Now That Trump's President... (not any more!)

Sheathe, you sound like you are blaming people for pointing out all the reasons Trump sucks who also realize he hasn’t been impeached because of how corrupt the GOP is by tying the fate of their party to him and using him as a distraction to force through the most extreme and most damaging form of their agenda because this is their last stand.

  very honest said:

these are facts.

I read this post and heard Alex Jones’s voice in my head.

 

I’m sure you think you’re being very logical and level headed, but do you ever consider you’ve actually fallen victim to mass hysteria/delusion?

 

I’m sure all of these “facts” make sense to you, but a mainstream conspiracy theory is still a conspiracy. I just think it’s lame that centrist liberals act like it’s so obvious that trump is a Russian asset, but poopoo any other conspiracy theory that doesn’t fit their narrative.

Edited March 29, 2019 by sheathe

  On 3/29/2019 at 8:30 AM, Candiru said:

Sheathe, you sound like you are blaming people for pointing out all the reasons Trump sucks who also realize he hasn’t been impeached because of how corrupt the GOP is by tying the fate of their party to him and using him as a distraction to force through the most extreme and most damaging form of their agenda because this is their last stand.

Haha what are you on about? That’s what politics is man. One party gets a figurehead in office and they shove a bunch of policy down our throats, then the other party gets power and reverses half of that policy and forces their own agenda for 8 years. Only difference is trump is too crazy to play by the rules.

 

America’s politics are corrupt totally. Man, I hope it’s the GOPs last stand so we can shift away from the two party system, but it’s never going to happen. Most people have to sort themselves into one half of a binary system.

Edited March 29, 2019 by sheathe

  On 3/29/2019 at 4:35 AM, ignatius said:

 

  On 3/29/2019 at 4:28 AM, auxien said:

after hearing Yang try and talk about his UBI plan, I really don't think 'he likes math' is a useful argument for him

 

i like painting but i'm not good at it. 

ha, fair, but the difference is he's running for president of the US of course....and when this is his big selling point but doesn't have any real (realistic) plan for this very big, very expensive idea? takes him pretty much out of the running imo. 

 

 

  On 3/29/2019 at 5:01 AM, sheathe said:

 

  On 3/29/2019 at 4:28 AM, auxien said:

after hearing Yang try and talk about his UBI plan, I really don't think 'he likes math' is a useful argument for him

I don’t really have a dog in the fight since I’m in truth a political nihilist, but it’s sad to see centrists dismiss Yang without any concrete reasoning. Basically your standard ad hominem.

 

Besides, UBI is just his platform. He isn’t going to actually do it. It’s a fake solution to a real problem, just like Trump’s wall, but where the wall was meant to stoke tribalism worldwide (help tip the scales on brexit, etc.), UBI is meant to illuminate the impending obsolescence of the majority of American jobs, plus the tole those jobs are taking on mental health (namely retail and trucking).

i'd think if you were a political nihilist you'd be glad trump was president and want him to win again. whether or not i'm a centrist has nothing to do with 'dismissing' Yang, it's his lack of ability to show any valid follow through for his selling point. if 'he isn't gonna do it' then he's just trying to get attention, in which case fuck him 100% and fuck anyone pretending to be into him :)

 

UBI is a valid point of discussion for America at this point. Yang's showing that he's not got a real grasp on it, and might just be running for attention/monetary/notoriety. 

  On 3/29/2019 at 3:40 AM, sheathe said:

Lol the libs are out of control. They need to do some soul searching, meaning stop producing garbage media content and get off the air for a while.

 

 

 

I agree liberal media should be off the air!!! Any negative Trump coverage!

 

  On 3/29/2019 at 3:40 AM, sheathe said:

The thing about trump is he has zero convictions about anything, so he could head some of the best cross the aisle bipartisan lawmaking of our time, but the libtards and cuckservatives are too busy flaunting their collective 93 IQ points on cspam.

 

 

 

I agree! Too much flaunting! If everyone could just not act so arrogant on teevee, he would make some of the best bi-partisan deals you’ve ever seen. You wouldn’t even believe it.

Edited March 29, 2019 by colunga

@aux

 

That’s how politics work though. Do you really think Bernie would have given free college? Do you really think trump is gonna build the wall?

 

Do you really think Obama care is about providing affordable health care, or is it actually just the government wanting a piece of the pie?

 

@col

 

I’m not a trump supporter,

Edited March 29, 2019 by sheathe

  On 3/29/2019 at 2:53 PM, sheathe said:

 

@col

 

I’m not a trump supporter,

 

i kno man im just tired and hungry

  On 3/29/2019 at 8:16 AM, goDel said:

 

  On 3/29/2019 at 4:19 AM, sheathe said:

Honestly, I don’t see how the elite liberal intellectuals on here can’t see how pitiful it is to keep acting like trump is gonna get impeached. I know, deep down, very few of you believe it will happen, but the anti trump rhetoric is just too delicious for you to pass up.

It’s like, the lowest possible level of gratification, endlessly grandstanding on social media about how bad trump is.

That’s why he is such a great American president: he is a perfectly archetypal villain to the mind of a 12 year old in social studies, which is about the political bandwidth of your average centrist liberal.

There are just so many more meaningful discussions to be had, but pretty much all anyone does is post memes of trump staring into the sun, or montages of his worsening dimentia.

We have a fascist nazi for a president! Help us!

The thing about the Trump-situation is that it's a yuge Shakespearean tragedy. It's mindcrack. Regardless of him being impeached. It's Game of Thrones. It's comedy. It's tragedy. It's ridiculous.

 

"There are just so many more meaningful discussions to be had, but pretty much all anyone does is post memes of trump staring into the sun, or montages of his worsening dimentia."

 

Please don't jump into the same rabbit hole as you blame others are doing. Yeah, there's memes. But there's also plenty other stuff being posted. Using hyperbole to make your point is exactly the type of behavior which seems to squeeze your tits. Don't be part of it.

 

 

This, I think it's always good to get a more outside the box perspective on this shitshow - I don't disagree with Sheathe but I would still fight against this cynical notion of apathy that sets in so easily when under corrupt and authoritarian government. The irony of the Dems being so diverse and democratic discussion wise is it still plays to the GOP's benefit. They've fully committed and succeeded to the big lie. Even educated and self-aware people are willingly deluding themselves to vote Trump.

 

That toxic shit isn't just a symbolic dog and pony show for an already broken system. It's still spreading and causing serious negative changes in more subtle ways - the gutting of Federal agencies, deregulation and open season for corporate interests, more tax cuts for the rich and powerful and tickle down taxes and rising costs for the not just the poor and middle class but modestly rich too. This authoritarian ideology - social benefits big government bad / police state and corporate welfare good - it's being implemented on state and local levels too.

 

In Texas the tax base has been shifted to property taxes (they haven't raised the gas tax in 2 decades, income tax doesn't exist, tax incentives and exemptions for corporations abound). By doing so urban areas with more expensive real estate pay for the schools and roads in the entire state. Over 50 % of Austin's school budget gets allocated to rural counties. The GOP then gets to blame liberal cities for higher property taxes and also gets to punish cities for any local control efforts: they've prevented cities from banning plastic bags, banning fracking, enacting tree protections, enacting higher wages locally, etc. Gerrymandering has led to Austin, which is majority Democrat, from having only one Democrat congressperson out of 6 seats. The minority conservative rural areas are literally getting pandered to not just in rhetoric but in actual legislation. And it's superficial pandering - a bone here or there for social conservatives but they too are still dealing with rising cost of living and inflation.

 

Vote in local and state elections. Vote in primaries. We can all still hold our noses and vote for the lesser of two evils. The problem isn't centrism itself, it's worse case scenario to deal with pragmatically, the problem is trying to fight the hard right by starting off from a centrist critique. It's ineffective and meaningless - that's why moderate Republicans don't exist anymore. That's why the goal post for what "moderate" is has shifted so far to the right. Dismissing this as some absurd farce, and I agree it is, that we all deserve to have versus just get through is too superficial for me to subscribe to.

 

I think the kicker is there's still a lot of people working their asses off to get progressive legislation and policies fixed - civil liberties lawyers, anti-drug war lobbyists, educators and social services public servants, government scientists and engineers, etc. Hell even BLM and National Park personal. I don't know how they stomach this political shit. Kudos to them.

Edited March 29, 2019 by joshuatx

  On 3/29/2019 at 2:53 PM, sheathe said:

@aux

 

That’s how politics work though. Do you really think Bernie would have given free college? Do you really think trump is gonna build the wall?

 

Do you really think Obama care is about providing affordable health care, or is it actually just the government wanting a piece of the pie?

Trump is building some parts of the wall. Not as much as he wants, luckily. Obama care is a hell of a compromised final product, of course....all politics is give and take, fucking duh sheathe. I'm saying Yang doesn't even seem to have a grasp on pretending to pay for UBI. Trump also didn't about the wall, just wildly claiming Mexico would pay for it, but at this point we're saying Yang is not much different than Trump.....which is basically my point: he's not worth supporting imo if he can't even come up with a reasonable answer as to how to pay for UBI, since he's making that his big thing, apparently. If he wants to back off that and focus on other stuff, then I'll listen. Fuckin' Dems in the running are going to be at it for another year, I'm not getting my panties in a wad over anything just yet

  On 3/29/2019 at 4:19 AM, sheathe said:

It’s like, the lowest possible level of gratification, endlessly grandstanding on social media about how bad trump is.

 

Hey man, what else are public forums/social media/comment sections for then? Talk about how great everything is? I agree some people go overboard with the Trump hate (not necessarily here though), and in the long run doesn't really have any effect on anything, but people still gotta get some of those pent up feelings out somehow, right?

 

For me, the Trump presidency is more entertainment than anything. I mean what else could we expect putting a known arrogant, pompous, corrupt businessman-turned-reality-tv star asshole in charge? Donnie is doing exactly what he does best and that's creating a huge spectacle. He is making everything about him all of the time and he's winning at it, the media gives him exactly what he wants. They can't stop covering him 24/7 and he loves it. Donnie is a ratings machine. Would we have a 631 page thread if Hillary won? We all get bombarded with Trump stories daily that are often times so bizarre that we can't help pointing fingers at and laughing collectively. As someone mentioned - it's like game of thrones style entertainment.

 

It's hard for me to get overly mad at him since he is exactly what he's always been (maybe even worse now due to his age). The real problem of course is that the spineless republicans didn't stop him when they still had a chance and let it get to the point that there was no other choice than to push him along, even though he was totally unqualified. And of course the people who voted for him are at fault, believing his snake-oil sales pitches and thinking his belligerent rhetoric is acceptable.

 

The most frustrating thing for me though is watching him poo poo all over the opportunity he's been given and not taking his job seriously. It's not all Congress's fault he's not getting things done, as he is one of the main reasons everything is so "us vs. them" right now. I also think his leadership skills are a joke. If anyone else acted like this they'd be gone in a heartbeat, but Donnie has successfully lowered the bar so far down that we're just happy if he doesn't start WWIII or wipe out some endangered species or starve us all to death or something...

Yes, just succumb to the idiocracy and drink that delicious fracking water. It has electrolytes!

People want to be polarized because it’s a much easier state to exist in.

 

I really miss the Obama era. Much more nuance because people were happy a black man was in office. All of my art friends were capable of multifaceted thought then. But it couldn’t last. Everyone just wants to organize themselves into tribes, and the uncommon intertribal people (like me) sit up in the hills watching the bloodbath with tears in their eyes.

lol

  On 3/29/2019 at 8:43 PM, sheathe said:

I really miss the Obama era.

r u 4 real d00d?

I was conservative during my pre-teens and early teens, and something between a political nihilist (and a nihilist in general) and a libertarian (like 10% libertarian but thought libertarianism would never take over as an ideology in US so I didn't bother) ) in my edgy teen years. I'd repeat that quote by George Carlin about "Bucking the system" and enjoy watching people eat each other, pretending I was above them.

Then my guardian lost their job literally the week after graduating high school. Lost health insurance after a few months. Then I had to pay a massive premium for the same health insurance I had taken for granted before, which I couldn't afford if I wanted to start university. I somehow made it work that first year, then insurance still didn't help out when I got really sick due to "pre-existing conditions" which was not the case. So I got nothing from insurance since suing them would have cost too much.

Though doctors got me on SSRI's really quicky, and insurance jumped on that. Wasted 6 months on that. Also got into heavy drinking and smoking. Wasted 2 years on that and only quit at the time because it stopped working.... idk how I did well in university high or drunk half the time. Though i know I could have done better if I wasn't doing either.

So I basically had to admit to myself it was a bunch of hot smoke. And even in my teens I kinda knew in the back of my mind the nihilist stuff was a dead end, as my then middle class lifestyle enabled me to afford being able to think that way.

That's my two cents anyway. Thinking back to it makes me realize just how fast the nihilist stuff fell apart when the issues people like Bernie talk about became a reality instead of it being a vague thing that affects poor people.

Edited March 30, 2019 by Brisbot

i'm 47. when i was a teenager i didn't know what a nihilist is or a libertarian.  didn't have to think about it. there was no internet. there was 3 tv channels. the news happened once a day. 

 

it's weird to think about how much younger people get politics pushed into their lives instead of just doing whatever shit a young person has to do.  i guess i did vote starting when i was 18 but it didn't seem like a big deal. 

  On 3/29/2019 at 8:43 PM, sheathe said:

Everyone just wants to organize themselves into tribes, and the uncommon intertribal people (like me) sit up in the hills watching the bloodbath with tears in their eyes.

It's full on shirts vs. skins, dude, and you're the ref, man. Brother O was a wafting tuft of patchouli, whereas angry Don is the pink sludge flowing beneath the streets in Ghostbusters 2.

 

It's time to pick your side people. You wanna be a horse riding, hippy dippy bibio fan, or a gun toting mustachioed Nazi, riding a razorback blood spurting warthog into the apocalyptic nuclear sunset blast.

  On 3/30/2019 at 3:05 AM, zero said:

 

  On 3/29/2019 at 8:43 PM, sheathe said:

Everyone just wants to organize themselves into tribes, and the uncommon intertribal people (like me) sit up in the hills watching the bloodbath with tears in their eyes.

It's full on shirts vs. skins, dude, and you're the ref, man. Brother O was a wafting tuft of patchouli, whereas angry Don is the pink sludge flowing beneath the streets in Ghostbusters 2.

 

It's time to pick your side people. You wanna be a horse riding, hippy dippy bibio fan, or a gun toting mustachioed Nazi, riding a razorback blood spurting warthog into the apocalyptic nuclear sunset blast.

I want to be a mediocre Elvis impersonator, snorting lines in a hot air balloon with Bobcat Goldthwait over the Grand Canyon with Motley Crüe blaring out of speakers.

  On 3/29/2019 at 1:56 PM, sheathe said:

 

  very honest said:

these are facts.

I read this post and heard Alex Jones’s voice in my head.

 

I’m sure you think you’re being very logical and level headed, but do you ever consider you’ve actually fallen victim to mass hysteria/delusion?

 

I’m sure all of these “facts” make sense to you, but a mainstream conspiracy theory is still a conspiracy. I just think it’s lame that centrist liberals act like it’s so obvious that trump is a Russian asset, but poopoo any other conspiracy theory that doesn’t fit their narrative.

 

 

you mad? i don't even think trump necessarily coordinated with russia. funny you mention sports teams, it's weird that conservatives are looking the other way. did you read what i wrote? i was laying out some interesting facts. there is cause for concern, was my point. 

Edited March 30, 2019 by very honest

I’m not mad. I just feel like everything I say in this thread has to be a haymaker since I’m outnumbered.

 

It’s 4:30am. All I want is to be able to drink a keurig out of my MAGA mug without antifa blocking traffic in front of my house. Not too much to ask tbh.

yeah, political rhetoric gets over the top too much

Edited March 30, 2019 by very honest

So now the guy is calling the Mueller investigation "treason" and demands that the southern border be shut down. He's either off his meds, senile, not getting any bed action from Melania, or all three.

  On 3/30/2019 at 5:04 PM, ambermonk said:

So now the guy is calling the Mueller investigation "treason" and demands that the southern border be shut down. He's either off his meds, senile, not getting any bed action from Melania, or all three.

 

 

don't forget.. stupid, idiotic, thin-skinned, cry baby, meat head, douchebag...

 

it just never ends with this guy lol