Trump

[Ronster]

Wow.

I am not looking to argue with people in NPR, but I can say as a person who is definitely voting for Trump, that many supporters from both sides have some very deeply held opinions about the stereotypical supporters of the other candidates...and they are mostly incorrect.

As a wise politician once said:

[Ronster]

[Ronster]

[Tahlvin]

[Ronster]

I couldn't agree with you more.

[Elle]

Nah, we are loooooong past the point where anyone who votes Trump gets to claim they're NOT intentionally voting for fascism. He said right there on TV that he won't promise to follow the democratic process and accept the result if he loses. That = tyranny. There is no other way around it. You can say you love the unborn and that you're voting with vomit in your mouth, but you're voting for fascism and you know it now. He promises torture in violation of our law and international law; he promises to sue and jail journalists, who are already threatened with violence or assaulted at his rallies while he eggs it on. He wants judges who oppose him removed! He is not even hiding that he's running for tyrant!

[Elle]

And let me be very clear about one other thing. If any person persists in the pretense that they are voting solely on abortion and they have no idea what Trump's other views are, they are seriously too stupid to be voting. And if you want to vote as a way of giving the middle finger or tearing it all down, you're no better than any other anarchist leftist or commie who hates democracy.

[Elle]

The Thesis here is that Trump is a tool of Putin's Russia. I am not trying to attack you personally because you are definitely not the first person to make this argument in response to that claim, but the argument does not succeed.

[I am not even going to go into the matter of the FBI having made a mockery of its impartiality in this election - and that's true whether you support Trump or Clinton. The fact that they have not been more scrupulous about distancing themselves from partisan intervention of any kind is a terrible thing for democracy, and this is not just Comey but all the people who have leaked info from the FBI in some effort to influence the election narrative.]

So putting that aside, even if what you quoted from the FBI is correct, that makes Trump no less a tool of Putin's Russia! Their goal is to damage our democracy; their hacks are accomplishing that, and Trump's promotion of the problems caused by those hacks is accomplishing that, and he's playing right into their hands instead of attacking Clinton for other things and standing united with ALL U.S. citizens against foreign meddling with our election. He has openly called on Russia - or "whoever" - to continue the hacks! And they did! That is utterly shameless disregard for our national security, from the man who would be responsible for preserving! Every single Republican hero that all the Republicans have ever voted for up until now would be roiling with disgust to think that Trump is speaking favorably about Russians CYBERATTACKING US!!!

And if we're going to talk about things the FBI has found, it is incredibly dishonest to talk only about one and not the others! Why is the FBI currently investigating Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, for his ties to Russia? What about the others in Trump's leadership who have ties to Russia? Why did they change the GOP platform to favor Russian interests and then lie about having done so?

Why is Trump openly questioning support for our NATO allies when Russia is actively threatening their independence now in the most serious and aggressive way?

Russia is now repeating a pattern in the US that it has pursued in elections across Europe and in other places. I don't have time to post all the links to informative reporting on this matter but excellent reporting has been done. Start with Anne Applebaum, enemy #1 of the "frogs" who apparently have so little to do with Trump's candidacy. Trump's open admiration and support for Putin and refusal to stand up for our country against his aggressive actions is only explicable because it's a core tenet of the white nationalist alt right. That is who he is. All the people wanting to stop abortion either know it or are too stupid to care or vote, and that is the fact.

Edited to add one other thing I forgot earlier: Wikileaks. That really says it all. Trump supports Assange and Wikileaks; I really don't see how someone becomes the President of the United States, much less on the Republican ticket, while supporting these enemies of our nation. Why is Chelsea Manning sitting in jail while Candidate Trump supports Wikileaks and keeps encouraging people to read the leaks and decide on that basis? It is unbelievable to me that anyone who once voted Republican out of the slightest concern for national security, or who thinks patriotism or loyalty matter, is now embracing wikileaks out of sheer partisan spite. That is not a whistleblowing organization. Chelsea Manning thought she was a whistleblower but her actions were morally flawed and criminal. What is happening now with Wikileaks, Trump, and Russia is simply beyond belief. It would make more sense that all of this was some fevered dream, or some sort of giant prank.

[Cazmonster]

Just like this World Series game, the election is going to go to the wire.

I'm just happy to distract myself with making tacos that night for Taco Tuesday.

[Elle]

That's what I should make too - it's a good night for it. The whole thing just sickens me at this point. I'm not kidding about how immoral I think it is to vote for Trump, either, I'm sorry to say in mixed company. There are whole segments of my family, and certainly my husband's family, that I don't even care to see or speak to again because of their political views. My aunt is too stupid, so I am willing to talk to her, but it's difficult because she's also racist. The other ones know damn well what they're doing, and they do not care. They want that Wall, as if it stops anything. If I thought I could persuade them or their vote would matter, I might talk to them about it simply for that reason. But no. I am tired of the bullshit and have no further interest in "tolerance". If you're committed to democracy and think it is bar none the best and only form of government worth having, there are some things you just cannot tolerate. Refusing to accept the results of an election is #1 on that list. Threatening to jail and assault journalists is right up there too. Constantly calling for the jailing of your opponent without aid of judge or jury - and lol, let's not forget those witty "second amendment folk" solutions, whatever that might mean! - is right up there. (Assuming the judge passes muster, ha ha - no Mexicans!) If you can stomach all these racist, fascist things because you want to save the unborn, then at least ADMIT that you're willing to get rid of democracy based on a low-odds gamble that it will help your cause. The true altrighters have zero illusions about this. They are absolutely ready and willing and eager to get rid of democracy if it helps their cause.

[Mike]

I am leery of the line of argument that leads to, "The only way people can disagree with me is if they are either stupid or evil."

I agree that some of them are simply dumb or uninformed. I agree that some of them are racist, selfish, hateful. But of the people I know who are voting for Trump who aren't any of those things, a large part of their reasoning includes the idea that Hilary Clinton really is the criminal mastermind that the right has made her out to be.

I know that seems laughable, because the woman has been investigated nearly constantly for the last 20+ years, and repeatedly it has been shown that she has never been guilty of any wrong-doing in any of those cases. The most egregious things she is guilty of are: staying with a misogynistic husband; being careless (but not maliciously so) with information; and participating in activities that have the appearance (although not the actuality) of conflict of interest. None of these things are criminal. However, the Trump supporters I know pretty much all fervently believe that where there is smoke, there is fire, and that if she's been investigated this many times, it can only be because she is guilty of at least half of that stuff she is accused of, if not more. To me, it looks like conspiracy theory thinking, but they are convinced that she keeps getting away with her crimes because of her deep political connections.

That's all tough for me to envision, because to me, it is obvious that the huge number of investigations into her business have most of the time been politically motivated. But also, I live in a particular information bubble that I realize has been customized to cater to my personal liberal leanings, and while I see tons of stuff from the other side (because there's certain people you just can't cut out), I know that my filter has guided my information intake to reinforce my existing beliefs. I can't imagine what it's like to live in the Trump-voter information bubble. But whatever they are getting in that bubble makes them absolutely certain that Hilary Clinton is a criminal of the worst sort. They know without a doubt that she is a self-serving political animal who does not have the best interest of the nation at heart and whose selfish actions in office will only weaken our nation. They believe it as strongly as I believe that Trump is an ego-maniacal, narcissist, man-child who will sell out every principle of the Constitution if it serves his particular childish whims.

And here's the thing... if you point out all of Trump's many flaws, most Trump voters will readily acknowledge them, but in the scales of their mind, that makes him and Hilary the same. So if we're going to have a self-serving bastard as president, it might as well be the one with the (R) by his name who is more likely to support legislation and policies and justices who are on their side. Sure, he might not do those things, but it's a certainty that Hilary won't, so some chance is better than no chance.

I suppose you can still claim that they are stupid and uninformed, because they should be looking at the same information you and I are and coming to the same reasonable conclusion that we do that Hilary is not a criminal. But I'm not in that bubble. I don't know that it's a simple as that. To me, the flaws and dangers of a Trump presidency are glaringly obvious. I wish it was for everyone else too.

[Elle]

I really do not care if people come to the conclusion that Hillary is unfit for office in this way or that. I'm not calling anyone stupid for that reason. Nobody has to vote for Hillary if they don't want to.

I appreciate your charity but in this case cannot share it. There's an actual "repeal the 19th" campaign going now among Trump supporters, so I don't really have the luxury to extend an olive branch to the idiots and reprobates at the moment.

Stupid is when you have no clue what's going on, so you are okay with voting for Trump as baby-saver despite knowing nothing else about him. Sorry, that really is stupid.

Some know and don't care, which does in fact have a moral consequence. If you vote for someone who won't agree to respect the outcome of the election, keeps squawking about jailing a person who hasn't even been charged with a crime, appeals to 2nd amendment solutions and openly requests that our enemies attack us to serve his personal interests, you are okay with saying adieu to democracy. That is a huge moral problem. If that's an uncomfortable truth, well, it will be pretty fucking uncomfortable when Trump declares the election invalid because rigged, won't it? And that will be on you.

[Elle]

Jonathan Chait has a good essay here () on why the GOP is going to continue moving toward the right and especially toward authoritarian, nationalist-style leaders. Of course, I came to this essay as a prior convert, since I think the conventional wisdom that the GOP will do some soul-searching and swing back toward the right (from the far-right!) if they lose is completely wrong. Donald has wrecked their party in the sense that traditional values are out the window and now it's just anti-brown-people (the entirety of the foreign policy theory), anti-taxes, anti-abortion, and anti-woman generally.

The main thing that predicts whether you're a Donald supporter is whether you like authoritarian leadership styles. The average incomes of these voters are extremely high; this whole economic-worries narrative is baloney of the first order. You're relatively well-off, you resent paying taxes to support freeloaders you assume are undeserving brown people, you believe Hillary is taking your gun, and you hate feminists. That's the Donald voter in a nutshell, and so the GOP isn't pulling away from the edge. The best hope they would have of doing that rests on the Religious Right, but if my own acquaintances are any indication, those people love their money and dislike the brown people and feminists a lot more than they love the baby Jesus.

Edited to add: it's interesting in this regard that African American voters would in other respects make natural allies for Religious conservatives, but one of the single most segregated institutions in American life is church. If Religious conservatives were the ones taking up a Sanders-style message about economic inequality and poverty, and protecting our environmental health, even as they stuck with pro-life, pro-traditional family values stuff, I think they'd be a significant force to combat what's happening in the Republican party.

[akiva]

It's not just Trump that's done this. I think the person who is to blame for the GOP'S recalcitrance more than anyone else is Newt Gingrich. Back in the 80s, his PAC encouraged GOP candidates to call their opponents "sick" and "traitor." When candidates repeat such things for two decades, it's going to convince a lot of voters that Democrats are evil and dangerous. So anyone who cooperates with Democrats is a collaborating Quisling.

Edited to add this to the GOPAC memo.

[Mike]

One of the things that galls me the most is the Republicans who rightly condemned him and then doubled back.

He called Ted Cruz's wife ugly and told Cruz to his face that his father killed JFK. Cruz rightly condemned him and refused to endorse Trump at Trump's own convention. And now, a couple months later, Cruz is offering him full-throated support. That's disgusting.

[Eliahad]

[Mike]

Agreed.

[poorpete]

Clinton's deplorable remark was supposed to be outreach to the good Republicans, but 1. she said half and 2. she's Hillary

It's almost like the dynamic in relationships when talking about in-laws. You can bad-mouth your own family all you want, but you gotta be walking on egg shells bad-mouthing in-laws. The Dems have been good/ok at taking to task the radical leftist elements that do exist (eg. let's say those who think all cops are bad). The GOP has been good in the past, much much much much much less good this election.

Even when they try, they bring out the awfulness of themselves, like when DT Jr. says David Duke deserves a bullet. It's like, oh good, finally standing up to white supremacists, but... holy shit what he's asking to be done. How hard is "David Duke is an awful person, we do not want his or his supporter's support. I hope he and his followers never hold any political power ever again."

Anyways, if you bad-mouth even the worst of the opposing team, it's time to circle the wagons.

[[Vomit Emoji]]

[Elle]

I don't think it's a good idea for Clinton to say things like that, when she's the nominee, but is it not a fact that half of Trump's supporters belong in the basket? I love my aunt very much, but there is no question her political behavior is deplorable. She listens to nothing but Fox news, says a bunch of crazy crap that has no relation to reality, and enthusiastically embraces the worst of Donald. It's nauseating. I do not want to hear one word of her opinions on brown people. We are not that far from a time when lynching was common, for God's sake! Yes, it is deplorable.

[Cazmonster]

Every name that the journalists at Jezebel came up with for Trump during his campaign.

1. A really relaxed guy
2. An ambitious corn dog that escaped from the concession stand at a rural Alabama fairground, stole an unattended wig, hopped a freight train to Atlantic City and never looked back
3. Orange asshat
4. Four‐time bankruptcy filer and seething hernia mass
5. Bone‐in ham
6. Sun‐dried tomato
7. A shithead
8. Adult blobfish
9. Deflated football
10. Fart‐infused lump of raw meat
11. Melting pig carcass
12. Disgraced racist
13. Talking comb‐over
14. Human equivalent of cargo pants that zip away into shorts
15. Cheeto‐dusted bloviator
16. Fuzzy meat wad
17. Bag of flour
18. Human turd
19. Not in any way sexist, you bimbos
20. A man who cherishes women
21. Future leader of the free world
22. Decomposing ear of corn
23. His own best parody
24. A rich idiot ... willing to allow garbage to fall out of his mouth without batting a single golden lash
25. Pond scum
26. Noted troll
27. The class clown that everyone wishes would be quiet and let the class learn
28. Melting businessman
29. The person still inexplicably leading the Republican presidential primary
30. Wax museum figure on a very hot day
31. Soggy burlap sack
32. Bag of toxic sludge
33. Your next president and ruler for life
34. A brightly burning trash fire
35. Impoverished urchin
36. Aggressively stupid
37. Great judgment‐haver
38. Man‐sized sebaceous cyst
39. Enlarged pee‐splattered Sno Cone
40. Empty popcorn bag rotting in the sun
41. Man‐shaped asbestos insulation board
42. Hair plug swollen with rancid egg whites
43. Inside‐out lower intestine
44. Dusty barrel of fermented peepee
45. Usually reasonable burlap sack full of rancid Peeps
46. Degloved zoo penis
47. Presidential candidate and bargain bin full of yellowing Jean‐Claude Van Damme movies
48. Hairpiece come to life
49. Normal‐looking human man and entirely credible choice as future leader of the free world
50. Decomposing pumpkin pie inhabited by vicious albino squirrels
51. A dishrag that on closer inspection is alive with maggots
52. Lead paint factory explosion
53. Candied yam riddled with moldy spider carcasses
54. Enraged Gak spill
55. The shriveled pinto bean you had to pluck out of your Chipotle burrito basket
56. Human‐sized infectious microbe
57. Poorly‐trained circus orangutan
58. Chester Cheetah impersonator
59. Lumbering human‐like tardigrade
60. A tiny piece of dried cat poop that you found in your rug
61. Animate funnel cake
62. Seagull dipped in tikka masala
63. Bursting landfill of municipal solid waste
64. Mountain of rotting whale blubber
65. Sputum‐filled Orange Julius
66. Gangrenous gaping wound
67. Racist, sexist block of aged Cheddar
68. Oversized wasp exoskeleton stuffed with old mustard
69. Neo‐fascist real estate golem
70. Abandoned roadside ham hock
71. Bewildered, golden‐helmeted astronaut who’s just landed on this planet from a distant galaxy
72. Monument to human hubris crafted out of rotting Spam
73. A walking pile of reanimated roadkill
74. Heaving carcass
75. Stately hot dog casing
76. Flatulent leather couch
77. Swollen earthworm gizzard
78. Narcissistic bowl of rotten gazpacho
79. Yellowing hunk of masticated gristle
80. A human/Komodo dragon hybrid
81. Blackening scab artfully hiding in your Raisin Bran
82. “Taco truck”
83. A man who could one day become the first hobgoblin to enter the White House
84. A pair of chapped lips superglued to a hairball
85. Horsehair mattress stuffed with molding copies of Hustler
86. Malignant corn chip
87. Human Kinder Egg whose inner surprise is a tiny pebble of rat shit
88. The sculpture your three‐year‐old made out of soggy ground‐up goldfish snacks
89. A man with the hair of a radioactive skunk
90. Roiling Cheez Whiz mass
91. Cryogenically frozen bog man
92. A glistening, shouting gristle mass with a history of saying terrible and stupid things
93. Screaming giant cheese wedge
94. Republican frontrunner and 250‐pound accumulation of rancid beef
95. Day‐Glo roadside billboard about jock itch
96. Temperamental gelatinous sponge
97. Sentient hate‐balloon
98. A Rumpelstiltskin inflated with a bike pump and filled with bacteria
99. Sun‐kissed ass plug
100. Self‐tanning enthusiast
101. An enraged, bewigged fetus blown up to nightmarish size
102. Parental pile of burnt organic material
103. Human‐shaped wad of Gak
104. Walking irradiated tumor
105. Uncooked chicken breast
106. KKK rally port‐a‐potty holding tank
107. Neon‐tinted hellion
108. A plentiful field of dung piled into the shape of a presidential candidate
109. Malfunctioning wind turbine
110. Seeping fleabag
111. Sloshing styrofoam takeout container filled with three‐day‐old mac and cheese
112. A sticky, grabby, Cheeto‐hued toddler with no sense of adult deportment
113. Figurative rubber, and also literal rubber
114. A carnivorous plant watered with irradiated bat urine
115. Sentient waste disposal plant
116. A disappointment
117. Poorly‐drawn fascist
118. Racist teratoma
119. Lamprey eel spray‐painted gold
120. A hair that you pluck, causing a cluster of hairs to sprout in its place
121. Sunken, corroding soufflé
122. Nacho cheese golem
123. Undead tangerine
124. A cartoon representation of Irritable Bowel Syndrome in a pharmaceutical ad
125. Fossilized meatball
126. Horking mole‐creature suffering from radioactive spray‐tan
127. Tattered Craigslist sofa
128. A full‐grown Monopoly dog carefully balancing a spongecake atop his head
129. Play‐Doh factory explosion
130. A new superfood made of finely‐ground clown wigs
131. Unkempt troll doll found floating facedown in a tub of rancid Beluga caviar
132. Melting orange popsicle
133. A dangerous and stupid bigot who I do not have the heart to give a silly nickname to right now
134. A desiccated, hollowed‐out pumpkin stuffed with wasps
135. A rusted refrigerator left out in the sun until its contents rot and swell into one noxious, congealed mass
136. A regurgitated wombat
137. Moldy pumpkin spice latte
138. A tax‐avoidant opossum testicle dead‐set on becoming president
139. Shrieking carbuncle in a red power tie
140. A Chipotle burrito taken to its natural, digested conclusion
141. Evil toddler and our Republican presidential nominee
142. A clump of moldering drain hair
143. An inflated pig stomach full of rotten pierogi
144. Flatulent butternut squash
145. One putrescent orange marshmallow
146. A sentient pile of dirty sheets covered in poop
147. Pilonidal cyst
148. Sexist sentient carrot
149. An abandoned cruise ship full of people afflicted with the Noro virus
150. A jack‐o’‐lantern that at least ten people have been using as a toilet
151. Bruised yam
152. Flaming sack of shit
153. Overflowing litter box
154. A repugnant pile of fetid horse shit
155. Shaved bear
156. Demonic, racist goldfish
157. Everyone’s least favorite Republican presidential candidate/rotting jack‐o’‐lantern
158. The embodiment of a long and thunderous fart in a stalled elevator
159. Rancid Halloween Oreo filling
160. Rage‐addled Oompa Loompa
161. Rotten tanner‐saturated gourd
162. Man‐sized ass cyst
163. Your shitty racist uncle
164. A wizened ogre of a man with a mouth like an anus
165. Bewigged swollen gall bladder
166. A wheezing Blurrg from Endor’s forest moon
167. Trumpelstiltskin (whose gift is turning billions of dollars into air molecules)
168. Inflamed carbuncle
169. A face like a rusted manhole cover, hair that legally qualifies as a fire hazard, and the
diet of Templeton the rat
170. A soggy cracker spread with spoiled shrimp compote
171. Amphibious
172. Noted chode
173. An industrial‐sized wastebasket in a clip‐on tie
174. Impacted molar
175. A bag of hot garbage moldering in the summer sun
176. A dry creek bed mysteriously studded with dog turds
177. A haunted bidet
178. A yellowing mop dripping with an unidentifiable, viscous fluid
179. Anthropomorphic lie
180. A rooster who wandered into the house and has to be restrained beneath a metal wastebasket
181. The political equivalent of one of those mutant factory farm chickens with breasts so big it can’t walk
182. Spray‐tanned blobfish
183. The human equivalent to a hideously oppressive smell with no known provenance
184. A parking cone with emotional issues
185. Moldy prawn burrito
186. Gelatinous heap
187. A horrible man with hair like used dental floss and ideas that threaten the definition of democracy as we know it
188. A hexed tub of Velveeta that’s been brought to life and won’t stop screaming racist insults from inside your kitchen cabinet
189. A scabies outbreak in your freshman dormitory
190. Fetid pooh‐face
191. Floppy sack of rancid chicken fat
192. Self tanner‐soaked Whoopee cushion
193. A cicada husk dipped in fermenting carrot soup
194. Fire ant infestation with too many resources
195. A cirrhotic cheetah liver dusted in gold leaf
196. Walking staph infection
197. Large orange baby
198. A sociopathic golem whose mouth puckers like an anus
199. Serial woman‐cherisher
200. Besuited Chucky doll
201. Objectively horrible person
202. Toxic algae bloom
203. Noted orangémon
204. A man whose head firmly resembles a lone radioactive testicle sealed in a jar of formaldehyde
205. The contents of a dumpster behind a Roll N Roaster
206. Doritos Spicy Asbestos Flavor
207. A snot‐flavored Jelly Bean gaining a frightening amount of power and influence
208. Malformed traffic cone
209. Decaying, hollowed‐out tree trunk that is now housing a family of malnourished, furious possums
210. An enlarged brick of spittle‐flecked Crisco sliding headlong towards the White House
211. Our favorite fascist wad of upchucked puréed carrots
212. Gold‐tipped mucus plug
213. Melted Claymation villain
214. Unwashed fumigation tent
215. What happens when a GOP‐leaning member of mutant gang in The Hills Have Eyes has a wet dream
216. An eggroll to which someone has wastefully glued a hairpiece
217. One of those piles of sand by a highway
218. A golden goose so loved by God he was transformed into a human man, only the Lord got tired midway through and paused for rest, never to resume
219. Moldering Cheez‐It
220. A hunk of beef jerky that rolls under the couch and is left there to harden, becoming covered in dust and cat hair until a cockroach takes it back to its lair and makes it his wife
221. Actually three bigoted baby Muppets stacked on top of one another
222. Half‐melted pile of candy corn from Halloween ‘83
223. An angry ghost
224. Giant mound of hardened Cheez Whiz
225. A smushed up caterpillar your 6‐year‐old brother set on fire with a magnifying glass
226. Rotten kabocha squash
227. Taki‐colored shaved baboon