No matter what Trump does, his base quickly forgives him

They’ll manage to blame it on Obama.

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The right wing media heals him faster than Wolverine heals a flesh wound.

It’s interesting his supporters do so even without 45 asking or begging for forgiveness. In the past a republican politician accused of or caught red handed for some crime would beg for forgiveness on TV or in front of a press pool with a tear in his eye knowing full well the next day would be business as usual.

“When there’s a desire to continue a relationship, there is often a good deal of focus on whether or not the hurt party can forgive the other person. … Trust is the glue that holds relationships together. It is what allows you to feel safe so that you can be vulnerable enough to emotionally connect with another person.” -PsychologyToday

I’d be willing to bet that once they realize that 45 is screwing them over via health care, jobs, the environment and the eventual lack of government services all together, the trust will fail and forgiveness will be much much harder for them. Tick, tick, tick…

(edited for comic character correctness).

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Let’s take the right wing cycle this morning.

Congress: Carter Page, we don’t need you to testify with the others

Page: I demand to be made to testify! The American people need to know the TRUTH!

Fox & Friends: I wonder if Democrats are trying to bury Carter Page’s testimony despite his protests

Trump:


Fox News: Exclusive - Russia story “blown away.” James Comey and Brennon lied about Russia story, Democrats work to censor the truth. (quote Trump as the source of the article)

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Bannon is back in town. Expect more of the same.

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Jesus Christ, dude. Adamantium doesn’t HEAL Wolverine. Wolverine heals Wolverine. His mutant healing factor he has is what heals him. The Adamantim he had laced with his bones was part of a government experiment to turn mutants into weapons.
For more info see Marvel Comics Presents #72-84.

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Fixed. Thanks for your astute observation.

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Like I keep saying, keeping these people from leaving him is the purpose of all his fucked-up behavior. A political commentator might expect him to do that by being and saying what they want him to be and say, but for an explanation of how he actually behaves, you’d do better to ask a domestic abuse counselor.

He has rallies where he tells them unconditionally how wonderful they are. But he also constantly, viciously attacks those who even vaguely oppose him, and of course that, too, is a message to his supporters. When some new shitty thing comes to light, if he can’t simply deny it, his first response – before attempting to deal with the crisis itself – is to say “yes, I said/did that, because I’m powerful, and my supporters are behind me 100%, aren’t you?

He says he loves them, he threatens them, he shits on them and makes them thank him for it, he gaslights them, he makes them complicit in his bad acts. With the GOP’s help, he’ll even force them into unwanted pregnancies and then not support the kids. He is America’s gambling-addicted meth-cook abusive loser boyfriend.

I think his actions probably do influence his supporters. I think their morale will sink ever lower as they realise the depths they’ve been dragged into. But no matter how haggard and mascara-streaked and dead inside they become, the one thing they will never do is tell a pollster they don’t approve of him.

However, should the police drag him away some Friday night in his stained wife-beater and underpants, I suspect a lot of them would feel quite relieved, and not talk much about him afterwards.

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The logical fall guy would be Ryan. Partly because there would be a large dose of truth, and partly because Ryan is the titular head of a different branch of government that is going to be getting in Trump’s way. Of course being Trump, he’ll blame whomever has been pissing him off at that moment, without any regard for plausibility or strategy.

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I would like to test this hypothesis.

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You don’t see any issue with a Presidential candidate bragging about molesting women against their will?

I wouldn’t vote for Sammy Hagar as President, either.

Context matters here. This is the same guy whose wife accused him of rape in their divorce trial, and his actual defense was that ‘it’s impossible for a husband to rape his wife’.

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In fact, doesn’t it poison him, and only his healing factor prevents it?

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Come on now, how is this edgy and original independent thinker going to wow us with his studliness if you keep bringing things like “context” and “facts” and “perspective” into it?

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Trump’s base cares about jobs and guns. As long as he doesn’t mess with those, he’s golden. Believe me, if he started talking about the need for more gun control, his followers would drop.

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The very strange definition which includes what many see as the defining features of fascism - radical right wing authoritarian and often race specific nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power. It would be hard to call the Democrats right wing even if they lean right. Authoritarian I’ll give you. That’s crept in both parties. Dictatorial power on the other hand seems to be the goal of Trump and his republican party but I don’t think you can say the same about Clinton. She has never behaved as a dictator that I’m aware of. As far as the racial component goes, Trump wins the race baiting game hands down.

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I agree that the numbers would drop, but necessarily as much as we’d think. For example if he couched it as “more gun control in inner city areas” a lot of them would interpret it as he intended: “keeping guns out of the hands of black and brown people while letting Real Americans™ keep theirs.”

Right-wing populist followers are always easily satisfied as long as they think they’ll be excepted from or are privileged by the new rules. This is why the leaders of such movements are confidence artists who know the right code words that distinguish the “deserving” (i.e. their core base) from the “undeserving.”

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While I realize this is a parody, I keep thinking, "Isn’t this going to be a documentary?"

We see this as a new phenomena, and confirmation bias is nothing new. fast forward this video to 36:00 and watch what happens to Nixon, 6 months after his resignation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laamYjSwcHI

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IIRC, yes, but there are also alloys or methods to use it where it doesn’t cause it to be toxic. Like Bullseye has it, but no healing factor.

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As a quick-and-dirty exercise, it’s easy enough to run through Lawrence Britt’s 14 Defining Characteristics of Fascism and score both parties or candidates on a 1-10 scale. Of course, this requires thinking in terms of a spectrum (as you do) rather than in simplistic black-and-white terms, so for some others this will remain a “strange definition.”

  1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism [I’d include under this nostalgia for a mythical golden age of national greatness]
  2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
  3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
  4. Supremacy of the Military
  5. Rampant Sexism
  6. Controlled Mass Media
  7. Obsession with National Security
  8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
  9. Corporate Power is Protected
  10. Labour Power is Suppressed
  11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
  12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
  13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
  14. Fraudulent Elections
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That’s already been uncovered in regard to at least one construction project. 45’s base didn’t care about that, either.

@MBrody: If funding is cut to a bunch of Federal departments (as has been proposed in 45’s budget requests), the trickle down is measurable job losses across multiple economic sectors, but the losses won’t be evident until the end of November at the earliest.

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