[jknoepfler]

I don't think the Federal government has had much control over public perception of itself for quite some time now. We're not living in an age of manufactured consent in which the dominating central tendency is more or less obvious.

[DiscourseFan]

The concept of manufactured consent always felt a bit suspect, but Kamala Harris' presidential candidacy has been covered by say, the NYTimes and The Guardian with little to no criticism, and they seem to be intentionally masking the fact that she has no real policies or any sort of platform. What else, if anything, points you towards the image of a state in whose operations it wants to appear as ambiguous as possible? The real threat, the known threat to state security is Trump, because he and his followers are crazy.

If the NSA, and other intelligence agencies, had any influence on the election, why wouldn't they do exactly what it would appear they are doing now and get a milquetoast liberal elected to office who will easily capitulate to their demands?

[knowaveragejoe]

> intentionally masking the fact that she has no real policies or any sort of platform

What you're suggesting doesn't exist - and is being skirted around by the news - is in fact widely available. Google's right there.

> If the NSA, and other intelligence agencies, had any influence on the election, why wouldn't they do exactly what it would appear they are doing now and get a milquetoast liberal elected to office who will easily capitulate to their demands?

This strikes me as working backwards from a conclusion. If in your view the intelligence community would operate in that way, how would you ever know one way or the other?

One thing we can certainly agree on is that Trump is the real threat. It is pretty damning of our age that "not having a platform"(to your satisfaction) is supposed to be met as a serious criticism, but her opponent's openly unhinged behavior is just "how it is".

[jazzypants]

Lol, she's discussed far more of a platform than Trump. Trump never gets into specifics. The closest we've gotten is his insane plan for a flat 10% tariff which would be devastating for the middle class.[1] Other than that, he deals solely in empty platitudes.[2]

Meanwhile, Harris has made specific policy promises on a wide range of issues.[3]

[1] - https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/2024/trumps-bigger...

[2] - https://www.donaldjtrump.com/platform

[3] -https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/08/politics/kamala-harr...

[shiroiushi]

>and they seem to be intentionally masking the fact that she has no real policies or any sort of platform

She doesn't need one: the fact that she's not Trump, and she's not old enough to be senile or on death's door, is all she needs for most voters. It's not like the Democratic Party had a bunch of other viable candidates in a position to mount a presidential campaign this close to the election.

If you want to criticize the US for having a crappy FPTP election system that basically guarantees only two viable parties on the national stage, that's fair, but that's not the fault of journalism outlets, it's baked into the Constitution and other legislation.

<The real threat, the known threat to state security is Trump, because he and his followers are crazy. If the NSA, and other intelligence agencies, had any influence on the election...

Also, those news outlets may very well have their own agenda they're pushing, without any help from the intelligence agencies or anyone else: back in 2015, the media did help to make Hillary look bad. Perhaps they're blaming themselves partially for Trump getting elected, so this time around they want to make sure they don't turn off voters to the non-crazy candidate just because she isn't perfect. (And granted, Kamala doesn't have nearly as much baggage as Hillary did, which helps a lot.)

[defrost]

What, exactly, did they do to further their evil plans?

Did they inject Biden with a dementia drug to force a withdrawal and engineer the timing such that the current Vice President was pretty much the only viable option for the US Democrats to rally behind?

Seems like a tightrope feat of Rube Goldberg Heath Robinson needle threading.

[DiscourseFan]

>Did they inject Biden with a dementia drug to force a withdrawal and engineer the timing such that the current Vice President was pretty much the only viable option for the US Democrats to rally behind?

It's not a one-way relation to power. Intelligence agencies are nothing if not opportunistic, they can influence elections but if one of the candidates is clearly incompetent there isn't much they can do unless he drops out. You're forgetting that Jill Stein would've never been endorsed by Biden; what appears to be chaotic and contingent actually has a strong set of boundary conditions of possibility that all the contingency is contained within, and intelligence agencies, including even the state department for foreign affairs, try to control that. Not individual actions, but the ability to perform them, the rationality of it. The fact that you can't even imagine a candidate besides Donald Trump who poses a serious threat to the state intelligence apparatus shows you that they've already won, or at least nearly so.

[defrost]

> The fact that you can't even imagine a candidate besides Donald Trump who poses a serious threat to the state intelligence

?

How'd you get this incorrect insight into what I think ... and what makes you think that Trump is a serious threat to the US state intelligence apparatus?

[DiscourseFan]

He encouraged a group of his supporters to overthrow the government to allow him to stay in elected office, and his political advisors have developed a plan for him to wipe out the executive branch in its current form if he gets re-elected? There won't be a security state under Trump, at least as it exists now.

I think you claimed that Harris was somehow not an ideal candidate for the current hegemonic forces in the US, or at least those forces of power wouldn't do what they could to make sure she gets elected. One of Chomsky's points was precisely this, they goad you with progressive political candidates who don't actually threaten power. The two main forces of power in the US are capitalist industry and the state, but the truth is that both have an interest in maintaining power relations such as they are, and so what we are witnessing in most elections is just a sort of balancing act between direct and indirect means of control. With Trump you have someone who is so insanely narcissistic that he is completely unreliable and there is essentially no way of using him to maintain state control as such.

[defrost]

Overthrowing an elected government doesn't threaten the longevity of security agencies or "the security state" and having read Project 2025 I see no threat to "the security state" .. if anything he'd be bringing more work their way.

Trump is a threat to democracy, not to TLA's.

> I think you claimed that Harris was somehow not an ideal candidate for the current hegemonic forces in the US,

I made no such claim. Perhaps you might like to scroll back and identify where I did, I suspect you've confused me for another.