The Leaders of the Free World

It is all too easy to poke fun at the Yanks over the antics of Trump and the perceived gullibility of his supporters however. on reflection, I wonder whether we should be more concerned. How could such a man garner the populist support that he has and get them to act as they did. Counter intuitively. some of the wealthiest people in the US are amongst his supporters.
The US is still one of the 2 most powerful and rich countries in the world, how the **** did it get to this?
 
A lot can be said for that chicago pizza advert on every so often.

Life is often about respect.

Some people open their mouths and have an ounce of respect, some people open their mouths without an ounce of respect, some folks just choose not to actually open their mouths at all. Some people deviate between the three, life is a stage evermore so.
 
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I know quite a bit about Trump and his integrity from my time in international finance. I wouldn’t have trusted him running a one roomed b&b let alone a hotel and property business. Could give great detail but won’t.
The vast majority of his supporters are probably decent honest people that deserve much better leadership than he is capable of delivering. What irks me is that he doesn’t seem to care about his people at all.
 
After a dreadful year of a global pandemic too.

If ever there was a time to put your own countries interests ahead of your own gain this is it.
 
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Tout Seul said:
It is all too easy to poke fun at the Yanks over the antics of Trump and the perceived gullibility of his supporters however. on reflection, I wonder whether we should be more concerned. How could such a man garner the populist support that he has and get them to act as they did. Counter intuitively. some of the wealthiest people in the US are amongst his supporters.
The US is still one of the 2 most powerful and rich countries in the world, how the **** did it get to this?
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I mentioned this about the time of his election.

We were on an organized tour of Italy and there were a few Americans in the group. One senior couple came across as quiet, private and measured. We eventually got round to breaking the ice with them and they were just as they seemed until the conversation turned to politics (not my fault, ahem).

The guy was a retired head of a western energy conglomerate, his wife, of Philippine extraction, a retired professor at one of the big Californian universities.

My jaw dropped when it became clear they were voting for Trump so I politely pressed them on the matter, a nicely-worded, in my opinion, version of "What the fvck are you thinking of?" if you will.

We need to stop the immigration, she said.

We need to make America great again, he said.

For the next few exchanges they merely repeated the various Trump mantras. I also got the impression they didn't like the idea of a black president who, they seemed to believe, had been too liberal, and they wanted change.

And that's pretty much what it boiled down to: they were voting for change and Trump was offering change.

Well he certainly brought about a changed America.
 
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I wouldn't consider myself a rampant populist but maybe social democratic parties did start to disenfranchise or partly help create populism through negligence with how they were governing themselves.

Incompetence, poor management and no common sense are three very basic things which can cause uproar in any voter if it seems this cannot be altered or changed.

The outrage the left feel about Boris's Johnson handling of corona is the same type of disillusionment that the right in America feel about the way the democratic party or 'Washington elite' doesn't care about them.

The biggest common denominator in populism has been perceived political and economic failure or mismanagment, IMHO. Without this central trunk the other branches on the tree would never grow so long.
 
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Tout Seul said:
It is all too easy to poke fun at the Yanks over the antics of Trump and the perceived gullibility of his supporters however. on reflection, I wonder whether we should be more concerned. How could such a man garner the populist support that he has and get them to act as they did. Counter intuitively. some of the wealthiest people in the US are amongst his supporters.
The US is still one of the 2 most powerful and rich countries in the world, how the **** did it get to this?
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The biggest problem with critiquing Trump is it's all too simplisitc. For example one of his biggest critics is David Frum, he of Iraq war fame doesn't exactly have the morale high ground. If Trump conducted himself like Obama it would have been business as usual. All the same players were operating in the background like John Bolton etc.

I like what Trump did but I'm now tired of having how bad he is rammed down my throat 24/7. I'd imagine what swung the election was people voting for Biden out of sheer exhaustion.They didn't vote for him beuase he would be good, they voted because he isn't Trump. Nothing will change with Biden being president for ordinary Americans.
 
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I think Trump gave voice to those thoughts that people dared not speak. In so doing he “legitimised” such thoughts, probably to a much greater degree than the bare words justified. It’ll take a lot to get that genie back in the bottle and I don’t envy Biden the task.
 
barjon said:
I think Trump gave voice to those thoughts that people dared not speak. In so doing he “legitimised” such thoughts, probably to a much greater degree than the bare words justified. It’ll take a lot to get that genie back in the bottle and I don’t envy Biden the task.
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I'm glad that the Democrats got the Senate albeit on the VP tie breaker. Now they have no excuses.
 
barjon said:
I think Trump gave voice to those thoughts that people dared not speak. In so doing he “legitimised” such thoughts, probably to a much greater degree than the bare words justified. It’ll take a lot to get that genie back in the bottle and I don’t envy Biden the task.
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Trump is a rampant egotist; Biden the polar opposite, imo.
 
Unfortunately it will take a strong and very capable leader to bring the US together again. There are at least two large unsettled segments of society looking to improve their lot and want someone ‘on their side’. I doubt that there is one person that can fill that role. Most likely the tension will increase rather than subside. The financial and social impact of the pandemic will hit the economy whilst Trump will regretfully still be on the scene. Biden has a major task ahead.
 
Now the House are moving to impeach Trump and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. has said he will vote against the $2,000 cheques that won the run offs in Georgia. Healing my bollocks.
 
Tout Seul said:
Unfortunately it will take a strong and very capable leader to bring the US together again. There are at least two large unsettled segments of society looking to improve their lot and want someone ‘on their side’. I doubt that there is one person that can fill that role. Most likely the tension will increase rather than subside. The financial and social impact of the pandemic will hit the economy whilst Trump will regretfully still be on the scene. Biden has a major task ahead.
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I think that's accurate and you can add in that large swathes of the country will disengage. 60% of Trump supporters will not be appeased by Nicki Hayley or her ilk.
 
Slim said:
I think that's accurate and you can add in that large swathes of the country will disengage. 60% of Trump supporters will not be appeased by Nicki Hayley or her ilk.
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Why try to bring the country together? Centrist west wing type idealism. Institute effective voter reform to reverse/ prevent further voter suppression and gerrymandering of the republicans. The republicans, not to mention the trump die hards in there are a minority of a minority. Appeasing them is giving them too much credence. In a fair fight they lose every time. I wouldn't trust Biden to do anything other than back his donors, but hopefully they will see thats how you lose.
 
HawkWing said:
Why try to bring the country together? Centrist west wing type idealism. Institute effective voter reform to reverse/ prevent further voter suppression and gerrymandering of the republicans. The republicans, not to mention the trump die hards in there are a minority of a minority. Appeasing them is giving them too much credence. In a fair fight they lose every time. I wouldn't trust Biden to do anything other than back his donors, but hopefully they will see thats how you lose.
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Biden is the one claiming he wants to heal the country not me. In terms of appeasing Trump voters I'm referring to the next Republican leader.

They have just banned Trump off Twiiter and taken the free speech platform Parler off the Google Play store. The Dems have full power and are going to show no mercy rubbing 75 million people's noses in it. This will end well.
 
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Who is the 'they' that have banned Trump? The tech firms that have stood by until now and allowed the nonsense to forment. Just good billionaires looking after their own business interests. Are you blaming Joe Biden for the banning? Is it the democrats that banned them?

'Free speech platform' - yes, it was all civilised discussions on human rights that attracted people to Parler. Not just a collection of wannabe shock jocks and where all conspiracy theories are valid. Something even the right wingers found inadequate as there wasn't enough libs to own on the platform.

Dems should always be in appeasement mode to prevent a civil war while republicans should be free to ignore it, use it as some form of threat. Like sinn Fein saying, you'd never know what the IRA are up to. You wouldn't want to **** us off. You wouldn't want to put any of them in prison, you are pissing off all of Ireland.

Ignore them. It certainly didn't look like 75m people storming the capital. Yet somehow that's the full population that needs to be catered for by the Dems and it's 75m who tacitly supported the rioters. The type of nonsense peddler by right wing grifters.

What Georgia has shown is that all long as democrats can motivate their people to vote, there is a clear majority willing to ignore the threat from this crowd. (Trump lost by 7 million in the popular vote.) Expand voting rights to ensure fair elections. (even allow for 48 hr votes, weekend votes, DC statehood even). Prevent voter suppression strategies from states. Why are fair elections a problem for republicans? Don't ever select anyone as disliked as Hillary Clinton as your presindential nominee, and encourage the republican party to own trumpism . The republicans will eat themselves if you want them to.
 
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I have 'family' in the USA, many of whom are on FB.

Some of them have genuinely shocked me with their red-neck political and social ideas while others are die-hard democrats but who are also pro-guns, etc.

I posted a message the other evening expressing my shock and sadness at the scenes at/in the Capitol.

The red-necks were the ones who shared my post to highlight how the world viewed America as a democracy going down the toilet under Trump. They were calling for the violence to stop immediately.

I'm not convinced there is a great deal of difference between people across America on either end of the political spectrum.

You'll find nutjobs in every country in the world. In America and in the UK we have proved beyond doubt that nutjobs can get to be national leaders. America's problem is Trump's psychological defects having the platform they have.

One psychologist on a TV debate suggested he has a condition - can't remember the exact phrase used - along the lines of narcissistic egotism but that he is blind to it. He has no self-awareness. He doesn't consider the consequences of what he says.

In a parallel universe I might have wanted to study psychology. It fascinates me. But I also want to understand what makes people vote in these nutjobs.

I know the answer in the UK: the right wing redtop rags. People buy them because they can't read. A study has concluded that the writing in the Sun is set at a reading age of seven. The other tabloids aren't far above that. Yet these are the papers that are influencing how hoi polloi think and vote. It's why we're in the sh!t we're in here.

If there are equivalents in the USA of these rags either in newspaper form or cable news stations then it would explain why people like Trump can get elected.

The worst thing to have happened in my time is the rise of celebrity culture. Trump would be on a golf course bullying lackeys for the last four years if ordinary people weren't hooked on celebrities.

And that comes back down to media moguls dictating political agenda.

I've never been in favour of democracy as the best form of government because it doesn't work if people in general are not politically educated.

Give me a benevolent despot any time.
 
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HawkWing said:
Who is the 'they' that have banned Trump? The tech firms that have stood by until now and allowed the nonsense to forment. Just good billionaires looking after their own business interests. Are you blaming Joe Biden for the banning? Is it the democrats that banned them?

'Free speech platform' - yes, it was all civilised discussions on human rights that attracted people to Parler. Not just a collection of wannabe shock jocks and where all conspiracy theories are valid. Something even the right wingers found inadequate as there wasn't enough libs to own on the platform.

Dems should always be in appeasement mode to prevent a civil war while republicans should be free to ignore it, use it as some form of threat. Like sinn Fein saying, you'd never know what the IRA are up to. You wouldn't want to **** us off. You wouldn't want to put any of them in prison, you are pissing off all of Ireland.

Ignore them. It certainly didn't look like 75m people storming the capital. Yet somehow that's the full population that needs to be catered for by the Dems and it's 75m who tacitly supported the rioters. The type of nonsense peddler by right wing grifters.

What Georgia has shown is that all long as democrats can motivate their people to vote, there is a clear majority willing to ignore the threat from this crowd. (Trump lost by 7 million in the popular vote.) Expand voting rights to ensure fair elections. (even allow for 48 hr votes, weekend votes, DC statehood even). Prevent voter suppression strategies from states. Why are fair elections a problem for republicans? Don't ever select anyone as disliked as Hillary Clinton as your presindential nominee, and encourage the republican party to own trumpism . The republicans will eat themselves if you want them to.
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What are you on about? Don't make up thoughts you think I'm having. When I type "they" it means Twitter.

I've no intention of reading your 5 page essay when that's how you kick it off.
 
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