I’m back from my vacation visiting my aunt and uncle…and it was the best vacation I’ve had in years.
I could’ve spent the whole vacation just lazing about on their deck and I would’ve been happy. There’s the mountain view and the pine smells and front yard waterfall sounds and the rocking chairs and the happy german shepherd puppy. But we also went boating and scenic driving and went to local restaurants. I had the whole basement apartment to myself, with a TV, pool table, and spotless bathroom and big soft bed. My aunt fixed breakfast every day. Yummm.
And yes, they did support Trump, though between us, his name is never mentioned. It helps that they are not anti-vaxxers and that they don’t believe the election was stolen. But they are conservative, both economically and socially. So there was some talk of tax money being wasted on poor people. I mentioned that I thought a bigger problem was billionaires fixing tax legislation for themselves. Their reply? “Yeah, but they earned it.” My reply was, “No they didn’t, c’mon.”
The talk ended there. I didn’t mention that with all the goodies they got, two cars, a boat, a mountain home that’s practically a resort, I figured they could probably afford some taxes to go to social programs. But no, I didn’t say that. Wanted to though.
But I am still grateful for the wonderful stay. It was sorely needed. And they are family. Even with the divides.
The point isn’t that billionaires “earned it”. Let’s assume they did. But so did everyone else who worked. The point is that billionaires rigging the system to benefit themselves is cheating - not just rigging the tax system, but also weakening the power of the working class in order to take more and more of the value of that labor for themselves, resulting in wage stagnation but grossly inflated profits. Those making the “earned it” argument often assume a “just world hypothesis” which isn’t remotely what is happening.
Yeah, my Wife’s brother has a very nice property (80 acres) and home with included apartment in another building on the property. It’s very nice and we have fun.
Very well off. In-ground pool, and just about anything you would like to play or do. I think they can sleep 17 people at their house in guest rooms.
They do at least say they don’t like Trump as a person. But they like his policies.
I once had someone explain to me, of Trump, “I think he’s an idiot, but I like his policies.” And her husband, a GOPer who’s also been glad to badmouth Trump, was positively giddy this week at the prospect of Roe getting struck down by Trump’s appointees.
(All of which kind of makes me wonder just how many folks who get broad-brushed as being devout Trump followers who believe everything the guy says were just — sneering at the guy while seeing him as a means to an end? So he’s now out of power like those Supreme Court Justices aren’t; and is it that, rather than being a leopard who ate someone’s face, he got used and then discarded while never thinking leopards might eat his face?)
I’m sure that many people loved him for his racism and hatred of the same people they hated, but it has been long recognized that people had many different selfish and shortsighted reasons for supporting him.
You didn’t have to wear a MAGA hat to vote for him.
Ends justify the means?
I’m sure that they are happy that the leopards got to feast on someone’s face, as the cruelty is oft times the entire point. That in this case, only other people were hurt while they benefited is not something that one should count on.
My sister and BIL live I a gated community in FLA. They are very wealthy, and I think a vacant lot there runs $1 mill. Pretty sure my sister/BIL are fiscally conservative - pretty much social liberals. Not Trump supporters. I consider them greedy and selfish - but not bad people to hang with - so long as you don’t discuss taxes, “entitlements”, etc. I wager nearly 100% of their community support Trump.
Was pleasant to spend some time in such a lovely setting recently, but I don’t think I would want to live there and have so many of the people around me of such political leaning.
I’d say no. The ends alone can never justify the means. You need to show the means are justified, lest they actually cause more harm.
What you seem to have described to me is someone who soothes the cognitive dissonance of supporting Trump by bad mouthing him, while still enabling those very things. Trump didn’t have any policies to speak of, as his following is a cult of personality. There isn’t a separation between who he was as a man and how he acted as president.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe ask him what Trump’s policies where that he supported. So far no one I’ve asked that to has been able to come up with anything that actually came from Trump.
::shrugs:: I’ll ask them the next time I see them, but I suspect we’re talking past each other: you say that “Trump didn’t have any policies to speak of” — which leads me to figure that you’ve already considered, and ruled out, whichever answers they mention from the list of Stuff That Happened Because Trump Okayed It. But, hey, as soon as I know, you’ll know.
(Out of curiosity, does your view extend beyond what we might mean by policy? If, say, you ever hear a ‘useful idiot’ story that portrays Trump as a means to the end of getting key Supreme Court decisions, or whatever, would you repeat your “those very things” reply about how people who say such things are presumably just soothing their cognitive dissonance?)
From the title of the thread it sounds like the OP might have gone on some sort of vacation with the TRUMPISTS with each paying their own way or at least sharing expenses. But it turns out that this was the TRUMPISTS hosting the OP at their own place and expense. To accept their hospitality and enjoy their facilities etc. and then turn around and publically post a thread like this strikes me as poor form. YMMV.
I wasn’t aware that I had bad mouthed my hosts and showed “bad form”. Yes, I did say I thought their complaints about paying taxes for social programs was a bit off-putting and they could afford some taxes.
But in my previous thread, WITH TRUMPISTS, I called them good people, and I still think so. Some Dopers there said you could not support Trump and be good people. I disagree.
I’ve a BIL that I get along with very well. See him only every few years though. He’s in TX I’m in CO. My Wife will talk to him every few weeks. He’s a really nice guy.
He’s quite well off. Now retired from the oil industry, he is sort of a gentleman rancher. Meaning he leases the property he lives on to ranchers and they let lose their cattle. He though, manages the property very well.
He had a Trump/Pence banner inside his workshop/barn.
When my Wife asked him about 1/6 and Trump, he said that 1/6 was very bad. He hates Trump as a person but likes his policies. I’m guessing Business deregulation and taxes.
