What is this, the neo-liberal troll manifesto?

List of reasons we Must ignore Liberal Values: Stress Realism, and the way politics ACTUALLY work. Don't address criticism at all, instead use terms that call the reader's maturity and opinions into question, like Idealist, Childish, and Self-Destructive.

Awesome breakdown

Seems too real and accurate for snark.

If one needs a rhetorical bag of techniques, do some time travel back to the regime of Bush the Younger, and adopt the techniques they mastered. For example, if somebody wants to talk with Putin, accuse them of supporting a dictator, being a paid lackey. As with Iraq, accuse Russia of having intentions and weapons t that don't exist. If ti comes to it, go to the UN with some cartoons of Russian soldiers invading Estonia, and claim it was the latest satellite image.

Thought I was going to have a heart attack until I finally saw the snark tag.

One more But Trump Is Hitler cover from LOF diarist Subir. He is an intelligent person who has supported Bernie well and stayed on to battle the orcs over there longer than I could stand to do. But he's offering us a cautionary tale from Indian politics of a quarter century ago. India, of course, has a very different political culture than we do. If this country had torn itself apart and killed untold millions of its citizens after WW II, I could see his analogy. But the fear is real in him, based on his own experience.

Subir is not a troll. He is a very intelligent, principled person who has elected, for reasons of his own, to buy the argument of the fear-mongerers this year. I do not judge him for that, because I'd like to think that description would have applied to me too, until the middle of last year. I just don't buy the argument he's peddling anymore. Let's be careful who we label trolls, even if they wield arguments favored by the genuine articles.

Fight hyperbole with hyperbole.

I tell them that the single most important issue in the 2016 campaign, the one that will have tangible effects on the bulk of Americans, is the TPP.

Obama's cronies wrote the TPP, et al. He's pushing for it. Of course Hillary would sign it. Why else would her platform committee refuse to specifically oppose it? Whenever she says she's against it, it's with her fingers crossed behind her back and an asterisk that says "as it is currently written." Because sure as shit, she'd sign it. I'd bet the farm on it, and any Hillbots who try to convince me otherwise are the ones deserving of the Idealist, childish, etc. labels.

"No, see she was for it, but now she's against it. Well, not against it, exactly, but not in favor of it, or any other agreement that doesn't have ponies and unicorns for everyone."

I bring it all home when I tell them that she doesn't appear to be forthright on the most important issue. They're o.k. with that?

and "mean" and WAAAAAaaaah!!!!

Wherein the commenter disparages the diary, the diarist and calls into the question the quality of analysis and conclusions reached. Finishing off with a self-proclaimed self-acclimation of the commenter’s superior intellect and omniscience.

Soon to follow, a pile on flagging by those that watch the threads for Dead Threaders to drive the commenter into a TO or worse. (BTW, the Dead Thread watchers are a subset of those that watch the Help Desk and feel unsatisfied that they cannot flag Help Deck comments.)

Be back in a week or so after punishment.

Don’t forget to tip your wait staff.

Apparently "To My Fellow Berners" was just deleted, along with a lot of intelligent comments. IMHO we ought to be willing to debate the people who call us "ridiculous" for wanting to vote for a President we can trust, or at a bare minimum who doesn't think they are above the law. I'm not afraid to have that discussion.