What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

Started by FunkMonk, November 08, 2016, 11:02:57 PM

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The Minsky Moment

Quote from: Sheilbh on June 21, 2025, 07:01:10 PMAs I've said before I think a bit problem here is that the Democrats have the lowest approval rating in the history of that question and the sense I get is that they are really, profoundly unpopular in a way that I don't think they quite get. From what I've read I think there's a huge trust issue. I've said what I think they can do on that more ideological/trust front.

The Democrats are unpopular because half the country thinks they are "Marxist radicals" (without understanding what that means) and the other half thinks they are feckless boobs. You have your finger on the issue - the leadership of the party at this moment resides in two traditional New York City machine politicians with zero charisma.  I love NYC but this is not healthy at all.  Dems need to dig up some prairie populists, and fast.
We have, accordingly, always had plenty of excellent lawyers, though we often had to do without even tolerable administrators, and seen destined to endure the inconvenience of hereafter doing without any constructive statesmen at all.
--Woodrow Wilson

Razgovory

Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 23, 2025, 05:19:56 AMYou had me until the last bit.

They hate rednecks because they are oppressors, not because of contempt for poverty.

Rednecks deserve to be poor.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

DGuller

Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 23, 2025, 05:19:56 AMYou had me until the last bit.

They hate rednecks because they are oppressors, not because of contempt for poverty.
I think there is a lot of contempt, or at least severe failure to identify with, people whose education turned out to be ill-suited for the modern economy.

The Brain

Quote from: DGuller on June 23, 2025, 11:58:59 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 23, 2025, 05:19:56 AMYou had me until the last bit.

They hate rednecks because they are oppressors, not because of contempt for poverty.
I think there is a lot of contempt, or at least severe failure to identify with, people whose education turned out to be ill-suited for the modern economy.

People love baristas.
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

Valmy

#39094
Quote from: Razgovory on June 23, 2025, 01:17:12 AMWell the Democratic party is the party of government and elites, though nobody really wants to admit to this.  The party's base, affluent white professionals, have demanded, and gotten, some rather radical change in cultural sphere.  They are often quite loud about economic changes but these are frankly are superficial.  They rail against billionaires while being some of the prime beneficiary of inequalities, and in many cases the drivers of inequalities.  It really, really doesn't help that these inequalities are often justified by shifts in cultural attitudes.  The losers of our modern economy are often seen to deserve their poverty.

Yeah well screw those people. That is why we need leftwing populism.

But I think more specifically this is the party's DONOR base, not the actual voting base.

Still not going to line up all the LGBTQ people and have them shot though. Despite your never ending insistence that somehow it is bad we treat them better now. At least to some extent. I don't think being nice to LGBTQ people makes life any worse for anybody else.
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

Valmy

#39095
Quote from: DGuller on June 23, 2025, 11:58:59 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 23, 2025, 05:19:56 AMYou had me until the last bit.

They hate rednecks because they are oppressors, not because of contempt for poverty.
I think there is a lot of contempt, or at least severe failure to identify with, people whose education turned out to be ill-suited for the modern economy.

I mean even computer science grads have a fuck of a time finding jobs these days. Who the people whose education turned out to be correct is usually just based on luck. They just happened to hit the target at the right time, but things change so fast that is really hard to plan a life around.

You might as well get that English literature degree. By which I mean you might as well get a degree in something you are actually good at and care about, because there is usually room for people who are good and passionate rather than trying to smash yours square self into that round hole on the assumption it will be easy to get a job later. Because there is no guarantee of that.
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

DGuller

In any case, I think the key to understanding the Trump phenomenon is realizing that two things can both be right:  Trumpism really is a cult, but not everyone who joined the cult was fated to do it.  People generally join the cult because they already start off feeling alienated in some way, and I think the left has done its share of alienation.  I think it also bears stating that it is totally irrelevant to assign the degree of blame to people who joined the cult; however much blame they deserve, the votes count the same.

Valmy

Quote from: Razgovory on June 23, 2025, 11:43:07 AMRednecks deserve to be poor.

Deserving has nothing to do with anything.

Sure it is probably inevitable some people will be less well off than others. But it doesn't make any sense to me why we seem to be so much worse at providing food, shelter, education, and health services now than we did before when we were much less technologically advanced and poorer. It seems like either those things would be essentially guaranteed to everybody or should be so cheap that anybody could reasonable afford them with decent effort. Even for people who some think don't "deserve" things, as if any of us are a fair judge of that.
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

Valmy

Quote from: DGuller on June 23, 2025, 12:23:53 PMIn any case, I think the key to understanding the Trump phenomenon is realizing that two things can both be right:  Trumpism really is a cult, but not everyone who joined the cult was fated to do it.  People generally join the cult because they already start off feeling alienated in some way, and I think the left has done its share of alienation.  I think it also bears stating that it is totally irrelevant to assign the degree of blame to people who joined the cult; however much blame they deserve, the votes count the same.

Sure. I think they did the alienating by embracing neo-liberal economic policies and we need to return to a new deal mindset, or some 21st century version of it.

But at least the left remains out of the cult. The right became completely engulfed and destroyed by it.
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

crazy canuck

Quote from: Valmy on June 23, 2025, 12:24:59 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 23, 2025, 11:43:07 AMRednecks deserve to be poor.

Deserving has nothing to do with anything.

Sure it is probably inevitable some people will be less well off than others. But it doesn't make any sense to me why we seem to be so much worse at providing food, shelter, education, and health services now than we did before when we were much less technologically advanced and poorer. It seems like either those things would be essentially guaranteed to everybody or should be so cheap that anybody could reasonable afford them with decent effort. Even for people who some think don't "deserve" things, as if any of us are a fair judge of that.

Especially when redneck means a labourer who works outdoors. I am not sure why that type of labour deserves Raz's scorn.  Having been a redneck myself, I take it a bit personally.

crazy canuck

Quote from: Valmy on June 23, 2025, 12:27:01 PMI think they did the alienating by embracing neo-liberal economic policies and we need to return to a new deal mindset, or some 21st century version of it.

Yep, Clinton and Blair, along with the politicians who followed suit in the rest of the G7 have a lot to answer for. They were the last chance to reverse the Reagan/Thatcher approach, but they went all in.

DGuller

Quote from: Valmy on June 23, 2025, 12:27:01 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 23, 2025, 12:23:53 PMIn any case, I think the key to understanding the Trump phenomenon is realizing that two things can both be right:  Trumpism really is a cult, but not everyone who joined the cult was fated to do it.  People generally join the cult because they already start off feeling alienated in some way, and I think the left has done its share of alienation.  I think it also bears stating that it is totally irrelevant to assign the degree of blame to people who joined the cult; however much blame they deserve, the votes count the same.

Sure. I think they did the alienating by embracing neo-liberal economic policies and we need to return to a new deal mindset, or some 21st century version of it.

But at least the left remains out of the cult. The right became completely engulfed and destroyed by it.
The left may not have a cult in a classical sense, in that it doesn't have a leader whose word defines reality for all the members, but there has definitely been a severe erosion in critical thinking over the years.  Dogmas may appear by happenstance, instead of being dictated by supreme leader, but once they take root, the devotion to them can likewise blind people to reality, political or otherwise.

Grey Fox

Wasn't Raz being sarcastic with his comment?  :hmm:
Getting ready to make IEDs against American Occupation Forces.

"But I didn't vote for him"; they cried.

Razgovory

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on June 23, 2025, 10:45:47 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 22, 2025, 10:50:18 PMTrump is a piece of shit and a terrible person, why does he keep getting more votes every time he runs?

He lost the election in 2020.  He got more votes because the total number of voters was much larger in 2020 then in 2016. But he lost the popular vote by 7 million.  In comparison he only beat Harris by 2 million.

The simplest, Occam's razor explanation is that when the memory of Trump's awfulness as a President is at his most sharp, people reject him.  When that memory fades and is filled with other concerns like higher prices, people drift back to him.

Is that the simplest explanation?  People are too stupid to remember that he is a terrible person?  I will buy that the number of people who votes Trump got in 2020 was because the total number of votes cast was greater, but why should it increase from 2020 to 2024 when the total number of votes was less?

The number of Black and Hispanic voters who support Trump has increased in each of his election, I don't think it's because they forget who he is every four years.  I have an alternative theory:  More people are voting for Trump because they like Democrats much less.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Razgovory

Quote from: crazy canuck on June 23, 2025, 12:31:40 PM
Quote from: Valmy on June 23, 2025, 12:24:59 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 23, 2025, 11:43:07 AMRednecks deserve to be poor.

Deserving has nothing to do with anything.

Sure it is probably inevitable some people will be less well off than others. But it doesn't make any sense to me why we seem to be so much worse at providing food, shelter, education, and health services now than we did before when we were much less technologically advanced and poorer. It seems like either those things would be essentially guaranteed to everybody or should be so cheap that anybody could reasonable afford them with decent effort. Even for people who some think don't "deserve" things, as if any of us are a fair judge of that.

Especially when redneck means a labourer who works outdoors. I am not sure why that type of labour deserves Raz's scorn.  Having been a redneck myself, I take it a bit personally.

I don't think that is how Yi was using it, and certainly not how I was using it.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017