Print

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

[Dostoevsky]

The intention of my comment is not to praise Trump but to recognize that when it comes down to it these are all conscious entities doing things and not cartoon caricatures. When one is in the opposition/minority, there's an inherent risk in turning the foe into a thing to be hated instead of someone you disagree with (something that I'd argue some of the anti-Obama folks very much fell into) - there's gain to be had there, but at the cost of long-term damages to the institutions we have.

I know it sucks to hear 'don't take the low road' after an election like that, but unless your objective is just to blow everything up then I'd argue it's better not to treat politics like total war. Certainly giant piles of legitimate complaints about President Trump, but the process of making those complaints counts.

(I do understand that for some folks the objective really is just to blow everything up... to them I suppose I'd say that the chances of that going horribly wrong are greater than the chances of it improving things.)

[Rolan7]

Gender swapped presidential debate
They only switched the genders, but this just caused trump (or in this case fem-trump) to feel like the better person.

Well you aren't really meant to cut people off and rant at them like that in presidential debates regardless of gender...

Yeah, uh...  I definitely didn't get the apparently intended reaction from this piece, based on the article.
I thought FemTrump was even more of a bitch than Trump, if anything, which could be my own sexism to some extent.  I certainly didn't start sympathizing with the interruptions (I'd say arguments, except...  it was still pretty much an out-of-turn torrent of "Nuh-uh!" or "What about this other thing huh?!")

The article claims that MaleClinton seemed fake because he smiled too much and seemed too prepared, which just makes me incredibly worried about our country.  Not to mention the gender stereotypes at play.

[TheBiggerFish]

Yeah, uh, Male!Clinton was fine, although suddenly "Buy my book!" was a bit much, and Woman!Trump was interrupting and generally being an ass and going off on weird tangents.  Still would have gone for Clinton, if that's a representative sample.

[Neonivek]

It helps that Male Clinton seemed to be fairly experienced so much so that he could call upon his experience and credentials.

Fairly bog standard, but then again... I am electing a president not a entertainer.

[misko27]

The intention of my comment is not to praise Trump but to recognize that when it comes down to it these are all conscious entities doing things and not cartoon caricatures. When one is in the opposition/minority, there's an inherent risk in turning the foe into a thing to be hated instead of someone you disagree with (something that I'd argue some of the anti-Obama folks very much fell into) - there's gain to be had there, but at the cost of long-term damages to the institutions we have.

I know it sucks to hear 'don't take the low road' after an election like that, but unless your objective is just to blow everything up then I'd argue it's better not to treat politics like total war. Certainly giant piles of legitimate complaints about President Trump, but the process of making those complaints counts.

(I do understand that for some folks the objective really is just to blow everything up... to them I suppose I'd say that the chances of that going horribly wrong are greater than the chances of it improving things.)

Spoiler: Spoilered for being a little long (click to show/hide)

There is something to be said about discourse where you are right. Discourse is not just for Donald Trump, but for the nation, and that is not something that should be allowed to disintegrate. It will harden hearts and minds, as you say. I think a number of people, even here in this thread, have raised their concerns about how the debate is shaping up, and I agree that it is very poisonous and bad for the country. I think we should all bear that in mind moving forward.

But I would like to object here and say that if Donald Trump is (as I have speculated him to be) an actual pathological narcissist (as opposed to just being narcissistic, which I think is pretty darn indisputable at this point), then you are actually wrong. He is a cartoon caricature, emotionally at least. There is no there there. He's not capable of empathy in the traditional sense, or at least if he is he has not demonstrated it. The people around him are human (shitty, but human), but Narcissists aren't really. They don't see you as human (at least not human in the way that *they* are human), at least, and perhaps aren't even really capable of it. I would know, my father is one, and I've argued before that Donald Trump shows classical (and anecdotal) signs of it; it's impossible to diagnosed someone without actually seeing them (although I'll note that narcissism is rarely ever diagnosed), but if he is a narcissist, it's automatically disqualifying.

It's very unfashionable to come right out and say this in this modern, progressive age, because when I say it, it reminds you of all the people who have been falsely accused of this, but here it is: there are some people alive today who really are not worth respecting. People who aren't deserving of compassion, because they themselves cannot show it to others, or appreciate it when you show it to them. People who cannot feel empathy, and who think so differently that true empathy is not capable towards them. Not because of the color of their skin, or their culture, or economic background, or anything other than the fact that they are, essentially, not human. Very, very few people. Very few. But they exist, and Donald may be one of them.

Note that saying this is actively unhelpful, because people will perceive it as an attack on the things that Donald has come to represent and with which they identify. To say that Donald Trump is a bad man is to attack the "basketful of deplorables" which his supporters identify as an attack on them. Supporting Donald does not make you a bad person, or even a dumb person, and the people who attack Trump only see through him because he is opposed to what they believe in. (Seeing through narcissism is a skill that must be learned, not a talent; even I struggle sometimes). But while I acknowledge that many people dislike Trump for wrong reasons, or like him for right reasons, that does not mean what I said isn't true:  Donald, after all, has no actual positions. He is not free-trade or protectionist, or right-wing or left-wing. I mean that much obvious; his record as a flip-flopper is undisputed. There are people who only see what's wrong with Trump because he is right-wing, but that does not mean that all those things are not wrong with Trump. I say this merely because here in this thread, it's worth saying that Donald is not the people who support him. None (or very few) of his supporters are racist, greedy, misogynist bullies. But Donald Trump is a racist, greedy, self-aggrandizing, misogynist bully who continues to throw third-grade theatrics as The President of the United States of America, the most powerful man in the world, and the simple fact of that matter is that no one is capable of seriously defending him on a personal level (that is to say, defend his personality) without engaging in egregious violations of facts and logic. The best argument I've heard, seriously, is "he's honest" in his corruption: he is merely openly doing all the worst possible things that you can imagine a politician doing in one person, and so people who imagine all politicians do those things find him a breath of fresh air. He may not be a Russian shill, but I feel fully qualified in saying that Donald Trump is not a good man. He is not a good family man, he is not kind or decent or generous, he is simply, first-and-foremost, an egoist, and recognition of this is crucial to understanding anything else about him.

The short version is that Donald Trump is going to polarize this country to hell because people say and will continue to say terrible things about Donald Trump, all the terrible things we tell ourselves about anyone we don't like, because Donald Trump is almost all of the terrible things people say about him. Tthe current defense of him is that he isn't a Russian Shill. So? So he didn't commit the worst treason in American history and conspire to gain power by selling the country out to our greatest foreign antagonist and fundamentally weakening the most valued attribute of our country, it's democracy. And? So what? What about everything else?

The problem is that most of the worst things people believe about Donald Trump are, in fact, true, which means there is little daylight between "hating him for who he actually is" and "hating him because of hating him". And that, by itself, may break this country.

Yeah, uh, Male!Clinton was fine, although suddenly "Buy my book!" was a bit much, and Woman!Trump was interrupting and generally being an ass and going off on weird tangents.  Still would have gone for Clinton, if that's a representative sample.

Personally the Trump talk is off to me, regardless of whether it's said by a man or a woman. Narcissism is actually more common in women (well technically, what I mean is that there are few women psychopaths or sociopaths, and that they instead tend to manifest as narcissists; I don't know actually how APD is distributed between the sexes).

[Rolan7]

Yeah, uh, Male!Clinton was fine, although suddenly "Buy my book!" was a bit much, and Woman!Trump was interrupting and generally being an ass and going off on weird tangents.  Still would have gone for Clinton, if that's a representative sample.

Wellllllll, the "Buy my book" thing was from the actual debate.  In fact I think the idea is that they literally copied the dialogue, timing, and hand gestures from the actual debate.
(Considering it followed that tirade of interruptions, I considered it an attempt at humor.  But I was definitely a Clinton supporter already.)

And sure enough, Trump's gestures looked obnoxious when done by a woman too *shrug*.  And smiling is fine even if you're a guy, I mean, we reelected Obama...

[muldrake]

The intention of my comment is not to praise Trump but to recognize that when it comes down to it these are all conscious entities doing things and not cartoon caricatures.

As I started reading this post, I read that opening line as "I come not to praise Trump, but to bury him."

[TheBiggerFish]

Yeah, uh, Male!Clinton was fine, although suddenly "Buy my book!" was a bit much, and Woman!Trump was interrupting and generally being an ass and going off on weird tangents.  Still would have gone for Clinton, if that's a representative sample.

Wellllllll, the "Buy my book" thing was from the actual debate.  In fact I think the idea is that they literally copied the dialogue, timing, and hand gestures from the actual debate.
(Considering it followed that tirade of interruptions, I considered it an attempt at humor.  But I was definitely a Clinton supporter already.)

And sure enough, Trump's gestures looked obnoxious when done by a woman too *shrug*.  And smiling is fine even if you're a guy, I mean, we reelected Obama...

I didn't actually watch the original debate, so I was just kind of...Reacting to that.

But seriously though, I find that conclusion strange.

[Hanslanda]

-snip-

I think this is the most intensely, frighteningly accurate summation I've encountered so far.

[TheBiggerFish]

And...Yeah, what Hanslanda said.

[WealthyRadish]

Personally I had never encountered a person who speaks the way the Donald does before being introduced to him over the debates. At first I thought he couldn't have possibly been completely serious or genuine when inserting self-praise every other breath, that it must've been a deliberate tactic. Now seeing his incredibly thin skin and the hilarious depths of pettiness he'll pursue, it's clear that it wasn't just some reality TV or conman bullshit he picked up, but that he's legitimately fucked in the head.

[Max™]

As misko said: treating Trump like a cartoon caricature isn't dishonest, pretending he deserves the same sort of respect and benefit of the doubt that any human should receive is dishonest. He literally disagrees with himself regularly, jumping on whatever stance or claim makes his weewee feel bigger at the moment. He brags about fucking people over, attacks anyone or anything which could poke a hole in his lie-fueled identity, and has been doing this for far too long to think it is anything but who he really is.

He's a 70 year old child, coddled and raised in a shell of expensive bullshit, I'm not sure if it's just pathological narcissism or if that's just a layer on top of his more psychopathic behaviors which get obscured due to the sort of institutional sociopathy the upper levels of US politics attracts. No man would bitch and moan and throw a tantrum on twitter about all the shit he has, but a spoiled little boy will, and that points to part of why 4chan loves him. He's a meme incarnated in the form of a rich spoiled manchild who dragged a fucking alt-right fascist with nazi buddies into the white house.

There is no low road to take here, doing things on equal ground means you're standing in the gutter anyways, and playing by the rules against someone who doesn't even fucking understand that there are rules is insane. Giving him any legitimacy is dangerous and corrosive, so while you may have had a point, Dostoevsky, if we were discussing Rubio or Romney or even Jeb, you are absolutely wrong in the case of the shitbag in the white house now. Sadly we can't just rely on people who support him understanding how vile that makes them by association, and you are right that attacking them is not the right path... but attacking him? Yeah, the only reason I can think of for not hoping he chokes to death on his smartphone is how awful Pence is.

[Neonivek]

Yeah but Max aren't we being unfair?

I mean... if a normal person acted like Donald Trump he would...

Actually he would be laughed out of the building... Donald Trump only gets away with what he says because he is so "rich" and powerful...

[misko27]

-snip-

I think this is the most intensely, frighteningly accurate summation I've encountered so far.

And...Yeah, what Hanslanda said.

You think you're spooked? Imagine lying in bed one day and suddenly realizing the similarities between the father who beat and starved your family and the President of the United States. And there's a lot of similarities.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

He's a 70 year old child, coddled and raised in a shell of expensive bullshit, I'm not sure if it's just pathological narcissism or if that's just a layer on top of his more psychopathic behaviors which get obscured due to the sort of institutional sociopathy the upper levels of US politics attracts. No man would bitch and moan and throw a tantrum on twitter about all the shit he has, but a spoiled little boy will, and that points to part of why 4chan loves him. He's a meme incarnated in the form of a rich spoiled manchild who dragged a fucking alt-right fascist with nazi buddies into the white house.

As a point of order, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and APD (Antisocial personality disorder, which is the technical term for sociopathy and psychopathy) are not mutually exclusive. They can, and often do, overlap.

There is no low road to take here, doing things on equal ground means you're standing in the gutter anyways, and playing by the rules against someone who doesn't even fucking understand that there are rules is insane. Giving him any legitimacy is dangerous and corrosive...

This I'd like to focus on just a touch. It's worth saying that while there aren't hard-and-fast rules for when you see through a narcissist and when you don't, the biggest predictor is degree to which you are already opposed. If you distrust or doubt a narcissist (not necessarily because you are aware of them; in fact, it's just as easy to doubt them because of terrible reasons), you are much, much more likely to see through them. Open-mindedness is vulnerability, skepticism is a necessary inoculation, but plain opposition is the best defense (hence polarization). That's why the left-wing are so united in blanket opposition: they'd already be opposed to his politics, so the scale of his crimes is unvarnished and thus unacceptable. It's very much worth saying that if Obama did half of this, the Tea Party would have his head on a plate, and that's a good thing. But Obama didn't, and Trump did.

Again, I'm extremely self-aware of how this sounds. That's precisely why I am worried about the state of the country. The extreme rhetoric is mostly justified, but counter-productive (to the point of being actuvely dangerous).

Sadly we can't just rely on people who support him understanding how vile that makes them by association

Stay classy, Bay12.

This is my point from earlier (which I'm now wondering if either of you read in great detail). I went to significant lengths to draw apart Donald Trump's supporters and him on a personal level; and to illustrate precisely why there is an issue with even explaining the problem in the first place (as we see here).

The problem of the narcissist is that they necessitate an extreme response, but an extreme response is perceived as fundamentally backward by people who don't understand narcissists, because they see this language and know how it is used to delegitimize others (And they are right! 99.99% of the time, that is. This is the exception). Donald Trump is a unique extension of this problem in that he is a political figure, and thus represents a lot of things to a lot of people (or rather, people feel like he represents; Donald Trump doesn't even represent himself accurately, let alone others). These representations and associations are the heart of the problem. Donald Trump is both a political figure representing certain people's hopes and dreams, and also a fundamentally reprehensible human being who has not demonstrated the ability to show basic empathy. Donald Trump is a genuinely rare form of vile that requires a very hard response, but his supporters are not vile (with rare exception), and treating them as such will only draw them further into his grasp, as well as alienate moderates (those happy few) who only see the response and not the reason. That is the countries problem, and I don't know what the solution is.

[wobbly]

I'm actually a lot less inclined to give his supporters a free pass on this. In a democracy you do share a responsibility for who you vote for (or for not voting). Pretending otherwise is just a game people play because attacking the voters ain't going to change their views or who they vote for. At the end of the day you're still making a choice & there are consequences arising from that choice.