The Great White Wail: The Not-So-Silent White Majority

[Jacob]

There is a reason why no billionaire is in favor of free market. When you have made it, you become an enemy of the system and don't want any start up to disrupt your share of the market.

Now we Trump, we have an opportunity, but we have to keep the preasure on him so he have to fulfill his campaign promises. We have to keep his feet to the fire, so to speak.

Right now he is doing well picking up his cabinet, with sessions apparently in the bag, and Mad Dog Mattis probably as well, but Mitt Romney have been circling him, and if Romney gets a job in his administration we are going to the streets. That guy is fuckin traitor and a chamber of commerce hack. Fuck him side ways.
Romney sold out in his second debate with the community organizer in chief back in 2012 when he refused to drop the hammer.

Good luck to you and yours Siegy.

You elected a grifter to be president. Trump, his children, and his billionaire friends are going to make themselves extremely wealthy at the expense of your institutions, the tax payers, and non-connected businesses.

[Siege]

There is a reason why no billionaire is in favor of free market. When you have made it, you become an enemy of the system and don't want any start up to disrupt your share of the market.

Now we Trump, we have an opportunity, but we have to keep the preasure on him so he have to fulfill his campaign promises. We have to keep his feet to the fire, so to speak.

Right now he is doing well picking up his cabinet, with sessions apparently in the bag, and Mad Dog Mattis probably as well, but Mitt Romney have been circling him, and if Romney gets a job in his administration we are going to the streets. That guy is fuckin traitor and a chamber of commerce hack. Fuck him side ways.
Romney sold out in his second debate with the community organizer in chief back in 2012 when he refused to drop the hammer.

Good luck to you and yours Siegy.

You elected a grifter to be president. Trump, his children, and his billionaire friends are going to make themselves extremely wealthy at the expense of your institutions, the tax payers, and non-connected businesses.

You mean like the Clintons and their fundation, and pay for play while ad sec of state and all that graft?

[Siege]

Besides, if Trump goes off the rails and turns alt right or ctrl left I will be the first one denouncing him.

I don't give a fuck about how nice the prez is. I only care about free market capitalism, small government and our constitutional freedoms. And the technological singularity, which is really the end game.

[frunk]

Protectionism is just poorly conceived socialism.  You make everybody pay to prop up a few select businesses.

The thing that drives me nuts is that US manufacturing is actually doing pretty well, it just has moved on to new sectors and become increasingly automated.  Protectionism might boost some areas, but is likely to hurt others even more and will almost certainly increase the pace of automation (assuming it doesn't damage the economy too badly).

It's pretty amazing the double speak going here, where Siege is bitterly clinging to the words free market while having a personal definition which is completely the opposite of its actual meaning.

[Jacob]

You mean like the Clintons and their fundation, and pay for play while ad sec of state and all that graft?

That stuff - even if we take it at 100% at the face value which you present it as* - will pale in comparison to the shit Trump is going to pull.

*I don't.

[Jacob]

Besides, if Trump goes off the rails and turns alt right or ctrl left I will be the first one denouncing him.

The damage will be done by the time you face the facts, alas.

I don't give a fuck about how nice the prez is. I only care about free market capitalism, small government and our constitutional freedoms. And the technological singularity, which is really the end game.

I don't think any of those will be served by the crony capitalist you supported, but I suppose we'll see.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I am open to bilateral trade agreements which are fair. Not to unconditionally opening the American market to foreign interests for free.

The funny thing is that in countries outside the US, the opposition to free trade agreements are based on not wanting to let the US reap inordinate benefits for free. You think you're getting screwed by the world - the rest of the world thinks you're screwing them.

When it comes to bilateral trade agreements, of course, the real beneficiaries are going to be the oligarchs next to Trump - you know, his kids and the billionaires he's appointing to top government positions.

A lot of this is more about the billionaire class in the U.S. and the large multinational corporations, we actually benefit very little from Microsoft and Apple making big boats of money in Europe or etc, that money largely never makes its way back to the broad U.S. economy, at least not in an efficient way. It does make a small portion of corporate top level managers much richer than they were before, and private equity types, big money investors and etc.

[Barrister]

alt right or ctrl left

I chuckled.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Lets hope that Trump isn't part of the ctrl-alt-delete faction.

[garbon]

Lets hope that Trump isn't part of the ctrl-alt-delete faction.

I guess its okay if we've saved all our work before hand.

[Razgovory]

You mean like the Clintons and their fundation, and pay for play while ad sec of state and all that graft?

Please link us to this "graft".

[celedhring]

Lets hope that Trump isn't part of the ctrl-alt-delete faction.

I guess its okay if we've saved all our work before hand.

We should go Timmy and load up the Jan 2016 save.

[Syt]

Can we edit the save file first?

[dps]

Anyway, to restate, here is my concern:  the good guys have not yet figured out a way to combat the "firehose of falsehoods" tactic.  It just seems to work;  it works for Putin abroad and it works for Trump at home (and has been working for alt right and whoever came before them).  At best is sows confusion and hampers resolve about the good guys, at worst it actually makes people believe in things that are false, and it makes them believe it so much that any evidence of patent falsity of what they believe is obviously a propaganda campaign.  If this tactic, and the people employing it, keep winning, the days of both democracy and free speech as we know it are numbered.

Ok, that's more reasonable, but I still say it's foolish to consider a buffoon like Trump an existential threat to democracy.  Soviet communism was an existential threat to democracy;  the southern slaveholding interest was a threat to democracy (and not simply because of chattel slavery per se, but because of the unwillingness to abide by election results--you retards out in California who want to succeed take note);  Trumpism's not. 

Jacob's right--we just elected a grifter.  But in a way, that's OK.  By no means am I saying that graft is good, but American democracy has survived graft for 230+ years;  we can survive it for another 4 or 8.

[grumbler]

Jacob's right--we just elected a grifter.  But in a way, that's OK.  By no means am I saying that graft is good, but American democracy has survived graft for 230+ years;  we can survive it for another 4 or 8.

In my hopeful moments, I think this way as well.  However, i am unable to shake off the fear that the grifter-in-chief and his cronies will be able to embed the grifter clique in DC for the long term.   A huge chunk of the electorate, including about 50% of the college-educated, seem to prefer feel-good grifterism to truth. 

The first post-truth president may not be the last.