Thoughts on the 4th democratic debate

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Well, isn't that precisely what's under discussion? Not the substance of whether Biden actively influenced things in his son's favour, but the image it creates in the mind of the observer when the son of the VPOTUS gets lucrative positions.

But then we have to ask... which observers [https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/donald-trump-donors-rewards-232974] are we talking about?

Together the 73 donors contributed $1.7 million to Trump and groups supporting him, according to a POLITICO analysis of Federal Election Commission records, and $57.3 million to the rest of the party, averaging more than $800,000 per donor.

Donors also represent 39 percent of the 119 people Trump reportedly considered for high-level government posts, and 38 percent of those he eventually picked, according to the analysis, which counted candidates named by the transition and in news reports.

While campaign donors are often tapped to fill comfy diplomatic posts across the globe, the extent to which donors are stocking Trump?s administration is unparalleled in modern presidential history, due in part to the Supreme Court decisions that loosened restrictions on campaign contributions, according to three longtime campaign experts.

The access and appointments are especially striking given Trump's regular boasting during his campaign that his personal fortune and largely self-funded presidential bid meant that he would not be beholden to big donors, as many of his rivals would.

"If the people who are counseling the president-elect are the donor class - who, as Trump told us, give because they want something in return, those are his words - you will not get the policies his voters were hoping for," said Trevor Potter, an election lawyer who advised John McCain's 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns and founded the Campaign Legal Center.

"The risk here is disillusionment by the voters who voted for change and are going to end up with a plutocracy," Potter said.

Not to mention Ivanka and Jared Kushner [https://www.americanoversight.org/investigation/ivanka-trumps-role-in-the-administration] baffling roles in the White House.

I said it before, and I'll say it again. If Biden did anything wrong, hold him to the coals. I'm fine with that. The issue is that Trump does something disasterous seemingly every week, in a much more major form than anyone else. But if anyone else is caught doing a fraction of what he's doing from the *ahem* "Wrong Party", it's the only thing certain people can focus on.

 

[Asita]

It's a flat out nonsensical claim unless we assume that Biden was more than a bystander and helped to arrange for those claimed lax standards.

It absolutely reflects poorly on Joe Biden that his family members are taking advantage of his position as vice president. You might not be bothered by soft corruption, but plenty of people are.

Even if we assume that Joe Biden is not directly responsive in his politics to his family getting cushy consultancies and board positions-- that there is no explicit quid pro quo-- the fact that some corporations are rewarding his family for their connections to him suggests that they like what he's done enough to throw money at him or his family, and those rewards and the possibility that they will either continue or stop are part of the incentives that we must assume influence his behavior.

However much you want to wish this is somehow a failure of logic, it's just not.

"However much I might wish"? Please. I have no particular attachment to Biden as a candidate, and I'm pretty sure that I haven't demonstrated egregiously compromised judgement. And considering that you've made no secret of your antipathy for Biden ("Oh don't worry, I have a plan for that: Never Biden. But it won't be necessary" "Rather than expecting me and many others to vote for that detritus, make peace with the fact that Joe Biden will lose one way or another"), do you really want to get into who has an emotional investment in their conclusion?

Setting that aside, however, your argument still doesn't follow, as it's predicated on a bunch of nested assumptions, most prominently the idea that (assumption 1) the hiring of Hunter was done for the sake of "throwing money" at the Bidens, (assumption 2) that this was done as a "reward" for (assumption 3) something he did for them, and that (assumption 5) this by necessity keeps Biden on the hook and obliged to benefit them. And from all of that your conclusion is that "the standards were lax for Hunter Biden to be hired" reflects poorly on Joe Biden as if he was responsible for those lax standards? I'm sorry, but what? This is like when you were trying to claim that Clinton's speaking tours must really have been kickbacks for 'services rendered' when he was in office. The logic doesn't actually work, you just assume your conclusion, speculate on possible reasons for that conclusion and then assume that speculation to be accurate and thus that the focal event (Hunter Biden's hiring, Bill Clinton's speaking tour) is by necessity damning in itself.

Well, isn't that precisely what's under discussion? Not the substance of whether Biden actively influenced things in his son's favour, but the image it creates in the mind of the observer when the son of the VPOTUS gets lucrative positions.

Yes and no. What I took exception with was Seanchaidh claiming that he "framed his comments around optics", which he most certainly did not do, as made abundantly clear in his prior and subsequent post. Generously, he can be said to have been reacting to optics, but in describing the events as evidencing "soft corruption" he is not talking about optics of the event but rather his interpretation of why the event occurred. It's the difference between saying "oh, that looks bad" (extrapolating on likely wrongdoing; not optics) and "that's a bad look" (the PR implications; optics), with the former being closer to what Seanchaidh was apparently arguing.

 

[Seanchaidh]

It's the difference between saying "oh, that looks bad" (extrapolating on likely wrongdoing; not optics) and "that's a bad look" (the PR implications; optics), with the former being closer to what Seanchaidh was apparently arguing.

This is just about the most split hair I've ever seen.

 

[Asita]

It's the difference between saying "oh, that looks bad" (extrapolating on likely wrongdoing; not optics) and "that's a bad look" (the PR implications; optics), with the former being closer to what Seanchaidh was apparently arguing.

This is just about the most split hair I've ever seen.

Perils of trying to make the phrasing quippy, I'm afraid. It's supposed to be a superficially similar statement with a very different meaning. The point that I was attempting to convey can be adequately expressed at greater length through the example of the "Tank Ride" political ad against Michael Dukakis in 1988. People reacting to what they saw in the ad, Dukakis with a goofy grin with an oversized helmet and riding a tank in circles in an empty field, were reacting to optics. Modern discussions on that ad, however, instead are all about the optics; optics are the framework of the discussion in that the discussions are focused on how the ad conveyed its impressions. Put a different way, comments framed around optics focus on the stagecraft of the ad, the mechanics of how it conveyed its message, what mistakes in that photoshoot allowed the Bush campaign to make such an effective attack ad. People looking at the ad and thinking "well that just shows that Dukakis is unqualified" or "Dukakis is weak on defense" are reacting to the optics, but optics are not the framework of those thoughts. It's like "spin", in that respect.

 

[Seanchaidh]

I said it before, and I'll say it again. If Biden did anything wrong, hold him to the coals. I'm fine with that.

He probably didn't do anything illegal or terribly abnormal. But that's the problem: soft corruption is normal for that class, and it doesn't look good either way.

 

[Silvanus]

Put a different way, comments framed around optics focus on the stagecraft of the ad, the mechanics of how it conveyed its message, what mistakes in that photoshoot allowed the Bush campaign to make such an effective attack ad. People looking at the ad and thinking "well that just shows that Dukakis is unqualified" or "Dukakis is weak on defense" are reacting to the optics, but optics are not the framework of those thoughts. It's like "spin", in that respect.

The comments we're discussing are quite clearly in the former category, though.

 

[Trunkage]

I said it before, and I'll say it again. If Biden did anything wrong, hold him to the coals. I'm fine with that.

He probably didn't do anything illegal or terribly abnormal. But that's the problem: soft corruption is normal for that class, and it doesn't look good either way.

The other issue is that any child of a politician can't take any post that could be seen as corrupt. Then you think about what that could actually entail... If they get a firefighter position, or a teaching position. Anything could be claimed as corrupt

 

[Silvanus]

The other issue is that any child of a politician can't take any post that could be seen as corrupt. Then you think about what that could actually entail... If they get a firefighter position, or a teaching position. Anything could be claimed as corrupt

Oh, come on.

The clear difference is that the children/ relatives of politicians are far more likely than your average members of the public (or those with equivalent education) to land insanely lucrative exec positions. Are they by coincidence just always the most qualified?

Nobody would have the same grounds for complaint if politicians' children received roles that are actually within reach of ordinary people who don't belong to political dynasties.

This is clearly a bigger ethical failing for Trump, who gives his manifestly unqualified family members roles within his own administration. He's a grotesque nepotist, whereas Joe Biden hasn't actively done anything wrong as far as we can tell. Hence this is primarily about perception (and the fact that we have to hold Democratic politicians to a higher standard than the gleefully corrupt Republican party).

 

[Asita]

Put a different way, comments framed around optics focus on the stagecraft of the ad, the mechanics of how it conveyed its message, what mistakes in that photoshoot allowed the Bush campaign to make such an effective attack ad. People looking at the ad and thinking "well that just shows that Dukakis is unqualified" or "Dukakis is weak on defense" are reacting to the optics, but optics are not the framework of those thoughts. It's like "spin", in that respect.

The comments we're discussing are quite clearly in the former category, though.

I disagree. The thread as a whole, sure, but I've been arguing that a specific claim within the thread did not qualify as such. The comment I was disputing and said was not discussing optics was that "Either the standard for Hunter Biden was made lax due to connection to VPotUS (bad for Joe Biden), or being on a board isn't that demanding in general (bad for capitalist mythmaking)". That reads very much as allegations about the actual significance of Hunter's hiring. This would then be further suggested in subsequent comments, such as "the fact that some corporations are rewarding his family for their connections to him suggests that they like what he's done enough to throw money at him or his family", which he described in the same post as "soft corruption" that I was simply turning a blind eye to. That's not discussing stagecraft or messaging, that's levelling an accusation.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Put a different way, comments framed around optics focus on the stagecraft of the ad, the mechanics of how it conveyed its message, what mistakes in that photoshoot allowed the Bush campaign to make such an effective attack ad. People looking at the ad and thinking "well that just shows that Dukakis is unqualified" or "Dukakis is weak on defense" are reacting to the optics, but optics are not the framework of those thoughts. It's like "spin", in that respect.

The comments we're discussing are quite clearly in the former category, though.

I disagree. The thread as a whole, sure, but I've been arguing that a specific claim within the thread did not qualify as such. The comment I was disputing and said was not discussing optics was that "Either the standard for Hunter Biden was made lax due to connection to VPotUS (bad for Joe Biden), or being on a board isn't that demanding in general (bad for capitalist mythmaking)". That reads very much as allegations about the actual significance of Hunter's hiring. This would then be further suggested in subsequent comments, such as "the fact that some corporations are rewarding his family for their connections to him suggests that they like what he's done enough to throw money at him or his family", which he described in the same post as "soft corruption" that I was simply turning a blind eye to. That's not discussing stagecraft or messaging, that's levelling an accusation.

Do you actually know what soft corruption is? It's not illegal.

 

[Asita]

The comments we're discussing are quite clearly in the former category, though.

I disagree. The thread as a whole, sure, but I've been arguing that a specific claim within the thread did not qualify as such. The comment I was disputing and said was not discussing optics was that "Either the standard for Hunter Biden was made lax due to connection to VPotUS (bad for Joe Biden), or being on a board isn't that demanding in general (bad for capitalist mythmaking)". That reads very much as allegations about the actual significance of Hunter's hiring. This would then be further suggested in subsequent comments, such as "the fact that some corporations are rewarding his family for their connections to him suggests that they like what he's done enough to throw money at him or his family", which he described in the same post as "soft corruption" that I was simply turning a blind eye to. That's not discussing stagecraft or messaging, that's levelling an accusation.

Do you actually know what soft corruption is? It's not illegal.

With all due respect, this is starting to feel like I'm talking to a brick wall. Legality is irrelevant to the question of "is it optics", the principle question around which I've been arguing. The determinant factor of whether or not it's optics is whether or not you're using it as evidence of something else. Doesn't matter if it's hard corruption, soft corruption, or having bad dietary habits. If your thrust can adequately be paraphrased as "this evidences that", then you aren't talking about optics.

For instance, a fitness guru lounging on the couch with a half-eaten box of pizza on his stomach, and 4 crushed cans of beer on the floor is terrible optics. Whatever the truth of the circumstances are, it's an image that's anathema to his brand and liable to cause a loss of trust in it. It's like a kid sneaking into the staff-only section of Disneyland and seeing Cinderella on her smoke-break and Rapunzel swearing like a sailor. Nothing's even morally wrong with what they're doing, but it's absolutely not what you want the kid to see because it's so detrimental to their image of the characters they're portraying, which is what makes it bad optics.

Here's where it can get difficult to explain. Imagine someone is saying that the aforementioned fitness guru obviously doesn't believe/follow his program, on the grounds that the pizza and those beer cans suggest he has an unhealthy lifestyle. Or that the offstage profanity of "Rapunzel" makes her unqualified to play a character requiring significant interaction with children. That person is not talking about optics. They are talking about the 'truth' they perceive the image as evidencing, making an allegation about the substance of the image. They are reacting to optics, but they are not discussing them. Point of fact, using optics as a framework for discussion tends very strongly to be built around the idea that it is plausible (often probable) that public perception of an event may be very different from the reality of the situation. And I don't mean that in the implicit sense of "I could be wrong". I mean that that's a premise around which the conversation is built. This is why, again, legality is irrelevant to my saying that in making allegations about what an action actually signifies you are not talking about optics.

 

[Seanchaidh]

The comments we're discussing are quite clearly in the former category, though.

I disagree. The thread as a whole, sure, but I've been arguing that a specific claim within the thread did not qualify as such. The comment I was disputing and said was not discussing optics was that "Either the standard for Hunter Biden was made lax due to connection to VPotUS (bad for Joe Biden), or being on a board isn't that demanding in general (bad for capitalist mythmaking)". That reads very much as allegations about the actual significance of Hunter's hiring. This would then be further suggested in subsequent comments, such as "the fact that some corporations are rewarding his family for their connections to him suggests that they like what he's done enough to throw money at him or his family", which he described in the same post as "soft corruption" that I was simply turning a blind eye to. That's not discussing stagecraft or messaging, that's levelling an accusation.

Do you actually know what soft corruption is? It's not illegal.

With all due respect, this is starting to feel like I'm talking to a brick wall. Legality is irrelevant to the question of "is it optics", the principle question around which I've been arguing. The determinant factor of whether or not it's optics is whether or not you're using it as evidence of something else. Doesn't matter if it's hard corruption, soft corruption, or having bad dietary habits. If your thrust can adequately be paraphrased as "this evidences that", then you aren't talking about optics.

This is just false. Obviously the public impression or understanding of something can be informed by the relevant conclusions one might draw from the set of facts that are available, however tenuously. For example, when Hunter Biden is paid substantially more than the high-flying board members of Exxon that have been CEOs of many very well known corporations to work for Burisma while Joe Biden is vice president and dealing specifically with Ukraine, that's bad optics for Joe Biden. It's especially bad (for Biden) if Hunter is very unaccomplished compared to his peers. It's worse for capitalist mythmaking if actually, Hunter's experience is the norm: most everyone at the top is there because of personal connections and no other particularly good reason.

Presidential politics--especially as it pertains to candidates like Biden-- is mostly optics. Undermining Ideological hegemony with inconvenient facts in high profile news stories is optics.