What k9bfriender said. (In response to Damuri’s reply to my post.)
The very idea of compassion for the Other is repugnant to most conservatives today. It has been declared to be weak and decadent.
Even a lot of liberals don’t have a very solid grasp on what it would mean in public policy and community life. This too is a conservative victory, to some degree, due to their control of messaging and framing.
He doesn’t give a shit, Congress doesn’t give a shit, and very likely the WWC doesn’t give a shit. What will impress them is things being taken from others, not given to them. That is toughness to them. That is leadership.
So to recap, Trump voters are represented by rural racist evangelicals, who want stronger union protections, and they’re being thwarted by Congressional Republicans today, which is Trump’s fault according to Esquire. Do I have that right?
Now if Trump went to Capitol Hill, met with the GOP Congressional leaders, and held a press conference on the Capitol steps either saying (a) that he had gotten the GOP leaders to agree to pass the Miner Protection Act, and the Buy American stipulations in the water bill, or (b) that they hadn’t agreed, and his supporters should be mad as hell and call up their Congresscritters in droves to protest this - - and if after all that, the GOP still didn’t pass either one of those, then you’re right, it wouldn’t be Trump’s fault at all.
But if there’s an abundance of things he can do to use his influence to get those things into the law, and he’s doing approximately zero of them, then his inaction must be interpreted as acquiescence, yes. It’s not like he’s got zero influence here.
We all know that for the most part he’s going to let the Republicans in Congress do whatever they want. But it’s his party when he wants it to be. If he sits back and does nothing when the interests of the working class are before Congress, and the GOP does what it usually does with the economic interests of those who aren’t rich or close to it, then yes, it’s his fault. This isn’t rocket surgery.
All I know is this:
I am deeply saddened by the fact that a satirical joke from Bloom County in the 80’s came true. You go Bill the Cat. AAACCCCKKKK.
I am mortified a reality TV show host and narcissistic man who embodies none of our GOOD American values has been elected. In fact, he embodies nearly every single thing bad about America. He tapped into our deepest, evilest places and scored. George Carlin was right, I guess we get the leaders we deserve.
I am sad that the movie Idiocracy is becoming less of a satire.
I am sad to see my opinion of so many people I know and respect diminishing because they do not understand the first three items I just mentioned.
I am enraged at the people who came out for Obama but who decided to not come out for Hillary.
I am saddened by the fact that I am tired of fighting the fight for people who will not fight (and vote) for themselves.
Honestly, when all is said and done, I will probably benefit from a Trump presidency. In fact, most of his policies are neutral to me or actually a benefit (such as the tax structure). If he destroys the environment, I have no children and I am over the hill. If he erodes women’s rights, I am not a woman. If he jails immigrants, I am not an immigrant. If he has over policing policies, I am not a minority effected by stop and frisk and institutional bias. I could probably lose my job now and have enough money to live comfortably for the rest of my life, but I won’t because I work in a sector that Trump’s policies will actually help me with. I will probably make more money under Trump, historically i have under every Republican Governor/President.
The collapse of this country will take longer than my expected lifetime, unless the moron nukes someone which, all hyperbole aside, he will not likely do.
Given the voter turnout of the young, of minorities and of other marginalized groups … I am mostly saddened by the fact that I am starting to say “Fuck it, I am ok and will be ok. You all don’t seem to care so live with it”.
We had a chance, a chance in a lifetime, to solidify some very important progressive things in our society and we pissed it away because not enough people came out to vote to stand up to a bully, wherein enough people came out to vote for a bully in the places where they were needed.
Fuck Trump and those who voted for him, but fuck anyone who voted third party or did not vote at all even more.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
No, it isn’t, so let’s burn that bridge when we come to it. Unions currently do not have a lot of friends in high places. Unions asking the public (workers) to bail out a pension fund is not a good strategy. Asking the public (workers) to support Buy America and showcasing Ryan’s disdain for it is excellent strategy.
By and large, this makes hardly enough sense to respond to it.
But since you mention strategies: what’s Trump’s strategy?
Oh, that’s right: he doesn’t have one. The guy who was elected because He Will Make Everything Wonderful For American Workers Again isn’t going to bother with stuff that could, you know, at least make things better for them than they are right now.
Pffft. That’s stupid. It just makes you look like you are inventing reasons to hate Trump when there is so much low hanging fruit that you are ignoring because you want something new.
How fucking retarded to say that the president elect is responsible for everything his party does. Pfft!
Exactly.
I think you might beat me to it.
Some people think Hillary was the greater evil. Reasonable people can disagree on who represented the greater evil. I think it was a slam dunk but that was mostly because of the bigotry and racism. But that has been part of every Republican candidate’s platform to a greater or lesser degree since I’ve been voting.
I don’t trust anyone who says Hillary was the greater evil. It is an excuse.
If you think he can fill his appointments with deniers and destroyers of their own agencies, then voting for him is an affirmative statement of something very negative. I don’t see Hillary as much more than their straw man.
If they are watching him do it with disappointment then where are those voices? We haven’t heard one yet. It’s early but we’ve seen a lot of the cards in this hand already.
Those people are stupid. Dangerously stupid. And if they still believe that after the appointments and the China fiasco, they are so fucking stupid I’m surprised that their autonomous nervous system remembers to keep their heart beating and the ignoramus breathing.
No. Anyone who would make that argument is unreasonable, or whatever the word would be that means immune to reason. I might be convinced it was a reasonable argument if that was used to compare Clinton to Bush or Christie, and possibly many of the other primary candidates. But against Trump, no fucking way. He proved it before the election, he proves it daily, and middle America fucked themselves up the ass with their insane, mostly (but not totally) unfounded Clinton hatred.
Not sure if he has one. If he does in the future, we can guess that it will be vague and undisciplined and not good for the Party. The party that is now held together with duct tape. I am hoping that the Democrats work together to exploit the hell out of that situation instead of creating one for themselves.
I respect your very thoughtful notion. You are a gentleperson and worthy of respect so i hope you do not take my response the wrong way.
Evil is NOT relative. Right and wrong is. Good and bad is. Up and down is.
Now, I know, we have taught moral relativism (with which I agree) for many years. But, moral relativism is about right and wrong based on a set of principles as espoused by an ideology or cultural way of life.
THAT, is relative.
Evil, is not.
Evil is the EXTREME intentional, malicious and debilitating harm of others without regard to their suffering. Look, if I pass a law to make sure you have to card people under 21 for drinking, then I have caused harm. But, it is not extreme, it is not malicious and it is not debilitating. A kid cannot take a drink… debatable, arguable, but not extreme harm.
Anyone, and I mean anyone in the US, (besides a child who was hypothetically raped by Hillary Clinton) has no right to call Clinton Evil. She has done things that people may say are wrong. She has done things that people may say are bad. She has gone up, when people say she should have gone down. But NO ONE has any evidence she committed evil to US citizens (foreign countries have a lot of beefs with the US I am sure on the evil scale, but that is a discussion for a different day).
Evil is something different.
Honestly, I am not sure if Hillary has committed evil, I am not omniscient.
But, I do know, that grabbing women by the pussy because you are powerful and they defer to your stardom IS the definition of evil. You have inflicted extreme harm (sexual assault) on another, you bragged about it as if you were all powerful over them (malicious), and you had no care about the potential effects this had on them.
I challenge anyone to present any statement by Hillary Clinton where she declared, outright, she could assault a member of the US citizenry without repercussion. Could Hillary have said she “grabs men by the dick” and make them subject to her will and get the same people to applaud? Hell no, and for good reason.
Trump HAS committed evil. He has personally ADMITTED to evil. He actually CELEBRATES his evil.
I used a quote in a previous post about evil triumphing when good men do nothing. But the truth is, that throughout history, good men and women have fought and died to give us the right to elect people in the method we have chosen. Good people gave us a chance to choose and we chose a satirical joke. A serial liar. A person who embodies everything we despise (for god’s sake he literally gave his interview after the election from a gold throne in a tower… holy fuck can 60 million Americans not see?).
Look, I get it. People don’t like gays. I know. People don’t like immigrants. I know. People are scared of change. I know. People do not like social programs. I know. People,for some reason, want tax cuts which benefit less than 10% of Americans (check it out, seriously, if you do not believe me. Almost 1/2 of Americans pay NO federal taxes and a significant number of them voted for Trump citing their concerns about federal taxes… WTF?!)
But, not matter how you feel, you do not elect Trump. You just don’t. He is a joke, a satire, a fucking punchline. Not a president.
In the end though, he won not because he had the majority. He did not win because he had anything significant to offer. He won because good people failed to act.
Evil triumphed because good people fought and died to give us freedom, then some pieces of shit decided to stay home and lap up the freedom without doing anything about it. Even if it was as simple as voting (exempting those who did not get to vote because of voter suppression), they still could not be arsed to do it.
FUCK THEM, I am tired of carrying their torch.
I seriously hope Trump carries out his plans. I want him to. Maybe, just maybe, people will wake the fuck up then and realize his rhetoric has meaning.
If he does not, and we coast by with 4-8 years of this, then wooooo boy, strap in for some crazy ass elections as every kitchen sink moron comes out.
I am going to watch Idiocracy now, because in that movie there is a happy ending. President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Hector Camacho at least recognized his idiocy and deferred to some else. Trump gets on television and says his intelligence community sucks and he is smart and does not need their briefings.
…brought to you by Carl’s Jr.
…whose president is now going to be the Secretary of Labor.
… You cannot make this shit up man.
Well, when critical thinking isn’t a priority for the youth the nation reaps what it sows.
Mike, I read a lot of tiredness and exasperation and frustration in your post, and I sympathize, but, the part I’ve excerpted, you need to find a better example of how evil is not morally relevant. It seems to me to be factually demonstrable that evil, as illustrated by your examples actually is morally relevant. You think what Trump did is evil, and I agree with you, but it also seems obvious to me that not everyone agrees.
That’s the problem with moral relevancy, there isn’t anywhere you can legitimately draw a line and “Here, we go here and no farther for beyond is Evil”. Evil is always an opinion, a point of view, a cultural construct. That is how we got from “The Greatest Generation” to Trump. “Your”* moral relevancy is one of the problems causing this seemingly insurmountable divide between many conservatives and many liberals.
*the general you, not you specifically Lucky Mike
The fuck they can. :mad:
why not? Just because you have a biased view of the world Budget Player Cadet?
If you really think that reasonable people cannot disagree on who is the greater evil between Hillary and Trump, then YOU are your own best example of unreasonable.
YOU are part of why Trump got elected, YOU are part of why the Democrats put up such an unelectable candidate, YOU are part of why things are the way they are.
this is the polar opposite of reasonable.
YOU are the problem, whether you be liberal or conservative or libertarian, Green Party, Democrat, Republican, YOU specifically Budget Player Cadet are part of the problem and none of the solution.
My view of the world is based on extensive research. Simply dismissing it as “biased” is weak sauce. There is no reasonable disagreement here. Every indication shows that Trump is a terrible person. He is almost certainly a narcissist. He has no regard for the truth. He has admitted to sexually assaulting multiple people. In a field of people vying for the most important job on the planet, he stands out as an egomaniac (seriously, think about how hard you have to try to appear egomanaiacal in a group of people who think they should run the greatest superpower on earth!). He called for the execution of a group of exonerated teenagers for an alleged rape they didn’t commit. He probably assaulted his ex-wife. And now he’s showing utter contempt for the weight of responsibility he has, throwing world affairs into chaos, and bringing racists, conspiracy theorists, and white supremacists into the highest levels of government.
What’s Clinton done, huh? Flubbed a disaster relief effort? Made a difficult call as secretary of state? Unless you start reaching for the insane conspiracy theories, there’s not a reasonable argument to be made. Clinton is not as bad of a person as Trump.
How’s that? Young people voted for Hillary, not Donald.