no, really...

the similarities between biden and trump are actually rather staggering, when you look at the situation in a sober light, right down to the fact that they're both senile old white men that should be in homes, are prone to saying stupid (and often racist.) things and walk around in bad fake tans.

there's a lot of people out there that don't think very clearly, though, and will want to resort to a lot of partisan blather that doesn't really add up, from either direction. if you were to be fully rigorous, and compare them carefully on an issue-by-issue basis, biden is no doubt going to come out as the more conservative candidate, of the two. but, liberals are going to yell at me for being non-committal, and blame me for re-electing him.

so what if i do? do you want to start another war in iraq, or what? like, where's your head at? pull it out of your ass and look at the facts. there's no coherent argument that biden is better in any way, including on issues of race.

we went through this in 2012, when romney ran against his own health care plan. regardless of what the polls say early on, the incumbent is going to always have a major advantage when you line him up against his mirror reflection. because this is the actual sad truth about biden - if you give people the choice between voting for trump and voting for this quasi-trump named biden, they're going to pick the real thing. romney's years of experience didn't help him against obama, and biden's years of experience are unlikely to help him much against trump, in the end.

but, then, what does this parallel discourse about "misinformation" and "fake news" really suggest, then, in terms of where the united states is in regards to the state shutting down dissent?

see, you often see this argument come up in politics at high levels that politicians or parties don't want to do specific things due to fear it'll lower the bar and ultimately backfire. so, obama wouldn't go after bush for war crimes because he didn't want to get charged with war crimes - a decision that was quite ominous in hindsight, wasn't it? that's just one iteration of this basic argument, that has all kinds of isomorphisms everywhere in politics.

it seems like trump is the counter example of this - he follows no rules, because he has no foresight, no ability to see what the consequences of his actions are. when he tries, he's delusional, because trumpian logic is about dominance and submission rather than game theory. so, he can't see a foot in front of his face when he does things.

what's happened is that we've lowered the bar, here. if trump is going to attack his opponents for "fake news" and try to shut them down with force that way, it gives the democrats the green light to attack their opponents for "spreading misinformation", and shut them down, as well. it's maybe the first concrete example of trumpism asserting itself as a norm.

if you truly oppose political repression, you need to protect your brain from partisan drudgery and realize what's actually happening. it's not ok when your side does it, just because you don't like your opponents. there are deeper principles here that we need to get back to.

otherwise, trumpism wins - even if trump loses the election.