Come on, that’s not fair.
Anyone paying attention realized he was an idiot decades ago.
OP:
And I am Marie of Roumania.
True, but I’m not sure we understood the depth of his idiocy.
The fact that they can’t give you a sensible reason suggests otherwise. It’s not remotely atypical for otherwise intelligent people to have hangups. To want something to be true even when evidence shows it isn’t. To stick with their guns even after making a bad choice. Or to even just be stupid in certain areas, even if they are smart in nearly all the rest.
The objective reality shows how bad Trump is in many ways, and it’s not just opinion. He didn’t know how hard being president would be. He has Russia problems with his campaign. (Even if he wasn’t involved, he should have vetted them.) He has clear narcissistic tendencies. He is corrupt and using his political power to make money. He couldn’t even get Congress to replace the ACA. He throws temper tantrums on Twitter.
If they can’t give you a sensible reason why this doesn’t matter, it’s because they don’t have one.
Giving him the presidency seems a particularly bold diagnostic technique.
Depends what is meant by “the left”. If Trump genuinely implemented a non-interventionist foreign policy, supported universal healthcare (which he has supported previously) or imposed tarriffs then some Sanders supporters would appreciate that.
At the moment he is winning over the establishment GOP & neocons who backed Bush by bombing Syria and supporting NATO.
I suppose he might pivot further to the centre with Ivanka & Jared Kushner seemingly having more influence. But can’t see liberals ever embracing him.
Do you categorize Hillary Clinton and Obama as part of “the left” or not? Because both of them were strongly interventionist in their foreign policy. You might be categorizing them as “center”, which is why I ask.
He does not do so publicly. But way to miss the point. (The point being, anyone with half a brain can see that the man is mentally ill. It’s like saying we should refrain from making assumptions about the guy on the subway who claims to be St. Jerome.)
This is simple. You’re sister and her friends have different priorities from you. They sound like upper middle class to rich people. Combine that level of wealth with apathy toward others, a firm belief that you get what you deserve, and the knowledge that you are going to benefit financially from the administration. These people are not going to be negatively affected by Trump’s policies. Jeff Sessions as attorney general doesn’t mean a thing to them. Betsy Devos as education secretary? Big whoop! But they will get tax breaks. So yeah, Trump is great for them.
Whenever they say “He’s not Hillary” just substitute in your head “Trump is hurting people I don’t give a fuck about and I’m gonna get more money!”. All will be clear. Don’t lose confidence in your political beliefs. And when confronted with intelligence and success, ask yourself, “Well what are they actually doing with it?”.
I have no doubt that’s the motive among some, but it doesn’t explain the whole phenomenon to my satisfaction. I know good people, people who care about others, who voted for Trump. I do not for the life of me understand it. It really does feel like liberals and conservatives are experiencing two entirely different versions of reality. Obviously I have my opinions on which of those versions is more accurate, but that’s not really the point I’m trying to make. The point is that I am reasonable person, usually pretty fair in evaluating multiple sides of any argument, and known among my friends for reaching across the aisle… but this is such a no-brainer for me that I am utterly stunned that there are still people defending this man. The level of cognitive dissonance required for people to continue to do so is, quite frankly, terrifying. The fact that we (most of us, regardless of political orientation) have apparently ditched expertise, critical thinking and the scientific method in making political decisions is the scariest thing of all. Maybe I am overreacting when I worry that we’re headed for another dark age, but I’m not sure what else to make of it. I thought people were smarter than this.
However, this may actually be bad news for the Evangelical Christians and Anti-Abortion zealots. Pro-Business Repubs generally dont care much about those issues. It is* possible* the Administration may be moving towards the center, the rarely seen “Socially liberal but fiscally conservative” 'center".
Except those of the Left helped put Trump in the Oval Office. They wrote in Bernie, they stayed home, and they bought into and spread Russian/ GOP Anti-Hillary hate propaganda, even long after Bernie had mathematically lost.
My FB feed was full of BernieBros spreading the Hate from the GOP even after the Dems Nominated Hillary.
ETA ref post #91, not 92 just above.
If so, they’d be in good company with the last several R administrations who used social conservatism as an electoral platform to garner the votes to win then tacked pretty quickly over to the business side of conservatism to govern. Couple that with a few noisy bits of social conservative red meat thrown to the social conservatives just before the next election and you’ve got a winning playbook.
The whole reason Trump won the primary was that he told those social folks that they’d been played for patsies by the last few Rs. Which was true. He then went on to say that he’d be different. Which probably wasn’t – and so far isn’t – true. But it was enough to win in Nov. Helped, as you say in the next post, by unskilled play by the D party and the D electorate.
I’m far more concerned about the next guy. The one who’ll point out Trump’s perfidy like all the rest before him and how this new guy will be the true social conservative / far-right leader they’ve been voting for but not getting all these decades.
I’m sure they’ll throw some red meat to their base.
Should any of the “liberal justices” be replaced by Trump (or pence, for that matter), I am sure one of the litmus tests will be a willingness to throw out roe v. wade, obergefell v. hodges, as well as siding with the religious right on a number of other issues.
Trump never had any real allegiance to the Republicans nor the Democrats before them. It’s this fact which is going to make him an interesting President. Not necessarily a good one or a bad one, just an interesting one.
At first, I really read this the wrong way, thus garnering my laugh for the month.
I read the one about how Hillary had kidnapped one of Bernie’s grandchildren, it was from the news site NewAmericanNews. Naturally, I was stunned, shocked and sickened, and tried to subscribe to their website, but could not find it. Sure, Trump looked pretty bad, but vote for somebody who kidnaps kids? Nofuckingway.com!
Actually, all kidding aside, I can’t resolve that one question: Did it work?
How many people supported Bernie? Oodles, lots of them. Millions, sure. One, five, ten? Dunno. Of that, how many would refuse, for whatever reason, to vote for Hillary, the Orange Peril notwithstanding? Dunno. Of that number, how many lived in those crucial states that swung it to Trump? Because all it would have taken is a few hundred thousand out of millions of people.
Can I buy that it is all the result of a fiendishly brilliant and subtle plot? Can’t quite get there, it is too many for me, I fold. I think mostly, it was all about weakening and degrading Hillary, and they got really lucky.* Really* lucky!
Or maybe Satan. Reasoned analysis isn’t much help when the shit gets crazy.
Did I exaggerate? A tad. The Left will NEVER love Donald Trump.
But the Left will do better under Trump than they expected, and the Right will find itself wondering, “THIS is what we abandoned our principles for?”
Jared, Ivanka, Gara Cohn and Dina Powell are currently running the White House. COULD Bannon stage a coup and get Trump’s ear again?Anything’s possible, but something tells me family wins out over ANY outsider, however Svengali-like.
Are there any conservatives in that inner circle? Nope. Any longtime Republicans? Nope. WHich means…
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Ivanka, like most rich Manhattanites, finds social conservatives tacky and embarrassing She’ll want to distance her family from them. She’s already making nice with Planned Parenthood. Bet on Cecile Richards getting her money. And bet on Ivanka hosting some pro-gay tea parties in the White House.
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Jared and Ivanka HATE that tacky Midwestern Paul Ryan. By contrast they know and like Chuck Schumer- they’ve been to lots of parties with him and have given him loads of money over the years. When Jared puts together a new agenda, who’s he more likely to reach out to? Ryan or his old friend Chuck? I bet on Jared and Chuck hammering out a big infrastructure project that they can both claim credit for.
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Once Chuck and the Trump White House are on good terms, Chuck will say, "Listen guys, why don’t we avoid all the nastiness next time there’s a Supreme Court nominee? I can name you few judges we Democrats could confirm. Sure, they’d all be pro abortion. Sure they’d all be pro-gay. Sure they’d be liberal 90% of the time. But they’d be Park Avenue guys, Wall Street guys who’d side with big business in the tax and environmental and antitrust cases. Tell the truth- that’s all most Republican Senators care about, isn’t it?
I make book Jared goes for it. The next Trump appointee to the Supreme Court will be a Souter- a social liberal who sides with big business in the cases nobody pays attention to.
- That border wall? Forget it. Jared and Chuck will reach a “compromise” leading to de facto amnesty for most illegals, and vague promises that THIS time we’ll tighten up the border, and THIS time, we’ll really mean it.
I’m a traditional religious conservative, so this prognostication disgusts me. But I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen. The Republicans who held their noses and voted for Trump will get NOTHING for abandoning their principles.
And liberals will get far more than they had any reason to hope for. No, Berniebots won’t ever love Trump, but in 4 years, I predict they’ll all be saying,“Wow- that wasn’t as bad as we thought.”
Trump could definitely end up being “not that bad” for the left. But since ol’ buddy Chuck is not in charge of the Senate, all that other stuff about compromise judges and immigration legislation reads like fevered fantasy.