The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump

[ceecee]

Realistically, that seems to be all that we can about expect out of this.

It's just weird with all the news of the last four days and the things being dragged out. Could it be different? I don't know. Flake's comments about 38 GOP senators being willing to vote removal if they were allowed to vote in secret doesn't hold much weight for me, since the vote isn't secret and otherwise they've just been kowtowing the entire time publicly. I could be wrong; but it's not courage and Flake isn't exactly the epitome of courage either. It simply makes you wonder how deep the resentments run and whether it would ever make a difference.

Pretty much we just want it all out in the open, documented, and who supported what so it's on the record. So much of this mess seems to be spawned of confusion and obfuscation about facts and occurrences and who said/supported what. So nail it all in place.

Every GOP member that "retires" is simply using - I'll take my ball and go home - logic. Completely ignoring the fact that they caused the problems to begin with and intend to do nothing. Absolutely zero responsibility or spine of any kind when it comes to Trump and I love how Jeff Flake gets mercilessly dragged every time he starts with that self-righteous bullshit on Twitter. In the end, the GOP rats are getting off the boat before the inevitable slaughter comes.

Justin Amash would be the one exception but he is certainly an outlier. Sucks for the GOP that he still has a vote in the house, lol.

 

[ceecee]

US manufacturing activity drops to 10-year low - CNN

The anti-globalization fans can say it doesn't matter what happens beyond our borders but the US economy is global with or without their consent.

In the surest sign yet that the trade war is hurting the American economy, manufacturing activity contracted in September to a 10-year low.

 

[Jaguar]

Two U.S. Swing States Lost the Most Factory Jobs in Past Year

As the U.S. presidential campaign heats up, Democratic candidates may want to look at two Rust Belt states that narrowly helped deliver Donald Trump’s victory in 2016: Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The two swing states lost the most manufacturing jobs in the past 12 months, bucking the national trend. In Pennsylvania, home to steel mills, the number of factory positions fell by about 8,000 and in Wisconsin the loss was just over 5,000.

Bloomberg

 

[Virtual ghost]

US manufacturing activity drops to 10-year low - CNN

The anti-globalization fans can say it doesn't matter what happens beyond our borders but the US economy is global with or without their consent.

Two U.S. Swing States Lost the Most Factory Jobs in Past Year

As the U.S. presidential campaign heats up, Democratic candidates may want to look at two Rust Belt states that narrowly helped deliver Donald Trump’s victory in 2016: Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The two swing states lost the most manufacturing jobs in the past 12 months, bucking the national trend. In Pennsylvania, home to steel mills, the number of factory positions fell by about 8,000 and in Wisconsin the loss was just over 5,000.

Bloomberg

I know that no one asked me anything but I will say something regardless.




How Trump handles all of this is questionable, however there are some deeper truths in all of this. The fact is that US and other developed countries are losing manufacturing for a long long time before the point when Trump announced his campaign. The core of the problem is actually in how globalization itself is defined, in other words if someone can create the same products with same quality for only 5% of your price you will go out of business pretty quickly. Especially if all trade barriers are destroyed by law. This is simply the economy that can't work for everybody and that is the core problem here. At this point manufacture in the first world simply isn't profitable anymore and it is dying out, leaving huge amount of working people "on the street". Therefore once that tanks purchasing power drops in various communities and then service and retail get hit as well (as well as taxes and social programs). What in the end results with huge debts since people are broke and on the other hand you have mass depression, substance abuse and shootings.



Now into equation comes Trumpism and it says that it will try to sever these economic connections as much as possible before these trends completely crash huge parts of the country to the point of "beyond repair". The very fact that even after all that has happened it is completely unclear who will win 2020 a man must ask itself why this is the case. I think it is in the fact that huge parts of people simply have no way of adapting to the fact that someone is working for 5% of their wage, has the same quality of work and it can live with that kind of money. Even if you cut taxes to 0, abolish environmental laws, work for minimum wage, have no kids ... etc. you are still just too expensive and have no bargain power (since you are competing with everyone on the planet). Plus on all that comes automation and the fact that we can't all be lawyers and rock stars. However democratic party offers very little solutions in this regard for the most part and that is the real problem and why everything got "stuck". In the case that democratic party fully recognizes the problem of it's people the GOP as it is now would completely implode within 6 months. The thing is that large scale manufacture is very complicated issue, you need to setup huge and very complicated infrastructure, you need plenty of power and other utilities, you need plenty of concrete experts/engineers that take years to educate, you need stable source of materials, you need distribution network for concrete goods and stable source of income ... etc. While today people in the west that run markets in general prefer that everything is "dynamic" and therefore at the very start you have anti manufacturing climate. Large scale manufacture isn't something that you can improvise on the fly and that is the general social paradigm these days in the first world. However without manufacture you are inevitably becoming dependent on others.



In other words this is the glitch that can't be addressed until you take a look at the heart of how globalization is defined at this point. Therefore the only cure for this is either to kill the system or to completely rebalance world's currencies, worker's rights and education systems to make the market generally fair. Because how things currently are they are unsustainable and huge amount of people will truly suffer because of this. Therefore in order to truly defeat Trumpism a person must understand it's source and that is in the fact that too many people got cornered in this new global economy, so even major rule braking is better for them then the economy that will probably get them killed, starved or whatever (especially since social programs are dying out in this economic chaos). Trump is just an opportunist that managed to use all of this for his gain but that doesn't change the fact that there are serious structural problems in globalization. So until this is addressed Trumpism and all of its copies around the world will remain relevant political factor, even if leaders that lead it change. Since the dawn of civilization mass injustice results with strongmen, what is logical adaptation because strength in all of it's forms means survival in dangerous environments.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Two U.S. Swing States Lost the Most Factory Jobs in Past Year

As the U.S. presidential campaign heats up, Democratic candidates may want to look at two Rust Belt states that narrowly helped deliver Donald Trump’s victory in 2016: Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The two swing states lost the most manufacturing jobs in the past 12 months, bucking the national trend. In Pennsylvania, home to steel mills, the number of factory positions fell by about 8,000 and in Wisconsin the loss was just over 5,000.

Bloomberg

No, Biden just needs to mention how Trump doesn't respect norms a lot and that will be enough.

 

[Red Herring]

No, Biden just needs to mention how Trump doesn't respect norms a lot and that will be enough.

Isn't taking a giant dump on rules exactly why they love him? The more porcelain he breaks the louder the cheers...

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Isn't taking a giant dump on rules exactly why they love him? The more porcelain he breaks the louder the cheers...

Yes, but I think my biggest fear is that he will win the nomination and pursue exactly this strategy. I was being sarcastic, which is sometimes harder to pick up over the internet.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Yes, but I think my biggest fear is that he will win the nomination and pursue exactly this strategy. I was being sarcastic, which is sometimes harder to pick up over the internet.

There was some smell of sarcasm but it seems that many believe exactly what you said.

 

[Maou]

Yes, but I think my biggest fear is that he will win the nomination and pursue exactly this strategy. I was being sarcastic, which is sometimes harder to pick up over the internet.

As a Trump supporter, I am here to confirm your fears. It is a clown world now.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[The Cat]

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

He reminds me of a lame corporate villain in a Steven Seagal film from the 90s, the guy Seagal has to fight before the main boss, and who is obviously using a stunt double in all of his fight scenes. Which is funny, considering he is apparently a huge fan of Seagal and Van Damme movies.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Guns and abortion. Those things don't get the bills paid for working people but, yanno, the party of limited government should be all about controlling women's bodies and allowing mass murder, apparently.

No none of it makes any sense and voting directly against your economic interest is a sign of serious mental issues.

There's almost certainly a hella amount of group think fueling conviction too (it's just universal human frailty to take for granted that what 90% of others in one's sphere believe 'must' be true). It takes respectful positioning of other viewpoints in one's sphere for other possibilities to open up (if the other viewpoints are presented in an adversarial way, all babies therein will get thrown out with the bathwater without any second thoughts).

There are a couple people coming to mind here - Megan Phelps (grew up in Westboro Baptist Church) and Christian Picciolini (some guy who'd joined a violent skinhead group at a young age) - who left their respective hate groups. Both said that it was because people respectfully confronted them with alternative viewpoints - "respectfully" being the keyword here. There isn't anywhere near enough of this happening in this country. I'm not saying there isn't anything the left is blind to, but what I'm getting at here is that I wonder what would happen if some left-leaning media personality were able to calmly/respectfully ask how guns provide more freedom than a living wage. Like, repeatedly, and always respectfully - instead throwing in pejoratives about how stupid it is.

Or if the same were to happen with the word "socialism", which has become effectively weaponized to incite fear/histrionics. Even if Bernie wins, the U.S. will never be Marxist caliber socialist, let alone "communist". That's not something anyone actually has worry about. Yet Jackass McConnell & co. have people so terrified of it that all they have to do is label something "socialist" for their base to be afraid of it. I think that's what it would take - some respectful presentation of alternative viewpoints - for that word to lose its fear-mongering blindly emotional grip on people.

As funny as John Oliver is - we need less of that, and more genuine attempts by media personalities to bridge the gap.

Trump thrives on the hate we throw at him - he effectively uses it to fuel support for himself. I wonder how much support he'd have left if he didn't have all the hate to be such a big victim of.

 

[Jaguar]

Ranting. The fucker is actually still ranting on my TV. Am I in the USA or have I been transported to some shit hole country without my consent?

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

There are a couple people coming to mind here - Megan Phelps (grew up in Westboro Baptist Church) and Christian Picciolini (some guy who'd joined a violent skinhead group at a young age) - who left their respective hate groups. Both said that it was because people respectfully confronted them with alternative viewpoints - "respectfully" being the keyword here. There isn't anywhere near enough of this happening in this country. I'm not saying there isn't anything the left is blind to, but what I'm getting at here is that I wonder what would happen if some left-leaning media personality were able to calmly/respectfully ask how guns provide more freedom than a living wage. Like, repeatedly, and always respectfully - instead throwing in pejoratives about how stupid it is.

Thanks for mentioning Phelps and Picciolini. The idea that fire needs to be fought with fire because no one listens to respectful differences of opinion is unfortunate. I wish the Antifa types could realize this.

I don't know, I grew up in a southern home, a lot of very conservative people in my extended family, so I learned from an early age that just railing and insulting them doesn't tend to work. If anything, it makes people double down on their own views and dig in their heels. I used to have a lot of discussions in the car with my grandmother. Sometimes they led to her changing her mind on things. And sometimes I changed my mind after hearing her perspective, or at least evolved my own views. When we isolate ourselves in an echo chamber and dehumanize people with opposing opinions, it doesn't do anyone any favors. This is why it's a good thing some of the democrats running for president have sought to appear on fox news.

And yeah, John Oliver is kind of a tool. For that matter, so is Bill Maher. I probably agree more than I disagree with either of them, but there's a reason both tend to be so hated by people on the right. Talking down to people and using self-righteous 'it's the current year' logic rarely works. I'd wager neither of them have swayed very many people to change their minds, and they may have even driven a few more moderate minded folks further right.

 

[Coriolis]

I don't know, I grew up in a southern home, a lot of very conservative people in my extended family, so I learned from an early age that just railing and insulting them doesn't tend to work. If anything, it makes people double down on their own views and dig in their heels. I used to have a lot of discussions in the car with my grandmother. Sometimes they led to her changing her mind on things. And sometimes I changed my mind after hearing her perspective, or at least evolved my own views. When we isolate ourselves in an echo chamber and dehumanize people with opposing opinions, it doesn't do anyone any favors. This is why it's a good thing some of the democrats running for president have sought to appear on fox news.

This level of personal engagement with people of different viewpoints on serious topics seems to be beyond what most people are willing or perhaps even able to do these days. It is easier to sweep such topics under the rug, stick to superficial conversation, and then circle jerk online with those of similar opinion.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

If anything, it makes people double down on their own views and dig in their heels.

Exactly.

Johann Hari also made this point eloquently on a Sam Harris podcast last year. (He was never in any hate group, but he's studied the effect that human connections have on people).

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

This level of personal engagement with people of different viewpoints on serious topics seems to be beyond what most people are willing or perhaps even able to do these days. It is easier to sweep such topics under the rug, stick to superficial conversation, and then circle jerk online with those of similar opinion.

when you grow up as a bleeding heart surrounded by socially conservative people, this level of engagement becomes commonplace, at least in my experience.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Exactly.

Johann Hari also made this point eloquently on a Sam Harris podcast last year. (He was never in any hate group, but he's studied the effect that human connections have on people).

I saw a debate on Quora recently, of all things, about the show The Walking Dead, but someone wrote that it was unrealistic how a group of fairly diverse people ranging from gay to straight, white to black, etc could never form such close bonds and friendships in an apocalyptic scenario as they have on that series. But others argued that being thrown together like that in a crisis world and just being around one another 24-7 would make people see past a lot of those petty differences and form close bonds. Maybe I'm naive but I like to think the latter is true.