Oh, is Dave in Florida? I see. These boards are probably the only time his usual way of thinking is ever challenged. It is funny how that works. I live in a state which is very focused on mining. The mining industry trumpets how it employs a lot of people. I completely bought into that. But recently there's been a lot of discussion about how university students pay more in loan interest to the Federal Government (tertiary education is bankrolled by government - you don't get a student loan from a bank) than what the mining companies pay in tax. Why aren't we like Norway which produces the same amount of oil and gas, but tertiary education is free? And nurses and teachers pay more in tax than the mining companies do. And it evolves that the mining companies don't actually employ that many people. And the threatened domestic gas shortage is because they sell so much gas offshore at reduced rates. And the special super profits tax which they complained about when it was introduced... it turns out none of them have paid it at all. Slowly, recently, I'm coming to realise the mining companies' claims to be the backbone of the Australian economy are all bullshit, but I've been living in an environment which I just took it as gospel.
All of this screaming abuse at each other reminds me of that now inappropriate meme about the Special Olympics. Attacking sources of information is also an ad hominem logical fallacy: in Australian rules football, it is called "going after the man, not the ball". You should rebut facts, not sources. Otherwise, you're ducking facts.
There's some uncontroversial facts, leading to opinions:
1. Facts: Trump talked about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs in Springfield. We all saw that. Opinion: That's a wolf whistle to racism.
2. There are first-hand testimonies of community leaders in Springfield facing bomb threats. Watching videos of those community leaders, they sound sincere, and frightened. Those threats escalated after the Trump's comments in the presidential debate. Opinion: this is a racist response to the wolf whistle.
Other opinions:
1. Trump is very focused on immigration as a selling point to voters because its Harris' weakness. She did not accomplish much when she was border czar.
2. Trump had a bad night in that debate. That shouldn't be a surprise. Trump frequently goes off message even when he speaks without someone to test him. But Harris is a seasoned combatant when it comes to debate. She was a prosecutor, so her job was to convince juries that someone was guilty of a crime and overcome a high burden of proof. She was also prepped for a debate where she knew there was a split screen, and that her silent laughing at his wild statements were going to be seen by the audience. She carved him up like a turkey.
But Clinton won her debates against Trump, and she lost the election. (There was no way I thought Trump was going to win that after the "grabbing by the pussy" video came out, as an aside. It was incomprehensible that he could have beaten even a deeply flawed candidate.)
Two things ending up costing Hillary:
1. Comey announcing he reopened the server case stuff near the eve of the election
2. Simply just not paying any deference or attention to the firewall states while Trump was fairly active in those areas.
She won the popular vote, but those either depressed and/or siphoned off enough where it mattered to cost her the win.
