This is the part of the saga that still has the power to amaze me.
I understand why Trump’s voters did NOT care that he was a bully (to the Gold Star parents; to the disabled; to women)–Trump’s voters admire bullies. They aspire to be the best possible toady to the biggest possible bully, while dreaming of someday being elevated to the Chief Bully seat themselves. Trump voters (most of them, at least) are ardent pro-authoritarians. They see the world as a hierarchy in which you adulate the guy at the top–if he does something, that something must be right; the guy at the top cannot be questioned!
But the fact that they were willing to ignore the way he stiffed contractors remains shocking. Partly it may be that Trump voters class all those small businesses and employees of the businesses Trump bankrupted as ‘losers’–somehow, despite being small business owners or employees themselves, they identify with the predator rather than with the predator’s victims. That’s a fancy bit of mental gymnastics, but their authoritarian viewpoint demands it, I guess.
Another possible part of the explanation: the just-barely-disguised white supremacy of Trump’s message was just too sexy-sexy-sweet to let any other considerations deter a vote for Trump.
Nah, they just figure “hey, he conned them, means they must have been suckers. But I’m not a sucker.”
ETA : which, incidentally, is how 90% of cons work. You show the mark you’re a con man, and you let him figure out the way to outcon you that you really want him to seize. Because that’s where *your *con happens.
Still, with all the recent information about health-care changes that may affect them–from elders being booted out of care facilities to opioid users being unable to get help getting off the stuff to people between 50 and 64 being asked to pay five times what younger people pay for the exact same insurance coverage–all due to Medicaid being butchered by the GOP with Trump’s blessing–at some point, some little particle of real consequences to their Trump vote will, against all the odds, impose itself.
They may talk themselves out of knowing they’ve made a mistake, but for a split second they may have trouble talking themselves out of knowing.
I think it’s more pathological than that. In their minds … “it’s Trump! TRUMP! FUCKING TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP! Of course a man of his stature can do things like that. For he is TRUMP <picture gilt lettering and sparkles here> You wish you were Trump or you wish he was grabbing your pussy. I know I do. These mundane things like morals and responsibility are not to bother the divinity of the TrumpHead. Why do you hate America? REPENT SINNER!”
… or words to that effect.
I think you may have nailed the explanation for many Trump voters.
Additionally, I’m pretty sure they are completely unaware of the stiffed contractors and that they are voting against their best interests. Fox News doesn’t report these unimportant little details.
Why is this hair-splitting so important to you then? If asshole rich guys in power didn’t structure things to protect asshole rich guys, then a loser like Trump should have to cough up other assets to satisfy debt. In what sane world does someone like Trump get to profit off the losses of actual hard-working people? Just because he was able to finesse his worthlessness as a businessman within a corrupt framework means shit. It means he’s a worthless piece of shit, and that doesn’t need to be explained away.
Because, while I may be an asshole, I am far from a rich guy, and I structure my rental home income in the same way. I’m more worried about the potential for lawsuits (knock wood, that hasn’t happened to me yet) than bankruptcy (also thus far avoided), but the concept is the same. It protects small business owners the same as rich picks like DT. It’s not a bad concept, but yes, it can be abused by unscrupulous actors.
ETA
Also, businesses fail all the time and people lose those jobs. It’s not really all that special to have a 5 to 10% failure rate for entrepreneurs with multiple business lines.
So you’re saying that you’re okay with it being a corrupt system because you get to benefit from it? Not being snarky, but you seem to think that Trump should be held accountable when he uses a legal entity to amass debts he can’t pay back, but that your hypothetical case of accruing debt in a legal entity shouldn’t be held similarly accountable. This is the kind of thinking that keeps corrupt systems in place. Wouldn’t insurance against lawsuits be a simpler way to protect your investments?
Regardless, how many of Trump’s ventures went bankrupt? Six, seven, something like that? To continue the analogy of microcosming things down here, I grew up in a small town - there was a guy who opened a new restaurant every year. Every other year that restaurant went bankrupt. Somehow he kept opening up restaurants and they kept failing. Oh, he had a nice house and a nice car and his kids had cool shit but his reputation as a stand up guy in town was for shit.
Somehow that doesn’t macrocosm back up to the yutz who can’t seem to make money running a casino, ferchrissakes. That’s the guy we’re supposed to be impressed with.
That is exactly the point. The rubes were sold on Trump being some wizard businessman. But why? Any casual examination of his track record reveals the obvious.
This New York real estate mogul couldn’t get a single American bank to back his disastrous projects because they all learned the hard way. So he turned to overseas banks. And the Russians.
First, it is not a corrupt system. It is a system that fosters entrepreneurship and small business. Unscrupulous actors corrupt the system, but the system isn’t corrupt. This not only goes for limited liability and asset protection for small business, but Medicare, Medicaid, insurance, and any other number of systems and programs. Just because some people abuse the system doesn’t mean the system is bad. The lenders are quite smart - most wouldn’t lend to my own legal entities without a personal guarantee, and those that might lend would charge me higher interest and probably points. That any let DT get away without one for so long, especially after the first default, is beyond me.
Second, I do have insurance, and it should cover 95%+ of situations, because I don’t want to lose any assets to a lawsuit. It’s the rare, hopefully never, situations that spending money up front on asset protection is for.
Lastly, Atlantic City casinos only had a brief heyday. That whole city is a confluence of corruption from every corner. And as we all should know, DT was too corrupt for Las Vegas, and if that didn’t tell voters enough about him, nothing would.
And yet, Nate says his disapproval rating is still only 55.6%. What is truly disturbing, when you add the numbers together, you end up with 5.7% who have/express no opinion. How is that even possible? I cannot wrap my head around it.
Having worked in research at one point, I have to wonder about how some of these surveys are set up. If the questions aren’t worded well, you can get wonky results. If the groups aren’t selected well, you can get wonky results. Looking at Nate’s article, I can see he’s trying to account for that but we’re still in fuzzy territory. For example, he’s adjusting the model to take 6 points off of Rasmussen. I agree with him that they’re problematic, ditto on anything with SurveyMonkey, but it’s looking SWAG-ish.
The resulting model shows the Bane of Our Existence at 38% approval. That’s terrible. It would be nice if it was lower, but hey, we’re only on day whatever this is. (Who am I kidding? This is like dog years, but much, much worse.)
I don’t know how one would have no opinion, unless someone just doesn’t want to talk about it. It could also be people who were pro-Trump, are disappointed but can’t admit it.
Or it can be–and this is quite sad, really–people who really have no opinion whatsoever on political issues. Some folks are actually proud of “having no interest in politics”. I’m wondering, myself, how they manage to keep that up with what’s happening to everyone thanks to political issues (laws, finance, etc.).
Ask Starving Artist. He’s on the record proclaiming Trump’s yuge business acumen on this very board, against all relentless (and repeated, ad nauseam) evidence. Some people know what they know, and ya can’t make 'em know otherwise.
Some people may just refuse to participate in surveys on principle.
Prior to this election, I didn’t have much of an opinion on politics, because, frankly, it didn’t matter *all that much. * Even if you didn’t like the President for one reason or another, there wasn’t the sense that the person was going to drive the bus over a cliff. One believed that “checks and balances” still operated. If the President went TOO far in one direction, course correction was possible from sensible heads and voices in Congress and the Supreme Court. One had faith that the government would function as it was designed to.
That changed with Trump. This man will absolutely drive the bus over a cliff out of sheer ignorance and refusal to listen to anyone else about anything else. There are no voices of moderation THAT CAN BE HEARD on the Republican side. And the Democrats are like the guy who ran around in ever-decreasing concentric circles until he disappeared up his own asshole.
The Tea Party–>Freedom Caucus dovetailed perfectly with Mitch McConnell’s bitter hatred of Obama and refusal to cooperate with him on anything. Cooperation and compromise–the very foundation of a successful political process–became dirty words. I detest that destructive, evil man.
This situation is exacerbated by the fact that so many Congressmen [sic] are weekend warriors and don’t even move their families to Washington anymore. So there’s no collegiality outside of the Senate and House chambers. People’s kids don’t go to school together; the families don’t get to know each other. Members don’t meet on weekends, because on weekends they’re back in their home districts. There are few, if any, hands across the aisle.
What we have is a shambles, with the biggest Shambler of all sitting on top of the heap.