US Politics: Happy Anniversary.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

51 minutes ago, VigoTheCarpathian said:

I mean, I guess there could be some fantasy scenario ground rules where it would be a good time (I.e., if Trump actually had to acknowledge your existence and talk with you as a person rather than just launching into grievances and ignoring you because you’re a low status loser [assuming he thinks this about anyone who can’t do anything for him financially], if he had to actually fight someone he pissed off instead of his lackeys or the secret service doing it, if you can record him vomit-weeping behind a dumpster, if he actually has to pay for shit).  But I’ve been out with enough maniacs to know that the reality of being shackled to one for an evening is really far from pleasant.

Also, apparently he smells gross.

[Tywin et al.]

Zorral is mostly right here. Idk if I'd include Raygun, he was bad, but not the real problem. Gingrich was the one who made politics cruel and Limbaugh inspired a generation of politically illiterate morons. Add in the culture wars for dumbasses and shazam. 

Edited January 7 by Mr. Chatywin et al.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

15 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Gingrich was the one who made politics cruel and Limbaugh inspired a generation of politically illiterate morons.

True, but Gingrich made politics cruel with direct help from Limbaugh, who provided strategic advice. Newt awarded Rush with honorary membership to his caucus because of it.

[Zorral]

Is drink/fetal alcohol spectrum disorders is partially responsible for the descent of UK government into corruption and out-and-out idiocy and incompetence? The Guardian Observer today has this:

Liam Byrne: ‘I’d say about a quarter to a third of MPs are the children of alcoholics"

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/jan/07/liam-byrne-inequality-wealth-interview-labour-note-no-money-treasury

But here, unlike Boebert, for instance, the fascist hitler wanna be Rump doesn't drink alcohol.  Hmmmmm.

[Zorral]

37 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Idk if I'd include Raygun

None of this, including Reagan, just happened. It has been deliberately planned, starting with the strategies to realize the ultimate objective to rid the US of the New Deal. Much oft his was already hashed out by all the same players -- including Cheney! -- at least since the time of Nixon.

To speak knowledgably and factually, rather than speculatively, about these matters one really should read Perlstein's history of this fall of the USA and the rise of the fascists and xtian dominionists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_theology.

Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (2001)

The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and Rise of Reagan  (2014) 

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (2008)

Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980 (2020)

Also, The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism (2023) by Tim Alberta.

All of this is connected, all over the world, and o yes, this includes Africa.

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Idk if I'd include Raygun, he was bad, but not the real problem.

Reagan was a major part of the problem though.  He was awful, let's review, his racist 'Welfare queen buying Cadillacs bullshit.'  He ignored the AIDS crisis and let a lot of Americans sicken and die because they were those icky gay types.  His misogyny towards women with his anti-abortion stance.  A stance he changed to run for Prez as he was not pro-life as gov. of California.  Yes, I heard his radio address that supported abortion when he was Gov.  His tax policies and other bullshit.  HIs war mongering Star Wars bullshit.  

So yeah, he was a real problem.  The '"real problem" had a lot of inputs, and Reagan was a major one in his time. 

[Tywin et al.]

43 minutes ago, Zorral said:

None of this, including Reagan, just happened. It has been deliberately planned,

It was, start with the super rich and conservative economists in the 1950s. 

20 minutes ago, LongRider said:

Reagan was a major part of the problem though.  He was awful, let's review, his racist 'Welfare queen buying Cadillacs bullshit.'  He ignored the AIDS crisis and let a lot of Americans sicken and die because they were those icky gay types.  His misogyny towards women with his anti-abortion stance.  A stance he changed to run for Prez as he was not pro-life as gov. of California.  Yes, I heard his radio address that supported abortion when he was Gov.  His tax policies and other bullshit.  HIs war mongering Star Wars bullshit.  

So yeah, he was a real problem.  The '"real problem" had a lot of inputs, and Reagan was a major one in his time. 

Reagan represents a different set of problems in my book. He was terrible for all the reasons you mentioned, especially how he's so responsible for the expanding of the wealth gap, but he's not the main villain in the conversation of the rise of hateful politics and weaponizing it. 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

The bird's eye view of the story is that the Robber Baron fascists wanted to dismantle FDR's New Deal regulations the minute they took effect.

Poor working whites were on board with FDR's policies, until they included efforts toward racial equality.

And so Republican strategist Lee Atwater came up with the magic solution: use racial grievance (and other forms of animus toward social change) as a campaign tool to mobilize white working class voters. Nixon used this strategy to win the presidency, and the template was forged.

Reagan modified the template to more closely resemble its current form: use social grievance as a campaign tool, but once in power, put most of the focus on deregulation efforts.

Once Reagan was successful, Robber Barons like Grover Norquist and Roger Ailes turned Reaganism into a cultic religion: an effort not just to curb the excesses of regulation, but to turn the clocks all the way back to the Gilded Age, before FDR's New Deal ever existed.

At first they thought sustained victory was inevitable, but once Bill Clinton won with a Reaganite/New Deal hybrid platform, the Robber Barons began to develop a desperate, "must win at all costs" approach to politics.

Meanwhile, after decades of neoliberalism, working class whites didn't feel much prosperity trickling down to them. They just witnessed the erosion of their communities, their traditions, and their jobs. Rather than blaming the very people who stripped their lives of meaning, they leaned even harder into the easy targets of the culture war: the people they feel should be below them.

And by this point, with Rush and then Fox News and then one new outlet after another, right wing voters needed more and more of this hate crack that was fed to them. It had started out as a way to mobilize voters, but now those voters wanted to, had to hear this stuff 24/7. They had become addicted to the thrill of fear, anger, and the notion that the world's problems was the fault of "them," those other, bad Americans.

We're at the late stage of this dynamic, where the Robber Barons will put up with any type of radicalism or cultural oppression from the deplorables, so long as they can gut regulations and make our country into something more like Saudi Arabia, where they can live like princes, while everyone else fends for themselves.

But in order to get elected and stay in power, everyone has to play into the radical theatrics that the voters demand. They have to supply that hate crack, or they will pay for it.

Trump is as loved and as powerful as he is because he is the unparalleled expert in hate crack. He firehoses his audience with it, and they go into hateful ecstasy.

Given this, I don't know a viable way forward is, other than showing them the cold reality of them losing over and over until they try something other than hate crack. It will be an ugly and unpleasant path, but better them suffering from withdrawal than the rest of us suffering in their authoritarian hell-hole.

 

 

 

 

[Zorral]

How Trump Captured Iowa’s Religious Right
The state’s evangelical voters were once skeptical of the former President. Now they are among his strongest
 they are among his strongest supporters.
By Benjamin Wallace-Wells
January 7, 2024

 ‘Forget the Constitution, it’s a dead document. You’re a Christian first.’ ”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/how-trump-captured-iowas-religious-right

Quote

 

... “There is a vein in my party of Christian nationalism,” Dunwell told me. That faction, he went on, was generally associated with the Trump movement and did not take the traditional approach toward politics—that Christian conservatives should try to elect people who would reflect their views and influence government. “It literally is their belief that Christianity should be the supreme religion of the United States, and everything should be judged in subjection to that.” ....

....  The politicians they selected largely run the state. But, for Dunwell, the Baphomet episode seemed to confirm that the split within the Christian right went much deeper than just a personal preference for Trump or DeSantis, who, in fact, has since offered to contribute to Cassidy’s legal defense. Among the Christian conservatives who had embraced Trump, Dunwell said, there was “this religious bent that says, We’re so sick and tired of losing. We’re so sick and tired of that, that what we’re going to do is try to impose our will now. They’ve been imposing their will on us, now we’re gonna try to impose our will on them.” ....

 

We're all going to have such good times when they win with Rumpisto.
 

[Zorral]

Trump just promised an authoritarian ‘task force’ to impose Christian ideology
The former president is still feeding the Christian right’s persecution complex

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-2024-christian-right-truth-social-rcna132082

Quote

 

.... Ramping up his authoritarian rhetoric, Trump pledged in the Iowa speech to institutionalize an authoritarian crackdown of the same sort he falsely accuses the Biden administration of implementing. “Upon taking office, I will create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias to be led by a fully reformed Department of Justice that’s fair and equitable,” he promised. “Its mission will be to investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment and persecution against Christians in America.” ....

.... When Trump took office in 2017, he immediately moved to feed the Christian right’s persecution complex. A draft executive order circulated in the early days of his presidency proposed sweeping expansions of religious exemptions for right-wing Christians that would have legalized discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, pregnancy status and abortion history in a staggering variety of contexts. Although Trump scrapped the executive order after an outcry, he signed a different order requiring then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to craft a policy protecting the religious and conscience rights of Christians, binding the Justice Department and all other federal agencies. The ACLU denounced Sessions’ subsequent memo as “a dangerously broad interpretation of religious freedom laws that will open the door to discrimination against LGBT people, women, and religious minorities.” ....

 

 

[TrackerNeil]

3 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

Trump is as loved and as powerful as he is because he is the unparalleled expert in hate crack. He firehoses his audience with it, and they go into hateful ecstasy.

Yes, I think Trump is not a new direction for the conservative movement, but the logical end.

Anecdata warning: I notice that Trump fans really don't seem to regard him as a good person. When they defend his actions, it's either tu quoque or simple denial that he took the action in question. Anecdata warning: I have a suspicion that most Trump fans, even the do-or-die variety, are aware that The Donald is a shit. They know that getting into Twitter fights with Cher is stupid; they know that harassing Gold Star familiies is honorless; they see Trump's disregard for women; they are fully cognizant of his contempt for democracy. They simply don't care, and that's the scariest part of the Trump phenomenon. About 25% of this nation is completely fine with a terrible person running the executive branch, and another 20% or so is willing to go along for the sake of ambition. Donald Trump will die someday (he needn't delay on my account), but those who are willing to trade decency and democracy for a chance to assuage their grievances will be with us forever. Yikes.

[Zorral]

You all are missing the facts which is for a great part of his base it isn't hate per se, but the hatred from the rest of us and the federal government -- he is a martyr like Jesus Christ, being persecuted for bringing the truth and the light. We are the haters, blocking the nation from being ruled by xtians by xtian laws.  They love him and believe he loves them.  How they get to that -- I cannot answer other than They want to believe and have faith.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Yeah in one of the documentaries about Trump, they interview Scaramucci, and he said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that what liberals don't get about Trump is that people don't mind voting for someone they don't like, but they won't vote for someone who doesn't like them.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Reagan only won in 1980 because he back channelled a deal to keep the hostages from being released till after the election. 

One of the least scrupulous creatures to ever occupy the Oval.

[Tywin et al.]

53 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Reagan only won in 1980 because he back channelled a deal to keep the hostages from being released till after the election. 

One of the least scrupulous creatures to ever occupy the Oval.

It was a disgusting move, and I think now we can say it wasn't a rumor. However, Carter still probably would have lost the race if it didn't happen. At the same time it's not hard to acknowledge Carter wasn't a very good President and also maybe the best person to ever hold the position. Life is strange and unfair. 

[Jace, Extat]

58 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

 Life is strange and unfair. 

M'fucker had to sell his goddamn peanut farm! Sell it! 

And he only got one disgraced term for his trouble... 

[Tywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Jace, Extat said:

M'fucker had to sell his goddamn peanut farm! Sell it! 

And he only got one disgraced term for his trouble... 

But a really funny brother plus Billy Beer?

[Jace, Extat]

21 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

But a really funny brother plus Billy Beer?

Well family is its own reward, eh?

[Tywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, Jace, Extat said:

Well family is its own reward, eh?

I believe he took a piss on camara while Jimmy was making a statement, or maybe that's just an urban legend. Ha, I was right!

Quote

Billy also was criticized for urinating on a runway at the Atlanta airport but he said he was unable to get to a men's room.

 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

9 hours ago, Zorral said:

You all are missing the facts which is for a great part of his base it isn't hate per se, but the hatred from the rest of us and the federal government

"Hate crack" was an intentionally fuzzy concept in my short summary, and yes, it includes the belief that the left behind are hated and targeted by those who took their country away from them (secularists, liberals, and demographic others), and also those they call "elites" (ie, educated white collar stiffs and other more cosmopolitan types).