Trump

[Cassandra LeMay]

The Atlantic recently ran an interesting piece about perhaps the biggest elephant in the room of how Trump won the presidency - racial animus. It's a long read, but I think well worth taking the time. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-nationalists-delusion/546356/

[Various]

The Atlantic recently ran an interesting piece about perhaps the biggest elephant in the room of how Trump won the presidency - racial animus. It's a long read, but I think well worth taking the time. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-nationalists-delusion/546356/

Elephant in the room? The first words out of his mouth were 'Mexicans are rapists'.

[Various]

Sorry for the double post but new comment and I can't edit.

So, from what I understand about the story, three US basketball players who were in China got caught shoplifting sunglasses. They were released while Trump was in China. Being a manchild, he demanded thank yous from the players/their families, even going so far as to say he would have not done his fucking job if he knew he wouldn't be praised for it like a toddler eating his peas. It was not provided, so there was a twitter war with one of the players' dads, a man named LaVar Ball.

Now the Trump supporters started to flood the feed of LaVar Burton, star of (among other things) Reading Rainbow fame to express their outrage. I mention that particular show because of the reading comprehension skills displayed.

Granted, these are the same geniuses who flipped out earlier this year when NPR published that scathing rebuke of Dear Leader known as the Declaration of Independence.

[Various]

Now a triple post because of inability to edit.

I also appreciate the irony of critiquing others' reading comprehension while misspelling LeVar Burton's first name. So I'll dine on crow for that part. Trump is still a manchild though.

[Regina Minx]

I also appreciate the irony of critiquing others' reading comprehension while misspelling LeVar Burton's first name...

Don't beat yourself up. You could be Stuart Baird, director of Star Trek: Nemesis, who kept Burton 'Laverne' and thought Commander LaForge was an alien.

[Mithlomwen]

Trump breaks his silence. 

He's stated that he believes Roy Moore, and that he'd rather have him (an accused child molester) elected rather than a Democrat. 

I have no words.  :/

[Deamonbane]

Trump breaks his silence. 

He's stated that he believes Roy Moore, and that he'd rather have him (an accused child molester) elected rather than a Democrat. 

I have no words.  :/

This should not surprise anyone at this point.

[Avis habilis]

Trump breaks his silence. 

He's stated that he believes Roy Moore, and that he'd rather have him (an accused child molester) elected rather than a Democrat. 

I have no words.  :/

I reckon that's just because Littlefinger's tired of being the only one in federal government at the moment.

[Cassandra LeMay]

Elephant in the room? The first words out of his mouth were 'Mexicans are rapists'.

True enough, but how often do you hear anyone discussing if "average Americans" were motivated by racism in their vote for Trump? That's pretty much the definition of the proverbial elephant in the room: something that is plain to see but no one wants to talk about.

[Trigon]

Or sexism for that matter. They voted for him despite the fact that he openly bragged about sexual assault on a hot mic.

[Trigon]

According to 538, the public does not seem to share Trump's opinion regarding Moore. He has now fallen behind the Democratic challenger: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-roy-moore-losing/

Even then though, he still has a distressingly high level of support (over 40%). I'm telling you, if he actually wins the election in Alabama I will officially lose all faith in America...

[TheGlyphstone]

Wouldn't it be more logical to only lose faith in Alabama? It's not like anyone outside the state actually matters for the outcome of this, no matter what the polls say.

[MiraMirror]

Can you lose faith in Alabama if you never had faith in Alabama in the first place? ?_?;

[Missy]

Dear Alabama

It's not that I'm saying I'm rejecting you form the union, it's that I'm saying there's only 49 stars on the flag now.

Good luck!

[HannibalBarca]

[TheGlyphstone]

Dear Alabama

It's not that I'm saying I'm rejecting you form the union, it's that I'm saying there's only 49 stars on the flag now.

Good luck!

Alabama, Florida, and....let's give them North Dakota so they're not too lonely. No one will notice it's gone, not even the people living there.

[Trigon]

I'd rather Alabama go at it alone   ;D

Who wants to bet that the GOP will "tolerate" this guy if he wins, just as they tolerate Trump...

[TheGlyphstone]

I'd rather Alabama go at it alone   ;D

Who wants to bet that the GOP will "tolerate" this guy if he wins, just as they tolerate Trump...

It pains me to say this, but they should. If Moore wins despite everything, the people of Alabama put him there, or at least a majority of them did.  Democracy is the average man's right to make dumbass decisions; if the GOP invalidates or refuses the results of a pro-Moore vote against the will of the voters, that would be the actual first step towards the tyranny you fear Trump will institute.

[gaggedLouise]

Trump being "modern presidential":

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/933280234220134401

::)

[Trigon]

It pains me to say this, but they should. If Moore wins despite everything, the people of Alabama put him there, or at least a majority of them did.  Democracy is the average man's right to make dumbass decisions; if the GOP invalidates or refuses the results of a pro-Moore vote against the will of the voters, that would be the actual first step towards the tyranny you fear Trump will institute.

Two things:

1) It's debatable to what extent it would be a democratic choice, since many of the southern states are heavily gerrymandered and/or disenfranchised. Trump got the presidency despite losing the popular vote after all...

2) But ignoring that, I don't know if I can agree with that argument in and of itself. If the "majority" votes to self destruct in a nuclear armageddon, should we honor the will of the people and launch the missiles?

[Trigon]

Trump being "modern presidential":

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/933280234220134401

::)

Bizarre...

[ReijiTabibito]

True enough, but how often do you hear anyone discussing if "average Americans" were motivated by racism in their vote for Trump? That's pretty much the definition of the proverbial elephant in the room: something that is plain to see but no one wants to talk about.

Majorities can be co-opted into supporting a candidate who might make crazy statements - even if I give Trump the benefit of the doubt and go with the context of his speech, I still think it's a crazy statement - and have a supporting minority who megaphone them, if the majority believes the candidate will do them some real good.

I've made mention of this before - the average American does not give a shit about race.  They care about their jobs, their families, their ability to provide for their families and to pursue happiness.  If they hate illegal immigrants, it hasn't anything to do with the color of their skin and everything to do with the fact that greed-driven companies are outsourcing their positions, both overseas and here to people they can get away with paying less/denying benefits/some combination of economics.

Dave Rubin of the Rubin Report recently had on Johnny C. Taylor, the current CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.  Taylor talked about a kerfluffle that's happening over in Chicago with Rahm Emmanuel.  Emmanuel wants to spend a million or two of the city's money to provide IDs to illegal immigrants - and one of the black aldermen of the city wrote to the Times saying that the whole idea is ridiculous because there are blacks in Chicago who need help, who could use that money, and they've been here way longer than a lot of the people coming from over the Rio Grande.   Taylor said in that same interview that he had a conversation with a college student, who complained that these illegals are getting broad support for having scholarships provided to them so they can go to good schools - but her, as a black woman and legal descendant of slaves, doesn't get any such help.

I realize this is specific to the immigration debate, but it is not racist to insist that a government look after its own people first.

2) But ignoring that, I don't know if I can agree with that argument in and of itself. If the "majority" votes to self destruct in a nuclear armageddon, should we honor the will of the people and launch the missiles?

If we live in a democratic society, then yes.  However, I would point out that if such a society actually made such a decision, then by extension that society no longer deserves to exist.  Civilization is work, it's not something you simply get handed to you, and that goes double for societies with representative-style governance.

Michael Moore said this in his infamous speech about Trump - on election day, a millionaire has the same number of votes as the guy with no job: ONE.  The problem that that runs into is what I call elitist rage: the very notion that Richard Dollar Pennybags III gets the same number of votes as Cletus Corneater Jr provokes a response - "That stupid, uneducated oaf gets as much of a say as I do?  That is preposterous!"

There's two responses that can be had to that.

Response A is to say "If we're going to make this republic work, then we can't have stupid, uneducated oafs having a say in how the country is run!"  And then what follows is the building of public institutions of learning, and awareness, and raising the knowledge base of the average citizen so they aren't stupid and uneducated.

That approach gets you the great intellectual movements of the past - the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

Response B is to say "If we're going to make this republic work, then we can't have stupid, uneducated oafs having a say in how the country is run!"  And then what follows is the elites attempting to limit the power and voice of the average person in government, because have you seen the average person?  They're a stupid, uneducated oaf!

That approach gets you the great anti-intellectual movements of the past - China's Cultural Revolution - because as Lincoln said, you can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.  Sooner or later, someone will figure it out.  And then what transpires is a general hatred of the elites because they did this.

Guess which approach our elites have decided to embrace?  To be fair to them, though, it's only right that they do.  After all, Response A can be so difficult to do, and heavens, if you did it you might create people who are superior to you!  At least this way they get to preserve their unearned sense of superiority!  [/sarcasm]

[TheGlyphstone]

While I find the concept of a national ballot on nuclear self-holocaust to be a distinct strawman, I'm in agreement with Reiji on the outcome. If, somehow, such a vote were instituted across a country, and if somehow it was passed 'yes', then by all means launch the missiles because that collective branch of the human gene pool has nothing further left to contribute.

And on point, however gerrymandered the Alabama districts are (I suspect very), that's still missing the point. If they overturned the election results because of gerrymandering, that would be one thing (they won't). If they overturn or reject the results because they don't like the winner, that is literally the exact opposite of how a representative democracy works. The GOP doesn't get a choice as to whether or not they will 'tolerate' Moore, because to do otherwise regardless of how reprehensible he is would be the first knife in the back.

What you should be asking is not if they will tolerate him, but if his hypothetical victory would cause everyone who denounced him to about-face and welcome him back into the fold. The GOP margin in the Senate is razor-thin; ostracizing him after winning could end up driving him to vote against them out of sheer spite. Political advantage would, in this case, force them to yet again bury any morals they might still possess.

[Various]

Michael Moore said this in his infamous speech about Trump - on election day, a millionaire has the same number of votes as the guy with no job: ONE.  The problem that that runs into is what I call elitist rage: the very notion that Richard Dollar Pennybags III gets the same number of votes as Cletus Corneater Jr provokes a response - "That stupid, uneducated oaf gets as much of a say as I do?  That is preposterous!"

That reminds me of Tom Perkin's . . .  let's be generous and call it an idea. Basically this self-serving prick said, one, only those who pay taxes should vote. So basically he wants to go back at least to the 1850s (only white landowning males wasn't stated, but with assholes like this, that's the next step). He also thinks a person should get one vote per dollar paid in taxes.

He claimed he was joking, but this is also a man who said that the plutocrats fearing higher taxes was equal to the Jews treatment under the Nazi regime, so he's that sort of person he is to begin with.

[Various]

Also, in the South you've got a culture that for about a generation have been taught that Democrats are the Devil. That's not an exaggeration. The theocratic tendencies of the hard-right  have caused them to press that support for (say) gay rights is not just a policy proposal they disagree with but that it is explicitly Satanic (as are incidentally clothing the naked and feeding the poor because of the Mammonite/Randian theology they espouse).

This is why you have the pedophile over principles stance of many in Alabama (although Don the Con is doing so purely for political expediency).