Every time Dr. Smith wailed “we’re doomed… DOOMED!” he was just laying some reverse psychology on Will and the Robot.
At the very least, people, especially those on the left, but also everyone else, got way too complacent about who they put in office. Complacency is what brought us Trump, but it also brought a pretty right wing Republican party and their obstructionist tactics. The 2016 election showed how complacent we ended up getting. Progressives and moderates assumed the nation would continue going leftward on social issues especially, but failed to see the growing backlash from the far right. The subsequent local special elections and the upcoming 2018 elections show people beginning to wake up from their complacency and taking action or vowing to. As much as people loved Obama for his strength and humanity, he was terrible at politicking. He didn’t seem to know how to handle GOP obstructionism and he and the DNC and pretty much the whole party didn’t seem to pay attention to the mounting Democratic losses in state elections until they realized the GOP had control of nearly every state office; they had focused too much on winning the presidency and not enough on winning Governor, Congressional and local legislature races. Now everyone who’s not on the right is trying to claw back their losses. We’ll see if there’s a beginning of success in Nov.
As for Trump, he is destroying a lot of norms with his antics and the GOP is allowing him to. It’s going to take a lot of time and effort to fix what he and the right wingers have broken and it’s uncertain when that can start. I think we can recover from this, but it’s going to take a lot of sustained effort. If it were just Trump, he hasn’t been here long enough to completely break the system, but the GOP has been destroying norms since at least the Tea Party, so it’s going to be a harder effort, assuming the country can ever wake up enough to make a strong effort
Trump just responded to Michael Smerconish on CNN.
So he just admitted it was political, not anything classified, that caused the holding back of the Democrats’ memo.
Speaking of Gallup, I just found this map of Trump’s approval rating. Texas and Colorado are that low?
Agree, also Barron might be the only honest one in the entire bunch.
They should just hand it to ALL the news outlets anyway… anonymously or something. Fuck this noise.
Texas isn’t the monolithic red state that some coastal inhabitants think it is. (In spite of our red legislature. :rolleyes:) It’s big place with 254 counties and a spread-out population that’s concentrated in a few areas. The lower pointy part of Texas from San Antonio-Austin southward went solidly for Hillary.
Interestingly (at least to me), the 50 counties with the lowest population have 5,000 or fewer inhabitants in each, the lowest 20 with 2,000 or fewer.
I’m only familiar with the eastern and south-eastern parts of the state. Houston and Dallas are the only real Democratic strongholds in that portion, though there are a goodly number of Dems around Nacogdoches and College Station (probably because of SFA and A&M). Other than that, it’s a red ocean from Corpus Christi to Texarkana. Thankfully, the population of that area is pretty sparse.
I thought Tiffany had kept herself clear from the clusterfuck. No?
Other than one appearance at one of the debates, yes.
She wouldn’t let Candidate Annelid touch her. Smart woman.
The earthworms will be picketing your house on Monday.
IMO, the lesson to be learned from this type of post is about the danger of surrounding yourself with likeminded people and getting information from ideologically-conforming sources. Because of the uniformity of belief and the dearth of counterpoints, things can seem obviously true when they’re not remotely so.
This is perhaps an extreme example, of a poster confidently declaring something to be the stupidest thing she ever read on the board when it’s well known to be true to anyone even minimally informed about the subject. But the phenomenon has broader application, IMO, and could influence even intelligent posters, albeit in a subtler manner.
I suppose once you’ve committed to a certain form of cognitive dissonance, the point of view needs more frequent refresh.
No need for self-reference. Nobody here doubts your commitment.
Alright, a spokesman for the group - that’s what we need!
A step in right direction if ever there was one…
If its an irreversible trend, why should I bother voting in the next election. Stupidity, bigotry and ignorance are going to win the day, so I might as well stay home with my playstation until the jack booted thugs come and take me away, or better yet join Trump so that I’ll be on the winning side when the purge comes.
Is this the message you’re trying to get across? Because it’s the message I’m hearing.
Well, OK, long as its just the one.
To be fair, sometimes I doubt his commitment to Sparkle Motion.
I’m not telling you to do anything. By all means, go out and vote and be politically active - I certainly intend to do that. But just understand that we’re at the point where it might require more than just voting to preserve and defend democracy. For far too long, most of us have taken a lot of things in this country for granted. The public institutions that have made our society unquestionably better in the past 100 or more years were the result of political activism and spirited public protests to demand more people power. I’m optimistic that, at some point, we will have finally had enough, but I’m pessimistic in that there is going to be considerable damage done by the time we put a stop to all the madness. So in the short-term, the damage is done and it’s irreversible. Nevertheless, we have to vote and be active now to stop even more damage in the long run.