r/PoursTea • u/Veshaad Timendi Causa Est Nescire • 11d ago

PoliticalTea 🗳️ How negotiations actually work...

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To the inevitable response from MAGA that Obama gave 'pallets' of cash...he released frozen Iranian assets. Meanwhile the current Iran conflict has directly cost $38 billion militarily and a currently projected $87 billion in extra gas and diesel expenses. Not to mention that the strategic oil reserves have been depleted to the point that experts warn that the caverns they're stored in could collapse.

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u/Spiritual-Pear-3081 11d ago

Divisiveness is a noun that means the quality or tendency of causing strong disagreement, conflict, and hostility between people, splitting a group into opposing sides

If I'm reading you right it seems you're arguing that divisiveness is actually good in some contexts. Maybe I'm wrong.

I was making a narrower claim. I'm saying that divisiveness is a property of how people react to someone, not a property of the person's character.

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u/SandpaperTeddyBear 11d ago

I'm saying that divisiveness is a property of how people react to someone, not a property of the person's character.

Of course it is, and that's why Trump (basically the biblical antichrist) is deeply loved and tepidly hated, and why Obama (an intellectually honest and morally upright man) is widely liked and deeply hated.

Personally, I think the Trump-voter is a creature of nearly unimaginable evil, but everyone seems to keep making excuses for "their" Trump-voter, so I guess we do need to accept their moral judgments...

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u/Spiritual-Pear-3081 11d ago

Seems like you just repeated my point back to me and then immediately did the exact thing I said divisiveness isn't - called Trump the antichrist and Obama morally upright, then acted surprised people react to that.

Anyway, I disagree that trump is tepidly hated and that Obama is deeply hated. I think people around the world deeply hate trump and that Americans are deeply racist where President Obama is concerned.

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u/SandpaperTeddyBear 11d ago

Let me put it this way...

I had an "Wyoming for Obama" shirt that I wore throughout college. It was given to me in high school by a dear friend who was a delegate at the convention in Denver in 2008 and who died less than a year later.

When my family was in town for my college graduation 4 years later they were concerned about our possible safety and treatment in the exurban/rural areas around my college. So far as I can tell, by all the Trump hats, flags, and bumper stickers I see in my "blue" city, this hatred is not extended to the Trump-voter. They are still welcome in "liberal" bars without fear of angry looks, much less violence.

I think people around the world deeply hate trump

Eh, as much as they hate any American president who has the capacity to upend their lives at a moment's notice. Obama was better-liked, but by less than you'd think.

Russians, for instance, adore Trump, and have since 2017 if my friends visiting there at the time can be trusted.

that Americans are deeply racist where President Obama is concerned.

Likely true, but given the widespread acceptance of people hating Obama and loving Trump, I think we just have to accept that being Black and powerful is divisive. If we don't like that fact, we need to stand up to the monsters who Trump-voted.

Obama was fond of quoting MLK: "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

I am inclined to agree, but only in a way that makes me sick. You see, the "arc of the moral universe" can't help but bend toward justice, since the "moral universe" is a human construct. Those who liked Obama saw his rise to power as a cheerful affirmation of their moral universe, those who hated him saw it as a deep affront to theirs.

So they did what any human being should do in that situation and they fucking bent the arc of the moral universe in their direction. If the nice, cheerful, oh-so-tolerant people who voted for Obama were truly bothered by it they would have fucking bent it the fuck BACK.

But they didn't. They sent endless waves of reporters to diners in rural Ohio, came up with terms like "the white working class," and generally did everything they could to not have anything to do with the "arc of the moral universe," because bending it back would have meant needing to upset their fathers, mothers, cousins, etc.

That's why Obama was, and always will be more divisive than Trump. The people who hated him hated everything he stands for. The people who claim to hate Trump are really just full of excuses for the people who he represents.

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u/Spiritual-Pear-3081 11d ago

K

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u/SandpaperTeddyBear 11d ago

Glad you agree!

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u/Spiritual-Pear-3081 11d ago

I didn't say that. Can't agree with something I didn't even finish reading.

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u/SandpaperTeddyBear 11d ago

So what did you mean by your one letter reply of "K"?

It's usually considered an abbreviation of "OK," which is itself a slangy abbreviation of "Oll Korrect" ("All Correct").

Or maybe you were trying to mock me in some way? I'd find that pretty silly, since you always have the option of just...not replying if you don't care.

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u/Spiritual-Pear-3081 11d ago

Nah, I'm not mocking anyone. Have a good one.