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

  On 2/6/2020 at 12:01 AM, Gocab said:

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how long can they hate hillary? 

  On 2/6/2020 at 3:14 AM, ignatius said:

how long can they hate hillary? 

Never doubt the longevity of stupid.

  On 2/6/2020 at 3:21 AM, Lada Laika said:

Never doubt the longevity of stupid.

the only thing more infinite than the universe is human stupidity 

  On 2/5/2020 at 6:21 PM, joshuatxuk said:

I have to give kudos to Pelosi, that was a brilliant move, even if symbolic. Getting people to ignore him is about the only way to truly hurt Trump personally.

Agreed that Collins sold out awhile ago, she only whips out the "moderate" vibe when she wants to. Very skeptical of Romney as well. Lisa Murkowski is the only GOP Senator I think might vote with the Democrats.

Murkowski is one of the few moderate Republican senators remaining. She still condemned Trump during the "trial", but ultimately voted not to convict, presumably out of fear of backlash. She's widely regarded as a RINO in her own state, but then again there's no shortage of MAGA shitbags in Alaska, including the governor.

 Was at a Trump party today (became one spontaneously). :

I was around a lot of Trump supporters today during a BBQ (friend's family I was at for like 2/3 hours). And man just hearing them talk about him is very entertaining and kind of enlightening into the way they think when it comes to their politics.

They were in a good mood after the impeachment feel through. They all talk similarly... like they have these little sayings that they string together into sentences/thoughts. Basically memes they each throw at each other, to the point where it feels like they're reciting a script at times. One which I hear all of the time is: "Oh They'll blame Trump for problem x" -- preemptively before anyone blames anyone for anything -- the same people who blamed Obama for everything.  I heard it 5 or 6 times in an hour from several different people. The equivalent online is "Trump bad", which waves away anything Trump could possibly do wrong.

Also thinking like that shows they don't really care if Trump does something bad, they have already made up their mind beforehand about Trump. If he shot someone in Times Square they would just say "Well I guess the guy had it coming."

I asked someone what Trump would have to do to make him dislike him. He just kind of looked at me slack jawed for a bit. Obviously he had never had that thought, certainly not  from his fellow Trump supporters. After a few second of silence "thinking" he just shrugged and said "Eh, I don't know", basically showing me the question is irrelevant and unimportant.

Besides that I mostly avoided talking politics as I was more interested in observing Trump supporters in their natural habitat while they graze on BBQ, trying to understand this most elusive of species.

i've heard the "trump bad" or "orange man bad" thing many times.  it is true about stringing together meme like sentences.. i've heard that from far right and far left people who spend a lot of time w/cable news. but certainly.. the talking points from the right have been rolled out on fox and via people like limbaugh for a long time. basically the RNC and republican congress members have coordinated really in lock step since the 90s and earlier but i remember it really in the 90s. it was really kind of amazing how in unison they stayed. 

also, dems do the same thing but are not as disciplined and have different masters. i remember thinking when obama's 1st 2 years were kinda dragging on and how the dems were bickering over all kinds of shit and not wanting to be partisan w/bills they were passing.. particularly healthcare.. and i was wondering why they didn't all just get in lock step like the republicans and pass the damn bill. obviously there was more going on.. but the republicans under bush didn't give 2 shits what the dems thought and were doing anything they wanted. 

those fucking republicans stay on message and they all get their marching orders and then those marching orders go out on fox news and the masses line up at the trough to gobble it up. 

  On 2/6/2020 at 8:58 AM, ignatius said:

  On 2/6/2020 at 7:28 AM, Brisbot said:

 Was at a Trump party today (became one spontaneously). :

I was around a lot of Trump supporters today during a BBQ (friend's family I was at for like 2/3 hours). And man just hearing them talk about him is very entertaining and kind of enlightening into the way they think when it comes to their politics.

They were in a good mood after the impeachment feel through. They all talk similarly... like they have these little sayings that they string together into sentences/thoughts. Basically memes they each throw at each other, to the point where it feels like they're reciting a script at times. One which I hear all of the time is: "Oh They'll blame Trump for problem x" -- preemptively before anyone blames anyone for anything -- the same people who blamed Obama for everything.  I heard it 5 or 6 times in an hour from several different people. The equivalent online is "Trump bad", which waves away anything Trump could possibly do wrong.

Also thinking like that shows they don't really care if Trump does something bad, they have already made up their mind beforehand about Trump. If he shot someone in Times Square they would just say "Well I guess the guy had it coming."

I asked someone what Trump would have to do to make him dislike him. He just kind of looked at me slack jawed for a bit. Obviously he had never had that thought, certainly not  from his fellow Trump supporters. After a few second of silence "thinking" he just shrugged and said "Eh, I don't know", basically showing me the question is irrelevant and unimportant.

Besides that I mostly avoided talking politics as I was more interested in observing Trump supporters in their natural habitat while they graze on BBQ, trying to understand this most elusive of species.

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i've heard the "trump bad" or "orange man bad" thing many times.  it is true about stringing together meme like sentences.. i've heard that from far right and far left people who spend a lot of time w/cable news. but certainly.. the talking points from the right have been rolled out on fox and via people like limbaugh for a long time. basically the RNC and republican congress members have coordinated really in lock step since the 90s and earlier but i remember it really in the 90s. it was really kind of amazing how in unison they stayed. 

also, dems do the same thing but are not as disciplined and have different masters. i remember thinking when obama's 1st 2 years were kinda dragging on and how the dems were bickering over all kinds of shit and not wanting to be partisan w/bills they were passing.. particularly healthcare.. and i was wondering why they didn't all just get in lock step like the republicans and pass the damn bill. obviously there was more going on.. but the republicans under bush didn't give 2 shits what the dems thought and were doing anything they wanted. 

those fucking republicans stay on message and they all get their marching orders and then those marching orders go out on fox news and the masses line up at the trough to gobble it up. 

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Yes. It's why they're such a "strong party" even though they're definitely in the minority. And not every conservative is like this, but a large portion of them are.

To them it's basically like a religion, or faith based, or something to where they believe in what they're doing an incredible amount, that they're stopping the evil democrats from taking over 'Merica.

It's pretty silly how often I hear the same phrases repeated. I have heard the same justifications and 'rationalizations' NEARLY WORD FOR WORD from conservatives who know each other. And somehow this isn't a red flag to them that maybe they don't have their own opinions and need to spend more time thinking about why they believe what they believe. It's like some kind of hive-mind-y mantra to them.

 I would genuinely like to see some kind of studies or analysis done on the 'memetic' culture driving conservatives as it's definitely a much larger and more powerful thing among Republicans/Conservatives/Alt-Right than among Democrats/liberals. Even online, there is a reason memes  like pepe the frog (among 100 other things) are basically symbols for the alt-right... and what does the left have?... feelin the bern? Why are memes so much more powerful in driving conservative beliefs than liberal beliefs. And I don't think it's chalked up to just "symbols are for the symbol-minded" as otherwise intelligent people can suddenly sound... indoctrinated when politics is brought up.

Ezra Klein wrote a book about this recently. With references to all sorts of research.

For a quick summary, here's the review in NYT

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/books/review/why-were-polarized-ezra-klein.html

  Quote

What Klein adds especially to our understanding of how we got here — why Trump is more a vessel for our division than the cause, and why his departure will not provide any magical cure — is represented in his overall thesis: There is a logic to our polarization. It has become a kind of loop. As the public has polarized, in part because of the behavior of political actors and institutions (including media), the actors and institutions respond by behaving in more polarized ways — which further polarizes the public, and so on and so on. Klein focuses on political identity, noting that the phrase “identity politics” has become a weapon used by one group to diminish the legitimacy of others, but that there is a better way to use the term: not as a blade, he says, but as a lens.

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And a chapter from the book:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/books/review/why-were-polarized-by-ezra-klein-an-excerpt.html

The politics has become completely about identity, who you or your peer group identifies with, instead of actual political issues themselves. And in US you have two options, so it's a complete fucking mess now with the political discourse between the two different groups disappearing and never questioning your chosen representative because then you would be questioning or compromising your own identity.

it blows my mind how much the right wing blob is covering up with trump, and how so many people are successfully duped and blinded to glaring realities. at least the dems made the GOP own it. that was always the play. pelosi saw it. all the GOPs could do was let their skin hang and vote no, and cheer like idiots at the SOTU.

gop-deceptosphere is the root cause from which trump emerged, and pelosi made the GOP sign their names on a fraud that is relatively plain for their constituents to see.

"stand with the team" is apparently what GOPs text each other when they try to keep people from abiding by their consciences. i liked romney's speech. 

Romney fulfilled a theory I had but was unsure about - there was potential for a breakaway moderate/centrist leaning conservative party post-Trump. His vote is a remnant of that minority of Republicans with a shred of decency and integrity. The rest of those few in office, with few exceptions, have either fallen in line or left office. Romney's vote was the last hurrah of any legal establishment lead ousting of Trump. Instead the Democrats will be the ones to reckon with a split if Sanders does not get the nomination. DSA will absorb the progressives and actual leftists and the rest will be a centrist rump party. It'll be ugly and essentially ensure a hegemony similar to that of the Torys in the UK and other right-wing populist parties elsewhere. Worst case scenario it will lead to a one-party dictatorship, a scarier one than that which the Trump administration and various GOP dominated states and regions espouse now - variations of khakistocracies and kleptocracies. 

The upside is the complicit, corrupt, unappealing roadblock behemoth of the DNC, a neoliberal centrist Snorlax in the road of progress, will be gone, and potential to actually start a gradual social democratic movement in the US can gain traction. It can tap into the disillusioned majority of Americans who don't vote. It can spearhead actual strikes and mass protests that will elect individuals aiming for institutional changes and major legislative goals, not watered down band aid policy changes. It can cut through the delusions, lies, and weaponized identity politics that the GOP is dependent on in order to gain votes from bitter working-class and rural voters they exploit. If Sanders wins, he'll lay out the beginning of a long arduous process of winning back the American public away from capitalist-enabled right-wing faux populism. It will hopefully be the mask off equivalent to Trump's ascention. If he doesn't make it, Trump will win and the Democrat Party needs to truly dissolve in the wake of such a defeat. The road will be a hell of a lot longer.

  On 2/6/2020 at 11:26 AM, very honest said:

it blows my mind how much the right wing blob is covering up with trump, and how so many people are successfully duped and blinded to glaring realities. at least the dems made the GOP own it. that was always the play. pelosi saw it. all the GOPs could do was let their skin hang and vote no, and cheer like idiots at the SOTU.

gop-deceptosphere is the root cause from which trump emerged, and pelosi made the GOP sign their names on a fraud that is relatively plain for their constituents to see.

"stand with the team" is apparently what GOPs text each other when they try to keep people from abiding by their consciences. i liked romney's speech. 

 

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Yes, there was a LOT of that rhetoric I remember when Mitt Romey did that Op-Ed forever ago now. He was basically told "Get in line with our team or get out of the party". You would be laughed at in the Democratic party for saying that. It is somewhat true in the DEM party as well but it is NOT a rule. 

  On 2/6/2020 at 7:30 PM, joshuatxuk said:

If he doesn't make it, Trump will win and the Democrat Party needs to truly dissolve in the wake of such a defeat. The road will be a hell of a lot longer.

I also wonder what the dems are going to do when donnie wins 2020. losing against the most incompetent person in the world twice has got to cause some sort of party collapse. maybe that's what is needed though to put an end to the 2 party system.

What excuse do you guys think Trump will use to skip the debates?

Bone spurs.

Since I wasn't able to make it through all 80 minutes, missed this state of the union nugget that we're gonna bring the MAGA lovin shit show to Mars...wouldn't surprise me if the Mars flag has donnie's signature scribbled all over it, or maybe a MAGA pin or Trump International logo tacked on.

  Quote

"In reaffirming our heritage as a free nation, we must remember that America has always been a frontier nation. Now we must embrace the next frontier: America's manifest destiny in the stars," Trump said during last night's speech. "I am asking Congress to fully fund the Artemis program to ensure that the next man and first woman on the moon will be American astronauts, using this as a launching pad to ensure that America is the first nation to plant its flag on Mars."

can we send Trump to Mars. like, now. with a camera of course. no provisions, but definitely a camera.

  On 2/6/2020 at 10:45 PM, colunga said:

What excuse do you guys think Trump will use to skip the debates?

He doesnt need any excuses in the first place. Also, it's the fake media. And debates are rigged. 

Do I win a prize?

  On 2/7/2020 at 4:34 AM, goDel said:

He doesnt need any excuses in the first place. Also, it's the fake media. And debates are rigged. 

Do I win a prize?

 

he's no puppet.. you're the puppet. 

"he debated already.. why should he do it again?" - president's spokesperson probably

I'm actually looking forward to the debates after the conventions, the Dems will have a buttload of evidence to just read off, and all he can do is claim it's a hoax.  But the smart people know better, huh.

  On 2/7/2020 at 1:07 AM, auxien said:

can we send Trump to Mars. like, now. with a camera of course. no provisions, but definitely a camera.