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matt_zimmerIt's actually a humor piece, and NOT a subtle one, but it never fails to make me laugh, and I often repost it on my journal, or at least link it. Don't know who wrote it but here a good page for it:
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php/55579-bush-losing-core-supporters-(nsr)?p=801714
It's entitled "Bush Losing Core Supporters" and despite it coming out over a decade BEFORE Trump, I think it explains Trump's inexplicably mediocre but steady approval ratings ten years later entirely.
No matter what Trump did, no matter what he said (even on-camera), he almost never had an approval rating lower than around 41-43%. That was his basement, and it almost never changed. It barely ever rose (except for the start of Covid) but he had a far higher approval rating than someone as openly evil, vulgar, and stupid as him should have had. And some foolish people (like me for example) thought Trump being the worst President we ever had would push his approvals even worse than George W. Bush's, who wound up nearly universally despised by the time he left office. Again, people like me always thought too highly of Americans. And that's not a benefit of the doubt we'll ever deserve again after 2016. It shouldn't have taken 2020 and then Jan 6 for me to realize we as a country are both broken and irredeemable. But I was still very much a Pollyanna even back then. Sue me.
And the actual reason those basement approvals never happened to Trump is because a great deal of Bush's disapproval came from horrible people pissed off he wasn't stupid and evil ENOUGH. Those precise people have nothing to complain about when it comes to Trump, so Trump's support may be low, but it's always steady, it's MUCH higher than Bush's by the time he left office, and never once approached those dregs. It's because the Total Fucking Morons got Trump's back. They recognized the Shit King as one of their own the way they refused to for W.
Our country is broken.
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php/55579-bush-losing-core-supporters-(nsr)?p=801714
It's entitled "Bush Losing Core Supporters" and despite it coming out over a decade BEFORE Trump, I think it explains Trump's inexplicably mediocre but steady approval ratings ten years later entirely.
No matter what Trump did, no matter what he said (even on-camera), he almost never had an approval rating lower than around 41-43%. That was his basement, and it almost never changed. It barely ever rose (except for the start of Covid) but he had a far higher approval rating than someone as openly evil, vulgar, and stupid as him should have had. And some foolish people (like me for example) thought Trump being the worst President we ever had would push his approvals even worse than George W. Bush's, who wound up nearly universally despised by the time he left office. Again, people like me always thought too highly of Americans. And that's not a benefit of the doubt we'll ever deserve again after 2016. It shouldn't have taken 2020 and then Jan 6 for me to realize we as a country are both broken and irredeemable. But I was still very much a Pollyanna even back then. Sue me.
And the actual reason those basement approvals never happened to Trump is because a great deal of Bush's disapproval came from horrible people pissed off he wasn't stupid and evil ENOUGH. Those precise people have nothing to complain about when it comes to Trump, so Trump's support may be low, but it's always steady, it's MUCH higher than Bush's by the time he left office, and never once approached those dregs. It's because the Total Fucking Morons got Trump's back. They recognized the Shit King as one of their own the way they refused to for W.
Our country is broken.
Couldn't have said it better myself. 🤢
Date: 2023-12-08 04:11 pm (UTC)When Trump announced his "Screw Jesus and Christianity, I'm going to create a White Supremacist National Utopia!" campaign, that's when they found their TRUE leader. He campaigned on the promise of a neo-Confederacy, the freedom to kill any person of color without punishment, the freedom to impose whatever Nazism they had on who remained, and to demonize any other countries (except Russia, obviously. They'd be required to respect that hellhole). The problem Republican voters had with the Republican presidents before Mr. 45 was that for all intents and purposes, they simply weren't evil enough, not extreme enough. These people, living by White grievance over the decades, needed someone who lacked all morals to give them the "blood and soil" they craved. And from 2016 onward, their "prayers" we're answered. Nothing -- not Trump's negligence which allowed more than 500,000 Americans to needlessly die from Covid (it's been reported that aside from him pulling Covid support from states with large minority populations, but also that Antisemites used Covid as a sort of kamikaze bioweapon to kill them off. Absolutely disgusting.), or the first assault on democracy spearheaded by a sitting President -- was or will be enough to sway their loyalty. The Republican Party has to stay on board at this point, if they value their lives and those of their families.
I read an article on Medium lamenting that regardless of who wins in 2024, the America we know today will be gone forever. The author was talking about red and blue states splitting, ending the Union that has existed for more than a century. I don't know about that, but today's America most certainly will cease to exist.
Re: Couldn't have said it better myself. 🤢
Date: 2023-12-09 09:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-08 11:29 pm (UTC)"the loudest dog gets heard"
That's him and the news media. Barking, growing, showing his nasty teeth.... and the news eats it up at times.
I was just responding to a post by Nana about Trump and how I fear a world where he may be in power again for four more years. This greatly troubles and scares me to no end.
Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾
Date: 2023-12-09 12:56 am (UTC)When I was in elementary school, there was a "strategy" that my teachers taught me to deal with bullies, and it's quite common: Bullies want attention. If you don't give them attention, they'll get bored and find something else to do.
Trump is worse than a bully, though, and can reach far more victims by using Truth (less) Social to target someone who questions his so-called "greatness" and direct his followers toward them with violent rhetoric. A big example is when he posted the address of Barack Obama's home in Washington, D.C. on Truth (less) Social. Almost immediately, a man was found searching the area armed to the teeth with assault and sniper rifles, and livestreaming his mission of murder, even going as far as to say at one point that he was "trying to line up a good shot." He was arrested, but that does not change things much.
And in the midst of all this, the mainstream news media -- Hell, ALL news media -- keeps covering his rampage of grievance and hate like it'll alert people to how unhinged, vengeful, and outright dangerous he is. Well, it's alerting people all right... and also feeding Trump's supporters the footage of their Savior being martyred before them, fueling their rage every day. And as a side bonus, that feeds into support for Mr. 45 at the polls... a LOT OF support. The news media talks about the poll numbers being boosted by the coverage of his many trials. Well, I hate to say this to them, but... no shit, Sherlock. And in spite of all that, they continue to drink up the coverage and feed it to the masses, essentially doing Trump's work for him to inadvertently scare people all the way up to Election 2024 (the 2022 midterms were a similar thing; they broadcasted footage of masked vigilantes with tactical vests and AR-15s "patrolling" the poll booths). If they had adopted this simple logic and stopped covering this skunk as soon as he started becoming hateful and excessively racist and bigoted, ALL of this could have been avoided. But instead, now we have the first seditious President of the United (?) States, now also effectively its domestic terrorist leader, threatening the whole country because he was rejected as America's "God", and now he wants to punish everyone. Matt said something very similar as well, chastising the media for its part in catapulting who should have been a crook in prison into a sadistic and psychotic monster.
The worst of it? Trump already said he wants ALL of news media -- reporters, journalists, everyone -- executed for treason. The man is full of hate and rage, AND he also wants to slaughter the very entity that brought him to the peak of perfection in his mind in the first place. I find that extremely disturbing and frightening.
Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾
Date: 2023-12-09 09:42 am (UTC)Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾
Date: 2023-12-15 01:44 am (UTC)Yeah, I wish they would stop talking about TRUMP..... I feel he is always on the news. And there are so many more important things to report on and talk about in the world. It deeply concerns me how much they talk about him. I worry that it is just getting more and more of his supporters out and about. And I worry about that, because as you know - his supporters aren't exactly the easiest people to get along with.
I feel Trump is one of the worst people in the world right now.
Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾
Date: 2023-12-15 02:24 am (UTC)Because in his deranged and unhinged mind, he fancies himself a god. A god higher than God himself. A god that many people today consider to be one of the biggest mass murderers of our time, a god with zero empathy and no respect for any life but his own. Absolutely reprehensible. His niece Mary Trump called him "The World's Most Dangerous Man." As far as I'm concerned, she's spot-on.
Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾
Date: 2023-12-17 02:44 pm (UTC)Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾
Date: 2023-12-17 03:24 pm (UTC)The crimes against humanity this is promoting and people still not giving a damn really disturbs me. Guess Liz Cheney was onto something when she said "idiot" Republicans are being elected, Matt told me something similar referring to criminals like Gaetz and MTG. But I'm focused on voting blue in 2024, continuing to help people, and above all... keeping a clear conscience.
Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾
Date: 2023-12-21 01:29 am (UTC)Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾
Date: 2023-12-21 09:24 pm (UTC)Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾
Date: 2023-12-17 05:31 pm (UTC)After the war most "Good Germans' were shocked SHOCKED about the concentration camps. "I had no idea!" They knew. But after the fact they had the good sense to pretend they didn't and to be ashamed of them. It's how and why Germany was able to come back from it eventually. But the Red Hats? They KNOW Trump put children in cages and let people in blue states purposefully die of Covid. They KNOW he stole state secrets and started an insurrection when he refused to leave office. They HEARD him brag about grabbing women by the pussy on camera. And instead of being ashamed of the fact and being all "I had no idea!" after he left office, they approve of those actions instead. It's a far cry from the Good Germans' self-denial after the fact.
Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾
Date: 2023-12-17 08:40 pm (UTC)Trump taking power after Obama's two terms ended shouldn't come across as coincidence to anyone. The Red Hats run on what many call "White grievance." Being led by Obama after Bush made them feel insulted and disgraced (a Black man leading White "Christian" nationalists!). They felt their privileged lifestyle was over. But when Trump came along, he appealed to that grievance and always walked away from accountability when his racially charged rhetoric led to many minorities getting killed in targeted mass shootings. Telling them to back him up as a contingency plan to cling to power on January 6 gave them a sense, a duty, to commit to the "Lost Cause" the KKK preached. They lost, and now, like their Christofascist Leader, they want revenge in blood.
They weren't kidding when they quoted as saying, "We want Dictator Trump!"
Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾
Date: 2023-12-17 09:51 pm (UTC)Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾
Date: 2023-12-17 11:28 pm (UTC)Trump supporters who think all White Americans are facing hatred fail to understand that they are (and continue to be) a part of the problem, not the solution, through their actions. Whether it was insensitive or not, Hillary Clinton's comment about "reprogramming MAGA supporters" had the right sentiment. Cults have been condemned for centuries because they are dangerous and antithetical to their own faiths. The cultish mindset forbids questioning the leader, regardless of morals. It's how Jonestown happened, and we all saw the result.
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Date: 2023-12-21 01:42 am (UTC)With everything, I hope it gets better.
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