What reputation? — Changeling

The reputation that someone who has risen to President of the United States is supposed to have.Trump has already brought disgrace to the office, and a criminal conviction, should it follow, will put an official seal on that. Not that he will ever feel anything but wronged, as he has no shame.

Taking that statement as a point of departure, how do you interpret the "good people on both sides remark"? Who are these two sides?

Do you count yourself as one amongst them?

You can ask Trump. He says who he was referring to. I wasn’t there, so no I do not consider myself amongst them. Do you?

He says different things that do not fit with each other. You have put yourself in the role of clarifying these messages. You suggest that a narrative has been put forward that completely misrepresents his intentions. And we are to accept that this misunderstanding led to events outside of his understanding.

It is a weird thought experiment where the principal cause for an action is completely divorced from the results.

Roomer are strong in political circles that Ron DeSanctimonious, whose Presidential run is a shambles, and whose poll numbers have absolutely crashed, putting him 3rd and 4th in some states, will be dropping out of the Presidential race in order to run, in Florida, against Rick Scott for Senate

Spellcheck fails him again. Kind of like “looser” when they mean “loser.” Since it’s an actual word, it doesn’t correct it, but who would think “rumor” is spelled that way in the first place? :lol:

Anyway, this is the buffoon we’re discussing here. One of the biggest political losers of all time, and yet he had a wide enough platform to work his con man magic on millions of people, who will apparently go to their graves defending him. It’s hilarious to watch, but also quite sad/pathetic.

2. He (Trump) really seems to put the country's interest first, not his personal interest. — Hailey

I don't know where you got the basis for this opinion, but it is not correct. Trump has always put his own interest first, before party, people, the Constitution, or any other interest. When he was a businessman, it was well-known that he often would not pay bills to tradespeople that worked on his building projects. He is well-known for discarding any of his allies and connections for perceived slights to his ego. He is under indictment even now for putting his own interest over the Constitution in the January 6th conspiracy and riot. I think you're probably getting a very filtered view of Trump.


(In case you can't access that link, it says, in part: 'Donald Trump often portrays himself as a savior of the working class who will "protect your job." But a USA TODAY NETWORK analysis found he has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades — and a large number of those involve ordinary Americans, like the Friels, who say Trump or his companies have refused to pay them.

At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings reviewed by the USA TODAY NETWORK, document people who have accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them for their work. Among them: a dishwasher in Florida. A glass company in New Jersey. A carpet company. A plumber. Painters. Forty-eight waiters. Dozens of bartenders and other hourly workers at his resorts and clubs, coast to coast. Real estate brokers who sold his properties. And, ironically, several law firms that once represented him in these suits and others.

Trump’s companies have also been cited for 24 violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act since 2005 for failing to pay overtime or minimum wage, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. That includes 21 citations against the defunct Trump Plaza in Atlantic City and three against the also out-of-business Trump Mortgage LLC in New York. Both cases were resolved by the companies agreeing to pay back wages.' USA Today June 16 2016 updated 2018.)

This is what makes the Trump candidacy (should it be realised) so utterly malignant - the fact that he can rely on the apathy and cynicism of his supporters to gain ground by wholly illegitimate means. — Wayfarer

Reasonable questions but is it apathy and cynicism from supporters? Or do you think many of them accept the Trump narrative as true believers in a war against a corrupt 'business as usual' political process? If this phenomenon operates similarly to a cult, then it's a highly complex situation.

Reasonable questions but is it apathy and cynicism from supporters? — Tom Storm

Apathy in respect of the facts - like, they don't care what he's been shown to have done, they won't watch or read the reports, and if they do, they will re-intepret them to suit their narrative - like, Trump is now saying that Jan6th was 'a beautiful day' and all the trouble was due to 'radical leftists' and 'government trolls'. And they'll lap it up. Not 'apathy' as in being emotionally inert.

Apathy in respect of the facts - like, they don't care what he's been shown to have done, they won't watch or read the reports, and if they do, they will re- interpret them to suit their narrative — Wayfarer

I hear you but I suspect they are unable to do differently and are part of a faith-based value system, not unlike the Catholic Church in its prime.

There’s no absolution to be found in ignorance.

I think you're probably getting a very filtered view of Trump — Wayfarer

It's also interesting to evaluate these two candidates based on the children they raised. Baiden's son showed not even a facade of goodness to me. So based on how he raised his son, I would assume Baiden is terrible to his core. As for trump's children, I thought they had acceptable human weaknesses. What's your view on this?

I think you're probably getting a very filtered view of Trump — Wayfarer

But regarding the 2024 election, I wonder how you would vote. Because Trump is terrible, yes, but isn't Baiden even more gross. Let alone his corruption, his actions when he was with kids seem really disturbing to me.

I think you're probably getting a very filtered view of Trump — Wayfarer

Thank you for enlightening me. And yes, this is exactly why I want to disccuss him here (for fear that i'm too biased and ignorant of his wrong doings). From what you mentioned, he seems terrible, utterly selfish and self-centric. In retrospect, the image I had for him mainly came from his interviews where he seemed competent, intelligent and caring for the Americans. Also, he is a remote, internet-figure to me, that i don't suffer from the first-hand consequences for his election. I also don't have to "live with" him like the Americans since I only have every limited exposure to him where it's even like entertainment to me. I guess these sum up why many Chinese have this filtered-image of him.

Reasonable questions but is it apathy and cynicism from supporters? Or do you think many of them accept the Trump narrative as true believers in a war against a corrupt 'business as usual' political process? If this phenomenon operates similarly to a cult, then it's a highly complex situation. — Tom Storm

In 1989 I was living in Washington, DC when I'd found Peter Sloterdijk's ominous Critique of Cynical Reason (with an effing orange cover to boot, which I still have) in an used books store near the WH and read his trenchant diagnosis of the zeitgeist of the post-1918 Anglo-Euro sphere aka "populist cynicism" (i.e. postmodernity) – the return of the repressed "losers" (Nietzschean resentment). :mask:

A brief summary ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Cynical_Reason

re: @NOS4A2 et al MAGAts :point:
"Trumpistan! Trumpistan über alles!" :shade:

I also don't have to "live with" him like the Americans since I only have every limited exposure to him where it's even like entertainment to me. I guess these sum up why many Chinese have this filtered-image of him. — Hailey

Totally get that. Where I am in the ‘Anglosphere’ (I’m not American but have immediate family in America) coverage of Trump has dominated the news for the last seven years, ever since it became evident that his Presidential run wasn’t just a publicity gimmick. It was very disappointing when he won the election, and I think overall his Presidency and presence have been very negative factors in public life. But thank you for your openness to other perspectives.

In 1989 I was living in Washington, DC when I'd found Peter Sloterdijk's ominous Critique of Cynical Reason — 180 Proof

That looks exceptionally interesting and vast. I guess I hadn't factored in the idea of cynicism as the era's worldview, a kind of coping mechanism against a world of swirling change and uncertainty. I wonder if this is a different account of cynicism than @wayfarer had in mind? I generally think of cynics as passionless, passive and incredulous of human decency. Tump voters, such as I understand them, seem engaged, passionate and credulous. You understand this stuff well; thoughts?

I wonder if this is a different account of cynicism than wayfarer had in mind? — Tom Storm

Mine was more general. It's the sense in which Trump has jaded the entire political scene - the expecation that 'all politicians are liars anyway' (so what does it matter if Trump lies?), who's to say what is true, all the instutitions of government are basically malignant, the whole system is rotten so let's destroy it - those kinds of cynical tropes.

Hannah Arendt worried that the true impact of ideological propaganda is not that leaders succeed in convincing their citizens of some truth. She understood that when factual truths are denied and substituted for by lies, the result is "an absolute refusal to believe in the truth of anything, no matter how well this truth may be established." Such cynicism, Arendt argues, is the true goal of totalitarians: "The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any."

Only those who fully embrace cynicism are free to give their undying loyalty to a leader who promises to grant importance to the purposelessness of human life.

What Arendt shows in Origins of Totalitarianism is that movements are so dangerous and can be central elements of totalitarianism because they provide the psychological conditions for “total loyalty,” the kind of unquestioned loyalty Trump rightly understands himself to possess among his most faithful supporters, like Mitch McConnell. “Such loyalty,” she writes, “can be expected only from the completely isolated human being who, without any other social ties to family, friends, comrades, or even mere acquaintances, derives his sense of having a place in the world only from his belonging to a movement.” — The Triumph of Cynicism

Mine was more general. It's the sense in which Trump has jaded the entire political scene - the expecation that 'all politicians are liars anyway' (so what does it matter if Trump lies?), who's to say what is true, all the instutitions of government are basically malignant, the whole system is rotten so let's destroy it - those kinds of cynical tropes. — Wayfarer

I got ya. Fair call.

Trumpsters would like for this to be a case about free speech but it is not.

Reasonable questions but is it apathy and cynicism from supporters? Or do you think many of them accept the Trump narrative as true believers in a war against a corrupt 'business as usual' political process? If this phenomenon operates similarly to a cult, then it's a highly complex situation. — Tom Storm

I definitely think it is a cult mentality as a form of hero worship where they have accepted the narrative that Trump is the outsider/renegade/avenger standing up against the corrupt forces of establishment power. If you look at a lot of the QAnon stuff, there is this theme of "a storm is coming" with Trump returning to destroy the forces of evil in a sort of political apocalypse. It's all couched in very mythic language with Trump being seen as a savior which ties right in with evangelicals' belief that Trump is appointed by God. The other side of the coin is the apathy, disinterest or sheer mental laziness in not fact-checking anything. If it's anti-Trump they reject it, and if it's pro-Trump or against his enemies, they accept it. I just saw on Facebook a Trump supporter post that meme about Bill Barr being paid by Dominion implying that is why he never found any widespread election fraud... With only a few seconds of research on the internet, one can find that the Dominion Barr was associated with was Dominion Energy, Inc. and had nothing to do with Dominion Voting Systems.

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-barr-dominion/fact-check-william-barr-had-ties-to-dominion-energy-inc-not-electronic-voting-machines-company-dominion-voting-systems-idUSL1N2YG1WJ

If I could ask for one thing from Trump supporters, it would be to think more critically. If you want to be critical of the left, that's fine, but be critical about Trump and his supporters as well.

Unlike others I do not claim to know his intentions. The narrative does, yet has clarified nothing, for years using fallacious methods to funnel readers to their failing rags.

You yourself had no clue about his Charlottesville statements and for some reason asked me to inform you. That’s half a decade of being misinformed on information that is public record. It explains why you tried to probe weirdly whether I too was like your cousins, who apparently are equally misinformed. Multiply that misinformation and compound it with The Narrative held by millions of others and there you have the moral panic. Those trapped within it are ruining the world.

More specific to "Trumpers", are you familiar with the late American philosopher Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit? (e.g. Rupert Murdoch media properties have made tens of billions (USD) on shamelessly spewing bullshit in the US & UK, for instance, since the Reagan-Thatcher era that has helped to normalize 'populist cynicism'.) Though a philosophical thesis rather than sociological examination, the essay sums up the flagrantly propagandizing state of Western political discourse – mostly, though not exclusively, reactionary – of the last few decades and rise of cable / social media. An epilogue of sorts to Sloterdijk's 'cynical reason'. Effing 'Trumpers' are made (triggered), not born; they're demogogic cultists, not policy ideologues. Seditionist-Traitor-Rapist1 is a stubbornly persistent symptom that, IMO, is struggling to metastasize nationally, maybe even globally. Is that alarmist hyperbole? :mask:

Can the majority of Republican support for Trump at this point be considered a cult? The case is strong.

Let me say though, not nearly to the extent of the US Republican Party, but all parties seem to have blind spots for their party. The problem in general is party-ism when it comes to corruption and abuse. However, nothing seems to be as clearly this as the Trumpism of a majority of Republicans. People may have a blindspot for their particular corrupt candidate (Clinton, Biden, whatever), but nowhere near the blind following down the rabbit-hole as Trumpers and adjacent fans.

The problem becomes equivocation of levels of corruption. Trumpers have learned to be gaslighters. There is nothing that Trump is doing worse than any other politician they say. If Obama flouted the kind of norms that Trump did (even wearing a non-traditional suit color) he was or would be tarred and feathered. Trump can get away with all of it.

It’s hard not to be tribal, I think. Especially when tribalism has been encouraged for 40 years.

In the specific case of US politics, the best approach is simply not to identify with either party. There is no labor or socialist party, like in any other comparable country, so it’s not that difficult to extricate oneself from the duopoly. The biggest political group in the US (besides non-voters) is independents, I think largely for the reason that many are turned off by the blind, cult-like following of party politics.

The Republicans have taken it to the next level of insanity. It’s a sign that their values simply no longer align with majorities, or reality. So the lies and gaslighting and demonization of the other side has to reach extremes to make up for it.

Trump says the election was stolen? We’ll find some way to believe it. Trump tries to overturn the election? Fine. Incites an insurrection? Fine. Major donors like the fossil fuel industry is causing environmental harm? There is no environmental harm — or China needs to lead the way.

And on and on.

Funny that you get the filtered image of Trump as a saint and the image of Biden as a demon.

(e.g. Rupert Murdoch media properties have made tens of billions (USD) on shamelessly spewing bullshit in the US & UK, for instance, since the Reagan-Thatcher era that has helped to normalize 'populist cynicism'.) — 180 Proof

Yep. No question. Here too (Murdoch's Sky News).

Seditionist-Traitor-Rapist1 is a stubbornly persistent symptom that, IMO, is struggling to metastasize nationally, maybe even globally. Is that alarmist hyperbole? :mask: — 180 Proof

I hear you.

f you look at a lot of the QAnon stuff, there is this theme of "a storm is coming" with Trump returning to destroy the forces of evil in a sort of political apocalypse. It's all couched in very mythic language with Trump being seen as a savior which ties right in with evangelicals' belief that Trump is appointed by God. The other side of the coin is the apathy, disinterest or sheer mental laziness in not fact-checking anything. If it's anti-Trump they reject it, and if it's pro-Trump or against his enemies, they accept it. — GRWelsh

Yes, a fair depiction. I noticed that academic and theologian David Bentley Hart, in a conversation with Peter O'Leary, calls this a modern reworking/revival of Gnostic mythos.

a modern reworking/revival of Gnostic mythos. — Tom Storm

Do you remember any of the parallels he drew?

I think of him as:

the Orange Messiah. — Fooloso4

For years decline in media trust has trended downward, especially among registered republicans. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/08/30/partisan-divides-in-media-trust-widen-driven-by-a-decline-among-republicans/.
I think it’s fine to dismiss people because the enjoy a Murdoch production more so than a Microsoft and General Electric one, and sometimes rightfully so, but I think these numbers indicate that some are more beholden to corporate or state press than the others.

For Trump voters in particular, they were witness to one of the greatest feats of yellow journalism in the country’s history. Here’s a good analysis per the folks at Columbia Journalism Review.

Given this one can understand how one can fall prey to conspiracy theories. People trust who they trust, and more often than not they’ll trust Uncle Buck before they trust some state-run or state-influenced mouthpiece. The institutions that have tasked themselves with informing the public have failed in that regard.

I worked with an evangelical who adored Trump until Jan 6th and all the stolen election stuff. Then she did a complete 180 and hated him foreverafter. I always used to needle her: did you really think this would end well?