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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
As Tacitus says, "Crime once exposed has no refuge, but in audacity."
I think Trump's audacity is rooted in privilege. Privilege of being born into money, privilege of being a celebrity and "being on TV", and above all privilege of being white and male. Outwardly, Trump represents the image of American success and in the age of mass media, image matters more than reality, and with success comes blanket condoning and pardoning of everything you do.
Obviously the voters latched on to him because he was the most extreme change to Obama who achieved everything on merit, and that made them very angry. Trump-voters would honestly not care if their future doesn't improve, if jobs don't come back and so on, as long as "those people" (to use a phrase their hero Robert E. Lee liked) suffered.
edited 26th Nov '16 11:08:43 AM by JulianLapostat
See, now, friend, I reckon that line of thinkin' ain't never led nowhere productive. "My political opponents are all just terrible people and there ain't nothin' in their hearts but hatred" sure makes ya feel better 'bout yourself, but it don't do much to help y'address the problem, now, does it?
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.I think that description certainly applies to the white supremacists, but I can't imagine that the people in the Rust Belt who voted for him mostly due to being suckered by snake oil won't care if their lives just become shittier and shittier under Trump, which by all accounts it looks like it definitely will.
The only reason Trumps scandals didn't hurt him because A) people hurt his white supremacist message loud and clear and clung to it in spite of it and B) he wasn't a politician so there was literally nothing to lose, politically, except for his brand.
Take any one of those away and he would've sunk harder than a rock
New Survey coming this weekend!@TheHandle Yeah, that's the problem with stuff like the "basket of deplorables" comment (aside from it being such a weird thing to say). A vocal minority of Trump supporters are truly despicable , but the rest of them are normal people who are at least somewhat receptive to reason. I think that the Democratic party has largely ceased to care about the rural working class, and that this sort of thinking is just a rationalization for continuing to throw them under the bus.
@FFShinra Took her long enough. After several months of demonizing the Green party, it must be pretty embarrassing for the Democrats to be outdone by them in terms of actually trying to stop Trump.
edited 26th Nov '16 11:33:09 AM by henry42
One does not shake the box containing the sticky notes of doom!![]()
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Don't people usually blame the people in charge at the time if their present conditions are shitty though?
A lot of news reports from people talking to Trump supporters in the Rust Belt/rural areas said that if their lives don't improve they aren't voting for him again.
I.e they don't give a shit about minorities either way, but if their own lives don't improve they aren't gonna vote for Trump just to spite those people who they're indifferent to.
Doesn't necessarily mean they'll vote for someone ELSE like the democratic candidate, but the turnout might be a lot lower on Trump's end depending on how badly things go from here. Keep in mind that voter turnout in general was really bad this election too.
edited 26th Nov '16 11:36:51 AM by Draghinazzo
Someone posted a lot of links before the election ended and I can't be bothered to go back and look for them. She's got lots of ties to big business and groups that run completely opposite of what the Green Party stands for and has a long history of looking out for her own personal wealth more than her political stances.
Running off with the money would be pretty in character for her.
edited 26th Nov '16 11:44:12 AM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?To The Handle,
Look at this way, today's United Germany is an admirable republic, with good pacifist sentiments, a self-critical approach to nationalism...do you think they got that way by pretending that their forefathers really weren't "a basket of deplorables" or rather they did that by saying, as their President Richard von Weiszacker did that yes, most people were okay with Hitler and Nazism, didn't speak out enough and were culpable for what happened?
America has never come to terms with slavery, with Jim Crow and the Native American genocide in any comparable way, or the nastiness of its foreign policy. The fact that the monstrous lie of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy still infects the American media and education is proof of that (albeit not as much as it did before), and shows that "post-Truth" has a long history here.
You don't fight that by not facing reality and not confronting facts and you do everyone a disservice by letting people pass the buck. Remember trump didn't get the popular vote, his electorate is a shrinking demographic, so there's no need for any white flag or truce.
edited 26th Nov '16 11:45:11 AM by JulianLapostat
Excuse me? Stein said during the election that a Clinton victory would be worse than a Trump victory. She claimed Clinton was the real menace, and Trump was harmless. Now she's finally woken up, realized she helped elect a neofascist, and you want to give her credit over Clinton for it? Seriously?
Oh, and "months of demonizing the Green Party"? Last I checked Clinton barely acknowledged Stein's existence.
edited 26th Nov '16 12:24:45 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
@Yinyang, currently projections have the Canadian dollar dropping to 70 cents USD at least in 2017. Now, if Trump rapidly screws the American economy that could change, at least until the United States drags us screaming into an economic (and possibly political) abyss right along with them.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.TBF, I'll admit that that the recount effort isn't 100% about stopping Trump. The Green party dislikes Clinton too, but they need all the publicity they can get, and they don't want to be the scapegoat for a Trump victory.
@LeGarcon
@AmbarSonofDeshar

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But everyone else don't.
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."