Election 2020

[Leo]

most of the stuff he wasn't honest about isn't going to look that important in the future, e.g. bullshitting about how many people were at his inauguration.

except for the quintessential Big Lie itself: the 2020 election. He knows he lost, but continues to lie about the election being stolen.

 

[version]

except for the quintessential Big Lie itself: the 2020 election. He knows he lost, but continues to lie about the election being stolen.

Yeah, which I've already mentioned as being something big and important that he lied about.

 

[WashYourHands]

@version What is defined by who when you’re chief

 

[WashYourHands]

Look who he hired and sacked off, carousel of chaos

 

[version]

I'm not arguing that he wasn't awful. I'm arguing that the American establishment tolerates appalling stuff all the time, but with Trump it seems to be his personality and disregard for them and their traditions which really wound them up.

Look at Bush. He's part of the whole thing and totally rehabilitated now. The funny, old grandpa who likes to paint and goes on Jimmy Fallon.

 

[Leo]

Yeah, which I've already mentioned as being something big and important that he lied about.

sorry, I didn't see you post that.

 

[Mr. Tea]

It's worth bearing in mind that one of Trump's favourite phrases is "They say..." or "People are saying...", which both makes him sound like he's in some sense got his ear to the ground or is privy to sensitive information, as well as giving him plausible deniability in case anyone then challenges him on it.

 

[version]

It's worth bearing in mind that one of Trump's favourite phrases is "They say..." or "People are saying...", which both makes him sound like he's in some sense got his ear to the ground or is privy to sensitive information, as well as giving him plausible deniability in case anyone then challenges him on it.

He uses it the way the conspiracy theorists Craner was on about use "I'm just asking questions,". You can't picture them saying it without also doing a defensive, hands up gesture.

 

[sus]

He* was trying to convince me the other night that no significant number of Trump voters were racists...




*Gus

So everyone can judge for themselves, what I said, these are the messages:

However, it's pretty clear that a sizeable proportion of Trump voters - I don't want to name a figure, so let's leave it at "sizeable" - are racist as fuck. I mean he openly courted the support of the far right, in a way that (AFAIK) is unique in modern American politics.

Clear on what grounds? Did you poll them?

You're basing this entire opinion on liberal media's interpretation of Trump's campaign tactics. That's literally it. People have gone over what Trump said in public speeches/appearances, and it's pretty standard political fare for both the left & right, pre-2010ish. Nor were they followed up on.

Yeah I agree we're getting distracted. Let's just consider it resolved—it's unproductive to cast Trump supporters as a monolith, just like any other group (and to recap: prejudice is bad both for the object and bearer of that prejudice)

"Sizeable" can mean literally anything from 1% to 60%, but pointing out Richard Spencer and the various white supremacist groups in the US, as if I denied their existence—You are aware we're talking about less than a hundred thousand people, right? According to good statistics from hate group tracking orgs.

1% of the American population is about 3.5 million people.

 

[sus]

He saddled up to right wing nutters, repeatedly, to justify his agenda. Not a one off. Not in isolation. Not to be “anti-establishment”. When the psychopaths descended on VA he couldn’t even bring himself to condemn nazi cunts operating openly

That’s a pattern and a disgrace, even by American standards

This entire opinion is sponsored by CNN.

WYH, you always struck me as a free thinker.

 

[sus]

My general point was it seems more important to the American establishment who's doing something than what it is they're doing and I think they had a bigger problem with Trump the man than they did with his policies.

You look at something like the ongoing situation at the Mexico–US border with people still being detained under Biden and the response in contrast to when it was happening under Trump is pretty stark. A lot of people just don't really talk about it that much anymore. It's not a big story now. It's like when Fox kept harping on about the dreaded migrant caravan until it miraculously disappeared once it stopped being useful to them.

This is so obviously true, and yet we have people on this board with steam coming out of their ears b/c he didn't condemn Neo Nazis groups with adequate force. A world of symbols. More politics play. The point is leaving the Matrix, not demanding people make the proper symbolic gestures within it.

 

[sus]

Yeah, which I've already mentioned as being something big and important that he lied about.

And I actually agree about this. Although my guess is he believes his own shit, or else was just trying to save face and DGAF about "democratic succession" principles. Which, the guy is selfish and shallow and self-obsessed, but we knew that.

 

[sufi]

I'm not arguing that he wasn't awful. I'm arguing that the American establishment tolerates appalling stuff all the time, but with Trump it seems to be his personality and disregard for them and their traditions which really wound them up.

Look at Bush. He's part of the whole thing and totally rehabilitated now. The funny, old grandpa who likes to paint and goes on Jimmy Fallon.

This is a process, a march towards extreme bastardy in leadership
& Bush and Obama and all love Trump and have a vested interest in inflating him, and accelerating the breakdown of US governance,
cos it makes them look reasonable by contrast, keeps them cosy in the bosom of the establishment

(same shit in UK of course)

 

[Mr. Tea]

This entire opinion is sponsored by CNN.

WYH, you always struck me as a free thinker.

"Anyone who says anything bad about Trump is part of an evil liberal conspiracy to stop America becoming Great Again" - a Free Thinker

 

[sus]

"Anyone who says anything bad about Trump is part of an evil liberal conspiracy to stop America becoming Great Again" - a Free Thinker

I understand why you belittle "my" opinions, since they are not actually mine but a projection of the out-group's.

 

[Leo]

@suspended I think everyone here is in agreement with you that trump appeals to a lot of people who are not evil racists mofos. they/we are just saying that in addition to connecting with those normal people, he has also courted -- implicitly or explicitly -- a number of evil racist mofos. Yes, those evil racist mofos account for a much smaller percentage than the normal folk supporters, and no we are not equating trump supporters en masse with evil racist mofos.

 

[sus]

@suspended I think everyone here is in agreement with you that trump appeals to a lot of people who are not evil racists mofos. they/we are just saying that in addition to connecting with those normal people, he has also courted -- implicitly or explicitly -- a number of evil racist mofos. Yes, those evil racist mofos account for a much smaller percentage than the normal folk supporters, and no we are not equating trump supporters en masse with evil racist mofos.

With the caveats:

• The number of "evil racist mofos" is actually incredibly small, a fraction of a percentage point even by the measurements of Southern Poverty Law Center (far from an unbiased entity)
• There isn't a huge different in "quality" of person between D's and R's, and since people pretty much uniformly vote for their party candidate, we can expect that the vast majority of D's would vote in an equally shitty Dem candidate as Trump (and perhaps already have/do!). That D's superiority complex is a perfect mirror of R's superiority complex.
• Which of course means that deep disdain for Trump supporters on moral grounds is untenable
• That Trump did not really actively court racists in any kind of "open" or "obvious" way, and that the whole "dogwhistle" phenomenon is primarily a media hallucination; see Matrix v Ghostbusters thread
• That "the Matrix" is the ideological prism/prison that ends up with us antagonizing one another, believing the whipped-up hysteria of a clickbait media is true of half the country, and pits us against each other in a false, distracting internal conflict. Which we perpetuate by othering anyone who grew up in a Republican household while pretending to "cultural relativism." The candidates wave their hands and make symbolic gestures, the news pre-interprets these symbolic gestures for their audiences to maximize outrage, and people get super upset/stop speaking to their relatives at Thanksgiving dinner.

 

[sus]

I'm being silly, but the truth is I just don't believe in party politics, I think they're a big performance of moral indignation by people who don't actually give a shit, and anyone who falls for them in a sincere way is a bit of a sucker.

Let alone acting as the mouthpiece of the party. (Or their crony extensions the media.)

 

[sus]

 

[Mr. Tea]

I'm being silly, but the truth is I just don't believe in party politics, I think they're a big performance of moral indignation by people who don't actually give a shit, and anyone who falls for them in a sincere way is a bit of a sucker.

Let alone acting as the mouthpiece of the party. (Or their crony extensions the media.)

I find this 2-cool-4-school, "anyone who cares about politics is a sucker" attitude extremely unimpressive, tbh. Especially when it comes from an able-bodied, financially comfortable, straight, white guy, i.e. a member of the very last demographic that's going to be affected either by any of Trump's policies or by people radicalized by his rhetoric.

If you want to talk about projection, we could start with your assertion that politics is just a "performance of moral indignation by people who don't actually give a shit". Some people who actually have something at stake might give a lot more of a shit than you do.