[y66]

Question: What would be the metaphorical equivalent of climbing up on a washing machine here in the WC and asking to borrow a flashlight from an azzole Trump fan boy assuming of course he or she understands what the metaphorical equivalent of a fuse box is and where to find it?

[RedSpawn]

y66, on 2015-September-22, 14:31, said:

Why do poor people vote Republican?

Of those who do vote Republican, race, religious beliefs and ignorance are apparently bigger factors than economic self interest. For example, 70 percent of white non-Hispanic evangelicals self identify as Republicans or leaning Republican vs 19 percent Democrat and the rest do not lean either way. In a Public Mind poll earlier this year, 51 percent of Republicans said they believe it to be “definitely true” or “probably true” that American forces found an active weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq vs 32 percent of Democrats.

Sources: Working class voters: why America's poor are willing to vote Republican and Pew Research Center.

kenberg, on 2017-August-11, 16:23, said:

Yes, although I would replace "Republicans" by"voters". It is my understanding that many Trump voters usually don't vote at all, and let's think about them.

I had to look up what question I was responding to with my post. It was why lower middle class would vote R. Again I want to change the phrasing a little, I am not entirely comfortable classifying people as lower middle class. Let''s just say people who work with their hands for modest pay. Gerben was saying that voting R is against their economic self-interest and so why would they?

There is also another reason that African-American poor people vote Democrat and poor white people typically vote Republican--especially for the Southern belt.

If we don't understand the American history of the pathology of the South and the ideology of race in the South post Reconstruction, we are doomed to miss some important propaganda that reinforces cultural biases and dictates political dogma.

Keep in mind, I am ignoring that there was a shift in political party labels after the Civil Rights Act of 1965. I must qualify this oversight.

As stated before, 'Negroes' were always supposed to be at the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder. The struggle of African Americans to forge and maintain a positive identity in a U.S. society that reduced their existence to that singularly alienating phrase “the Negro problem" shows both the mindset of the populace and the heavy burden and plight of an oppressed people. During Reconstruction, The South was divided into 5 military zones and had federal troops monitoring the situation and developments and furthering the will of the Union since the Rebellious South lost the War. With the withdrawal of federal troops from the south in 1877, southern white authorities banded together with impoverished whites under the banner of white supremacy, and instituted a new system of racial subordination. Commonly known as Jim Crow, this system enforced by law and custom the absolute separation of blacks and whites in the workplace, schools, and virtually all phases of public life in the South.

The Jim Crow system supported the ideology that 'colored' people are on the absolute bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder and white people (even poor) were above blacks. It is very important we don't dismiss or discount how important it is for Southern institutions to sanction and permit this caste system for almost 100 years. This carefully crafted system easily segregated the political concerns of "the Negro" against "The White Man". Sounds like conjecture, right? See below:











In the Midwest to South, a Negro's political concerns must be diametrically opposed to that of a white man's political concerns. The white elite used the old divide and conquer mentality of Old Dixie to drive a wedge between poor whites and poor African-Americans. Politicians understood this and preyed on both populace's fears about class, status, power, and wealth. I still believe it is one of the reasons that poor whites and poor blacks, in general, vote opposing party labels. Old habits die hard! Poor whites did not want to compete for jobs and economic standing with poor blacks who just a few years ago were chattel property with no legal rights.

Quote

The Freedman's Bureau, officially known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, was created on March 3rd, 1865 to aid refugees of the U.S. Civil War as part of the U.S. government's effort to aid and assist its meager population. The Bureau also controlled and managed controversial or uncharted U.S. lands, but its main job was as an asset to newly freed slaves. These newly freed, used the Bureau to obtain education, job and other critical life resources that they did not and would not have if not for the Bureau. Not only did it allow for everyday opportunities such as the aforementioned but it also allowed for black political empowerment in Virginia during the 1860's, this thoroughly scared whites. It was one of the only government organizations that actually sought to improve the life and chances of blacks. The Bureau was widely criticized for its promotion of the Republican vote. The Bureau was the least liked tool of Reconstruction and after only 7 years of providing government assistance to refugees of the civil war, it was given 74,000 disbanded and all remaining business was handed over to the war department. On June 28th, 1872 the Secretary of War issued an order discontinuing the bureau in accordance with a June 10th act of Congress. From June 30th 1872 onward the remaining actions of the bureau would be carried out by the general of the U.S. Army.

[Winstonm]

y66, on 2017-August-12, 10:00, said:

Question: What would be the metaphorical equivalent of climbing up on a washing machine here in the WC and asking to borrow a flashlight from an azzole Trump fan boy assuming of course he or she understands what the metaphorical equivalent of a fuse box is and where to find it?

And the answer, of course, is: a robot!

[RedSpawn]

y66, on 2017-August-12, 10:00, said:

Question: What would be the metaphorical equivalent of climbing up on a washing machine here in the WC and asking to borrow a flashlight from an azzole Trump fan boy assuming of course he or she understands what the metaphorical equivalent of a fuse box is and where to find it?

Winstonm, on 2017-August-12, 14:57, said:

And the answer, of course, is: a robot!

Hmmmm. Why must one be an asshole Trump fan if he supports the candidate? Why must one denigrate the person instead of the ideology? It smells like an ad hominem attack.

[Winstonm]

RedSpawn, on 2017-August-12, 15:27, said:

Hmmmm. Why must one be an asshole Trump fan if he supports the candidate? Why must one denigrate the person instead of the ideology? It smells like an ad hominem attack.

You're confusing ad hominem with ad roboticum. You're also using the false equivalency of Donald Trump and human beings.

[RedSpawn]

Winstonm, on 2017-August-12, 17:12, said:

You're confusing ad hominem with ad roboticum. You're also using the false equivalency of Donald Trump and human beings.

Be very careful. You can hate a person's political ideology but when you suggest, even in jest, that he isn't a human being you are traveling down a dangerous road. Every -ism starts out of hate and not recognizing the humanity in people who do not look or think or behave like you. Isms leads to schisms and schisms undermine nationalism in the United States of America. With no national unity, we fail to function as a Union. We all become easy targets for the barrage of attacks from "Russia" and from the propaganda from our own political institutions and intelligence communities.

And you're confusing your hate and contempt for Trump as a viable political position. Your hate for Trump is a FEELING and when I ask you for follow up questions about Trump's ACTIONS or even certain accusations against him....I usually get crickets chirping. So exactly where do you find Trump on this political spectrum?

[Winstonm]

RedSpawn, on 2017-August-12, 17:18, said:

Be very careful. You can hate a person's political ideology but when you suggest, even in jest, that he isn't a human being you are traveling down a dangerous road. Every -ism starts out of hate and not recognizing the humanity in people who do not look or think or behave like you. Isms leads to schisms and schisms undermine nationalism in the United States of America. With no national unity, we fail to function as a Union. We all become easy targets for the barrage of attacks from "Russia" and from the propaganda from our own political institutions and intelligence communities.

And you're confusing your hate and contempt for Trump as a viable political position. Your hate for Trump is a FEELING and when I ask you for follow up questions about Trump's ACTIONS or even certain accusations against him....I usually get crickets chirping. So exactly where do you find Trump on this political spectrum?

You don't seem to understand - Trump is not on any political spectrum. He is apolitical. He is driven by narcissism and that narcissism drives him to attempt to reverse every action taken by Obama (which is why he is still harping about replace and repeal of the ACA) because Obama is 1) Arfican-American and 2) publicly poked fun at Trump at a Correspondents dinner a few years back.

I don't hate Trump. He is to be pitied.

[RedSpawn]

.

[RedSpawn]

Winstonm, on 2017-August-12, 18:39, said:

You don't seem to understand - Trump is not on any political spectrum. He is apolitical. He is driven by narcissism and that narcissism drives him to attempt to reverse every action taken by Obama (which is why he is still harping about replace and repeal of the ACA) because Obama is 1) Arfican-American and 2) publicly poked fun at Trump at a Correspondents dinner a few years back.

I don't hate Trump. He is to be pitied.

Winstonm, on 2016-June-21, 18:19, said:

I think Trump is very much like a televangelist - he has a lot of zealot believers but most of Main Street America isn't in the crowd. He will lose and lose by a gigantic margin, if he survives his own party's attempts to lynch him. I would not be totally surprised to see his opt out before November - if he senses an embarrassment in the making.

This is a man who has nothing on his mind other than aggrandizing himself - if he senses that he has reached the pinnacle of his current quest for attention, I am more and more confident that he will start to look for ways to bow out and save face - perhaps even prior to the convention.

OK. Hate is a very strong emotion, but I have to imagine that on some level you are jealous of a man, and I use that term very loosely, who has proven your prediction back in June 2016 way off. . . waaaaaaay off. See above.

Trump survived his own party's attempt to lynch him and secured the Republican nomination for President defeating 17 other candidates with more impressive political pedigrees; he remained in the election through November 2016; and he did not lose the federal election by a gigantic margin. In fact, he won the election, thanks in part to the Electoral College votes. He did NOT win the popular vote, however.

He exceeded your expectations and won the Presidency of the United States and snatched it from the jaws of a well-groomed Hillary Clinton-- even as a snake oil salesman and televangelist. And the funny thing is Trump didn't initially believe he could do it either. LOL!

[Winstonm]

RedSpawn, on 2017-August-12, 19:49, said:

OK. Hate is a very strong emotion, but I have to imagine that on some level you are jealous of a man, and I use that term very loosely, who has proven your prediction back in June 2016 way off. . . waaaaaaay off. See above.

Trump survived his own party's attempt to lynch him and secured the Republican nomination for President defeating 17 other candidates with more impressive political pedigrees; he remained in the election through November 2016, and he did not lose the federal election by a gigantic margin. In fact, he won the election, thanks in part to the Electoral College votes. He did NOT win the popular vote, however.

He exceeded your expectations and won the Presidency of the United States and snatched it from the jaws of a well-groomed Hillary Clinton-- even as a snake oil salesman and televangelist. And the funny thing is Trump didn't initially believe he could do it either. LOL!

IMO, it takes a sick mind to find anything funny about the idea of Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Sebastian Gorka, Betsy Devos, et al in the White House and in cabinet positions.

Do you think it is funny?

[mike777]

Winston, to you and your many forum posters who support you.

You oblige everyone to think, or at least speak, about the common good.
---------





All of this leads will lead to and does lead to smaller and smaller factions obsessed with single issues.

[RedSpawn]

Winstonm, on 2017-August-12, 20:25, said:

IMO, it takes a sick mind to find anything funny about the idea of Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Sebastian Gorka, Betsy Devos, et al in the White House and in cabinet positions.

Do you think it is funny?

No, I don't think it is funny that we could have a political idiot or cretin in the White House occupying the Office of the President. However, this certainly isn't the first time we had this problem, and it won't be the last.

As I said before, we are a nation of laws, not men. We all agreed to play a political game back in November 2016. We all cast our vote for President of the United States trusting that the political establishment will do right by us and our votes. Trump won and some of us feel robbed since the mercurial, highly inexperienced, carnival barker and snake oil salesman won against all odds.

America is not in the business of overturning her elections on whimsicality or a fickle change in public sentiment. The President is not a commodity we can purchase on amazon.com and return for a complete refund when he doesn't perform as promised. Retail politics at the national level don't work that way.

Technically, the Office of the President is not for sale, but Citizens United and allegedly Mother Russia has a thing or two to say about that.

When you realize that the political game of electing the President is rigged (or masterminded) from the start and that various factions load the political dice to try to manufacture the outcome they want, you start to worry less and less when there is a "glitch" in the Matrix program and we end up in a political reality we weren't quite prepared for.

The evolution and ascension of Trump is a reminder of how fundamentally broken, flawed, lopsided and dare I say, unfair our current election system is. The solution to this dilemma doesn't involve removing Trump from Office because the broken, flawed campaign system will remain unchanged with its usual cast of characters or dare I say, vultures looking for a political carcass. The solution is not putting Hillary Clinton into the White House as she is also a symptom of what's wrong with this current campaign finance system. We don't need another family dynasty assuming the Office of the President potentially for another 8 years. THE OFFICE IS NOT FOR SALE TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER OR THE MOST POLITICALLY CONNECTED FAMILY IN THE D.C. ESTABLISHMENT!

The solution is to fix the public campaign finance system's holes and add a level of transparency and accountability in political contributions and donations the world has never seen. Corporations shouldn't be participating in 1st Amendment speech for ANY elections as they are nothing more than legal fictions and human instrumentalities. If we have to reside in this Twilight Zone political universe, with no Rod Serling as host, we should know every single contribution these faceless entities make so there should be no "dark money" which floods our elections and hides under the cover of darkness.

We know where the gaping holes are in our current federal campaign finance laws, yet we are still conducting our McCarthy hearings on Trump as a distraction. Politicians don't have the political will to outlaw their political drugs of choice. They are drug addicts hooked on dark money who will protect the D.C. political swamp by any means necessary.

The rise of Trump is NOT the problem. He is a symptom or a sign of the underlying problem. And we can't afford to mistake a symptom for the actual disease. We need to rid ourselves of the disease of corruption, graft, dark money, and a faulty political campaign finance system. START CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM and EMPTY THE CONGRESSIONAL NUCLEAR SWAMP in Washington D.C.

[RedSpawn]

billw55, on 2015-August-17, 09:20, said:

I wish people would stop taking Trump seriously. Like several other candidates, he has adopted the recent trend of using a fake and/or obviously hopeless presidential candidacy as a marketing gig, enabled by a mountain of free publicity from the slobbering media. He can say any stupid thing he wants, because he isn't serious and knows he is just going to drop out later.

We have to take Trump the carnival barker, snake oil salesman, and televangelist seriously because the instant you dismiss or discount the competition as unworthy of any serious consideration, he secures the Republican nomination, wins the federal election and becomes the President of the United States.

Sincerely,

Your Twilight Zone Future in August 2017

[RedSpawn]

kenberg, on 2017-May-22, 15:14, said:

It is perhaps an interesting question as to what vetting is even allowed after a person has won the election. There have been problems, rumored or real, before. However I am not at all sure that I would like it if after the election some commission decided that the president-elect could not be given the oath of office because of some ties he had, alleged or proven. We have an impeachment procedure, and I would oppose short-circuiting it. I recall someone saying, approximately, "Whatever LBJ did as a senator, he had the good sense to stop doing it as president". That might or might not be true, but the point is right. We hold an election, someone wins the election, he takes office, and he serves unless he is impeached. Massive voter fraud, the real thing rather than a Trump fantasy, could be a reason to overturn an election. But I have difficulty thinking of other reasons. I regard Trump as a truly awful choice. Not bad, awful. I believe we will all come to regret it. But an election stands. We don't fiddle with that. And of course the pres has to read the secret stuff, whatever the level of classification.

We need to make better choices. What else is new?

We don't need to just make better choices. . . We need a political system that PRODUCES more competent, capable, and less corrupt candidate choices.

[RedSpawn]

awm, on 2017-August-08, 10:04, said:

1. This does not matter, because Clinton didn't win.
2. This is a matter of party operatives helping a long time party loyalist over an "independent." There is no possibility of collision with a foreign power, no indication that data was stolen nor that votes or registrations were changed. So the bias here is nowhere near the same level of severity as what may have happened with Trump.
3. Clinton won the primary by a lot. So even some irregularities would not impact the result.
4. I'm all for the DNC cleaning up their act. Some investigation and reform is merited!
5... but this whole thing is like a bridge player arguing that "you failed to alert, so who cares that I had my Russian buddy hack the computers to get me the hand records in advance? It is false equivalency to the extreme.

One last philosophical question. If election meddling occurred through a domestic agent rather than a foreign one, do we breathe a collective sigh of relief? To me, the damage done is still the same and just as worrisome. It's just the Attorney General has the jurisdictional control and authority to prosecute the offender especially if he is a U.S. citizen.

[Al_U_Card]

Is not the election of Trump a sign that the "system" still has an element of freedom from covert influence, even if that involves the election of such an individual? A call for further restrictions on who and how may be contra-indicated, but the need for more qualified candidates certainly speaks volumes about the control exerted by other spheres (corporate etc.) on just who is desirable and to whom.

Just as the US is not supposed to meddle (overtly) in internal foreign affairs, covert actions are rampant and chickens do come home to roost...

[RedSpawn]

Al_U_Card, on 2017-August-13, 08:20, said:

Is not the election of Trump a sign that the "system" still has an element of freedom from covert influence, even if that involves the election of such an individual? A call for further restrictions on who and how may be contra-indicated, but the need for more qualified candidates certainly speaks volumes about the control exerted by other spheres (corporate etc.) on just who is desirable and to whom.

Just as the US is not supposed to meddle (overtly) in internal foreign affairs, covert actions are rampant and chickens do come home to roost...

Yup. You make an excellent point. Well said.

I suggested in a much earlier post that the rise of Trump could be America's middle finger to the D.C. establishment's election meddling. Thus, "We the People" aren't dead in the water yet, but I wonder, could we be heading for a "critical condition" intensive care unit with the amount of dark money in D.C. courtesy of Citizens United?

[Al_U_Card]

Middle-finger or last gasp? The gap between rich, land-owning corporatists and the electoral masses has never been greater or in greater numbers. A popular revolution keeps getting stayed by, as you mention, constant barrages of ancillary, unrelated or diversionary information. OUAT, only the newspapers needed to be controlled but now, in the (dis)information age, keeping one's head above water is as difficult as in the economic forum. The American Dream now only relates to those willing to climb into the swamp and mingle with the dwellers there in.

[billw55]

Hah, yes, once again my errant prediction from page 1 of this thread has been taunted. Indeed, I was tragically wrong.

In my defense, I plead that my error was not underestimating Trump. So far he is almost exactly the president I thought he could be. My error was overestimating R voters. I thought that not enough of them could possibly be fooled by such an obvious charlatan. That was quite wrong .. and here we are.

[RedSpawn]

Al_U_Card, on 2017-August-13, 10:03, said:

Middle-finger or last gasp? The gap between rich, land-owning corporatists and the electoral masses has never been greater or in greater numbers. A popular revolution keeps getting stayed by, as you mention, constant barrages of ancillary, unrelated or diversionary information. OUAT, only the newspapers needed to be controlled but now, in the (dis)information age, keeping one's head above water is as difficult as in the economic forum. The American Dream now only relates to those willing to climb into the swamp and mingle with the dwellers there in.

Is there a super-like button? Disinformation and Misinformation Age....just love it!