Ben Shapiro vs. Sam Harris on Trump

[u/narcabusesurvivor18]

https://youtu.be/cTnV5RfhIjk?feature=shared

To me, what sticks out in this debate is how quickly Sam changes standards with how he looks at the actions of politicians. When it’s a Democrat, he treats what they say/do as mostly unimportant, unserious, etc. but when it’s Trump it’s super important, serious, etc. It’s what Ben pointed out multiple times; the actual policy and comparing actions vs words matters more. But even the rhetoric itself, Sam changes standards. When Hillary denies the results of the 2016 election, (and launders the Russiagate lies) that’s just water under the bridge. Trump denying the election results in 2020 and then leaving office, that’s the end of the world. It bothered me quite a bit how Sam’s standards seem to change so radically but for no solid reason.

[u/PoignantPoint22]

That’s what you took from what he’s saying? Fucking yikes.

[u/jcmiller210 → u/PoignantPoint22]

How else am I supposed to take it? The only reason he offered up to vote for Harris is that she isn't Trump and that's enough, despite the fact the past 4 years proves him wrong entirely. She will be a disaster if elected.

[u/PoignantPoint22 → u/jcmiller210]

Would be nice to see you actually form a real thought and not boil everything Sam said as, “but Trump is worse” because that’s just not what happened in this conversation. Sam had plenty of pushback against Kamala and agreed with Ben on a lot of her flaws.

You could argue the same exact thing about what Ben said about Trump’s flaws. “Trump says and does wild stuff, but Kamala is just so much worse”!

Personally anybody who is still supporting Trump is delusional. Kamala is far from perfect but if people don’t see what a unique danger Trump and his style of politics is, then they are hopeless. They simply don’t care because the people who Trump berrates and talks shit about, aren’t them, at least not yet. He’s done it many times to anybody that’s gone through his administration.

It’s the same tired shit with Trump. He “only hires the best” but when that person has reasonable reason to pushback or doesn’t immediately agree with him, they are dead to him. He’s a fascist and there is no other way to it based on his personality, rhetoric and the things he tried to do but wasn’t allowed because of the “guardrails” of his administration. Those guardrails will be gone if he is elected and we will be worse off as a country. And if he and any of his supporters don’t like being called a fascist, then perhaps it’s time to look in the mirror and take an honest look at what they cheer for when Trump says fascistic things at his rallies and on Twitter. The best way for someone who may or may not be a fascist to stop getting called a fascist, is to stop saying and promoting fascist things.

[u/jcmiller210 → u/PoignantPoint22]

Ben actually laid out points to vote for Trump though, unlike Sam with Kamala. Throughout the debate he repeatedly kept going back to Trump's first term where he had a strong economy, the border was stronger than what it is now, and that despite all the claims that Trump is this wanna be fascist, he started no new wars and the other world powers were kept in check due to them not knowing what Trump would or would not do. An example being Russia didn't invade Ukraine under Trump's watch, but the moment Biden and Harris showed weakness, he invaded Ukraine.

Sorry about your hurt feelings concerning Trump and what he says though. I'm sick of political correctness and Trump is the symbol against that. It's making our country weak and the sooner its done away with the better. If I'm a fascist for wanting our borders secured, law and order restored, low inflation, and getting the woke ideology out of our institutions, then so be it. In the meantime please keep saying Trump is Hitler. It isn't moving voters at all from what I've seen.

[u/PoignantPoint22 → u/jcmiller210]

It’s not a political correctness thing, you dumb fuck. Calling for using the military to go after, “the enemy within” is beyond FUCKED. I’m so tired of people normalizing what Trump says and discounting the harmful effects it has had on both his supporters and critics. This isn’t a, “you’re soft and a snowflake with soft feelings” about Trump. This is the recognition that 30% of our country is completely ok with reelecting this abhorrent and odious human being and another 20% might not like him but view him as preferable to any Democratic candidate.

People who I am friends with are fine with his rhetoric because they either think he’s joking/trolling, or like Shapiro, even if he means it, somehow think there will still be people around to stop his more insane ideas. It’s not because I’m a soft liberal snowflake, I’m just shocked at how many intelligent people on the conservative side of the political aisle have completely bought into Trump and his obvious bullshit. It was blatant in 2016 and here we are 8 years later and he only has “concepts of a plan” on how to repeal Obamacare. Shapiro and others seem to think Trump has an advantage when it comes to policy and I just don’t see it anytime Trump tries to talk about anything in detail. I only see a man who repeats the same tired phrases that get applause from his crowds. The same tired phrases, “the best” “big beautiful” “you’ve never seen anything like what I have planned”. It’s all bullshit.

Also, this was a funny format because Sam isn’t a Kamala supporter in the same way Ben supports Trump. On the outset Sam made it clear that he’s voting against Trump and not specifically a staunch supporter for Kamala. So yeah, that’s probably why you aren’t seeing Sam tout policies under Harris and Biden that have been good. Would’ve loved another measured person to actually defend/support Kamala in this discussion.

I’m still with Sam though. Say anything you want to prop up the good that Trump did or the benefit he “might” have if re-elected. The fact that he didn’t agree to a peaceful transfer of power and then did everything he could to ensure that we didn’t, is immediately disqualifying to him holding office. It’s wild to see so many people discount his efforts to overturn the results simply because he failed. “The guardrails were in place so it didn’t really matter”. I’m sorry, but just because you forgot the drill to the safe, doesn’t excuse a bank robber from being held accountable for trying to rob the bank. If Trump tried what he did in 1820, he would have been rightfully charged with treason. There were legal avenues that he did pursue and that is all well and good. But once those challenges were dismissed, why continue to lie? Why tell a crowd that is riled up to go protest at the Capitol on the day they were certifying the election? Surely a morally defensible person would immediately come out against their supporters who were actively chanting to hang their own Vice President? Surely that person wouldn’t tweet out something that would add more danger to that situation, right? Trump sat on his hands for multiple hours while his supporters were clashing with the Capitol police, breaking into the building which the joint session of Congress to be suspended. Trump sat on his hands while the people in his own party were sheltering in place or evacuating over the very real threat posed by these rioters. And when he was forced to actually make a statement, Trump gave a half assed message where he again repeated that the election was stolen from him and that he loves the people who broke into the Capitol building and that they are patriots.

I’m sorry but that’s fucked and no amount of posturing toward Iran that Trump may have could ever outweigh that type of behavior from our own sitting President.

[u/jcmiller210 → u/PoignantPoint22]

Someone's watching way too much MSDNC where they constantly take him out of context because Trump isn't great at clarifying what he is always saying making him very susceptible to it. If you truly believe he's going to use the military against US citizens who are following the law, then I don't know what to tell you. You're too far gone.

Yeah I can agree January 6th was awful and shouldn't have happened. I don't think the protesters getting violent is on Trump though. He told them to peacefully and patriotically go to the capital, which is part of his speech the media doesn't play. He tried to do things within legal bounds more or less to challenge the election and when that didn't work a peaceful transfer of power did happen. Trump left office and Biden resumed the presidency.

But here's where all this Jan 6th talk is bullshit. People love to blow that up over proportion and try to paint all Republicans as traitors to country, yet in the summer of that same year some people on the left were way more violent and caused more death and destruction over that very summer. They even tried to take over a block of the city and claim it's their territory and no longer territory of the US. Yet when asking some people on the left to denounce that violence, they'll say it was justified and in the same breath screech about Jan 6th. Both were bad, but one was worse than the other in terms of actual death and destruction.

[u/PoignantPoint22 → u/jcmiller210]

I don’t watch MSNBC or CNN but thanks for making how you view politics clear.

I honestly don’t see how you cannot put any blame at Trump’s feet for January 6th or how you can honestly characterize what happened that day as “a peaceful transfer of power”. It wasn’t, the certification was actually delayed, the joint session of Congress WAS delayed and the certification was delayed. Everything else that happened on that day and the scheming beyond normal legal challenges are all examples of not a peaceful transfer of power. The guardrails held and the certification did go through but come on, you can’t honestly argue that it was peaceful. Fucking Ashli Babbit got shot. Police officers were injured, one died a day later possibly as a result of what happened.

But sure, Trump did say peacefully, like once or twice. However, everything else he said during that rally was said with the sole purpose to rile up his supporters and enrage the crowd. Saying peacefully a couple of times doesn’t negate the rest of his rhetoric. And even if it did, what happened once his beloved supporters were clearly not being peaceful?

The simple fact is that if Trump agreed to a peaceful transfer of power, lost the election and lost the legal challenges he made, but stopped lying and scheming to stay in power, January 6th wouldn’t have happened. Trump continued to stir the pot and riled up his supporters by repeating unsupported lies about the election being stolen and that they wouldn’t have a country anymore. A solid amount of blame has to be on him. If he immediately released a statement once his supporters clashed with police on January 6th, calling for calm and order, my view would be completely different. But that did not happen. He continued to stoke anger on that day and has done nothing to show remorse over it. People were chanting to hang his Vice President, who was there, while the gallows was assembled outside and what did Trump do? He Tweeted something along the lines of Pence not having the backbone to refuse to certify the election. That’s FUCKED. Why do you discount that behavior? Trump set up January 6th and once things got out of control, he sat back and watched because they were doing it FOR HIM. Like, fuck me. This isn’t rocket science.

I’m not going to defend the rhetoric from some people on the left surrounding the BLM riots but again, in terms of actual danger and norm breaking to our society, a sitting President trying to overturn the results of an election that they legitimately lost is FAR more damaging than some looting and arson. I’m not excusing those other things, just that Trump and January 6th/beyond is far more problematic to our democracy.