President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

That line is geared toward a generalized perception. Not an individual's perception of a conversation.

I'm just saying...that way lies damnation. Liberals better realize - if they haven't already - that conservatives play identity politics even better than they do. Liberals think they're aggrieved? Meet Trump's Upper Midwest. And you can say "well, fuck em!" But they're winning with the same playbook.

Might be time to try a new playbook.

But let's talk "perception is reality" for a minute.

Let's talk the "Me Too" campaign. One takeaway from the movement is that sexual assault and harassment are more prevalent than we realize. Another takeaway is that men are awful. It's supposed to be "understood" that most men aren't awful, but that's not the prevailing impression given by anyone, anywhere.

Or let's talk about when a ESPN talking head decides to call Trump's voters "white supremacists" and gets hosannas from every corner of the liberal media, including Sports Illustrated. What's the perception there?

Liberals just lost an election to someone close to the devil himself - and they're already losing big at the state and city levels - and their solutions to the problem isn't to seek some compromise. It's cultural snobbery and demonization! Fuck em all!

What a strategy!

 

I think, given W's silence since leaving office, it should be a wakeup call to the GOP. But it won't be.

Speaking of the GOP ...

Frail and disoriented, Cochran says he's not retiring

 

Whew. I was going to make the same point . . . but simply could not risk going down the rabbit hole.

 

Nikki Haley calls Russian election interference an act of war.

Trump still won't say a bad word about Russia. He'll go scorched earth on nearly everything he feels slightly threatened by.

But Russia? Nah.

Hmmm. Wonder why that is.

Do good work Mueller.

Russia committed act of war with election interference, Nikki Haley says

 

It comes down to this. If I'm the President and I hear a family was offended by something I said when calling to offer condolences. I call back immediately and apologize and ask forgiveness.

 

What the Me, Too campaign seems to indicate is not that all men are awful, but that they all have the capacity to be awful and too many give in to it. To deny that white resentment of a multi-racial and cultural society is the beating heart of Trump's support is to deny one hell of a lot of public opinion and poli sci research. What are we supposed to say about people who think Jeff Sessions is a swell guy? To the clowns who believe Russian lies on Facebook and Twitter? That they're the salt of the earth? No. Some are hopelessly stupid and hateful. More are like everybody else, capable of being stupid and hateful and they're letting those qualities run them. Patronizing people like that won't win any votes. They have to hear about what they're doing. Usually, they have to have it hurt themselves before the fever runs its course. Soft pedaling a commitment to social justice and just not being an asshole to win votes degrades the political process and the person doing the soft pedaling.

 

Really the point I cared about making was that I woke up to 10-15 pages of people calling YF a “troll” and losing their shit because he offered the not-batshit possible interpretation of Trump’s words in the call, and that seemed quite over the top to me.

 

I might be totally off base but speaking for myself, I don't think Trump called with the plan to taunt the family. I assume he gave no thought to what he would say and stepped all over his dick. This doesn't make him evil but it is very concerning that we have a President that doesn't take the time to think about what he would say to people in their most vulnerable time. After all, his story has changed a couple of times.

 

Well, this is Trump’s problem. No fight is too small for him.

 

Dems do indeed need to get back to their roots and not take the upper Midwest for granted. And they need to have a real, working, tangible plan and get a coherent message together.

That, combined with the fact many of those voters will realize Trump won't actually do anything for them, nor does he give even one small fuck, will likely change the slim margins of the last election.

 

Trump really struggles with doing things he knows he has to do rather than things he wants to. I can only believe that his delay in calling those families was procrastination in the face of an unpleasant chore, and that he fucked up the call because his mind was elsewhere.

 

If you or anyone else has a tangible working plan for the revitalization of rural areas of the Upper Midwest, there's Nobel Prizes in than more than discipline waiting to be claimed. Not disputing you, just noting it's easier said than done.