I never dreamed there were so many deplorables in the country. It’s been a big disillusionment. I think there are more decents, but the deplorables have had the stage and the mike for an awfully long time recently.
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“…hateful, intolerant and either violent or ok with violence…”
Those make up most of the 40% who approve of Trump. A few will do violence; the rest get vicarious gratification from it.
Ingraham calling someone in government a mole for foreign interests?
Why hasn’t she heaped this praise on her president?
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I don’t actually believe that that 40% is entirely such people. The majority clearly are, but I think there’s a significant contingent that’s just brainwashed and clueless and are following the herd and believe whatever they’re told on Fox. I’d say they’re up to a third of that 40%. They can be gotten to, I believe, and if we can move even a minority of them, say 30%, we can get Trump down to 35% or perhaps even lower, at which point Repubs start to get very, very, very nervous, and begin to abandon Trump, which will make it easier to win over yet more of this non-deplorable third or so of the 40%, and it’s conceivable that Trump could be down to 30% support next year. Which is why it’s worth going after the non-deplorable Trumpies. They exist, and not in tiny numbers. I’ve met some. They’re just stupid and clueless but they can be moved.
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I was worried about the safety of Amb. Yavonovitch after her testimony. Trump said she was going to go through “some things.” Who’s looking out for her?
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There’s a long history of this going both ways, e.g. Lafayette, von Steuben, Americans volunteering to fight in WWI & WWII before we declared war, etc. The Israeli Army hired a number of British and US officers to help lead it and turn it into a viable military in its early days. There are many other examples whose specifics I’ve forgotten. It’s neither illegal nor dishonorable, so long as it’s done through channels. And it’s not like Trump used foreigners to help himself politically, so they have no leg.
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It is stupid that we do not do more of what you are doing:
Namely looking at the dynamics of those in the Trump camp.
If I had a nickel for every time I would read a promising piece and then, on the heels of it read, “Yeah but his Base ________________________” (whatever negative–to us–action possible)…
I would be in Mercer territory.
Part of this feeling of D & G (Doom and Gloom) with Trump is two-fold:
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Trump (trained by Roy Cohn AND mentally ill to boot) will talk and act the same, whether 5 days away from being removed or 5 months away from being removed
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It’s a safe bet, as an observation, given the abject cowardice of the GOP
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Anecdotally, I think you’re right. I know several people who voted Trump just “for the hell of it,” also some traditional Republicans hopeful of a tax cut, and people who just could not bring themselves to vote for HRC. All of these people now regret their vote. so I agree, there is some hope of winning these people…the true deplorables, absolutely not, but the rest, maybe.
Donald is creating jobs, in fact he’s opened a whole new market for Personal Security Businesses protecting citizens from his supporters. Nice work Donny!
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Part of me lashes out and vents, and part of me is much more analytical. I also, I like to believe, have a decent part. The three parts somehow manage to get along. The brain of the typical Repub, and more so a typical Trumpie, can’t seem to manage this, with the former side marginalizing and silencing the latter parts. But they still exist, and to the extent that they’re reachable, all the more worthwhile to try.
Never thought I’d see the day that the National Security Party would run Russian Mafia attacks against American War heroes. But there it was happening live on TV today for all the world to see.
Republicans, via Nunes and Jordan, are actually cutting all ties with military families today, after Trump gave Russia and Turkey permission to corner our troops in Syria with two massive armies closing in on them from both sides.
Are conservatives really that sure that Trump is the Second Coming of God?
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Those laid off coal miners that Trump promised job security in the early days of his presidency are now looking for new employment, as yet another giant coal company went bankrupt today.
Or maybe they can launch a new business which seeks to protect vets and military families from this Republican administration or join Trump’s Russia Mafia protection/shake down business?
It’s more obvious than ever. While Democrats want to create new green energy jobs, Republican want us to clone dinosaurs and kill them to support the production of old fossil fuels. It’s all there in the Christian Right bible.
except for his little corner, NUNEZ is the ‘cow’- joke in California, and his family has moved out to IOWA[?] nunez’ cow has become a symbol like the Baby TrumpF balloon.
I understand, but if that 40-42% who approve of Dear Leader does not creep downward by a statistically significant amount, we can assume these hearings have done little or nothing to move the needle in that metric. I haven’t seen it move yet.
You’re right. We live in a very different media and news environment than we did 20 years ago. It’s far more diffuse on the one hand, with so many choices, while at the same time it’s far more targeted than it used to be.
A huge chunk of the country is basically tuned out of all this, only dimly aware that it’s even happening and clueless and disinterested about the specifics. I’d guess that half of people under 25 or 30 are in this group. They’re on social media, binging, playing video games, or working their asses off getting established in their careers.
And those who are more plugged in, tend to be either casual consumers of news who still on the fence, or partisans who care only to confirm their biases, and of course there’s plenty of ways to do that.
The last major national event that most Americans seemed to pay attention to was Obama’s win in 2008. Since then, it’s been a steady process of media and civic entropy, and I don’t know what we do about it. Forget all those Trumpie dingbats. They’re dead to us. But how do we engage the politically non-engaged, as well as non-Trumpies who still approve of him? Each probably represents 5-10% of the electorate. They’re gettable, but how?
For now, though, if you haven’t given up on Trump due to all this, you never will, being either an imbecile, or a deplorable (and also an imbecile).
What has to happen before Fox is finally shut down for encouraging violence?
What we have come to call “social media” made possible by the internet has profoundly and permanently changed politics and maybe not to the good. One could see it as the weapon that destroyed democracy – or whatever we have left of it. We’re on the edge of that destruction now. Getting rid of Trump may only postpone its demise for a few more years. Check the article in the NYT. China is now modeling “1984”. Now they call it “re-education,” but it’s a benign version of what they did to Winston Smith to make him love Big Brother. CCTV all over. Facial recognition, even AI used to analyze facial expressions for signs of disloyalty.
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I sadly have to agree with you that this is where we appear to be headed, and that Trump may end up being the failed prototype that the other side studies and learns from so that the next would-be tyrant doesn’t make the same mistakes, made easier by not being a moron and lunatic. What will facilitate it is what I mentioned, the diffusion of media, especially news media, so fewer people end up paying attention to or following it because there are so many other alternatives, and the ability to fine-tune and target propaganda at both existing partisans and those seen as good “recruiting” targets. Thus, fewer people will follow or care about politics, and those who do, will increasingly be under the sway of ever more sophisticated RW “fake news”. So the center will shrink and the right will grow (because the right will always be better at and more interested in propaganda).
Is there any way we can prevent this?
Is there any way we can prevent this?
We will have some small chance IF we can prevent the CEOs of these media companies from profiting from the political misuse of these media. Right now they don’t give a shit.