Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

[MaizeRage]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

In her victorious opponent, I see right through his used car salesman veneer and know that he's little more than a fraudulent "business genius" who has spent about half of his career getting bailed out by daddy, or in bankruptcy proceedings, and all of it manipulating money and screwing creditors. I see an insecure, ill-tempered, spoiled little boy who craves attention, and whose entire campaign was obviously a marketing stunt and a massive ego boost. He ran on a platform that consisted almost entirely of pouring gasoline on the country's already inflamed racial tensions, and then covering it up with a thin patina of "THEY TUK YER JERBS!!!" Unfortunately, the Rust Belt's aging working class voters swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. The spiraling costs of Obamacare certainly didn't help either.

The absolute best reporting on the "Trump phenomenon"--and almost all of it came before the election--came from Chris Arnade of The Guardian, who came to the US write about the drug addiction epidemic in poor rural areas, and ended up writing a lot about Trump because he resonated so much in every area he went, and the comparison of Trump to heroin was almost a perfect match. This tweet thread on how most of the areas where Trump improved on Romney vote totals are the same areas that have seen big increases in drug overdoses is a great place to start, but all of the articles are terrific.

That's why this idea that those people understand something that the rest of us just don't get and we need to understand and accept it is just silly. That doesn't help anything, it just enables a problem.

 

[Handyman]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

Dang...

This is gonna be a long 4 years for some of you.

Nah...I got whiskey I will be fine

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

The absolute best reporting on the "Trump phenomenon"--and almost all of it came before the election--came from Chris Arnade of The Guardian, who came to the US write about the drug addiction epidemic in poor rural areas, and ended up writing a lot about Trump because he resonated so much in every area he went, and the comparison of Trump to heroin was almost a perfect match. This tweet thread on how most of the areas where Trump improved on Romney vote totals are the same areas that have seen big increases in drug overdoses is a great place to start, but all of the articles are terrific.

That's why this idea that those people understand something that the rest of us just don't get and we need to understand and accept it is just silly. That doesn't help anything, it just enables a problem.

I had originally described those blue collar workers as "unemployed, depressed, and increasingly alcoholic/junked up", but I removed that from my bit because:

1) It was a generalization. That would be saying all blue collar workers are substance abusers, which I know from experience is definitely not true.
2) I knew it would be condescending (and partially hypocritical) if I did

That said, it should come as no surprise that there is a noticeable correlation between working class voters, and substance abuse. These people have been fcked by our economic system for years, and heroin is now a huge problem in suburban and rural parts of the country, thanks largely to over-prescription of opiates that doctors pushed as part of the medical-pharmaceutical complex.

It's just a shame that they can't figure out that their problem isn't solely the fault of the government.

1) First and foremost, it's them. No one is forcing them to drink or use. They won't be able to get a good job if they are actively using, and even if they could, employment alone isn't very likely to clean them up.
2) It's their lack of access to the healthcare they need when they decide to get clean/sober. And that is government and society's fault. However, electing Trump and Republicans isn't going to fix that.

 

[rufus]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

An off the record meeting today between PEtD and the press got ugly as PEtD lit into the MSM calling them liars.

That may play in Peoria.

Tomorrow the NYT interview with PEtD will be on the record.

Just working the refs. Figuring he can sufficiently cow them into giving him favorable coverage if they want to have access for the next four years. Gonna be a steady diet of this, Trump giving and denying access to his Lordship in order to get what he wants.

Which is apparently to let the wingnuts do what they want while he uses the office of the president to expand Trump business opportunities.

 

[joecct]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

Annndddd PEtD cancels NYT interview citing last minute condition changes which the NYT denies.

Two negatives = a positive?

 

[rufus]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

Annndddd PEtD cancels NYT interview citing last minute condition changes which the NYT denies.

Two negatives = a positive?

Annnnnnnd, I rest my case.

'You want an interview with the Trumpster? Bend down and kiss my azz, er, i meant, ring."

 

[joecct]

Annnnnnnd, I rest my case.

'You want an interview with the Trumpster? Bend down and kiss my azz, er, i meant, ring."

Zod lives?

 

[Handyman]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

His also sort of implying he wont be putting Trump Industries into a Blind Trust anymore. And of course he is ripping the media via Twitter...

 

[Kepler]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

I've lived in the Midwest for roughly 28 of my 35 years on this earth. The belief that farmers know best because they've got the common sense that the urban pansies have lost is one of the biggest farking mistaken stereotypes out there in flyover country.

Blue collar snobbery may sound like an oxymoron, but it exists in spades, especially in the rural areas.

“The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black,
While the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair.
Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw,
And could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods
Like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shape
Bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own.” -- Xenophanes

Everybody believes in a rank-ordering of the world where they just happen, totally by accident, to be at the top in ethics and discernment. Everyone is an elitist for their own.

 

[joecct]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

Justin Sherin, who writes as @dick_nixon on Twitter, penned a nice piece in today's WaPo, contrasting RMN and tD.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/post...nt-have-supported-him/?utm_term=.dbfbd71db443

 

[Kepler]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

Justin Sherin, who writes as @dick_nixon on Twitter, penned a nice piece in today's WaPo, contrasting RMN and tD.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/post...nt-have-supported-him/?utm_term=.dbfbd71db443

That is a great piece. I hope a few genuine conservatives understand it, and understand the damage that loyalty to the current incarnation of the GOP is doing to their cause.

When liberalism got into bed with the hippy dippies in the early 70s they de-legitimized the left for 30 years. The same thing is happening now with conservatives and the alt-right. If they're not careful they're going to wake up to a world where the entire American electorate outside of their base associates conservative dogma with Trump's personal characteristics and the Breitbart brand of cut throat reaction.

 

[aparch]

It's just a shame that they can't figure out that their problem isn't solely the fault of the government.

1) First and foremost, it's them. No one is forcing them to drink or use. They won't be able to get a good job if they are actively using, and even if they could, employment alone isn't very likely to clean them up.
2) It's their lack of access to the healthcare they need when they decide to get clean/sober. And that is government and society's fault. However, electing Trump and Republicans isn't going to fix that.

How dare you blame them for the mess they've created and they cannot climb out of themselves. You dirty liberal socialist!

(Honestly, I had to re-read just to make sure you weren't commenting about my Michigan hometown. I know it's a problem in a lot of the flyover/rust belt areas.)

These rural people have settled in, it's all they've ever known, and when they don't have work they don't know what to do.

 

[manurespreader]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html

from 2003 but interesting.

 

[joecct]

That is a great piece. I hope a few genuine conservatives understand it, and understand the damage that loyalty to the current incarnation of the GOP is doing to their cause.

When liberalism got into bed with the hippy dippies in the early 70s they de-legitimized the left for 30 years. The same thing is happening now with conservatives and the alt-right. If they're not careful they're going to wake up to a world where the entire American electorate outside of their base associates conservative dogma with Trump's personal characteristics and the Breitbart brand of cut throat reaction.

Kep - this is an experiment. I think Cabinet 1.0 lasts <2 years before the idealoges are forced out in favor of the pragmatists for Trump2.0.

If not, in 2 years you get a D Congress and we'll wait for 2020 to rearrange the deck chairs.

BTW, if not Trump in 2020, who will be the 2 facing off in 11/2020??

 

[Kepler]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html

from 2003 but interesting.

It's pretty terrifying. The interesting thing for now is to observe how his supporters or, even better, his Republican fellow travelers who don't care about him but want to use this as an opportunity to advance their ideology, justify, excuse and/or merely lie to themselves about what they're sleeping with.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

Kep - this is an experiment. I think Cabinet 1.0 lasts <2 years before the idealoges are forced out in favor of the pragmatists for Trump2.0.

If not, in 2 years you get a D Congress and we'll wait for 2020 to rearrange the deck chairs.

Reaganomics was an experiment and it's been destroying the middle class for 36 years. Some experiments are too destructive to "just try." For example, we could simply nuke Beijing this morning. The CPC is highly centralized, and the PRC has virtually zero ability to hurt us in retaliation. We could do that, and then adjust to the consequences.

 

[aparch]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

Had an interesting phone call with an older family friend last night that left me [ ] close to veering for a tree out of frustration.

Friend: "Well, I'm glad that lying b*tch Hillary didn't win."

Me: You do realize that Trump lied a lot more, mocked the disabled, told a military family to pound sand, physically assaulted women, and you still voted for him?

F: Yep, because at least it's not Hillary. He'll clean out crap like her.

Me: You mean by replacing politicians like her with retread Republicans that already got thrown out years ago?

F: *Pause* He'll get it done.

Me: *Internally screaming* *long pause* So have you heard Paul Ryan wants to cut your Medicare.

F: Yeah, I just read that in AARP. And our union newsletter. Cut Medicare, Social Security, and take my union pension away!

Me: And with a Republican in the White House, a Republican majority Congress, they can just rubber stamp the changes into effect.

F: Well, they said they'd out up a fight, and fight like hell to keep it.

Me: Who said?

F: (Named two bluer than blue Democrats that I cannot remember).

Me: They can't do much if the Republican Congress passes it and the Republican President okays it.

F: Trump won't 'em do that.

Me: *silently contemplates driving into the median at 70 MPH*

Me: Alright, well I have to go, traffic is terrible. Talk later.

 

[joecct]

Reaganomics was an experiment and it's been destroying the middle class for 36 years. Some experiments are too destructive to "just try." For example, we could simply nuke Beijing this morning. The CPC is highly centralized, and the PRC has virtually zero ability to hurt us in retaliation. We could do that, and then adjust to the consequences.

RR had a D Congress. This one is 100% GOP owned. They'll (We'll) take all the credit and deserve all the blame.

Thought: 180 days over/under on the 1st assassination attempt?

 

[Kepler]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

Had an interesting phone call with an older family friend last night that left me [ ] close to veering for a tree out of frustration.

Friend: "Well, I'm glad that lying b*tch Hillary didn't win."

Me: You do realize that Trump lied a lot more, mocked the disabled, told a military family to pound sand, physically assaulted women, and you still voted for him?

F: Yep, because at least it's not Hillary. He'll clean out crap like her.

Me: You mean by replacing politicians like her with retread Republicans that already got thrown out years ago?

F: *Pause* He'll get it done.

Me: *Internally screaming* *long pause* So have you heard Paul Ryan wants to cut your Medicare.

F: Yeah, I just read that in AARP. And our union newsletter. Cut Medicare, Social Security, and take my union pension away!

Me: And with a Republican in the White House, a Republican majority Congress, they can just rubber stamp the changes into effect.

F: Well, they said they'd out up a fight, and fight like hell to keep it.

Me: Who said?

F: (Named two bluer than blue Democrats that I cannot remember).

Me: They can't do much if the Republican Congress passes it and the Republican President okays it.

F: Trump won't 'em do that.

Me: *silently contemplates driving into the median at 70 MPH*

Me: Alright, well I have to go, traffic is terrible. Talk later.

This is my work day, every day.

The amazing thing is when you really talk about what the GOP wants to do, they simply go back to Hillary. When you say, "OK, but Hillary is now permanently in the rear view mirror. Let's look at the future," you get a long pause followed by some verbatim talking points about draining the swamp or Making American Great Again.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Trump First Term I: I for One Welcome Our New Trumpy Overlord

RR had a D Congress. This one is 100% GOP owned. They'll (We'll) take all the credit and deserve all the blame.

You would think, but the electorate is so Balkanized Republicans may never even know if there is anything blameworthy. Breitbart has completed the FNC revolution: his readers are post-factual. Trump simply lies flat out not even trying to make it convincing. He states things he desires as fact. And his audience has been trained since birth that anybody who says differently must be lying. Perfect epistemic closure.

That was interesting when it was the gadfly opposition, but now it's actually running the country. We are about to be flown by a pilot who believes physics is, by definition, what he wants it to be. That is the experiment.