"The butt of global jokes": who might this be? (Talk Trump)

[Animavore]

The likes of our Trump supporters here can't bring themselves to face this reality, of course, because it brings with it the harsh truth that they made a massive mistake and puts a spotlight on their own culpability so burying the head in the sand is the cowardly action they've decided to take.

"The only thing needed for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing."

[tattuchu]

The likes of our Trump supporters here can't bring themselves to face this reality, of course, because it brings with it the harsh truth that they made a massive mistake and puts a spotlight on their own culpability so burying their head in the sand is the cowardly action they've decided to take.

"The only thing needed for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing."

I think you mean inserting their head up their arse?

[Seabass]

There seems no possible end to the increasingly bitter and emotionally charged divisions within the American body politic. In saying that, I'm not equating the ethical position of both sides - I think folk here recognise that I think Trump's policies are stupid and morally bankrupt.

However, to continually indulge in emotional rhetoric about the other side simply leaves nowhere to go except more and more anger and violence. I'm worried that there are people on both sides of the divide who literally can see no other future possibility than armed struggle and civil war.

To hell with the other side.

The trouble is, you've got anger and emotional rhetoric on both sides, but the violence comes predominantly from one side. That side also happens to have a president who constantly stokes bigotry and incites violence.

Moreover, not all hate is created equal. Hating someone for being a Jew is very different from hating someone for being a Nazi. I know saying mean things to Trump sycophants doesn't help anything, but sometimes a man just needs to vent.

https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases ... ed-in-2017


(Personally, I'd put the Islamic extremism under right-wing extremism, but that is neither here nor there...)

[JimC]

When Trump and the Republicans start putting people into concentration camps and indulging in ethnic cleansing violence will be the only solution. It's a pipe dream to hope you can reason with white supremacy.

Do you see that as a remote possibility, a virtual certainty, or something in between?

Anyway, perhaps we all ought to take a deep breath, and see what the mid-terms bring. Perhaps the US will lurch a little way back to the centre...

[Seabass]

Ahh, christ. Here we go again...

Bolton praises Bolsonaro while declaring ‘troika of tyranny’ in Latin America
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... in-america

[Animavore]

When Trump and the Republicans start putting people into concentration camps and indulging in ethnic cleansing violence will be the only solution. It's a pipe dream to hope you can reason with white supremacy.

Do you see that as a remote possibility, a virtual certainty, or something in between?

Anyway, perhaps we all ought to take a deep breath, and see what the mid-terms bring. Perhaps the US will lurch a little way back to the centre...

They're already banging up children causing irreparable mental harm and callously joking about it. I can definitely see now how people can go as far as the gas chambers.

Probably won't happen. I hope.

[Seabass]

"Treat rocks as firearms." You know what that means. He's a fucking psychopath.

[Hermit]

Branding Trump-supporters as morons, rabid, sociopaths, fascists or whatever is just as dehumanising as branding immigrants animals, rapists, or terrorists etc. The problem is that in an atmosphere of heightened tension, anger and hatred everyone is susceptible because we all share the same evolved neurology, hormones and responses.

My personal theory is that lazy, self-serving politicians without any sense of civic duty or responsibility have learned their lessons from marketing, saying, "Stress, fear, and anger seems to work. Let's do that." - they've just done this without any regard for the wider social consequences because the only consequences that matter are bound up in their personal and political success.

The other aspect of this problem follows from the fact that politicians are no more immune to the petsonal/social effects of their own advertising and rhetoric than anybody else, which we see when they respond to criticisms and challenges to their views as an stress-inducing personal, and therefore a political, attack. This triggers a whole new round of vitriolic rhetoric, hard-lining and doubling-down etc.

The reasons why we express certain kinds of ideas and behaviours in response to particular situations and stimuli are many and various of course, wrapped up as they are in our genetics, neurology, upbringing, social setting and environment, as well as in the specifics of our circumstances in the moment. We like to think that our expressions of dismissal, belittlement, anger, and fear towards those with whom we disagree are primarily reasoned and morally justified, but this presumes that we are entirely reasonable (in both senses) actors making only considered, rational decisions with free will. The lesson from current research in behavioural neurology and psychology appear to show that those presumptions are mostly unfounded and insecure.

We are not going to address the consequences of those dealing in anger by allowing ourselves to become angry, or by promoting fears about those who promote fear - none of which fosters or bolsters empathy and a sense of common, shared experience and humanity in either us or others. Without empathy we're doomed: doomed I tell you, doomed!

Your first paragraph is a balance fallacy. Those migrants are poor, desperate people fleeing unspeakable violence and misery, whereas Trump supporters put a bigoted, fascistic, hateful, narcissistic, divisive, pathologically dishonest, ignorant, anti-science, anti-intellectual, climate denying, psychotic clown in a position of immense power from where he can do great damage to a great number of people. And many of them voted for him not in spite of these traits, but because of them.

While I agree with much of what you wrote here, your remark about balance indicates that you missed Brian Peacock's point, which is made explicit in his closing paragraph. Of course you will never succeed in showing morons, rabid, sociopaths, fascists or whatever the error of their ways to the best of your ability, by challenging their ideas, changing thought, provoking change by intelligent debate, but you will drive them further into the hands of the bigoted, fascistic, hateful, narcissistic, divisive, pathologically dishonest, ignorant, anti-science, anti-intellectual, climate denying, psychotic clown. Furthermore, by tarring all people who voted for Trump with the same brush, you reduce the chances of them even listening to you. Don't forget, the Democrats have pretty much abandoned the lower middle classes and the workers. Hillary Clinton's series of speeches to Goldman Sachs and other banks, and her refusal to make those speeches available to the public, symbolises this. I venture to say that a great number of people did not vote for Trump because they agree with his narcissism, misogyny, racism, etc, but because they felt the Democratic Party has abandoned them, which it bloody well has. You'll not get them back by failing to distinguish between them and the Deplorables.

Regarding reasonableness—there is simply nothing reasonable about a person being more concerned with SJWs than climate change and a resurgence of violent white supremacy.

You don't understand why people like Coito Two regard SJWs as the greatest danger of all. Anthropogenic global warming is either non-existent or manageable to them, Trump is not racist, at least as far as 42 is concerned. SJWs, however, what with their progressive stack, postmodernist anti-science stance and insistence that free speech is conditional, are to him, and many like him, the prime mortal danger to individual freedom and therefore the pinnacle of civilisation.

You are a great partisan fighting Trump and everything he and his supporters stands for, but if you don't understand your opponent's point of view from their angle (and that does not mean you need to agree with them), you are a much less effective fighter than you could be.

[pErvinalia]

Also remember that some portion of Trump voters aren't necessarily racist. These people would have voted for the Democrat anti-establishment candidate, Bernie Sanders, if the Dems selected him as their presidential candidate. They need to somehow win those people back.

[Seabass]

Furthermore, by tarring all people who voted for Trump with the same brush, you reduce the chances of them even listening to you.

Yeah, well, I'm human, and sometimes humans get angry. And it's not like our resident Trump worshipper is going to suddenly come to his senses if I'm nicer to him, so I really don't care if I piss him off.

[Hermit]

Furthermore, by tarring all people who voted for Trump with the same brush, you reduce the chances of them even listening to you.

Yeah, well, I'm human, and sometimes humans get angry. And it's not like our resident Trump worshipper is going to suddenly come to his senses if I'm nicer to him, so I really don't care if I piss him off.

In other words, you're not really interested in changing anything. You just want to indulge your anger and hatred instead. That's a pity. The way you keep yourself informed, you'd make a good fighter for change. Not every person who has voted for Trump is as unyielding as Coito Two.

[Seabass]

Not every person who has voted for Trump is as unyielding as Coito Two.

And I would likely be nicer to those people.

[pErvinalia]

If people are still supporting Trump now, after all the shit he has pulled, then I doubt they are very open to changing their views..

[Scot Dutchy]

Also remember that some portion of Trump voters aren't necessarily racist. These people would have voted for the Democrat anti-establishment candidate, Bernie Sanders, if the Dems selected him as their presidential candidate. They need to somehow win those people back.

This wet dream that Sanders supporters have. Unless he was going to pay the Russians more he would never have won.

[Animavore]

WATCH: Trump’s motorcade forced to turn around after thousands of protesters flood Pittsburgh streets

On Tuesday, despite many people’s wishes, President Donald Trump traveled to Pittsburgh to pay his respects to the lives lost in the synagogue massacre.

During CNN’s Jake Tapper Tuesday show, national correspondent Miguel Marquez said that he was shocked at how “how big” and “how quickly” the protest against Trump’s visit grew.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/watch- ... 9fhISljoGY

Keep Nazis out.