How Donald J. Trump Became President (Horror Reality)

[RVInit]

She released a detailed 2 page report from her doctor. What more did she need to say? Are you asking for the long form doctors report?

Yes I'm being snarky, but for fuck sake, its totally double standards, and it's exactly the same shit that Obama had to put up with. Nothing he said or gave was ever enough and no-one else had to do anything like he did. Did you see the clamoring for Mitt Romney to talk about his health? Or fucking John McCain who was half dead at the end of his run? Or Fatso mc Senilediepers who released a fake 2 paragraph health report from Dr Strangelove?

x 1000

[TollandRCR]

I cannot tell you how often I heard "But I can't trust her" from college educated women. Others said that Hillary was hiding something. My response was that if they did not vote for Hillary, Trump might win. I think how she dealt with the e-mail situation hurt the Democratic Party. I am less sure that her health was a decisive issue for anybody. I do know that trust is a factor in almost everyone's voting for almost any candidate.

[Suranis]

The only reason for the "I don't trust her" was 30 years of poison being pumped into the mainstream media. NO MATTER WHAT SHE DID it would have been spun and seen badly. And that's the truth. If you want to blame the victim go right ahead, but you are wrong and you know it.

Sorry I'm just angry because I'm fed up with this shit, from berniebros calling her unelectable when she beat Bernie by a bigger margin than she hammered the Gibberer, to this crap.

[listeme]

I heard "I can't trust her" from some of my friends, as well. I offered them some links to factcheckers re: her honesty compared to other politicians, some decent articles about what she did, how, and why, and explained why I did trust her. I like to think it was a fairly effective approach.

The primary was particularly bad this season. I think most of us underestimated how bitter some people would still feel five months after the general election was over.

[TollandRCR]

Historians will be asking every kind of question about Hillary, her campaign, and the DNC. This was, I think, the most important election of my life. I think we will long be paying a high price for the result.

[listeme]

And historians will also be asking questions about election interference, the role of racism and sexism and particularly white-lash, the role of the terrible media, the role of reality television and fake news, on all of the various demographic groups. I have a lot of interest in pulling apart the younger folks who couldn't pull the Democratic lever, for instance: how much of the problem was Hillary not inspiring, Bernie not bringing in his coalition, fake news sites, the idiot Jill Stein, and so on. I think there will be a lot of nuance in figuring this out.

How many of the Bernie bros were progressive versus fakebots versus gamergaters and so-called mens rights folk?

How many of the WWC would have been okay with Biden, who is politically at least in Hillary's ballpark?

How much of this whole shitshow is people not wanting to be told what to say? A couple of us were involved in a conversation on facebook last week with a couple of young men who absolutely could not believe anyone could be offended by the term "retard" and associated the very existence of the conversation with "liberals". How much of this crap is just sticking it to liberals and the "PC culture"?

I think that historians won't be nearly as interested in Hillary except as she was vilified. I really don't.

Pat answers, one-factor solutions, they make good bumper stickers. The truth is that the first Bundy trial results and Brexit and Trump surprised us all here -- and only one of those scenarios involved Hillary. And yet I think they are mostly the same cause: assholes wanting to get back at those of us who value diversity and civility.

[DejaMoo]

For all the people saying Democrats have to work better at reaching out to Trump voters, I give you this:

After 20 Years in U.S., Indiana Restaurant Owner Is Deported

Mr. Beristain, an undocumented immigrant and business owner living in Indiana with his American wife and children, was deported to Mexico despite legal efforts to keep him in the U.S., his attorneys said Wednesday.

Mr. Beristain’s case gained attention as an example of the Trump administration’s enforcement priorities, which include deporting immigrants who may not have committed violent crimes but have violated U.S. immigration law.

His wife, a naturalized U.S. citizen, voted for Mr. Trump. A Republican, she agreed with the idea that criminals shouldn’t be in the U.S. illegally, but said she never imagined her husband, who has no criminal record, would be targeted.

You could call it incurable stupidity. There's some of that, but there's also a large portion of vindictive superiority in play here. That's what you see in people who are convinced that only they are the deserving ones. They are angry and resentful of anyone else who has anything - a job, benefits, government assistance - because that stuff should be reserved only for the deserving.

These people will go out of their way to make life miserable for others. It gives them great pleasure to do so, as well as reinforcing their feeling of superiority. It's that sense of superiority and being the only deserving ones that enables them to justify collecting government benefits while voting to eliminate them.

It really comes down to this: either you're a person who believes everyone should be treated equally fairly, or you don't. If you don't, you'll vote for politicians promising to slash programs that personally benefit you, because you're voting to cut them for everyone else, not you. And you're supremely confident the people you're voting for understand that.

[TollandRCR]

...
Pat answers, one-factor solutions, they make good bumper stickers. The truth is that the first Bundy trial results and Brexit and Trump surprised us all here -- and only one of those scenarios involved Hillary. And yet I think they are mostly the same cause: assholes wanting to get back at those of us who value diversity and civility.

I do not think of Trump supporters as a-holes or deplorables. I think of the rural upper Midwest as a place where many good jobs have been eliminated and substitute jobs are nowhere near as desirable or even available. Life has always been hard for people who have not learned the skills needed to make it in this modern society. The abnormally rising death rate among working-class midlife white voters without a college education is one of the products.

The Democratic Party's foundation is among the working people of this country. If it loses them, it cannot win elections. The middle class will simply follow the working class into a poorer and less hopeful life.

[listeme]

I agree that many are not assholes.

And yet I still consider assholery to be one of the causative factors. I think as political theory, my theory is quite sound

Is it fear or vindictiveness that causes the situation we see with white voters willing to harm their own interests rather than let "those people" share the benefits? Are white working class voters really more stupid than nonwhite working class voters? Nonwhites saw through Trump's nonsense. Why didn't whites?

If they're not stupid, and I don't think they are, can the vindictiveness theory be part of why they voted the way they did? If it's partially or wholly vindictiveness, what message would have reached them? City versus rural explains some of it, too, and looking at the actual demographics of the voters explains some of it, like Hillary won the poorest whites.

You can't fix a problem if you don't understand what's causing it. Brexit tells me there's more going on than JUST Hillary/DNC. The terrible bros phenomenon tells me there's more going on than just "uninspiring Hillary".

Unfortunately.

[Suranis]

Lets put some data on this bitch. This is a map of the way the various counties voted



THis is the map with the county population making the county bigger or smaller



And this is the counties graded by the proportion of the blue and red vote for Hills or Trump



All maps from http://uk.businessinsider.com/2016-elec ... ulations-2

[DejaMoo]

I agree that many are not assholes.

And yet I still consider assholery to be one of the causative factors. I think as political theory, my theory is quite sound

Is it fear or vindictiveness that causes the situation we see with white voters willing to harm their own interests rather than let "those people" share the benefits? Are white working class voters really more stupid than nonwhite working class voters? Nonwhites saw through Trump's nonsense. Why didn't whites?

Oh, probably because nonwhite voters realized that Trump had nothing to offer them but a world of hurt, which was mainly what the white voters suffering from vindictive superiority liked about him. Not white? Not deserving.

Let's don't underestimate the power of religion in US politics, either. One of our local papers recently did a story on a rural county that went decidedly Trump, and everyone they talked to framed their vote in religious terms. Their religious values are the same as their political values: conservative, mainstream, christian, traditional - none of which they see the Democratic Party as representative of. Here's where cognitive dissonance/utter hypocrisy comes in: they voted for a man who is the complete antithesis of their religious values, and they knew it - but they did it to uphold their religious values. Supposedly.

There's no way to reconcile the awful reality of Trump's and many other GOP politicians' personal/professional practices with their religious values, but that's what they've decided to believe. People who aren't familiar with conservative churches may not realize how politicized they've become over the past decades. They're preaching politics as part of the services, and implying to outright declaring that one can't be a good christian and a democrat. So if you consider yourself a good christian, you know who you can't vote for. What would voting for a democrat make you? A bad christian.

[listeme]

They're preaching politics as part of the services, and implying to outright declaring that one can't be a good christian and a democrat. So if you consider yourself a good christian, you know who you can't vote for. What would voting for a democrat make you? A bad christian.

This is so true it hurts.

The denomination I was raised in is at the top of the chart for "how conservative is your denomination". Many of my old friends actually do believe 100 percent that if you vote democrat, you are not a christian. At all.

What the hell kind of message can the democratic party send them? The democrats are working for SATAN. They would never ever listen to them.

[listeme]

Somewhat timely for our discussion, today: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/maga ... wrong.html

Very long and I shamelessly cut and pasted the very last paragraph.

Future historians won’t find all that much of a foundation for Trumpism in the grim essays of William F. Buckley, the scrupulous constitutionalist principles of Barry Goldwater or the bright-eyed optimism of Ronald Reagan. They’ll need instead to study conservative history’s political surrealists and intellectual embarrassments, its con artists and tribunes of white rage. It will not be a pleasant story. But if those historians are to construct new arguments to make sense of Trump, the first step may be to risk being impolite.

[TollandRCR]

William Buckley would have detested Donald Trump. For one thing, Buckley genuinely respected religion. Trump considers it a part of his PR program.

[maydijo]

They're preaching politics as part of the services, and implying to outright declaring that one can't be a good christian and a democrat. So if you consider yourself a good christian, you know who you can't vote for. What would voting for a democrat make you? A bad christian.

This is so true it hurts.

The denomination I was raised in is at the top of the chart for "how conservative is your denomination". Many of my old friends actually do believe 100 percent that if you vote democrat, you are not a christian. At all.

What the hell kind of message can the democratic party send them? The democrats are working for SATAN. They would never ever listen to them.

Mormons are just as bad. Witness Trump's decisive wins in Idaho and Utah. When push comes to shove, if the GOP candidate was Lucifer himself, Mormons would vote for him because you can't vote Democrat and be a good Mormon.

Funnily enough, in the early days of Utah statehood, Mormons were so apolitical bishops would actually assign party affiliation to people, and their assignments were roughly 50/50. The last time Utah went for the Democratic candidate was Johnson. My husband's response: Maybe they regretted going "all the way" with LBJ.

[DejaMoo]

[listeme]

[Slarti the White]

Tollie,

Maybe the name of this thread should be changed to "How Donald J. Trump Became President (Horror Reality)" or some such since it is not properly in the realm of fiction any more. Just my $0.019999999...

I did not urge Hillary to discuss her bout of pneumonia. I suggested something far broader: discuss her health. Nor did I suggest that she lost solely because of the scene at her van.

I think that she partially enabled the strong personal attacks on her by being too closed for too many years.

I agree. She was neither above the appearance of impropriety nor was she transparent. Both of those things are on her. The Russians exploited the weakness and both Trump and the media helped enable their manipulation of the election, but Hillary left them an opening. Too. also. her failure to have a strong vision for her presidency --- you cannot get a mandate to do something unless you ask for it --- deprived her of another narrative to counter Russian propaganda.

Hillary did not address her e-mail situation until it was a problem. She does not talk about her health. I think both of these hurt her. I remember that MikeD outlined the steps that Hillary should have taken on the e-mail.

Link for Rikker?

Much the same was necessary for health. Her urge for extreme confidentiality does not work in politics. It causes her to lose control.

Specifically it caused her to lose control of the narrative, in my opinion.

Obviously I disagree. [To Tollie's comment]

There's nothing obvious about your disagreement. Looking at what you said, I can find no substantive argument against Tollie's comment. It's clear that you don't like any criticism of Hillary or her campaign, but you've never even made an argument regarding why criticism of an unsuccessful campaign which probably cost over $1 billion is unwarranted.

Every single thing hurt her.

Yes, so? Tollie was talking about specific failures that hurt her. The existence of other things that hurt her is not really relevant.

She released like 40 years of her taxes versus zero for her primary and general opponents.

Which goes to show that a good enough propaganda machine can beat a legitimate issue. Of course Trump's strategy was to delegitimize everything. More importantly, what has this to do with anything Tollie said? Do you agree with the steps MikeD outlined? Did you even read them? (Can Tollie provide a link for Rikker?)

She doesn't talk about her health.

Which, as Tollie said, hurt her.

She testified in front of idiot panels of congress.

I have no idea how this relates to a response to Tollie's comment.

She blew off some of the email questions.

Is this the only thing you think she did wrong (or hurt her) regarding her use of a private email server?

All those four things hurt her equally.

What?


Certainly all four of those things --- and many more both within and outside her control --- hurt her, but equally? What is your basis for saying that? You are certainly entitled to that opinion, but the statement seems absurd to me. I'm not just being a dick here, I have an important point: the ability to judge the relative significance of things has been under attack by the right wing for as long as I've been aware and now science itself is under attack. If everything is equal then there is no way to triage problems, allocate resources, or set goals effectively --- it is in empirically and quantitatively investigating our past mistakes that gives us the understanding that will lead to future successes.

It's not only about what she says or does.

FIFY. Although it still contradicts what you said above. Nothing I could do about that.

But I still can't see a single reason for her to talk about her pneumonia diagnosis whether or not she ever runs for office again.

If she were to run for office again she would have to become much more open about many things --- including her health (not necessarily the pneumonia specifically) --- if she wanted to be a viable candidate. If she never runs for office again then what she decides to talk about is her own business and should be judged on its merits.

It's ludicrous even if she WERE to run, but as a private citizen, to have people demanding that she account for herself on private health matters because they think she lied? No.

It's not ludicrous, it's just the reality of the business she is in. President Obama didn't just ignore the birthers because their charges were frivolous and baseless, he had lawyers represent him in court, had the State of Hawai'i verify his COLB, and released his LFBC. If Hillary doesn't run again, she can certainly do what she likes and has no need to listen to anyone still demanding her records, but I hope she would be candid about how her health and public perception of her health was used against her --- this seems like a tactic the Republicans will probably reuse whenever they get the opportunity.

Ever since I read the autobiography of Richard Feynman, I've aspired to the level of objectivity and integrity that he felt necessary for a scientist: the ability to focus your most vigorous criticism on oneself. I was at conference in February of a dozen or so of the top people in the renal modeling community (long story) and one of them said something that I think embodied the same spirit that Feynman was trying to convey. He said that being wrong is the most exciting part of our jobs, because when we're wrong (and we admit that we are wrong) it means that we are about to learn something.

Admitting that Hillary made mistakes isn't disloyal and doesn't hurt her in any way, rather it is the first step in gaining the understanding that will lead to future successes. It is also a way to break out of the unscientific partisan framing* that currently shapes our political discourse.



* I saw this article by George Lakoff about mental frameworks posted somewhere on the Fogbow in December and think it is a must-read. Relevant excerpt from (long) article --- mucho moar at link:

2. Framing: Crooked Hillary. Framing Hillary as purposely and knowingly committing crimes for her own benefit, which is what a crook does. Repeating makes many people unconsciously think of her that way, even though she has always been found to have been honest and legal by thorough studies by the right-wing Bengazi committee (which found nothing) and the FBI (which found nothing to charge her with.) Yet the framing worked.

There is a common metaphor that Immorality Is Illegality, and that acting against Strict Father Morality (the only kind off morality recognized) is being immoral. Since virtually everything Hillary Clinton has ever done has violated Strict Father Morality, that makes her immoral to strict conservatives. The metaphor makes her actions immoral, which makes her a crook. The chant “Lock her up!” activates this whole line of reasoning.

[TollandRCR]

This may be the link for Rikker http://thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... il#p804256 although I shall keep looking.

[TollandRCR]

Again, I recommend J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy. It is not my story, but it is a story to which I can deeply relate. It is a story of family ties deeper than blood, of the linkage of geography and topography to one's self-definition, of values rather than preferences. I know people, including people I loved, to whom all of this would seem indisputable. I identify a bit with J.D. because we had similar questions of truth and identify.

Strangely, I also identify with him in speaking of crawdads, not crayfish. At the creek down the hill by the fire station, there were many crawdads to be brought home for dinner, but nary a crawfish. There were no fish (cept minnows) is that creek at all.

[RVInit]

Ahem, please. They are called mudbugs, thank you!

[listeme]

Hillbilly elegy is on my to-read list, but I have seen some fairly damning critiques of it, too. I will wait until my library has it again.

[Lani]

I knew several white, college educated women who either voted for Trump or Jill Stein. I say "knew" because they blasted their friends who supported Clinton. Vile, raging blasts. And then cut all ties. They hated Clinton because electing her was electing Goldman Sachs and she was going to cause WWIII and she was hiding a debilitating, progressive disease/mental illness/dementia and used a body double. I also know 2 Filipino-American women, high school graduates, low income workers, who voted for Trump. One said Clinton and Obama had a secret plan for a Communist takeover, and Clinton was stage two of the takeover, so she had to vote for Trump to save the US. The other found out that Clinton murdered her staff members who had some sort of secret information about her.

Kinda of scary when you learn that your (former) friends were not only conned, but also hated you for voting for the destruction of the country.

[RoadScholar]

Again: The right-wing lie machine IS the problem. They should all go straight to hell.

[Foggy]

Heard a talk night before last. Hillary was the establishment candidate in a year when people were fed up with the establishment.

Little things, like the English language. Strong verbs.

Trump had:

• Make America great again.
• Build the wall.
• Lock her up.
• Drain the swamp.
• ... and so forth.

Hillary had "Stronger Together". No verbs, just adjectives. (And she stole it from SEIU.)

Is the English language a little thing?

Ads.

They can be personal, or about issues and policy.

They can be positive or negative.

Hillary's ads were personal and negative. I loved them, but she should have done some that were positive and about her policy.

Little things.