It was 1989 My thoughts were short, my hair was long Caught somewhere between a boy and man She was 17 And she was far from in-between It was summertime in northern Michigan That math adds up. (Those are Kid Rock lyrics, for people who don't know. He's definitely Florida Man and scared of anyone who isn't white.)
To be fair, what about the Democrats in the last decade would have people believing they would end up being a good resistance type entity when faced with a true authoritarian movement? I think their usefulness can be summed up with the utter waste of the Biden years in using the power of the state to gut Trumpism. They utterly lack the stomach to do the things that are required when a democracy finds itself in such a precarious situation. Perhaps the excuse might be that they haven't found themselves in this type of situation in the past, but their insistence to cling to 'politics as usual' type solutions stopped being merely pathetic ages ago. It's now self-destructive to a degree that is barely understandable.
Probably a bad analogy, but consider how often we here try to reason with people who are obvious right-wing trolls. In a way that's what Democrats have been trying to do with Republicans. The results have been just as effective. You simply cannot reason with the irrational.
The cancel culture debate illustrates it for me. IMO it was always obviously bad faith from Bari and co but normies tend to take things at face value. Even when it was obviously fascism we still have people here defending their fascist supporting mates. It’s human nature IMO
It makes me think of all the times the minorities here (racial/sexual) have been accused of "catastrophizing" something, usually by Christian white heterosexual males. Because the latter don't experience the world like we do, they just assume that our opinions are hyperbolic and not based on rational analysis of our experiences and understandings, so the problem is obviously with us and not that the people from their "in-group" are bad-faith actors. As an example, consider how superdave responded to my comment saying Republican voters would still support the orange fascist even with his 34 felony convictions. Even though this prediction was accurate, I was told I was just "catastrophizing" again - my analysis was dismissed simply because of who I was (a "catastrophizer"). The underlying assumption was the white heterosexual Christians that make up a significant part of the GOP base would be more rational in their behavior than I suggested they would, presumably because the poster was also from that demographic and so assumed the best of the people; being an outsider I was assumed to be irrational or unfair in my judgment. tl;dr - people often take at face value what their in-group peers say, but quickly dismiss what the out-group critics say.
If the things they need to stomach are doing away with the rule of law and constitutional rights, then that would make them no better than Trump.
His history suggests differently. As a young man, he was all into rap, hung out with lots of African Americans. Then he started making money with his white trash persona and he leaned into that, and now that’s who he is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Masks
Not sure that was Ezra’s intent though. He mostly wanted TNC to validate his views and “winning at all costs” approach.
I get what you're saying, (that people discount problems when someone from outside their group say it's disastrous but it doesn't affect them), but I'm not sure it's that simple, tbh. Firstly, although you mention you and dave's conversation when you pointed out that people would still support DTH when he had 34 felony convictions, it's important to remember that, although he was convicted, it almost seemed like he was convicted on a 'technicality'. I remember pointing this out at the time... that people could maybe be forgiven that, if he'd been convicted for something 'important', he'd have gone to jail. Everything seemed to point to the idea that, although the democrats and the criminal justice system was saying it was an outrage, they didn't ACT like it was an outrage. They acted like it was 'business as usual', i.e. not very different from how they acted with the previous shutdown... https://time.com/7268499/senate-democrats-budget-vote/ That's the problem. There's been a disconnect between the words and how they acted. Secondly, although the GOP senators and congress people are still expressing support for him, actual voters, (who you mentioned), HAVE started to move away from him and his support has dropped... https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating This goes back to what I said before about jitty's line back in the mid to late noughties... that the Blair/Brown government was 'fascism'. If we start saying that everything is fascism, (even when it's clearly not), when we actually GET a fascist, we've got nowhere to go in terms of description. Also, if we have a fascist, (for instance, someone who tried to overthrow the government as happened on 6 Jan), we have to damn well ACT like it. So I take your point about minorities concerns being downplayed. I'm just saying there are other factors in play with trump.
The beaches along 30A are quite pretty. But houses/condos started to get ridiculously expensive as the property owners there have gotten wise to all the suburban/metro Atlantans making it one of their first choice vacation destinations.
Spiders are singing in the salty breeze Spiders are filling out tax returns Spinning out webs of deductions and melodies On a private beach in Michigan???
Not sure you get how far past whining about unfair prosecution MAGA are ATM. That was soooooo 2024. Like Cheeto, they're all hot & bothered about "retribution" And we know who's going to be on the receiving end as Sounders, Auria and others can tell us. If Donnie was up with a sniper on top of a Chicago housing project and said "let me give it a go" and took out an AA, immigrant or dirty Lib'rul, MAGA would not only not be bothered, they would cheer it and post video of the person writhing on the ground. "That's my Alpha president taking out the trash!" It would be put on a limited-edition coin. Until Trump (and Miller) is off the scene, this is what we are as a country. Decades of RW dehumanization of The Other gave us Trump in the 1st place and now in 2.0, they're really cashing in with all the fascism & beating on Others. Republicants & the SC won't stop him. We have to hope cholesterol/stroke does.
I love the panhandle. Didn't know till I was an Old that Midwesterners typically vacation to the Panhandle/Gulf and northeasterners are Atlantic/some Gulf. Guessing it might have had to do with driving distances BITD.
Well, fair point. I suppose I AM differentiating between 'MAGA' and 'those that voted for him', (I accept that might be a distinction without a difference), but there we are. I'm just saying that his polling numbers have gone down, although that's probably more to do with how it has negatively affected those voters rather than any realisation that guys like sounders and auria were right all along.
He might go as low as his MAGA base keeps him propped up. 35-39%? It's remarkably consistent going back to Trump 1.0. As far as leopard facers, they always fall back on "Well how was I supposed to know he would go after the good ones?" Which shows you how little they give an F about immigrants' experiences in America. It's not a picnic to be here, documented or undocumented. He & Miller just threw in mass deportation and bodily harm into the equation now. This is Korematsu levels of immigrant hate & distrust.
They weren’t the same thing in 2016. But after Jan 6, it takes a hell of a lot of handwaving for a Trump 2024 voter to get off the hook. I guess that many of them aren’t evil, just too stupid and ignorant to be allowed to vote. But voting for Trump in 2024 IMO means the person should be at least considered an “enemy of the state” and therefore a non voter for a period of time.
Throw in all the anti DEI initiatives. It's not just Kirkian Wypower talking points anymore. Trump 2.0 is now coercing employers and universities into abandoning it because there was an expectation that minorities had a "safe space" where their experiences/input were valued and careers could grow despite historical discrimination. I just read that Black women are being hit harder in this no-job-growth Trumpconomy because of DEI rollbacks and many work in the federal government. It doesn't take a whole lot of tweaking to harm certain groups.
Vance won't need charisma when he has active duty troops available to crush anything resembling a leftwing city or state government.