Discussions with Trump supporters

We don't have a current leader capable of fixing what we have now. Is this a statement that you wish to take an opposing view? And we have to stay in the present to fix things, there is no time machine other than a book.
What are your suggestions for improvement, youth wants to know. I am trying to understand what is meant by "despite MAGA". And although we have had NO wholesome past ( suggestion for those who have not read, try Zinn on american history), NO virtuous government ( including Camelot), and if we ever entertained what was normal it would have to predate 2016.

I have made my position on wisdom perfectly clear: That is to say there is less of it now in government. Individuals need not apply to this principal. Individuals have wisdom, when there is capacity for it obviously. This would likely mean they are not involved in identity of the self thru some sort of authority, which to my mind is a self defeating prophecy.

Name any government official and i will check their wisdom credentials. After i check where they get their money from, who their authority in the sky is, and if they are fit. It seems to me i had something to say about violence, but it's missing from this thread. The violence today is magnified by armament which should belong in military armories, not in people homes. I think that is an obvious rendering of the situation. Obvious to me at any rate. To really compare violence now and when they did witch burning is an apples and oranges thing really... There has always been violence, everywhere and throughout time. Such is the wisdom of the normal human, so normal is not something we want in any case. What we want is peace in the world, in the home, and in our neighborhoods. This cannot come about with identity politics, and although this discussion could take place on another plane, as in the Self cannot be at peace until it undoes all the conditioning taking place in our minds from culture of identity.

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Posted in reply to the post by podfish:

note the phrasing, it's deliberate: "You'd likely be wrong if you took your position, though. It takes a pretty starry-eyed view of the past to make that case. " I acknowledge your qualification/disclaimer.of course there were men of distinction, I find it hard to imagine they weren't equivalent to the best we have today. But no, 'interpersonal violence' included things like lynching, domestic abuse, witch burning (at times) and lots of violent crime. There's a reason that life expectancy was short and it wasn't all lack of measles vaccinations.

I tend to react to any polyanna-ish views of the past, when life was brutal, ugly and short for most. Things can be quite horrible today, but despite MAGA it's really never been better, awful as it is to think. There's no time that on the balance I'd return to; I'd rather focus on fixing what we have now without somehow thinking we've somehow drifted from our normal, virtuous and wholesome state in the past.

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Excuse me, I thought democrats already re-took the House of Representatives by a very sizable majority! Am I missing something? This was a great shock to the Trumpsters! It has put a huge legislative obstacle in their way, and does not seem to bode so well for their chances of maintaining the Senate in 2020. Meanwhile, gerrymandering is being challenged in the courts. Didn't a significant blow to gerrymandering just occur in North Carolina?

Trump's tax records are being relentlessly pushed for by the House, and how much longer can his absurd excuse about "auditing" hold up in court? What is he so desperate to hide? His vow to bring back manufacturing industry to the US seems to be going nowhere. Likewise for agricultural exports, and farmers are hurting and disappointed.

The Republican Party has thrown all its hopes and backing to this tweet-tweeting empty suit, Donald Trump. It's been like a great big political sugar high for them! But how long can this last? In the end even ordinary Republican-leaning voters need some real economic and political nutrition.

C'mon, liberals, buck up! There's many months ahead and it's way to early to throw in the towel!

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Posted in reply to the post by eddierosenthal:

seems to me we do not have a tyranny of the majority, but a tyranny of a minority. Is this not what you are seeing?
The following is representative of these opinions, from the article in the NYT by Michelle Goldberg.

"Since Donald Trump’s cataclysmic election, the unthinkable has become ordinary. We’ve grown used to naked profiteering off the presidency, an administration that calls for the firing of private citizens for political dissent and nuclear diplomacy conducted via Twitter taunts. Here, in my debut as a New York Times columnist, I want to discuss a structural problem that both underlies and transcends our current political nightmare: We have entered a period of minority rule.

I don’t just mean the fact that Trump became president despite his decisive loss in the popular vote, though that shouldn’t be forgotten. Worse, the majority of voters who disapprove of Trump have little power to force Congress to curb him.

A combination of gerrymandering and the tight clustering of Democrats in urban areas means that even if Democrats get significantly more overall votes than Republicans in the midterms — which polls show is probable — they may not take back the House of Representatives. (According to a Brookings Institution analysis, in 2016, Republicans won 55.2 percent of seats with just under 50 percent of votes cast for Congress.)
And because of the quirks of the 2018 Senate map, Democrats are extremely unlikely to reclaim that chamber, even if most voters would prefer Democratic control. Some analysts have even suggested that Republicans could emerge from 2018 with a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority."

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Well said, podfish! And I certainly agree that there's no time in the past that I'd prefer to return to. But due to the fact that homo sapiens seems to be hell-bent on committing ecological suicide, as I've said in a previous post here I'm perversely relieved that I'm not gonna be around to see the worst of it, having just turned 80.

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Posted in reply to the post by podfish:

note the phrasing, it's deliberate: "You'd likely be wrong if you took your position, though. It takes a pretty starry-eyed view of the past to make that case. " I acknowledge your qualification/disclaimer.of course there were men of distinction, I find it hard to imagine they weren't equivalent to the best we have today. But no, 'interpersonal violence' included things like lynching, domestic abuse, witch burning (at times) and lots of violent crime. There's a reason that life expectancy was short and it wasn't all lack of measles vaccinations.

I tend to react to any polyanna-ish views of the past, when life was brutal, ugly and short for most. Things can be quite horrible today, but despite MAGA it's really never been better, awful as it is to think. There's no time that on the balance I'd return to; I'd rather focus on fixing what we have now without somehow thinking we've somehow drifted from our normal, virtuous and wholesome state in the past.

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By tyranny of the minority meant a 3 million vote majority should have led the dems to victory. Certainly we have the majority in the house, but still nothing can be done until the senate takes up those bills passed in the house, which will never happen until there is a majority of dems in the senate- 2020. The latest ruling of the supreme court was that "In the end, the Supreme Court decided, 5-4, that the question of partisan gerrymandering was a political one that must be resolved by the elected branches of government, and not a legal question that the federal courts should decide. " from the article in the nyt

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Posted in reply to the post by occihoff:

Excuse me, I thought democrats already re-took the House of Representatives by a very sizable majority! Am I missing something? This was a great shock to the Trumpsters! It has put a huge legislative obstacle in their way, and does not seem to bode so well for their chances of maintaining the Senate in 2020. Meanwhile, gerrymandering is being challenged in the courts. Didn't a significant blow to gerrymandering just occur in North Carolina?

Trump's tax records are being relentlessly pushed for by the House, and how much longer can his absurd excuse about "auditing" hold up in court? What is he so desperate to hide? His vow to bring back manufacturing industry to the US seems to be going nowhere. Likewise for agricultural exports, and farmers are hurting and disappointed.

The Republican Party has thrown all its hopes and backing to this tweet-tweeting empty suit, Donald Trump. It's been like a great big political sugar high for them! But how long can this last? In the end even ordinary Republican-leaning voters need some real economic and political nutrition.

C'mon, liberals, buck up! There's many months ahead and it's way to early to throw in the towel!

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Posted in reply to the post by eddierosenthal:

By tyranny of the minority meant a 3 million vote majority should have led the dems to victory. Certainly we have the majority in the house, but still nothing can be done until the senate takes up those bills passed in the house, which will never happen until there is a majority of dems in the senate- 2020. The latest ruling of the supreme court was that "In the end, the Supreme Court decided, 5-4, that the question of partisan gerrymandering was a political one that must be resolved by the elected branches of government, and not a legal question that the federal courts should decide. " from the article in the nyt

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Those who object to the electoral college do so on several grounds, and yes one of them is electing someone who has not been given the majority of votes. and it is the electoral college itself that depresses voting, not the other way around. since each state is only entitled to the same number of electoral votes regardless of voter turnout, there is no incentive for it. The South is discouraged in their voter turnout. They have allowed a minority of citizens to decide. And there is over representation in rural areas as well.

in 1988 for example, the combined voting age population (3,119,000) of the seven least populous states ( alaska, delaware, d.c., North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming) had the same voting strength ( 21 electoral votes) as the 9,614,000) voting strength of Florida. Each Floridian potential vote then, had about one third the weight of the other states listed. And of course there is a possible turnaround of the Electors themselves.

There is the fact they may not vote the way they are representing to vote. The whole idea of a pure democracy would be one person one vote. On idealistic grounds it should be done away with, but who here is an idealist? Well if Bush hadn't won the presidency and Trump hadn't won the presidency, do you think we would be living in a post iraq era, a post moral era? I for one do not think so, we would have avoided the Iraq war, and we wouldn't be housing children in cages. Now you might say how do you know that? and i answer, how do you know how peoples votes would change under a different voting system?

Sorry to be dense, cyberanvil, but after reading through your entire post I still can't comprehend the logic in your assertion that it is "blatantly false" that if the 2016 election had been decided by popular vote, Hilary Clinton would now be president. She got more votes than Trump by a pretty wide margin--so why would she not be president?

Nor can I. Can you give a different explanation, cyberanvil - kinda scary name, btw - helping make clear your statement that Hilary would not now be Prez. People were fired up about the election - who, for instance, would have changed their votes if the popular vote rather than the electoral college were the decider? Thank you.

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Posted in reply to the post by occihoff:

Sorry to be dense, cyberanvil, but ..

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Posted in reply to the post by occihoff:

Sorry to be dense, cyberanvil, but after reading through your entire post I still can't comprehend the logic in your assertion that it is "blatantly false" that if the 2016 election had been decided by popular vote, Hilary Clinton would now be president. She got more votes than Trump by a pretty wide margin--so why would she not be president?

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Oh, I think his argument is clear and makes sense. Right now, any California Republican with a hangover on election day might as well stay in bed; no need to drag his ass out for a pointless vote. But if there was no electoral college, all the Fresno voters might counterbalance the millions of illegals Trump says voted here.
Plus, the campaigns would be run differently -- Hillary may have actually bothered to go to Wisconsin, for example. So the whole idea is that you have way too many variables to extrapolate meaningful results from the specified situation.

It's not like the same group of voters, with the same exposure to campaigns, can be scored according to different rules.

That said, Trump would have been crushed without it.

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Posted in reply to the post by eddierosenthal:

...Well if Bush hadn't won the presidency and Trump hadn't won the presidency, do you think we would be living in a post iraq era, a post moral era? I for one do not think so, we would have avoided the Iraq war, and we wouldn't be housing children in cages. Now you might say how do you know that? and i answer, how do you know how peoples votes would change under a different voting system?

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So maybe it's a guessing game, but one thing is certain Dems are crying because Hillary lost.
Before the election, many conventional experts scoffed at Trump’s decision to campaign so heavily in the rust belt. Couldn’t this amateur, this dolt, see that he had no chance in those states? But Trump had superior intel (Cambridge Analytica) and superior strategic vision. He had been pondering, developing, and honing his working-class, protectionist, America-first electoral strategy for over thirty years. Trump did not win because Hillary was “a bad candidate,” as so many people now like to intone. Her “badness” corresponds with the conventional wisdom of all the accredited cognoscenti before the election, who all confidently expected her to win. Trump won because he was an extraordinarily capable candidate. He out-generaled the highly competent yet conventionally-minded staff of Hillary Clinton. Trump beat Clinton by better science and deeper thought.

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Posted in reply to the post by cyberanvil:

.. But Trump had superior intel (Cambridge Analytica) and superior strategic vision. He had been pondering, developing, and honing his working-class, protectionist, America-first electoral strategy for over thirty years. ....Trump won because he was an extraordinarily capable candidate. He out-generaled the highly competent yet conventionally-minded staff of Hillary Clinton. Trump beat Clinton by better science and deeper thought.

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nah, don't buy it. Trump won for a variety of reasons, largely because a lot of people actually do watch 'dancing with the stars' and whatever reality show he was on. He seems perfectly normal to such people, and he cultivated them fiercely. That's not enough to win by itself, though. He had the team colors of almost half the normal voters, because he beat such scintillating candidates as Bush and Cruz in the primary. They weren't voting blue no matter what. The two groups were enough.

Nowhere is there any sign of generalissimoing, and certainly not of science or deep thought. Indeed, 'deep thought' was turned into a pejorative by people who fear the 'elite'. It's just good old fashioned American anti-intellectualism. So Trump was indeed a capable candidate, as proven empirically by his capability of winning. He's not a capable politician or leader, as we're seeing more clearly every day. His equivalent of the 'deep state' - the well-entrenched Republican power structure - is keeping him propped up but its collapse is pretty stunning to watch.

Hmmm...

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Posted in reply to the post by podfish:

Oh, I think his argument is clear and makes sense. Right now, any California Republican with a hangover on election day might as well stay in bed; no need to drag his ass out for a pointless vote. But if there was no electoral college, all the Fresno voters might counterbalance the millions of illegals Trump says voted here.
Plus, the campaigns would be run differently -- Hillary may have actually bothered to go to Wisconsin, for example. So the whole idea is that you have way too many variables to extrapolate meaningful results from the specified situation.

It's not like the same group of voters, with the same exposure to campaigns, can be scored according to different rules.

That said, Trump would have been crushed without it.

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Trump was indeed an extraordinarily capable candidate. His wacky shooting-from-the-hip talk was and is so much more enjoyable to listen to than the careful droning of his opposing Republican candidates. He's always fun and entertaining. I always look forward to hearing his daffy deranged yacking, while realizing at the same time how this vicious nut has been placed in a position of such ghastly power to destroy the world. Fortunately, as the Mueller Report shows, his political handlers restrain him from "pressing the button" in various ways.

But to claim that Trump has "superior intel" and "deeper thought," cyberanvil, is to me simply a very very bad joke!

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Posted in reply to the post by cyberanvil:

So maybe it's a guessing game,...

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I have no doubt that Hilary would have been a wonderful president, the most prepared to ever come our way. But i am not crying she lost, but will probably remain shocked. If i am crying, i am not alone. But the reason? I am ashamed and our country is humiliated every day by one of the most obviously corrupt individuals ever to call themselves successful. I need not elaborate with multiple syllable verbiage about his character, although everyday comes another shock on how low a standard he has in his "excellence". As to the depth of his campaign capability, i think its a rather slim reasoning about his data. I believe there are many reasons he won, but the lazy voters who backed him spent a lot of time watching the apprentice, and thought if he could run a business, he could be a good president. They were guessing and they won, but the country lost.

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Posted in reply to the post by cyberanvil:

So maybe it's a guessing game, ...

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Posted in reply to the post by podfish:

nah, don't buy it. ....

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I support your right to be wrong.

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Posted in reply to the post by occihoff:

...But to claim that Trump has "superior intel" and "deeper thought," cyberanvil, is to me simply a very very bad joke!

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He wasn't personally responsible for every move. Trump was wise enough to put together a better team.

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Posted in reply to the post by cyberanvil:

He wasn't personally responsible for every move. Trump was wise enough to put together a better team.

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spin this. It's a perfectly well cast discussion of what trump reveals about himself. It's impossible to reconcile the idea of him as a 'wise' man with his actions, though I suspect you can try and convince yourself that there's a defense that makes sense. For those of us less inclined to believe that when things look totally incompatible they probably are, I doubt you have an explanation that would persuade us.

Washington Post: The smaller the issue, the more it reveals about Trump

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Posted in reply to the post by podfish:

I doubt you have an explanation that would persuade us.

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A truism. I can only point out your inaccuracies. It's up to you to find the light.

Trump seems to be slipping. -Not that this is necessarily a good thing. It may, in fact, be a very dangerous thing. But FOX NEWS has seen fit to distance themselves, somewhat, from the POTUS.

Case in point: Fox News Anchor Neil Cavuto Calls Out Trump

Trump also was the beneficiary of a YUGE amount of free "mainstream" media coverage because he was (and is) so entertaining and made good TV and sound bites. Bernie got almost no free media coverage, and most of that was unflattering.

Trump is a good marketer... a lousy businessman and a scammer, but a good marketer. He tested various phrases and names for other candidates to find what got the best response from his basket of deplorable devotees.

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Posted in reply to the post by occihoff:

Trump was indeed an extraordinarily capable candidate.

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I agree that cyberanvils argument is clear and makes sense. Not being here to argue about anything really I appreciate it for helping me reflect on my own 2016 presidential choice. If my vote had mattered in anyway I might have voted differently. Perhaps not the libertarian clown. I do appreciate the electoral college. The founding fathers choice in creating the united STATES of amerika, while not purely democratic, does transfer power down to more local government entities. This is good.

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Posted in reply to the post by podfish:

Oh, I think his argument is clear and makes sense. ....

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So much more fun to guess about the future than the past. I agree trump had better science, ie where to focus attention and dollars, I would describe his thought process as more creative than deep, he is a far better showman than any president before him, something different. But will he win again? I guess yes, because democrats still have no real response to his charge they are for open borders. Too many voters see the migrant future, and foolishly think a president can stop it.

But why do you think he was wrong?

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Posted in reply to the post by cyberanvil:

I support your right to be wrong.

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The fundamental reason so many people are desperately trying to get in to the US is because of the horrible poverty, criminality, and violence in their own countries. And our foreign policy of supporting or tolerating oppressive dictatorial regimes and taking advantage of their dirt cheap labor has a lot to do with this! What might happen if our government seriously tried to improve conditions in Latin America instead of punishing terrified and impoverished migrants?

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Posted in reply to the post by rossmen:

.... Too many voters see the migrant future, and foolishly think a president can stop it.

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Posted in reply to the post by occihoff:

But why do you think he was wrong?

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he didn't say that I was wrong :).

An awfully thin defense, cyberanvil. And the "wise" teams that Trump put together always seem to be either soon fired or departing to more preferable destinations.

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Posted in reply to the post by cyberanvil:

He wasn't personally responsible for every move. Trump was wise enough to put together a better team.

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I see. Just that you have a right to be wrong. Okay, I guess we can all agree on that...

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Posted in reply to the post by podfish:

he didn't say that I was wrong :).

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Huh? I don't get this "transfer" bit. What's wrong with every citizen's vote having equal power?

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Posted in reply to the post by rossmen:

I agree that cyberanvils argument is clear and makes sense. Not being here to argue about anything really I appreciate it for helping me reflect on my own 2016 presidential choice. If my vote had mattered in anyway I might have voted differently. Perhaps not the libertarian clown. I do appreciate the electoral college. The founding fathers choice in creating the united STATES of amerika, while not purely democratic, does transfer power down to more local government entities. This is good.

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Ah, the spiritual side of cyberanvil. Thank you for your guidance...

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Posted in reply to the post by cyberanvil:

A truism. I can only point out your inaccuracies. It's up to you to find the light.

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Posted in reply to the post by occihoff:

Huh? I don't get this "transfer" bit. What's wrong with every citizen's vote having equal power?

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Madison wrote in “Federalist No. 10.” The Framers designed the American constitutional system not as a direct democracy but as a representative republic, where enlightened delegates of the people would serve the public good. They also built into the Constitution a series of cooling mechanisms intended to inhibit the formulation of passionate factions, to ensure that reasonable majorities would prevail.

The Atlantic: America Is Living James Madison’s Nightmare
The Founders designed a government that would resist mob rule.
They didn’t anticipate how strong the mob could become.