American Politics: Discuss and Debate (Page 59 of 59)

In terms of President Lex Luthor: he was pretty effective as president, resolving near-wars and conflicts with diplomacy, cleverness, technology and relentless support for metahumans and the Justice League, with Luthor leading the war effort in OUR WORLDS AT WAR against Imperiex and saving the Earth. (There was some question as to whether or not Luthor had prior knowledge of the attack, and he was cleared by telepathic scan, but it may have been rigged.)

In the end, Lex was defeated not because of his presidential performance -- he was excellent -- but because he couldn't let go of his obsession with Superman, made false claims that Superman was drawing a Kryptonite asteroid to Earth, and then put on a crazy supersuit to attack Superman and a variety of heroes, leading to Superman punching Lex out of the suit and out of the White House with Lex buried in charges of illegal orders and falsifying evidence to declare Superman an enemy of state.

The overall sense was that if Lex had focused on his job instead of his weird hatred for Superman, he probably would have served two terms in adulation instead of not even finishing one and crawling out in infamy.

The world has gotten so crazy that Luthor and Wilson Fisk seem like sensible options as leaders: compared to Trump, they're actually competent. However, we have to consider that they may not actually be better; they may simply hide their sociopathy better.

Lex Luthor is an egotistical narcissist who needs to act out his petty vendettas against anyone whom he feels has ever slighted him whether it's someone at a Smallville bake sale who was a little brusque or Superman himself. Regardless of how long Lex held it together as President of the United States, he would have snapped sooner or later whether in his duties or in his obsession with Superman.

Wilson Fisk is a career criminal who used crime to bolster his sense of weakness and insecurity that came with poverty and being uncultured; he once murdered a man for interrupting a date and making him feel awkward and started a gang war over this slight; he ordered numerous murders when creating his empire including Karen Page; he ordered allies murdered to frame Daredevil; he killed Ben Urich for investigating him; he ensured Agent Ray Nadeem went into debt by eliminating his sister in law's insurance coverage in order to make Nadeem's credit score prevent him from being promoted above Fisk's control; he steered Benjamin Poindexter into sociopathy by getting him fired from the FBI and murdered Poindexter's friend Julie Barnes to keep Poindexter pliable and unstable; he ordered Agent Ray Nadeem's death; he engineered the death of Maya Lopez' father to control her and kidnapped Maya's grandmother.

That's just some of what we know. It's a safe bet he's done more.

Maya's powers clearly affected Fisk's mind in some way at the end of ECHO.

But whether or not Fisk is a changed man, whether or not he's pretending or whether or not he's fooled himself -- it's really irrelevant. We have to assume Fisk will, given enough time, turn on New York City and seek to destroy it, even if he convinces himself that he's serving it. And to prefer him over Trump is not really a moral judgement on anyone. They're both bad. But one is competent.

You're right that I was a bit careless with my use of the word "competent". The job of president is to run the country, and Trump is by definition incompetent because he can't do it. However, Trump isn't merely unable to run the country, but actively sabotaging its ability to function or work with other countries. For example, his threatened tariffs on Canada (hi) are going to destroy US access to Canadian metals for automotive production, fertilizer for farming, and electricity that powers US homes. Trump isn't just incompetent; he's actively malicious towards his people and immediately so.

I would say that Lex and Fisk have what I'd call an extended honeymoon period. All their lives, Lex and Fisk have wanted people to see them as generous, heroic, self-sacrificing, serving the common good, and acquiring power by difficult means in order to serve their people.

All their lives, Lex and Fisk have quietly and then overtly hated people for failing to see what simply isn't there. When acquiring political power, Lex and Fisk will declare to themselves and others that they will put their power to use for the good of all and they will. For awhile.

Invariably, Lex will fret and fume that Superman still gets more adulation than he does and start building supervillain armour and engaging in illegal orders out of sheer pettiness.

The Honorable Wilson Fisk, Mayor of New York City, loves his city and wants to protect it and do right by it. That's what he tells himself and he may even believe it; that's what he believed as the Kingpin, murdering and killing his way to control of the NYC underworld. Fisk will always act on his love for New York City... until it fails to love him back.

However, with Trump, there is no grace period. There is no honeymoon. There is simply a sick and twisted freak of privilege and ego and greed.

There's a lot Democrats can do to resist Trump.
https://newrepublic.com/article/192962/ … d-congress

But none of it will happen if they keep capitulating to Trump like Chuck Schumer and John Fetterman refusing to filibuster. Or if they tune out and hide like James Carville Jr. Or if they focus on harassing transgender people the way Gavin Newsom is doing. Or if they spend their days calling people liars for discussing the fact of public record that Kamala Harris lost the election.

Thanks for sharing this podcast. I'm afraid podcasts about dark and serious subjects just aren't for me. Listening in real time is too prolonged for me to process emotionally.

I tend to listen to podcasts when commuting, and commutes are a time where I need to be more meditative, such as listening to Rewatch Podcast dissect HEROES or QUANTUM LEAP.

I prefer to read about politics, whether reading thoughtful analyses of civil rights, deranged rants from crazy people calling anyone a liar for taken Kamala Harris electoral loss as historical fact of public record, mathematical breakdowns of why Trump's tariff scheme is inane, absurd rants about how someone Caucasian feels undervalued in a white-centrist society, interesting assessments of how 2024 was a close and competitive election that Kamala's blandly inept campaign for Uber executives lost, asinine claims that the mere existence of transgender people is a threat to the cisgender male or women in sports, and explorations of how billionaire wealth is what creates inequality.

I can read and choose what to absorb and what to dismiss, but podcasts just linger too long for serious subjects, even if I agree with the podcaster. I guess podcasts are like... my tablet. I never have news or anything serious on my tablet ever.

Trump didn't end the trade war on China, he amped it up. Tariffs went from 54 to 104 to 105 percent.

I have mixed feelings about the US and mixed feelings about China. Full disclosure: my family business is based in China, so it's okay if you want to identify an obvious conflict of interest on my part.

However, US manufacturing and assembly is so based in China-manufactured parts and components that this seems like total self-sabotage to me. Even if you want to build cars in the US (and why wouldn't you?), you still need a lot of parts from China, and to make the American customer pay an extra 125 percent to the US for those components seems like absurd self-sabotage to me. China doesn't pay those tariffs; Americans do when they pay for cars and iPhones or replacement parts for these products.

As for China -- we can talk all day about the human rights and ethics of both the US and China, but does the US really have any moral high ground over China?

I really hope you're right, but I don't know if it'll be that simple. The world never seems as straightforward as the one we describe in our message board posts. Again, note my conflict of interest, and I'm pretty conflicted to begin with.