There have always been stupid ignorant voters but until the rise of cable news and the Internet they had no way to unite.
One group of nuts might hate blacks, another hate gooks, another hate Irish. One group might have thought JFK a Papist, another thought he was born in Canada, another that he was a communist, or a child rapist. Another group was most concerned about the green aliens raping their wives and then hiding back in their UFOs. When they went to the voting booth there was no gook-hater or war-against-green-aliens candidate on the ballot. Candidates were effectively vetted by an establishment. And even the notoriously corrupt “establishment” political bosses gave priority to sane governance and continuity.
Yes, there were some wingnut groups that gained strength. But to really be a John Bircher, one had to read the Blue Book, or None Dare Call It Treason or A Choice, Not An Echo. Read a book! Can you imagine how weak a movement the Fox-Trump voting bloc would be if only book readers were invited? :smack:
FoxNews may rely on existing stupidity, but it steers and unifies the stupid. The housewives enraged by chem-trails, the workers enraged by not having a union, the workers enraged because of their union, workers who wish their income were high enough to pay income taxes, workers enraged by how high their taxes are, those enraged Obama is half-white, those enraged he’s half-black, those enraged by pussy grabbers, those enraged they can’t grab any pussy … they all come together under the Fox-GOP umbrella. They all agree something’s wrong. What it is that’s wrong hardly matters.
For all I know the average American may be smarter now than at any time in the past! But mass media — cable news and Internet — have made the average vote far stupider than it’s ever been.
Oh, that’s hilarious! Start with the Illiteratus-in-Chief.
QFT.
Some here may be too young to remember a time when you didn’t know everything everyone was thinking the instant they thought it. You read the newspaper twice (or more) per day and caught the major news stories in a half-hour broadcast at dinnertime. Local news at 10 or 11. No internet.
During the first Gulf War (1990-ish), CNN started broadcasting 24/7. That changed reporting forever. Now TV news had to get there first. And later with the internet, anyone could scoop any news media source. Truth? Who needs it? Critical thinking? Screw it! We need viewers to make our advertisers happy.
There are media sources with integrity–frankly, I believe most mainstream media sources strive to report the facts. Fox is not one of them.
I work for a major US railroad in upstate NY, it’s still close to that way today. The only real difference today is that you can get your foot in the door if your not white. In the 70’s you could not even do that.
I work out of one of the biggest rail terminals in the country and I’m one of the few black people that work there. It’s about 98% white and they let you know everyday you are not welcome. Forget about any other minority, there aren’t any.
The majority are Trump supporters, I’d say about 90%, even though the so-called tax cuts will hurt us railroaders. They actually don’t believe that they won’t be able to itemize deductions and write off things this year like we were able to do in the past.
I actually think they don’t even care if it hurts them, as long as hurts black people more.
This country is in a bad place, and I don’t expect the mid terms to change this. This country elected Donald Trump as president, and judging by my co-workers is proud of it.
The US is already done. There is no coming back from this.
No, honey, asshole for “I disagree with you” is “Shut up”.
No, I do not believe people here change their minds based on pit threads. “GD”? Maybe. “IMHO”? Probably.
A thread named “A Clusterfuck in the Making”? No, I don’t think anyone came into this thread with an open mind, willing to be persuaded to a new outlook, or, if they did, they would be persuaded by someone going off about re-education camps. Maybe I just have a higher opinion of people than you.
Not no contact at all, I didn’t live in Erewhon, but there was no one I had to associate with; I could just walk away. Now, people say shamelessly bigoted things about people of color, LGBTetc., and women, right in public, in front me. Things that my shamelessly bigoted parent would have knocked me silly for saying.
Asahi is extremely annoying with their pessimism, but you’re the one, Happy Lendervedder, who I saw bringing up a revolution. Asahi is just resigned to everything being horrible. They’re clearly depressed from everything that’s going on, and no longer have any hope. I see no sign they think even a revolution is possible. They are the guy watching the world as they know ending and are resigned to their fate, laughing at those who struggle in vain to stop their inevitable demise.
No amount of lashing out at them is going to take them out of their despair. Only hope can beat despair.
The only thing I fear with asahi is that their pessimism can spread. Fortunately, no one here seems to be letting it. We’re committed to keep on fighting, to keep on going. Asahi can just come here and vent, and it doesn’t really affect any of us.
If it gets you down, I suggest putting them on ignore. Or, if you really want a challenge, try to provide hope to the hopeless. Personally, I’m thinking actually fighting and winning provides far more hope than anything I could provide without being a licensed psychologist.
(Granted, I may have missed something asahi said since I had to put them on ignore for my own mental health. But it sure seems like you’re the one who suggests revolution based on the posts I saw quoted.)
We can’t call Republicans Nazis – even if that’s what they are?
And even if they don’t self-identify, let’s be honest: isn’t this the appeal of the modern Republican party? Isn’t the appeal that they, the Trumpists, are the only ones who actually come out and ban immigration of people based on their religion or based on the fact that they come from a “shit hole” country?
Nah, sorry, Sad Lender, the time for trying to talk sense into these animals is over with. When puppies shit on the carpet, you gotta rub their noses in it.
I don’t support violence, but when the economy collapses and the country reaches a consensus that it’s the right wing’s fault, then there will have to be a reckoning. And there will be a need for emergency legislation that requires the complete capitulation of Trumpists. We will need a period of de-Trumpification, just as there was de-Nazification in Germany.
The great flaw of this country is not that it failed to compromise, it’s that it compromised before ever achieving a full reckoning with its racist cultural identity. You don’t know this because you were raised in Michigan; I grew up a 30 minute car ride from places where blacks were mass murdered, and to this day there are placards that defend the white rebellion (mass murder) as northern “misrule”. Trust me: there is no compromising or reasoning with these “people”
Point of order, some are. That does not mean that all Republicans are. We can however point out that currently most Republicans in power are being too simpatico with the Fascists, Neo-Fascists and confederate defenders. Most moderate Republicans are in denial of how corrosive is the growing corruption they are embracing by kowtowing to Trump.