U.S. Politics: He's an Idiot, Plain and Simple

[Altherion]

24 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Alternatively, nobody in a position to use it needed to exploit it to such an extent in order to win.  Bush I used Willie Horton, but obviously he didn't center his whole campaign around racial resentment.  That Trump had to go that well so much to win makes him adaptable, sure, but I'm failing to see how it demonstrates any particular insight or intelligence.

Your first sentence is true of former Presidents (and in fact Bush I and II would probably have lost as the environment most likely wasn't right for this approach), but it is manifestly not true of Trump's contemporaries. If you go back to before the primaries started, Trump was barely considered a top-tier candidate (if that -- and only by virtue of leading the polls). There were quite a few candidates with much more serious qualifications and significantly more money. All of them took the conventional, moderate approach... and all of them lost.

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, Altherion said:

but it is manifestly not true of Trump's contemporaries. If you go back to before the primaries started, Trump was barely considered a top-tier candidate (if that -- and only by virtue of leading the polls). There were quite a few candidates with much more serious qualifications and significantly more money. All of them took the conventional, moderate approach... and all of them lost.

Yes, in terms of the primaries, Trump displayed better political instincts than his opponents.  That more speaks to the deficiencies of that field than a testament to his intelligence in my book.

[Jace, Extat]

9 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Yes, in terms of the primaries, Trump displayed better political instincts than his opponents.  That more speaks to the deficiencies of that field than a testament to his intelligence in my book.

You're talking at a brick window.

The only book altherion has is filled with the deranged ways I put his daddy to work.

Bet he'll never look at birds the same way.

[Altherion]

20 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Yes, in terms of the primaries, Trump displayed better political instincts than his opponents.  That more speaks to the deficiencies of that field than a testament to his intelligence in my book.

Sure, he benefited from the quality of his opponents in the primaries and even more so in the general election, but I think attributing his success solely or even mostly to this underrates his accomplishments. In the recent political past, the candidates, issues and so on have been secondary to a rather simple metric: who raises and spends the most cash. In fact, one has to go back 40 years to Carter vs. Ford to find a Presidential election where the person who didn't raise the most most money won -- and even there the spending was pretty close. Trump not only lost by this metric, he was outspent by almost exactly a factor of two to one... but he still managed to win the election. It takes more than good instincts to beat them like that.

[Yukle]

@Altherion and @dmc515, reading your back and forth has been pretty fun.  

The Republican parties appeals to racism and bigotry as part of its platform. However, it has always been subtle enough to deny it's their real intention. Trump didn't display particular intelligence in just making it overt, if anything he stumbled onto the strategy and it worked.

Trump gave the racists of the Republican permission to be open about their views. For voters, it was a validating experience. To be told time and time again they're racist is disheartening and to have someone speak for them meant they have since flocked to him.

Dumpster was the first person to try being an overt bigot. Not really due to any political instincts, more just that he is an unfiltered twit. Republicans around the country are supporting Trump because he is the face of their party's views: racism, bigotry and unrestricted oligarchy.

Crucially, though, Trump's victory highlights that although Republicans are speaking for these voters, they didn't have a monopoly on such people. Swing voters can be bigots, as can Democrats. It's just never been such a major election issue.

Trump showed no brilliance by being a dickhead. And lots of Republicans (and Democrats) will be kicking themselves that they didn't try being bigots earlier. Turns out it is a vote-winner with key swing voters, and takes a good chunk of Democrats, too. And it wasn't Trump who figured out how to utilise the bigotry; Steven Bannon (Sith Lord) was the one who made the Rust Belt strategy, not Trump.

[DMC]

27 minutes ago, Altherion said:

In the recent political past, the candidates, issues and so on have been secondary to a rather simple metric: who raises and spends the most cash. In fact, one has to go back 40 years to Carter vs. Ford to find a Presidential election where the person who didn't raise the most most money won -- and even there the spending was pretty close. Trump not only lost by this metric, he was outspent by almost exactly a factor of two to one... but he still managed to win the election. It takes more than good instincts to beat them like that.

Well, first, those aren't the numbers I recall.  It may be because that link doesn't include joint fundraising committees like this one.  Second, I think the main lesson from the fundraising disparity in 2016 is it has diminishing returns.  Trump is still one of only five presidential candidates to reject matching funds, and the amount being spent in presidential contests since 2008 is absurd.  The amount Trump actually raised, about $650 million, is more than any pre-2008 candidate except Nixon, even when normalized.  

I think you're vastly overestimating the explanatory power of fundraising.  Look at 2008.  McCain was outspent 3 to 1, but he lost primarily because a Republican wasn't getting elected that cycle, and Obama most likely would have won by the same margin if he only outspent McCain 2 to 1. 

[mankytoes]

8 hours ago, dmc515 said:

If you're saying I'm being elitist by preferring a president that possesses a certain level of intelligence and knowledge so as to inform her decisions and behavior, then yes, color me elitist.

No, not at all. I believe in rule by the best, not rule by "an average guy like me". Trump is not a suitable person to be President, for several reasons. 

But this isn't just about Trump. We all know the people who say he's "just an idiot" also think that about all his voters. That's more of a problem. Like most people on here, I'm guessing, I'm fairly academic, I got pretty good grades. But that doesn't make me see other people as idiots. A lot of the time less academic people can still be smart in different ways. I often struggle to read and understand people. That's an important aspect of intelligence. 

I wouldn't say elitism, but I do feel that there is a general undercurrent of smugness, not from you in particular, but from leftists generally. Maybe left wing Americans should spend less time mocking Trump and more time looking at the state of their party.

6 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Well when it came to military strategy, yes he was. It would seem many German Generals (or at the really good ones, like Manstein and so forth) didn't have a really high opinion of his military abilities. And once in office he wasn't known to be a very diligent worker, but was kind of lazy. In fact, if I recall correctly, OKH or maybe it was OKW or whatever had to wait several hours before moving reinforcements to Normandy, shortly after the allied invasion begun, because Hitler was getting his beauty rest. Nor was he known to be very good with details. So he was kind of a lazy idiot.

He certainly wasn't a good military leader. But it's pretty mind boggling that any idiot could think someone could take a complete non-entity of a political party (I think he was member fifty?) and become dictator of a major country. Being able to retain power while being lazy, if anything, is an indicator someone is more intelligent. 

[butterbumps!]

7 hours ago, Altherion said:

It's easy to say that now that he has won, but why do you think nobody tried the same approach before him? We know these are not his deeply held, lifelong views -

   Oh boy, there's a lot of interesting assertions here.  From this and your subsequent posts, it seems like you are trying to say that Trump isn't actually racist, and that his racism was/is a shrewd strategic performance, because he rightly identified white America's demons better than his opponents.

Those are incredible assertions.   First of all, we know he's racist AF (and sexist).   He has a long history of racist (and sexist) behavior and statements that's been well documented.   This isn't a performance for him.   He's your typical poorly informed, Fox News enthusiast, harboring a garden of resentments.  That's who he is.  There's no strategic performance there.  It also seems as though you believe he's capable of putting on a performance distinct from his true persona; it should be clear this is not something he is capable of.   

Secondly, I don't believe for a second that he, nor anyone else in his circle, actually meant to win this office, nor that any of them believed his brand of bigotry was a viable method of winning initially.  It appears that this was largely a publicity stunt gone wrong.   It was Corey Lewindowski, the first campaign manager, who seemed to grasp that Trump's stupidity and demagoguery weren't gaffes, but rather resonated with the nation's worst demons, and had real power.  Trump's handlers had been trying to contain him; Lewindowski is the one who said "let Trump be Trump" after this approach received applause. 

This wasn't some prescient strategy derived from a unique understanding of white resentment.  He's an ill-informed, Fox News watching bigot, unable to be anything else, who stumbled into applause.

Quote

- the last time he tried to run for President, his platform was something along the lines of fair trade and universal health care. That obviously didn't work for him so he found something that did.

he ran on those things this time too.  

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I've never met him so I can't judge his intelligence,

Really Altherion?  

Quote

but he certainly drew a correct conclusion that practically everyone else missed and this is almost never the mark of anyone below or even at the average level of intelligence.

No.  Once again, he's an ill-informed, Fox News-watching bigot, nursing severe resentment, who is unable to be anything else due to a host of personality and intellectual deficiencies, including, but not limited to, a lack of discipline, curiosity, and shame, who stumbled into success.   He's hardly the only potential politician who understood white (and male, straight, christian) resentment; like, this is the raison d'etre of Fox News, ffs.   But other candidates aren't super interested with stoking these kinds of resentment, perhaps in part because it's a really unsustainable tack for a party to take in the long term. Other politicians actually do care about long-term goals for their party in many cases; Trump doesn't.  He always goes for the short term wins (look at his history of burning people he worked with; you can only get away with his tactics once.  The man is allergic to strategy).

Someone else said this ages ago, but he's basically a low-information voter who stumbled into the presidency.  This isn't strategic.  He's being himself.

[Jace, Extat]

6 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

   Oh boy, there's a lot of interesting assertions here.  From this and your subsequent posts, it seems like you are trying to say that Trump isn't actually racist, and that his racism was/is a shrewd strategic performance, because he rightly identified white America's demons better than his opponents.

Those are incredibly stupid assertions.   First of all, we know he's racist AF (and sexist).   He has a long history of racist (and sexist) behavior and assertions that's been well documented.   This isn't a performance for him.   He's your typical poorly informed, Fox News enthusiast, harboring a garden of resentments.  That's who he is.  There's no strategic performance there.  It also seems as though you believe he's capable of putting on a performance distinct from his true persona; it should be clear this is not something he is capable of.   

Secondly, I don't believe for a second that he, nor anyone else in his circle, actually meant to win this office, nor that any of them believed his brand of bigotry was a viable method of winning initially.  It appears that this was largely a publicity stunt gone wrong.   It was Corey Lewindowski, the first campaign manager, who seemed to grasp that Trump's stupidity and demagoguery weren't gaffes, but rather resonated with the nation's worst demons, and had real power.  Trump's handlers had been trying to contain him; Lewindowski is the one who said "let Trump be Trump" after this approach received applause. 

This wasn't some prescient strategy derived from a unique understanding of white resentment.  He's an ill-informed, Fox News watching bigot, unable to be anything else, who stumbled into applause.

he ran on those things this time too.  

Really Altherion?  

No.  Once again, he's an ill-informed, Fox News-watching bigot, nursing severe resentment, who is unable to be anything else due to a host of personality and intellectual deficiencies, including, but not limited to, a lack of discipline, curiosity, and shame, who stumbled into success.   He's hardly the only potential politician who understood white (and male, straight, christian) resentment; like, this is the raison d'etre of Fox News, ffs.   Other candidates aren't super interested with stoking these kinds of resentment, perhaps in part because it's a really unsustainable tack for a party to take in the long term. Other politicians actually do care about long-term goals for their party in many cases; Trump doesn't.  He always goes for the short term wins (look at his history of burning people he worked with; you can only get away with his tactics once.  The man is allergic to strategy).

Someone else said this ages ago, but he's basically a low-information voter who stumbled into the presidency.  This isn't strategic.  He's being himself.

Ever the opportunist, never the strategist.

The difference between Trump and the man that quote was about is that Eric Ludendorff was a fucking genius before his brain cracked under the pressure.

That's the simplest way I can express the disconnect between success and brilliance. About Ludendorff, such a statement could be an indictment or praise depending on context of the speaker. There is no question about Trump.

[mormont]

9 hours ago, mankytoes said:

He's played the game, and he's played it well. Learn from history or repeat it.

This, and so many other posts, are classic examples of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Trump won, therefore the things he did in the process of winning must have been deliberate, planned, intended, and must explain his victory. 

Falling into that fallacy does not represent learning from history. Quite the reverse.

4 hours ago, Yukle said:

The Republican parties appeals to racism and bigotry as part of its platform. However, it has always been subtle enough to deny it's their real intention. Trump didn't display particular intelligence in just making it overt, if anything he stumbled onto the strategy and it worked.

Even then, Trump is not an 'overt' bigot, at least not in the eyes of his supporters. The veneer of plausible deniability is a lot thinner than is usual even in the Republican party, but he (usually) acknowledges just enough of the forms that his voters can persuade themselves that the things he says aren't really racist. For these voters, this is a louder, less subtle dog whistle, but still a dog whistle. 

[butterbumps!]

1 hour ago, mankytoes said:

But this isn't just about Trump. We all know the people who say he's "just an idiot" also think that about all his voters. That's more of a problem. Like most people on here, I'm guessing, I'm fairly academic, I got pretty good grades. But that doesn't make me see other people as idiots. A lot of the time less academic people can still be smart in different ways. I often struggle to read and understand people. That's an important aspect of intelligence. 

If it makes you feel better, I tend to think of most of them more as fragile contemptibles.  Or as bigotry-accepting profiteer contemptibles for the Repub elites that were looking for corporate handouts.

Quote

I wouldn't say elitism, but I do feel that there is a general undercurrent of smugness, not from you in particular, but from leftists generally. Maybe left wing Americans should spend less time mocking Trump and more time looking at the state of their party.

What are you seeing as the left mocking Trump at the expense of getting their own house in order?   Maybe more to the point, what are you seeing as "mocking?"

[OldGimletEye]

2 hours ago, mankytoes said:

He certainly wasn't a good military leader. But it's pretty mind boggling that any idiot could think someone could take a complete non-entity of a political party (I think he was member fifty?) and become dictator of a major country. Being able to retain power while being lazy, if anything, is an indicator someone is more intelligent. 

I'd say he was a very good manipulator that understood how to play to the worst elements of the German Psyche in the 1920s and the 1930s and then combined it with utter ruthlessness to obtain power.  He was like the Trumpster in that he was able to appeal to various myths, often grounded in outright delusion and the nastier side of human nature. Just like the Trumpster was able to hint at "those people" are taking all the good shit for themselves, when in reality, that's primarily the Republican Party donor class, Hitler was able to appeal things like the old "Stab in The Back" theory, which blamed Germany's loss in WW1 on the Jews, and believed by many Germans, unable to cope with the reality of the situation, which was that Germany was simply bled white after 4 years of fighting and starved into submission when the German Imperial Fleet was unable to challenge British naval hegemony after Jutland.

But, Hitler's lethargic and poor management style and his disregard for details and reality undermined his own stated policy aims (evil as they were). And ultimately he brought his country to disaster along with the rest of Europe.

[Holy Sith!]

Following his boss's penchant for name-calling, Giuliani is characterizing the Mueller investigation as a "lynching mob." Could he be sharing my dream?

The dream is sweet. House Republicans lose their majority in the midterms. The survivors, who have unwisely ignored the airtight case made by the Mueller Lynching Team, now hasten to jump on the Democratic Dump Donald bandwagon in hopes of keeping their jobs in the next round. Donald is quickly impeached by the House and tried by the Senate.

Following a long, long trial (fueled by an increasingly crazy string of dismissal motions made by Donald's crack legal team), I hear the judge make the pronouncement:

"Donald John Trump, you have been found guilty of treason against the United States of America. I hereby sentence you to be hung by the neck until dead.”

"Now, who wants to join the lynching mob?"

And the crowd goes wild!

[Morpheus]

Trump to pardon Dinesh D’Souza

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/31/trump-will-pardon-conservative-pundit-dinesh-dsouza-who-was-convicted-for.html

Subhuman garbage has to stick together

[Fragile Bird]

9 minutes ago, Morpheus said:

Trump to pardon Dinesh D’Souza

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/31/trump-will-pardon-conservative-pundit-dinesh-dsouza-who-was-convicted-for.html

Subhuman garbage has to stick together

CNN is pointing out the prosecutor was Preet Bhara.

[Fragile Bird]

Steel and aluminum tariffs go on at midnight!

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Very few racists think they’re racist.

And when you highlight examples of their racist behaviors, they hit you back with, “F*** YOU I’M NOT RACIST!!!!!”

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I mean……..

 

[Morpheus]

This Rusher thing.....

[Ormond]

47 minutes ago, Morpheus said:

This Rusher thing.....

Please explain. When I search for "Rusher" in Google News I just get all sorts of articles about "pass rushers" in American football.