By telling the guy who lies to them, on their behalf, to go fuck himself. In those words. That’s all they want: someone to tell them it’s okay to tell the guy in charge to go fuck himself.
If your theory is that Dems just need to get a bigger, meaner dog than Trump to win over his acolytes, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Trump has given them permission to say “fuck you” to the system, not just to the last guy in charge of the system. Trump is dismantling the system before their very eyes and they are loving it. What’s the progressive big dog message? “Tell Climate Change to Go To Hell - drive electric Motherfuckers!”, “Fuck Cancer - here’s your M4A!!”
I would have to fall back on the old adage about there being no way to reason a person out of a position they did not reason themselves into.
This post I made in another thread is a propos:
Kobal2 made good points about how Obama was less forceful than he could have been regarding closing the Gitmo detention center, maybe with Merrick Garland (though I don’t see what else he could have done), etc. But, that doesn’t mean a Sanders type could just ram through big changes.
Some of the worst damage Trump has done is by appointing heads of federal agencies (etc.) who are literally opposed to the mandate of their agency. What’s the opposite of this? Simply appointing people who can DO THEIR FREAKING JOB. Trump is ruining everything by being shitty at everything, thus “accomplishing” what his followers say they want. This isn’t a template that a progressive can follow. You can’t accomplish progressive goals merely by being shitty at everything, but in the opposite direction.
Fear and hate are strong motivators. The great unwashed love him because he hates the same people they do, and the Republican politicos follow him because they’re afraid what will happen to them if they don’t.
And none of the enlightened liberals are smart enough to do anything about it.
Well, we are quite outnumbered.
“To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was a tautology.” -Mark Twain. St. Louis Post-Dispatch (30 May 1902)
Glad to see you’re not disputing the premise.
Hey, don’t forget the evil, greedy, amoral scumbags. They voted for him too. And the faux-Christian evangelicals who, obviously, wouldn’t recognize the anti-Christ even if he came to town and held a rally. Did we mention the toothless sister-fuckers? Them too.
The premise disputes itself. Seriously.
Trump winning in 2016 was a surprise.
Since then…
You’ve known you were going to be facing him again in 2020. (That’s four years, btw.)
You’ve known Bernie was going to be a spanner in the gears.
Did you make any attempt to sideline or incorporate Sanders into your agenda? Your only hope at this point is him not getting the nomination in a way that can in no way be construed as it being stolen from him.
If you replay 2016 the Bernie Bros are going to take their minuscule balls and go home not caring if they’re handing the election to Trump.
If BS does get the nomination, Trump is going to drag him out behind the woodshed and beat his socialist ass into the mud. Whether you agree he’s socialist or not, or want to split hairs that it’s a good democratic socialism, that’s the narrative that will hang him.
Four years you’ve had to come up with a grand strategy. Let’s hear it.
I made the comparison before to a pigeon drop. It’s a classic con where a conman approaches somebody with a plan about how the two of them are going to con some third party out of a large sum of money and split the money.
But the third party isn’t the real target of the con. The target is the guy the con man went to with the plan. This guy thinks he’s a partner but he’s the target.
The pigeon drop works because the target puts aside his usual suspicions. The con man doesn’t have to conceal the fact that he’s a con man. The target will actually be happy knowing that his “partner” is a con man because he thinks those skills are going to be used on his behalf.
To begin with, we’re speaking of Homo sapiens. The very name is a misnomer. Biologists wanted to change the scientific name to Homo stupidus but decided that would be politically incorrect.
In addition to stupidity and ignorance, America must cope with great levels of hatred. Ironically the most hateful of all are often the white evangelicals who prattle gibberish about love. Americans often do seem more hateful these days than the people of other countries, or Americans in bygone days.
So WHY have stupidity, ignorance and hatred grown so dominant in the America of recent days? IQs are actually higher and the (Dis)Information Highway is at our fingertips. But even Bush-41 and Bush-43 were tolerable compared with the Hatred Party of today. This question has been discussed repeatedly at this message-board, but a simple example should help OP answer his own question:
***Fifty years ago turn on the TV and you’re likely to see Walter Cronkite. Today you’ll see Sean Hannity.***HTH.
There was an interview with a MAGA-lady about some policy that was disadvantageous to her.
She literally said “He’s hurting the wrong people”.
That’s it, the whole “reason”, mindset and philosophy of the Trumpist.
We leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out who “the right people” to hurt are. Trumpists don’t seem to grasp that while they all project their image of “them” onto that, it only fits so neatly because for Trump “they” is anybody who’s not Donald.
People vote for Donald because they, blinded by their hate and prejudice, cannot see that Donald isn’t just sticking it to their scapegoats, he’s sticking it to everybody not DJT.
I think the blanket invective thrown at the Trump voters in this thread shows a short-sightedness that may well guarantee him a second term.
It may feel good to label everyone who voted for him, or is tempted to vote for him, as somehow disgusting, stupid or deplorable and if your primary end goal is to get it off your chest then have at it. There is a huge chunk of his voter base who are exactly those things but when you apply it indiscriminately you just aren’t helping the end result.
If you want to get him out though it is a terrible strategy. There are people who voted for him that are not intrinsically wedded to him in an ideological way and they are open to persuasion. That persuasion has to take the form of a better offer and a better candidate and allow a form of soft landing for them. Less of a “you are a fucking idiotic, hateful, stupid, racist moron…please vote for me” more of a “I know what Trump offered you and why you lent him your support…but we think we can offer you a better option”. I can think of no circumstances under which the former will reap rich rewards.
This is from someone who does, and always has, thought of Trump as a bully, racist, misogynistic orange twat who is just about competent at business. I’d no sooner vote for him than cut my own leg off and I’m opposed to pretty much every move he makes, I’m further left than Bernie Sanders.
What I hope is that those expressing those sentiments here are just blowing off steam and apply a more conciliatory tone when talking to Trump voters in real life.
Novelty Bubble, I’ve grappled with your points every day for the last three years. I happen to live on a very purple block, in a very purple city, in a very purple county, in a very purple state, so it’s not a theoretical issue for me. Especially now that I have child in third grade who is not afraid to express his quickly-developing political preferences (hard to say how much he is parroting his parents vs. making logical conclusions from his inborn compassion, but that’s a different story).
I go back and forth on this. I have no easy answer.
I agree that the more private thoughts and conversations tend toward the “I still can’t believe there are so many selfish idiots (many of them racist, most of them ignorantly nationalist) in this country,” while more public conversations are usually more polite, with some effort toward understanding. But I haven’t yet translated those polite talks into gentle persuasion that the Democratic candidates (at all levels) are more likely to satisfy all but the basest, most superficial, most short-term desires these people have.
But that’s the problem, right? There I go again, slipping into judgmental scolding. But how can you not? When a Muslim ban or a goofy Mexico border wall is so obviously an expression of childish, misguided, spiteful tribalism, at some point you have to admit that a Democrat WON’T satisfy these awful desires. Nor should they.
I guess I should ask: “Why did you vote for Trump?” If their answer is about the economy, or just something awful they felt about Hillary, or taxes…okay, I’ll tell them why voting Dem this time would be better, and certainly no worse. But what if they’re hiding their real reason — again, that childish tribalism?
A.J.P. Taylor described the Trump phenomenon pretty well, too:
From The Origins of the Second World War.
He was talking about Mussolini, of course, but the description might as well have been written 50-whatever years later (not sure of the publication date) about Trump.
Trump is, and always has been, an oily, sneaky, salesman. When he speaks, I am reminded of a corrupt sales manager I listened to on my first day of a sales job. “Never tell the Customer the truth, tell them what they want to hear! Let Customer Service handle any problems- that’s their job!”
For Trump, substitute Supporter for Customer, and Congress for Customer Service.
BTW, I quit after that speech, I could not do that type of sales.
That’s an excellent description of what, but not the why. The why is because too many are bigoted, ignorant, afraid and want to see it all burn rather than rise above their base tribal instincts.
Fascism rises when people get frustrated by a combination of (what they see) is a failure of liberal policies to fix their issues and woes ; and/or a fear of progressives. Fascism itself is a movement solely focused on destroying progressism/the Left by any mean including violence ; typically finding allies among the traditional elites who also see progress as a threat to their power and milquetoasty centrists who can be swayed, conned or intimidated into following along.
With some modest successes, we’ve been fighting for a more fair and just country for over 50 years. As an aging boomer, I’ve seen the resentment of that kind of change steadily growing among those who feel the loss of their social and political primacy. I’ve never understood why, when presented with a choice for more justice over less, so many instinctively choose less because of the amount of “upheaval” they think change for the better might bring on.
Those people are having their time in the sun. It’s been a long time in the making. And there have been a lot cooks stirring the soup along the way.