2020 US Presidential Election Thread

[Fazal]

Trump's enemy always underestimated him and tried to portray him as nasty and stupid. He may be Nasty but not stupid. You cannot survive so long with just luck. The sooner his enemy recognize that the better chance they will have to defeat that.

But unfortunately the Trump haters are equally arrogant and think he is stupid. And that's why they continued to be beaten by him so long. Trump is in NO way has any attribute to be a decent politician, how come he is in his 3rd year of Presidency and and may win again? He has very few friends in this political establishment (both parties) and still from no where he beat all the republicans and then beat Democrat candidate.....he survived the Russia gate.... and you still think he did it with pure luck and no intelligence?

For example Hillary did more stupidity than Trump and lost to a no name Joker. He may be Joker but he is not dumb.... that's where people makes mistake assessing him.

[Zeeshan]

Originally Posted by ToBeFair
Trump is no role model. He is no genius either. He is simply lucky.

Read this article: There Won't Be a "Next" Donald Trump. Here's Why.

He is to me.

[Zeeshan]

Some voices are saying ISIS leader's death was faked and nothing but an opportunity to strike with his voters nearabout election. Interesting.

[Zeeshan]

Trumpoor impeesment aisha gelo othocho kobi nirob.... is this a joke!!

[ToBeFair]

Table hopper, who was born and destined to do it, finally ran out of energy and dropped out

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/1...ampaign-064385

[ToBeFair]

Crooked Kamala Demon Harris is also on life support

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/1...offices-063902

[ToBeFair]

Not so long ago Crooked Kamala also thought she was a top tier candidate. Look where she is today. Pesky Pete's delusion too will be over very soon.

Pesky Pete also thinks he is the next Obama. He is definitely not next Obama - but what he does not understand is you cannot win the presidency by copying someone. You have to create your own unique brand. Trump, Obama - everyone created their own brand. Bernie has his own brand. Copying someone or trying to win by hanging onto someone's ti****es is a recipe for guaranteed failure (example Hillary, Biden, Beto).

Mayor Pete says it’s coming down to a two-way race between Elizabeth Warren and him. Mayor Pete is currently polling at ZERO PERCENT, which is well below... EVERYBODY. I can’t even be mad. This level of arrogance is impressive. pic.twitter.com/kWxNfA6HtR

— Marc Lamont Hill (@marclamonthill) November 2, 2019

[ToBeFair]

Originally Posted by Zeeshan
Trumpoor impeesment aisha gelo othocho kobi nirob.... is this a joke!!

This is all BS from corporate dems - they have no agenda. So they created this agenda out of thin air - but no one is interested in this except Washington and NYC cocktail club elites.

Trump will never be impeached. It will only embolden him and gift him another term, if the nominee is anyone but Bernie.

Here is the bottom line: Adam Schiff is more deplorable than Trump.

[ToBeFair]

Even when MSM was propping up Crooked Kamala, I was confident that she would never rise because she is a horrible no-talent politician. Once MSM fluffery stops, I predict the same fate for Elizabeth Warran- she neither has rhetoric nor charisma nor true progressive bonafide nor correct political instinct.

If you want to understand what I am talking about, watch the following clip.

The supposed policy wonk professor Warren sounds worse than Bob Mueller did in his last testimony at Congress while talking about her recently released version of M4A. You don't stutter like this if you are honest and passionate. You stutter like this when you lie and pretend.

Therefore, Bernie is probably right in not attacking her and acting on that Chinese saying: wait long enough by the river and the dead bodies will arrive automatically.

Lyin' Liz will fall too.

Elizabeth Warren’s exasperated defense of her plan by comparing it to the ACA shows she’s not progressive. She can’t speak our language. The fact that it’s written by Obama’s people is NOT a good thing. It shouldn’t be THIS hard to defend #MedicareForAll pic.twitter.com/mFKyL1IHM8

— Fiorella Isabel🌹 (@Fiorella_im) November 2, 2019

[ToBeFair]

I said here before that Warren's "I have a plan for that" line sounds corny. Finally someone explained why this line is ineffective. Another example Warren's horrible political instinct.

At present, Warren’s website contains more than 50 relatively detailed policy plans—chances are, she does have a plan for that, whatever “that” may be. But as far as campaign taglines go, “She Has a Plan For That” is a disappointing entry that pinches at the nerve of reservation that some on the left have regarding Warren’s rise in popularity. It’s a technocratic rallying cry, one that romanticizes the idea of having ideas rather than celebrating any central ethos within the ideas themselves. What’s worse, it implicitly lulls its reader or listener into a false sense of security, assuring them that they needn’t be too critical or discerning, since someone has already done the work for them. And there is considerable work left to be done to bring any one of Warren’s litany of ideas to fruition.

For a campaign slogan to be effective, it must tick a number of boxes. First, it has to offer a broad-strokes pitch about the candidate’s ideology or political approach. Next, it should respond to or preempt the alternative messages being offered to voters. Finally, it must situate the candidate as a part of a larger coalition or movement. “Make America Great Again,” the ubiquitous slogan of President Trump, succeeds in hitting all three of these points—with particular attention to ideological signaling. In four words, Trump stokes nostalgia and resentment in equal measure by combining a biting truth (that America is not, in fact, great) with a fantasy (that it ever was). In half that number, President Obama catalyzed optimism in the electorate with his 2008 dual slogans, “Hope” and “Change.”

Far from providing a general vision of the future or clear pitch, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 slogan, “I’m With Her,” shifted the burden of selling the candidate from Clinton to the voters themselves. “I’m With Her” offered little more than the fact of a woman candidate and the vague sense of inevitability to her election (a musical number from Stephen Colbert’s “Democratic National Convention Late Show” special included the lyric “you must rejoice / there is no choice / she is your destiny”).

https://newrepublic.com/article/1555...an-getting-old

[Zeeshan]

Greatly missing TBF during this crucial time of the election. Loved his contributions. One of the most WOKE people alive on BC.

[NoName]

I'm worried for the well being of TBF tbf....after witnessing Bernies slow demise lmao

Seriously speaking, Bernie's final hope is the upcoming debate with Biden to sway the the remaining half of the states left

[Rifat]

Originally Posted by Zeeshan
Greatly missing TBF during this crucial time of the election. Loved his contributions. One of the most WOKE people alive on BC.

Honestly! I agree. I verified, He is indeed the Old BD-Shardul.

Ma Man Bernie Sanders is still alive. Don't believe the MSM. He may be behind the delegate points by 150+, but Bernie is still in it.

Trump is going to DESTROY/EAT ALIVE Biden like No tomorrow. Biden will be RIPPED TO SHREADS... Democrats and the American Public are such a joke, Biden is the best they can come up with. It's really sad

[Rifat]

Bernie's last hope is the Debate coming up in CNN: Please put Biden in his proper place. Biden and Hillary are not the answer to America's problems and I am glad people realize that.

[Rifat]

There is No Russian collusion, This is Mainstream Media's way of butt covering because deep down they knew they f****** up in 2016 Election Coverage by shouting from the top of their lungs Hillary! Hillary! and all the BS polls and stuff. you talk to average American people from all walks of life and most people are pro-trump, it's no surprise he won. Even in BC, we have plenty of Trump supporters here, both closet and open LOL.

Here is a clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJlnxbO5N2g

Hillary gave a fake answer and Trump gave an honest answer! He gave an actual compliment.

[ToBeFair]

Originally Posted by NoName
I'm worried for the well being of TBF tbf....after witnessing Bernies slow demise lmao

I am disappointed but I was prepared from the onset: in movies, the protagonists/heroes usually win at the end. In real life, and especially in politics, the crooks win 99.99% of the time.

Bernie Sanders started with so much promise this time but his campaign failed. What hurts most is not the failure but that speed at which his campaign got torpedoed by the establishment. It was soul crushing.

So what went wrong?

1. As Sagar Enjeti pointed out in his show Rising, the Sanders campaign had a fundamental self-contradiction, which proved to be a fatal flaw. As he noted, you cannot run an insurgent campaign promising a revolution while simultaneously calling establishment figures your friend. If you say Trumpian fascism/authoritarianism is the culmination of 40 years of Reaganism and neo-liberalism and market fundamentalism, and that the current order poses existential threat to economic, racial, environmental, and social justice, how can you say Biden is your friend, who is the anti-thesis of everything you call for? How can you repeatedly promise to campaign for him should he becomes the nominee? Calling for revolution while playing (or at least portraying) buddy-buddy with establishment crook like Biden, who BTW never once said Bernie was his friend, did Bernie no favor – his base remained with him – but as a politician, he came across as weak; someone who had the right message but did not know how to fight and win.

Because of this fundamental self-contradiction and character weakness, Bernie failed to use the leverage of his movement against the establishment like Trump did in 2016. Trump never once said that he would ultimately back or endorse the eventual Republican nominee. Trump was smart and he always kept it a suspense. This made the establishment wing respect Trump no matter how much they despised him, because they knew that without Trump’s endorsement and support of his cult like base, the party would be destroyed, let alone win the presidency. Had Bernie done what Trump did, Obama wouldn’t dare pick up the phone and pull strings from behind. But being the foolish and cowardly person he is, he did the opposite. That is why the establishment never respected him. They knew from the beginning that Bernie would easily fold over and release his leverage. They therefore used him like a toilet paper: used and thrown away. Tucker Carlson correctly described Bernie: the lamest revolutionary ever.

Politically, Bernie had two options. 100% full throttled burn it down revolution vs. transactional inside game. There was no middle ground. Middle ground was destined for failure. The speedy consolidation behind Biden before Super Tuesday was surprising but also expected – this is how the establishment play their game. For them politics is all about transaction – not morality or justice. I give you X and you give me Y. I scratch your back and your scratch mine. Bernie refused to play the insider game but also refused to play the only other option: full throttled burn it down politics like Trump. The result is failure. “Motamuti” has no place in life. Mediocrity is despised in general. As the saying goes it Bangla – dui noukay pa dile panite pore jaoi niyoti. This is what happened to Bernie. Sad but not surprising.

2. Sanders got bogged down by his democratic socialist level. He didn’t have to but he was not well prepared. It was good that he explained his democratic socialism using his policy prescriptions, but it was unwise to always pivot to Scandinavian countries. Americans are horrible in geography and barely know the outside world. Instead, he should have hammered the fact that democratic socialism is the root of democratic party, and that the label is inalienable from FDR, America’s greatest president and the father of modern democrats. Like Biden branded himself as the second coming of Obama, Sanders should have branded himself as an FDR democrat and portrayed him as the second coming of FDR. In fact, whenever he was questioned if he was even a democrat, he should have doubled down saying he was the true democrat because he was an FDR democrat while his opponents were not, because they are lukewarm republicans still trapped in the bubble of Reaganism. By flipping the narrative, Sanders could turn democratic socialism from being a weakness to a strength. He failed.

There were other ways to forcefully debunk socialism. Bernie used MLK’s line that America has socialism for the rich and rugged invidualism for the poor but he did not use it enough. He could also make the argument that US has many socialist entities like the US army, fire department, social security, but he did not.

3. Media made electability the central argument from the very beginning (because they could not make any other argument to prop up Biden), but Bernie was not making his case for electability. Bernie needed to brand Biden non-stop as Hillary 2.0 and scare the electorate that America cannot afford Hillary 2.0. He needed to forcefully remind that safe choice or return to normalcy never won a presidency in the 21st century (example: Gore, Kerry, Romney, McCain, Hillary). He didn’t make these easiest possible arguments and Biden and the media ran away with electability.

4. When media is against you, you needed to have a concrete strategy of playing the media to your favor.

It was a given that media would never favor Bernie – they either completely ignored him or bombarded him with negative media coverage. Trump was in similar situation too in 2016, but he figured out a way which made it impossible for media to ignore him. Trump knew that media makes presidency a personality contest, not a contest of policy solutions, and thus to capture media’s attention, he settled on doing or saying one uncouth thing after another. When media, who btw loves nothing more than fake civility, unsurprisingly feigned outrage, Trump called out their bad faith reaction on their face and branded them as FAKE NEWS, and it stuck, because corporate media is despised and their approval rating is about 10%, lower than congress. Trump not only milked out free media coverage worth billions of dollars, he also got to call them fake news and rile up his base, and it was a double win for him.

Of course doing uncouth things was not an option for Bernie but he had a few alternatives (a) while answering questions, hitting nail on the point without veering off to his stump speech (b) flipping the question/narrative (c) calling out bad faith argument or its inherent hypocrisy whenever required (d) standing ground and doubling down without playing placating politics. He failed on these fronts. Example 1. Whenever he was asked the gotcha question of “how will you pay for it”, Bernie never once flipped the question and asked the moderators why the media never asked this question about foreign wars or tax cuts. Example 2. When media hammered him with fake Bernie Bro narrative, he should have never condemned online bullying. He should have double down saying that Bernie bro is just a myth and that his supporters were the best behaved and most loving. Also without cowering, he should have implicitly warned the media that calling his supporters Bernie bro was an insult to millions of multi-ethinic working class people who donated and tirelessly worked for his campaign, and without these Bernie brothers, no democratic candidate could win the presidency.

5. The left in US will not win as long as they play by the establishment rules: civility, unity, and woke tokenism/identity politics. These are PHONY rules. Trump did not follow these rules. The Tea party did not follow these rules. Obama didn’t follow these rules in his 2008 primary either, and he won. Mitch McConnell does not follow these rules. The establishment is always afraid of getting exposed of their corruption. Therefore, whenever an insurgent candidate highlights policy differences or bad votes, the establishment throws unity/civility bomb to shame him or her as a divisive figure. Bernie should have known better. Primary is not about civility or unity. Primary is about distinguishing yourself. If the establishment so badly wants unity, why did Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Pete Buttigieg organize secret stop Sanders meetings in 2019?

In sports and in politics, people love polarization and binary options. Unity never works in sports and in politics. It is a game. This is how Trump and Modi play their politics and win. Bernie didn’t need to be divisive in a racist, bigoted, or xenophobic way: he however needed to destroy his political opponents – namely Biden from the get go using policy differences. And there were materials aplenty: Iraq war, TPP, NAFTA, normalization of trade relations with China, Anita Hill, cognitive decline, advocacy for cuts in social security and Medicaid, bussing and segregationist policies, bankruptcy bill, crime bill, repeal of Glass Steagall.

Bernie was afraid that media would accuse him of giving Trump ammunition against Biden. Give me a break. Is Trump a baby unable to unearth these obvious facts about Biden? For God’s sake, Trump is the President of the United States who is readying a multi-billion dollar reelection campaign. His opposition research team is armed to the hilt. But Bernie did not go for the jugular. He called Biden his friend. He called Elizabeth Warren his friend.

Bernie had no friends. Politics is war. It is a blood sport. Here you don’t have friends – you have enemies whom you have to destroy if you want to win. Bernie never understood this simple fact. Bernie never understood that everything is fair game when you run for POTUS – the most powerful office on earth.

The less I said about woke tokenism/identity politics, the better. The Democratic Party never actually cared about LGBT rights or women rights or black rights. Since the democrats are also a corporatist party, they reluctantly embraced these identity issues to weaponize identity to gain votes and differentiate them from the republicans. If democrats truly care, how does Crooked Kamala endorse Biden, whom she hammered for segregationist bussing policies in the first debate? If democrats truly care, how does Cory Booker endorse Biden, after he hammered Biden for the crime bill?

Bernie should have not been afraid of woke tokenism of social justice warriors. He should have forcefully called out these hypocrisies. The left in the US has right economic policies but if they want to expand their electorate and bring independents and moderate republicans, they must abandon these fake aspects of woke-ism and social justice warrior politics. If they don’t, it will rightly allow Trump and the republicans to brand them as hypocrite (refer Kamala and Cory Booker).

Why did Bernie embrace these phony rules? Why did he fail to learn from his 2016 experience? Three possible reasons (a) When you live in Washington for decades, the environment makes you coward. Ideologically Sanders remained unwavering, but as a politician, he was another Washington paper tiger. (b) He is too principled to allow himself to play the dirty game of politics. Noble quality but not conducive if you want to win the White House (c) He fell into the scam of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). [BTW, this is another phony phobia concocted by the establishment. Trump is no existential threat – he is just another run of the mill shi**y republican president. If you go by issues, he is better than many of his predecessors.] Bernie was afraid to come across as someone who facilitated Trump another term – so he tried to play by the rules like a good boy. Yuge mistake. Trump’s fake populism can only be defeated with true populism, and you cannot be a true populist if you give into these phony rules.

6. Did election rigging happened against Bernie? I will sound conspiratorial if I say yes, but I believe it happened. If not explicitly, definitely it happened implicitly and in various shady ways: Iowa app disaster, voter suppression (example: California cross over ballot), closing down polling stations at low income and college areas, releasing delegate counts slowly for the states Bernie won, massive discrepancy between exit/entrance polls and actual result (happened in Texas, Minnesota, Massachusetts). Bernie has been running for president for the last five years. He had the strongest possible ground game. He raised unprecedented amount of money from grass roots donations only. He had million volunteers. In February alone he raised 45+ million dollars. Meanwhile, Biden had no money. Lost the first three states. Has dementia and had horrible debate performances. Looks like a living corpse. Had no campaign offices outside South Carolina. Did not even step foot in many of the states. Did not even have TV ads in Super Tuesday states. However, magically he not only won, he crushed and decimated the most formidable insurgent in the history of US. How is this possible? It surely feels surreal. Even Hillary could not pull such stunt despite having the full support of formidable Clinton Machine, Obama, DNC, CIA and MSM behind her. I believe the establishment learned from their 2016 experience, and the fix was in.

7. Bernie hoped to Trump the democratic primary by bringing the youth vote in droves. Young people came out but their votes were suppressed. The Bernie campaign successfully reached Latino voters but failed with the black voters. DNC always front load southern states, which faithfully go red in the general, because it helps them nominate a conservative democrat. Knowing this fact, and knowing that Biden would be running, Bernie needed to do a better job in reaching older black folks. Young people were never going to outnumber the older voters.

Another perplexing fact: Bernie heavily lost the white suburban votes, especially white women suburbanites, as well as non-college educated rural whites. Why did they choose Biden over Bernie? Was Bernie receiving their anti-Hillary votes in 2016 because they are sexist? Biden being Obama’s VP does not answer the dilemma either, because Hillary too was part of Obama administration and was running to extend Obama’s term.

Some commentators explained Bernie’s loss of suburban votes using MLK’s white moderate theory. I agree with it. White moderate theory explains why the US is still a fairly conservative country. White moderates do not like revolution – they prefer stability – they don’t mind accepting racism, corruption, bigotry, and xenophobia in moderation. They believe in meritocracy, want to maintain the existing class structure, and want to avoid a class war at any cost.

First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season.

8. Even if Bernie followed all the correct strategies like Trump, would he win? Probably NO. It is almost impossible to win against an empire. Trump was successful because of his strategies, but also because unlike Bernie, he never tried to alter the fundamental fabric of the Republican Party or the US Empire. He simply said loudly what the Republican Party was always about without using code words: a racist party who hated Latinos, Muslims, transgenders, blacks, and immigrants. This was necessary to hold the base. To get independents and cross over democrats, he coupled it with elements of populism without believing in them: anti- free trade, no cuts to social security and Medicaid, and anti-imperialism. The mix proved to be a powerful electoral force – and it propelled him to the White House.

Overall the democratic primary experience felt like this: it's a big club and you ain't part of it.

What should the left do now? Go #MAGA and vote for Trump. Don’t fall for the scam of Trump derangement syndrome. As I have said above, Trump is no existential threat – he is just another run of the mill shi**y republican president. And if you compare issue by issue, he is better than Biden.

On trade, Biden is pro-free trade. Trump is nominally anti-trade.
Biden is pro-war, Trump so far did not start any war yet.
Trump put kids on cages in the border, but it is nothing compared with what Biden architected in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Plus Obama was the deporter in chief, deported millions of people.
On healthcare, both are same. Biden recently said he would veto Medicare for all.
Both Trump and Biden will appoint conservative judges.
Trump gave tax cuts. Biden made Bush era tax cuts permanent.
Both Biden and Trump are equally corrupt.

Against Dementia Joe, Trump is very likely to get a BIG, BEAUTIFUL, TREMENDOUS, BIGLY WIN. So even if imbecile Bernie does 39 UNITY rallies for Dementia Joe, like he did for Hillary in 2016, democrats should vote Trump and McGovern Biden, and send a message to DNC that without the left, they will never win.

[Rifat]

ToBeFair,

you should be the chief strategist for Sanders Campaign. your in depth political analysis and understanding of American politics is one of the best I have ever seen.

[mufi_02]

I was skeptical but now I think Biden will not be any better than Trump. Dems identity politics and fake outrage over everything is so obvious.

I may not have agreed with all of Bernie’s policy but I’ve always respected his integrity, honesty, consistency, and decades of fighting for the less fortunate. I would vote for someone like him. But looks like he is done for, and I will sit out on the general election and won’t be disappointed if Trump wins again.

But I don’t get why Biden dominated with black voters given his history of bussing, Anita Hill incident, crime bill etc ? While Bernie fought for racial equality all his life and was even arrested for taking part in civil rights demonstration.

[Nafi]

Cant wait till this Bernie Hippie loses out, he says he listens to scientists, he is the most anti science candidate.

[NoName]

Originally Posted by mufi_02
But I don’t get why Biden dominated with black voters given his history of bussing, Anita Hill incident, crime bill etc ? While Bernie fought for racial equality all his life and was even arrested for taking part in civil rights demonstration.

I agree, this was extremely perplexing. Only reason I can think of was he was Obama's right hand man which Black people found appealing. Biden also can't go without mentioning 'Obama this, Obama that'.

Its no surprise Americans vote against their own self-interest.

[Rifat]

Originally Posted by NoName
I agree, this was extremely perplexing. Only reason I can think of was he was Obama's right hand man which Black people found appealing. Biden also can't go without mentioning 'Obama this, Obama that'.

Its no surprise Americans vote against their own self-interest.

The more I travel abroad, the more I realize what the rest of the world thinks of Americans: "Stupid". It's really really sad. We got more than half the country denying basic science...

In America $ is greater than Science.

Which is why we need to heavily invest in proper education and improve the quality of Education and make it mass accessible to every American not just the privileged and wealthy.

[Rifat]

Originally Posted by Nafi
Cant wait till this Bernie Hippie loses out, he says he listens to scientists, he is the most anti science candidate.

Nafi,

care to explain? Your claim needs a proper explanation. What did Bernie ever say that contradicts Science?

[Rifat]

a Much Stronger Response from Bernie Sanders today Against Biden and the best part of the Debate was how Bernie was no more mr. nice guy and he got Biden to lie multiple times and contradict his position multiple times on multiple issues, which was nice and refreshing to see, The Bankruptcy Bill, Biden's position on Medicare for All to name a few.

I am not really sure any of this matters anyways....I should be reading/Listening to more Qur'an . Sometimes, Politics is such a waste of time, It gets you bitter and it gets you riled up for no reason...

Personally, I lost respect for Bernie Sanders when he endorsed Hillary in 2016. I turned myself off from Politics or political discussion until very recently when Bernie won Nevada and I started hoping again. At this moment, Bernie is at a Massive disadvantage and the rest of the Battle does not look favorable to him at all, He should have done better at Michigan. Most Southern states are mostly conservative and Even the Southern Democrats are more conservative leaning by default and It does not look good for Bernie even though he had a very solid debate performance tonight.

Bernie should consider running as an independent if he fails to secure the Democratic Nominee position against Trump.

[Rifat]

Bernie has to Win Illinois, Florida, and Arizona by a significant margin to overcome Biden. otherwise, He is not likely to make it. He should really run as an independent and see what happens

[NoName]

Originally Posted by Rifat
The more I travel abroad, the more I realize what the rest of the world thinks of Americans: "Stupid". It's really really sad. We got more than half the country denying basic science...

In America $ is greater than Science.

Which is why we need to heavily invest in proper education and improve the quality of Education and make it mass accessible to every American not just the privileged and wealthy.

You don't even need to travel abroad, you can even go on Reddit and browse subreddits related to politics and world news and you can see it for yourself.

The whole concept of having no single-payer healthcare blows the mind of many posters of various countries, and that is just one topic.