A Facebook friend’s post:
The upcoming US election is unlike any other. … This is not a normal election. This is a national emergency. It cancels the usual rules. … [some ideas for what Democrats should do] … Then, once the gross course correction is attained, away from the Trump course of authoritarian, corrupt, nationalistic, lie/propaganda/fear/polarization based government, we can go back to deciding how liberal or conservative our policies on 100 matters should be.
Right away from this coastal elite Democrat, scornful of religious Americans who accept dogma uncritically, we can see Millenarianism:
the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming fundamental transformation of society, after which “all things will be changed”
Of course, I couldn’t resist a simple question:
How has the stock market done during this 2.5-year “national emergency”?
I.e., why wouldn’t investors take 60 seconds to sell U.S. stocks and buy non-U.S. stocks, rather than stick around for the “national emergency” and see whether Dictator Trump would confiscate their assets, just as other dictators have done in the past? Why would foreigners continue to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the U.S. (some stats)?
The answer turned out to be, ultimately, that any question regarding whether Trump being in the White House constituted a “national emergency” was “off topic”.
If we regard Trump hatred as a religion, ideas that cannot be questioned or examined rationally would be part of the dogma.
Separately, the other day I photographed stickers on an aircraft mechanic’s toolbox:
I posted them on Facebook, noting that they had come from a mechanic’s toolbox, and a guy who lives in Manhattan and draws his paycheck from the refugee industry responded with “Who gives a fuck” (a good summary of Democrats with regard to native-born guys who work hard at skilled blue collar jobs?). I think this is evidence for my Dutch friend’s observation regarding American elites, blue collar whites, and Trump’s election: “They forgot to take away their right to vote.”
It may come as a shock to you, but there are a multitude of more important things than the stock market. Ignoring climate change, gutting the endangered species act, separating children from their parents at the borders, promoting violence with careless pandering to his fanatical base, the daily lies, the backstabbing of cabinet members, the pussy grabbing, the non-stop insults on everything that he disagrees with, the entire non-professional way he operates, the blatant and even celebrated racism, not to mention the complete ignorance of history, policy and global relationships, the total lack of respect for really anyone.
Calling it a national emergency is an understatement. We may never recover from the damage this man has done.
The stock market? Tell a good reason why it couldn’t be healthy without Trump..
Obama always says if you like grabbing them by the pussy you can keep grabbing them by the pussy!
Dear Jim,
Philip had already done a good job of showcasing the mindset of this new religion of Trump hating. There was no need for you to go through all the effort of writing that wonderful post. Thanks for it anyway!
OC – it can’t be a religion because its based on facts and evidence, not blind faith.
There’s nothing to indicate in that first paragraph there that the writer is concerned about a “coming fundamental transformation of society”. It sounds as if he’s concerned about the present. It’s also rather odd to invoke the stock market in reference to this. The stock market indices don’t matter to the majority of population. There are also frequent booms and crashes which must mean that they often don’t even indicate the health of companies in the index, much less the state of the nation.
Furthermore, if you showed a bunch of anti-Trump bumper stickers to a Trump supporter, you’d probably get the same reaction: ““Who gives a fuck”. That would be regardless of what the person does for a living, which is completely irrelevant.
Given Trump’s actions have harmed many of the people who voted for him (e.g., trade war causing problems for manufacturing and farming), I am puzzled to see continued support.
All politicians lie, but Trump does so at a rate orders of magnitude beyond any public figure in recent memory. The level of gullibility required to believe anything he says is difficult to comprehend.
1) To have independent reason to believe he’s lying you’d have to pay more attention to politics and current events than the average american. (Being told he’s lying by openly declared liberals doesn’t count).
2) Even if a person beats (1), there are countless theories about what a master chess move it is to be such a brazen liar, to act the fool, etc. all while secretly being the smartest man in the room. This traps those who are vulnerable to authoritarianism and/or conspiracy theories.
3) Even after (1) and (2) there are those that still think they get more out of him as President than they would out of a Liberal, no matter how dumb/dishonest he is. And these people may well be correct – at the end of the day if you want X and get X, you *have* to care that you get X from a Good Guy.
Well, he’s been called a “liar” by virtually every news outlet in the world, liberal and conservative. On the contrary, you don’t have to pay very much attention to politics at all to see this.
>> J. Peterson wrote: …I am puzzled to see continued support.
I am really surprised that you are surprised: the answer was given in 2016. I, too, thought that the Grab Them By The Pussy moment would be the end of the Trump presidential bid.
The reason why it feels like Trump supporters just shrug off all criticism, no matter how scalding, is exactly that: the anti-Trump narrative does not matter to them unless they see a better alternative. Remember those were people who voted for Trump in 2016 while holding their noses, in an attempt to prevent the Clinton presidency. Call them stupid or deplorable, if you will, but that wouldn’t change the basic fact.
Nothing has changed since then. Trump voters are likely to vote for him again in 2020 unless they see a viable alternative. Besides, I think that a xenophobic, Maoist pitch of the reformed Democratic party is a good motivation for some people to dig in their heels: opposing the opposition and resisting the resistance is may be a factor.
Phil hates women and immigrants, and so does Trump. Of course he dislikes “coastal elites” who speak out.
> Phil hates women and immigrants, and so does Trump.
And especially, immigrant women.
And taxes.
Phil IS Trump! Now I know.
@10-15
also, Phil stole my lunch money one day at Lobdell.
Later that semester he added a disparaging remark to one of my problem sets.
He wrote that it was exactly the kind of buggy meta-circular evaluator that an elite coastal woman immigrant would write. Then he told me Margaret Hamilton was hiring for her HOS startup and that I might do better there than trying for a job with a manly lisp business like Symbolics or ITA.
I left CS and became a musical theatre major as a result of his unending harrassment.
I did win a Tony for best male actor in a revival in 2010, so it wasn’t all bad.
Trump runs the country like a New Jersey mafia boss. Has this country devolved to the point that the best person we can elect for the job might as well run a crime family? I agree with some Republican ideas, like closing and militarizing our borders. But then I also have very Democratic ideas like letting every immigrant who wants a paying job in this country to have one. I live in Texas, we need our cooks, cleaners, and bricklayers back! If we manage to let in a few search specialists, or programmers, or aviation experts, then do much the better! I think we should draft the long term unemployed and train them to work as well. And if you want to sit on your ass and do nothing, then here’s $50,000 to renounce your citizenship and go sit on your ass in another country! We need workers producing goods and services and paying taxes to save our country! The more the better! And goodbye to those who won’t! I’m not talking about grandma and grandad here, I’m talking about discourages workers.
> letting every immigrant … we need our cooks, cleaners, and bricklayers
Inconvenient truth: a 2-parent 2-kid household needs to earn $92k/yr to be a net contributor to society. Households earning less are subsidized by the govt (ie: everyone else). Importing more immigrants (slaves?) to work low-wage jobs makes the country poorer.
The Trump-haters are like a doomsday cult predicting the end of world, that never happens. “Trump said ‘pussy’ 17 years ago? Clearly he will drop out!”, “Russia conspiracy? This is the end of Trump!”, “Mueller obstructed? Surely he will be impeached!”, “Impose tariffs to reduce a $566B trade deficit? It’ll start a trade war (that nobody ever wins)!”.
Just imagine how crazy it will get over the next 6 years of his presidency. Meanwhile, I’m not tired of winning yet.
“Impose tariffs to reduce a $566B trade deficit? It’ll start a trade war (that nobody ever wins)!”
But it has started a trade war ( that China is winning )?
Pussy hats, assemble!
M Obama said: Grab them by the chapeau! (some French slang involved)
A post premised on the existence of exorbitant hatred for Trump is refuted by comments showing exorbitant hatred for Trump.
We have established however that the state of the stock market isn’t much to do with him and doesn’t matter anyway. So if the markets crash the haters will conscientiously refuse to blame Trump.