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We are constantly asked to bend over backwards to accomdate people with deeply bigoted views, who wish to put those views into practice, yet are hold to a higher standard of discourse than they are. Every single time. We can’t bring up privileges afforded to some over others, or long-term disparities based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, etc. We are asked to bring a much higher level of evidence than those who push for exclusionary policies across not just the US, but the world.
What “left-liberal” consensus is that? The one that undermined unions? That veered to the right under the Clintons on a number of issues? If he thinks that last 30 years have been “left-liberal” he must think that means something other than what it means.
Literally no one on the actually left believes that. And once again, no, the Clintons, Obama, etc, were not on the left. They are squarely center-right neo-liberalism.
Blue collar workers were also relentlessly pursued by the GOP who argued that the blame lie with the “liberal-left” (who in no meaningful way existed in the US as part of the Democratic party until recently) and with civil rights, feminists, immigrants, etc.
Yet he seems unable to define the left in any meaningful way. 
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TIL that it’s hard to portray yourself as intellectually superior while trying to make tone policing seem like compassion. Because that’s a dumb idea.
Trump knows he’s not smart. That’s why the word hurts so bad.
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“Smart” is not a precise term. I think it is a mistake to apply to Trump one way or another.
All I know is that he has outsmarted his opponents time and time again, and has managed to keep his criminal enterprise (masquerading as a government) in power, and further his horrific agenda, for four long years. Lots of “smart” people have not been able to stop this “dumb” guy all this time. Even when he kidnaps children and sends them to rape camps. You would think that would be pretty easy to stop.
Calling Trump dumb only validates his base and makes decent people continuously underestimate him. It seems to me we should stop calling him “dumb” or “not smart” and take seriously the incredible harm he has caused and the incredible danger each and every one of us is in every moment we do not take him seriously as a powerful, skilled manipulator.
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As I’ve said before, ultimately a grifter only needs to be smarter than his marks. Given the particularly stupid and ignorant suckers that make up at least 27% of the American electorate, that doesn’t make him close to smart as most of us understand the word.
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This is defiantly one of their worst ads. I get so angry when people make fun of Biden’s stuttering problem and this seems in that vein. Yeah, I internally chuckle at his clown make-up and ludicrous hair obsession, but that shouldn’t be the biggest red-flag of his ignorance.
This is just some old senile guy mispronouncing some words under pressure. If I had a camera on me 24/7 I’ll bet I make just as many gaffes as 45. It’s like body shaming: don’t mock him for how much shit he puts into his cake-hole; mock him for how much shit is coming out of it.
EDIT: grammar
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He’s avoided consequences for his actions. I’m not convinced that’s the same thing.
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Lots of extremely rich, pampered people are well-read, because they are the ones who have the time and resources to read. So while Trump’s upbringing may help explain how he turned out such a horrible human being I don’t think it was just a matter of having things too “easy.”
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I agree, as much as I hate Trump. You can piece together a supercut of verbal gaffs from anyone who does any amount of public speaking. That has nothing to do with intelligence, it’s just being human. Often the most flawless public speakers are the hollow showmen, to be suspicious of. This was a lot of Dubya’s appeal with the right. His constant word salad came off as sincerity to them (while he was torturing people in illegal prisons).
There is an endless amount of genuine things to attack with Trump. There’s no need to go for the childish cheap shots that just end up undermining the message.
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Excellent point. I really do think Trump learned a great deal from Roy Cohn and Norman Vincent Peale, and is very good at repeating nonsense phrases and mantras in a singsong-y cadence, and hypnotizes his audience. I will not listen to him, I think his speeches are actually dangerous, even though his skill is decreasing as he gets older.
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Absolutely. He also does this thing where he interrupts his own verbal gaffs by repeating canned self-congratulatory phrases or repeating previous snippets. It comes across as confident and casual, it really does. He’s a monster.
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Rep. Pelosi’s face at 0:25 is the mood of half of the humanity right now.
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If he can’t find specific people to blame for his woes, Donald Trump often targets the ‘Deep State’.
Yet, from my understanding, the Deep State’s original meaning has to do with the fossil fuel industry’s insidiously effective lobbyist manipulation of government. It would be a large part of the national Capitol’s ‘swamp’ that Trump and his fans claim has corrupted Washington DC and, ergo, is after his presidency.
So, considering the Trump administration’s kowtowing to big fossil fuel (mostly via the loosening of environmental protections), he seems content with wallowing in it—far from genuinely wishing to “drain the swamp”, as he and his unconditional supporters claim.
I don’t think that’s true. Smart people are defeated by dumb people all the time: dumb people travel in packs, almost exclusively. Smart people travel alone much of the time. When someone is overwhelmed, exhausted, beaten down… it’s not as if being smarter would have made them immune to such things! This is how the meritocracy idea can be so damaging, “you were beaten by a thick con man, therefore you must have been even thicker”
No. I grew up in Texas, where being smart in public definitely counts against a kid. You can’t tell me that I would have done better if only I were smarter. It doesn’t work that way.
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My point was in response to the question “is Il Douche smart?” That a stupid person can mass together a bunch of even stupider people to overwhelm a smaller group of smart people does not make him or his followers smart. Put another way, “defeat” does not necessarily mean “outsmart”.
Now, smart people (as we understand the term here*) do get taken in by grifters, but the grifter in question (i.e. not Biff) is usually very smart and usually plays to the marks’ particularly stupid weaknesses of greed and/or entitlement. The main exception to that situation is when the con artist plays on sympathy, hoping that the smart person will let down his intellectual guard and become temporarily stupid.
The meritocracy idea, whether in its original dystopian sense or in its misinterpreted positive sense, is mainly about exclusive rule or government by a group based on a shared ability, education level, or skill. The concept really doesn’t discuss the proposition that really stupid people often get gulled by someone slightly less stupid than they are.
I’m not telling you that. Neither is anyone else, including Carla or the maker of the video.
[* e.g. the ability to think critically, having a heightened ability to learn, etc. Being wise and educated are two other characteristics that help resist grifters, but those should be taken separately]
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The old military meaning of ‘smart’ was “looking good” e.g. to present smartly. I sense a failure here also.
‘Smart’ also means “a sharp pain”. This applies.
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