How surprised are you by the Trump Era?

[atomheartbevo 89447]

3 hours ago, Bookman said:

I'm very surprised at how many suckers there are in this country.

I'm not, when shows like the Kardashians reality show are pulling in tens of millions of viewers, when people like Hannity and Tucker rule the evening cable shows.

[Brisketexan 104624]

My surprise-o-meter has stayed pegged at this since the day he announced he was running:

(I went digital years ago for my surprise-o-meter needs)

Trump is our id.  Someone like Trump was ALWAYS coming.  Once the GOP got utterly and completely broken by the singular event of a black man being elected president, this outcome was inevitable.  My only surprise goes back to 2008 -- I had NO idea that electing a black man would utterly fucking break this country.  I really didn't.  I was naive, I thought that we were finally transcending visceral race-based fears and shit.  Man, was I WRONG.  And opening the race-based fears closet opened a whole lot of other doors that are horrifying -- longing for authoritarian rule, celebrating cruelty, treating half of your fellow Americans as enemies who must be made to suffer, etc.

But once I realized what we were, nothing that has unfolded since is surprising.  It was our destiny.  

Edited November 11, 2020 by Brisketexan

[BradInATX 9208]

I was surprised he got the nomination and I was surprised he got elected.
Once he was inaugurated, nothing that followed really surprised me, except maybe their inability to repeal the ACA. He didn’t do a single thing during his term that wasn’t entirely predictable based on his behavior during the campaign and his self-evident narcissism. Anyone who thought he might grow into the job or that the GOP that fell in line behind him would restrain him was a fool.

This. I gave him a chance because it's the right thing to do, but his presidency has played out exactly how anyone with an ounce of perception knew it would.

The only pleasant surprise could be the final act of his presidency which is "his" Supreme Court refusing to overturn Obamacare and laughing his stupid fraud lawsuits out of court. It gruntles me very much to know that's going to eat him up until he dies. A shitbag who knows no loyalty or ethics being cast out and marginalized by a Supreme Court he packed to buy loyalty to him. My how the turn tables. Owned.

[wildcat09 29256]

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

My surprise-o-meter has stayed pegged at this since the day he announced he was running:

(I went digital years ago for my surprise-o-meter needs)

Trump is our id.  Someone like Trump was ALWAYS coming.  Once the GOP got utterly and completely broken by the singular event of a black man being elected president, this outcome was inevitable.  My only surprise goes back to 2008 -- I had NO idea that electing a black man would utterly fucking break this country.  I really didn't.  I was naive, I thought that we were finally transcending visceral race-based fears and shit.  Man, was I WRONG.  And opening the race-based fears closet opened a whole lot of other doors that are horrifying -- longing for authoritarian rule, celebrating cruelty, treating half of your fellow Americans as enemies who must be made to suffer, etc.

But once I realized what we were, nothing that has unfolded since is surprising.  It was our destiny.  

I think the reason that I was surprised he got nominated and then elected is that I drastically underestimated the racial resentment that middle/upper middle class suburban whites had. There's a whole lot more of aggy out there than I realized.

[Brisketexan 104624]

Just now, wildcat09 said:

I think the reason that I was surprised he got nominated and then elected is that I drastically underestimated the racial resentment that middle/upper middle class suburban whites had. There's a whole lot more of aggy out there than I realized.

And that's a fair thing to have underestimated -- I'll just suggest that you are slow on the uptake.  It was obvious within days of Obama winning in 2008.  The "kenyan muslim socialist" birther and related narratives EXPLODED.  Realizing that such insanity wasn't the fringe, it was the mainstream for GOP America, made me realize we are FUCKED.  Trump is just the natural and inevitable outcome of that batshittery.

But I get where you're coming from.  Again, I initially thought that Obama's election could stand as a beacon that yes, we could get past this caveman-level-thinking race-based bullshit.  I couldn't have been wronger if I ran my thoughts through a magical wrongifying machine.

[Dnaguy 11776]

1 hour ago, TornACL said:

If you live in Texas and are surprised how easily people can be manipulated, I invite you to drive around on Sunday and see how packed every megachurch parking lot is. 

Yes but what if they’re right AND you’re wrong?!

I mean an eternity in hellfire is hella long and hella bad.

[DigglerontheHoof 21063]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

And that's a fair thing to have underestimated -- I'll just suggest that you are slow on the uptake.  It was obvious within days of Obama winning in 2008.  The "kenyan muslim socialist" birther and related narratives EXPLODED.  Realizing that such insanity wasn't the fringe, it was the mainstream for GOP America, made me realize we are FUCKED.  Trump is just the natural and inevitable outcome of that batshittery.

But I get where you're coming from.  Again, I initially thought that Obama's election could stand as a beacon that yes, we could get past this caveman-level-thinking race-based bullshit.  I couldn't have been wronger if I ran my thoughts through a magical wrongifying machine.

Count me in the "slow on the uptake" crowd.  I've been absolutely floored by the racist views that have bubbled to the top with some of my most successful and educated friends, former colleagues and acquaintances in the last 4 years.   Girls I knew as hippy-chicks back in our youth are now full on trumpers.  Bottles the mind. 

[wildcat09 29256]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

And that's a fair thing to have underestimated -- I'll just suggest that you are slow on the uptake.  It was obvious within days of Obama winning in 2008.  The "kenyan muslim socialist" birther and related narratives EXPLODED.  Realizing that such insanity wasn't the fringe, it was the mainstream for GOP America, made me realize we are FUCKED.  Trump is just the natural and inevitable outcome of that batshittery.

But I get where you're coming from.  Again, I initially thought that Obama's election could stand as a beacon that yes, we could get past this caveman-level-thinking race-based bullshit.  I couldn't have been wronger if I ran my thoughts through a magical wrongifying machine.

Oh yeah, I just sort of assumed at the time that that was mostly confined to their poors. Since 2016, I'm sure we've all done quite a bit of reading on our own history and the history of Europe before World War 2, and the most obvious lesson to learn from that is how much of the worst racism and the most dangerous ideas and acts came from the then-equivalent of what we might think of as the upper middle class.  "Fuck you, got mine" is a much more powerful political force than I understood in 2016 and its adherents will go as far as committing genocide if they think someone beneath them might gain something at their expense.

[Snake Diggity 4614]

I was totally shocked when he got the GOP nomination in 2016.  I thought surely GOP leadership would prevent a New York rich boy draft dodging philandering bankrupt serial liar from rising to the top of their party.

I was very, very, very surprised when he beat Clinton.  I was certain Americans would show some sense and reject his nationalism and racism.

I was very, very surprised that once he became president, his tone did not change at all and at how divisive and ineffective he was.  I thought his pre-election persona was an act, and that once he took office he would somewhat straighten up.  I didn’t expect him to grow into the role, I just didn’t expect him to be nearly as divisive, corrosive, and inflammatory as he’s been.

I was very surprised when covid hit that he bungled the response so badly.  I couldn’t imagine anyone doing a that bad of a job.  I really didn’t think he was that stupid.

I was surprised that the election was so close.  I am mildly surprised that he has not conceded defeat.

The last 5 years has really lowered my opinion of our country.  But in hindsight, all of this was a pretty predictable outcome following the election of black president.

Edited November 11, 2020 by Snake Diggity

[closetohumping 17401]

Zero.  Everything he's doing has been expected.  Ok, didn't think he'd fire so many people and openly throw people under the bus.

[TwiceHorn 31280]

I have admitted on several occasions to giving Trump too much of a break for the first six months or so of his presidency.

It has also occurred to me that I didn't pay any attention to speak of to his campaign.

Political campaigns tend to be a bunch of empty rhetoric and pandering, and I sure as hell didn't want to watch Trump do it.  But I think I missed out on a refresher and short course on what a pathological human being he is.

I also have to confess being intrigued by the "third party" or non-professional politician candidate.  But that has blown up now twice in the form of Perot and now Trump, so consider that notion kaput from me.

[seven 1366]

I was moderately surprised when he beat Hillary. I thought the race would be fairly close but in the end that there are too many "good" people to allow him to win. I was wrong. 

Since his win, I have never really been surprised by anything he's done (I mean sure, there are plenty of times that I had a failure of imagination about how cruel he could be, but nothing shocked me). I have been very surprised in the massive membership of the trump cult though. It's very easy to believe a bad person gets elected to office. It's very hard to believe that so many people enjoy having a bad person in office. 

[hayden_horn 11360]

54 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

White cops stomping on black faces is how things are supposed to work, to Slorch. Black people who resist should be brutally put down, to Slorch. A crowd of black people lighting one building on fire is infinitely worse than every level of the Republican party letting a pandemic run wild and kill hundreds of thousands of Americans (but disproportionately black and brown Americans), to Slorch.

Slorch's idea of America is fascism. Period.

 

53 minutes ago, BearSchlong said:

Nah, he's just trolling.

slorch is not trolling. slorch is the problem. his is the 70M+ votes in favor of a trump presidency. he is the embodiment of the "fuck you, got mine" mentality. he is the archetype, but also the mold breaker, because he grew up in rough circumstances, but still worked hard and got his. that's warped his world view.  he misses that opportunity knocking is mostly luck. sure, hard work plays into it, and a willingness to work hard, but as royal said - luck is where preparation meets opportunity. not everyone has the luxury of preparation, and that's what slorch does not understand. fuck, this is a guy who grew up sometimes relying on public assistance who now looks down on those who do the same. but wildcat is right, somehow slorch has been decayed. i don't know how or why, but this decay has made him a borderline fascist, and i don't know how to talk to a person like him. he's actually a lot like my father in law who is a full blown trump supporter. smart guy, but is fully bought in on the cult.

so, i guess, remember when i said slorch is the problem? i think that's not it. i think we are the problem because we haven't figured out how to break through their logical fuckery and convince them that they are voting against their best interests when they vote for trump.

[wildcat09 29256]

3 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

 

slorch is not trolling. slorch is the problem. his is the 70M+ votes in favor of a trump presidency. he is the embodiment of the "fuck you, got mine" mentality. he is the archetype, but also the mold breaker, because he grew up in rough circumstances, but still worked hard and got his. that's warped his world view.  he misses that opportunity knocking is mostly luck. sure, hard work plays into it, and a willingness to work hard, but as royal said - luck is where preparation meets opportunity. not everyone has the luxury of preparation, and that's what slorch does not understand. fuck, this is a guy who grew up sometimes relying on public assistance who now looks down on those who do the same. but wildcat is right, somehow slorch has been decayed. i don't know how or why, but this decay has made him a borderline fascist, and i don't know how to talk to a person like him. he's actually a lot like my father in law who is a full blown trump supporter. smart guy, but is fully bought in on the cult.

so, i guess, remember when i said slorch is the problem? i think that's not it. i think we are the problem because we haven't figured out how to break through their logical fuckery and convince them that they are voting against their best interests when they vote for trump.

You know they fucking hate this, right? They see this as incredibly condescending. They're real people with personal agency and control over their thoughts and actions (as much as any of us have). They simply don't share our values and the overwhelming majority of them can never be convinced to change. 

[hayden_horn 11360]

oh, to answer the topic, i guess i thought the weight of the office would make a shit to him. it obviously didn't. 

i laughed when he went down that escalator. i would liken my reaction to his announcing his candidacy to kanye. yet the republican party and half the fucking country has succumbed to him. i thought at some point, republicans would stand up to him and tell him to stop being such a fuckstick. they did not. in fact, they turned 180 degrees and now support him, which is fucking crazy to me, unless they are all compromised together. that dark russian nra money though. i'm convinced that it is all a grand conspiracy that was accidentally successful. i don't think in their wildest dreams that the russians thought they would succeed so well and that the american electorate was so thirsty for a strongman-like leader. 

i mean, it's so obvious to me that trump is compromised somehow. it is also my opinion that his voters should see it as well, given their hyper-patriotic bullshit. but they don't see it. while i might not be as surprised at trump's behavior in office, i am surprised at the willing blindness from my fellow americans to his fucking horseshit. 70 fucking million plus said "this is fine." that's a fucking gordian knot we got to solve, people.

[hayden_horn 11360]

4 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

You know they fucking hate this, right? They see this as incredibly condescending. They're real people with personal agency and control over their thoughts and actions (as much as any of us have). They simply don't share our values and the overwhelming majority of them can never be convinced to change. 

they also are not logical. they don't want to think, they need to be told. i think that's one of the realizations i've had this election season. trump is pretty good at telling people how to think. his twitter account has been instrumental to his success, and he still uses it as a weapon to club logic out of people. when hillary said deplorables, it was a mistake, and it was also incorrect. she should have said followers. the saying a's hire a's comes to mind. most people are c students, and trump is a c appealing to b's and c's and f's. these people are not leaders, by and large, even though they might find themselves in such a role in some kind of organization. they are followers, who need to be told how to think.

[closetohumping 17401]

17 minutes ago, seven said:

I was moderately surprised when he beat Hillary. I thought the race would be fairly close but in the end that there are too many "good" people to allow him to win. I was wrong. 

Since his win, I have never really been surprised by anything he's done (I mean sure, there are plenty of times that I had a failure of imagination about how cruel he could be, but nothing shocked me). I have been very surprised in the massive membership of the trump cult though. It's very easy to believe a bad person gets elected to office. It's very hard to believe that so many people enjoy having a bad person in office. 

I was living in DC at the time.  I thought Hil would run away with it, because like you, I thought "ok, this is America posturing, when it comes down to it, they won't vote for Trump."  I wasn't even going to watch.  Next day, like half the office was so distraught that they didn't show up for work.  I'm not a fan of Van Jones, but I remember he said "this was payback for electing a black president'"  Not sure I agree with that but I thought the Trump spaceship took off when he started talking about the wall right?  

 

Most of my conservative friends love Trump more than the party.

[mchookem 16219]

i cried on election night 2016, not bc the female lost and certainly not out of any sentimentality towards Clinton in particular...

remember there was not a huge amount of time b/t the 'grab em by the pussy' tape and the election. i was stunned that those words had not automatically disqualified him with the majority of my countrymen. 

i suspected on day one that it was going to bad...

i had no idea it was going to be THIS bad. i really didn't. 

[RomaVicta 29792]

2 hours ago, slorch said:

For all of the shit Trump fucked up, and it's plenty; no I don't associate the racial bullshit with him.  He was just a symptom of a far deeper, more treacherous disease.   Some people's 'cure' was insane.   Others seized upon the opportunity to enflame  the situation, outside of their own communities.  Still others did nothing and relished the destruction.

wanna blame Trump?  whatever.   It's way the hell deeper than that.

 

Glad it's over now though...(rolleyes.)

 

I'm not going to neg or name call. Your post is honest and not a troll, so I just profoundly disagree with you about how you perceive events related Donald Trump.

It's too easy to dismiss someone who disagrees with you as stupid. We do it too often in this forum. You write well, so I conclude that your mind is fine.

The above is what makes these times so crazy. The number of people like you who stand up for Trump and vote for him kills me.

You promote rationalizations with such unwavering certainty that it's as much depressing as it is inflaming. And you've made yourself argument-proof by buying the hate engine's ceaseless pitch that only the hate engine is truthful. 

Let's look at what you write. You start with a concession that doubtless overstates the degree to which you think Trump has "fucked up, and it's plenty." Rhetorical device to disarm the reader, I try to be more honest about degree when I use the same approach.

Then you state a truth (or at least an observation that I agree with) that Trump is a symptom. Bullseye. So, you have me leaning your way. This guy is reasonable. Maybe we'll keep agreeing. Well done, Slorch!

Next, you slide quickly into what I see as a pathology in your thinking. You deny the first two things you wrote by absolving Trump and blaming other bad actors. It's ego defense. When Nixon was president, the 26% (that seemed mournfully high at the time, now it seems sorta quaint) would regularly claim that Nixon had been failed by his underlings. Next they blamed the press and the gullibility of others thus sliding themselves right into projection.

Lastly, you repeat the lie about the response to police murder. The whole response was a riot with property destroyed, persons murdered (mostly protesters, by the way), and "communities destroyed." All bullshit. I'll take you at your word that you believe what you wrote. Hello Messrs. Dunning and Krueger, welcome to the party. 

All of this is what otherwise sensible people have done to make themselves argument-proof. Ego defense, projection, and seeing what you're looking for. I should thank you for presenting such a good example. It's not merely idiots who back Trump.

You will likely turn the tables. It is RomaVicta who is the above! I've enumerated the reasons my own thinking is defective. Again, I would apply the same analysis and, if I felt I was correct, vocalize it. The difference is that I considered that the riots might be violent and did the light research necessary to see that Portland's activities were limited to a scant few square blocks. I saw video of perfidious police kneeling for the camera prior to tear gassing peaceful protesters. 

"But that wasn't Trump!"

He wanted to send soldiers to end it "fast." He inflamed his armed militia (terrorists according to the ebil, lying FBI) followers by active encouragement or tacit support. Oh yea, and he used force including a low flying helicopter to disperse a peaceful protest in front of the White House so that he could come out of his bunker and walk across the street to display a Book he's never read.

I don't merely proclaim Trump's responsibility and repeat inflammatory distortions to support a long held belief. I don't want to be associated with lies. I'd rather disassociate with a politician I've supported than have my reputation associated with lying.

I suppose you could now go with tl;dr. Maybe so. It is a long post and perhaps uninteresting. But ignoring it could also be another bit of ego defense. 
 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

Trump getting elected was an enormous gut punch. I felt like America just gave up on itself and any of the ideals that supposedly made it “good.”  I learned a lot during the Trump years because I felt like paying attention was more important than ever.  
 

We have serious problems in our society that we’ve been manipulated into ignoring, I now believe Trump is a natural consequence of that and if we don’t address those problems, we’re going to get another Trump again and again until collapse and revolution.  So yeah, my outlook isn’t good. 

[RomaVicta 29792]

2 hours ago, 52-80 said:

Kids only started being mean to each other when the political party I dont like came into power.

Exhibit #2 of tens of millions. Thanks for embracing rationalization over country.

[WhatTheBuck 28712]

12 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

oh, to answer the topic, i guess i thought the weight of the office would make a shit to him. it obviously didn't.

I hoped it would. I thought he deserved a chance. That hope died the moment the words "alternative facts" came out of Kelleyanne's mouth.

[WBT 20422]

I was surprised he got the nomination, although it should be remembered he got there through winning pluralities in crowded fields.  He never topped 50% in any state through Super Tuesday and beyond.  But, considering this lukewarm support in the primaries, I'm surprised that he was so embraced by the party and its voters.  I thought we would see a lot more of things like Cruz's convention speech.

I expected him to win the general until the Access Hollywood tape came out, which certainly gave me pause.  Still, from the time it became obvious Hillary was the anointed candidate on the D side, even before the first primary, I didn't see her winning.  She had decades of negative associations and baggage and was the perfect target for someone running as an outsider.  The story of the email server to duck open government laws only reinforced concerns about her deceitfulness and duplicity.  I still think she was a key ingredient to getting Trump elected.

I expected Trump to be a mostly harmless clown in office.  He was a clown but much worse that I expected.  I was surprised that the R party never turned against him.  I was surprised that the more bullshit he spewed the more people seemed to jump aboard the crazy train.

I was surprised the 2020 election was as close as it was, although it still wasn't that close.  Among the most competitive states, Trump would have had to overturn 3 - no 2 would have gotten him there.  

[TwiceHorn 31280]

Hayden with a series of great posts.

I would believe slorch if he said he didn't vote for Trump.  That same moralism he exhibits in other things should mean that Trump offends him too.

[BradInATX 9208]

1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

Hayden with a series of great posts.

I would believe slorch if he said he didn't vote for Trump.  That same moralism he exhibits in other things should mean that Trump offends him too.

Yeah, slorch and I disagree on a lot of stuff but I do believe he probably didn't vote for Trump.

[4th&Five 41461]

4 minutes ago, mchookem said:

i cried on election night 2016, not bc the female lost and certainly not out of any sentimentality towards Clinton in particular...

remember there was not a huge amount of time b/t the 'grab em by the pussy' tape and the election. i was stunned that those words had not automatically disqualified him with the majority of my countrymen. 

i suspected on day one that it was going to bad...

i had no idea it was going to be THIS bad. i really didn't. 

i heard about the pussy tape while at acl fest and remember breathing a big sigh of relief and then getting hammered on $10 beers because i was sure that was the death blow.

i knew we were in for a wild ride the day of the inauguration when they trotted spicer out there to tell us about crowd sizes.

Edited November 11, 2020 by 4th&Five

[atomheartbevo 89447]

2 hours ago, 52-80 said:

Kids only started being mean to each other when the political party I dont like came into power.

Had a high school friend that pushed that narrative on Facebook recently.   Paraphrasing, but it was something like "Oh the Democrats have made everything nasty, and even if Biden ends up in the WH, he and Pelosi need to learn how to be nice and work with the Republicans.  They've set a really bad example for our children, and there are kids who are mean to my kids because I support Trump, and kids used to not be mean like this.  Nobody was mad at me that my parents voted for Reagan."

My response was "Really?  Really?  Kids used to not be mean?   Look, I know it's been almost 30 years, and we'd all like to forget about it, but I seem to remember a little incident involving a broken-off broom handle, 3 tubes of Bengay, and Jimmy Hostetler that ended up with us being suspended from school for a week, and our parents having to shell out thousands of dollars for Jimmy's ER visit, surgery, and proctologist bills, and later on his therapy visits.  But we are going to pretend that it's only recently that kids are mean to each other?  I mean, maybe your parents let you off the hook and you truly forgot about it, but I spent that entire next summer having to do manual labor at my grandpa's farm to pay my parents back when I should have been trying to get laid by the lady next door, and I kind of haven't forgotten about it, and I'm sure Jimmy didn't forget about it, although he was so fucked up on meth the last time I saw him, that I don't know what he remembers."

[BearSchlong 8077]

23 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Hayden with a series of great posts.

I would believe slorch if he said he didn't vote for Trump.  That same moralism he exhibits in other things should mean that Trump offends him too.

One would think this x ~72 Million, right?

[atomheartbevo 89447]

3 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

i knew we were in for a wild ride the day of the inauguration when they trotted spicer out there to tell us about crowd sizes.

And the Trump administration has been really bad at math ever since, up to and including the 2020 election.

Not the kind of bad at math, like when your, at the time, best friend in high school walked in on you banging his mom, and that one time, rather than stopping, you kept going and yelled "Hey, look Danny, 9 months from today you're going to have a little baby brother or sister that looks like me!", only to realize later on in life that it's not actually 9 months from that day, and can even creep up towards 10 month territory.  And that's a pretty fucking embarrassing slip-up, because he probably didn't forget it, since he was in therapy for the rest of high school and into college.  He probably relived that exact moment in his mind multiple times, not to mention every time he saw his little brother.

I mean the kind of bad at math like asking a little kid who can barely count his fingers and toes to try and multiply or divide by hundreds.]

What is Trump's narrative if PA says "okay, we'll toss everything that came in after the 3rd!"?

That crowd size thing, that is a fucking awesome example of where things were headed from day 1.

[TwiceHorn 31280]

21 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Had a high school friend that pushed that narrative on Facebook recently.   Paraphrasing, but it was something like "Oh the Democrats have made everything nasty, and even if Biden ends up in the WH, he and Pelosi need to learn how to be nice and work with the Republicans.  They've set a really bad example for our children, and there are kids who are mean to my kids because I support Trump, and kids used to not be mean like this.  Nobody was mad at me that my parents voted for Reagan."

My response was "Really?  Really?  Kids used to not be mean?   Look, I know it's been almost 30 years, and we'd all like to forget about it, but I seem to remember a little incident involving a broken-off broom handle, 3 tubes of Bengay, and Jimmy Hostetler that ended up with us being suspended from school for a week, and our parents having to shell out thousands of dollars for Jimmy's ER visit, surgery, and proctologist bills, and later on his therapy visits.  But we are going to pretend that it's only recently that kids are mean to each other?  I mean, maybe your parents let you off the hook and you truly forgot about it, but I spent that entire next summer having to do manual labor at my grandpa's farm to pay my parents back when I should have been trying to get laid by the lady next door, and I kind of haven't forgotten about it, and I'm sure Jimmy didn't forget about it, although he was so fucked up on meth the last time I saw him, that I don't know what he remembers."

Um, that's kind of disturbing.

Kids do shitty stuff.  That's more or less an immutable principle.

But when the adults all behave like petulant, shitty middle-schoolers, that is a problem.

[pacman 7329]

Very surprised.

 

I don't get the allure of Trump.

People who have nothing in common with him, have completely changed their view of him. From trashing him over the years, and in the primaries, to hanging on his every word.

I don't get why people think he is a single source of truth. Why they would ever think he is a valid source of truth?

I don't get why people think a lifelong grifter would clean up corruption.

I don't get why a lifelong political insider is suddenly a supposed outsider.

The shit has had me baffled for four years and now it is only getting worse.

[4th&Five 41461]

Just now, pacman said:

Very surprised.

 

I don't get the allure of Trump.

People who have nothing in common with him, have completely changed their view of him. From trashing him over the years, and in the primaries, to hanging on his every word.

I don't get why people think he is a single source of truth. Why they would ever think he is a valid source of truth?

I don't get why people think a lifelong grifter would clean up corruption.

I don't get why a lifelong political insider is suddenly a supposed outsider.

The shit has had me baffled for four years and now it is only getting worse.

he hated obama as much as they did and wasn't shy about it.

[gmr548 16513]

The biggest surprise honestly is how not surprised I am at basically everything. It’s a bad thing to get used to this.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

27 minutes ago, pacman said:

Very surprised.

 

I don't get the allure of Trump.

People who have nothing in common with him, have completely changed their view of him. From trashing him over the years, and in the primaries, to hanging on his every word.

I don't get why people think he is a single source of truth. Why they would ever think he is a valid source of truth?

I don't get why people think a lifelong grifter would clean up corruption.

I don't get why a lifelong political insider is suddenly a supposed outsider.

The shit has had me baffled for four years and now it is only getting worse.

I have struggled with this myself and what I’ve come up with so far is Trump represents an America they want to live in.  One that is free from consequences but also unapologetically cruel and selfish.  He has created an alternative reality for his supporters to live, one where every white man can be a king.  That’s why they feel so threatened when challenged and have this sense of grievance, like the world is trying to take something away from them that is inherently theirs.  What Trump says and does is irrelevant.  Facts do not matter.  It is feels over reals with Trump supporters. 

Edited November 11, 2020 by Hugo Stiglitz

[TwiceHorn 31280]

5 minutes ago, pacman said:

Very surprised.

 

I don't get the allure of Trump.

People who have nothing in common with him, have completely changed their view of him. From trashing him over the years, and in the primaries, to hanging on his every word.

I don't get why people think he is a single source of truth. Why they would ever think he is a valid source of truth?

I don't get why people think a lifelong grifter would clean up corruption.

I don't get why a lifelong political insider is suddenly a supposed outsider.

The shit has had me baffled for four years and now it is only getting worse.

One of the problems, I suppose, is that Donald Trump was a very peripheral character to most people.  

I pay attention to the business world, even though I'm not directly in it.

My roommate in law school had a subscription to Spy magazine, which was kind of a weird little publication, but had a definite bent toward exposing and ridiculing Donald Trump.

So I have been observing his failures for nigh on 30 years and had long ago dismissed him as an assclown blowhard by the time The Apprentice rolled around.

I'd guess most of America and most Trumpers only knew him through The Apprentice.  And, just like Shark Tank, they blindly accept that any vaunted "business man" on a tv reality show must really know what he's about.  I mostly scoff at them, too, including and especially Cuban, but I think he has more going on upstairs than a lot of them.

Similarly, I think a lot of Trump objectors didn't really know about him in-depth, either.  Hell, even though I followed his failings, I didn't know what a sick fuck he really is.

So all of this meant it was easy to accept his line that he was unfairly maligned by the media.  But after a year or so, it should have become apparent to anyone paying attention that he is wildly unfit to govern a nation.  Any nation.

[Loch Ness Monster 3533]

Plenty of people will go with lower taxes over the President being a cruel narcissistic asshole. Also have heard that Biden is gonna tank the economy with lockdowns. 

I don't get it - could also be excuses but that's what they say.    

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

1 hour ago, RomaVicta said:

Exhibit #2 of tens of millions. Thanks for embracing rationalization over country.

48 star flag. Wtf?

[aggie08 21434]

11 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

One of the problems, I suppose, is that Donald Trump was a very peripheral character to most people.  

I pay attention to the business world, even though I'm not directly in it.

My roommate in law school had a subscription to Spy magazine, which was kind of a weird little publication, but had a definite bent toward exposing and ridiculing Donald Trump.

So I have been observing his failures for nigh on 30 years and had long ago dismissed him as an assclown blowhard by the time The Apprentice rolled around.

I'd guess most of America and most Trumpers only knew him through The Apprentice.  And, just like Shark Tank, they blindly accept that any vaunted "business man" on a tv reality show must really know what he's about.  I mostly scoff at them, too, including and especially Cuban, but I think he has more going on upstairs than a lot of them.

Similarly, I think a lot of Trump objectors didn't really know about him in-depth, either.  Hell, even though I followed his failings, I didn't know what a sick fuck he really is.

So all of this meant it was easy to accept his line that he was unfairly maligned by the media.  But after a year or so, it should have become apparent to anyone paying attention that he is wildly unfit to govern a nation.  Any nation.

He's unfit to govern a Wendy's.

[Brisketexan 104624]

Just now, aggie08 said:

He's unfit to govern a Wendy's.

This is the real and painful truth.

Imagine a public company -- ANY public company -- with a board and stockholders.  Would you hire Trump as the CEO for ANY of them?  Fuck no.  Not a real estate company, not a burger joint, not a dry cleaning chain, NONE of them.  The cold truth is that he's utterly unqualified to be the CEO of a publicly owned business.  Nobody with any sense would hire him for that.

But we put him in charge of the most valuable public enterprise in the world.  And it turned out exactly as you'd expect.

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

22 minutes ago, pacman said:

Very surprised.

 

I don't get the allure of Trump.

People who have nothing in common with him, have completely changed their view of him. From trashing him over the years, and in the primaries, to hanging on his every word.

I don't get why people think he is a single source of truth. Why they would ever think he is a valid source of truth?

I don't get why people think a lifelong grifter would clean up corruption.

I don't get why a lifelong political insider is suddenly a supposed outsider.

The shit has had me baffled for four years and now it is only getting worse.

I’m trying to work out how the R party became what it is now. 
 

it used to be a coalition of:

gun rights people

anti-abortion/religious people

economy/debt concern people 

racists/homophobes 

 

sometimes these overlapped. Sometimes they didn’t.  But at some point, the true believer model of religion began to take over and it became a good vs evil concept, and whoever is in favor to lead the party on the biggest stages became idols and demigods.  The more Christian soldiery the person, the more loyalty they invoked.  Trump was the most outspoken, unapologetic, and brash among them so they flocked  to him. 

the idea of independent and critical thought is gone, abandoned to complete faith. 

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

This is the real and painful truth.

Imagine a public company -- ANY public company -- with a board and stockholders.  Would you hire Trump as the CEO for ANY of them?  Fuck no.  Not a real estate company, not a burger joint, not a dry cleaning chain, NONE of them.  The cold truth is that he's utterly unqualified to be the CEO of a publicly owned business.  Nobody with any sense would hire him for that.

But we put him in charge of the most valuable public enterprise in the world.  And it turned out exactly as you'd expect.

That’s also why he’s never tried to take his companies public, or otherwise not be in charge. Somehow he missed the fact that the president serves at the pleasure of the people. 

[mchookem 16219]

1 hour ago, 4th&Five said:

i heard about the pussy tape while at acl fest and remember breathing a big sigh of relief and then getting hammered on $10 beers because i was sure that was the death blow.

i knew we were in for a wild ride the day of the inauguration when they trotted spicer out there to tell us about crowd sizes.

a couple of years ago a friend and i got the giggles 'reminiscing' about the halcyon days of grabbing pussies, bragging about imaginary inauguration crowds, refusing to divest himself from his companies, etc...ahhh those were the good old days, it was all so quaint! 🤣🤣🤣🤣😕

Edited November 11, 2020 by mchookem
of course, we might have been slightly high lol

[TexArcher 37518]

In 2016, I was surprised so many people fell for such an obvious con man.  

In 2017, I expected him to be an international embarrassment and a bumbling fuck-up of a president.  Like a slightly less war-mongering W, but equally susceptible to bad actors around him taking advantage of him and usurping his power to do awful shit.  I was concerned.

By the end of 2017, I'd realized that I had greatly underestimated the pure evil in his heart and the degree to which the rest of the Republican Party had sold whatever soul it once had and hitched its wagon to this wannabe dictator.  It was so much worse than I'd imagined.

Nothing they've done since has surprised me at all.  In fact, I'm quite certain that 2017-2020 was them on their best behavior and a second term for Trump would have been an awful chapter in our history book.

[RDCanecutter 26276]

I think the Trump Era is about average on the True Horror scale. Take away everybody's Constant Notification Phone Device, and it's not near as bad as the regressive parts of the 60s and 70s. But I'd rather have Nixon again than Trump, just as I'd rather get a mild dose of diarrhea than a bloody week-long miracle weight-loss plan of diarrhea.

My family doctor says I have an unusual tolerance for pain.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

4 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

the true believer model of religion began to take over and it became a good vs evil concept, and whoever is in favor to lead the party on the biggest stages became idols and demigods.  

Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” and marriage to the religious right is often cited as a foundation of the “Cult of the Shining City.”

[Red Six 131]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

Had a high school friend that pushed that narrative on Facebook recently.   Paraphrasing, but it was something like "Oh the Democrats have made everything nasty, and even if Biden ends up in the WH, he and Pelosi need to learn how to be nice and work with the Republicans.  They've set a really bad example for our children, and there are kids who are mean to my kids because I support Trump, and kids used to not be mean like this.  Nobody was mad at me that my parents voted for Reagan."

My response was "Really?  Really?  Kids used to not be mean?   Look, I know it's been almost 30 years, and we'd all like to forget about it, but I seem to remember a little incident involving a broken-off broom handle, 3 tubes of Bengay, and Jimmy Hostetler that ended up with us being suspended from school for a week, and our parents having to shell out thousands of dollars for Jimmy's ER visit, surgery, and proctologist bills, and later on his therapy visits.  But we are going to pretend that it's only recently that kids are mean to each other?  I mean, maybe your parents let you off the hook and you truly forgot about it, but I spent that entire next summer having to do manual labor at my grandpa's farm to pay my parents back when I should have been trying to get laid by the lady next door, and I kind of haven't forgotten about it, and I'm sure Jimmy didn't forget about it, although he was so fucked up on meth the last time I saw him, that I don't know what he remembers."

Not to derail, but... WTF? You sodomized a kid with a broom handle in high school?

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

7 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” and marriage to the religious right is often cited as a foundation of the “Cult of the Shining City.”

I think that plus roe v wade a few years earlier  really galvanized the right from policy into a dogma. 
 

policies can be questioned, debated, reviewed, and changed rather easily. Dogma, not so much. 

Edited November 11, 2020 by Pato del Muerto

[Texas St. Armadillos 1381]

17 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

This is the real and painful truth.

Imagine a public company -- ANY public company -- with a board and stockholders.  Would you hire Trump as the CEO for ANY of them?  Fuck no.  Not a real estate company, not a burger joint, not a dry cleaning chain, NONE of them.  The cold truth is that he's utterly unqualified to be the CEO of a publicly owned business.  Nobody with any sense would hire him for that.

But we put him in charge of the most valuable public enterprise in the world.  And it turned out exactly as you'd expect.

Exactly.  He's never had to answer to anyone but himself.  I imagine that can warp a person's sense of importance and intelligence over several decades.

[Brisketexan 104624]

10 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

I think that plus roe v wade a few years earlier  really galvanized the right from policy into a dogma. 
 

policies can be questioned, debated, reviewed, and changed rather easily. Dogma, not so much. 

 

10 minutes ago, Texas St. Armadillos said:

Exactly.  He's never had to answer to anyone but himself.  I imagine that can warp a person's sense of importance and intelligence over several decades.

These are both excellent posts.

When one builds a position on dogma, there is no conversation or compromise.  When abortion became a dogmatic foundation of the GOP, there is no conversation with them anymore.  Shit, look at this board -- ANY time that an argument with a GOP supporter started going poorly, the conversation is shut down with "whatever, y'all are baby killers, so I'll never support a Dem."  That's it.  There's no further thought or conversation.  And the converse is true.  A GOP candidate could have a platform of "nuke the planet, hang all minorities, and send government checks to anyone who pours dioxin into rivers, oh, and also, I am 'pro-life,'" and that candidate will get 100% support from GOP voters. 

Dogma breaks politics.  Politics becomes non-functional.

And yeah.....Trump has never lived in a world outside of himself.  On a personal level, that makes him perhaps the least qualified, least suited man for the office who is presently alive on earth.

[Aqua Buddha 14519]

1 hour ago, pacman said:

Very surprised.

 

I don't get the allure of Trump.

People who have nothing in common with him, have completely changed their view of him. From trashing him over the years, and in the primaries, to hanging on his every word.

I don't get why people think he is a single source of truth. Why they would ever think he is a valid source of truth?

I don't get why people think a lifelong grifter would clean up corruption.

I don't get why a lifelong political insider is suddenly a supposed outsider.

The shit has had me baffled for four years and now it is only getting worse.

This is America.  We have a never-ending pool of poor people that are willing to fight for rich people.  They desperately want to believe that a rich guy loves them back.