Trump - Clown Genius

[enigmaT120]

Yeah SW, I was tripping over her calling Obama a progressive. We may have though he would be one, though. Would Bernie have been one? Who gives a new president their marching orders when they get into the White House?

[tylerrr]

@Spartan_Warrior,

You said "The actual goal of Progressivism, IMO (and according to wikipedia), is addressing socioeconomic inequality by creating a government that works efficiently, without corruption and cronyism, for all people."

Unfortunately this is the illusory dream of Communists for many, many years and other left-wingers. "If we could just reach that dream where a government works with little corruption and provides for all the needs of the people...."

History matters to me. Whenever this has been tried, over 100 million people were murdered in the process of reaching that utopian dream of a just government for everyone in the future. If we could just finally get there, everyone would be happy.

Then why doesn't it ever work?

The whole premise is illusory and always has been IMO.

Human nature is not even near advanced enough to facilitate fair, just, efficient, big government.

It's chasing that dream that never arrives...and in the process, murdering millions of people that "get in the way of our movement".

People point to Scandinavian countries, but those countries are much smaller and mostly homogenous culturally and racially. It would never work in a country as diverse and large as the United States.

Now, that Scandinavia isn't as homogenous culturally, you are seeing many problems arise resulting in the rise of right-wing movements against Muslim immigration. It worked well for a while in Scandinavia, but it looks like the happy days are slowly disappearing.

I've recently seen polls showing that people are not as happy as they used to be in some of the Scandinavian countries with large tax rates.

[jacob]

http://qz.com/737452/why-trump-voters-a ... oto-essay/

I think this is a pretty good systemic model if one wants to explain the US presidential election in 2016, Brexit, and the ever-increasing emergence of European populist parties over the past 40 years. Obviously, it doesn't apply to every single person, but it seems good enough for making statistical conclusions.

Also, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the ... m_20160302 ... I include this link mainly for the Rorty quote from 1998. Now that's prescient. I'm trying to get the book.

[GandK]

Also, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the ... m_20160302 ... I include this link mainly for the Rorty quote from 1998. Now that's prescient. I'm trying to get the book.

Wow! He was scary accurate.

I want to read that book, too.

[IlliniDave]

Assuming for the sake of argument that that guy is accurate in forecasting the future--we see the utility of the second amendment

Usually, the group that wants to form the totalitarian thugdom (fascist, nazi, stalinist, whatever) is the group that wants to take all the private guns away. So we in the US seem to be failing at being fascists -- the side with the "strongman leader" is the most fiercely loyal to the constitution, their liberties, and their right to private guns. I live in the South and am surrounded by very politically conservative people. I don't see anyone running around foaming at the mouth to hurl racial slurs and go back Jim Crow and prior. If it is not happening here, I'm suspect of it happening anywhere else.

I think here it is the left who, aware of history, are looking to transform a constitutional gov't into some sort of dictatorial -ism rather than have someone snatch it from them as happened in various other countries in the 20th century.

I think "elites" of all stripes need to own up to the fact they've failed and it is them that people are beginning to hate, not our neighbors and peers.

Things could get really bad.

[BRUTE]

I think "elites" of all stripes need to own up to the fact they've failed and it is them that people are beginning to hate, not our neighbors and peers.

lol that'll happen right after atomic particles in hell cease brownian motion.

[Spartan_Warrior]

@enigma: A month ago I would have emphatically said that Bernie's presidency would've been different from Obama's, but now I'm not so sure. On the one hand, while I think Bernie has the record that shows his intent and priorities, I still don't know if Obama ever was committed to progressive values or simply talked a slick, big talk. Obama's rise was meteoric and I think he was a hand-selected corporate neoliberal all along who merely espoused progressive ideals. I wouldn't accuse Bernie of that. On the other hand, in light of his endorsement, clearly Bernie either has an Achilles heel or is more entrenched in the establishment than he'd like to admit. I don't know if it's fear of Trump, fear of Clinton, fear of loss of his own power in the Senate (he caucuses with Democrats), et cetera. Whatever it is, they got to him. If they got to him now, they could have gotten to him in the office, too. So, yeah, I don't know.

Jill Stein or another third party would be the best chance of implementing actual progressive ideals, or a reasonable successor philosophy; but first we'd have to collectively break through the self-defeating circular logic promulgated by the media that "you shouldn't vote for them because they can't win". (An argument that was used to sadly great effect on Bernie, too.)

It seems, instead, we'll have neo-fascism arise as a response to neoliberalism. Note I say this without regard to which party/gender/flavor of racist militaristic authoritarian wins this election. We live in interesting times.

@tylerrr: Like Jacob, I'm merely offering my own definition of terms. What I stated is IMO the ostensible goal of the "Progressive movement". Whether it is possible or not is another matter.

For the record, though, "Communism" is another -ism I forgot that is (IMO) inaccurately lumped in with the others I mentioned. Marxist communism was not "big government", but in fact the opposite--a stateless society. In fact, I do not believe it has ever actually been implemented before on a national level--those claiming to having achieved only state capitalism--nor could communism actually be implemented successfully until technology advances to the point that a human worker's labor is no longer valuable enough for the majority of people to meet their basic needs in a capitalist economy. The more that happens, IMO, the more a solution along the lines of communism seems not only possible, but necessary. But I digress.

[IlliniDave]

I think "elites" of all stripes need to own up to the fact they've failed and it is them that people are beginning to hate, not our neighbors and peers.

lol that'll happen right after atomic particles in hell cease brownian motion.

Haha, that's probably right. "Let them eat cake!"

[tylerrr]

Assuming for the sake of argument that that guy is accurate in forecasting the future--we see the utility of the second amendment

Usually, the group that wants to form the totalitarian thugdom (fascist, nazi, stalinist, whatever) is the group that wants to take all the private guns away. So we in the US seem to be failing at being fascists -- the side with the "strongman leader" is the most fiercely loyal to the constitution, their liberties, and their right to private guns. I live in the South and am surrounded by very politically conservative people. I don't see anyone running around foaming at the mouth to hurl racial slurs and go back Jim Crow and prior. If it is not happening here, I'm suspect of it happening anywhere else.

I think here it is the left who, aware of history, are looking to transform a constitutional gov't into some sort of dictatorial -ism rather than have someone snatch it from them as happened in various other countries in the 20th century.

I think "elites" of all stripes need to own up to the fact they've failed and it is them that people are beginning to hate, not our neighbors and peers.

Things could get really bad.

nice counter....totally agree. I've been hearing conservatives called "fascists" for years.Total B.S,

[Ego]

I admit that I am not following this shitstorm closely but somehow I just came across a short video that seems to show a presidential candidate encouraging a foreign government to illegally spy on his opponent and hack the party servers, and then say they will be rewarded mightily for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... Na2B5zHfbQ

Anyone see any problems with that?

[tylerrr]

I admit that I am not following this shitstorm closely but somehow I just came across a short video that seems to show a presidential candidate encouraging a foreign government to illegally spy on his opponent and hack the party servers, and then say they will be rewarded mightily for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... Na2B5zHfbQ

Anyone see any problems with that?

I think it's hilarious while earning his title from this thread "Clown Genius".

The guy has managed, once again, to completely steal the spotlight from the Dems and their convention. The media is totally wrapped up in this story, which ultimately leads back to the corrupt DNC emails sabotaging Bernie and fronting for Hillary.

He did this on purpose to cause this commotion and steal the spotlight.

[IlliniDave]

I admit that I am not following this shitstorm closely but somehow I just came across a short video that seems to show a presidential candidate encouraging a foreign government to illegally spy on his opponent and hack the party servers, and then say they will be rewarded mightily for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... Na2B5zHfbQ

Anyone see any problems with that?

He said "find", not spy/hack.

Our FBI director has already publicly testified that those emails were destroyed beyond the FBI's capability for forensic recovery. In other words, they are not not anywhere on our systems for anyone to hack (unless you posit a much deeper conspiracy/coverup on the part of the administration).

There was evidence that Clinton's private server had been attacked/hacked prior to the purge.

So you're left with a couple of possibilities:

-Trump is taking a shot at the leftist press for pushing the "Russia leaked the DNC emails to aid Trump" red herring earlier this week.
-That Russia might have or have access to whatever had already been stolen off of Clinton's computer prior to the purge by whatever gov't/criminal entity attacked it. And he's probably highlighting the Russians as the potential attackers as a way of reminding everyone of his opponent's behavioral shortcomings when entrusted with a position of great responsibility in the past.

[jacob]

@iDave -

Point 1a) I suspect bringing the second amendment into it is just going to further confuse the situation about what's going on and just serve to draw up the red/blue lines, especially amongst the single issue "Pry it from my cold dead hands" crowd, who mainly focus on "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" and who couldn't tell you the rest of the sentence from the 2nd amendment even with the $64000 prize on the line. Present company excluded, of course. However, I think we all know [quite] a few people who fall in this category(*). Or maybe you guys are just surrounded by smarter people than I am.

(*) Kinda like I can point to at least one well-known politician who despite her declared fondness/loyalty to the constitution expressed a complete disbelief in the existence of the establishment clause. (It's the first sentence in the first amendment). That was Michelle Bachmann ... In particular, it strikes me that many people and politicians read the constitution like the devil reads the bible selectively quoting parts out of context. What I especially notice is that it apparently doesn't matter to much of anyone whether they've actually read the bill of rights or whether what they're saying groks the bill of rights but simply whether they feel [in their hearts or whatever] that they're loyal to it.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

I submit that [the last 100 years of] military evolution has rendered the first half, "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State", practically obsolete.

A militia armed with small-arms, even really good (full-auto) ones, is no match at all for a modern military.

Look at the experience in Iraq. Practically every family owns an AK47. Hows that for bearing arms? Yet,
1) Despite the people being supremely well-armed they weren't able to overthrow Hussein.
2) Despite the people being supremely well-armed they weren't able to secure their free (meaning independent) state against the US military.

Since the 20th century, an armed populace is absolutely no guarantee against any kind of strong leadership as long as that leadership is well-organized. Pretty much since Roman times, it's been known that if you have 10 trained soldiers, you can control a 100 peasants or civilians ... if you have 100 you can control a 1000 ... but if you have 10000, you can control millions. Beyond a certain point, it doesn't scale. And the reason is that people can bring 100 or 1000 people together for some kind of rebellion ... but there's no way they can organize the 100,000 militia men needed to defeat 10,000 professionals. So there we go.

Why was the 17th---19th centuries an exception? Because the gun had just been introduced and thus the complexity of warfare had become so simple that organization wasn't a game changer. People would just line up in ranks and proceed to shoot the other line as fast as possible until one side broke.

Compared to earlier times, Romans had organized and disciplined formations allowing them defeat foes in much greater numbers.

Compared to present times, modern militaries have communication, tactical training, grenades, air support, armored vehicles, etc. all interlocked. It pretty much takes a substantial breakdown of the existing military along with the build-up of the organization of the opposition---typically either with the break-away of existing military units or foreign advisers--- to even begin the challenge. See e.g. Syria vs IS (who owes much of its command structure to ex Iraqi military).

If the focus of the second amendment was to have "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" rather than secure the right for people to go deer hunting or plinking beer cans, it should imply that the US military reorganize along the lines of Switzerland or Israel pretty much instituting universal draft for everyone and calling people in for retraining every year or other year until they leave service. Because that kind of well-regulated militia would actually secure the state. The random gun ownership implemented in the US secures didly squat when it comes to national security.

Point 1b) Given this asymmetry, it seems equally possible that instead of serving to prevent a fascist rise, small arms could be used to support it. One of the first things Hitler did was to organize the brownshirts (Sturm Abteilung). The weapon of choice was sticks. Now sticks are inferior to the guns the police had but better than the sticks of unorganized minorities. Level up the weaponry one bit, and give organized people guns instead of sticks, and it should be pretty clear that organized small arms beat disorganized small arms.

In any case, I'm definitely not saying that this is happening nor that this is probably going to happen but rather that if it did happen, strategically, small-arms would make things deadlier (than e.g. sticks or hatchets, ... see various African civil wars).

Point 2) To me "very politically conservative" suggests someone like Ted Cruz and his voters. Perhaps what you're seeing represents the distribution of Ted Cruz voters and not the distribution of Trump voters? Conservatism and neofascism are distinct political orientations with typically distinct voter demographics. I think maybe you guys are "confused" by Trump being the selected R candidate (and thus now wearing some of the Republican mantle and therefore you have to stand by him because of loyalty to the party or simply for being against the other party. That's fine, but I don't understand the insistence that Trump represents conservative values simply because he's running for the conservative party?

You wouldn't except someone like Cruz or Ryan to say that Mexicans are rapists; to propose tearing down economic trade agreements; to suggest backing off on NATO, or to ask the Russians to interfere with American election politics(*). Those statements are as far as I (and the rest of the world for that matter) understand NOT conservative positions! Labelling Trump as a conservative almost warrants the Princess Bride meme: "Conservative. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

(*) Whether Trump was just being funny or tactically media-clever, I can't for the life of me imagine an actual conservative even joking about such things. It would be like joking about having a bazooka in airport security. While it could be argued that it's all fun and games, conservatives take [national security] matters extremely seriously.

Point 3) I completely concur that the elites need to own up and the sooner the better. Running HRC as the main candidate displays a staggering failure to understand exactly the same dynamics that I'm describing above. Knowing the undercurrents, why put a red target (HRC) in front of the bull? Why propagate the tensions for another 8 years, if she wins? I don't believe for a second that the US is somehow exceptional to this whole rich vs poor cycle that repeats once every 80-120 years. If I may put on my frustrated and pretentious elitist hat for a moment, I'd say something like that those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it ... and those who do learn from history are forced to watch everyone else repeat it.

@tylerrr - I'm not really interested in counters. This isn't debate-class. Or at least if I thought it was turning into that, I'd feel like I'd be wasting my time.

[IlliniDave]

jacob, re very conservative: I think Trump cruised to a pretty easy win in my state. I didn't participate in the Republican Primary. While I'm sure there are some "backwards" folks around, I live in the city with the highest PhD/MD rate per capita in the country (as of a few years ago, maybe changed). There's a close bond with the military, and many veterans and active duty people in the state. The people whose lives are closely tethered to their Bible I think tended to support Cruz more. So it's a little bit of everything that mixes into conservative here: economic class, position on the religious spectrum, degree of connectivity to the military, and the general distrust of Washington and the Coasters (East- and West-).

At a certain point trying to bin them into neo-this-or-that buckets gets to be distinction without a difference. I know people here look down on this attitude, but the folks that live around me (true of every place I've lived) are much more likely to rally around their family, their neighbors, and homes, than around ideological fine points. I guess you could call it the local/regional loyalty that has been strong in this country basically since its founding. It's not always manifested itself in the most honorable fashion, and I suppose we could judge that thread of the American fabric as we see fit, but it's there, and has been since people first started seeing themselves as other than British subjects. Nationalism per say ebbs and flows with events, of course, but its never been absent.

Re the second amendment: a smiley face indicates a joke/humor. I'm well versed in the anti-gun feelings about the only way a good and reasonable person could possibly interpret the second amendment, but thanks for the refresher. In terms of the practical impact of an armed populace, there's a lot of room for fun speculation there. What I don't think you'll ever see is a nice neat scenario where the army unilaterally opposes citizens on behalf of the government. Much more likely in extreme civil unrest the army splinters and chaos of sorts ensues since it probably won't be along clean geographic lines like the Civil War. In that case a certain amount of defense/security might default to a more local level requiring rapid response. In the end it might simply come down to an old man defending his cabin against invading hordes of low latitude people fleeing climate change. And if it's zombies, well, they pretty much always take out the army in short order anyway.

[Ego]

What I find interesting about it is that he is arguing from a literal interpretation of what Trump says without any allowance for Trump's style of wild exaggerations. To be fair, that is all he has to go on but doesn't he know other people like this that exaggerate for effect? Everybody has a bullshitter in their life and we know not to take everything they say literally.

I know, I know, a presidential candidate shouldn't speak like this......

@Ego

Look, Trump is an asshole, but you can't let that distract you from larger and more important issues.

I actually kind of enjoy a good bullshitter now and again. Heck, I can bullshit myself in the right circumstances. On the other hand, everyone here knows I am never an asshole.

But I think you are right. I think the fact that Trump is such an asshole is distracting.

[tylerrr]

A couple of things I need to shed light on....

1. First, your parroting of the line "Trump said Mexicans are rapists" is simply a distorted blanket statement, or rather a lie repeatedly told by Hillary and 99% of the media. I'm surprised you're saying the same thing.

Here's the TRUTH of what was said by Trump: "illegal immigrants from Mexico are bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

So he never made a blanket statement that all Mexicans are rapists. He was specifically talking about the people entering the country illegally from Mexico.

That's the definition of a "criminal". Someone who willingly breaks the law.

DICTIONARY: crime: an action or an instance of negligence that is deemed injurious to the public welfare or morals or to the interests of the state and that is legally prohibited.

2. When mentioning the history of Hitler, you forgot to mention one of the things Hitler did in 1938 was:

The regulations to implement this law, rather than the law itself, did impose new limits on one group: Jews.

On Nov. 11, 1938, the German minister of the interior issued "Regulations Against Jews Possession of Weapons." Not only were Jews forbidden to own guns and ammunition, they couldn’t own "truncheons or stabbing weapons."

In addition to the restrictions, Ellerbrock said the Nazis had already been raiding Jewish homes and seizing weapons.

3. You are mistaken by your definition of conservative. Millions of conservatives DO want to back off trade agreements and revise NATO and make other countries pay more for their membership. I'm not sure if you're joking when you state that Paul Ryan stands for conservatism in America. Most conservatives I know despise him. I don't think you really understand the average conservative is in America and frankly, you often sound like an out-of-touch elitist talking down to peasants. I can tell you don't have a street sense of middle America.
_____________________________________________________________________

So no, millions of Americans aren't buying your point that we should give up our 2nd Amendment because it's "outdated" or Iraqis died even though they had AK47s in their homes.

People like myself will never give in to the control freaks trying to take away guns from law-abiding Americans while ignoring the daily murders on the streets of Chicago(already having some of the toughest hand gun laws in the country).

Too bad HRC doesn't have you voting for her this coming election, she could use more gun control freaks on her side.

I like your book, like the forum, but that doesn't mean I can't set you straight time to time...

[jennypenny]

Most of the media were trying to bury the Clinton email story and Trump's comment got them all talking about it again. I'm not sure if it was calculated or accidental, but it was definitely effective.

I'm honestly surprised at how often the media bites on these things. If they'd ignored his ramblings from the beginning, he wouldn't even be the nominee.

[BRUTE]

the word "conservative" seems pretty meaningless to brute. in its root form, he'd expect humans to mean that they want to conserve the status quo on certain things, or things in general.

this seems not what humans actually mean. the word also means something different in every country. sometimes it's connected to religion. sometimes to certain economical ideas. sometimes to xenophobia, other times not.

while brute could never call himself a conservative, the Dems are full of shit too. more war, more drones, more war on drugs.

the Dems claim to care about black people. the #1 thing systematically impacting black people negatively is the war on drugs. if the Dems were serious about blacks, they'd stop the war on drugs. there wasn't even an attempt.

but who is brute kidding. politicians of all stripes don't care about the populace of humans. to them, humans are pawns on a chess board they need to be the queen (or king, but in chess the queen is more powerful ). democracy is the game of lying to increase tribe and blind follower size. taking any of the things politicians say literally or expecting them to mean shows a lack of maturity that should prevent a human from voting.

this is why Trump is so good at it. his life skill is lying to people to give him what he wants. that he's not qualified for office has nothing to do with it - that's not what humans vote for. brute suggests not to blame the player, but to blame the game.

[Dragline]

The left and the complicit media are responsible for the success of Donald Trump. The sooner they take ownership of that the sooner they can fix their problems.

Acceptance of this theory would imply that anyone who voted for Trump is just a brainwashed idiot. And Trump himself has no ability to promote himself and the other GOP candidates had no control over their campaigns either.

While finding reasons to blame those who you do not like for "everything that went wrong" is an internet staple, coming up with fancy and tenuous chains of causation pretty much falls face and is not a sign of careful thinking/investigation but of cognitive bias, specifically confirmation bias and the halo effect (in reverse).

An application of Occam's Razor tells you that people are accountable for their own choices (voting behavior) and may make them for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with "the left and complicit media." Why should anyone take ownership for what other people decide to do?

[jennypenny]

I'm with ffj on that point. There were more qualified candidates, but the media fixated on Trump. The coverage of him was overwhelming. Not only did it give him more air time to get his views across, their (the media's) attitude toward Trump and anyone who would support him drove people like me to vote for him.

I'm not a brainwashed idiot, I'm a pissed off one.