Idiocracy
- Thread starter Highlander
- Start date
bustaheims
Well-known member
CarltonTheBear said:
It could be very interesting to see what happens to the Republicans if Trump is their nominee. They've been a fractured party for a while now, and Trump winning their nomination could be enough to really drive the wedge into those cracks, and drive the more moderate "establishment" Republicans away from the party in this election. In the short-term, it could be really damaging, but in the long-run, it could be exactly what they need to bring the party back to a place where they're united and on the same page.
hockeyfan1
New member
Patrick said:
You couldn't have said it better. Spot on!
WhatIfGodWasALeaf
Active member
[youtube]QfjaQe_7T1Q[/youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfjaQe_7T1Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfjaQe_7T1Q
hockeyfan1
New member
Bigotry and racism aside, the reason Donald Trump resonates with a segment of the U.S. populace:
Trade is an issue that polarizes Americans by socio-economic status. To the professional class, which encompasses the vast majority of our media figures, economists, Washington officials and Democratic powerbrokers, what they call ?free trade? is something so obviously good and noble it doesn?t require explanation or inquiry or even thought. Republican and Democratic leaders alike agree on this, and no amount of facts can move them from their Econ 101 dream.
To the remaining 80 or 90% of America, trade means something very different. There?s a video going around on the internet these days that shows a room full of workers at a Carrier air conditioning plant in Indiana being told by an officer of the company that the factory is being moved to Monterrey, Mexico, and that they?re all going to lose their jobs.
As I watched it, I thought of all the arguments over trade that we?ve had in this country since the early 1990s, all the sweet words from our economists about the scientifically proven benevolence of free trade, all the ways in which our newspapers mock people who say that treaties like the North American Free Trade Agreement allow companies to move jobs to Mexico.
Well, here is a video of a company moving its jobs to Mexico, courtesy of Nafta. This is what it looks like. The Carrier executive talks in that familiar and highly professional HR language about the need to ?stay competitive? and ?the extremely price-sensitive marketplace?. A worker shouts (edited)?F*#" you!? at the executive. The executive asks people to please be quiet so he can ?share? his ?information?. His information about all of them losing their jobs.
-----------
A map of his support may coordinate with racist Google searches, but it coordinates even better with deindustrialization and despair, with the zones of economic misery that 30 years of Washington?s free-market consensus have brought the rest of America...
...a study just published by Working America, a political-action auxiliary of the AFL-CIO, which interviewed some 1,600 white working-class voters in the suburbs of Cleveland and Pittsburgh in December and January.
Support for Donald Trump, the group found, ran strong among these people, even among self-identified Democrats, but not because they are all pining for a racist in the White House. Their favorite aspect of Trump was his ?attitude?, the blunt and forthright way he talks. As far as issues are concerned, ?immigration? placed third among the matters such voters care about, far behind their number one concern: ?good jobs / the economy?.
?People are much more frightened than they are bigoted,? is how the findings were described to me by Karen Nussbaum, the executive director of Working America. The survey ?confirmed what we heard all the time: people are fed up, people are hurting, they are very distressed about the fact that their kids don?t have a future? and that ?there still hasn?t been a recovery from the recession, that every family still suffers from it in one way or another."
Tom Lewandowski, the president of the Northeast Indiana Central Labor Council in Fort Wayne, puts it even more bluntly when I asked him about working-class Trump fans. ?These people aren?t racist, not any more than anybody else is,? he says of Trump supporters he knows. ?When Trump talks about trade, we think about the Clinton administration, first with Nafta and then with [Permanent Normal Trade Relations] China, and here in Northeast Indiana, we hemorrhaged jobs.?
?They look at that, and here?s Trump talking about trade, in a ham-handed way, but at least he?s representing emotionally. We?ve had all the political establishment standing behind every trade deal, and we endorsed some of these people, and then we?ve had to fight them to get them to represent us. As Trump says, ?we have rebuilt China and yet our country is falling apart. Our infrastructure is falling apart ? Our airports are, like, Third World.?
Trump?s words articulate the populist backlash against liberalism that has been building slowly for decades and may very well occupy the White House itself..."
Read the rest here:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/donald-trump-why-americans-support
Trade is an issue that polarizes Americans by socio-economic status. To the professional class, which encompasses the vast majority of our media figures, economists, Washington officials and Democratic powerbrokers, what they call ?free trade? is something so obviously good and noble it doesn?t require explanation or inquiry or even thought. Republican and Democratic leaders alike agree on this, and no amount of facts can move them from their Econ 101 dream.
To the remaining 80 or 90% of America, trade means something very different. There?s a video going around on the internet these days that shows a room full of workers at a Carrier air conditioning plant in Indiana being told by an officer of the company that the factory is being moved to Monterrey, Mexico, and that they?re all going to lose their jobs.
As I watched it, I thought of all the arguments over trade that we?ve had in this country since the early 1990s, all the sweet words from our economists about the scientifically proven benevolence of free trade, all the ways in which our newspapers mock people who say that treaties like the North American Free Trade Agreement allow companies to move jobs to Mexico.
Well, here is a video of a company moving its jobs to Mexico, courtesy of Nafta. This is what it looks like. The Carrier executive talks in that familiar and highly professional HR language about the need to ?stay competitive? and ?the extremely price-sensitive marketplace?. A worker shouts (edited)?F*#" you!? at the executive. The executive asks people to please be quiet so he can ?share? his ?information?. His information about all of them losing their jobs.
-----------
A map of his support may coordinate with racist Google searches, but it coordinates even better with deindustrialization and despair, with the zones of economic misery that 30 years of Washington?s free-market consensus have brought the rest of America...
...a study just published by Working America, a political-action auxiliary of the AFL-CIO, which interviewed some 1,600 white working-class voters in the suburbs of Cleveland and Pittsburgh in December and January.
Support for Donald Trump, the group found, ran strong among these people, even among self-identified Democrats, but not because they are all pining for a racist in the White House. Their favorite aspect of Trump was his ?attitude?, the blunt and forthright way he talks. As far as issues are concerned, ?immigration? placed third among the matters such voters care about, far behind their number one concern: ?good jobs / the economy?.
?People are much more frightened than they are bigoted,? is how the findings were described to me by Karen Nussbaum, the executive director of Working America. The survey ?confirmed what we heard all the time: people are fed up, people are hurting, they are very distressed about the fact that their kids don?t have a future? and that ?there still hasn?t been a recovery from the recession, that every family still suffers from it in one way or another."
Tom Lewandowski, the president of the Northeast Indiana Central Labor Council in Fort Wayne, puts it even more bluntly when I asked him about working-class Trump fans. ?These people aren?t racist, not any more than anybody else is,? he says of Trump supporters he knows. ?When Trump talks about trade, we think about the Clinton administration, first with Nafta and then with [Permanent Normal Trade Relations] China, and here in Northeast Indiana, we hemorrhaged jobs.?
?They look at that, and here?s Trump talking about trade, in a ham-handed way, but at least he?s representing emotionally. We?ve had all the political establishment standing behind every trade deal, and we endorsed some of these people, and then we?ve had to fight them to get them to represent us. As Trump says, ?we have rebuilt China and yet our country is falling apart. Our infrastructure is falling apart ? Our airports are, like, Third World.?
Trump?s words articulate the populist backlash against liberalism that has been building slowly for decades and may very well occupy the White House itself..."
Read the rest here:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/donald-trump-why-americans-support
Highlander
Active member
When Bernie loses they are giving him a consolation job as Mayor of Havana
Boston Leaf
New member
as an American Donald Trump sickens me to the core
crazyperfectdevil
New member
Boston Leaf said:
let's hope you're not alone
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-my-hands-are-normal-hands/
I absolutely love that this is a topic of conversation for a potential POTUS. I mean I don't... but I do.
He described them as "good size", "slightly large", "slightly smaller than large" and "normal".
If I was campaigning against Trump I'd just keep hitting him with questions about his hands until he explodes.
I absolutely love that this is a topic of conversation for a potential POTUS. I mean I don't... but I do.
He described them as "good size", "slightly large", "slightly smaller than large" and "normal".
If I was campaigning against Trump I'd just keep hitting him with questions about his hands until he explodes.
bustaheims
Well-known member
CarltonTheBear said:
My favourite part of all of this is that the whole thing traces back to a 30 year old joke insult from Spy magazine - which was essentially a high-minded version of National Lampoon. It was never portrayed as fact, and, yet, it's one of those things that just stuck.
bustaheims said:
I didn't know that's where it came from. Thought it was original material. There goes all the respect that I had for Rubio.
McGarnagle
New member
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnpO_RTSNmQ
I can't imagine too many people haven't seen John Oliver's analysis of Trump, but its pretty priceless.
I can't imagine too many people haven't seen John Oliver's analysis of Trump, but its pretty priceless.
Highlander
Active member
Just read Rob Ford is sedated for his pain, I guess Dear Rob is on his way to the happy hunting grounds. Kind of makes me feel sad. All the laughes he provided were priceless.
McGarnagle
New member
Seriously dude? C'mon, edit or delete your post.
bustaheims
Well-known member
McGarnagle said:
Agreed. No matter what your opinions of him as a mayor (or even as a person), he's still a human being. Have some respect for that.
