Trumpism discussion

[Brian W]

I'm so embarrassed to live here.

Sorry, folks. My apologies to the nice, sensible countries....

I get angry with a lot of the made up US anti-Sweden news on the net but I certainly don't blame every American for it. I have also seen many sensible posts from concerned Americans on these subjects and have no desire to become as prejudiced as the people who cause these problems so take heart MadamSarcastra. There are a lot of good people in the US.

 

[Val]

When the elections of the US president had been held, i was afraid that Hillary would have won, because her rhetorics towards our country were extremely hostile. Despite that, our president said (well, he had to say so) that his administration would be working with any US president. And it appeared to be that Trump is not much better than Hillary. He's much worse. I'm not in a position to judge someone, especially the US government, but it upsets our people (and i'm not an exception) that so called "Cold war" is in its highest point nowadays.

 

[Andy_T]

There are a lot of good people in the US.

Indeed. If they could just get up and go to the polls, that would be really awesome.....

 

[Andy_T]

This is a very interesting and enlightening article that touches many of the points:

White threat in a browning America

In 2008, Barack Obama held up change as a beacon, attaching to it another word, a word that channeled everything his young and diverse coalition saw in his rise and their newfound political power: hope. An America that would elect a black man president was an America in which a future was being written that would read thrillingly different from our past.

In 2016, Donald Trump wielded that same sense of change as a threat; he was the revanchist voice of those who yearned to make America the way it was before, to make it great again. That was the impulse that connected the wall to keep Mexicans out, the ban to keep Muslims away, the birtherism meant to prove Obama couldn’t possibly be a legitimate president. An America that would elect Donald Trump president was an America in which a future was being written that could read thrillingly similar to our past.

So here, then, is what we know: Even gentle, unconscious exposure to reminders that America is diversifying — and particularly to the idea that America is becoming a majority-minority nation — pushes whites toward more conservative policy opinions and more support of the Republican Party.

 

[Second Summer]

If the Republicans win the midterm elections, will that mean the definite end of democracy in the U.S.?

Paul Krugman seems to think so:

Even now, I don’t think most political commentators have grasped how deep the rot goes. I don’t think they understand, or at any rate admit to themselves, that democracy really could die just a few months from now.

More: Opinion | The Slippery Slope of Complicity (Aug. 18, 2018)

 

[Andy_T]

What he writes does make sense.

But the problem is not only GOP politicians.
Somebody has to keep electing and enabling these politicians
(or simply not caring enough about them to go to the polls at all)

To some extent this is just human weakness in action.

 

[Second Summer]

Here's an article adapted from Max Boot's new book (“The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right”) that puts Trump's takeover of the GOP into historical perspective:

The history of the modern Republican Party is the story of moderates being driven out and conservatives taking over — and then of those conservatives in turn being ousted by those even further to the right. A telling moment came in 1996, when the Republican presidential nominee, Bob Dole, visited an aged Barry Goldwater. Once upon a time, Dole and Goldwater had defined the Republican right, but by 1996, Dole joked, “Barry and I — we’ve sort of become the liberals.” “We’re the new liberals of the Republican Party,” Goldwater agreed. “Can you imagine that?”

Source: - The Washington Post: The dark side of American conservatism has taken over (8. Oct. 2018)

 

[Andy_T]

This is an interesting article, although it is from 2016 and unfortunately did not foresee the events correctly...

In 1980, scientist and writer Isaac Asimov argued in an essay that “there is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been.” That year, the Republican Party stood at the dawn of the Reagan Revolution, which initiated a decades-long conservative groundswell that many pundits say may finally come to an end in November.

Emphasis by me, sighing "If only that had happened"...

Isaac Asimov Laments the "Cult of Ignorance" in the United States: A Short, Scathing Essay from 1980 | Open Culture

 

[Andy_T]

Most White Women Are Very Happy With White Supremacy

This goes hand in hand with this interesting article:

American white people really hate being called "white people"

And this article here makes it a very informative trilogy:

Dear White Lady, What Are You Doing To Us?

 

[Andy_T]

This is an article I found very interesting, and spot-on:

Why does President Trump get away with lying? | Opinion

 

[Second Summer]

This is an article I found very interesting, and spot-on:

Why does President Trump get away with lying? | Opinion

From the above article:

Even if all politicians lie, I believe that post-truth foreshadows something more sinister. In his powerful book On Tyranny, historian Timothy Snyder writes that “post-truth is pre-fascism.”

I remember how the attack on truth had started already during the reign of "W." Bush. Republican supporters argued that every source was biased, especially so if they contradicted the Republican, neo-con agenda: Scientists, journalists, judges, human rights groups ... So therefore their arguments and reports had precious little value. In a society as polarised as the U.S. at the time (and it's only become worse since), maybe strong, invalidating biases really do exist in every person? I think this development helped pave the way for post-truth.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

I think Trump gets away with lying because, compared to other politicians, a disproportionate number of his supporters are not very intelligent, educated, biased etc.

Secondary reason is that the media denials don't carry weight with his supporters because they don't trust the media. I do think the media has to take a small share of the blame for its left wing bias and social justice warriors and political correctness, which have gone a notch or two too far. However its mostly because Trump supporters are too dumb to realize that the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN are more trustworthy than Trump.

When you have a President as awful as Trump, the media are going to be opposed to that, reasonably so, but then sources like CNN themselves become a little suspect because they clearly have an anti-Trump agenda.

Although deep down his supporters probably know that Trump is telling a lot of lies, but they are more concerned about other things.

I thought today's:

Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia

was telling about Trumpism. There is nothing new in it, but it nicely distills decision making based on strategic interest rather than ethics.

 

[Andy_T]

In addition to all that, I think that many of his supporters willfully accept that he is simply making up stuff as long as it just helps their own agenda.

They smile and wink as they listen to him telling those lies - precisely because it shows them that this is about power and they are over the point where they have to observe the reservations of everybody else ("The enemy").

They know he is making up stuff, and that he can get away with it feels GOOD to them.

 

[KLS52]

In addition to all that, I think that many of his supporters willfully accept that he is simply making up stuff as long as it just helps their own agenda.

They smile and wink as they listen to him telling those lies - precisely because it shows them that this is about power and they are over the point where they have to observe the reservations of everybody else ("The enemy").

They know he is making up stuff, and that he can get away with it feels GOOD to them.

I agree that some accept it because it suits their own agenda, but I think more of them really don't think he's lying. They are in line with his thinking, especially the part where he's Making America Great Again. I have so many family/friends that believe this and honestly, they are educated people. I think it's more of an issue of being gullible, disgusted with the way the government has been running the last several years, and they are desperate for change. They think Trump's way is the way to go, as absurd as it all sounds.

 

[Andy_T]

It also has a lot to do with having been bombarded, by way of conservative talk radio channels and Faux News, with his message for years.

Still, he says so many demonstrably false things every single day, I find it very hard to believe that people would not be able to realize that. Being gullible only goes so far....

 

[KLS52]

It also has a lot to do with having been bombarded, by way of conservative talk radio channels and Faux News, with his message for years.

Still, he says so many demonstrably false things every single day, I find it very hard to believe that people would not be able to realize that. Being gullible only goes so far....

Yes, I get that. It's why I shake my head and face palm on a daily basis.

 

[Second Summer]

It also has a lot to do with having been bombarded, by way of conservative talk radio channels and Faux News, with his message for years.

So-called conservative talk radio predates the Trump presidency by several decades. At least to me it really seems like Trump and post-truth are just the logical next steps in a long process that has been plaguing American public discourse and polarising society for ages. I remember occasionally listening to (I think) Sean Hannity's show in the mid-2000s while I lived in Texas for a few months. The man was raging and riling up his listeners in a way I had never come across before, with hateful rhetoric against anything that smelled of liberal attitudes.

There is also the anti-intellectualism tendency as in the "Isaac Asimov laments Cult of Ignorance ..." article you linked to previously.

 

[Andy_T]

I really did not know where to put this, but if is a very interesting article and deserves a wider readership IMO ....

I Was A Cable Guy. I Saw The Worst Of America. | HuffPost

For 10 years, I worked as a cable tech in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. Those 10 years, the apartments, the McMansions, the customers, the bugs and snakes, the telephone poles, the traffic, the cold and heat and rain, have blurred together in my mind. Even then, I wouldn’t remember a job from the day before unless there was something remarkable about it. Remarkable is subjective and changes with every day spent witnessing what people who work in offices will never see — their co-workers at home during the weekday, the American id in its underpants, wondering if it remembered to delete the browsing history.

Mostly all I remember is needing to pee.

 

[Andy_T]

Also, this...

Survival of the Richest

 

[Mischief]

I agree, Andy. That article is well worth the read.

I really did not know where to put this, but if is a very interesting article and deserves a wider readership IMO ....

I Was A Cable Guy. I Saw The Worst Of America. | HuffPost

I agree that this is an article well worth reading.