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krige | on: Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
I disagree, the lukewarm emotion driven campaign ("we're not the other guy!") and lack of any rational strategy or arguments from the oppositon is how these people won in the first place.
noisy_boy | parent | next
Appeal to emotions stands on the trustworthiness/track record of the pleader. The opposition, full of public/private office musical chair players, has been in the pocket of lobbyists/corporate interests - they don't have any standing to plead to emotions (not saying the incumbents do but they have been successful in harnessing their already enraged supporters).
PartiallyTyped | root | parent
Pleading to emotion works only if the target audience is not ideologically possessed, and by ideologically, I mean that they hate the mere thought of voting democrat even if they support the democrat’s agenda.

The Democrat agenda has far far higher approval ratings than Democrats, and that says a lot about the current state of affairs.

noisy_boy | root | parent
> The Democrat agenda has far far higher approval ratings than Democrats, and that says a lot about the current state of affairs.

That is a good point. The problem isn't with the message, so this time they shot the messenger.

dfxm12 | parent
To add, conservatives voters often claim they vote they way they do because "the other side" makes no attempt to understand them. I think GP is asking an honest question. If nothing else, I had the same question because I want to understand what the conservative voters want in this case, if not the surface level racism.

To anyone who voted for Trump because he said he'd be hard on drug dealers: how do you feel about him pardoning a top level drug dealer?

smt88 | root | parent | next
The answer is that what they want isn't ideologically consistent.

They want him to be hard on criminals who do things they don't like. The biggest drug dealers alive are the Sacklers or maybe McKinsey, and they're not in scope either.

Progressives aren't consistent either. No one is. For example, Dems keep screaming about being a country of laws when referring to GOP antics, but want to ignore certain immigration, anti-abortion, and drug laws (in some cases by just refusing to enforce them).

Unfortunately what's good for the goose is good for the gander, as they say.

aleign | root | parent
When did he pardon a top level drug dealer? Source?
PartiallyTyped | root | parent
Ross Ulbricht is the top level drug dealer GP is referring to.
butlike | root | parent
Systems administrator. Not dissimilar to the civil engineer who planned the streets the drug dealers down the block hang out at.