# The Cruelty is the Point **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 3, 2019, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905 "2019-02-03T20:31:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/21 "2019-02-04T12:04:16Z")
No, I got a problem with the voters, too. Anyone who pulled that lever wears the brand. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/22 "2019-02-04T13:51:04Z")
I posted this link in one of the other Trump threads but it fits here too: **[“He’s not hurting the people he needs to be”: a Trump voter says the quiet part out loud](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/8/18173678/trump-shutdown-voter-florida)** _A Trump voter hurt by the shutdown reveals the real reason the president attracts hardcore supporters._ > [@](#): > > Most Marianna residents support Trump’s border wall, his key demand in the shutdown fight, and don’t blame him for the fight. But Crystal Minton, a secretary at the prison who is also a single mother caring for disabled parents, had a somewhat different reaction — one that reveals an essential truth about the core Trump’s political appeal. > > “I voted for him, and he’s the one who’s doing this,” Minton told Mazzei. “I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.” > > _He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting._ > > Think about that line for a second. Roll it over in your head. In essence, Minton is declaring that one aim of the Trump administration is to hurt people — the right people. Making America great again, in her mind, involves inflicting pain. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/23 "2019-02-04T14:04:17Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > My brother-in-law is one of those racist assholes supporting Trump. > > America really isn’t the pretty country it pretends to be. > > There are tens of millions of those fuckers and the only good the Trump presidency had done is to demonstrate how racist a large percentage of America is. > > Fuck ‘um all. I’ve a sister-in-law who just post-shared on FB something about Nehemiah and a wall, obviously implying how Trump is God’s chosen. She isn’t racist; however, she is completely blind to Trump’s racism. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/24 "2019-02-04T15:13:00Z")
Read the article. They forgot to include Trumps mocking of a disabled reporter. Seriously, Trump acts like a poorly behaving 6 year old. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/25 "2019-02-04T15:15:44Z")
Trump and his hardcore supporters are selfish, cruel, hateful assholes. Who didn’t know this already? ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/26 "2019-02-04T16:49:53Z")
Quoting Davis X. Machina: > [@](#): > > The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it. No cite; this has memed all over the Internet from its probable origins at Balloon Juice, and Davis himself repeats it now and then as appropriate on various blogs, if someone else hasn’t quoted him first. ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/27 "2019-02-04T16:51:49Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Trump voters enjoy it. They love your pain, which is why we cannot just forgive and forget the next time around. Pain must be inflicted. Dude, it’s just sooooo tedious. Most of us here enjoy not actually being in high school. No need to furnish posts which can only trigger flashbacks of the people we are glad never made it into anything resembling a real life so we never had to see them again. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/28 "2019-02-04T17:08:06Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Trump voters enjoy it. They love your pain, which is why we cannot just forgive and forget the next time around. Pain must be inflicted. Which is how they see it too: we need our asshole to put the other side’s assholes in their place. People like you turn it into a war to see which side can be the more dominant asshole. Fuck that shit. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/29 "2019-02-04T17:16:55Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > Two stupids don’t make a smart. Two wrongs don’t make a right but three lefts do. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/30 "2019-02-04T17:23:48Z")
Two Wrights make an airplane. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/31 "2019-02-04T17:25:33Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Two Wrights make an airplane. And 55 years later, an airplane crashes, and it’s The Day The Music Died. ---
**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:** [February 4, 2019, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/32 "2019-02-04T18:21:08Z")
To be fair, if Trump, his family and his cronies end up in prison I will celebrate and fully enjoy it. And if his white nationalist, anti democracy, anti rule of law base gets upset about the rule of law applying to Republicans I’ll enjoy that too. However his base will just become even more paranoid, cruel and anti democracy as a result of the rule of law applying to Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/33 "2019-02-04T18:48:24Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > To be fair, if Trump, his family and his cronies end up in prison I will celebrate and fully enjoy it. The difference being, they will have committed actual crimes and stuff. > [@](#): > > And if his white nationalist, anti democracy, anti rule of law base gets upset about the rule of law applying to Republicans I’ll enjoy that too. The difference being, they’re upset about the news, and how it’s not going their way. It’s not something that we libruls are doing to them, the way the wingnut mob sent Christine Blasey Ford into hiding. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/34 "2019-02-04T20:00:00Z")
> [@dasmoocher](#): > > I posted this link in one of the other Trump threads but it fits here too: > > **[“He’s not hurting the people he needs to be”: a Trump voter says the quiet part out loud](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/8/18173678/trump-shutdown-voter-florida)** > > _A Trump voter hurt by the shutdown reveals the real reason the president attracts hardcore supporters._ To hell with the “high road”, to hell with bridging any gap, to hell with working with them, to hell with any consensus, to hell with THEM. I’m ALL in favor of giving them all the pain they can stand. We can START by getting rid of the subsidies that they get - subsidies paid for by the taxes of the “coastal” liberal states they hate. No more federal dollars to carry their states. No more dollars to pay them NOT to grow anything. No dollars for welfare when their plants close. Nothing. Let them starve for all I care. They like Trump and his tariffs, lets give them MORE tariffs. And if they try “too big to fail” with their coal and automotive jobs, we tell them “No yer not.” Sorry, your precious free market says “go to hell” Let’s see how self sufficient they REALLY are. Let’s see how they do when the FREE money they claim to despise (when it’s for someone else) is cut off. In fact, they are so in love with Trump and Russia, why don’t we kick their asses out, so they can go live in Russia - and NEVER come back. Oh, and they want to force THEIR mutated brand of Jayzuz into politics and on us? NO MORE TAX BREAKS for religious shit. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/35 "2019-02-04T20:02:41Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Which is how they see it too: we need our asshole to put the other side’s assholes in their place. > > People like you turn it into a war to see which side can be the more dominant asshole. Fuck that shit. This. They need to be put back under their rock. [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DcBDGieWkAAF59C.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DcBDGieWkAAF59C.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/36 "2019-02-04T20:47:39Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Which is how they see it too: we need our asshole to put the other side’s assholes in their place. > > People like you turn it into a war to see which side can be the more dominant asshole. Fuck that shit. True… but I have a feeling that if you were to quiz them, they’re going to tell you that they feel like the Democratic party is the party of everyone else- blacks, Mexicans, gays, rich liberals, etc… and explicitly not the party of middle and working class white people. To some degree, the Democratic party’s emphasis on non-white and poor identity politics has alienated this segment of the electorate, whether or not their perception of the party’s political stance is actually true or not. A lot of this is based on state and local Democratic politician behavior, not necessarily Presidential candidates. Just speaking as a white guy in a large Texas city, if I didn’t know better, I’d assume based on the candidates that the Democratic party is pretty much a minority party. And if someone interprets that as the Democratic party not looking out for their interests, you end up with a Trump voter. So by extension, they rejoice when they see Trump and his ilk “sticking it to” the other people- they’re perceiving that as looking out for their interests by doing the other party wrong. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/37 "2019-02-04T20:59:56Z")
You lost me at “ethnically cleanse”. Anti-immigrant policy has been going on for many decades. Under Obama it was at an 8 on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being most harmful. Trump dialed it up to 8.6, and now it just meets the threshold for ethnic cleansing. Please. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/38 "2019-02-04T22:10:04Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > You lost me at “ethnically cleanse”. Anti-immigrant policy has been going on for many decades. This is about hatred of anyone who isn’t white, immigrant or not. The Republicans are neo-Confederates and neo-Nazis who want to kill, drive out or enslave the entire non-white population. Talk about immigration is just a handwave, they\* don’t care\* if someone is an immigrant or not; they’ll happily persecute someone who is an American citizen. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/39 "2019-02-04T22:13:18Z")
And have done. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2019, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905/40 "2019-02-04T23:28:23Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > No cite; this has memed all over the Internet from its probable origins at Balloon Juice, and Davis himself repeats it now and then as appropriate on various blogs, if someone else hasn’t quoted him first. It’s pretty much just a minor restatement of: [QUOTE=Lyndon B. Johnson] I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you. [/QUOTE] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cruelty-is-the-point/828905.md?page=3)