The Trump Dump!

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free thoughtpolice
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Re: The Trump Dump!

#121

Post by free thoughtpolice »

Trump will save so many jobs it will make your head spin. Remember the 1100 Carrier jobs he saved before he was even elected?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... isled-them

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#122

Post by free thoughtpolice »

If true about Kushner (it could be russian disinformation) this is huge.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-t ... SKBN18N018

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#123

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

free thoughtpolice wrote:Trump will save so many jobs it will make your head spin. Remember the 1100 Carrier jobs he saved before he was even elected?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... isled-them
Hell, Amanda "cum bucket" Metskas couldn't even save one Carrier job!

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#124

Post by John D »

Please add to my list of why Hillary was a bad candidate:
1) A long history of slimy political behavior going back to when Bill was Governor. She is slimey.
2) A long history of right wing media absolutely hating on her. Even if some of this was unfair.... it still means that many people already had a negative opinion of her.
3) She does not emote well. She is cold and calculating. Jesus.... have you ever seen the "hot sauce" interview. Hilarious.
4) She had no new ideas and people where ready for change.
5) She only ran as the anti-Trump candidate.
6) and finally... she actually thought it was a good idea to call Trump voters a "basket of deplorable". That is some shitty campaigning man.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#125

Post by John D »

[youtube][/youtube]

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#126

Post by jet_lagg »

John D wrote: 6) and finally... she actually thought it was a good idea to call Trump voters a "basket of deplorable". That is some shitty campaigning man.
For the life of me I can't understand why she said that. And as part of a prepared speech too! At least Romney's 47% comment was spoken in private to a select group of supporters. I have a coworker that only reluctantly came around to the idea it was a tactical error after hearing so many Democrats say it was offensive, but how do you not see that coming? "I hold these people in utter contempt. Make me their leader!"

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#127

Post by d4m10n »

John D wrote:6) and finally... she actually thought it was a good idea to call Trump voters a "basket of deplorable". That is some shitty campaigning man.
She was trying to make a point about the ~½ of his supporters who are primarily motivated by economic uncertainty or something else other than bigotry. Poor form, though, since people only seem to remember the key phrase.


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Re: The Trump Dump!

#128

Post by Kirbmarc »

jet_lagg wrote:
John D wrote: 6) and finally... she actually thought it was a good idea to call Trump voters a "basket of deplorable". That is some shitty campaigning man.
For the life of me I can't understand why she said that. And as part of a prepared speech too! At least Romney's 47% comment was spoken in private to a select group of supporters. I have a coworker that only reluctantly came around to the idea it was a tactical error after hearing so many Democrats say it was offensive, but how do you not see that coming? "I hold these people in utter contempt. Make me their leader!"
I think that Clinton underestimated Trump and overestimated her chances. She's a very sharp lawyer, but she has relied on the "rainbow coalition" model way too much, as we all did to an extent. Most pollsters thought Trump wasn't going to win. Most experts thought he wasn't going to win. Clinton became overconfident, she thought she just had to talk about how awful Trump was and everyone but the most conservative old white men would have voted for her.

Her campaign staff also didn't help. They focused on getting the right diversity quotas in her staff (you can see it in John Podesta's email request for a "Hispanic woman") and some of her were and still true SJ believers, or close approximations thereof. Someone in the Clinton campaign staff thought that Brianna Wu was someone worth taking seriously about the "alt-right". It doesn't take much research to understand that Brianna is actually a lolcow, even her so-called friends often wished she just stopped talking for a while.

I'm not saying that it was Brianna Wu who sank Clinton's campaign, but the fact that the Clinton campaign staff took her seriously is a red flag. Jut like sending Lena Dunham of all people to do some campaign outreach in North Carolina. Who the hell thought this was a good idea? Dunham is toxic even for many liberals (her book and general behavior are cringeworthy), who thought that she was going to be popular in a swing state?

I don't think that it was Clinton who made those decisions, and I don't think that those decisions alone was what made her lose, but they're part of a series of mistake, wrong attitude, overconfidence and circle jerks inside the Clinton campaign and to an extent even inside the DNC. Just see what happened after the defeat: doubling down, casting Clinton as a victim of the Evil Brute, Dunham writing yet another cringe-worthy article, Wu actually campaigning. There's a SJ echo chamber within the Democratic Party, and while Clinton wasn't a part of it her campaign was negatively influenced by it.

At the very least the constant reassurance from a group of SJ yes men and women that Trump could never win made Clinton sit on her laurels and run a very bland and uninspiring campaign centered in making conservatives stay home or vote for McMullin or for the Libertarians by repeatedly showing how bad Trump was.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#129

Post by jet_lagg »

Dunham is emblematic of everything that's wrong both with my party and my generation. I enjoyed the first season of Girls thinking it was supposed to be this biting, satirical critique of all those qualities the protagonists possess. These days I'm not so sure.

Did you read her post election essay?

http://www.lennyletter.com/politics/a60 ... -organize/
We wanted a female president... That made us targets.
It is painful on a cellular level knowing those men got what they wanted, just as it's painful to know you are hated for daring to ask for what is yours.
The level of ego. The pure hubris. It leaves me breathless. It really does. Clinton is owed the presidency because she has a vagina and stood patiently in line apparently. It's such a warped view of the world I wouldn't even know where to begin addressing what's wrong.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#130

Post by John D »

jet_lagg wrote:Dunham is emblematic of everything that's wrong both with my party and my generation. I enjoyed the first season of Girls thinking it was supposed to be this biting, satirical critique of all those qualities the protagonists possess. These days I'm not so sure.

Did you read her post election essay?

http://www.lennyletter.com/politics/a60 ... -organize/
We wanted a female president... That made us targets.
It is painful on a cellular level knowing those men got what they wanted, just as it's painful to know you are hated for daring to ask for what is yours.
The level of ego. The pure hubris. It leaves me breathless. It really does. Clinton is owed the presidency because she has a vagina and stood patiently in line apparently. It's such a warped view of the world I wouldn't even know where to begin addressing what's wrong.
Wow... just wow. She is a fucking psycho.
.... she writes... A lot of people have been talking about how we need to try to understand how this happened and what's going on in the minds of the people who voted for Donald Trump. Maybe. Maybe. But maybe let's leave that to the strategists, to the men in offices who need to run the numbers. It should not be the job of women, of people of color, of queer and trans Americans, to understand who does not consider them human and why, just as it's not the job of the abused to understand their abuser. It's quite enough work to know about and bear the hatred of so many. It's quite enough work to go on living.
The claim that people do not believe women or minorities, etc. and not human is actually bizarre to me. The rhetoric is so hyperbolic. Wow. And she actually stood in the shower and cried and cried. The Democrat tribe is truly fascinating to watch.

It is really a bad idea to look to the mentally ill to be your leaders. No offense intended... hey... my family has plenty of mental disorders. Do any of these pampered whining ninnys have a stable personality? Truly. They are fucking nuts.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#131

Post by John D »

d4m10n wrote:
John D wrote:6) and finally... she actually thought it was a good idea to call Trump voters a "basket of deplorable". That is some shitty campaigning man.
She was trying to make a point about the ~½ of his supporters who are primarily motivated by economic uncertainty or something else other than bigotry. Poor form, though, since people only seem to remember the key phrase.


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Here is the Hillary quote:
"I know there are only 60 days left to make our case -- and don't get complacent, don't see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think, well, he's done this time. We are living in a volatile political environment. You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America."
Now, when I read this it makes me feel she is accusing Trump supporters of either being "racists, sexists, etc." or at least providing support to bigots. It also makes it clear that she feels that there is an extremely large number of "racists, sexists, etc.".

The problem is that most Americans look around at their neighbors and don't see all these bigots. They actually tend to see basically good people who are being vilified and called evil for having conservative values. To me, this kind of comment is a lens that shows what Hillary is really like. She really scorns average people. She is ruthless about her political ideas and unsympathetic to average people.

This is why the quote was so heavily shared. I think is gave a glimpse into her heart.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#132

Post by Lsuoma »

John D wrote:
d4m10n wrote:
John D wrote:6) and finally... she actually thought it was a good idea to call Trump voters a "basket of deplorable". That is some shitty campaigning man.
She was trying to make a point about the ~½ of his supporters who are primarily motivated by economic uncertainty or something else other than bigotry. Poor form, though, since people only seem to remember the key phrase.


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Here is the Hillary quote:
"I know there are only 60 days left to make our case -- and don't get complacent, don't see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think, well, he's done this time. We are living in a volatile political environment. You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America."
Now, when I read this it makes me feel she is accusing Trump supporters of either being "racists, sexists, etc." or at least providing support to bigots. It also makes it clear that she feels that there is an extremely large number of "racists, sexists, etc.".

The problem is that most Americans look around at their neighbors and don't see all these bigots. They actually tend to see basically good people who are being vilified and called evil for having conservative values. To me, this kind of comment is a lens that shows what Hillary is really like. She really scorns average people. She is ruthless about her political ideas and unsympathetic to average people.

This is why the quote was so heavily shared. I think is gave a glimpse into her heart.
And don't forget, it's not economic basket cases, dole scum, etc., etc., that would be put into that basket of deplorable by the Hilarians - most of the Pitters would be there too.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#133

Post by d4m10n »

John D wrote:This is why the quote was so heavily shared. I think is gave a glimpse into her heart.
Do you have any notions of why people usually leave off the key point which she was building up to with that baskets analogy?
HRC wrote:But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.
Seems to me that leaving this part out is mostly tactical, an attempt to paint her as totally unsympathetic to the working class.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#134

Post by Lsuoma »

d4m10n wrote:
John D wrote:This is why the quote was so heavily shared. I think is gave a glimpse into her heart.
Do you have any notions of why people usually leave off the key point which she was building up to with that baskets analogy?
HRC wrote:But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.
Seems to me that leaving this part out is mostly tactical, an attempt to paint her as totally unsympathetic to the working class.

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Isn't bad-mouthing half the working class enough? I think it is. And so did the electorate.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#135

Post by Kirbmarc »

d4m10n wrote:
John D wrote:This is why the quote was so heavily shared. I think is gave a glimpse into her heart.
Do you have any notions of why people usually leave off the key point which she was building up to with that baskets analogy?
HRC wrote:But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.
Seems to me that leaving this part out is mostly tactical, an attempt to paint her as totally unsympathetic to the working class.

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Very likely. Although it was pretty stupid of her to say that half of Trump's supporters were "deplorable". She only has herself to blame.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#136

Post by jet_lagg »

Lsuoma wrote:
d4m10n wrote:
Seems to me that leaving this part out is mostly tactical, an attempt to paint her as totally unsympathetic to the working class.

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Isn't bad-mouthing half the working class enough? I think it is. And so did the electorate.
This. It doesn't much matter to me if you think a quarter of all Americans are irredeemable or half of all Americans. Either position means you have no business leading the country.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#137

Post by Sunder »

d4m10n wrote:
John D wrote:This is why the quote was so heavily shared. I think is gave a glimpse into her heart.
Do you have any notions of why people usually leave off the key point which she was building up to with that baskets analogy?
HRC wrote:But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.
Seems to me that leaving this part out is mostly tactical, an attempt to paint her as totally unsympathetic to the working class.

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I like Jonathan Pie's wording of this, which I'll paraphrase: If you've got a candidate who's mostly just promising business as usual, and a large segment of the population for whom business as usual is not promising, then if they've nothing to lose, they'd rather choose uncertainty, because at least there's a tiny chance it could work out in their favor.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#138

Post by Sunder »

Kirbmarc wrote:Most pollsters thought Trump wasn't going to win.
The important thing to remember about the polls is what Nate Silver pointed out after he finally took off his ill-fitting pundit hat and put his statistician hat back on: Even though polls gave the impression of a huge Hillary lead, the gap between her and Trump was smaller than the margins of error. It wasn't that all the polls were garbage, it's that too many people don't know how to read a poll, don't understand error bars, and the race was actually very close.

But a lot of people drew the wrong conclusion entirely, and reasoned that polls are now worthless, all the experts were wrong, and feels are just as good as data.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#139

Post by free thoughtpolice »

[youtube][/youtube]

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#140

Post by d4m10n »

jet_lagg wrote:It doesn't much matter to me if you think a quarter of all Americans are irredeemable or half of all Americans. Either position means you have no business leading the country.
Thank goodness POTUS avoids insulting any particular fraction of the citizenry.



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Re: The Trump Dump!

#141

Post by Kirbmarc »

Sunder wrote:
Kirbmarc wrote:Most pollsters thought Trump wasn't going to win.
The important thing to remember about the polls is what Nate Silver pointed out after he finally took off his ill-fitting pundit hat and put his statistician hat back on: Even though polls gave the impression of a huge Hillary lead, the gap between her and Trump was smaller than the margins of error. It wasn't that all the polls were garbage, it's that too many people don't know how to read a poll, don't understand error bars, and the race was actually very close.

But a lot of people drew the wrong conclusion entirely, and reasoned that polls are now worthless, all the experts were wrong, and feels are just as good as data.
I wouldn't say that polls are worthless and all experts are wrong, but it seems that many of them either explicitly behaved like political pundits or didn't take into account the possibility that many of those who refused to answer questions might have leaned Trump but didn't want to admit it. There are such things as the "silent majority" and the "shy conservative vote".

Silver of all people should have tried to stay more impartial. His projections were better than those of more explicitly political outlets (does anyone remember the Huffington Post's map which showed that Hillary Clinton had a 98% chance of victory?) but he still let his preferences cloud his judgement to a certain degree.

There are already far too many partisan outlets, so we need an independent, neutral source of reference. Silver's job is to be such a thing. Everyone has political preferences, but if your aim is to present a model which is as objective as possible you need to push them aside and give people only the data, with margins of error explicitly pointed out and without expressing who you wish would win while you're doing it.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#142

Post by Kirbmarc »

d4m10n wrote:
jet_lagg wrote:It doesn't much matter to me if you think a quarter of all Americans are irredeemable or half of all Americans. Either position means you have no business leading the country.
Thank goodness POTUS avoids insulting any particular fraction of the citizenry.



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I don't think it's a matter of offence and insults, it's more of a matter of people not perceiving Clinton as interested in giving them what they wanted. Trump is actually more selective in his insults, he focuses either on illegal immigrants (who, despite Trump's own conspiracy theories, don't vote in US elections) or on specific people (Clinton, which is a given since she was his rival, or a specific journalist or judge he dislikes) or on abstract entities "the establishment" (which pretty much no one likes, even those who are considered by others to be part of the "the establishment") or "the press" (which has suffered huge blows to its popularity due to the rise of click-bait journalism and due to political polarization) or the muslims (who are a very small part of the US, and very unlikely to vote Republican anyway)

Clinton wanted to create an appeal to a checkerboard of identity politics but didn't appeal to working class or even many middle class whites, Trump pandered to American populism, on appealing to Americans in general as much as he could. If you don't believe me remember that he posed with a rainbow flag. The enemy/scapegoat he offered to the mass are people who don't vote, the "illegals", the "foreigners", the refugees, immigrants in general. Cynically speaking those people don't really matter in US elections, and Trump's potential electorate wasn't overly fond of them anyway.

Clinton on the other hand seemed distant from a significant chunk of her electorate, namely those who used to vote Democrat but didn't care about identity politics and wanted to see more focus on their economic and social problems. Most of them didn't switch to Trump (although a few did) but rather stayed home.

The only major scandal which could have actually mattered to Trump's potential electorate was the "grab them by the pussy" tape, and he actually handled it better than you'd expect, by apologizing just enough while pointing out that while he was caught talking Bill Clinton had been caught cheating and lying. In the end the "pussy" tape didn't matter much, not even with the Religious Right.

Trump campaigned far better than Clinton. This was likely because Clinton underestimated him and run a weak, bumbling, conventional and boring campaign and because Trump is good at selling the Trump trademark. Of course just like in the case of the Trump University, Trump Steak, Trump Casino and everything else he's done he's good at conning people into giving him money (or support) but he's terrible at delivering anything of value.

However while Trump's answers to the issues of people who voted for him were wrong and he's not likely to deliver what he promised ("drain the swamp!") anyway not all of the issues that lead people to vote for Trump were due to "deplorable" ideas. The next Democratic candidate must learn from Clinton's defeat and focus less on appeasing to all different kinds of identity politics and more on concrete answers to concrete problems.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#143

Post by Karmakin »

The way I put it is simple. Trump was the "Hope and Change" candidate, Clinton was the status quo candidate. As there are more areas that are hurt than helped by the status quo, Trump won even though he's probably the worst candidate of all time.

The Democrats as a whole need a plan to deal with economic centralization. That's an issue that's entirely off the radar, but it's oh so important, in terms of electoral politics. They were running off the idea..look how good the economy is..it's booming in NorCal and NY and Northern Virgina..isn't that awesome?!?, while not understanding that the experience in a lot of other places is entirely different.

But on the election, I'm pretty well convinced on one thing. What swung it wasn't the Comey conference, or even Basket of Deplorables...it was the announced Obamacare rate hikes. And with Clinton basically the status quo candidate, that sunk her IMO. That's the event that triggered the final downward swing in the polls, it looks like.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#144

Post by d4m10n »

Kirbmarc wrote:Clinton wanted to create an appeal to a checkerboard of identity politics but didn't appeal to working class or even many middle class whites, Trump pandered to American populism, on appealing to Americans in general as much as he could.
Clinton needed to appeal to minority voters, because they are the people who put the Obama coalition over the top, twice.
Nate Silver wrote:Of all voters who cast a ballot in the general election, 25 percent were black, Hispanic, Asian, or a member of another minority group. But those voters were 42 percent of those who didn’t vote. Drilling down a little further, black voters made up 11 percent of voters who cast a ballot and 19 percent who didn’t. This disparity really hurt Clinton because black voters (by 82 percentage points) and Hispanic voters (by 40 percentage points) overwhelmingly favored her, while white voters went for Trump by a 16-point margin in the SurveyMonkey poll.

The turnout rate for black voters was substantially higher in 2012, the last time Barack Obama was on the ballot. According to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey,3 black Americans made up 13 percent of voters and only 9 percent of registered non-voters in 2012. In other words, black voters actually made up a larger percentage of voters who cast a ballot than those who didn’t in 2012, which is the opposite of what occurred last year. Whites, on the other hand, made up about the same percentage of registered voters who cast a ballot (74 percent) and those who didn’t (73 percent). The higher number of black non-voters in 2016 probably had a big impact.
Of course, it is easy to explain away the differences in terms of Clinton's own identity. Even though HRC's policies were generally indistinguishable from those of BHO, her appearance and backstory are notably different.

As to the white working class, they are not wrong to feel that the Democratic Party failed to keep them front-and-center. They are wrong, of course, to trust that the GOP will bring solid union jobs back to the Rust Belt.



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Re: The Trump Dump!

#145

Post by d4m10n »

Karmakin wrote:But on the election, I'm pretty well convinced on one thing. What swung it wasn't the Comey conference, or even Basket of Deplorables...it was the announced Obamacare rate hikes. And with Clinton basically the status quo candidate, that sunk her IMO. That's the event that triggered the final downward swing in the polls, it looks like.
When the election is ultimately determined by less than 100,000 votes in a handful of key swing states, any number of possible factors could have swung it, including Comey.
Hell, even Stein voters could've swung the election by themselves:

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#146

Post by jet_lagg »

d4m10n wrote:
jet_lagg wrote:It doesn't much matter to me if you think a quarter of all Americans are irredeemable or half of all Americans. Either position means you have no business leading the country.
Thank goodness POTUS avoids insulting any particular fraction of the citizenry.



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I'm comfortable with insulting losers and rapists. They're losers and rapists after all.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#147

Post by Kirbmarc »

d4m10n wrote:As to the white working class, they are not wrong to feel that the Democratic Party failed to keep them front-and-center. They are wrong, of course, to trust that the GOP will bring solid union jobs back to the Rust Belt.
I'm not disagreeing on this, just saying that some kind of coherent message that would have appealed to them too, if only to diminish the appeal of Trump, could have allowed the Dems to win.

In others words more focus on class and less on ID politics might be a path to victory.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#148

Post by d4m10n »

Kirbmarc wrote:In others words more focus on class and less on ID politics might be a path to victory.
Agreed. This will be somewhat easier for Dems in 2018 & 2020 because they will not be running on the status quo, which allows them to credibly propose significant economic reforms, e.g. unrepealing/expanding ACA, unrepealing/expanding Dodd-Frank, etc.

As to identity politics...

Q: How divisive is identity politics?

A:
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/im ... fzehn7.jpg

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#149

Post by Karmakin »

d4m10n wrote:
When the election is ultimately determined by less than 100,000 votes in a handful of key swing states, any number of possible factors could have swung it, including Comey.
OK, that's where I fundamentally disagree. I don't see this as a 50/50 split that was swung narrowly by 100,000 votes in a few key states. To me, the baseline is the 2012 results. Honestly, even if Clinton won, but won by less than Obama did in 2012, considering again how horrible of a candidate Trump is, I personally would have seen that as a failure. Or maybe more accurately, as a massive red flag that requires the type of conversations that we're having now anyway.

So to me, it was determined by about 1.2 million votes in a handful of key swing states, (that's the difference between 2012 and 2016). And still, yes, certainly the Deplorables comment or the Comey letter COULD have done that. But the data, and the polling timeline really does hint at that the biggest part probably was the Obamacare rate hikes, at least from the information that I've seen.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#150

Post by d4m10n »

I would not have expected Clinton to fare so well as Obama in any event. She lacks his charm, his backstory, his ethnic identity, his way with words. She is not, in his words, "likable enough."

I'd say the best measure of baseline (in terms of national mood) would be the slight GOP edge in House races, taken in the aggregate. This is not particularly easy to explain, but economic uncertainty has to be a factor.

As to the Obamacare rate hikes, they only effect people on the exchanges, right?


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Re: The Trump Dump!

#151

Post by Kirbmarc »

d4m10n wrote:
Kirbmarc wrote:In others words more focus on class and less on ID politics might be a path to victory.
Agreed. This will be somewhat easier for Dems in 2018 & 2020 because they will not be running on the status quo, which allows them to credibly propose significant economic reforms, e.g. unrepealing/expanding ACA, unrepealing/expanding Dodd-Frank, etc.

As to identity politics...

Q: How divisive is identity politics?

A:
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/im ... fzehn7.jpg
So...pretty divisive.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#152

Post by Karmakin »

I mean maybe that's pie in the sky thinking, but at the same time, Trump was a massively worse candidate than Romney, I think. So maybe that should have been a wash.

For what it's worth, on the Obamacare thing, I actually find that hard to believe myself. But, from what I've seen, that's the best explanation for when the final momentum shift of the campaign occurred. And even if it doesn't directly affect a whole lot of people's rates, an awful lot of people will THINK it will, and really that's what counts.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#153

Post by d4m10n »

Kirbmarc wrote:So...pretty divisive.
Amazingly so. It takes a certain indifference to political unity to openly chastise the 47% for the sins of the 53%, based on nothing more than circumstances of birth.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#154

Post by Kirbmarc »

d4m10n wrote:
Kirbmarc wrote:So...pretty divisive.
Amazingly so. It takes a certain indifference to political unity to openly chastise the 47% for the sins of the 53%, based on nothing more than circumstances of birth.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk
Yep. It was stupid when Romney said that, just like it was stupid when Obama said the "clinging to guns and bibles" and when Clinton said accused 11 million people of being deplorable.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#155

Post by d4m10n »

I was talking about the 53% of white women, not the Romney 47% remark.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... mp-victory

Where did you get 11 million "deplorables," btw?

Seems low to me:
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Re: The Trump Dump!

#156

Post by Kirbmarc »

d4m10n wrote:I was talking about the 53% of white women, not the Romney 47% remark.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... mp-victory

Where did you get 11 million "deplorables," btw?

Seems low to me:
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Straight from the horse's mouth:
Hillary Clinton wrote:You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million.
Yes, it's actually lower than half of the people who voted for Trump, but it's the number that Clinton used. Pretty stupid anyway.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#157

Post by Sunder »

Karmakin wrote:For what it's worth, on the Obamacare thing, I actually find that hard to believe myself. But, from what I've seen, that's the best explanation for when the final momentum shift of the campaign occurred. And even if it doesn't directly affect a whole lot of people's rates, an awful lot of people will THINK it will, and really that's what counts.
People don't really understand Obamacare or how it works. A lot of them think it's a program you sign up for.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#158

Post by Karmakin »

Sunder wrote:
Karmakin wrote:For what it's worth, on the Obamacare thing, I actually find that hard to believe myself. But, from what I've seen, that's the best explanation for when the final momentum shift of the campaign occurred. And even if it doesn't directly affect a whole lot of people's rates, an awful lot of people will THINK it will, and really that's what counts.
People don't really understand Obamacare or how it works. A lot of them think it's a program you sign up for.
I mean..while that technically isn't true, with all the talk about the exchanges and getting people to sign up, I think that's a misconception that can be forgiven.

Actually, now that I think about it, and knowing who generally is being pushed towards the exchanges, it leaves me wondering if it's not the case that it's really strongly affecting some potentially politically volatile demographics, basically entrepreneurs, and that's why it's an issue that outsized it's importance.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#159

Post by d4m10n »

Kirbmarc wrote:
Straight from the horse's mouth:
Hillary Clinton wrote:You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million.
Yes, it's actually lower than half of the people who voted for Trump, but it's the number that Clinton used. Pretty stupid anyway.
Oh, that. Pretty sure she was talking about his Twitter following, at the time.
It's deplorable that Trump has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices, including by retweeting fringe bigots with a few dozen followers and spreading their message to 11 million people.
Source: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... plorables/

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#160

Post by d4m10n »

John D wrote:Fucking Sam Harris. He lets his anti-Trump guests just rattle on about total bullshit (as long as everything they say is anti-Trump). Sam can't even think straight right now. He actually speculates that a Trump presidency will result in destruction of democracy in America. WTF? I.... can't... even.....
I assume you're talking about the Timothy Snyder episode? Maybe the one with David Frum?

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#161

Post by John D »

d4m10n wrote:
John D wrote:Fucking Sam Harris. He lets his anti-Trump guests just rattle on about total bullshit (as long as everything they say is anti-Trump). Sam can't even think straight right now. He actually speculates that a Trump presidency will result in destruction of democracy in America. WTF? I.... can't... even.....
I assume you're talking about the Timothy Snyder episode? Maybe the one with David Frum?
Both.

They are not insightful at all IMHO. Full of false assumptions about why Trump does what he does and no understanding of the people who voted for him.

And further.... I am disappointed that he opened the latest episode saying that he will continue to only talk about Trump since it is the biggest problem in the world right now. snore.....

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#162

Post by d4m10n »

John D wrote:
d4m10n wrote:
John D wrote:Fucking Sam Harris. He lets his anti-Trump guests just rattle on about total bullshit (as long as everything they say is anti-Trump). Sam can't even think straight right now. He actually speculates that a Trump presidency will result in destruction of democracy in America. WTF? I.... can't... even.....
I assume you're talking about the Timothy Snyder episode? Maybe the one with David Frum?
Both.

They are not insightful at all IMHO. Full of false assumptions about why Trump does what he does and no understanding of the people who voted for him.
I thought those episodes were pretty much spot on, but then I've no great insight into why people voted for him nor why he acts as he does.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#163

Post by free thoughtpolice »

It's because he's a supergenius that is playing 4D chess. He's draining the swamp by hiring all the pirates from Goldman Sachs, putting them in power and then getting them thrown in jail for following his orders to spy for the Russians.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#164

Post by free thoughtpolice »

And after he gets that punk ass son-in-law thrown in jail he will marry his hot daughter and make her vice president.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#165

Post by John D »

d4m10n wrote:
d4m10n wrote:
John D wrote:Fucking Sam Harris. He lets his anti-Trump guests just rattle on about total bullshit (as long as everything they say is anti-Trump). Sam can't even think straight right now. He actually speculates that a Trump presidency will result in destruction of democracy in America. WTF? I.... can't... even.....
I assume you're talking about the Timothy Snyder episode? Maybe the one with David Frum?
I thought those episodes were pretty much spot on, but then I've no great insight into why people voted for him nor why he acts as he does.
Well... I think you are wrong about most things... so... your support for these podcasts makes sense to me.

Harris cracks me up on this topic. He actually thinks that it is important for an effective president to be able to lie to the unwashed masses of people in such a way that they get away with it. He actually doesn't like Trump because Trump is a bald-faced liar. Sam wants the president to be a conniving type of liar. He clearly prefers a Hillary type of liar to a Trump type of liar. He has no real reason for this bias. I think he just enjoys the idea that he is smart enough to spot more lies than a typical citizen. It make him feel like things are somehow under control. Sam needs to feel smarter than everyone else.

Sam also makes the typical mistake of the left who think that Trump supporters believe Trump will deliver on his promises. I know lots of Trump supporters and what they expect is for Trump to try to change things in their favor. They do not think he will actually do exactly what he says. They never thought this. They know politicians are liars. They are just happy to know that Trump is "their" liar. At least he talks about the stuff his supporters care about.

Harris also hates that Trump never gives up any ground even when he is proven to be wrong. Trump always doubles down. Sam much prefers a politician who will simply change the subject, or not answer a question, or obfuscate. He thinks it is better for a politician to act they way they usually do when proven wrong... he prefers them to prattle and change the subject and pile on further smoke screens.

Harris thinks he has some insight into the psychology of Trump, but he is regularly wrong. It is comical. Harris misses all the most obvious explanations for Trump's behavior so that he can make Trump into a psycho.

I will keep checking out his stuff, because he is sometimes insightful. Perhaps things will improve because he is going to have the Dilbert guy on (Scott Adams). Maybe Scott will talk some sense into Harris. If not.... it will be a long boring summer for the "Waking Up" podcast.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#166

Post by Kirbmarc »

John D wrote:Sam also makes the typical mistake of the left who think that Trump supporters believe Trump will deliver on his promises. I know lots of Trump supporters and what they expect is for Trump to try to change things in their favor. They do not think he will actually do exactly what he says. They never thought this. They know politicians are liars. They are just happy to know that Trump is "their" liar. At least he talks about the stuff his supporters care about.
Serious question: what do Trump's supporters care so much about that they're happy to have Trump as "their" liar?
Harris thinks he has some insight into the psychology of Trump, but he is regularly wrong. It is comical. Harris misses all the most obvious explanations for Trump's behavior so that he can make Trump into a psycho.
What is the most obvious explanation for Trump's behavior, for example for spilling out state secrets to the Russians or tweeting about how evil Qatar is hours after Tillerson had tried to appeal for reason in the Saudi/Qatar schism? To me the most obvious explanation is that Trump can't keep his mouth shut and says whatever comes to his mind, which isn't a good quality for a leader in matters of diplomacy. I could be wrong, though, so I'm ready to hear out what you think.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#167

Post by Karmakin »

d4m10n wrote:I thought those episodes were pretty much spot on, but then I've no great insight into why people voted for him nor why he acts as he does.
For why people voted for him, I still think largely it's about hope. Is it a false hope? Probably. Their small towns are going to continue to become economically irrelevent, falling apart, eventually to disappear into the dust. Opioid abuse will continue to ravage these places. And there's absolutely nothing that can be done to prevent this. Probably. (There's probably things that COULD be done, but they won't be done).

Trump offered a (false) hope to reverse this. He won't. He can't, I think. But that's what he offered.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#168

Post by Kirbmarc »

Karmakin wrote:
d4m10n wrote:I thought those episodes were pretty much spot on, but then I've no great insight into why people voted for him nor why he acts as he does.
For why people voted for him, I still think largely it's about hope. Is it a false hope? Probably. Their small towns are going to continue to become economically irrelevent, falling apart, eventually to disappear into the dust. Opioid abuse will continue to ravage these places. And there's absolutely nothing that can be done to prevent this. Probably. (There's probably things that COULD be done, but they won't be done).

Trump offered a (false) hope to reverse this. He won't. He can't, I think. But that's what he offered.
Yeah, I can understand this. The thing is that there probably is something that can be done, if not to make those small towns "great again", to at least care about their issues. I think that a serious leftist party/movement should try to face all socio-economic issues, independent of identity politics. Those small towns need better healthcare, their inhabitants need some kind of job perspective, the opioid abuse is an issue that needs to be tackled. I'm not saying that the left should care only about those towns, but that they should care also about those towns, along with the other issues of poverty and social isolation in the US (like poor city communities, which are more likely to be black or latino, or Native American community).

I'm not saying that the left should never talk about race (although it'd be better to talk about it without using the po-mo narratives of Critical Race Theory), but rather to highlight data about real issues, I'm saying that you need to address class, too, and that telling poor, socially isolated white people that they're "privileged", a "basket of deplorables" and that they should just learn code is a)stupid b)divisive and c)counterproductive.

I think it's better to tackle issues like police brutality and militarized police, the failures of the war on drugs, the privatization of the prison system, lack of good legal representation for poor people, laws that punish people with low income and who live in cities through a class perspective, by accepting racial differences but pointing out how they're due to different rates of income (which might as well be rooted in the consequences of racism, since it's a long-term phenomenon) and due to ghettoization (which, again, probably has its roots in racism) rather than due to a White Patriarchal conspiracy to keep non-white people down.

I think that on a certain level some people in the left, from Bill Clinton to Bernie Sanders, understand this. It's just that the ID politics infestation runs deep, and that Hillary Clinton has cynically tried to use ID politics idiocy to win, only to have her project to guilt-trip women into voting for her blow up in her face.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#169

Post by John D »

Kirbmarc wrote:
John D wrote:Sam also makes the typical mistake of the left who think that Trump supporters believe Trump will deliver on his promises. I know lots of Trump supporters and what they expect is for Trump to try to change things in their favor. They do not think he will actually do exactly what he says. They never thought this. They know politicians are liars. They are just happy to know that Trump is "their" liar. At least he talks about the stuff his supporters care about.
Serious question: what do Trump's supporters care so much about that they're happy to have Trump as "their" liar?
Harris thinks he has some insight into the psychology of Trump, but he is regularly wrong. It is comical. Harris misses all the most obvious explanations for Trump's behavior so that he can make Trump into a psycho.
What is the most obvious explanation for Trump's behavior, for example for spilling out state secrets to the Russians or tweeting about how evil Qatar is hours after Tillerson had tried to appeal for reason in the Saudi/Qatar schism? To me the most obvious explanation is that Trump can't keep his mouth shut and says whatever comes to his mind, which isn't a good quality for a leader in matters of diplomacy. I could be wrong, though, so I'm ready to hear out what you think.
Here are my personal thoughts: (and I base this on the approx. 1/3 of my friends and family that are Trump voters - PS I did not vote Trump... I voted for that idiot Gary Johnson - at least I can say he was my idiot)

1)What do Trump's supporters care so much about that they're happy to have Trump as "their" liar?
Trump voters believe in an America based on the traditions of loyalty, service, liberty, independence, and plain talk. Good ole white bread America. Every time Trump tweets some shit he is speaking to this type of person. He is doing a sort of trolling shout out to his "fans". And he does it in a "damn the torpedoes" kind of way. For example, while Trump's staff avoids the words "travel ban", Trump tweets those very words. Some people think this is cause he is impulsive. To some extent he is impulsive, but he is following his instincts about what his fans want to hear from him. Even if his language risks his court case he is willing to toss out his real message. His real message is that travel, by Muslims, from these high risk countries IS REALLY dangerous. This is what he is really thinking and this is his message. It's not crazy. It's perhaps not wise for winning his court case, but he does not want to win the court case by changing his basic message. He would rather stick to his message.

Trump voters are not supporting him because he will always give them more free stuff. While these voters wouldn't mind more free stuff, they actually feel bad when they are on the dole. They will take government services, but they don't like the idea that they need to or do. It is an indignity that they might be on food stamps. As such, they are very hard on people who are on food stamps who they think don't deserve it. They judge people who don't use welfare the "right" way so they don't mind when someone like Trump doesn't increase benefits. They feel that if the benefits where cut that they would make due.... and that others can also make due. This is a big part of why the left doesn't understand these voters. These voters will take food stamps, for example, but they will spend a great deal of time justifying why they have to. They will apologize for it. They feel it is a failure. So, when someone getting food stamps has an expensive phone they get pissed off. If you are poor you should act poor. It is not right to try to be flashy. (I could spend a lot of time here writing about how poor whites and poor blacks act differently.... maybe I will save this for another time... suffice it to say, there is a tradition that poor blacks have a prefect new Cadillac, beautiful clothes, but live in a tar-paper shack.)

Trump voters are social conservatives. They are happy he is pushing back with things like the SCOTUS appointment of Gorsuch. They hate the identity politics of the left and have their own identity that the left constantly shits on. Sure, they are also playing identity politics, but, it is not like the left gives them a choice. They are also sick of people telling them they should be ashamed of their social opinions. They can't even speak their mind without being called bigots. Trump speaks his mind. They love this about him.

And when they look around at all the other groups who are clearly bigots and get support from the lefty politicians they get pretty pissed off. You know... Black Lives Matter! Holy Shit. Hillary actually talked about White Privilege on the campaign trail. WTF? Haha. Try to explain this concept to my buddy who strings power lines for a living and almost died when he fell off an electrical pole. Haha. "Yeah Bill! You have white privilege. And Bill, remember when you where trying to restore power in the black neighborhood and the teenagers started throwing rocks at you. Yeah man... that's because of privilege." Haha... Oh fuck me.

And I will also say that Trump voters are somewhat racist. But, it is not like they are really racist against someone's skin color. They will easily embrace a black person who shares their belief system. Race generally brings with it a belief system, but not always. So, they could easily support Ben Carson, and they did. But, when they talk about BLM they will use the word "Nigger". Well.... I guess I don't have a huge problem with this. They are really name calling people who have "wrong" ideas. And they are not so stupid they think "all" black people are BLM supporters. Of course, my lefty friends do think people like this are "white supremacists" and obvious "racists"... WTF? This is all an over simplification.

And you will see that Trump doesn't insult Black people. He did say something racist some years ago, but lots of people have an imperfect record. Trump tells Blacks to pull themselves up and stop listening to politicians about their victim-hood. Well, this is EXACTLY what Trump voters also believe. He is saying exactly what his voters think, and I suspect Trump really does think the same thing.

2)To me the most obvious explanation is that Trump can't keep his mouth shut and says whatever comes to his mind, which isn't a good quality for a leader...

Yeah... Trump is the bloviator-in-chief. Words do pass right from the back of his brain to his lips. I suspect he has had good results from this style over the years so he is sticking with it. It does benefit him in that he is able to say any number of things, but then be expected to do something completely different. It is pretty unsteady. It is a good thing we will in a very robust Republic which makes us somewhat immune to his dynamic communications.

What is cracking me up is that it has taken everybody so long to get used to Trump. I think people are actually refusing to learn. They don't like Trump in a very visceral emotional way so they over-react to every little thing he does. Harris is refusing to learn for example. They micro-analyse his tweet about Qatar, and pretend they can guess what it means. Hell, it means he is pissed that people aren't getting along with the Saudis and he wants his fans to know he is pissed. It is not much more complex than that.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#170

Post by Karmakin »

Yeah all that really needs to be done. I mean that's my stance and I'm sticking to it. Trump was selling hope, and Clinton was selling, what was basically austerity for much of the country. And people knew that. And people are sticking to Trump, because what choice do they have? It's

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#171

Post by Kirbmarc »

John D wrote:Here are my personal thoughts: (and I base this on the approx. 1/3 of my friends and family that are Trump voters - PS I did not vote Trump... I voted for that idiot Gary Johnson - at least I can say he was my idiot)
Thanks for answering to my questions.

<snip>
Trump voters are not supporting him because he will always give them more free stuff. While these voters wouldn't mind more free stuff, they actually feel bad when they are on the dole. They will take government services, but they don't like the idea that they need to or do. It is an indignity that they might be on food stamps. As such, they are very hard on people who are on food stamps who they think don't deserve it. They judge people who don't use welfare the "right" way so they don't mind when someone like Trump doesn't increase benefits. They feel that if the benefits where cut that they would make due.... and that others can also make due. This is a big part of why the left doesn't understand these voters. These voters will take food stamps, for example, but they will spend a great deal of time justifying why they have to. They will apologize for it. They feel it is a failure. So, when someone getting food stamps has an expensive phone they get pissed off. If you are poor you should act poor. It is not right to try to be flashy. (I could spend a lot of time here writing about how poor whites and poor blacks act differently.... maybe I will save this for another time... suffice it to say, there is a tradition that poor blacks have a prefect new Cadillac, beautiful clothes, but live in a tar-paper shack.)
This sounds like a cultural issue that I've seen happen among many people in Switzerland, too: they sometimes use federal money but act guilty about that, hide that, try to promote the idea that they're only doing it to get back on their feet, and are incredibly hostile to people they perceive to be abusing of handouts (sometimes to an irrational degree, basing their opinions more on anecdotes than on data). I wonder if this is a general feature of conservative people everywhere, especially of people who are used to living in almost self-sufficient and culturally isolated communities. The Calvinist belief in success through a hard work being a divine reward (common to the US and to certain parts of Switzerland) likely plays a role.
And when they look around at all the other groups who are clearly bigots and get support from the lefty politicians they get pretty pissed off. You know... Black Lives Matter! Holy Shit. Hillary actually talked about White Privilege on the campaign trail. WTF? Haha. Try to explain this concept to my buddy who strings power lines for a living and almost died when he fell off an electrical pole. Haha. "Yeah Bill! You have white privilege. And Bill, remember when you where trying to restore power in the black neighborhood and the teenagers started throwing rocks at you. Yeah man... that's because of privilege." Haha... Oh fuck me.
Yeah, that wasn't so smart of Clinton's. I think that the whole concept of "white privilege" is ill-defined and limited in scope, and to use it as a cudgel in politics is counterproductive.
And I will also say that Trump voters are somewhat racist. But, it is not like they are really racist against someone's skin color. They will easily embrace a black person who shares their belief system. Race generally brings with it a belief system, but not always. So, they could easily support Ben Carson, and they did. But, when they talk about BLM they will use the word "Nigger". Well.... I guess I don't have a huge problem with this. They are really name calling people who have "wrong" ideas. And they are not so stupid they think "all" black people are BLM supporters. Of course, my lefty friends do think people like this are "white supremacists" and obvious "racists"... WTF? This is all an over simplification.
This is likely due to the identification of black people with benefit scroungers which, yes, is a racial prejudice (and a rather obnoxious one, to be fair). However I've also noticed in Switzerland that even people who are really, deeply racist (people who talk about shooting boats full of immigrants, for example) oddly enough seem not to have non-white people on a personal level if they find something about them they like. I think that racism is an issue that creates undue suffering and complications for its targets, but it's not as cartoonish as the SocJus seem to believe it is. The SocJus never seem to want to understand why racist people are racist, and chalk it up to "hatred for what's different", which is very reductive, IMHO. Part of racism is hate towards different people, but it's not just that, there's usually some kind of more complicated, socio-economic or cultural reason behind that.

Racist people say and might do bad things, but the SJWs sometimes almost seem to believe that they're not even human, that they can't be talked with, reasoned with, that they're simply the scum of the earth and can't even be understood. I don't think that's the case.

There was this Swiss guy who was really racist towards me and called me "doner kebab" and "blackhead". I thought he was an idiot, and I still think he is, he wasn't very bright, but he was very friendly with another guy of Turkish origin, which at first I really didn't get. Then one day I talked with that other guy and asked him how he could put up with a racist asshole.

That guy told me that the racist guy was angry with me because he thought I, as a university student, was spending his tax money and would have wasted it by studying something useless, while the other Turkish guy was a construction worker like the racist guy, so he liked him more. I was baffled from this revelation, it didn't make me like the racist guy, but it made me understand that there was also something else going on, something which later in life I identified with class prejudice, not just racist prejudice. I wouldn't forgive the guy for being an asshole (because if you insult people like that you ARE an asshole), but it gave me a better insight on how he (and probably others) thought.

I think that this element of hatred towards what is perceived to be a "benefit class" (regardless of how much this is true) is part of the kind of racism you're talking about. It is unfair, but there's an element of class issues which needs to be addressed, otherwise just trying to censor people won't work and will backfire.

<snip>
Yeah... Trump is the bloviator-in-chief. Words do pass right from the back of his brain to his lips. I suspect he has had good results from this style over the years so he is sticking with it. It does benefit him in that he is able to say any number of things, but then be expected to do something completely different. It is pretty unsteady. It is a good thing we will in a very robust Republic which makes us somewhat immune to his dynamic communications.
The problem is that while this style might be good for selling people Trump steaks or Trump casino chips it's not so good for leading the United States. Yes, you have robust institutions, but still, blabbing about anything and being unsteady and unreliable isn't such a good idea.
What is cracking me up is that it has taken everybody so long to get used to Trump. I think people are actually refusing to learn. They don't like Trump in a very visceral emotional way so they over-react to every little thing he does. Harris is refusing to learn for example. They micro-analyse his tweet about Qatar, and pretend they can guess what it means. Hell, it means he is pissed that people aren't getting along with the Saudis and he wants his fans to know he is pissed. It is not much more complex than that.
Yeah I don't think there's much to analyze about his Qatar tweet,Trump simply believes the Saudis (which is pretty stupid) and thinks that the Qataris are the bad guys (they are, but it's much more complicated, and the Saudis aren't much better, possibly even worse). I think that one of the biggest flaws of Donnie Trump when it comes to foreign policy is that he's hopelessly naive and has a very uneducated and simplistic view of the world. So did Dubya, to be fair, what with actually believing that he could export democracy to Iraq just by getting rid of Saddam.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#172

Post by Sunder »

There are multiple sorts of govt. programs. Some require you to walk down to a govt. office, fill out an application form, and wait to receive benefits. Many people feel guilty about this process in any circumstances, and much rhetoric from the right is aimed at increasing that guilt.

Meanwhile nobody ever feels guilty about a tax credit or collecting their Social Security check when they retire.

Fact is when polled most people don't even consider the latter examples to count as govt. programs in the same way as the former.

free thoughtpolice
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Re: The Trump Dump!

#173

Post by free thoughtpolice »

Comey is a leaker. Pres. Trump is or at least wasn't under investigation. Spinning dancer, goose the gander...
http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/08/politics/ ... index.html
Mr Comey's testimony also makes clear that the President never sought to impede the investigation into attempted Russian interference in the 2016 election, and in fact, according to Mr. Comey, the President told Mr. Comey "it would be good to find out" in that investigation if there were "some 'satellite' associates of his who did something wrong." And he did not exclude anyone from that statement.

d4m10n
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Re: The Trump Dump!

#174

Post by d4m10n »

Do we really call it leaking when there is no legal duty to protect the information?

free thoughtpolice
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Re: The Trump Dump!

#175

Post by free thoughtpolice »

"We" don't but republicans do.

John D
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Re: The Trump Dump!

#176

Post by John D »

d4m10n wrote:Do we really call it leaking when there is no legal duty to protect the information?
Comey sharing his notes with the media was strictly against FBI policy. At the very least, if an underling did this sort of thing they would be reprimanded. Of course, the fucker did get fired.... so it is kind of moot at this point.

Comey looked like a real worm on this topic.... and it was worth a good laugh.

Comey: "I gave my notes to a friend who then gave them to the media."

Senator: "Why did you do that... why not just give your notes to the media yourself?"

Comey: "Reasons...."

Americans: "WTF... I fucking hate this asshole!"

Haha. I don't need to watch movies etc., for my laughs. I just watch the fucking news.

d4m10n
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Re: The Trump Dump!

#177

Post by d4m10n »

Are you saying, John, that Director Comey caused some tangible harm to the FBI or the USA by sharing his own personal recollections via the newspaper of record? Seems to me that he did the right thing; Americans deserved to know about those conversations, especially in light of Comey's unpresidented sacking.


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John D
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Re: The Trump Dump!

#178

Post by John D »

d4m10n wrote:Are you saying, John, that Director Comey caused some tangible harm to the FBI or the USA by sharing his own personal recollections via the newspaper of record? Seems to me that he did the right thing; Americans deserved to know about those conversations, especially in light of Comey's unpresidented sacking.


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I am saying most people think Comey is a worm. I certainly do.

He was being a slick player and yet he thinks he was doing some kind of duty. Honestly, the only thing in Washington taller than Comey is Comey's ego.

If the president tells you to drop an investigation you say "no". Maybe he will fire you... yep... you bet cowboy. So, you should strap on your brass balls and do the right thing.

Comey crying about bad tweets from Trump is really fucking pathetic. "He told everyone I was a bad leader... on a tweet... and that is just a big-ole LIE. Trump was lying about me... boo hoo."

Did this guy think he was the next J. Edgar Hoover? And WTF... he decided over the last several years exactly how to spin things to "protect his agency". Yeah dood... toss shit around like hand-grenades and then cry when people decide they can't trust you.

I think Trump was just pissed at Comey because Comey wouldn't tell the world that he was not personally under investigation. Trump thought Comey had it out for him... which is why he had the private meeting. And... Trump was right in assessing that Comey did have it out for him. Comey was fine telling the world when Hillary was not under investigation (except when he found new emails) ... but strangely refused to say Trump was not under investigation. Really... I think Comey just couldn't keep from tripping on his own giant shoes. That... and he thought he was gods gift to America. He thought he was some kind of puppet master. Haha.
Trump-Broke-Comey.jpeg
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free thoughtpolice
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Re: The Trump Dump!

#179

Post by free thoughtpolice »

Comey said Clinton was cleared because the investigation was finished. He was wrong to announce he restarted the investigation because he did not have sufficient evidence to reopen the investigation as was discovered after they looked at the Abedin emails.
It would have been false to say Trump was cleared because the investigation had just started and they didn't know what they might find as they continued.
Comey asked Sessions to have Trump to back off, and either Sessions didn't do it or Trump ignored him. He didn't have to even do that. He is a cop and his job isn't to warn someone that is in the early stages of committing a crime to not do it.
When you hand a cop a $50 dollar bill along with your drivers licence at a traffic stop they don't inform you that bribing a cop is against the law, they either wait for them to tell you to keep the money or they arrest you on the spot.

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Re: The Trump Dump!

#180

Post by Kirbmarc »

John D wrote:If the president tells you to drop an investigation you say "no". Maybe he will fire you... yep... you bet cowboy. So, you should strap on your brass balls and do the right thing.
How did Comey not do the right thing, exactly? Also, presidents shouldn't ask investigators to stop investigations, full stop. If they do, it's kind of a big deal in terms of abuse of power. A president's power has limits, messing with an investigations should be a deal breaker.

I grant Trump that since he's not a lawyer and has no experience in politics he might not have realized that as a president even informal requests might count as potential orders, and there is room to discuss whether Trump committed obstruction of justice (I'm no legal expert so I'm not sure "I hope you'll let this go" counts) but Comey was within his rights to record a potentially criminal utterance, then wait to see if Trump has misspoken or meant to fire him for not dropping the Flynn investigation.
Comey crying about bad tweets from Trump is really fucking pathetic. "He told everyone I was a bad leader... on a tweet... and that is just a big-ole LIE. Trump was lying about me... boo hoo."
Do you think it's productive and good for the country for a president to attack a federal agency on social media with non substantial basis? This isn't about Comey as person or Trump as a person, it's about the role of the executive and role enforcement. They control each other, but they're not at war, or at least they shouldn't be, and using social media turns a point of contention into a media circus.
I think Trump was just pissed at Comey because Comey wouldn't tell the world that he was not personally under investigation. Trump thought Comey had it out for him... which is why he had the private meeting. And... Trump was right in assessing that Comey did have it out for him. Comey was fine telling the world when Hillary was not under investigation (except when he found new emails) ... but strangely refused to say Trump was not under investigation. Really... I think Comey just couldn't keep from tripping on his own giant shoes. That... and he thought he was gods gift to America. He thought he was some kind of puppet master. Haha.
The investigation on Clinton was over when he made that claim. The investigation on the potential Russian infiltration is still ongoing. Trump wasn't under investigation when Comey was the head of the FBI, but he could have been later. Comey likely didn't want to make the same mistake again, tell people that someone wasn't under investigation only for more evidence to surface later.

We don't know about what's going on now about the investigation on Russia. We'll see what happens after the Special Counsel does its job.

Also it's weird to se people argue that Comey has it out for Trump after the Clinton campaign has blamed Comey for Hillary's loss.

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