Trump's Death Cult Explained

[Ted Striker]

Why? You've been kvetching about Trump for three years. What has it accomplished? His approval rating has hovered around 40-45% the whole time per 538. I think the same people who hated him in 2016 hate him now, with little margin of error. Who are these people performing for, other than their bases? Who listens to them, other than their bases? Is anyone convinced, or even impressed, by anyone they didn't already agree with? I can tell without bothering to Google that there will be heaps upon heaps of pro-Trump pieces calling Cuomo a ... cuck, or whatever the hell diehard internet Trumpists are calling people these days. Performance art. Trump defines the narrative--for Trumpists. And also, to a good extent, for anti-Trumpists; who endlessly react, and react, and react.

As for the stakes, yelling at Trump will not move him, or anyone on his side, to behave in a more helpful fashion on the coronavirus or any other issue. As a matter of fact, there's not much you could ever do to make Trump act in a helpful way, beyond constant flattery, and that's not reliable even if you could stomach it. And the people with bread, iphones, beer, or whatever else they like better than listening to you guys go at it again, are not going to find this hectoring fascinating all of a sudden.

That sounds pretty defeatist.

Basically we should not normalize his behavior. It's not normal. People should continue to speak up and not just "it is what it is."

[Elok]

Far from it. The whole point is that most of what Trump does--blather--is irrelevant, because he doesn't persuade anyone either. He says something asinine, and hordes of uninformed people (sorta) believe it, though TBH I'm pretty sure you're underestimating the size of the "I wish he'd shut up but he's our bulwark against the leftists" crowd. But the opinions of these people don't matter except insofar as they affect who those people will vote for, which isn't changing. Everyone says he's lowering the discourse ... and the answer to that is to ignore. the. stupid. ****. he. says. Focus on the few things he actually does, and you'll be using the time more effectively without giving Trump control of the conversation. You won't, of course, for the same reason everyone here couldn't stop engaging BK and Kid. The temptation to play one-hole whack-a-mole is apparently just too tempting to most people.

[Ted Striker]

He’s the most powerful person in the world, not some small time internet troll.

Speaking up is a Constitutional designed check and balance and is a duty, not a personal Facebook gossip conflict.

“Whilst men are linked together, they easily and speedily communicate the alarm of any evil design. They are enabled to fathom it with common counsel, and to oppose it with united strength. Whereas, when they lie dispersed, without concert, order, or discipline, communication is uncertain, counsel difficult, and resistance impracticable. Where men are not acquainted with each other’s principles, nor experienced in each other’s talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy. In a connection, the most inconsiderable man, by adding to the weight of the whole, has his value, and his use; out of it, the greatest talents are wholly unserviceable to the public. No man, who is not inflamed by vain-glory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours, are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

–Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents 82-83 (1770) in: Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 1, p. 146 (Liberty Fund ed. 1999).

And this guy was a conservative!

[Aeson]

I personally like seeing people make fun of Trump because it saves me the hassle of personally wading through the soul destroying mass of lies and babbling to get to the funny parts. (Also true of those who point out pertinent policy points. Just not necessarily as funny.)

[Uncle Sparky]

I stopped listening to Trump a couple of years ago. I never did appreciate his style, and felt his content more distressing because he had established politicos enabling him. I agree with Aeson… seeing Trump through a filter really helps.

[Aeson]

Like I can go on Twitter and in 5 minutes know every absurdly moronic and dishonest thing that our Commander in Chief said and did for the day, without watching hour after hour of press conferences.

[Donegeal]

Disagree. There is no way in hell 5 minutes would cover EVERY stupid thing he says in a day. That's a brief summary at best.

[giblets]

When he was voted in it was closer to 45/45 (approval/disapproval). The election was actually 46.1/48.2 (with Clinton about 2% ahead). I have been pretty sure that the 42/52 approval numbers that he usually has been at would be enough for 2020 to go against him, similar to how 2018 went against the Republicans (but was close).

I would feel more comfortable if it was more like his low (36.5/57.5) then his recent high of 46/50 because some who disapprove will not vote Democrat.

The generic congressional ballot has stayed at around 41/49 in favor of the Democrats which is another pointer to a Democrat victory in November. In 2018, the generic ballot was between +6 and +9 in the Democrat's favor, so it looks like we are looking at a similar go this time (Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Arizona went Democrat in 2018).

JM

However the Democrats are going to nominate someone who is borderline senile and can't explain what he wants to do as president. Snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.

[dannubis]

I thought bernie sanders stepped out of the race?

[Elok]

Ted, I'm not saying let the president DO whatever he wants. Just ignore the stupid crap he SAYS. Suppose he tweets (or says, or whatever) "Senator AOC is just mad because I raised the tariffs on beans. These Mexicans come to our country and won't buy American beans. Sad!"

There are so many things wrong with this statement that it's hard to say where one would start, but I don't doubt that Vox, WaPo, NYT, CNN, and everybody else would exhaustively cover it from every conceivable angle, expending hundreds of man-hours between them cataloguing all the ways Trump is wrong. These rebuttals would be read almost exclusively by people who already think Trump is a worthless jackass. And when they were done, Trump would just shrug and say something else wrong, restarting the whole cycle. Nothing would change, nothing has changed, nothing will change. And while everybody is focusing on arguing with weird racist gibberish, they're not paying as much attention as they should to actual significant events and policies. Taibbi says the COVID stimulus package has utterly massive favors for the rich buried in it, for example. If all those people who are currently busy barking at tweets worked on refocusing public attention like stuff like that, we might have at least slightly saner fiscal policy.

[-Jrabbit]

The thing that drives me crazy about the "how and why of Trump's latest lie" coverage is that the process ends up repeating those lies in great detail, and spreading them to a wider audience.

[Berzerker]

how can the media complain about the stimulus without complaining about the Congressional Democrats responsible for it?

[Egbert]

Trump seems to deliberately target and provoke the lefties and the woke crowd. Their reaction seems to play into his hands.

Hillary describing Trump supportets as deplorables ead good for Trump and bad for Hillary. It portrayed her as condescending and allowed Trump to frame himself ad opposing these arrogant lefties.

SOC attacking Trump is hood for Trump because he can frame her as a loony lefty and frame himself as protecting America from loony lefties.

I sm not libingbin America fk I may er be mistaken. That is my impression of Trump.

I think Trump speaks to the emotions of his listeners and gives careful though to what he says. I think there is a method to his madness.

[Dauphin]

He may give thought to what he says - he’s pretty transparent and honest in saying what he thinks. I don’t think he gives thought to what will go down well - he gets guidance from Fox, or whomever, on what his base is thinking and gives a garbled version of it. When he has to respond on the fly he just turns to the same stock responses.

[Arrian]

Trump seems to deliberately target and provoke the lefties and the woke crowd. Their reaction seems to play into his hands.

Hillary describing Trump supportets as deplorables ead good for Trump and bad for Hillary. It portrayed her as condescending and allowed Trump to frame himself ad opposing these arrogant lefties.

SOC attacking Trump is hood for Trump because he can frame her as a loony lefty and frame himself as protecting America from loony lefties.

I sm not libingbin America fk I may er be mistaken. That is my impression of Trump.

I think Trump speaks to the emotions of his listeners and gives careful though to what he says. I think there is a method to his madness.

You're partly right and partly wrong. Saying he carefully thinks **** through is laughably false, but the rest: that he's basically a RW internet troll triggerin' the libs and tickling the amydalas of wingers, is correct.

[Arrian]

EDIT: JUST REALIZED I SAID AESON, MEANT ARRIAN

Aeson, you're not forcing yourself to do even the roughest of math here.

1) Hospital capacity in most of the country is not even CLOSE to being overwhelmed. The lockdowns started far too early in these places to make a "bending the curve" argument be sensible. And in New York City & surrounding environs, close to 30% of the population HAS ALREADY BEEN INFECTED. We did nothing to bend the curve, and are now just delaying illnesses until the second wave in the fall. We should release the lockdown here NOW and get as many people infected as possible b/c hospital capacity utilization will be FAR below peak in 2 weeks when those newly infected might need it
2) without any intervening measures something like 50-60% of people will get it. In a demographically representative group that about 0.3% of those will die. Call it 500k people or so, with a median age of 75
3) you're not at all asking the question of how important to this death toll hospital capacity is - from what I can tell, the bulk of these deaths happen with or without hospitalization. Ventilation fails in 3/4 of cases
4) you're failing to account for the offsetting problem that the longer this is drawn out, the less able we are to attain differential infection rates between the young & old/vulnerable

Onan expected value basis,my guess is that nothing we've done can plausibly claim to have saved more than a few thousand lives (and possibly 0). Given that they were already elderly, that's a few tens of billion dollars' worth. Meanwhile, 22 million people have lost their jobs in 4 weeks and the rest of us have had to endure substantial restrictions on our freedom and our enjoyment of life. The costs outweigh the benefits

Let. It. Happen. Lockdowns are simply an ineffectual expression of people's fear and need to feel somehow in control. And they will end soon enough as the fear of the virus fades and the harsh economic pain sets in.

Krazyhorse, noted epidemiologist everybody.

[Elok]

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-trickle-up-bailout

Don't know enough to evaluate, but I've never known Taibbi to be a fool.

(I mentioned this in my last post so it's not a TOTAL tangent)

[KrazyHorse]

Krazyhorse, noted epidemiologist everybody.

Yes, instead of reasoning things out for yourself, please place your faith in the "experts" who were blithely presenting fatality curves assuming a 3.5% fatality rate a month ago.

They don't know **** on this one. Their projections have been wrong, wrong, wrong, and their policy suggestions fail to reason beyond the next move.

[Uncle Sparky]

Why aren't you out protesting in a large group? Go spread the plague! Make America die again!

[Arrian]

This sure aged well!

[giblets]

Well, if they underestimated the death rate and it turned out to be worse than they predicted everyone would want their head on a stick.

[KrazyHorse]

If they knew they were going to be off by a factor of ten they shouldn't have made any predictions; they should have been banging on the table for data.

**** them.