More frightened than bigoted? This is a good thing?
I for one am shocked - SHOCKED I TELLS YOU - that years of the Republicans scaring the shit out of their base to manipulate them has gotten out of control.
Bernie says the same thing about jobs, but without all the hate and insults.
I think Trump is a manifestation of many peoples’ inner asshole, that they are too polite to bring out of themselves.
If economics is the real crux of the issue then they are supporting a guy who promotes things that will still hurt them. Trade tariffs will raise prices at Wal-Mart significantly (and I have already seen how Wal-Mart drives out local businesses, so where will people go?) Trump’s health care ideas aren’t significantly different than the ACA for middle America. If we kick out millions of Mexican farm workers, does that mean unemployed Americans are suddenly going to start working the fields for low wages under harsh conditions? Probably not. Trumps ideas would ripple through the economy in ways he probably doesn’t understand. Basically, he talks a good game on the economy and jobs, but despite being a glitzy businessman he doesn’t have anything to back it up. Even his business history is suspect, with cost-cutting, subverting labor laws, underpaying immigrant workers, heavy borrowing, and ripping off investors (not to mention how many of his Trump-branded products are made in China or Bangladesh.)
His audience likes him because he acts tough on issues they want addressed, the only way they might support Bernie is if Bernie destroyed Trump in a debate, and it would have to include some mockery and shouting on Bernie’s part so they would see he’s tough too, and not some tired old intellectual.
Trying to “paint” Drumpf “pretty” is impossible to sane Americans.
There’s a Yoda quote out there about how fear-leads-to-hate-leads-to-suffering or something like that, but it’s from one of the prequels so I refuse to look it up.
And don’t forget that “Make America Great Again” is code for “Make America White Again”. Once you get that, much more of Trump’s campaign makes sense.
“I’m not bigoted; I’m frightened.”
“…of black and brown people.”
The problem is that the language of xenophobia and racism is a perfect simulacrum for more nuanced conversations about protectionism and economic policy. Clearly there is an insider/outsider narrative, but themes of inclusion and tolerance muddy the narrative; why should we be nice to foreign-looking people within our own country if we are so insistent on dehumanizing those outside our country? The answer may be blindingly obvious to anyone who has stopped and thought about it, but many people don’t.
I believe the Southpark episode about “goobacks” (migrant workers who time travel from from the future to find work) adequately illustrated this point.
He’s right. The Left can win Trump voters over. All Sanders has to do is be a bigoted, bullying asshole.
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I think as long as we continue to ignore the plight of rural Americans were gonna continue to miss the point.
They got sold out and thrown under the bus by their own Republican political machine.
They’re the ones who are fighting the wars in Iraq. Who are hitting food banks in record numbers. Who actually use the VA. Watch their families get worse and worse healthcare. Skip meals to feed their kids.
Back in the days of good old post civil war racism there was certainly much discussion of the plight of the freed slaves, and where they were located in God’s plan for white rule and all the other insane racist bullshit this country decided must be true so it could still look in the mirror and smile and sing songs about freedom and how great we are
There was no such discussion of the clay eaters. Disenfranchised white people. I found that reference in a very old autobiography of a Southern Belle that grew up to be quite the liberal reformer back in her day.
They were called clay eaters because they were so poor they ate mud.
That’s of course a sign of late stage starvation. Mad with hunger. No hope. Pushed off into nowhere and starved. And died.
Know any other voiceless starving people?
I do! Tillamook, Oregon is a fine example of a town hit hard. All the natural resources are owned by someone else. Now all the jobs are gone. And it’s just a bunch of confused, angry, desperate people trying to work out how they can live.
Survive.
Not die.
And some of the things they do to do this is go to food banks. In record numbers. And they’re certainly frightened! They have to pick between paying for gas, and paying for food, and paying for medicine. Whee.
So a guy shows up and he’s rich and he says these asshole Republicans are lying to you. And when people ask him dumb questions he can provide even dumber answers.
He gets it. How to win. How to game this stupid media system we have. How to rile the crazy base they’ve been pushing further and further to the right. Mobilize them. Excited lunatics.
We haven’t just gerrymandered the Congressional districts. We’ve gerrymandered the fucking electorate straight down the middle. So many stupid little petty squabbles, while politicians and bankers destroy the economy.
I don’t think a Washington in flames best serves the American People. I think a Republican party in flames certainly does.
So thank you Mr. Trump for skipping the dog whistle politics and going straight to the heart of the matter.
And exposing the fucking rotten racist heart that beats in the Republican political machine.
I hope your wedge issues drives a stake through it and it dies.
Actually slightly less gay Republicans as they haven’t deeply eroticized their own gayness following years of repression. I used to think that thing about all those anti-gay preachers being closet cases was a joke, but it just kept coming true. Maybe we could say their gay is more concentrated?
This probably sounds horrific to most of the people on this board, but this is the face of racism in America. The KKK is sidelined because people don’t want to spend their lives in active hate-filled battles, but people willing to get ahead by putting Muslims or Mexicans behind are the norm.
First of all, let me say I think Trump is a know-nothing idiot who would be a very bad choice for dictator even if we ignored his racism. Trump’s attempt to bully companies into staying in America probably wouldn’t work out. But I think that most analysis of what what effect economic policies have is done through the lens of classical economics which is basically an intellectually bankrupt ideology.
Walmart has flourished in America because of policies that made it flourish. It drove out local business because it was paying it’s employees sub-living wages while they collected food stamps. Transitioning from the economy where Megacorp is the only employer, the only place to buy anything, and the recipient of all of the money you pay in taxes to an economy that makes any kind of sense is going to be painful no matter how it happens, but it really seems like it has to happen.
I doubt Trump will make it happen, but I can forgive people for being skeptical of warnings of “unintended consequences” because they are already living the unintended (?) consequence of the system of analysis that is giving the warning - and that’s a nightmare.
" If we kick out millions of Mexican farm workers, does that mean unemployed Americans are suddenly going to start working the fields for low wages under harsh conditions?"
That is the really funny part because there is no conceivable way the US is even capable of deporting 2-3 million people at a clip. It requires enough imposition on civil liberties of everyone who is not Hispanic and who are citizens that the apparatus could never be put in place.
I can only think of 2 governments who were that good at deportation: Nazi Germany and Stalin’s USSR.
Trump is a con man simply taking xenophobes and racists for a ride. His business history shows a regular habit of fleecing investors and making promises he had no intention of keeping, followed by running away when things go south. His audience likes him because he is not as patronzing or beholden to Bible thumping crazies as the other candidates. Your average Trump supporter probably couldn’t really give a shit about abortion, gay marriage or trying to impose a Christian Nation on the US.
What the “social conservatives” don’t realize is their opposition to Trump actually helps him.
“George and Weigel wrote of Trump that there is “nothing in his campaign or his previous record that gives us grounds for confidence that he genuinely shares our commitments to the right to life, to religious freedom and the rights of conscience, to rebuilding the marriage culture, or to … the principle of limited constitutional government.””
I could think of no better endorsement by conservatives than declaring that Trump doesn’t care about attacking abortion, gay marriage, the separation of church and state, or libertarian pro-corruption bullshit.*
*None of this is a personal endorsement of Trump, but simply demonstrating that his conservative critics are not a suitable alternative to his intolerant shtick.
Hm… So Trump is like a prolapsed bowel?
Seems fitting!
It’s a damn popularity contest!
He’s Cards Against Humanity incarnate?
