Just when you think that it is finally over for Trump, we find that it is over for Trump again. In just the past few days, we have the Supreme Court ruling, Safe Harbor Day, and Rudy and Jenna Ellis getting COVID. It is no longer about Trump attempting a coup, but how much money Trump can bilk from his supporters. Trump is not a master con artist; his followers are just stupid beyond belief.
I must admit that I frequently shout that exact assessment of Trump's supporters at the TV screen, but can that be all there is to his cult-like following? Is there anything more to our social and political divide than IQ?
ReplyDeleteIt might be that Trump followers are used to taking things on faith and giving money to charlatans. Yes, I am referring to religious cults. How ironic that Joe Biden is the real man of religion. Biden is a shining example of what is good about religion, while Trump is pretending to be religious to con his followers.
ReplyDeleteA portion of his supporters are the cults. But another portion are those self-centered narcissists who only care about their 401(k)'s, democracy be damned. The last portion are the real elitist, personified by Satan himself, McConnell, who just crave power for power's sake so they can hold things above people.
ReplyDeleteAs for it being "over again", it isn't really over until a peaceful transfer of power has actually taken place. The Trump supporters are getting crazier and threatening more violence and Bozo is encouraging them. We have 2 more months to go. We will see.
I would not worry too much about violence from Trump supporters except for a few nuts that might assassinate election officials.
DeleteAs for the Trump supporters that are financially motivated, they have already wrung out all the benefit from him and are ready to throw him under the bus. If Trump really threatens their wealth by advocating violence, they will instruct their Republican stooges to use the 25th amendment.
4 people stabbed in DC at pro-Trump rally with 8 total taken to the hospital, including 2 police officers. Two remain in the hospital seriously injured.
Delete1 person shot at a pro-Trump rally in Washington State
I think it is too early to dismiss violence from Trump supporters just as yet.
We have had worse violence in the past. Trump is just scamming his base. Except for a few nuts that are willing to die for him, his supporters are fundamentally cowards, all bark and no bite.
DeleteI wish it was just Trump scamming his base. 128 House Representatives have signed on to invalidate the votes of the American public, as well as dozens of state attorney generals. When large numbers of our elected officials are insane manipulators, nothing can be taken for granted. Two months to go. We will see.
DeleteSatan just congratulated Biden and Harris. Maybe there is hope.
DeleteWere you referring to McConnell or Putin? I think that McConnell knows he has to pivot away from Trump to save the Senate in the Georgia runoff. I think that Putin knows he got all he can get from Trump and is ready to throw him under the bus. So far Trump has attacked neither of them. I wonder what he is up to.
DeleteThe only thing that can save the Senate is for both democratic candidates in Georgia to win. Otherwise it is back to a Congress that does nothing except pack the judiciary with religious fundamentalists, corporate hacks, and the generally unqualified.
DeleteAs for McConnell, you lay with dogs and you come up with fleas. Only one nut in the Senate has to protest when the electoral college count comes up to Congress and they will be forced to investigate. That is why he was on TV begging today. You reap what you sow.
Even if the Dems get control of the Senate, they will only have 50 votes. Joe Manchin has already pledged that he will vote against ending the filibuster. That means that the GOP can block almost anything, except cabinet and judicial appointments, and budget reconciliation. Which means that the Dems can reverse parts of Trump's tax cuts. But if the GOP keeps control of the Senate, all Biden can do is to reverse some of Trump's executive orders.
DeleteI am not going to argue that even with the Georgia seats that it would be easy to get anything done. But without them, nothing gets done. With them there is the chance that senators with some modicum of sense and character like Romney or maybe the two women (who have been unreliable up to now) could help move the body in a more productive direction.
DeleteWe are getting off topic, but I have to say that Satan holding up legislation to provide aid to the country at this time is the most cruel, inhumane action conceivable, which is why I am having no problem calling him that. How do you put people out in the cold to starve in the middle of a pandemic unless you are the devil himself? Over giving money to states to pay their EMTs, teachers, and firefighters? Over not having companies being responsible for not protecting their workers from pandemic, even when the companies are making bets on how many of their workers are going to get sick and die? Calling McConnell Satan is actually an insult to the devil.
DeleteAmazon is slow rolling how many of its warehouse workers have come down with the virus right now.
DeleteThey are saying that a COVID relief package is near. I hope they are right. Whatever Congress agrees on, Trump has to sign it. The Dems need to get whatever they can get now and hope for a bigger package when Biden takes office. If the Dems get control of the Senate, the Republicans can still filibuster. They would need 10 GOP Senators to overcome that.
DeleteIn trying to make sense of Nazi Germany, Eric Hoffer wrote this in The True Believer in 1951:
ReplyDelete“There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and a proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustrated in the actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous, which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They ask to be deceived. What Stresemann said of the Germans is true of the frustrated in general: ‘[They] pray not only for [their] daily bread, but also for [their] daily illusion.’”
Whatever other reasons people may have for supporting the Trump presidency – financial interests, racism, xenophobia, resentment, etc. – Hoffer’s description may capture something at the core of his base that, at least so far, holds them in his grip and gives him control of this new frightening iteration of one of our two main political parties. If this is an accurate assessment of the current political landscape, what happens now? Can we as a society abandon illusion and ground ourselves in reality? Is there any way short of an alien invasion to get the country to agree on some common interests and puncture this balloon, or does it have to continue to inflate until it explodes?
That is the 64,000 dollar question. We will see. Nice quote, BTW.
ReplyDelete