President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Stable. Genius.

 

I've never really thought about it that way - but you're right. I guess it started with Nixon's "silent majority," then Reagan and his "welfare queen" schtick. but the party does seem to have swung hard to the Pat Buchanan side of things. It's worked too. People spend 95 percent of the time talking about how ridiculous and factually-challenged the GOP is, very little time is spent on the policy stuff that is getting through. In the past, there would be an uproar about rolling back EPA standards, worker safety, safety net cuts, balooning deficits (in a time of economic expansion no less).

 

This made me think. The deplorables support Trump because he’s one of them. He behaves just like they do, so they love it. Add in doses of voter suppression and gerrymandering along with Republican control of the Supreme Court and they’re unstoppable.

 

Have seen three or four Tulsi Gabbard ads here (I get all Boston and the big NH station on my cable. Last one had a cute puppy in it. It does make me wonder where the money's coming from. She's no billionaire like Steyer.

 

So maybe don't play into their stupidity?

Had a discussion with a former classmate the other day about this very thing.

Quick disclosure: I went to one of the more rural high schools in Nashville.

Back to the story... A classmate was walking across the street after school one afternoon when she was hit by a dump truck that had wandered well out of its lane and onto the parking area just in front of the school. She survived, the lawyers were brought in, and one kid actually testified that she stepped out into the road and in front of the truck.

Everyone (including me) saw it happen, saw the truck weave over into the parking lot, and it happened to damage a car that was parked well away from the road. Someone asked the boy why in the world he would lie about what happened. At first he tried to deflect criticism by saying he was only saying what he was told to say. Then he admitted that he admired truckers and hoped to be one someday. To him, it was unfair that the driver might lose his job just because of "one mistake." (It turned out the driver had other accidents and was not even licensed to drive that kind of vehicle.) When all of this came out, the boy's response was a shrug and, "Whull, we gawta stick tagether." It didn't matter that the trucker nearly killed a girl and her parents were facing crippling medical expenses while she went through years of rehab. It was all about identity and some bizarre misplaced pride in being part of a vocational subset.

This kind of tribalism can occur anywhere, in any group. It is pronounced and more dangerous when people feel pushed to the periphery. I don't know how many times I've been told Trump makes people feel heard. We're too nice to talk about the ways they express their contempt for their base. We just couch everything in terms that sound vaguely head-patty at best.

One the other side are people who don't mind telling volunteers who come from an unexpected SES that they're "One of the good ones." The first inclination is to simply walk away. For some people, it's enough to make someone take a short stroll to the other side of the aisle.

 

I hope you are right. I also fear Pete. While America should be ready for a gay president, is it? When the nominee kisses his husband after winning the nomination, the Pseudo Christian Trumpist Klan will be galvanized. Only video of an actual abortion would enrage them so thoroughly.

 

National Lampoon in the 70s had a comic art piece that depicted the Nixon White House as a flaming gay administration. Now where would they have got that idea?

 

Pic of the puppy or GTFO.

 

Is Newsom there?

 

That clip is six years old — back when the un-Amurrcun black guy was Commander in Chief. I’m guessing he has changed his tune. Unless those in uniform have exposed Trump’s crimes.

 

They truly are, unless the rest of us spend a little less time perfecting our TikTok dance moves and instead take to the streets in anger or at least get-out-the-vote efforts.

And that's assuming we actually hold an election, which is no sure thing at the moment.

 

They were against the Electoral College before they were for it, too