# A Perfectly Reasonable Amount of Schadenfreude about Things Happening to Trump & His Enablers (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 14, 2020, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537 "2020-11-14T00:09:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 218
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2022, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4347 "2022-01-29T20:31:50Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Wouldn’t a more logical course be to see which way the wind is blowing (which they do), and take advantage of the political shift to make their party more attractive instead of trying to control the wind? _Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow! Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks! … Let tornadoes spew water until the steeples of our churches and the weathervanes are all drowned._ The Republican party – _King Lear_ of American politics. IIRC it doesn’t work out so well for him. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2022, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4348 "2022-01-29T20:41:35Z")
Oh, okay. Hmmm, guess I won’t have a computer, or a phone, or a car, or gas to put in the car, or electricity. I could get my food directly from the farmer’s market that operates for 2 hours a week over the summer, but I don’t know how I would get there, or how I would cook it, or how I would store it if it needs to be kept cold. I assume that you are taking your own advice, so I applaud your commitment to the monastic lifestyle. Not all of us are cut out for that. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2022, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4349 "2022-01-29T22:06:32Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I assume that you are taking your own advice, so I applaud your commitment to the monastic lifestyle. Not all of us are cut out for that. No, I’m just not concerned that a secret cabal of wealthy capitalists are meeting up to cackle and plot how to …? … Practice cannibalism? I’m not sure exactly what evil thing the wealthy are even meant to be doing, in particular. At this point in the game, they’re just as likely to be Democrats as Republicans and, between the two parties, the latter is working a lot harder to appeal to low income and union workers than the former - which makes the party antithetical to the wealthy - so the move of the wealthy to the Democrats is fairly inevitable. If you hate them, you’re going to start finding yourself on the outs with the rest of the party. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2022, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4350 "2022-01-29T22:13:12Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > No, I’m just not concerned that a secret cabal of wealthy capitalists are meeting up to cackle and plot how to …? … Practice cannibalism? Umm, I’m not either. Where did this even come from/ > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > the latter is working a lot harder to appeal to low income and union workers than the former Heh. Sure, by telling them that all their problems are caused by _those people_. Not actually by you know, helping them in any way. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > If you hate them, you’re going to start finding yourself on the outs with the rest of the party. This makes an invalid assumption on your part. Where do you even come up with this bullshit? ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2022, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4351 "2022-01-30T01:36:16Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > All the GOP needs to do to arrest its slide is stop being dicks to brown people ‘Being dicks to brown people’ is what most GOP-voters come to the GOP for in the first place. It’s fundamental. Changing that would lose the GOP 3/4 of their voters, at least. GOP = white supremacy. Yes, some non-white people support the GOP, too, but they would be just as appalled as the white GOP supporters if the mission suddenly changed to ‘stop being dicks to brown [and black] people.’ (It’s a weird psychological phenomenon, but still a fact: people like “Diamond and Rust,” or whatever their noms-de-fascism are, would lose their entire schtick if the Republican party ceased using non-whiteness as shorthand for ‘un-American, lazy, worthless’ etc.) ((I know you know all this, Cervaise—I’m just using a part of your post as a take-off point.)) ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2022, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4352 "2022-01-30T07:44:25Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > There is plenty of room in the middle, between adulating the rich and assassinating them, that would make most of us perfectly happy. One example: just stop subsidizing them. In the US in general and GOP in particular politicians either are the rich, are subsidized right back by the rich, or wish they were either rich or getting big donations from them. The bulk of the political class doesn’t consider it a position in the middle. At best they consider it something to lie about to get votes and then not actually do. E.g. Trump’s: “My rich friends aren’t going to be happy with me!” ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4353 "2022-01-31T20:37:06Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > ‘Being dicks to brown people’ is what most GOP-voters come to the GOP for in the first place. > > It’s fundamental. Changing that would lose the GOP 3/4 of their voters, at least. Its not clear that that would happen, I suspect that if push came to shove most of the GOP base would vote for any Republican on the ballot over a Democrat socialist, even if that Republican wasn’t as racist as they might prefer. The problem is that no such Republican would be on the ballot because they would have lost the primary. This is where the Crazies really have a stranglehold on the GOP, and why various initiatives that would help make the Republicans more acceptable to the mainstream are doomed to failure. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4354 "2022-01-31T21:06:31Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > , I suspect that if push came to shove most of the GOP base would vote for any Republican on the ballot over a Democrat socialist, Can you think of any other trait Trump has that would motivate people to vote for him? His announcement speech was : I’m not a n###r && I hate Mexicans as much as you do: Now vote for me. And vote for him they did. To go looking for other explanations is just dumb. A bunch of racists voting for a racist neatly fits everything. “He’s telling it like it is!” – That speech was the most racist thing heard on US networks in years. Or did you hear him explain other policy points I might have missed? If the GOP ran a black woman on their platform… “Landslide” wouldn’t even begin to describe what would happen. Literally nobody would vote for her. Can you describe a GOP policy with wide (GOP) support other than “destroy what the n####r made” or the ever popular “fleece the suckers”? Even the anti-abortion crowd is only really about preventing black women from getting abortions (they are fine with their own aborting unwanted pregnancies) Racism is their whole and only raison d’être. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4355 "2022-01-31T21:10:30Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > Can you think of any other trait Trump has that would motivate people to vote for him? He’s not a Democrat. I don’t disagree with anything you put in your post. My only quibble is that the reason this is so much of the GOP platform is not so much because they think that this will win them votes in the general election, but because they can’t get past their primary voters with a platform based on anything less than pure fear and hatred. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4356 "2022-01-31T21:15:19Z")
“Think”? “get past”? It is about what they “are”. Trump is not putting on an act when it comes to racism. He walks the walk. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4357 "2022-01-31T21:22:19Z")
Yes Trump doesn’t think, Trump voters don’t think, but individual members of Congress do think. And what they think is that once the get past the primary they will win thanks to Gerrymandering, but that in order to make it that far they need to toe the crazy line. Again, I’m really not disagreeing with you. I’m just pointing out that even if it were the case that that by moving to the mainstream they would win more voters than they would lose, they still couldn’t do it. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4358 "2022-01-31T21:23:18Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > Can you think of any other trait Trump has that would motivate people to vote for him? > > His announcement speech was : I’m not a n###r && I hate Mexicans as much as you do: Now vote for me. > And vote for him they did. > > To go looking for other explanations is just dumb. A bunch of racists voting for a racist neatly fits everything. > “He’s telling it like it is!” – That speech was the most racist thing heard on US networks in years. It’s not _just_ racism. It’s hate. He validates their hate, whether it’s hatred of non-white people or LGBT+ people or immigrants or liberals in general – no matter who you hate, Trump’s message is that your hate is righteous and a sign that you’re a _real_ patriot, and that whatever means you use to express that hatred, from words to violent actions, is justified. It’s heady stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4359 "2022-01-31T21:35:07Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > His announcement speech was : I’m not a n###r && I hate Mexicans as much as you do: Now vote for me. I think there was something about having a penis as well. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4360 "2022-01-31T21:38:02Z")
Do you understand the term “unmentionables”? Now go wash your mouth! ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4361 "2022-01-31T22:05:52Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > Do you understand the term “unmentionables”? Is that anything like deplorables? ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4362 "2022-01-31T22:06:40Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > Even the anti-abortion crowd is only really about preventing black women from getting abortions (they are fine with their own aborting unwanted pregnancies) Racism is their whole and only raison d’être. I could swear I read it was actually the other way around. They think white folks are being outbred by non-white folks, so white women should be having as many babies as possible so whites remain in the majority. I guess they figure the trade-off of preventing black women from getting abortions is worth it. Besides, we know various prison systems were sterilizing women of color up until sometime in at least the 70s, and under Trump quite a few of the ICE detainees have also been sterilized without their consent. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4363 "2022-01-31T23:44:58Z")
[https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/republican-under-fire-for-using-voltaire-quote-actually-coined-by-neo-nazi/ar-AATkO6O?li=BBnb7Kz](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/republican-under-fire-for-using-voltaire-quote-actually-coined-by-neo-nazi/ar-AATkO6O?li=BBnb7Kz) > “To learn who rules over you,” the quote says, “simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise.” > > Massie posted it to Twitter on Sunday, saying: “You mustn’t question Fauci, for he is science.” “You are criticizing him right now, so obviously, your point fails”. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2022, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4364 "2022-01-31T23:52:53Z")
He wants to be able to criticize him, and be entirely free of consequences for his speech. He wants the ability to criticize, and have nobody allowed to respond. Assholes. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2022, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4365 "2022-02-01T00:39:42Z")
Obviously this is a matter of some [discussion](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/). I find that the behavior of many people become a lot less erratic and unpredictable if you just assume that racism is their primary motivation. The bullshit people wrote after the 2016 election was really amusing through this lens (“my cousin Billy-Bob voted Trump because rural communities feel ignored”) BS that ignores that before ignorant, poor, cut off from the world, etc. all of them are first racist AF. “Stick it to the libruls” as a goal suddenly makes sense. Disclaimer: the US is in the uncommon situation that all of their racist fringes have found common cause in the GOP. In, for example, the Netherlands our (many, many) racists are strictly divided and the different flavors don’t mix (overall, most countries have about the same % of ignorant, bigoted fuckwits) Our rural evangelicals won’t find common cause with our urban anti-muslim crowd because… reasons? I guess that is one of the advantages of a many-party system. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2022, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537/4366 "2022-02-01T01:30:51Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Yes Trump doesn’t think, Trump voters don’t think, but individual members of Congress do think. And what they think is that once the get past the primary they will win thanks to Gerrymandering, but that in order to make it that far they need to toe the crazy line. Absolutely. GOP primaries weed out the crazies from the sane—by discarding the sane. > > [@Gyrate](#): > > He validates their hate, whether it’s hatred of non-white people or LGBT+ people or immigrants or liberals in general – no matter who you hate, Trump’s message is that your hate is righteous and a sign that you’re a _real_ patriot, and that whatever means you use to express that hatred, from words to violent actions, is justified. It’s a religion. No other religion is grabbing adherents the way Trumpism does, because it tells its supporters that they are Pure, Noble, Righteous—and Victimized by the Unworthy Others—a crime that only the Dear Leader/Object of Worship can counter and solve. Resentment and victimhood are central to Trumpism (and of course feed, and are fed by, the hate). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537.md?page=217) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-perfectly-reasonable-amount-of-schadenfreude-about-things-happening-to-trump-his-enablers-part-1/925537.md?page=219)