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TyrantWD posted:With Trump actually being on the ballot, and all of the billions of donor money coming in, I'd be shocked if the GOP has a bad year in 2020. Trump's approval rating is higher now than it was before he got elected. Couple that with an underwhelming cast of Democrats that don't gin up excitement outside of their lane, and you have a recipe for disaster. I will never ever understand what he does specifically that apparently no other R can ever do that has the party electorate and high ranking members that have been in Washington for decades so steadfastly behind him as to remake the party into something like a cult centered around him and sacrifice everything to try in vain to make him happy or protect him. To this day after reading countless articles, studying up on cults of personality and just watching his behavior I still have not figured it out, it's like they've literally equated the fortune of the Republican party and any measure of political agenda with his mood on a given day. Any existing R's reputation, electoral prospects, and agendas no matter how lovely, apparently no longer matter before this one guys bitchy tweets and whims so they've either rallied behind his insane needy bullshit or just decided to quit in 2018 and 2020. Like betray the Kurds, disparage the military, CIA and FBI, piss off a good chunk of the electorate so they and there descendants will potentially never consider voting R for decades....no problem Mr. Trump as long as I can make you kind of happy for 5 minutes before you go back to rage tweeting that somebody criticized you on something somewhere in the media.
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Nov 20, 2019 16:08
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SubG posted:Rep. Lesko outta nowhere claiming Democrats are tearing families apart. Cause they really do think of Trump as this like "I am the State" figure that factors into all Americans lives and that his fortunes are directly related to American families fortunes and thus it will destroy America and tear families apart from the sheer shock of seeing this 1 of 45 in 200+ years impeached. It could also be an acknowledgement of the ridiculous levels of polarization plaguing America and another chapter in those squabbles that have legit to a lot of families not speaking with each other anymore along party affiliation lines. Either way the GOP really does have no plans for a party without Trump at it's head and that alone SHOULD be alarming to Republicans but isn't because they're completely caught up in the now and this insane cult of Trump. As bad as the GOP has been for pretty much my whole life I still can't believe how far they've gone into converting it into a cult of personality for this one guy that has only been a factor in it's politics for like 4 years now, while a lot of Key senators and house members have been around for decades. His biggest achievement really is succeeding in completing the polarization of the country and effectively wielding a major political party against the rest of America and basically the world and there's just such a clear choice in 2020 on whether America wants that future for itself where this party that answers to one guy and one guy only's whims in power still.
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Dec 18, 2019 16:53
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Dapper_Swindler posted:probably. thats what the GOP has been doing for years. The media really needs to make how the GOP blatantly does not give a gently caress and is notable outright vindictive too and doesn't consider more than half the country American citizens that they need to be responsible toward a key focus of the trial. Like it really shouldn't be that hard to do seeing as they all but outright demonstrate as such on a daily basis. eke out posted:lol MSNBC: "Mitch McConnell has already lost his grip on his caucus" This is going to make the house part of the impeachment process look good and orderly in comparison if the process just opens demonstrably with sets of on the fly rule changes to try to fast track an acquittal. Like at least the house had Schiff and Nadler to establish and stick to a guideline of rules and processes like how a grand jury style process is supposed to work where you establish the facts and determine from the evidence whether a formal criminal trial by a jury of peers is warranted. The whole process kind of breaks down when the jury is already openly compromised and biased and seeking to find an acquittal through the fastest means possible no matter what breakdown of law and order and natural justice proceedings has to occur. The parts of the House trial where Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan etc. got to speak were notably the most chaotic and buckling part of the process because they just did not care at all about what they were supposed to be there too do. I'll be stunned if the Democratic Senators in the house which total 48 are even allowed to speak or get their due equal treatment quite the same way at all. It's going to be so bad and the whole country is going to get to see a dose of what the Republican party has become and how little they care about anyone but their core base (if even then beyond their vote) and likely far more so than at any point in the last 4 years since it will have wall to wall coverage from the media. Like if it isn't clear by the end of it how much rank partisanship is destroying America's governments ability to function properly if at all it should be by the end of the month
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Jan 21, 2020 21:06
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AngrySpork posted:McConnel is a brilliant politician and knows how to play the game. That is what scares me the most - he is a scumbag, a liar, and a terrible person. It's more like the Senate Majority Leader gives one senator a ridiculous degree of power to set agenda and rules and effectively control and disenfranchise the entire remaining chamber of congress as long as their party has at least 51 senators and he's the first one that has just been blatantly okay with exploiting those powers to their utmost degree regardless of how much damage it does to the Democratic process and precedents it sets for future Democratic Majority leaders to use against his own party should they give as little of a poo poo about their oath of office as he does. It's less a matter of brilliance than a blatant absence of any sense of morality or willingness to put country and duty before party and self-interest. The means were always there for the taking the way the post has been set up, much like is the case with the outrageous powers the House Speakership grants the Speaker. Learning just how much power both positions actually grant the person that occupies them and how much restraint past ones must have shown not to use them to their fullest extent has certainly been enlightening. refleks posted:Someone explained it earlier, but how in the hell is the White House counsel allowed to be part of this? The Senate is broken as poo poo under McConnell and they'll change any rule or allow anything that allows them to fast track an acquittal or outright dismal of charges. That's about the extent of it. This is not going to be a Democratic process at all and you can probably expect all kinds of rule changes or outlandish rule interpretations on the fly to disenfranchise any Democrats ability to re-demonstrate the case for conviction and culpability on Trump's part. Basically move over OJ trial, this is going to set the new standard for televised poo poo show circus trials. The house portion will prove nothing in comparison. In fact it's largely agreed upon by the media and un-corrupted law experts at large save Fox News that it established factual undeniable evidence of the charges that were then leveled against Trump and sent to the Senate. The guy is guilty under what should be the current system and laws of the land and what is determined and impeachable offense warranting immediate removal from offfice, but the GOP will change rules and corrupt the process as needed in order to assure that they get their acquittal. I don't think they expected the undeniable guilt to be this established in the house trial though so now basically have to go on record with saying that it doesn't matter as long as it's their guy that's the defendant. The problem is the impeachment system was originally set up so that Democratically elected officials would get to determine guilt and conviction so as not to disenfranchise the population in any way in allowing some unelected third party to hold sway over potentially removing a democratically elected president, but nobody that designed it ever predicted the sheer corruption of the Republican party especially under McConnell so it doesn't help either way in ensuring a fair democratic process. Kale fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Jan 21, 2020 |
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Jan 21, 2020 21:14
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mcmagic posted:Well McConnell's real superpower is that he doesn't care if you call him a hypocrite or catch him in lies because he has zero shame and is an amoral sociopath who's one objective is solidifying republican power and he'll trample any institution or norm to do that. He's set the template and there is no going back who matter who succeeds him. Yeah it's really really bad and not particularly funny or amusing in any way to me personally. It's just incredibly unfortunate turn of history that someone like Mitch McConnell happens to occupy the Majority Leader post at this juncture in history and only cares about his own self interest. If Schumer were majority leader instead of McConnell you would likely see a process not too dissimilar to the one in the House that Schiff and Nadler oversaw where it's largely about establishing facts, calling appropriate witnesses to testify and face due cross examination, and following established procedures while Republicans basically beak off and moan about how unfair they think everything is to them as their contribution to the process, but largely fail to make any case at all one way or another. The Republicans know they have no legal case for establishing a valid legal defense of Trump's abuses of power with regard to Ukraine under a proper trial system by this point in the process so instead they have to try to change rules and try to make the argument that it doesn't matter, which I'm still not sure how it's going to play with the country at large, but somehow I don't think the majority of people are going to look favorably on it at all. Like the actual public at large, not just the Republican hacks and Fox News personalities that never shut up on twitter and their shows who get shared in D&D a lot. Nor the various other ignorant twitter nobodies with their hot takes that have no idea what they are talking about and what the stakes and consequences really are here. Kale fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Jan 21, 2020 |
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Jan 21, 2020 21:39
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Tibalt posted:I have pretty much the exact opposite analysis - Americans have been surprisingly bipartisan in viewing Trump's conduct as at least inappropriate. More reminders, consistently delivered over weeks, will just solidify the association in people's minds. The longer attention is paid to things like this, the more pressure on someone to break and reveal more incriminating information - Parnas being the current example. And it's hard to say whether Americans will care about the legitimacy of the Senate trial, but the opposite of outrage isn't support, it's indifference. I suspect that "trial" phrasing is creating expectations in the American public, and "sham trial" is going to be unpopular. Americans at large for the most part I think will care, just not Republicans as usual. So much consideration is owed to what Republicans who have already largely made their bed with Trump come hell or high water think and while they are largely an unmovable impossible to persuade chunk of the American public that view everything through an "US vs the Democrats" POV they are not the majority of Americans. When 69% of the American public thinks there should be witnesses called in the senate trial and Mitch McConnell just says "NOPE!" that says a lot to me at where things really are at. mcmagic posted:Schumer is a feckless moron so him being the majority leader would provide a whole new set of problems. That would not hold even a candle to the myriad problems we're already getting from Mitch McConnell and his open willingness to change rules on the fly as he sees fit. Lots of policy areas where I disagree with Schumer on (Death Penalty and Israel being among the most notable), but not the total breakdown of any sort of morality and understanding of what is required of their position as a sitting senator that I see from McConnell who is outright appalling. I'm pretty sure Schumer is already on record as saying how the process would have gone under his watch too. You know, calling witnesses, examining the evidence, due cross examination and counter arguments from the defense, closing arguments and a lengthy deliberation before casting a vote to convict or acquit. Unless he's absolutely lying his face off about it I'm not sure what this whole new set of problems you seem to foresee might even look like or what your basing that assumption on. On a whole based on observing the United States political environment over the past 20 years or so the impression I'm inevitably left with is the Democratic party just seems to concern itself far far less with partisan hackery in how it conducts itself than the GOP by leaps and bounds. I'm not sure what other interpretation I could possibly arrive too given the facts and observing their behaviors. One party often fails to live up to everything people hope it could be, but tends to operate within a certain set of rules and procedures and tends to make reference to and operate to a large degree around observable public opinions based in hard facts and statistics. The other steadfastly denies reality and facts, makes no indication that it is concerned at all with what the public at large thinks beyond blocs that are just enough to get it's candidates elected to congress (and even then the concern stops at that level of consideration) and recently is actively vindictive towards and wants to work against the interests of the states in the country that chose to elect their political rivals to govern them out of sheer spite. One is a diamond in the rough that is slowly starting to receive new blood, new ideas and feels like it will inevitably shift more towards representing the demographics and leanings of the country if current trends keep up election to election. The other is terrifying in it's sheer vindictiveness and gives the impression more of an occupying 18th century foreign imperial power's behavior imposing it's will on a populace it is largely unconcerned with the well being of than a democratically elected and oriented political body. Kale fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Jan 21, 2020 |
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Jan 21, 2020 22:42
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I can't stress enough how glad I am that Schiff is able to take part in this whole part of the process and there was apparently nothing McConnell could do to shut him out of it. That's kind of of significant for impressions that can be left even if it won't effect the outcome at all since he's a very effective lawyer when it comes to establishing a case and setting an effective lens on matters. If this were a jury that was even remotely persuadable........
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Jan 21, 2020 22:50
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cr0y posted:So far this is playing out exactly as we assumed, no? If you mean Schumer proposing entirely reasonable amendments on introducing admissible evidence and witnesses that should have been part of the process the first place and the Republican majority immediately rejecting it then yeah. What kind of trial let alone one this significant figures forgoing the inclusion of relevant evidence and exhaustion of all possible avenues of discovery and consideration of evidence and witnesses before deliberation has anything to do with Due Process and Jurisprudence? It cannot be stated how bad an appalling this truly is, especially as someone who took a non-insignificant number of law courses throughout their high school and university attendance. The kind of conversations that must be going around various law courses and lectures throughout the United States must be something else right now as any law professor or expert is no doubt beside themselves at the sight of all of this and an entire segment of the countries law makers effectively going "Nope who cares, Laws Schmaws, Process Schmocess". The sheer damage to the very idea of rule of law and the justice system of the United States is effectively under attack here by Republicans.
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Jan 21, 2020 23:04
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Kind of a little late to try to play the whole reasonable moderate Republican senator card, but I'll guess we'll see how this plays out. Collins is kind of acting like a lame duck senator that figures she's done after this term and will flip flop and piss on as many influential senators plans as she can on the way out McCain style be they Democrat or Republican to try to get into history books. Like the degree to which she's willing to stick her head out as much as possible on lynchpin controversial votes one way or another is admittedly kind of unique as far as the current Washington environment goes I'll give her that much. In some ways she might actually be the most grandstanding politician in the entire Senate.
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Jan 21, 2020 23:12
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radicaldreamer posted:The more polarized the senate becomes, the more power and clout these centrists can demand (and get!). John McCain is gonna end up looking like a lightweight compared to this generation's moderate R's. Yeah that sounds about right honestly. Also found this based on how McConnell has set up the process for a likely schedule for all of this: Tomorrow: Democratic arguments Thursday: Democratic arguments Friday: Democratic arguments Saturday: Trump team arguments Monday: Trump team arguments Jan. 28: Trump team arguments Jan. 29: Senator questions Jan 30: Senator questions Jan 31: Four hours of debate on whether to subpoena witnesses and subpoenas, a vote on witnesses and documents, and a vote on other motions; If all votes fail, the Senate could move to the acquittal vote Absolutely loving ridiculous if that ends up being the case. Effectively the length of 3 Phoenix Wright cases worth of process, not even a full game.
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Jan 21, 2020 23:20
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BiggerBoat posted:It still irritates that the phone call can't just be "harmless" or innocuous" or "above board"...nope. It has to be perfect. The best phone call My favorite in recent memory was after Mike Lee a diehard Republican hack under any other circumstances stated he attended the worst low information military action briefing he'd ever witnessed since entering congress and Trump only being to insist as a counter that no in fact plenty of generals took the time out of their schedule to personally call him up and say it was actually the greatest briefing they'd ever received as if that is an even remotely plausible scenario. Naturally Trump who loves to self-aggrandize only felt this was worth mentioning like a couple days after Lee came out that it was such a bad briefing that it made him switch positions to supporting a Kaine amendment to limit presidential powers concerning Iran policy. It's not infuriating to me, just incredibly dumb how it's so blatantly obvious he's full of poo poo to anybody stopping to think logically about most of the poo poo he says and happens around him. Very few people I've ever witnessed lie this badly and frequently in public let alone a President, but it probably gets easier and easier to do the more his party becomes a cult for him and his family. Also yeah it cannot be stressed enough how bad it is that congress has effectively been reduced to the petty bullshit that's now being paraded before the nation where one party kind of sort of gives a poo poo about reality and there's just this constant sniping, grousing and demonizing, 90% of which comes from one side of the aisle. Like the GOP is just about the most ineffective useless whiny political party I've ever seen in any democracy and people are supposed to sit there and take what they have to say collectively about anything seriously. That does kind of irritate me because I'm frankly not big on perpetually whiny shitheads. Like when the Democrats were out of power for the first two years of the Trump presidency I seriously don't remember any of them sitting there and bloody well whining about it and how perpetually unfair the GOP was being to them (and they were frankly but that's beside the point) every single day, but the GOP whines about literally everything it can find like it's a natural reflex action. Like how do you look at that behavior, their voting record and legislative achievements that amount this decade to a lovely tax cut for the top 1% and arrive at the conclusion that there's strong robust leadership and that anything meaningful is being accomplished in the U.S congress. Kale fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Jan 22, 2020 |
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Jan 22, 2020 19:13
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The thing is time and time again there's been damning evidence that would be more than enough to convict in any trial for multiple things Trump has done and the GOP has just claimed it doesn't matter and done the whole "The Democrats are just being unfair to Trump blahblahblahblah" so I don't see why Bolton's coming back into the limelight is supposed to matter to them. They just tend to immediately turn on anybody that dares criticize or point out damning things about Trump who is the only thing that really seems to matter at all to the GOP anymore. They're literally the party of "hey let's bend over backwards and do everything in our power to make sure this one guy out of 100's of millions in this country gets his way every single time". They have nothing, NOTHING going on anymore but undying support for this one guy and utter disdain for anyone that doesn't. That's THE soul remaining overriding GOP policy, more important than conservatism, religion, guns or whatever else they used to always be on about. This isn't even me trying to be all "Nothing Matters", so much as literally just look at the facts and their behavior and talking points since Trump got elected. Nothing is going to change unless the majorities in the senate change basically and America decides enough is enough already and that it wants something at least resembling a real democratic government. The only real takeaway here is that all these bombshell developments after bombshell developments that in any other less partisan era under just about any other set of circumstances should have sunk Trump's bullshit dozens of times over just keeps forcing them to move the goalposts almost every other day now. They keep having to scramble new defenses and hard bullshit as to why it apparently doesn't matter and why they should charge forward to acquittal like they have everything else they've done in the senate in the last 4 years only to an almost surreal degree. Like I don't think they were expecting it to go THIS insanely badly for their defense case (it shouldn't really be a defense case but a fact examination mission in the senate) and having to ignore and spin so much to the point where it doesn't even make sense to all but the Fox News bubble people, but the only thing that remains to be seen is whether in can make a dent in the hyper-partisanship thing come November. Kale fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Jan 27, 2020 |
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Jan 27, 2020 19:13
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Dapper_Swindler posted:yeah, there defense is pretty dumb bad so far. I don't entirely think they give a poo poo obviously, they just have a certain amount of time to fill to make it look like there's something of a process and give Fox News a chance to do their spin before they vote to acquit and act like shitheads about it the entire way. Just screaming and snarling and hurling bile at Democrats for actually doing their jobs in being responsible to voters as senators/house reps here. I still can't wait to see what the GOP policy drive for 2020 is going to be come summer because I just can't see there being one. Being a Republican just means praising and defending Trump against criticism and smearing Democrats so if that's all people want America to be about then sure vote for your local Republican candidate come November. Just loving ridiculous man....like Jesus..... 
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Jan 27, 2020 19:26
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Dapper_Swindler posted:yeah, there defense is pretty dumb bad so far. If Trump or the Republicans could frame anything at all in any way other than "But the Democrats are just being SOOOOOOOOOO UNFAIR TO US!" and assorted whiny bullshit it might be better but that's basically going to be it for the part from now on I guess. The poor hard done by old rich white guy party. I legit think that  should just be recalibrated to :"gop": instead of the current  as seems just as fitting and perfectly sums up the whole party.
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Jan 28, 2020 03:45
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Dapper_Swindler posted:think we will get witnesses? For what its worth I've generally found that assessments of his tenure as senate minority leader as completely capitulating to all GOP demands all the time to be largely exaggerated. Hes not an exciting politician, hes not the guy you look to for a sick own or belligerent nonsense like Republicans (and thats not necessarily a bad thing),but he does seem to have the right of it most times I've heard him speak. I can't entirely blame the guy for Mitch McConnell hijacking the senate as majority leader either.
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Jan 28, 2020 19:33
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Dapper_Swindler posted:https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1222183788924502017 He hates anything or anyone that criticizes him in any way it doesnt matter what he thought the day before. Literally any action he takes can be explained this way, hes that one dimensional. If they praise the poo poo out of him for something tommorrow he'll share it and it'll be like this never happened
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Jan 28, 2020 19:36
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ManBoyChef posted:the problem with schumer is the fact he takes corporate money. Thats been a problem with congress in general for a long long time so you might as well hold it against all of them.
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Jan 28, 2020 20:44
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Obama 2012 posted:Every Trump scandal has five phases: There needs to be a "The Democrats are going CRAAAAAAAAAAAZY and being so unfair to me? Presidential Harassment! Worst in history! You hate to see it!" in there somewhere. Probably after step 5. Trump cannot settle for like that almost defeat way of looking at things in a whataboutism sense like Putin can so it has to be twisted around by the end of the narrative such that really he's the victim for enduring such unfair criticism. Also it's not necessarily Hillary Clinton anymore, it's whoever he perceives as his greatest political foe of the moment. In 2016 it was definitely Hillary Clinton. In 2017 it was John McCain. In 2018 it was Robert Mueller, in 2019 it was Nancy Pelosi and right now it's Adam Schiff. In a few more months it'll be whoever the Democratic Presidential nominee is.
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Jan 28, 2020 23:46
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ManBoyChef posted:Sam Seder has a joke that he wrote a book called "blaming the electorate" Considering CNN is proudly featuring sweetheart pieces by Republican Hacks like Scott Jennings filled with unchecked and patently untrue assertions (but it's okay cause it's just an opinion piece) yeah I wouldn't count on the MSM to keep people informed of the truth and keep much of a check at all on Republicans ability to spread outright disinformation and smears. We fully live in the social media information era at this point. Certain kinds of people (mainly boomers in all honesty, but also just heavy users in general) hear random crazy poo poo enough on Twitter or Facebook about how amazing a job Trump is doing and how terrible his political opponents are and they just kind of believe it without confirming it for themselves and go on bleating about it in every day life to sound like they are on the up and up. Who is to tell them otherwise most of the time? It's not even just that, people believe in a lot of crazy poo poo or perspectives now I could never have seen taking off in prior decades just because that's what tends to get attention and spread via social media algorithms. Dapper_Swindler posted:https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1225481009480839175 I'm getting pretty tired of this only Republicans are people worth ever caring about or mentioning and everyone else are all horrible monsters that deserve nothing but scorn and to be taught a lesson perspective coming out of the American government in increasing amounts. Like it's kind of not that funny really. Kale fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Feb 7, 2020 |
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Feb 7, 2020 18:06
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Majin posted:A good portion of this country is really that dumb. They don’t and will never understand politics and only understand the world around them in their literal bubble - and surprise, surprise, they’re surrounded by even more idiots. This pretty much checks out from my experience, especially in the last decade. It's mind blowing how ignorant people are and how there's this kind of pride that goes along with it. Then there's the internet where I swear people will usually go out of their way to have the most polarized opinion possible that pits them against some form of "other" on some issue, confident that there's plenty of people to back them up on it that will respond to the right keywords, triggers and dog whistles. Essentially in most cases people don't actually have to think, just sort of merge themselves into a tribal like mind meld and be fed opinions from a preferred source. Could be Fox News, could be some political extremist podcaster? The latter tends to be very in vogue lately. People like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson especially seem aimed at people that just do not have their poo poo together and will rally behind anyone that kind of sounds intelligent and knows what they are talking about with the caveat that they tell them the things they already want to hear. Looking back it's no real surprise that someone like Trump is managing to flourish in this era, though his complete and utter takeover of the Republican party is what really baffles me. It's not that he's just popular within it and they are rallying around the incumbent. Like he went from being a total outsider to being the point of it's entire existence and having near universal support within the party which defies even the extremes of the twitter era and the tendency for trends to take really fast and almost absolutely. That one is still hard for me to understand. Now all I hear from the Republican party is endless bleating about how horrible the Democrats are, how great Trump is and.....yeah that's about it. Just this party of incoherent blind rage against 60+% of America that I could just as soon see passing daily resolutions proclaiming how great Trump is and funding to build massive monuments in his honor as their sole policy initiatives if they were to get full control of congress again. Like if they did they'd literally vote to put him on Mt. Rushmore, that's how much of a Trump cult I believe it's become at this point.
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Feb 7, 2020 18:32
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