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[Sergarr]

Ethics are, fundamentally, relative to the individual. His actions are ethically wrong for you, but for them, they're good and just. Republican ethics are radically different than the Democrat's one. I don't know why did you think otherwise, they don't really hide it all that much.

No? Even if you were a hardcore moral relativist, morals and ethics are distinct concepts. Ethics are agreed upon norms, by definition. You might say that there are different ethical standards in the Republican Party but the ethics of an individual are just the sum of the ethics imposed on them by who they are: lawyers must follow certain ethics, journalists another, etc. The Presidency has a certain set of ethics that apply to it and no one else, and those do not disappear just because one person ceases to follow them.

Another difference is that, in America, no one can punish you for a violation of your morals, but punishment is expected for violation of ethics.

See, the problem is contained here:

Ethics are agreed upon norms, by definition

The norms are indeed agreed upon - but Republicans and Democrats agree upon different norms, if not de-jure, then certainly de-facto. The parties are sufficiently far removed from each other that they don't consider it necessary to have the other side agree with them - indeed, it's looked upon with suspicion, because for both of them, the opposite side is truly and nearly irredeemably evil.

I mean, 90% of Republicans are in favour of what Trump is currently doing. If that's not a sure sign that they follow a different set of ethics than Democrats, then I don't know what is.

[EnigmaticHat]

In case anyone didn't catch it, Trump's team didn't know that the entire white house staff leaves and is replaced with each president.  They thought some of Obama's team was going to stay.  Some of them did, on request, but far less than Trump expected.

Among other things, this is almost certainly why we've had a steady stream of embarrassing leaks right off the bat.  What does a former Obama staffer who's job is explicitly temporary have to lose?  Notable is that a lot of the leaks have been corroborated by multiple people within the staff at the same time.

[Neonivek]

I mean, 90% of Republicans are in favour of what Trump is currently doing

In a very general sense AND knowing that a lot of them might not know exactly what Trump is doing.

AND knowing that the majority of those Republicans are centrists. (yeah this is the weirdest thing about the party dynamics in the USA... Politically neither party matches Americans... Most Americans are centrist who think they are republican or democrat)

[PTTG??]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's cool to see that almost a third of rurals are against Trump. Not so cool to see a third of urbans to support him. The partisanship divide is predictably off the charts.

I don't get it, though. His failures are not political failures, they're ethical failures! He's blatantly using the office to enrich himself. His failure to accept scientific consensus is objectively wrong (or about as close as you can get, let's not get into solipsism). It's not like he's just checking off the checkmarks on the "Republican agenda!" Obama, for instance, had an approval gap of 65%-75%, normally on the low end. Trump's gap is 80!

Look, I want to believe that Republicans have a coherent, rational agenda. But right now, it looks like their entire political standpoint is "fuck liberals!" Does anything else explain calls to repeal the EPA? Does anything else support insulting our allies? Is there any other explanation at all for throwing out the Iran nuclear deal?

Incidentally, the 84 Lumber ad was... far more political than I would have expected from a lumber company. Couldn't have been better timed, though.

Ethics are, fundamentally, relative to the individual. His actions are ethically wrong for you, but for them, they're good and just. Republican ethics are radically different than the Democrat's one. I don't know why did you think otherwise, they don't really hide it all that much.

Republicans aren't opposite of Democrats, though. We both want the country to succeed, we (in theory) want to avoid war, disease, and famine, and want to ensure that the government enables our personal success in the fairest way possible.

By those metrics, Trump is obviously failing.

Once again REMEMBER this is Trump not Captain Republican and even the Republicans are reeling at his presence but cannot show it too well because they have to show support at all times.

Heck the Republicans tried to get their own members to vote for Trump on the basis that the Republican party could reel him in.

While Trump is a republican and his beliefs align more towards then than the Democrats... He is far from typical... and more like an exaggerated version.

It's too late for the Republicans to back off. Trump didn't appear out of the woodworks. As someone put it, the Republicans have been tailoring this suit for years. It just happens to fit Trump perfectly.

[Sergarr]

So apparently, Bannon being in National Security Council maaaaay be actually outright illegal:

The Council shall be composed of—
(1) the President;
(2) the Vice President;
(3) the Secretary of State;
(4) the Secretary of Defense;
(5) the Secretary of Energy; and
(6) the Secretaries and Under Secretaries of other executive departments and of the military departments, when appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to serve at his pleasure.

Republicans aren't opposite of Democrats, though. We both want the country to succeed, we (in theory) want to avoid war, disease, and famine, and want to ensure that the government enables our personal success in the fairest way possible.

By those metrics, Trump is obviously failing.

The Republicans define success for the country as, roughly, "rich getting richer as fast as possible". Republicans don't really want to avoid war, as it bring them the war profits - evident by the invasion of Iraq, and their current posture on Iran and China. Republicans don't really want to avoid disease, because it makes their big-pharma profits bigger - evident by their tacit embrace of anti-vaxxers and anti-public healthcare in general. They don't want famine, but that's only because they need the slave-wage workforce to fuel their corporate empires' labour requirements. The moment they can automate that, is the moment from which they could care less about whenever the low-class plebs survives or not. As long as the richest get richer at the maximum speed possible, all is good and just for the Republicans.

You have this idealistic image of Republicans in your head, but it's about as close to reality as the idealistic image of Communists in Russia. They're both just propaganda, created to mask their true nature.

[MorleyDev]

I'm noticing a weird repeating pattern in American Politics, both international and domestic.
1) Find a 'useful idiot' (as in, someone you perceive as such) friendly to your cause
2) Support the 'useful idiot' in overthrowing your enemy
3) Grant the 'useful idiot' more and more power as they aide you
4) Panic when the useful idiot now actually succeeds and starts doing all the things they said they would whilst you supported them.

It's how most of the current terrorist groups got their start, being 'useful idiots' America supported to undermine their immediate 'enemy' (Al Qaeda being the prime example). And they made the same mistake with Trump. By not laughing and shooing away the Trump when he did things like insist Obama was not actually American, and that Climate Change is a Chinese Hoax, and by instead offering him and people who think like him knowing winks...well, guess what? The 'useful idiot' is now in charge of the madhouse they created.

[Puzzlemaker]

So apparently, Bannon being in National Security Council maaaaay be actually outright illegal:

The Council shall be composed of—
(1) the President;
(2) the Vice President;
(3) the Secretary of State;
(4) the Secretary of Defense;
(5) the Secretary of Energy; and
(6) the Secretaries and Under Secretaries of other executive departments and of the military departments, when appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to serve at his pleasure.

Republicans aren't opposite of Democrats, though. We both want the country to succeed, we (in theory) want to avoid war, disease, and famine, and want to ensure that the government enables our personal success in the fairest way possible.

By those metrics, Trump is obviously failing.

The Republicans define success for the country as, roughly, "rich getting richer as fast as possible". Republicans don't really want to avoid war, as it bring them the war profits - evident by the invasion of Iraq, and their current posture on Iran and China. Republicans don't really want to avoid disease, because it makes their big-pharma profits bigger - evident by their tacit embrace of anti-vaxxers and anti-public healthcare in general. They don't want famine, but that's only because they need the slave-wage workforce to fuel their corporate empires' labour requirements. The moment they can automate that, is the moment from which they could care less about whenever the low-class plebs survives or not. As long as the richest get richer at the maximum speed possible, all is good and just for the Republicans.

You have this idealistic image of Republicans in your head, but it's about as close to reality as the idealistic image of Communists in Russia. They're both just propaganda, created to mask their true nature.

Personally I try to avoid any internal "Group X is evil" thoughts, as it leads to Bad Things.  Certain actions and certain policies, certainly.  Lets try not to paint a whole group as bad, as the funny thing about labels is they are just that... labels.  Anyone can call themselves a republican, the same way that anyone can call themselves anonymous.  If you believe a label has come to represent something bad, attack what it's labeling, not the label itself.

In this case, pure ruthless capitalism and unconstitutional actions, if I understand correctly.

[Starver]

2015 (pre-'Trump-possibility') assessment of Republican calls to enlarge the navy.  Has some good points both ways, but I know what my (as mildly disintetested bystander) take-home message is...

[birdy51]

The biggest issue in my eyes is that people are forgetting the real reasons why people voted for him; which is the collapse of the Post-WW2 Industrial Boom. There are countless cities and towns that no longer have large, paying jobs like they used to. This lack of security leads to the feeling of being forgotten, or turned aside and ignored.

Their truest wish is to return to what they would consider normal; work in the factory, go home to a loving family, do it all again the next day. The Hillary Campaign never addressed the issue dead on. If anything, she had made it worse by suggesting she would kill what little bit of the coal industry was left.

Trump did address it, but only in the vaguest sense. When he says, 'Make America Great Again', he's not presenting a solution, but an idea that rings true in the hearts of those most effected by Industrial collapse. He played off their fears expertly; blaming millions of others for the suffering of those in those small towns, and it struck a cord. Now these people are hooked on the idea that he might somehow save them; even if we are well enough removed from the situation to see that's not true.

Until these people are satisfied by a plan to somehow revitalize their societies, they will always vote for and support men like Trump out of desperation to save that dying dream. To win them over, someone has to give them a new dream that outshines the old. It won't erase prejudice, hate, and fear, but it will stabilize the effects long enough for real social change to be enacted.

I sort of rambled.

TL:DR - Collapse of Industry makes people desperate. Desperate people support idiots. Desperate people need help to not be desperate, so that they stop floundering and make real social progress instead of clinging to a bloated life boat in a toupee.

[Sergarr]

Personally I try to avoid any internal "Group X is evil" thoughts, as it leads to Bad Things.  Certain actions and certain policies, certainly.  Lets try not to paint a whole group as bad, as the funny thing about labels is they are just that... labels.  Anyone can call themselves a republican, the same way that anyone can call themselves anonymous.  If you believe a label has come to represent something bad, attack what it's labeling, not the label itself.

In this case, pure ruthless capitalism and unconstitutional actions, if I understand correctly.

It's not that they're bad, it's that they support bad things because they're fooled into believing them to be good. Most Republicans are, just as most Communists, good-natured people, who just had been unfortunate enough to be brainwashed by propaganda.

It's not irreversible, though - just as Communism fell, so can Republicanism. You just need to repeat the same thing as the anti-USSR forces did back in the end of 1980s - take over the control of their key media and gradually start re-defining the common Republican postulates and comprehensively debunking their common falsehoods.

You'll be surprised at how quickly a brainwashed population can be made to change their opinion through that process. Though, maybe you won't, seeing as that's what Republicans basically already did with the issue of Russia, heh.

[PTTG??]

TL:DR - Collapse of Industry makes people desperate. Desperate people support idiots. Desperate people need help to not be desperate, so that they stop floundering and make real social progress instead of clinging to a bloated life boat in a toupee.

Which makes it so damned annoying when they fight against national health care, education, climate science, general science, and (in my case at least) outright wealth distribution.

Trump says 'lol maga,' and people eat it up. Democrats and liberals actually makes proposals to help people, and we get told we're "SJWs that want to control what I think" and "evil socialists bound to destroy the economy."

[Neonivek]

TL:DR - Collapse of Industry makes people desperate. Desperate people support idiots. Desperate people need help to not be desperate, so that they stop floundering and make real social progress instead of clinging to a bloated life boat in a toupee.

Which makes it so damned annoying when they fight against national health care, education, climate science, general science, and (in my case at least) outright wealth distribution.

Trump says 'lol maga,' and people eat it up. Democrats and liberals actually makes proposals to help people, and we get told we're "SJWs that want to control what I think" and "evil socialists bound to destroy the economy."

If it will make you feel any better... This might lead to a huge Liberal/Democrat swing next election.

Assuming Trump doesn't win again due to America's fear of change.

[birdy51]

Aye. It can be annoying, but that's partially because they don't give a damn about national health care, education, climate science, general science, and wealth distribution.

They care about jobs, and having jobs. They care about communities that are safe and stable, where they don't have to lock their doors at night.

Most of rural America are reasonable people, and would likely go along with such efforts. But not when they are without work and without hope. They want to be active, not proactive.

[redwallzyl]

TL:DR - Collapse of Industry makes people desperate. Desperate people support idiots. Desperate people need help to not be desperate, so that they stop floundering and make real social progress instead of clinging to a bloated life boat in a toupee.

Which makes it so damned annoying when they fight against national health care, education, climate science, general science, and (in my case at least) outright wealth distribution.

Trump says 'lol maga,' and people eat it up. Democrats and liberals actually makes proposals to help people, and we get told we're "SJWs that want to control what I think" and "evil socialists bound to destroy the economy."

they flow the economic philosophy of neolibralism and they do it as fundamentalists. They likely completely buy into the doctrine which is why they espouse so many terrible policies. To them economy is king and anything that stands in the way is evil as it undermines the perfect freemarket capitalist utopia that it will bring.

[Neonivek]

Anyhow it isn't that Republicans don't believe in helping people...

But Republicans believe more in creating an environment as healthy as possible, and that by doing so things fall in line. Too much pollution? Well with all this extra money we are making of COURSE we can fix it with money.

and that basically... paying people for not contributing to society only encourages them not to... and unfairly taxes those who are capable.