How surprised are you by the Trump Era?

[Macanudo 12927]

38 minutes ago, TexArcher said:

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.

About how I feel.

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

6 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

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.

Or that believing, and voting, like rich people will lead to becoming rich. 

[Aqua Buddha 14518]

Just now, Pato del Muerto said:

Or that believing, and voting, like rich people will lead to becoming rich. 

Exactly.  One thing I like about union types is they don't believe the fantasy about rich people bestowing blessings on the proletariat.  They know CEO's would shit can us all if their stock went up a few points.

[Slacks 6791]

12 hours ago, Hookah Horns said:

I've long considered myself someone with a low opinion of the average American's intelligence. I'm also a student of history. Furthermore, I'd been lamenting the polarization in this country for a long time before Trump's election. Despite these, I never would have believed what's happened the past 5 years would happen. Not here. Not anytime soon. 

Not nearly half the electorate joining a cult of personality developing around a grotesque reality TV star narcissist. Not all the norm destruction, insults to institutions and assorted embarrassments. Not the insane amount of lying, "alternative facts", and attacks on the media. Not a batshit insane conspiracy theory gaining millions of believers. Not the Republican Party being controlled by a complete ass clown. Not this entire third-world disgrace. Not the ignorance of science and trying to wish away a pandemic. Nor all the other shit. 

I thought America was somehow above all of this. It couldn't happen here. The people would never abide it. We were immune, somehow. I'd often tried to imagine a dictatorship or something like Naziism taking hold in our democracy and I just couldn't do it. But now I can. 

Was I just naive? Have any of you experienced any of this without constant disbelief?

 

So... what I've been saying is... "Y'all see everything that is going on everywhere / anywhere else???  Some of those countries are a thousand years old... some are older... This country isn't 250 years old... This country's might was built on stealing and forced servitude (slavery).  If you think this country can't revert to what we look down on as barbaric or unintelligent, just watch and wait.  This country thrives on division. We love it. Watch and wait."

I'm not a student of history... I'm not global (but I've been a bunch of places). Our focus on wealth before health (and all else) and our love of division (ethnicity, sexuality, religion, geography, economics, speech patterns, sports preferences, idmas, name a thing...) makes it *easy* for us to melt down over ignorance (because we have a lot of it.)

 

What's really going to jack you up is when someone who is calculated and cool takes this lesson and implements it.  We'll be busy drinking Miller Lite, watching a game, watching a video, tapping on a phone, praising our pastors or whatever... when we *really* turn against us... and then we'll blame people who aren't like us, not realizing we're all like us... because we are us.

 

Fuck around and find out.

 

[Satchel 6908]

7 hours ago, slorch said:

Honesty and integrity prevent them from going all the way

 

Biggest surprise is how fucking one sided this thread is, given the past 6-8 months without any mention of  people's behavior towards race and justice, combined with wanton destruction of communities across the country.   It's just Trump as the problem though, right?.

The time has come for us to be as concerned about the causes of disorder as the disorder itself. Many of us are astounded that somebody as broken as Trump was able to increase his vote total by more than 10 million votes. We shouldn’t be. His racial appeals were more pointed. His attempts to divide were devoid of pretense. His four year long quest to normalize white grievance worked and millions of Americans bought it.

[Hookah Horns 3081]

7 hours ago, slorch said:

Honesty and integrity prevent them from going all the way

 

Biggest surprise is how fucking one sided this thread is, given the past 6-8 months without any mention of  people's behavior towards race and justice, combined with wanton destruction of communities across the country.   It's just Trump as the problem though, right?.

Nm

 

4 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Reading some of these threads about Trumpers and Republicans and what not caused me to have kind of an epiphany.

You can encapsulate Donald Trump and his presidency in two words:  "name calling."

That is the sum total of the Trump presidency:  calling people bad names.

And approximately half of the American population ate it the fuck up.  Bunch of gotdam little kids.

Insults apparently are what "strength" and "toughness" looks like to ~40% of the country. I guess it takes a really tough hombre to call someone fat, ugly, a POW, a loser, etc. on Twitter. 

I could see a child or teenager thinking name-calling from the POTUS is bad ass, but purported adults? 

On second thought, he wouldn't have even been respected in my childhood world, because his insults aren't at all witty, funny, or biting. They're always some lazy combo of cruel, superficial, baseless and/or nonsensical. 

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by Hookah Horns

[wildcat09 29256]

35 minutes ago, Snacks said:

So... what I've been saying is... "Y'all see everything that is going on everywhere / anywhere else???  Some of those countries are a thousand years old... some are older... This country isn't 250 years old... This country's might was built on stealing and forced servitude (slavery).  If you think this country can't revert to what we look down on as barbaric or unintelligent, just watch and wait.  This country thrives on division. We love it. Watch and wait."

I'm not a student of history... I'm not global (but I've been a bunch of places). Our focus on wealth before health (and all else) and our love of division (ethnicity, sexuality, religion, geography, economics, speech patterns, sports preferences, idmas, name a thing...) makes it *easy* for us to melt down over ignorance (because we have a lot of it.)

 

What's really going to jack you up is when someone who is calculated and cool takes this lesson and implements it.  We'll be busy drinking Miller Lite, watching a game, watching a video, tapping on a phone, praising our pastors or whatever... when we *really* turn against us... and then we'll blame people who aren't like us, not realizing we're all like us... because we are us.

 

Fuck around and find out.

 

Ruby Bridges' mom died yesterday. This Ruby Bridges: 

Ruby is 66 today; her mom was 86.  The past isn't even past. All of us who thought the forces that fought against integration were dead and gone are the real idiots.

[Bojack 2073]

1 hour ago, Pato del Muerto said:

48 star flag. Wtf?

I don't mean to speak for RomaVicta but I imagine the answer is that he'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before he'll recognize Missoura or Oklahoma. 

[Hookah Horns 3081]

4 hours 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 somehow hadn't considered the role that electing a black man POTUS had in creating Trumpism. That is an interesting but depressing notion to ponder. 

[Hookah Horns 3081]

3 hours ago, closetohumping said:

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.

You couldn't possibly have predicted he'd go on national TV and urge his fellow Americans to inject bleach or light to cure a viral infection. 

[TwiceHorn 31280]

1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

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.

Yeah.  I wonder about this.  Thanks in part to this site, I am "hypervigilant" about Trump, like no other president before.

[Hookah Horns 3081]

3 hours 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. 

My own mother defending that comment of his - just because he was on the R team - was bewildering and in retrospect, foreshadowed a lot. I never thought my parents, especially my genteel mother, would put their team winning far ahead of the country and basic decency. 

I can only imagine what is going to result from millions of children seeing their parents approve of his conduct while the leader of this country. 

[Paul Wesley 3277]

Good thread.  

Yeah, I'm shocked by the Trump era.  

NOT SO SHOCKED BY TRUMP HIMSELF  -  We had a lot of conservatives tell us in 2016 that when Trump said something stupid, he was really playing 4D chess.  But after four years of tweeting about "closing the boarders," about Mueller's lack of a "smocking gun," right up until last week's lament that "Votes cannot be cast after the Poles close," we ought to be able to unanimously agree that he's really fucking stupid.  But he's always been stupid.  

And he's always been a racist.  

He's always been a profoundly immoral person - cheating on his wives, cheating in business, bragging to Howard Stern that they couldn't throw him out of the Miss Teen pageant dressing room because he owned it, bragging about serial sexual assault, mocking the disabled, etc.  

PRETTY SHOCKED BY THE AMERICANS WHO SUPPORT HIM -  I'm looking at you, evangelical Christians.  You guys never stopped vigorously and loudly supporting a guy who behaves every single day in a way that is the exact opposite of the way Jesus told you to behave.  I'll never understand it, and I'll never forget it.  

I suppose the only thing I can conclude is that propaganda works.  I mean, it works really well, and there are a lot of people like me who were stupid to think that it couldn't work just as well in a liberal democracy as it does anywhere else in the world.   Rush Limbaugh... out there telling conservatives for three decades, "Liberals hate America."  "Liberals want to destroy this country."  His own rhetoric has been turned up to a boil, and Americans can now live in an entire ecosphere where the "news" tells them (and they confirm to one another) that liberals are evil people who burn down cities, celebrate the death of police officers, and want to murder full-term infants.  And that stuff is cemented into their brains as factual, because NO ONE in their world will argue otherwise.

REALLY SHOCKED BY THE ELECTED LEADERS IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY - In 2019, Trump tweeted several times about how four black and brown Congresswomen (all very much Americans, let's point out) should "go back and fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came."  Hours later, he mentioned Ilhan Omar by name at a rally in North Carolina, and he stood and smirked while the all-white crowd chanted "Send her back!" 

I have pretty low expectations for the rabid Trumpkins at a rally that looks like a colorized version of 1930's Germany... but what's still unbelievable to me is that every single elected Republican in the national government didn't call a press conference the next day to repudiate and condemn that bullshit.  Every single one of them just ran past reporters and hid in their offices for a couple days so they wouldn't have to answer for it.  And why?  Because they didn't want to lose the privilege and power of their office.  

Six months later, those same boot-licking cowards wouldn't even allow Republican-appointed witnesses (Sondland, among others) to speak at an impeachment trial, because they'd rather win their own re-elections than allow the public confirmation that Trump is undeniably a traitor to this country.  

It's fucking disgraceful.

Edited November 11, 2020 by Paul Wesley

[RomaVicta 29792]

2 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

48 star flag. Wtf?

Pennsylvania and Arizona have lost statehood by Executive Decree.

[Hookah Horns 3081]

3 hours 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.

I know too many people whose moralism on other things suggests that trump offends them and that they didn't vote for him. But they did, twice. 

[hayden_horn 11360]

16 minutes ago, Paul Wesley said:

Good thread.  

Yeah, I'm shocked by the Trump era.  

NOT SO SHOCKED BY TRUMP HIMSELF  -  We had a lot of conservatives tell us in 2016 that when Trump said something stupid, he was really playing 4D chess.  But after four years of tweeting about "closing the boarders," about Mueller's lack of a "smocking gun," right up until last week's lament that "Votes cannot be cast after the Poles close," we ought to be able to unanimously agree that he's really fucking stupid.  But he's always been stupid.  

And he's always been a racist.  

He's always been a profoundly immoral person - cheating on his wives, cheating in business, bragging to Howard Stern that they couldn't throw him out of the Miss Teen pageant dressing room because he owned it, bragging about serial sexual assault, mocking the disabled, etc.  

PRETTY SHOCKED BY THE AMERICANS WHO SUPPORT HIM -  I'm looking at you, evangelical Christians.  You guys never stopped vigorously and loudly supporting a guy who behaves every single day in a way that is the exact opposite of the way Jesus told you to behave.  I'll never understand it, and I'll never forget it.  

I suppose the only thing I can conclude is that propaganda works.  I mean, it works really well, and there are a lot of people like me who were stupid to think that it couldn't work just as well in a liberal democracy as it does anywhere else in the world.   Rush Limbaugh... out there telling conservatives for three decades, "Liberals hate America."  "Liberals want to destroy this country."  His own rhetoric has been turned up to a boil, and Americans can now live in an entire ecosphere where the "news" tells them (and they confirm to one another) that liberals are evil people who burn down cities, celebrate the death of police officers, and want to murder full-term infants.  And that stuff is cemented into their brains as factual, because NO ONE in their world will argue otherwise.

REALLY SHOCKED BY THE ELECTED LEADERS IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY - In 2019, Trump tweeted several times about how four black and brown Congresswomen (all very much Americans, let's point out) should "go back and fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came."  Hours later, he mentioned Ilhan Omar by name at a rally in North Carolina, and he stood and smirked while the all-white crowd chanted "Send her back!" 

I have pretty low expectations for the rabid Trumpkins at a rally that looks like a colorized version of 1930's Germany... but what's still unbelievable to me is that every single elected Republican in the national government didn't call a press conference the next day to repudiate and condemn that bullshit.  Every single one of them just ran past reporters and hid in their offices for a couple days so they wouldn't have to answer for it.  And why?  Because they didn't want to lose the privilege and power of their office.  

Six months later, those same boot-licking cowards wouldn't even allow Republican-appointed witnesses (Sondland, among others) to speak at an impeachment trial, because they'd rather win their own re-elections than allow the public confirmation that Trump is undeniably a traitor to this country.  

It's fucking disgraceful.

this is a fantastic post, but i think the third thing follows from the second. somehow, trump speaks to a portion of america that the democrats have kind of abandoned. think about trump's inroads in the valley. trump spent money there. there were ads in spanish. the democrats didn't show up until the last week of the election. you can hate on trump, but he speaks to people, he actively courts votes. he takes them to dinner, calls them every day, makes them feel special. the democrats think they can just show up at 11pm after weeks of no contact and close the deal. texas democrats need to get their shit together. they have this idea that the valley is a firewall and that valley hispanics are like san antonio/el paso/houston/austin/dallas hispanics. they aren't. they valley is a whole different thing, and the democrats need to realize, finally, that wendy davis or mj hegar or even the fucking castro brothers arent going to carry the valley in perpetuity.

Edited November 11, 2020 by hayden_horn

[Hookah Horns 3081]

13 minutes ago, Paul Wesley said:

 

Six months later, those same boot-licking cowards wouldn't even allow Republican-appointed witnesses (Sondland, among others) to speak at an impeachment trial, because they'd rather win their own re-elections than allow the public confirmation that Trump is undeniably a traitor to this country.  

It's fucking disgraceful.

That refusal is coming in handy even now as they spew their habitual whataboutism: "the Dems delegitimized and complained about 2016 without any evidence, so hush up about dear leader doing the same!" 

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

15 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Pennsylvania and Arizona have lost statehood by Executive Decree.

I’m certain he either asked about doing this or tried to do it and was stopped. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

1 minute ago, hayden_horn said:

trump speaks to a portion of america that the democrats have kind of abandoned.

In 2016, Trump was able to articulate a vision with big ideas using simple slogans. Granted, they were awful ideas but he dreamed big and that resonated with a population struggling to see a brighter future.  He made the impossible seem possible.  Democrats have a hard time appreciating how effective Trump was at this b/c they can’t get past all the flaws.  

[Hookah Horns 3081]

2 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

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. 

Perhaps I need to study those decades more, but I'm having a really hard time buying this. 

[Brisketexan 104622]

1 minute ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

In 2016, Trump was able to articulate a vision with big ideas using simple slogans. Granted, they were awful ideas but he dreamed big and that resonated with a population struggling to see a brighter future.  He made the impossible seem possible.  Democrats have a hard time appreciating how effective Trump was at this b/c they can’t get past all the flaws.  

You are making it more complicated than it really was.  Trump was the lunkhead who won the 4th grade class president election because he promised "recess all day every day, ice cream for lunch, no more tests ever!, and the teachers will do whatever I tell them!"  The crowd cheers, and he wins by a 90-10 margin over the smart kid whose plan was "work with the teachers on spreading out our homework schedule, and meet with the principal about painting the rusty monkey bars on the playground."

[youdunnf'dup 2147]

As the election was playing out 4 years ago I was shocked. Like, genuinely shocked out of my mind. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense. A lot of what he was saying has always been how most white people feel. 

[Bat Guano 359]

When he came down the escalator I thought, well, this clown will be good for a few laughs.

When he won the R nomination I thought, well, good luck with that; no sensible person will vote for this clown.

When I first heard the words "President Trump," I thought I was taking crazy pills; might as well say President Bozo. 

Then he turned out to be less Bozo and more John Wayne Gacy.

As with others, I'm mostly surprised by all the enablers. Seems like at first they went along with him because they were afraid he'd say mean things about them on Twitter, and now it's the same but with some other lagniappes in the form of keeping their seats and SC justices. Without them he'd still be relatively harmless Bozo.

[mdmost 42865]

I'm not surprised by the era. I am surprised by this odd hold he has over the right. I always chuckled at the notion the right had about the cult of Obama. Never mind, Obama's election being a monumental chapter in the history of a country founded on slavery. The right was so desirous for that feeling Obama gave the left that they found it in Trump. He embodies all the qualities they admire: money, fame, greed, stepping on others who are different, a lack of empathy which is for snowflakes, a desire for homogeneity, and anger at a changing America. The Obama era led to the Trump era because they were so afraid of a society they saw slipping away from them. The cult like sway is the thing that worries me. I get being excited about a President. But this fawning over every word and believing the absolute bullshit he throws out is something I never thought I'd see in America. I shudder thinking it took a pandemic to get us to the point where beating him was even a possibility. Then you couple that with him garnering over 70 million votes. I don't think all 70 million are cult followers but it has to be more than half. I don't see how anyone could look at the past year and think he's worthy of 4 more. That's the part I can't understand or wrap my head around.  I can only see voting for him because you truly love him so you don't care about his flaws or you voted for him because you're afraid of losing more of what you think he's going to stop you from losing. It certainly can't be that you voted for him out of optimism. 

Edited November 11, 2020 by mdmost

[RDCanecutter 26275]

37 minutes ago, Hookah Horns said:

Perhaps I need to study those decades more, but I'm having a really hard time buying this. 

Well, Vietnam cost us many more lives than current wars, and most guys didn't get to decide if they wanted to go or not. It may be apocryphal, but I think Nixon considered nukes.

Dead Kennedys, Dead MLK, Wallace screaming like Suthun Hitluh (I saw him at a rally where they gave out free bbq afterwards, it's why we went. He was angry but boring, and the bbq sucked.)

Right wing fringe didn't larp, they shot people, sometimes they found the bodies buried in dams. Bombed churches. Left wing fringe bombed everything else, didn't larp either.

Fewer mass shootings, it had that going for it.

Was against the law to be gay. Literally against the law.

Kirk kissed Uhuru and it was a big damn deal.

Mean people would physically kick the shit out of people they didn't like. It was like gladiator school out by the baseball dugout.

[edit-- I can't even process how much more shit women had to go through back then.]

 

I guess the best way to put it, is that the bad back then was a lot rawer and more physical. Now, we have Trump making people ill, but it's more mind games. Still real. Depends on what bugs you more.

Edited November 11, 2020 by RDCanecutter

[TornACL 7676]

Bear with me, but I don't think Trump is pure evil, as he was described upthread.

He is hopelessly incompetent, not intellectually curious, and his only currency is whatever feeds his narcissism.

This makes him singularly susceptible to manipulation. The evil is Bannon, Miller, et al, who were so easily able to garner influence in this administration and direct its actions. They did it simply by playing to his insatiable appetite for attention.

Trump is a useful idiot, and a mirror that reflects and amplifies the evil around him.

He's a piece of shit, and a coward, no doubt. But imo, calling him evil gives him too much credit. He didn't create this worldview, because he has no worldview. To have a worldview would require taking a moment to think about anything other than himself. 

Edited November 11, 2020 by TornACL

[Bojack 2073]

I thought Trump's campaign was over when he said what he did about POWs.  After that didn't happen, I felt that nothing would ever turn off his supporters.  I'm surprised he won in 2016 and that it was as close as it was this time.  Donald Trump has himself acted like I thought he would for the last 4 years but I did not expect that he would, even after losing, have such unwavering support among Republicans.   I think we'll be done with Trump himself very soon but I dread what's to come more than ever.  

I saw Ralph Nader speak somewhere in Austin in 2002.  I remember him comparing W to Nixon and saying that he never would've imagined that we'd be looking back at Nixon with nostalgia.  Fuck Ralph for 2000 and the wars, but he was right that things can always get worse.   The right wing bullshit "news" machine makes money.  It's state media that doesn't need to be propped up by the state.  It's only getting worse as the people that consume it are getting more insular, not to mention growing in number.  Packed courts, gerrymandered districts, and disproportionate power for rural voters because of the makeup of the Senate and Electoral College are going to continue to work against us along with the right wing disinformation machine.  In 2022, we might experience a Republican wave since we'll be the party in the White House in a mid-term.  In 2024, Republicans are apt to nominate someone every bit as awful as Trump but that's much less of a bungling idiot.  Democrats need to sell a vision that will help the lives of regular people.  We'll never win the way we need to to implement real change by just not being Republicans.     

[pacman 7329]

I blame the farce that is Fox "News" amd the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine long before I blame a supposed racist reaction to a black President. Just my opinion.

[Slacks 6791]

18 minutes ago, pacman said:

I blame the farce that is Fox "News" amd the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine long before I blame a supposed racist reaction to a black President. Just my opinion.

People of Facebook (people and the social internet)... Fox News just follows whatever the trend is... They're a media outlet that sells ads.

One of our own People of Facebook was ready to go coon hunting, if you recall, in 2008...  Fox could go off the air today, and the internet would just roll on keeping people entertained with the thing they love most... hatred and division.

People have been people from day one. People are going to people until people evolve or destroy the earth and each other. 

We're not good to 'others'. I accept it.

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

People are people so why should it be

That you and I should get along so awfully?

[Brisketexan 104622]

Just now, Pato del Muerto said:

People are people so why should it be

That you and I should get along so awfully?

Because you undercook motherfucking bacon, that's why.  Motherfucker.

[RDCanecutter 26275]

Every time I eat bacon and drink black coffee, my colon becomes Trump's brain while tweeting.

[Brisketexan 104622]

12 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

Every time I eat bacon and drink black coffee, my colon becomes Trump's brain while tweeting.

Make that coffee and a banana, and it's like magic.  I produce a torrent of Trump Executive Orders.

[youdunnf'dup 2147]

45 minutes ago, pacman said:

I blame the farce that is Fox "News" amd the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine long before I blame a supposed racist reaction to a black President. Just my opinion.

 

18 minutes ago, Snacks said:

People of Facebook (people and the social internet)... Fox News just follows whatever the trend is... They're a media outlet that sells ads.

One of our own People of Facebook was ready to go coon hunting, if you recall, in 2008...  Fox could go off the air today, and the internet would just roll on keeping people entertained with the thing they love most... hatred and division.

People have been people from day one. People are going to people until people evolve or destroy the earth and each other. 

We're not good to 'others'. I accept it.

Bingo. They have a base that they need to appease. That’s why they were criticized so hard for calling Arizona. They called it because their algorithm said it’s over. Nothing more, nothing less. But they got killed across all conservative circles.

[RDCanecutter 26275]

4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Make that coffee and a banana, and it's like magic.  I produce a torrent of Trump Executive Orders.

Coffee, egg, bacon, cantaloupe, and walk back from Red River Cafe for the guaranteed reading room experience.

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

21 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Because you undercook motherfucking bacon, that's why.  Motherfucker.

Wrong.gif

[Bevo14 8274]

[staboner 4959]

2 hours ago, Snacks said:

So... what I've been saying is... "Y'all see everything that is going on everywhere / anywhere else???  Some of those countries are a thousand years old... some are older... This country isn't 250 years old... This country's might was built on stealing and forced servitude (slavery).  If you think this country can't revert to what we look down on as barbaric or unintelligent, just watch and wait.  This country thrives on division. We love it. Watch and wait."

I'm not a student of history... I'm not global (but I've been a bunch of places). Our focus on wealth before health (and all else) and our love of division (ethnicity, sexuality, religion, geography, economics, speech patterns, sports preferences, idmas, name a thing...) makes it *easy* for us to melt down over ignorance (because we have a lot of it.)

 

What's really going to jack you up is when someone who is calculated and cool takes this lesson and implements it.  We'll be busy drinking Miller Lite, watching a game, watching a video, tapping on a phone, praising our pastors or whatever... when we *really* turn against us... and then we'll blame people who aren't like us, not realizing we're all like us... because we are us.

 

Fuck around and find out.

 

great post. a backbone of victory (with wanton disregard for other folks) = overheated selfishness.

that disease creates a lack of logic and ensures all parties can both experience their own ills and look away at the other's ills. 

everything else just rolls into it - racism, sexism, all the isms that keep you up at night

pandemic was a chance to come together but sadly the demons among us / are us made it worse.

I would suppose other places just have had more collective pain and all. 

its really the global reason my family packed it up. this lack of public good or appreciation for anything beyond my front yard. lest we dig up the thread again "what do i tell my children about Trump as president" and then overwhelming flood of responses that encapsulate this disease so well. 

DO A BETTER JOB PARENTING YOU DUMBFUCKS AND NONE OF THIS WILL EVER MATTER / end transmission

(good thread. appreciate reading various responses. ya'll homies be cool now)

[atomheartbevo 89447]

5 hours ago, 4th&Five said:

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

1 hour ago, pacman said:

I blame the farce that is Fox "News" amd the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine long before I blame a supposed racist reaction to a black President. Just my opinion.

I think it’s a perfect storm of Fox News hitting their stride, combined with Obama.  I would almost bet money that most cheering on the birther stuff didn’t believe the birther nonsense, but they had a Black person in their lives they didn’t like, or maybe they lost a promotion to a minority, or maybe they just had shitty lives and blamed everybody else.   

Here comes Obama, and Trump is out there saying “this Black guy doesn’t deserve to be President or have this success”. People like Trump, and others who absolutely knew better, used the birther bullshit to further their goals.  

 Obama was the proverbial whipping boy, and they get to claim they aren’t racist, just American.  

[wildcat09 29256]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

I think it’s a perfect storm of Fox News hitting their stride, combined with Obama.  I would almost bet money that most cheering on the birther stuff didn’t believe the birther nonsense, but they had a Black person in their lives they didn’t like, or maybe they lost a promotion to a minority, or maybe they just had shitty lives and blamed everybody else.   

Here comes Obama, and Trump is out there saying “this Black guy doesn’t deserve to be President or have this success”. People like Trump, and others who absolutely knew better, used the birther bullshit to further their goals.  

 Obama was the proverbial whipping boy, and they get to claim they aren’t racist, just American.  

They believed it when it was psychologically useful for them to believe it. 

[Satchel 6908]

5 hours ago, TornACL said:

Bear with me, but I don't think Trump is pure evil, as he was described upthread.

He is hopelessly incompetent, not intellectually curious, and his only currency is whatever feeds his narcissism.

This makes him singularly susceptible to manipulation. The evil is Bannon, Miller, et al, who were so easily able to garner influence in this administration and direct its actions. They did it simply by playing to his insatiable appetite for attention.

Trump is a useful idiot, and a mirror that reflects and amplifies the evil around him.

He's a piece of shit, and a coward, no doubt. But imo, calling him evil gives him too much credit. He didn't create this worldview, because he has no worldview. To have a worldview would require taking a moment to think about anything other than himself. 

Some may believe Trump’s attempt to bribe the Ukrainian president was purely political but when one considers what he was willing to do in order to get a talking point to use against Biden, he meets the definition of evil. He’s also cravenly cruel, blur he’s evil as well.

[Bat Guano 359]

15 hours ago, Satchel said:

Some may believe Trump’s attempt to bribe the Ukrainian president was purely political but when one considers what he was willing to do in order to get a talking point to use against Biden, he meets the definition of evil. He’s also cravenly cruel, blur he’s evil as well.

I think he's a true sociopath - completely amoral, willing to do whatever he thinks he can get away with to benefit himself. These people have learned to pretend they have morals, by watching other people and modeling their behavior, but it's just an act; they don't understand why people would willingly give up a personal advantage for some crazy reason like, it's the right thing to do, or because they don't want to hurt other people. This is distinct from someone who is evil, who actively wants to hurt people, but the biggest difference is that the amoral sociopath is better able to hide his motives, because he's done it all his life and refined it to a fine art. Trump has been conning people his whole life, literally, and he's pretty good at it; that's why so many people still fall for his act. So in that respect he's actually more dangerous than someone who is actively evil, who is easier to spot.

[Brisketexan 104622]

3 minutes ago, Bat Guano said:

I think he's a true sociopath - completely amoral, willing to do whatever he thinks he can get away with to benefit himself. These people have learned to pretend they have morals, by watching other people and modeling their behavior, but it's just an act; they don't understand why people would willingly give up a personal advantage for some crazy reason like, it's the right thing to do, or because they don't want to hurt other people. This is distinct from someone who is evil, who actively wants to hurt people, but the biggest difference is that the amoral sociopath is better able to hide his motives, because he's done it all his life and refined it to a fine art. Trump has been conning people his whole life, literally, and he's pretty good at it; that's why so many people still fall for his act. So in that respect he's actually more dangerous than someone who is actively evil, who is easier to spot.

This.

Trump is a true sociopath, serving only himself.  So, what makes him horrifying is NOT that he'd happily kill a million people because he genuinely despises them, and thinks they are a plague on humanity.  What makes him horrifying is that the decision to kill a million people would be as insignificant to him as the decision to dust some crumbs off of his coat.  He would do it without any regard or consideration for other human lives, because he has none.  He is INCAPABLE of having concern for others.

Dust off coat.  Check.

Move pencil on desk to the pencil caddy.  Check.

Check phone for messages.  Check.

Extinguish 1 million human lives.  Check.

Order lunch.  Check.

 

You cannot understand Trump until you understand what a narcissist sociopath really is.  Then, once you do.....buckle up, it's fucking horrifying that such a person has this much power.

[yoladu 4067]

On 11/11/2020 at 11:08 AM, atomheartbevo said:

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

yep.

[Hookah Horns 3081]

On 11/11/2020 at 4:42 PM, atomheartbevo said:

I think it’s a perfect storm of Fox News hitting their stride, combined with Obama.  I would almost bet money that most cheering on the birther stuff didn’t believe the birther nonsense, but they had a Black person in their lives they didn’t like, or maybe they lost a promotion to a minority, or maybe they just had shitty lives and blamed everybody else.   

No, man. They all believe what they're told to believe. 

That's the first rule of being a Trumper. 

[fattyflattie 4636]

On 11/11/2020 at 11:28 AM, closetohumping said:

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

My experience is exactly opposite. 95% of the people I routinely associate with lean center right/right and I can think of about 5 that “love Trump”.  The rest are just Catholic (RvW), gun people, or mostly people who think they aren’t getting a fair shake on taxes.  True or not, the whole “50% of the populace doesn’t pay taxes” has stuck with many.  Add in a few months of the 50% that supposedly don’t pay taxes burning down cities and looting Chicago, and that doesn’t help.  Throw in the fringe left, and they’d rather have an unaffected life with a shitbag president and maintain a 200k O&G salary.  So squarely into the “got mine, fuck yours” category.  I don’t believe that’s necessarily an American ethos though.  I can only think of one that feels threatened by Biden, fwiw. 

[henrygandorf 29177]

17 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

My experience is exactly opposite. 95% of the people I routinely associate with lean center right/right and I can think of about 5 that “love Trump”.  The rest are just Catholic (RvW), gun people, or mostly people who think they aren’t getting a fair shake on taxes.  True or not, the whole “50% of the populace doesn’t pay taxes” has stuck with many.  Add in a few months of the 50% that supposedly don’t pay taxes burning down cities and looting Chicago, and that doesn’t help.  Throw in the fringe left, and they’d rather have an unaffected life with a shitbag president and maintain a 200k O&G salary.  So squarely into the “got mine, fuck yours” category.  I don’t believe that’s necessarily an American ethos though.  I can only think of one that feels threatened by Biden, fwiw. 

yep.  the right is definitely way better at messaging.

[closetohumping 17401]

7 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

My experience is exactly opposite. 95% of the people I routinely associate with lean center right/right and I can think of about 5 that “love Trump”.  The rest are just Catholic (RvW), gun people, or mostly people who think they aren’t getting a fair shake on taxes.  True or not, the whole “50% of the populace doesn’t pay taxes” has stuck with many.  Add in a few months of the 50% that supposedly don’t pay taxes burning down cities and looting Chicago, and that doesn’t help.  Throw in the fringe left, and they’d rather have an unaffected life with a shitbag president and maintain a 200k O&G salary.  So squarely into the “got mine, fuck yours” category.  I don’t believe that’s necessarily an American ethos though.  I can only think of one that feels threatened by Biden, fwiw. 

A lot of my friends share the same trait only they love Trump.   Certainly have a few that believe don needs to move on

[fattyflattie 4636]

7 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

yep.  the right is definitely way better at messaging.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that.  

[WhatTheBuck 28711]

16 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

I wouldn’t necessarily say that.  

I would. The left needs their own version of Frank Luntz.