Will Trump Supporters Listen To The Warnings?

It isn't even hatred for the left, but just plain hate for anything that doesn't support hatred for hatred's own sake, arguing for argument's sake, and always choosing from among the lesser of many evils. Civilization in general has turned the art of denial into an exact science with civilized religions and politics focusing more on the art and just waiting for modern science to catch up.

 

Yes, will Trump supporters listen to, and weigh, the warnings is a good question. The parallel question is what type of introspection Democrats might provide over the Obama years.

Do political animals have room for introspection?

just how blind is partisanship in America now?

 

I have to admit that my bias for Trump was actually just hatred for Clinton. Not enough to actually vote for Trump but I can't say I am upset with the results.

 

Wow it appears that Edward Snowden may be repatriated back to the US, he has been in Russia since 2013.

Guessing that Anna Chapman & the KGB have wrung him dry; now they are tired of feeding & housing him.

 

Should have got a deal in writing...if that means anything in russia.

 

So apparently parts of the Russian dossier prepared by that British spy have been confirmed.

So the parts of the dossier where he payed Russian hookers to have a golden shower... that parts still speculation. But the cooperation between Russian intelligence and the Trump campaign seems much stronger. Flynn is probably not staying on board.

This may end up being a really big deal.

http://www.npr.org/2017/02/10/514551968/5-things-on-michael-flynn-russia-and-donald-trump

 

Right, it's weird this polarization. I absolutely dislike the Clintons, so I'm instantly assumed to be a Trump supporter? Who's jumping to conclusions?

What's interesting is watching the republicans whine about his efforts to turn healthcare around. The ACA was thousands of pages of regulations and mandates, who can possibly turn such a leviathan around in a few weeks? As if anyting in Washington actually moves an a rapid pace.

 

He can't turn it around anymore than the democrats could because both parties are about as useful as tits on a boar hog and only adopted it out of dire necessity to have something for the large percentage of the population that can no longer afford healthcare. Republicans can stomach a lot, but shoving babies into wood chippers because they refuse to pay for their healthcare is not something even they wish to contemplate when they run for office in the wealthiest country in the world where all the wealth has now accumulated at the top and we have the lowest social mobility in the developed world. Trump gets all his best ideas from Professional Wrestling, Fox News, and reality TV which are all drastically out of touch with reality and explains the current problems he is experiencing from every corner. If he's lucky, he may get something accomplished without being the first president to be retroactively impeached for sheer lack of confidence in his ability to lead.

 

So it seems to me that we have two problems around Trump supporters

They don’t heed warnings because they see them as ‘false news’ and instead only listen to what they get within their chosen bubble.

And second many might actually desire the things that are being warned against so if they do hear them they see them as wishes rather than warnings.

For example let’s look at a hypothetical – there have been Sedition Acts before in the US in which people went to jail for criticising the government including those in the press. Now given the animosity to the press that Trump has shown could he go that far?

That to me is a warning – saying think about what that might mean and what it could bring about

But some Trump supporters might not care and others might actually support such a move.

 

He might go for it, but it won't work like it did in a previous epoch, because of the international nature of media. There's nothing he can do about media outside the USA,unless he plans to invade.

 

Bill

I think he is more likely to g with screwing them rather than hitting them over the head with the sedition hammer.

One of those means could be the one mentioned on the campaign, opening up the libel laws or rather create new federal laws about libel.

Let’s say you allow the media to be sued for claiming things others believe are fake and say that you cannot have hidden sources in such trials, and even that the media has to pay the cost of both parties even if it wins (as has been proposed in the UK)

This would make news media wary of saying much in case of having to pay large amounts of money BUT at the same time the media would have to divulge their sources meaning whistleblowers would be less likely to come forward.

Big business would love it and so would Trump plus it could be sold as one protecting the ‘little’ people and as holding the media to account for its ‘fake news’.

 

That would be laying down the gauntlet. Americans would have to decide whether to take it lying down or take action. I'm hoping there are enough patriots in this country who would resist such a lurch toward dictatorship. Looking at the streets, it seems likely there are!

 

I hope so. All this is very worrying.

 

are Trump supporters posting pledge videos on-line ? Like the Demi Moore /Ashton Kutcher video: Pledge to President Obama? Twas in the year 2008.

Those pledge videos were troubling.

 

I haven't seen any, but if they are it's well within the bounds of free speech. I find loyalty to Trump troubling, but people who think otherwise are within their rights to post pledge videos. We can be troubled, but that's life in a free country.

 

Remember this little gem?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mvP0ArKIGY

 

I remember the dark hints coming from militia people and then the tea party supporters about armed insurrection if Clinton and then Obama tried to make the US ‘socialist’, usually it’s so much hot air.

For me it’s not the tub thumpers that cause me the most worry it’s those that seem to be sleep walking into this without seeming to be thinking about it.

The ones that seem to think Trump should be able to overrule Federal judges or that Newspapers should be forced to reveal anonymous sources. The ones that wasting money on a wall makes sense or that it’s a good thing to dilute or get rid of regulations that are there to try and prevent another financial crash.

 

1)Is it fair to say that more people on the right believe the news is fake as opposed to those on the left?

2)If one has to be told which news is fake, and which is not, maybe it's time to educate one's self and figure it out.

3)The bottom line is fake news is real news that people don't want to hear.

 

By Trump's logic, fake news is what criticizes him while real news supports him.

 

I have my own beliefs of course, but both sides are actively unwilling to come together. I don't think compromise is possible... to be honest, I'm not sure that compromise is even for the best.

Just because a solution makes both sides happy doesn't mean it's the best course of action. Just because a belief system is popular doesn't mean it deserves anyone's respect. Democracy isn't just people getting what they think they want-- the people have to be accurately informed to make it work, and that's simply not the case.

Even if Trump doesn't get re-elected or dies/is impeached/somehow kicked out of the White House before 2020, it's just going to make his supporters angry. It definitely won't solve any problems or heal any divisions, it will just give way to all-new conspiracy theories, mistrust in the government, blind rage and intolerance-- and they will project all of these qualities onto the left while refusing to accept that they could ever apply to themselves. They won't believe that he ever colluded with Russia-- they'll say the CIA/FBI was out to get him because he was taking on the globalists, or something to that effect. If the Democrats win in 2020, Trump supporters will take their anger out on the left and probably outdo the reaction Trump got to his win.

Trump needs to be given an opportunity to fail... there is really no question of whether or not he will fail-- he will, and spectacularly. Something will go very very wrong given time-- whether it's a Muslim holocaust, another 9/11, the complete collapse of civil society, a global war, or a move that results in a dictatorship (I would bet that wikileaks 'exposed' the CIA today because they are going after Trump... my first thought is Bannon is going to try to use it to bring the Intelligence Community under control and remake them as a Gestapo of sorts). The problem here is that I'm not even sure his supporters would notice or care if these things happened, or if they wouldn't just scapegoat the most convenient other.

So I actually kind of hope that Trump lasts the full 4 years and his presidency gets the chance to be the undeniable disaster that it is destined to be, even though that scenario also comes with a pretty high likelihood of the US tearing itself apart, or worse some sort of theocratic dictatorship. Fascism is doomed to burn itself out... anything that builds barriers instead of bridges is ultimately self-defeating. Maybe we need to learn that lesson again.

It's also encouraging that many of his supporters are old and could die soon... so maybe his younger supporters will just grow out of their frog memes and internet trolling. I'm sure the christian supremacist shit will linger, though... unless Pence gets in and makes everyone realize that it's a completely different type of nightmare. I'm sure DeVos' brother will use his private army to suppress the barbarian hordes in our midst while she completely destroys the public school system and the church ends up in control of the schools.

I know that this is going to be an extremely destructive 4 years, but maybe people need a chance to realize that the GOP is a dangerous, dangerous organization and fascism doesn't make the world a better place.