Oh no…the Leopards ate my face thread

Was it "Can't Hardly Wait" that finished with the "what they did after the movie" and it showed the leader drinking the Kool-Aid before the sheep?

 

Trump dying soon would be his ultimate victory.. he got away with all his crimes and would be hailed as a national hero… everything bad his acolytes do would be detached from him as they would be acting independently corrupt instead of as part of his schemes.. honestly id take it if it meant a part of his cult collapsed and we could start to “fix” the idiots coming into government..

the “martial law” situation in South Korea is the latest example of how dysfunction here has seemingly emboldened higher levels of idiocy across the globe since 2016

 

If they manage to gut things selectively and strategically before Trump retires/dies/whatever, I wouldn’t count on them failing. Someone will fill in. Our best bet is to see legit leopards eating many, many faces as opposed to leopards scratching most people on the arm and taking a face here or there.

I want very, very much to be wrong about where I think the incoming admin is headed, but if not, it would be best to see a lot of things implemented quickly and failing catastrophically very quickly. Tariffs creating massive inflation. Rapid fed workforce reduction twitter style leading to checks not showing up for social security, Medicare, Medicaid. Making the ACA “voluntary” and cutting health spending would quickly crush healthcare outside of large metros. Those systems are running on a knife’s edge right now. I’ve seen what 20 years of Missouri health policy has done in that state. Trump could easily do 20 years of damage in 2 or 3 years there. Privatizing a lot of the mortgage regulation and what that would do for home borrowing costs. Massive capital flight and asset offshoring because people don’t know what to make of things. Real leopards eating real faces. And part of me feels terrible for hoping for this even though that’s probably the best way to get everything back to a better place 6 years from Inauguration Day and beyond.

That’s frankly our best bet if he does what he says he is going to do. It would be better to see these things in the next 2-3 years than to see the same via a slow boil over 10-12 years. I’m hoping for impulsivity and impatience in implementation.

 

It could have gone either way.

Luckily, she is teachable, unlike some of the progressive cohort.

 

It seems like a part of Palestine identity to hurt themselves and anyone on their side.

 

This is why we need the "FO" part to go with the "FA" that the electorate just voted in. As Chicago76 says, we need Trump to do all the things quickly and have an obvious reaction. Immigrants and citizens of all brown colors need to be rounded up, sent to camps, families separated, violence, squalor, lots of videos about it on TikTok. Even better if it's shown that Trump and his allies have invested in the companies that build and run the camps. This may have people say "wow my eggs and vegetables suddenly cost 5x as much under Trump and why are all those construction sites vacant?"

The tariffs need to start day one, so "why is this Chinese TV three times more than it was last year" to make a dent in the poorly educated.

A government that can't get medicare and medicaid and social security checks out the door, and a bunch of suddenly unemployed Trump-supporting government workers would also make a dent.

Every time the democrats claim that Trump policy is gonna do "X" and then they fight against it and "X" doesn't happen or isn't that bad, the Republicans just say democrats are lying. So point out something is dumb, let them do their thing, and then use their power as the opposition party to point out that the hellscape is a direct result of Trumpian policies. That is the only way to come out better for this.

 

That is myopic and unhelpful to be charitable. That is ********ing stupid from Bernie. That dude can be truly tone deaf.

 

Dems message:

We know the economy is not working for everyone and we have done our best the last four years (look at the other rich countries). We know that there are many issues, but we will do our best to fix it: Tax the uber-rich, fight corporations raising prices, give tax credits to small businesses and parents, fix the education loan boondoggle, and negotiate drug prices. BTW, Trump will give more taxes to the super rich, will make you pay more for stuff with their tariffs and will not let medicare pay fair prices for drugs.

Trump message:

Of course, I will make you pay more for stuff and will give more tax breaks to billionaires and corporations.

Dems message:

We will fix the immigration problems, by making the border more secure and giving more resources to the border patrol and the immigration agencies.

Trump message:

We will put as many brown people as we can in concentration camps. About 20 million if we can, even those that vote for me.

Dems message:

We want everyone to have the same rights and we want every minority to have an opportunity in this country.

Trump message:

We will segregate, discriminate, bully, and dehumanize every minority, we will rescind their rights, and then we will make them pay white people for their inconvenience.



About 10 million people that voted for Biden in 2020: We will not vote for either party, they're the same.

About 1 million people that voted for Biden in 2020: We are voting for Trump or third party to teach the Democrats a lesson.


Yeah, Dems completely need to fix their message.

 

A lot of that is 100% true…

but also part of the messaging by Dems… We have created a very healthy economy, this perceived misery and high cost of eggs is serious but dont dwell on that our job creation numbers are amazing… we will ignore your whining and keep patting ourselves on the back

 

That is the meat of Dem message. And that would have been a good message had they stuck to the meat. 80% of the country lacks the attention span for anything much longer than that.

 

I’d say 60% but I probably would have lost them by the second line.

 

If the messenger was a white middle-aged dude, maybe 5 million more would have gone out to vote, and about 500k would have stuck with the Dems, giving them a fighting chance. If the MSM hadn't had such a GQP bias, we might have won. I don't think is the message per se, or the deliverance, is the structural problems within the US culture: selfishness, racism, sexism, ignorance.

 

Dems offered a $50k tax credit to help people buy their first home. Trump said something about drill baby drill (when gas prices are not an issue anymore) and energy prices, then somehow people would afford a home.

Or if you prefer a darker reference, some Trump acolyte said that once they deport 20 million people, there will be plenty of available homes.

Trump voters (or non-voters) are either evil or stupid. There's not many other possibilities.

 

Those states have been going red for a long time though. It’s telling that only one swing state went red in the senate races and it was by narrow margins.

Trump is Trump. That’s it. Ron DeSantis wasn’t it because he has no charisma. Nikki Haley wasn’t it because she believes in only herself and what’s best for her.

All Trump inspires is a slavish devotion to him. I don’t see any politician that’s not him getting people to spend hundreds of dollars in Trump merch or traveling all over the US just to attend his rallies.

There have been politicians that have tried acting like Trump and have lost. Again, it’s the Mad Men episode with Bye Bye Birdie. They’ve got everything, but it’s not Donald Trump.

 

Pat Buchanan was Trump in 1992.
I was surprised to see he is still alive.

 

I think we’re more individualist (which leads to selfishness/self absorption). A lot more than CANZAK and Western Europe? Probably not. I don’t think we’re more racist or sexist than our peers on average. Ignorant? Yeah. I think we’re often more insulated from the broader world and the acute national hardships our peers have faced, which leads to ambivalence.

We’re unusual in that Dems spend an inordinate amount of time calling specific groups in. Part of that is due to diversity within the country. But it tends to cloud the message. Every second spent talking about someone you or your family clearly doesn’t identify is a second not talking about you. And if people don’t draw the connections, then their eyes glaze over and you lose people. Selfishness? ignorance? Short attention spans? ambivalence? Homophobia? racism? Misogyny? And obviously the GOP pounces with Ivory Tower academia, immigrant hordes and trans this and BLM that and childless cat lady whatever. If it’s structural as you say, that can’t be changed.

Dems also suck at highlighting their achievements. I was at an event last week with some politically-oriented liberal folks and one of them admitted to me that she would be hard pressed to name 5 things we did in the last 4 years. She obviously isn’t tuned in to an extreme degree, but she’s more tuned in than 90% of the public. That’s a problem.

 

Achievements mean less than you think though. If you had asked the same of a Republican in Jan 2021 you'd find them hard pressed to do an differently.

 

They won’t need Trump if they successfully manage to break things with sufficient precision. Deepen fed judiciary partisanship, place partisans in the federal bureaucracy, laws/policies that swing the electoral outcome even 4-5 points toward the GOP, create fear of dissent. That creates a huge margin for error. They don’t need their figurehead anymore if they have those things.

 

Achievements do mean less…usually. I’d argue coming off the pandemic and the most populist and right wing administration in anyone’s lifetime…articulation of achievements meant a hell of a lot.