Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[nenjin]

All I needed to do was talk to a real Trump supporter for 5 mins before they worked themselves up in to a frenzy enough that they stopped being politic.

It started with "illegal immigration" and within five minutes turned into "these Eastern Europeans are ejecting muslims from the country and shutting down their mosques, why can't we do that!"

"Perceived animus", my ass. You just have to read the anger in most Trump supporter's voices when you let them talk at length to see all the animus you need.

[Trekkin]

It's not relevant that the methods in place for immigrants to gain citizenry were "in trouble" before insofar as the current administration goes. They saw that situation and decided to make active use of it to remove as many immigrants from service as that situation allowed. They are as equally wrong for it as if they had drafted it up themselves from scratch.

Oh, it's completely relevant; if we start saying "Trump let MAVNI die because he's racist", then people get to feel smugly reasonable by saying, correctly, "MAVNI had served its military purpose and its use in concert with DACA had become untenable." Trump absolutely needs to be held to account for his racism, but there were good reasons not to run MAVNI itself indefinitely, and he should have created a more durable alternative not tied to a specific skills gap.

[redwallzyl]

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/08/626267768/gop-enthusiasm-fueled-by-trump-could-undercut-democrats-midterm-hopes

I'm having a very hard time having any respect for these people. Most of what they spew is propaganda, bullshit, and lies with a dose of straight up racism, confirmation bias and evidence that they are totally wrong only makes them more aggressively ignorant.

[smjjames]

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/08/626267768/gop-enthusiasm-fueled-by-trump-could-undercut-democrats-midterm-hopes

I'm having a very hard time having any respect for these people. Most of what they spew is propaganda, bullshit, and lies with a dose of straight up racism, confirmation bias and evidence that they are totally wrong only makes them more aggressively ignorant.

Who? All Republicans? NPR? I wouldn't bash ALL Republicans.

Though really, that counter enthusiasm is being fuelled by the SCOTUS nominee hopes, despite the fact that they're trying to get the confirmation done before the election.

[Trekkin]

Who? All Republicans? NPR? I wouldn't bash ALL Republicans.

I would, if I were more inclined to bashing. If they haven't found anything fundamentally disturbing enough to make them jump ship from the party that is now and will ever be the Party of Trump, I do not want to determine empirically what will induce them do so, so it's probably more useful to think of them as a bloc that will remain in functional solidarity with Trump for the foreseeable future.

[sluissa]

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/08/626267768/gop-enthusiasm-fueled-by-trump-could-undercut-democrats-midterm-hopes

I'm having a very hard time having any respect for these people. Most of what they spew is propaganda, bullshit, and lies with a dose of straight up racism, confirmation bias and evidence that they are totally wrong only makes them more aggressively ignorant.

Who? All Republicans? NPR? I wouldn't bash ALL Republicans.

Though really, that counter enthusiasm is being fuelled by the SCOTUS nominee hopes, despite the fact that they're trying to get the confirmation done before the election.

I'm wondering what the long game is here for the media. I've seen similar headlines pop up in half a dozen different left leaning news sources. I always get suspicious when I see that.

Is it just a "Don't get complacent dems, we're not out of the woods yet." ? Or something else?

[Telgin]

That's my guess, really, although after the last presidential election I've taught myself to more or less ignore whatever media predictions there are.

Honestly, at this point I will be pretty surprised if the Democrats make much headway during the midterms, or manage to defeat Trump in the 2020 elections.  The Republican enthusiasm for him is very real, and at this point I honestly believe it's stronger than any outrage or pushback.  People rapidly forget scandals in favor of things they want to support, such as the quip I heard on the radio this morning about how "Trump got North Korea to negotiate in less than a year, which Obama couldn't have done in a hundred!"

It's also difficult for me to describe the emotion I felt when I drove past the "God bless our POTUS!" sign at a local church on the way to work.  I really, really do not understand why Trump is so popular among the religious around here.  Sometimes I wonder if they would literally sell the country's soul to Satan if it meant they had a (self proclaimed, anyway) pro life president.

[Criptfeind]

That's my guess, really, although after the last presidential election I've taught myself to more or less ignore whatever media predictions there are.

I think this is why. After 2016 a lot of people, rightfully or not, have lost all faith in the ability of the media to predict anything. Everyone has to hedge everything now, or the inevitable retort to whatever you say is "remember 2016?"

[smjjames]

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/08/626267768/gop-enthusiasm-fueled-by-trump-could-undercut-democrats-midterm-hopes

I'm having a very hard time having any respect for these people. Most of what they spew is propaganda, bullshit, and lies with a dose of straight up racism, confirmation bias and evidence that they are totally wrong only makes them more aggressively ignorant.

Who? All Republicans? NPR? I wouldn't bash ALL Republicans.

Though really, that counter enthusiasm is being fuelled by the SCOTUS nominee hopes, despite the fact that they're trying to get the confirmation done before the election.

I'm wondering what the long game is here for the media. I've seen similar headlines pop up in half a dozen different left leaning news sources. I always get suspicious when I see that.

Is it just a "Don't get complacent dems, we're not out of the woods yet." ? Or something else?

Or maybe there is no conspiritorational long game here

[Kagus]

Ah thank you, I must have missed that in the article. I had to start and stop a lot. However, according to all of these articles popping up it's not that they're failing it, it's that the guvmint is refusing to perform it. Others (claim that they) have been given no reason whatsoever.

Even Fox News has nothing nice to say about this. Ouch.

Yeah, like I said, they added requirements so onerous they couldn't possibly fulfill them and are now removing immigrants for failing to pass checks the government can't run in time.

At a wild guess, this might have something to do with John Kelly being both a blatant stratocrat (of the "the Corps is at war. America is at the mall" type) and xenophobic enough to invite Stephen Miller over for Thanksgiving. He started being chief of staff July 2017; this happened around October.

I quite like Stephen Miller and his musical accompaniment. I hear some people even refer to him as the organized criminal of romantic interest.

What if everyone in the world got a free pony?

The resulting pony inflation would plunge the world into the great pony depression and herds of starving pony's devour everything in a great feeding frenzy leading to the destruction of human civilization.

But there wouldn't be any inflation; they're free ponies.

[McTraveller]

Why is it I suddenly wonder how long it would take to actually generate a population of close to 8 billion ponies? Google seems to think there are only 58 million total horses in the world, which I assume includes ponies.

It's going to take a while to get all our ponies...

But, uh oh, there I go again, though, doing practical analysis of policies...

[Shazbot]

All I needed to do was talk to a real Trump supporter for 5 mins before they worked themselves up in to a frenzy enough that they stopped being politic.

It started with "illegal immigration" and within five minutes turned into "these Eastern Europeans are ejecting muslims from the country and shutting down their mosques, why can't we do that!"

"Perceived animus", my ass. You just have to read the anger in most Trump supporter's voices when you let them talk at length to see all the animus you need.

I read my share of animus in this thread, thank you. I believe it was Max wanting to disembowel the President?

[misko27]

I really hate to have to be the one to make this argument, but politicians are not a protected class. People threaten them, make fun of them, tease them, say shit about them, etc. It's normal, and relatively harmless. Unless you legitimately think Max is an assassin in his spare time there's extremely little he can do to make his comments reality, and even if they're in bad taste they're also essentially harmless.

I'm not trying to imply that all comments aimed at politicians are justified, merely that there is a very real difference between attacking a politician and attacking private citizens or groups of private citizens, even if Trump has worked very hard to erase that difference with constant attacks on anyone he doesn't like.

[Shazbot]

I'm not saying Max is capable of opening a penknife, but one anecdote as to why you don't need to talk to your counterparts deserves another. Dialogue has broken down because for every position people might talk about, there are a dozen layers of crypto-Nazi-Russian-plant conspiracy and personal attacks to unpack from what should be simple questions.

Tonight, at 9:00 PM, we find out who the next Justice will be. I'm on pins and needles for Judge Barrett. We need more women on the court.

[Trekkin]

I'm not saying Max is capable of opening a penknife, but one anecdote as to why you don't need to talk to your counterparts deserves another. Dialogue has broken down because for every position people might talk about, there are a dozen layers of crypto-Nazi-Russian-plant conspiracy and personal attacks to unpack from what should be simple questions.

There's also a lot of expressive responding, under which fall both Max's posts and the sort of unfocused fascism you usually hear from the MAGA-hatted excitable people interviewed on the street. Ask people about crowd size, and they'll tell you they support Trump. Make reference to the border, and people will express their economic anxieties. Mention wood, and Max will take the opportunity to tell you how proud he is of his athletic abilities.  It's like in Twelve Angry Men; "I'll kill you!" doesn't often signify murderous intent, and so it is with most of the things people say as part of the mask they put on for society and now social media.

When people express animus toward a large group of people, like a racial group, it's important to remember they're angry at an idea, not an average. Similarly, the Trump people hate is a construction that's partly propaganda and partly hearsay and partly assumption and not much actual observation. Those ideas tend to change rapidly when they come into contact with the people they're meant to represent, but racial animus can hurt people from far enough away that the contact never happens. Trump's not so vulnerable.