to get CNN to broadcast your rally for you based on deception, because CNN wanted him to something racist and he didn't. He trolled them because they are predictable.
> Yes they were making bad choices, knowingly. Really, that is their choice. You need to do introspectiom if you still need to defend them and their choices.
Apparently you can read minds now. How do you know? I really doubt anyone said, "I know Trump is an evil man, but I am going to vote for him," or something to that effect. If you claim you have. You are lying.
> There is really no reason to play this "only left of center can be criticised, impossible for far right and Trumpians to do something bad" game.
I am not. The fact that you can't recognise that because I have take on Trump that is sympathetic to MAGA / Trump supporters is ridiculous. Most Trumps aren't far-right either. You say you listen to Republicans and Conservatives, but you clearly aren't if you are claiming that.
I think, TBH, you are lying to me. So I don't want to talk any further. Go away.
Sure, JD Vance is a cretin and Trump is vile. Can we please go back to intellectually interesting pursuits?