# We exploited conservatives (Dexter Filkins) [original title: Can Ron DeSantis Displace Donald Trump as the G.O.P.’s Combatant-in-Chief?]



## Creamu (Jun 22, 2022)

'[...]

For decades, the Democratic Party had commanded a majority of Florida’s registered voters. But the state was changing, as Trump’s election helped energize a shift in political affinities. The Republican Party’s rank and file became increasingly radical, and G.O.P. leaders appeared only too happy to follow them. “There was always an element of the Republican Party that was batshit crazy,” Mac Stipanovich, the chief of staff to Governor Bob Martinez, a moderate Republican, told me. “They had lots of different names—they were John Birchers, they were ‘movement conservatives,’ they were the religious right. And we did what every other Republican candidate did: we exploited them. We got them to the polls. We talked about abortion. We promised—and we did nothing. They could grumble, but their choices were limited.

“So what happened?” Stipanovich continued. “Trump opened Pandora’s box and let them out. And all the nasty stuff that was in the underbelly of American politics got a voice. What was thirty-five per cent of the Republican Party is now eighty-five per cent. And it’s too late to turn back.”

In April, 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, DeSantis travelled to the convention center in Miami Beach to appear with Dan Gelber, the city’s mayor, to discuss the state’s response. Gelber, a Democrat, is a former minority leader in the Florida House who teamed up to pass legislation with such Republican leaders as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio; he told me that he is still friendly with both. “I don’t agree with Jeb on a lot of things, but I have a deep and abiding respect for him,” he said.

Appearing with Gelber, DeSantis outlined the steps that his administration had taken. He had ordered a statewide lockdown. He’d ordered nursing homes sealed off and told the elderly to quarantine; at the time, many states, including New York, were still sending virus patients into nursing homes, which ended in thousands of deaths. Florida had established the first of hundreds of testing centers and set up a Web site that detailed the virus’s trajectory. Most notably, it had ordered millions of masks for health-care workers; DeSantis said that he was fighting to get more. “Having a mask on, I think, would be something that could potentially ward off infections for the most vulnerable,” he said. At numerous public appearances, the Governor wore a mask himself.

DeSantis regarded these efforts as a kind of baseline. “If some folks want to do things more, then they can do more in certain situations,” he said. “We want to work with the local folks.” Under Gelber’s leadership, Miami Beach, a destination for visitors from abroad, had imposed a mask mandate and aggressively ticketed violators. Gelber told me that he urged DeSantis to establish a robust program of contact-tracing. “The Governor was supportive of everything we were doing,” he said.

But DeSantis soon seemed to lose faith in the scientific establishment. Early in the pandemic, Scott Rivkees, the state surgeon general, convened a conference call of many of Florida’s leading public-health experts; at the end of the meeting, he announced that it would be the last. Among those boxed out was Glenn Morris, an epidemiologist whom the University of Florida had recruited in 2007 to set up a center that would help guide the state though the next pandemic. “We spent years preparing for this moment,” Morris told me.

[...]

Last January, a Jewish student was beaten up at a neo-Nazi rally outside Orlando; the next day, a group of men on a nearby overpass waved a swastika flag and placards with anti-Semitic slogans. Officials from around the state issued condemnations. DeSantis’s response came from his press secretary, Christina Pushaw, who suggested that the incidents might have been faked. “Do we even know they’re Nazis?” she mused on Twitter.

After days of criticism from Democrats, DeSantis arrived at a press conference near Palm Beach; he was there to talk about the Everglades, but he took the opportunity to counterattack. “I’m not going to have people try to smear me that belong to a political party that has elevated anti-Semites to the halls of Congress, like Ilhan Omar,” he said.

For DeSantis, the moment exemplified a theatrical governing style, which involved subverting a venerable American political ritual: an elected official says something offensive, or fails to condemn something offensive, which triggers waves of performative indignation in the press—until the politician offers an apology. DeSantis instead turned moments like the one with the Nazis to his advantage; the more he defied tradition, the more it thrilled his supporters. On Twitter, one of them suggested, implausibly, that DeSantis’s critics were as bad as the anti-Semites on the bridge: “How about all cnts calling people racist, and essentially nazis for disagreeing with them? Desantis is probably the next president. Deal with it.”

As DeSantis prepared to run for reëlection, he introduced a series of legislative measures that seemed calculated to spark similar fights, and to inspire fevered discussion outside of Florida. Many rested on flimsy legal grounds. One bill banned “sanctuary cities,” in which local governments refuse to coöperate with federal officials to deport undocumented immigrants; Florida has no such cities. Another bill created a police force dedicated to preventing election fraud; almost no fraud has been proved in recent Florida elections. DeSantis also dispatched a battalion of state law-enforcement officers to Texas to help stop illegal immigration, even though the nearest portion of the Mexican border is nearly nine hundred miles away. (As DeSantis saw off the troops, Fox covered the moment live.)

Some of these actions appeared brazenly partisan. In 2020, following a summer of protests over the killing of George Floyd, DeSantis proposed an “anti-rioting” law that would make it a crime to block traffic during even a peaceful protest. “When they start to do that, there needs to be swift penalties,” he said. (In Florida, the George Floyd protests had been almost entirely peaceful.) The Republican-controlled legislature passed the bill, but that September a federal judge declared it unconstitutional, saying that its definition of “riot” was so vague as to be open to partisan enforcement.

If DeSantis’s legislative strategy was polarizing, that seemed to be the point. When attacked, he gave no quarter; he went after reporters aggressively, sometimes inaccurately, often in person. Unlike Trump, he spoke in clear, complete sentences, which made him harder to dismiss. His principal partner was his press secretary, Christina Pushaw. From early morning until late at night, seven days a week, Pushaw took to Twitter to trash anyone who presented the slightest critique of her boss. In February, immigration activists likened people trying to cross the Mexican border to the Cubans who fled Castro’s dictatorship in the nineteen-sixties. DeSantis declared the comparison “disgusting”—a sop to Miami’s influential Cuban community. When Thomas Wenski, the Catholic Archbishop of Miami, argued that “no child should be deemed disgusting, especially by a public servant,” Pushaw responded by posting a photo of Wenski over the caption “Lying is a sin.”

Pushaw, thirty-one, previously worked at Stand Together, a nonprofit organization backed by the Koch brothers, and spent time in the former Soviet Union, where she claimed to have witnessed the failures of socialism. Pushaw says that her job is “debunking false narratives,” which often entails describing DeSantis’s opponents as pedophiles or socialists, and urging supporters to “drag them.” Her ferocity inspires cautious admiration. “She is the most powerful woman in Florida,” a consultant to several Republican candidates told me. “Ron loves her, because she says things that even he won’t say.”

Disdaining the “corporate media,” DeSantis and Pushaw often bristled under questioning. In March, 2021, when the Herald reported that some of the first vaccines in the state had gone to residents of wealthy enclaves where DeSantis donors lived, the Governor denounced the story as “a really, really poorly executed hit piece.”

[...]


This past May, DeSantis scheduled a ceremony to sign a bill that, in the name of ballot security, would restrict access to the polls. “Fox and Friends” was granted exclusive access; all other outlets, including the Herald and the Tampa Bay Times, were excluded. Fox ran the ceremony live for seven and a half minutes.

[...]

Earlier this year, DeSantis broke with tradition to take control of legislative redistricting. For decades, after each new census, the Florida legislature has redrawn voting districts. The process usually involved a protracted political struggle, but when the legislature—Republican or Democratic—presented its plan to the governor, it was typically approved.
Three people dressed strangely

In March, DeSantis rejected the new map and proposed his own. The legislature’s plan had created a new district that seemed likely to be won by a Republican, but DeSantis felt that it was not ambitious enough. His redrawn map eliminated two of four congressional seats held by African Americans and created four districts that seemed likely to turn white and Republican. DeSantis justified the changes by saying that he was eliminating illegal “racial gerrymandering.”

[...]'

-Dexter Filkins







https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/...e-donald-trump-as-the-gops-combatant-in-chief


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## SRKTiberious (Jun 30, 2022)

No. Fuck no. I don't want Goy DeShabbos and his israel-first horseshit anywhere near the oval office.

If you've gone and kissed the wall in the humiliation ritual, or passed anti-BDS bills, you're a traitor to this coutnry.


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## Creamu (Jul 5, 2022)

What about Trump?


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## Jayro (Aug 15, 2022)

Creamu said:


> What about Trump?


We need Merrick Garland to get off his lazy AG ass and get this criminal trial underway so we can put Trump in prison as soon as humanly possible.


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## Creamu (Aug 15, 2022)

Jayro said:


> We need Merrick Garland to get off his lazy AG ass and get this criminal trial underway so we can put Trump in prison as soon as humanly possible.


What do you think will this achieve?


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## Jayro (Aug 15, 2022)

Creamu said:


> What do you think will this achieve?


Upholding our democracy, Americans will be able to mentally heal after Trump's 4 years of abuse and mental gymnastics, and it will send a message to the world that we don't tolerate Trump's type of reckless and absurd behavior. He's really deranged, self-absorbed, and always looking for a grift. We don't need this type of person living among us, let-alone leading the country.


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## Creamu (Aug 15, 2022)

Jayro said:


> Upholding our democracy, Americans will be able to mentally heal after Trump's 4 years of abuse and mental gymnastics, and it will send a message to the world that we don't tolerate Trump's type of reckless and absurd behavior. He's really deranged, self-absorbed,


You think people in america will mentally heal when Trump is in prison?


Jayro said:


> and always looking for a grift.


Very true.


Jayro said:


> We don't need this type of person living among us, let-alone leading the country.


Also true, but at this point I don't think salvaging what's there is not plausible. What is you view on the 5 coming years from a more optimistic as well as from a more pessimistic viewpoint?


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## Jayro (Aug 15, 2022)

Creamu said:


> You think people in america will mentally heal when Trump is in prison?
> 
> Also true, but at this point I don't think salvaging what's there is not plausible. What is you view on the 5 coming years from a more optimistic as well as from a more pessimistic viewpoint?


Yes, absolutely.

I don't think in a pessimistic viewpoint, so I couldn't tell you, but as long as we keep voting blue, we can keep moving America forward. Because if we're not making progress as a nation, we're either standing still or moving backwards.


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## Xzi (Aug 15, 2022)

Creamu said:


> You think people in america will mentally heal when Trump is in prison?


It'll take a while for his supporters' lunacy to subside, as many have they've based their entire personality around him and even lost friends/family over it, but yes.  In hindsight they'll eventually realize he was just a much shittier Nixon.  The ones who don't snap and resort to domestic terrorism, anyway, but that's something we already have to deal with from the alt-reich crowd on a regular basis.


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## Creamu (Aug 15, 2022)

Jayro said:


> Yes, absolutely.


I'd love to see it. If Trump gets in prision we will get to see what happens.


Jayro said:


> I don't think in a pessimistic viewpoint, so I couldn't tell you, but as long as we keep voting blue, we can keep moving America forward.


I think you are correct. Conservatives move things nowhere.


Jayro said:


> Because if we're not making progress as a nation, we're either standing still or moving backwards.


I agree.


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## Creamu (Aug 15, 2022)

Xzi said:


> It'll take a while for his supporters' lunacy to subside, as many have they've based their entire personality around him and even lost friends/family over it, but yes.  In hindsight they'll eventually realize he was just a much shittier Nixon.  The ones who don't snap and resort to domestic terrorism, anyway, but that's something we already have to deal with from the alt-reich crowd on a regular basis.


Well, that sounds promising. If Trump gets in prison I hope to see what you are anticipating.

I had a though. Thinking that the mental health of others will improve by putting someone else in prison is in weird way a very christian thought-process.


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## Xzi (Aug 15, 2022)

Creamu said:


> I had a though. Thinking that the mental health of others will improve by putting someone else in prison is in weird way a very christian thought-process.


You'd have to elaborate.  It'd be much preferable if the US had sufficient resources to treat mental health issues on the individual level, of course, but we have to keep spending that money on bombs and corporate welfare.  So I'll take locking up hateful cult leaders as an easy alternative in the meantime.


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## Creamu (Aug 15, 2022)

Xzi said:


> You'd have to elaborate.


Mentally ill people in time of christian rule would be often regarded as sinners. Christians have alot of disagreements, but they seem to have consensus that Jesus died for their sins. In times of christian rule it was more common to just execute people than put them into prison. So it may be a thought that is deeply christian to think that Trumps imprisonment will mentally heal others. From my viewpoint the idea that putting anyone to prison will improve the mental health of others is quite a claim.


Xzi said:


> It'd be much preferable if the US had sufficient resources to treat mental health issues on the individual level, of course, but we have to keep spending that money on bombs and corporate welfare.


We have institutions for mental health concerns but histroically speaking in doesn't seem like the world is getting more sane, so I would put the whole apparatus in question.


Xzi said:


> So I'll take locking up hateful cult leaders as an easy alternative in the meantime.


You know, fair enough. At least it is a move that takes some balls to do.


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## Xzi (Aug 15, 2022)

Creamu said:


> Mentally ill people in time of christian rule would be often regarded as sinners.


We aren't talking about imprisoning Trump because he's mentally ill, though, we're talking about imprisoning him because he's committed multiple federal crimes.  I sure would love it if he went for the insanity defense during the trial though, might make a few people re-think their loyalty to him.



Creamu said:


> From my viewpoint the idea that putting anyone to prison will improve the mental health of others is quite a claim.


It'll help improve their mental health even more when he's dead and buried, but putting him in prison will just speed the process of him being forgotten about.  We'd have roughly a year of MAGAts lashing out violently in response to it, but then things would calm down.



Creamu said:


> We have institutions for mental concerns but histroically speaking in doesn't seem like the world is getting more sane, so I would put the whole apparatus in question.


We really don't, only like one in four people seeking therapy in the US can actually find it.


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## Creamu (Aug 17, 2022)

Xzi said:


> It'll help improve their mental health even more when he's dead and buried, but putting him in prison will just speed the process of him being forgotten about.  We'd have roughly a year of MAGAts lashing out violently in response to it, but then things would calm down.


So Trump is kind of a Jesus Christ type of figure.


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## lokomelo (Aug 17, 2022)

Creamu said:


> So Trump is kind of a Jesus Christ type of figure.


Trump is not a carpenter preaching on Palestine and being hunted by the Roman Empire. He is just an orange fat old dude that is filled with hate and served as a banner for many other people filled with hate.

If he ever gets arrested, it will not change the hate in the american society (and western society in general) in any degree.


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## Creamu (Aug 17, 2022)

lokomelo said:


> Trump is not a carpenter preaching on Palestine and being hunted by the Roman Empire.


He is being hunted by the Pharisees. Jesus being a carpenter is symbolic of being an influencer of the sheeple (former of wood).


lokomelo said:


> He is just an orange fat old dude


Jesus was just a wimp.


lokomelo said:


> that is filled with hate and served as a banner for many other people filled with hate.


Do you remember when Jesus whipped the pharisees out of the temple. That was quite hateful.


lokomelo said:


> If he ever gets arrested, it will not change the hate in the american society (and western society in general) in any degree.


That may be but others made the argument that it would heal mental health issues of others.


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## Xzi (Aug 17, 2022)

Creamu said:


> So Trump is kind of a Jesus Christ type of figure.


He has far more in common with the bible's description of the anti-christ.


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## Creamu (Aug 17, 2022)

Xzi said:


> He has far more in common with the bible's description of the anti-christ.


How so?


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## Xzi (Aug 17, 2022)

Creamu said:


> How so?


He invokes the bible but believes in and follows none of its teachings.  The Anti-Christ is often described as "the lawless one," which sounds pretty familiar.  2 Thessalonians 2:1–4 basically describes an extreme narcissist, which also sounds familiar.  "He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God."  He's leading people astray from the actual teachings of Christ, which is covered by Matthew 24:24 and Mark 13:22.  The Anti-Christ is described as a deceiver and a liar, check and check.

The only other figure in the bible he shares anything in common with would be the golden calf, though that never spoke and Trump never shuts the fuck up...so yeah.


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## Creamu (Aug 17, 2022)

Xzi said:


> He invokes the bible but believes in and follows none of its teachings.


Jesus lived by his own rules.


Xzi said:


> The Anti-Christ is often described as "the lawless one," which sounds pretty familiar.


Jesus was also lawless.


Xzi said:


> 2 Thessalonians 2:1–4 basically describes an extreme narcissist, which also sounds familiar.


I would argue that Jesus was also a narcissist. He believed to be the son of god.


Xzi said:


> "He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God."


Jesus thought that his word was the word of god.


Xzi said:


> He's leading people astray from the actual teachings of Christ, which is covered by Matthew 24:24 and Mark 13:22.  The Anti-Christ is described as a deceiver and a liar, check and check.


Well do you believe that Jesus was truely the son of god?


Xzi said:


> The only other figure in the bible he shares anything in common with would be the golden calf, though that never spoke and Trump never shuts the fuck up...so yeah.


Hm... Okay I am sure you have a point. I am not that familiar with 'the antichrist'. My argument that the discourse around Trump seems to be a post-christian phenomenon stands either way.


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## lokomelo (Aug 17, 2022)

Creamu said:


> Do you remember when Jesus whipped the pharisees out of the temple. That was quite hateful.


According to the book of Mateus (Don't know the name in English) Jesus expelled people who were selling stuff inside the temple, so that means he did not liked business men that much back in the day.

(this assuming that really happened, I never take any biblical text as historical evidence)


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## Creamu (Aug 17, 2022)

lokomelo said:


> According to the book of Mateus (Don't know the name in English) Jesus expelled people who were selling stuff inside the temple, so that means he did not liked business men that much back in the day.
> 
> (this assuming that really happened, I never take any biblical text as historical evidence)


He was explicitly expelling pharisaic jews out of the temple.


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## Xzi (Aug 17, 2022)

Creamu said:


> My argument that the discourse around Trump seems to be a post-christian phenomenon stands either way.


If not for Southern Baptists and Evangelicals, Trump would have virtually no support.  I agree though that calling them "Christians" is probably a bridge too far, they believe in more of what the Old Testament has to say than the New.


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## Creamu (Aug 17, 2022)

Xzi said:


> If not for Southern Baptists and Evangelicals, Trump would have virtually no support.  I agree though that calling them "Christians" is probably a bridge too far, they believe in more of what the Old Testament has to say than the New.


I believe the LGBTQIR+ movement and the many other movements of 'the left' are essentially more christian that anything else these days.


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## Xzi (Aug 17, 2022)

Creamu said:


> I believe the LGBTQIR+ movement and the many other movements of 'the left' are essentially more christian that anything else these days.


Pretty much any atheist or agnostic person adheres to more of Jesus' teachings than most Christians in the US, without even trying.


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## lokomelo (Aug 17, 2022)

Creamu said:


> He was explicitly expelling pharisaic jews out of the temple.




They specifically were business men.


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## Jayro (Aug 17, 2022)

lokomelo said:


> Trump is not a carpenter preaching on Palestine and being hunted by the Roman Empire. He is just an orange fat old dude that is filled with hate and served as a banner for many other people filled with hate.
> 
> If he ever gets arrested, it will not change the hate in the american society (and western society in general) in any degree.


But he still broke laws so he still needs arrested, regardless.


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## lokomelo (Aug 17, 2022)

Jayro said:


> But he still broke laws so he still needs arrested, regardless.


I do believe that prison time for Trump will not fix far right extremism. That's not the same of saying that he shouldn't be arrested. So I agree with you.


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## Creamu (Aug 17, 2022)

lokomelo said:


> They specifically were business men.


As that would be a contradiction. haha


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## lokomelo (Aug 17, 2022)

Creamu said:


> As that would be a contradiction. haha


"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”


So yeah, if bible is real (I don't believe it), Trump is not on Jesus friend's list. Jesus want for the rich the same as Trump want to Mexicans: "can't enter in my land"


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## Creamu (Aug 17, 2022)

lokomelo said:


> "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
> 
> 
> So yeah, if bible is real (I don't believe it), Trump is not on Jesus friend's list. Jesus want for the rich the same as Trump want to Mexicans: "can't enter in my land"


My argument is more that Trump is a Neo-Jesus type. Adonis, Phoenix, Jesus whatever, it's a reoccuring type. I don't say he inherently is this way, but he is put in this position in a weird way.


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## lokomelo (Aug 17, 2022)

Creamu said:


> My argument is more that Trump is a Neo-Jesus type. Adonis, Phoenix, Jesus whatever, it's a reoccuring type. I don't say he inherently is this way, but he is put in this position in a weird way.


the prefix "Neo" suits him


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## Xzi (Aug 17, 2022)

Creamu said:


> My argument is more that Trump is a Neo-Jesus type. Adonis, Phoenix, Jesus whatever, it's a reoccuring type. I don't say he inherently is this way, but he is put in this position in a weird way.


He's the dumb person's idea of a smart man, the degenerate's idea of a pious man, the ugly person's idea of a handsome man...so on and so forth.  He's idolized and deified by the worse bottom-dwellers that society has to offer.  Conservatives tried to do the same with GWB, but his imperialist invasions and 2008's massive economic crash put a damper on that.  Similarly, Trump killing 1mil Americans with his mishandling of a deadly virus should've been the end of his popularity, but too many rubes had wrapped their entire ego and personality around him before he had even won the 2016 election.


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## Creamu (Aug 17, 2022)

Xzi said:


> He's the dumb person's idea of a smart man,


You really think so? He is such an obvious clown. Haha


Xzi said:


> the degenerate's idea of a pious man, the ugly person's idea of a handsome man...so on and so forth.  He's idolized and deified by the worse bottom-dwellers that society has to offer.  Conservatives tried to do the same with GWB, but his imperialist invasions and 2008's massive economic crash put a damper on that.  Similarly, Trump killing 1mil Americans with his mishandling of a deadly virus should've been the end of his popularity, but too many rubes had wrapped their entire ego and personality around him before he had even won the 2016 election.


Okay to keep this short. I just found it interesting that in minds of others Trumps imprisonment or killing would heal others mentally. In my view that is an artefact of a post christian populus.


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## Xzi (Aug 17, 2022)

Creamu said:


> You really think so? He is such an obvious clown. Haha


Exactly.  And who likes clowns?  Some children, and adults with learning disabilities.  The same people who will look you dead in the eye and insist that WWE isn't staged, basically.

Some of them are fully aware of how stupid Trump sounds to the rest of the world, they just don't care because he hates the same people they do.


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## Creamu (Aug 17, 2022)

Xzi said:


> Exactly.  And who likes clowns?  Some children, and adults with learning disabilities.  The same people who will look you dead in the eye and insist that WWE isn't staged, basically.


He has his moments. It can be entertaining


Xzi said:


> Some of them are fully aware of how stupid Trump sounds to the rest of the world, they just don't care because he hates the same people they do.


and I think he is the president america deserves.


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## Xzi (Aug 17, 2022)

Creamu said:


> He has his moments. It can be entertaining


A comedian he is not, incoherent rambling is only funny the first couple times at most.  He'd also be a lot easier to laugh at if he wasn't actively doing harm to already-marginalized communities.



Creamu said:


> and I think he is the president america deserves.


America as a singular entity out of time and throughout history?  Sure, you might be right about that.  But individual Americans don't deserve this shit, especially millennials and younger who have never known a system or society that has worked to benefit them.  Trump is solely a wet dream for boomers enticed by the Southern Strategy, and they already swiped more than their fair portion of the pie decades ago.


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## Creamu (Aug 17, 2022)

Xzi said:


> A comedian he is not, incoherent rambling is only funny the first couple times at most.  He'd also be a lot easier to laugh at if he wasn't actively doing harm to already-marginalized communities.


He is a caricaturist, he gives american politics a cartoonish layer. The humor is situational and works only because the context he is navigating in is also pretty messed up. Certainly the consequential layer is a different story. Trumps behavior causes suffering and death, that could otherwise be avoided. But to be fair, what is the option that would turn things around? And if it's going down the tubes anyway, isn't it better to let it unfold fast (from a nietzschian perspective)?


Xzi said:


> America as a singular entity out of time and throughout history?  Sure, you might be right about that.


Yeah, I think so. It's like if you don't care for your stuff it will break and you are to blame.


Xzi said:


> But individual Americans don't deserve this shit, especially millennials and younger who have never known a system or society that has worked to benefit them.


That is the tragedy of life unfortunatly.


Xzi said:


> Trump is solely a wet dream for boomers enticed by the Southern Strategy, and they already swiped more than their fair portion of the pie decades ago.


I can see that, but there certainly is more to it.


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## LainaGabranth (Aug 17, 2022)

It's possible for Trump to be both stupid, and also represent an existential threat to the US. With his seat of power it's fair to say that the people he's riling up, plus the things he tries sign into law show blatantly how dangerous he is.


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## Xzi (Aug 17, 2022)

LainaGabranth said:


> It's possible for Trump to be both stupid, and also represent an existential threat to the US. With his seat of power it's fair to say that the people he's riling up, plus the things he tries sign into law show blatantly how dangerous he is.


Correct, he's stupid, narcissistic, _and_ malicious, and a bunch of stupid-malicious people worship him to the extent some have already died and/or killed in his name. That will probably continue whether or not the DoJ prosecutes and jails him, so they might as well. Bar him from office, obviously, unless you're giving him 15+ years AKA life.


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## lokomelo (Aug 17, 2022)

Xzi said:


> Correct, he's stupid, narcissistic, _and_ malicious, and a bunch of stupid-malicious people worship him to the extent some have already died and/or killed in his name. That will probably continue whether or not the DoJ prosecutes and jails him, so they might as well. Bar him from office, obviously, unless you're giving him 15+ years AKA life.


"Bar him from office" That is really the practical gain of jailtime for the annoying orange. If he did not run for the next election, then it's done. Republicans will have time to build another leadership, we all know that it will not be nobody awesome, but hardly will be worse.


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## Xzi (Aug 17, 2022)

lokomelo said:


> "Bar him from office" That is really the practical gain of jailtime for the annoying orange. If he did not run for the next election, then it's done. Republicans will have time to build another leadership, we all know that it will not be nobody awesome, but hardly will be worse.


Yeah they'll have to run DeSantis with Trump's endorsement, but if Americans don't want to jump straight to the Fourth Reich, the choice _should_ be obvious in that election. If not, then I guess all empires gotta fall sometime.


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## LainaGabranth (Aug 18, 2022)

lokomelo said:


> "Bar him from office" That is really the practical gain of jailtime for the annoying orange. If he did not run for the next election, then it's done. Republicans will have time to build another leadership, we all know that it will not be nobody awesome, but hardly will be worse.


The potential brightside to this is once Trump cultists see how many rights are stolen from prisoners they could rhetorically be convinced of prison reform, or at least to a degree that people won't have such miserable lives over nonsense, harmless offenses.


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## lokomelo (Aug 18, 2022)

LainaGabranth said:


> The potential brightside to this is once Trump cultists see how many rights are stolen from prisoners they could rhetorically be convinced of prison reform, or at least to a degree that people won't have such miserable lives over nonsense, harmless offenses.


Likely they will create a nonsense theory instead of that. Also, he probably will get special treatment, like everywhere else when a former president gets jail time.

The biggest cruelty of US penal system for me that is looking from outside is the slave labor (even that you don't call that). It's impossible that Trump will get this no matter what.


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