# Is Trump the cause, or the effect ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 30, 2020, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749 "2020-05-30T18:59:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/21 "2020-05-30T23:51:40Z")
You know, if I don’t bring it up, maybe no one will notice that I laughed at someone’s spelling and nitpicking and then went ahead and misspelled “pedantic.” :smack::smack::smack::smack: ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/22 "2020-05-31T00:28:03Z")
> [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > Sorry, **Nemo** , but if those swing states in the electoral college tend to vote Republican, then that’s just tough. Do you even know what a swing state is? Because it’s not what you’re describing here. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/23 "2020-05-31T00:37:37Z")
> [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > Seriously, things have changed, things are changing, and things will change. They always do. And at every step of the way, there will be conservatives fighting against that change. Until twenty or thirty years later, when the change has been made over conservative opposition and everyone can now see it was a change for the better. At that point, conservatives will start saying _“You know, we always thought this change was a good idea.”_ Ten years after that, conservatives will be saying _“We don’t get the credit we deserve for causing that change. It was our idea.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/24 "2020-05-31T00:46:34Z")
> [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > Nobody handed Trump a queen. Seriously? Donald Trump’s entire life has been built on people handing him his opportunities. Trump wasn’t just handed a queen; he was handed three queens, five rooks, a couple of extra knights and bishops, and two dozen pawns. And he’s still having a hard time even getting a draw. ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/25 "2020-05-31T01:17:29Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And at every step of the way, there will be conservatives fighting against that change. > > Until twenty or thirty years later, when the change has been made over conservative opposition and everyone can now see it was a change for the better. At that point, conservatives will start saying _“You know, we always thought this change was a good idea.”_ > > Ten years after that, conservatives will be saying _“We don’t get the credit we deserve for causing that change. It was our idea.”_ And so what if there are? The change happened, didn’t it? It was accomplished, wasn’t it? If you want credit for your role, be an actor. What you are describing here is the political process going all the way back to before the Roman Empire. > [@](#): > > Seriously? Donald Trump’s entire life has been built on people handing him his opportunities. Trump wasn’t just handed a queen; he was handed three queens, five rooks, a couple of extra knights and bishops, and two dozen pawns. And he’s still having a hard time even getting a draw. True, but this thread isn’t about Trump’s entire life, is it? It’s about 2016 and 2020 and all the time in between, and in that context, he had no more advantage than any other Republican, and my point was that the Republican advantage is not carved into stone. Find a way to get the states you need, and you’ve got the election–and I’ll say for the third time that this is _not_ impossible. Find a candidate who manages to piss everyone off even before the real campaigning starts, and you’ve got Trump for another four years. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/26 "2020-05-31T05:05:29Z")
The root cause of our divisive politics is the fact that the republicans have been preying on the most dysfunctional aspects of American psychology to get elected. Mainly egoism, racism, social dominance and authoritarianism. They also created a propaganda network to keep their base constantly angry and indignant. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/27 "2020-05-31T07:06:56Z")
> [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > True, but this thread isn’t about Trump’s entire life, is it? It’s about 2016 and 2020 and all the time in between, and in that context, he had no more advantage than any other Republican, and my point was that the Republican advantage is not carved into stone. Find a way to get the states you need, and you’ve got the election–and I’ll say for the third time that this is _not_ impossible. Find a candidate who manages to piss everyone off even before the real campaigning starts, and you’ve got Trump for another four years. I agree with your assessments in this thread even if I disagree with you politically. In my short lifetime, the country has trended further left. Me and those like me are rapidly becoming dinosaurs. The fact that we are able to win any election is ridiculous given the leftward shift. But your side keeps nominating ludicrously out of touch candidates. Hillary was the best you had? Biden is the best you have? Put a Bill Clinton up there and you mop the floor with Trump. The country has gone left, but your party thinks it has gone coo-coo crazy left. Any decent reasonable left center candidate should win, but you never pick those candidates, Obama being the lone exception. You are running against an old, white, out of touch, arrogant blustering asshole with an ego who lies all of the time. So given that advantage, you nominate an old, white, out of touch, arrogant blustering asshole with an ego who lies all of the time but his best point is that he arguably doesn’t do those things as bad as Trump does. Hell of a job there, guys. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/28 "2020-06-01T01:05:17Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Seriously? Donald Trump’s entire life has been built on people handing him his opportunities. Trump wasn’t just handed a queen; he was handed three queens, five rooks, a couple of extra knights and bishops, and two dozen pawns. And he’s still having a hard time even getting a draw. You could say that about so many of the upper class. Yet Trump is president and they aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/29 "2020-06-01T01:36:39Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > You could say that about so many of the upper class. Yet Trump is president and they aren’t. His wealth wasn’t the thing that got him elected. It was his ability to exploit the most base instincts of a large segment of the population. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/30 "2020-06-01T12:58:59Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > You could say that about so many of the upper class. Yet Trump is president and they aren’t. Holding political office seems to be a hobby of the wealthy. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/31 "2020-06-01T14:40:14Z")
Yes, is now, ever has been and ever shall be ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/32 "2020-06-01T14:54:59Z")
Turmp is an expression of the latent American frontier mythology. He is the high plains drifter who rides into town and cleanses the reluctant population. He is above the law and common morality. When his work is done he will move on leaving the world a better place. That is essentially the attitude I get from Trump supporters. ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/33 "2020-06-01T15:30:32Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Holding political office seems to be a hobby of the wealthy. This is quite simply incorrect, at least at the presidential level. Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and LBJ did _not_ come from money. Neither Jimmy Carter nor Gerald Ford were exactly starving, but they were hell and gone from what we would consider rich. With the exception of Reagan, thanks to his acting career, none of these presidents were rich when they went into politics. The Kennedys, Bushes, and Trumps are the exception, not the rule. ---
**Author:** ![SingleMalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/singlemalt/32/3961_2.png) [@SingleMalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SingleMalt)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/34 "2020-06-01T15:44:47Z")
Trump is an ouroboros. The Republican party begat him, and now he has turned and consumed them. There is no party but the party of Trump now, with non-Trump Republicans outcast and vilified. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/35 "2020-06-01T15:55:37Z")
> [@Crane](#): > > Turmp is an expression of the latent American frontier mythology. He is the high plains drifter who rides into town and cleanses the reluctant population. He is above the law and common morality. When his work is done he will move on leaving the world a better place. > > That is essentially the attitude I get from Trump supporters. I don’t know if it’s you or the supporters that don’t seem to have really watched “High Plains Drifter.” 😕 Talking to Trump supporters in KY, his election seems to be an effect, and though they try to be subtle about it, many were outraged that the country elected a black president twice, and topped it off by trying to replace him with a woman. They see themselves and President Trump as the underdogs, and his whining about how he’s picked on by everybody despite being rich rings true with them because they’re told they have “white privilege” while they struggle for what they consider a fair shake. They’re blind to the fact that others have it worse because, well, everyone else us supposed to have it worse than them. What looks to minorities like rising, looks to them like sinking. The current riots have people talking about how populations resort to violence when they feel powerless and voiceless, but that plays into the stat that the bulk of terrorist-style attacks in the US have been committed by white males for the last 20 years. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/36 "2020-06-01T16:03:47Z")
epbrown01 - my use of the phrase was not capitalized. ---
**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:** [June 1, 2020, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/37 "2020-06-01T16:06:09Z")
> [@Linty\_Fresh](#): > > (ellipses mine) > > Also, I’ve been hearing this since 2000, and never mind 2016, and it still mystifies me. > > The Republicans _rigged_ the electoral system? Really? And how, pray tell, did they _rig_ it? Did they use the dastardly, underhanded, super-secret, Plan-Z12 of actually appealing to the swing states? The absolute _nerve!!_ Oh, so Republicans haven’t engaged in an organized campaign to suppress Democratic-leaning voters including undermining voter registration organizations by using a doctored video as the basis of a smear campaign, requiring voter ID while making it more difficult for “undesirable” demographics to get those IDs, restricting methods of voting, reducing the availability of voting stations in Democratic-leaning areas (resulting in hours-long waits to vote), and simply kicking of hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters off the rolls for spurious reasons? They haven’t engaged in illegal gerrymandering and then resisted court orders to implement fairer redistricting? They haven’t blocked implementation of voter referenda restoring rights to felons? They haven’t engaged in outright electoral fraud and tampering on several occasions? They haven’t spent the last three and a half years removing election security and oversight measures, including measures against electronic tampering with voting machines, and blocking the passage of new election security bills? They aren’t **right now** actively working to undermine the ability to vote via mail (rather significantly given the previous point about undermining voter machine security)? And they weren’t - as reported by most the US intelligence community and the Mueller investigation - heavily aided by a foreign government in 2016? Welp, I guess there’s no “rigging”. Our mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/38 "2020-06-01T16:40:01Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Oh, so Republicans haven’t engaged in an organized campaign to suppress Democratic-leaning voters including undermining voter registration organizations by using a doctored video as the basis of a smear campaign, requiring voter ID while making it more difficult for “undesirable” demographics to get those IDs, restricting methods of voting, reducing the availability of voting stations in Democratic-leaning areas (resulting in hours-long waits to vote), and simply kicking of hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters off the rolls for spurious reasons? They haven’t engaged in illegal gerrymandering and then resisted court orders to implement fairer redistricting? They haven’t blocked implementation of voter referenda restoring rights to felons? They haven’t engaged in outright electoral fraud and tampering on several occasions? They haven’t spent the last three and a half years removing election security and oversight measures, including measures against electronic tampering with voting machines, and blocking the passage of new election security bills? They aren’t **right now** actively working to undermine the ability to vote via mail (rather significantly given the previous point about undermining voter machine security)? And they weren’t - as reported by most the US intelligence community and the Mueller investigation - heavily aided by a foreign government in 2016? > > Welp, I guess there’s no “rigging”. Our mistake. Once again, **Gyrate** , it’s about context. When I typed what you quoted in your post, I was responding to this: > [@](#): > > The problem the Democrats have is that the Republicans have rigged the electoral system so that elections are not decided by who the majority votes for In other words, I was responding to what **Nemo** was posting about how the electoral college favors Republicans by nullifying the popular vote. As horrid as those things that you’ve described are–and being a Democrat, I agree that they’re horrid–if your vote gets suppressed, then I guess what I typed doesn’t apply to the argument I was making, does it? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/39 "2020-06-01T17:05:58Z")
> [@epbrown01](#): > > I don’t know if it’s you or the supporters that don’t seem to have really watched “High Plains Drifter.” 😕 > > Talking to Trump supporters in KY, his election seems to be an effect, and though they try to be subtle about it, many were outraged that the country elected a black president twice, and topped it off by trying to replace him with a woman. They see themselves and President Trump as the underdogs, and his whining about how he’s picked on by everybody despite being rich rings true with them because they’re told they have “white privilege” while they struggle for what they consider a fair shake. They’re blind to the fact that others have it worse because, well, everyone else us supposed to have it worse than them. What looks to minorities like rising, looks to them like sinking. It’s not immigrants who are changing the rules so it’s a struggle to get a fair shake, it’s the people telling them immigrants are the reason it’s a struggle to get a fair shake. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749/40 "2020-06-01T19:00:20Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > It’s not immigrants who are changing the rules so it’s a struggle to get a fair shake, it’s the people telling them immigrants are the reason it’s a struggle to get a fair shake. I agree, and that’s pretty amazing to me. The people inciting the unrest are, for the most part, the rich. There was a time when there was nobody the conservative working class white man was more suspicious of than the wealthy. From WW2 until the Reagan era, there was no more typical villain in American culture than a rich white guy, and the over-arching theme was that no one got to be rich without being a crook. Now, I see working class/rural people swallow anything they say, no matter how outrageous. I’ve seen people here agree with coal company executives! That’s a _masterwork_ of propaganda. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-trump-the-cause-or-the-effect/854749.md?page=3)