Fair enough. So why do Trump supporters, nearly two years after Clinton was defeated, continue to denigrate, bully, troll and question the loyalty of the other 150 million Americans who disagree with them?
most likely they have been bashing Dems their whole life , so they see no need to stop now. It’s like dancing on the grave - like a few people are doing to McCain now.
Then what’s the point of attempting to excuse or explain their behavior by relating it all to rejecting Hillary Clinton?
It’s actually really simple: the people who support Trump care less about what kind of man he is on a personal level and more about whether or not he will advance their preferred agenda, the answer to which is basically yes. He’s appointed conservative justices, he’s carrying out the anti-immigration actions that they want to see happen, and most of all he’s pissing off liberals, which may be the most important factor in this age of resentment-based politics.
Think about it this way: if one night you suddenly heard a window break and footsteps clamoring downstairs, and you called the cops, are you thinking about what kind of guy the cop who comes to your house is? Do you think about whether or not he cheated on his taxes, had extramarital affairs, used bad language, or is generally a giant asshole? No, all you care about is that he will get to your house as soon as possible and catch the guy who just broke in.
That is literally how conservatives see this situation: their “house” is being assaulted by people and Trump is going stop those people. That’s how evangelicals - and secular conservatives too - see their way clear to supporting a guy like Trump. “He’s not one of us, but he doesn’t need to be in order to do our bidding.”
**Bolding mine. **I think you’re on the money here, but this is the part I believe makes the whole conservative movement toxic.
When I advocate for moderate or liberal policies, “pissing off conservatives” never enters my mind. I simply try to speak to what I believe is the best idea. But since “pissing off liberals” became the right’s rai·son d’ê·tre, their policies have moved further and further from being about ideas at all. It’s all about who they can fuck over.
I think most of Lamoral’s post was quite good, but I think s/he is wrong about “pissing off liberals” being “may be the most important factor in this age of resentment-based politics” and that Akaj is wrong about it becoming “the right’s rai·son d’ê·tre”. Do either of you have any data to support your position?
Because while they support the white supremacist Trump, they cannot defend him. Therefore they react to criticism by attacking the critics. This is not new to the far right, they were all up in arms about how those who opposed the torturer Bush were terrorist-lovers who hated America and freedom as well.
I remember the sky-high approval ratings at the time, and always wondered who did the polling and how the questions were phrased, just like now.
During the campaign, he attended a mainstream Protestant church in my area (IIRC, Presbyterian) and before he entered the sanctuary, he opened his wallet and tossed a few bills into a bowl that he thought was the collection plate, but was actually used for Communion. :smack:
That looks like the best appraisal yet.
The First Cockatoo will last out his term, since it is next to impossible to shift the incumbent as long as he has a pulse, but next time he won’t get the swing voters who squeaked him past the post. That is, if the Dems put up a halfway decent candidate against him. That is a big if.
Fair point. There’s no data on “the importance of pissing off liberals” compared to the rest of the GOP agenda. But can you deny conservatives get more joy in pissing off liberals than vice versa? And that a significant subset of the GOP measures any given policy’s success by how upset it seems to make liberals?
Well, someone could make a mathematical argument that “If fetus lives are worth as much as post-natal lives, and Trump is able to prevent 1 million fetuses from being aborted each year (which he hasn’t and can’t, but that’s besides the point,) and at the same time his harm inflicted on post-natal human beings amounts to less than 1 million dead each year, then it’s on balance worth it.”
Not that I have encountered any such claim, but it would in a certain sense be logical.
Oh, I don’t know about that. Right now, the libs are out of power, and thus perpetually pissed off. The conservatives are in power, and everything they do pisses off the libs.
Once the libs are back in power, and able to do things that piss off conservatives, I expect a significant number of them will find a good bit of glee in it.
That’s a cherry-picked poll to get the “record high” headline.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html
Schadenfreude is natural human behavior.
Yes, but it’s a terrible basis for a political agenda.
It seems to be a record high disapproval numbers for presidents.
How often has the record for number of voters been broken?
Isn’t that a function of US population?
In December 2017, President Trump’s disapproval peaked at 58.1%. THAT was “record high” disapproval, at least for President Trump. Today he stands around 54%. 54% < 58.1%. This shouldn’t be complicated.
Not exactly. In 2008 there were 131 million votes cast for president. In 2012 it was only 129 million. Similar declines happened between '92-'96 & '84-'88 & (going back a ways) '40-'44.
So … Yay Team?