The Idiocracy of Donald J. Trump

[CMRivdogs]

I really believe it's almost embedded in their social DNA. Grand parents, parents, aunts and uncles all voted for Republicans. Especially after FDR, Kennedy (religious prejudice) Johnson (Great Society). In the south those who grew up with the Dixiecrats became Republicans with Nixon and Reagan.

 

[Tiger337]

Good news on inflation this morning.  It was down more than expected in October.  Inflation getting under control and people noticing it is going to be key in the next election.  The problem is that we ALWAYS have inflaton every year.  Even if the numbers show a significant slowing of inflation over the next year, it will be difficult to persuade people that things are getting better because it is not going to be 0 inflation.  It's a lot easier to persuade people that inflation is a problem than it's not a problem.  

[ewsieg]

1 hour ago, pfife said:

tarrifs are another great example thanks for bringing them up.  As Jim Cowan said, we don't even need to rely on promises that he will do it, he already did it.

Trump had a weird fascination with the trade deficit, and did all sorts of things to try to equalize trade deficits regardless of whether having a trade deficit with another nation was indicative of anything bad.  

Not that there are too many educated Trump voters, but if you run into one, don't bring up tarrifs.  Most put in place by Trump are still in place under Biden.

[oblong]

23 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I run into the same kind of thing with some friends.  They have this undying faith in the Republican party and are always talking about how terrible the democrats are even though they are not necessaily that conservative.  Some don't even like Trump, but they just seem conditioned to identify as Republican.  I don't think you can persuade people politically, at least not directly, because it's like a religion with some people.  You just have to hope they can eventually figure it out on their own.   

A lot of "republicans" think its the smarter party... big business, stocks, money, etc.  So they want to identify with that more than identifying with "the gays" and "poor people".

Even though they most likely are financially better off with D policies.  They are incapable of reconciling that.

 

[mtutiger]

20 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

I really believe it's almost embedded in their social DNA. Grand parents, parents, aunts and uncles all voted for Republicans. Especially after FDR, Kennedy (religious prejudice) Johnson (Great Society). In the south those who grew up with the Dixiecrats became Republicans with Nixon and Reagan.

 

That DNA takes a really long time to shed too.... it basically took the Southern Strategy for Democrats to start losing the FDR/New Deal DNA in the south, but even that was a slow burn. The suburbs have become more hostile to the GOP in recent years, but that has also been something that has happened over time.

To put into context, we've internalized a lot how bad suburbs have become for Donald Trump, particularly in the northern United States, but prior to 2008:

• Chester County PA (which Biden won 57-41 in 2020) voted once for a Democratic candidate between 1916 and 2008 (Johnson 1964)
• Kent County MI (Biden 52-46) voted three times for a Democratic candidate between 1888 and 2008 (1916, 1936, 1964)
• Kane and Dupage Counties in IL (Biden 56-42 and 57-41 respectively) NEVER voted for a Democrat in the 20th Century

Trends exist, but often I think people expect stuff to happen overnight and it doesn't because people are conditioned to vote the way they always have. Or that you vote or participate the way everyone always has because that's the way to get ahead wherever you live (which is definitely the case in the county I grew up in).

Either way, it happens in drips and drabs.

Edited November 14, 2023 by mtutiger

[Tiger337]

19 minutes ago, oblong said:

A lot of "republicans" think its the smarter party... big business, stocks, money, etc.  So they want to identify with that more than identifying with "the gays" and "poor people".

Even though they most likely are financially better off with D policies.  They are incapable of reconciling that.

 

That is true.  The funny thing though is its often poor people who identify most strongly with the party.  

[ewsieg]

As one of the conservative voices on this forum, I'll readily acknowledge the D party is the party of hand outs, but I don't think poor people are better off with D policies.  Maybe a little short term help, but long term, nah.  

Granted, I'll concede that argument is a tough one to make when the opposing party has changed it's fiscal policy from maintaining a strong economy to 'starving the beast (gov't)'.

[mtutiger]

43 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Good news on inflation this morning.  It was down more than expected in October.  Inflation getting under control and people noticing it is going to be key in the next election.  The problem is that we ALWAYS have inflaton every year.  Even if the numbers show a significant slowing of inflation over the next year, it will be difficult to persuade people that things are getting better because it is not going to be 0 inflation.  It's a lot easier to persuade people that inflation is a problem than it's not a problem.  

High interest rates are a big part of the story right now and are influencing perceptions as well.

Edited November 14, 2023 by mtutiger

[gehringer_2]

21 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

As one of the conservative voices on this forum, I'll readily acknowledge the D party is the party of hand outs, but I don't think poor people are better off with D policies.  Maybe a little short term help, but long term, nah.  

Granted, I'll concede that argument is a tough one to make when the opposing party has changed it's fiscal policy from maintaining a strong economy to 'starving the beast (gov't)'.

It depends on what you classify as a handout. The poor benefit when the government provides effective education, transportation and security services (as local business and employment cannot survive without safety) - all of which cost serious money, and in fact cost more to supply in depressed areas. The social utility of various direct subsidy programs has always been a matter of debate, but regardless of where any one comes down on any particular income transfer program, the truth is that the GOP is bad on all the things that do work as well as the things they claim don't work. So they are still worse for the poor than the Dems. (Rick Snyder having been standout counter example, until he self immolated in Flint!). And if you want to take a deeper dive into why there is so much urban poverty in the US in particular, it's because both parties have at various times since the beginning of the 20th century put policies into place that effectively destroyed the ability of the poor, and in particular the Black poor, to accumulate and maintain family social and economic equity. The two salient ones in my lifetime were "White flight" from US cities, which destroyed billions in family equity and employment opportunities in middle/lower middle class minority neighborhoods of US cities and from which cities like Detroit are still struggling to recovery 50 yrs later, and both political parties colluding in the collapse of US manufacturing employment. To ask whether one party or the other was more responsible for the 'suburbanization' of America or the embrace of 'globalization' are probably not even meaningful questions. The outcomes were cooked into the political process as a whole.

Edited November 14, 2023 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

14 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

I think my response is fine.  Not everybody has to be an alarmist.  

Why do you always tell me to leave it there or we'll have to agree to disagree?  It's a message board.  If one of us gets tired of the discussion, we can just go to a different thread or just leave and do something else.

Personally, I don't think Trump has changed for 40 years.  His vermin comment dosn't change anything. He has always been trash.  I am probably more annoyed that people haven't figured that out than anything else.  

 

 

Regardless of Trump's state of mind while using it, the danger in the vermin comment is less about what he consciously, literally and specifically intends to do by using it, and more about what using it gives the millions of his most ardent followers permission to do.

[chasfh]

11 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Ask them who was the last Republican president who didn't have a recession under his watch?  

11 hours ago, Dan Gilmore said:

Or mention inflation is a global problem and the US has had lower inflation than most of Europe. 

Your puny facts are no match for the power of MAGA!

[1984Echoes]

1 hour ago, mtutiger said:

... The suburbs have become more hostile to the GOP in recent years, but that has also been something that has happened over time.

...

Trends exist, but often I think people expect stuff to happen overnight and it doesn't because people are conditioned to vote the way they always have. Or that you vote or participate the way everyone always has because that's the way to get ahead wherever you live (which is definitely the case in the county I grew up in).

Either way, it happens in drips and drabs.

OR...

Something monumental happens that creates a VERY FAST/ SWIFT change, like:

Civil rights (the South switched fast from Dems to Republicans as a result)

Overturning Roe v Wade. The suburbs are changing FAST, right now, due specifically to this.

[chasfh]

3 hours ago, casimir said:

How the hell can anyone be a fence sitter with this asshole?  You either realize what a waste of oxygen he is, or you're an idiot.

I think you might be surprised by how many people don't follow presidential electoral politics such that they honestly can't tell the difference between the two, since they perceive no effect to their own lives lived entirely within the reach of their fingertips.

[chasfh]

3 hours ago, mtutiger said:

And Bannon and Miller? They'll likely be the ones in government and making policy during a Second Trump term.

Definitely nothing to be concerned about! Everything is great

Well, of course everything is not great, but there's definitely nothing to worry about! Has the country ever succumbed to post-constitutional authoritarian dictatorship before?

[Tiger337]

Just now, chasfh said:

I think you might be surprised by how many people don't follow presidential electoral politics such that they honestly can't tell the difference between the two, since they perceive no effect to their own lives lived entirely within the reach of their fingertips.

That was me not too long ago.  My life was better then!

The thing is they really don't have much effect on a lot of people's lives.  They do affect some people though and some day that could be me or you.  

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

A lot of "republicans" think its the smarter party... big business, stocks, money, etc.  So they want to identify with that more than identifying with "the gays" and "poor people".

Even though they most likely are financially better off with D policies.  They are incapable of reconciling that.

 

They also believe the Republican Party is much better with the economy than the Democratic Party. Why? Believe the media they consume has told them so over and over and over.

[chasfh]

1 minute ago, Tiger337 said:

That was me not too long ago.  My life was better then!

The thing is they really don't have much effect on a lot of people's lives.  They do affect some people though and some day that could be me or you.  

You can't tell people who can't see beyond their fingertips anything about "someday". There is only today. They are basically human goldfish.

Edited November 14, 2023 by chasfh

[oblong]

16 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

OR...

Something monumental happens that creates a VERY FAST/ SWIFT change, like:

Civil rights (the South switched fast from Dems to Republicans as a result)

Overturning Roe v Wade. The suburbs are changing FAST, right now, due specifically to this.

how much of it is also due to migration and surburan and exurban expansion?  What used to be farmland is now subdivision after subdivisions of new housing.  The people who lived in the cities in 1940 now live in what was "the boonies".

 

[chasfh]

I'm glad to see I am no longer the only guy on the Alarmist Non-Sense train when it comes to Trump. Took you guys long enough to board it with me. 😉😁

Now that it's becoming clearer to more and more people what kind of culture-based authoritarian dictatorship an unhinged and unrestrained Trump presidency would actually entail—basically because they are saying so in exact words—the $64 question will be what can be done to stop it, and I don't believe wishcasting oligarchs paying Trump to simply go away is even on the table. Personally, I think this country is going to have to cycle through some historically dark times, culminating in a comprehensive truth-and-reconciliation exercise, before it gets rooted out. That's probably going to be measured in decades, and many of us wouldn't live to see it all resolve. But if you have progeny, then you have a keen interest in that outcome.

Edited November 14, 2023 by chasfh

[1984Echoes]

2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I'm glad to see I am no longer the only guy on the Alarmist Non-Sense train when it comes to Trump. Took you guys ...

Now, I've been on that train with you from the start... Actually, starting in 2015 when he first announced. In the seat right next to ya'...

 

2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

... the $64 question will be what can be done to stop it, and I don't believe wishcasting oligarchs paying Trump to simply go away is even on the table. Personally, I think this country is going to have to cycle through some historically dark times, culminating in a comprehensive truth-and-reconciliation exercise, before it gets rooted out. That's probably going to be measured in decades, and many of us wouldn't live to see it all resolve. But if you have progeny, then you have a keen interest in it.

I think this will happen faster:

As soon as Republicans start losing vast amounts of political seats/ power. Some of that has already occurred. If that trickle becomes a flood then the Republican party swiftly implodes from infighting, and Establishment versus MAGA - which has already started in some cases - but the end of the Republican Party creates The MAGA Party and the No Labels Party as a result... It won't take decades for this to happen, it's already begun... See: Kevin McCarthy. And: Never-Trumpers. And: No Labels. And: Manchin's attempt to pull in Centrists (which will be Never-Trumpers or Establishment Republicans (probably the same thing), No Labels, Independents, maybe even Libertarians without the fringy/ cringy element) into some kind of coherence. 

[CMRivdogs]

21 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

That was me not too long ago.  My life was better then!

The thing is they really don't have much effect on a lot of people's lives.  They do affect some people though and some day that could be me or you.  

But they'll still blame Biden for high gas prices when oil production is at its highest output, not even considering the number of folks in their gas guzzling Class A's pulling a get around car AND a golf cart. Or high food prices.

[RatkoVarda]

Truth Social hemorrhaging money; I am certain that Trump will take the financial hit when it implodes rather than passing those losses onto his followers

[Tiger337]

13 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I'm glad to see I am no longer the only guy on the Alarmist Non-Sense train when it comes to Trump. Took you guys long enough to board it with me. 😉😁

Now that it's becoming clearer to more and more people what kind of culture-based authoritarian dictatorship an unhinged and unrestrained Trump presidency would actually entail—basically because they are saying so in exact words—the $64 question will be what can be done to stop it, and I don't believe wishcasting oligarchs paying Trump to simply go away is even on the table. Personally, I think this country is going to have to cycle through some historically dark times, culminating in a comprehensive truth-and-reconciliation exercise, before it gets rooted out. That's probably going to be measured in decades, and many of us wouldn't live to see it all resolve. But if you have progeny, then you have a keen interest in that outcome.

I can see over the coming decades the country is going to weaken if people continue to reject science, education, logic and any motivation to find the truth.  And another four years of Trump is not going to help!  My point is that we aren't going to go into an irreversible authoritarian dictatorship in four years, nor is a Biden victory going to fix anything.  It would just prolong the malaise and the impending sense of doom.  Americans are a shallow, unserious bunch.  Maybe we need some dark times to make us smarter.  I don't know.  

[CMRivdogs]

He'll just send out another fundraising plea blaming the Democrats and Communists who live in the country like vermin

[mtutiger]

25 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I'm glad to see I am no longer the only guy on the Alarmist Non-Sense train when it comes to Trump. Took you guys long enough to board it with me. 😉😁

I don't consider my position to be alarmist at all, FWIW. I actually don't even think my viewpoint has changed much from times on this board when I've argued positions that seem less alarmist.

My thing is that I'm just going to judge content for what it is and not engage in parsing it or explaining it away as "Trump being Trump" or some stuff.