Tuesday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was, predictably, the thread titled, "Walz vs. Vance: VP Debate Oct 1 2024". Posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the thread is obviously about last night's vice presidential debate between Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Ohio Senator J. D. Vance. The thread is currently 84 pages long and well outside my ability to summarize. Therefore, I'll just give my own reaction to the debate which reflects many of the comments in the thread. The debate was between two very different candidates. On one side was Walz, folksy, rough-edged, earnest, and generally unwilling to offend. On the other was Vance, who was polished and mostly inoffensive, but dramatically transformed from the figure who has been on the campaign trail. Throughout the campaign Vance has mostly acted like little more than a Twitter troll, fixated on childless cat ladies and Haitians eating pets. In the debate, however, Vance did his best to appear reasonable, if not downright moderate. He did this mostly through obfuscation, deftly shifting the discussion to topics more advantageous to him and a lack of inhibition to lying. For instance, on the question of abortion, Vance almost appeared to be pro-choice, mentioning a friend who had an abortion. But he never really clarified his current position on abortion, only saying that Republicans need to earn trust from the public on the topic and stressing his support for families. He outright lied about his previous positions regarding abortion. The Vance who showed up at the debate is so different from the Vance who has been campaigning, that the public could rightly ask which is the real Vance? This is where I think Walz errored. Generally, vice presidential debates have little impact on the election and I believe Walz, realizing that he was up against a practiced and skilled debater, was simply playing for a draw and hoping for an evening that would be mostly forgettable. Still, I think Walz missed the opportunity to remind the public that the moderate-sounding Vance has another side. When discussion of Springfield came up, Walz passed on the opportunity to explicitly mention Vance's lies about Haitians eating pet cats and dogs. Walze let Vance get away with repeatedly praising the economy during the administration of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. He could easily have reminded the public that during the Trump administration, Americans struggled to obtain toilet paper. Walz never brought up Vance's fixation on childless cat ladies or challenged Vance's denigration of women who haven't given birth to children. On the discussion of the bipartisan immigration bill that Trump tanked, Walz should have pointed out that Vance himself voted against the bill. Instead, Walz mostly tolerated Vance's technique of ignoring tough questions and pivoting to lies that sounded reasonable. Vance personifies the expression that "if you act like you know what you are talking about, most people will think that you do". His strength is saying something that sounds like it says exactly the opposite of what it really means. But he says it confidently and without shame. Vance lied about Trump going along with a peaceful transfer of power. That is true only in that Trump did this after his attempted insurrection failed. Vance lied by claiming that Trump saved Obamacare when, in reality, Trump spent his entire administration attempting to get rid of Obamacare and would have succeeded were it not for the late Senator John McCain. Vance even lied about solar panels from China. One frequent pivot by Vance was to bring up alleged censorship by big technology companies. Nevermind that X, formerly Twitter, is owned by a Trump supporter and right-wing troll, Vance himself is currently being protected by both Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg who are censoring a leaked Trump campaign background document about Vance. Walz' best moment came near the end of the debate when he attempted to pin down Vance about whether Trump had lost the 2020 election. Vance ignored the question and, as was his tendency all night, tried to change the subject. Then Walz pointed out that there is a reason that former Vice President Mike Pence was not on the stage, reminding viewers of the chants to "Hang Mike Pence".

The next most active thread yesterday was also posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "WH: imminent ballistic missile attack on Israel is coming", the thread was started by a poster so eager to bash Vice President Harris and blame her for the actions of Israel and Iran that he forget to mention the actual topic of the thread. He had to post a follow-up to explain that  the imminent ballistic missile attack on Israel mentioned in the thread's title, but not the body of the post, was being conducted by Iran. This really represents both the sad state of politics in the U.S and the extreme partisanship of DCUM threads in which scoring political points is more important than relaying the news or discussing actual facts. The facts are that Iran fired well over 100 missiles at targets in Israel. The majority of the missiles appear to have been shot down, either by Israel's anti-missile defense systems, U.S. or British forces, or even the Jordanian military. A few missiles got through the defenses and were shown exploding on the ground, in some cases close to military targets. Israeli censorship will probably prevent the disclosure of any damage to sensitive installations and, instead, emphasis will be on any civilian structures that were hit, even if that damage was caused by Israel's own defensive rockets. Israel is now expected to respond with an attack on Iran. Iran says that its attack was in response to Israel's killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Iran had held off on its response due to U.S. assurances that a ceasefire in Gaza was close. But recent events apparently convinced Iran that was not the case. Currently, Israel is continuing its invasion of Gaza, is rapidly destroying the West Bank, has invaded Lebanon, attacked Yemen and Syria with air strikes, might even have bombed Iraq, and is now threatening Iran. By any measure, this is not a good situation. Let's be frank. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have considerable responsibility for what is happening in the Middle East. The combination of total support for Israel and an endless supply of weapons has meant that Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu has been able to ignore U.S. desires for deescalation and engage in endless war. Everyone seems to have forgotten about the hostages which for months were supposed to be the primary focus of U.S. efforts in the region. Instead, Biden and Harris meekly follow Netanyahu's lead and he has clearly written the hostages off and is choosing to use war to achieve his other goals. The problem for those, like me, who are critical of Biden and Harris in this regard is that there is almost no reason to believe that Trump would be any better. I say, "almost no" because Trump has a natural inclination towards isolationism that might cause him to be less accommodating of Netanyahu. Also, Trump is often prickly about people and has had clashes with Netanyahu in the past. But, it is more likely that the millions of dollars coming from Miriam Adelson and other like-minded folks will keep Trump firmly in support of Netanyahu. As the Trump supporters in this thread demonstrate, they are convinced that Trump would do a better job of ending the fighting in the region. That is probably not true, but realistically it is difficult to understand how he would do a worse job. I really see no reason for optimism and events in the Middle East could actually cost Harris the election. Not only could Harris lose votes in the critical state of Michigan, but violence in the region could spill over to other areas, including the U.S. Iran has already attempted to have Trump assassinated and Israel's recent killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and further Israeli attacks on Iran — especially if conducted with U.S. support — could easily inspire attacks on the U.S., both at home and abroad. Trump thrives on the fears of others and any such violence would clearly benefit him.

Next was a thread titled, "Dockworker’s strike" which, like the previous two threads, was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster created this thread on Monday when a strike by the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) threatened to close U.S. East and Gulf Coast ports. The original poster noted that a shutdown of these ports would be very disruptive to the economy and a "huge disaster" for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. The original poster asked what leverage they have in this situation. As a poster quickly replied, the biggest leverage that the Biden Administration has is the Taft-Harley Act, which would allow Biden to implement a "cooling off" period for additional negotiations and temporarily halt the strike. However, Biden explicitly ruled out using the Act, saying that he does not support it. This is a legitimately difficult situation for Biden and Harris. Their administration has been strongly pro-union and they would be reluctant to endanger union support just before an election. However, the economy — which has been in danger throughout Biden's term in office — would be severely damaged by the strike, which actually began yesterday. Several other groups of importance to Harris' campaign hopes have been urging the Administration to get involved in ending the strike. Threads on topics such as this tend to provoke two types of responses: 1) a small handful of posts from posters who happen to be subject matter experts on the topic, and; 2) a huge number of uninformed, often wildly misleading, blow hard posts of very little value. DCUM, with its roots in the nation's capital, is lucky to have quite a few posters from the first group and their posts can be very informative. Unfortunately, they are generally drowned out by the others. No surprise that many posters immediately react by blaming Biden and Harris for the strike. One poster claims that former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump would immediately fire the dockworkers, though it is not clear under what authority the poster imagines Trump doing that. But given that Trump's cult followers expect him to behave as a dictator, I guess this prediction is not too far from the realm of possibility. Other posters asked the critics what actions that they would expect a President or Vice President to take in private union negotiations. Much of the thread consists of posters questioning priorities of other posters. DCUM posters are alleged to be elite urbanists who rely on the products being unloaded at ports, but who are unconcerned about the plight of the workers who do that unloading. Some poster actually do more or less live up to that stereotype, demonstrating considerably more concern about disruptions caused by the strike than the pay and working conditions of the dockworkers. However, a significant number of posters side with the longshoremen and support their demands. There is also some focus on Harold Daggett, the leader of the ILA. Daggett was previously tried for mob ties and is very highly paid. Reportedly he drives a Bentley and owns a yacht. There are accusations that he is more concerned about his own power and wealth and less interested in helping the working members of his union.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Titled, "CA Governor signs bill to ban all legacy admissions at private CA colleges (USC, Stanford, Santa Clara, etc)", the original poster praises California state officials for enacting a law that will ban legacy status or ties to donors from being considered as factors in admissions by colleges and universities in the state. While the law covers all universities in California, the state's public universities have already stopped considering legacy or donor-ties in admissions. Therefore, the impact will only be on private universities. Several of the schools that have traditionally admitted the largest groups of legacy students have already said that they will comply. Generally posters responding in this thread are very supportive of the action which they believe will create more opportunities for deserving students. Some posters, however, predict legal action aimed at overturning the law. Other posters question why anyone would make a contribution to a university if they could not get a spot at the school for their child. There is also quite a bit of discussion about which other states or universities might follow this example. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that race could not be a factor in admissions decisions, legacy and donor admissions fell under considerable scrutiny. Those preferences were believed to allow the admission of unqualified students who were generally wealthy and likely to be White. These preferences were seen as the other side of the affirmative action coin and faced increased criticism. The California law doesn't have much of an enforcement mechanism. Colleges are required to report the number of students that they admit based on legacy or donor ties. Those that violate the law will be required to provide even more detailed reporting. The law's supporters hope that a fear of being shamed or being forced to disclose institutional priorities that might be revealed in the more specific data will motivate universities to comply. But not all posters were onboard with the new law. Some might have been hoping to benefit from legacy status themselves and others argued that allowing the offspring of a wealthy person to buy their way into a school in exchange for a new gym or library is perfectly reasonable. Other posters pointed out that wealthy applicants will still have a leg up in admissions due to their ability to be full pay and not be forced to rely on financial aid. Whereas many posters saw this as a move to increase fairness in college admissions, at least one poster warned the others not to get their hopes up. According to this poster — who of course has no basis for his opinion — these posters' children will still not get into an elite university.