A more accurate headline would be a question, "Why do people like Trump?," not what looks like a promise to answer that question. Elite media people like Cohen should finally come around to asking the question humbly, confessing to their abject failure even to admit that they've needed to ask it and rejecting their imperious concentration on telling people what they should think. Look at all these reasons to loathe Trump. Come on, you idiots, you're embarrassing yourselves by not loathing him yet. It hasn't worked, and yet you continue to do it.
Cohen has exactly one sentence that tries to say why people like Trump, and it's incredibly weak:
My guess is that it’s a low-boil rage against a vague and threatening liberalism — urbane, educated, affluent, secular, diverse and sexually tolerant.Yes, yes, I know. You're so sure you and your friends are the good people. Your unshakeable love for yourself and your friends is glaringly evident, as usual. By the way, if the Trumpsters are raging against the sexually tolerant, why are they they tolerating Trump's sexual behavior?
With the groundwork of that one lazy sentence, Cohen leaps to: "It is, in other words, some of the same sentiment that once fueled European fascism."
Some of the same... This column is some of the same bland but hysterical lameness I've been reading about Trump for years. And yet it's #1 on WaPo's "most read" list. To give WaPo readers some credit, maybe they, like me, saw the headline and believed that someone at the newspaper was finally going to get serious and go deep in trying to understand how people really think and feel in the America that lies beyond the Northeast.
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382 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 382 of 382200?
200?
Nope. 201. Close, but that only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and atom bombs.
I like Trump because of the polices. He also helps us identify people we once took seriously that we no longer have to take seriously. There are lots of them.
Chuck,
"Economy performing brilliantly...." Do you even try? Annualized quarterly GDP growth leading up to Trump. 4q'15 0.5%, 1q'16, 0.6%, 2q'16 2.2%, 3q'16 2.8%, 4q'16 1.2% (and 1q'17 1.2%). The Dow ended 2015 at 17,425 and on November 4, 2016 at 17,888, a gain, leading up to the election of a whopping 2.6%. What's it done since then? Would you like to try again?
201 is better. It’s on the top of the page. 200 is at the bottom.
The 1982 loss was much more a result of Volcker's necessary strangulation of money supply via Fed monetary policy in order to squeeze out inflation, which I'm sure you recall reached 12% or so prior to Reagan's election.
Oh, I remember it well. I had Treasuries with 16% coupon rate until they matured. I had bought them at a discount that returned 18%. I knew people building homes who, when the house was finished, could not qualify for the 21% interest rates on permanent financing.
My point was that, in spite of the interest rates, once the tax cut took effect, the Reagan economy took off. It was Bob Dole who delayed the tax cut until after the election. Reagan won the election and the Senate stayed GOP until 1982. That was in spite of the interest rates. I give Jimmy Carter credit for hiring Volcker and for, belatedly, recognizing the Soviet threat and starting to rebuild the military after the Watergate Congress had tried to destroy it.
LLR Chuck would strangle the economy in regulations and tax increases.
I wonder if Chuck noticed that receipts exceeded expenditures this spring ?
Remember all those leftie economists who forecast the great depression Trump was going to bring us? How many Nobel Prizes did those guys have? Two, I think?
Chuck said...
"Fuck that, Gahrie. If I am a Republican in Congress, I am going to fight for my district. That often means federal spending in my district. Trump can't go around taking credit for "His" great tax cut and then put it on congress to cut spending to meet that constraint. The President has to take ownership too. President Working Class Voter has to say what working-class federal programs he is going to cut."
Here's the part that progressives like you don't get. If people who work for their money, like everybody, get to keep more of their money. You following so far? Then there is no need for the phony balogny federal programs. See what those programs mostly do is not really help people. What they do is provide a job for the politically faithful dem voter. So in the end we don't need to pay to keep those people on the federal payroll.
The greatest service the Post (and the Times too) could give readers would be to hire a columnist who was capable, regularly and reliably, of explaining why half the country finds Trump's words and actions appealing.
Bruce Hayden said...
I think realistically, by the time that Trump was elected, we were finally shaking off the effects of the counterproductive Dem/Obama economic policies that had mired us in recession for 8 years, when we probably would have naturally rebounded from the crash of 2008 in maybe 2009 or so. What should have been a year or so recession, turned into an eight year recession through gross fiscal mismanagement on the part of the Dems and Obama. They might have known better, but the money was just too good, looting the federal treasury. Obama, intellectually incurious, and with no real trading or relevant experience, probably still, to this day, doesn't understand how badly he screwed up the economy, and, thus, tens of millions of American lives. No doubt, he probably believes that he saved the economy, instead of tanking it, because that is what his sycophants told him.
Was it "an eight-year recession"? Were we in recession in 2016? 2015? 2014? 2012? By what measure, were we in recession? What is the usual methodology to define a recession?
I'm not defending Obama. By lots of credible accounts, Obama's presidency resulted in a slowed, prolonged recovery.
But I just like picking on any fan of Trump when they say something wrong or stupid.
Bruce Haden, defend your comment that we were "mired... in recession for 8 years."
LLR Chuck:
1) obama is "magnificent"
2) Under obama "Economy performing brilliantly...."
3) Rachel Maddow- "brilliant"
4) Dick Durbin "competent" and "effective"
5) lefty hack journalist John Harwood "professional"
Anyone see a pattern?
The only way to stop discriminating by race is to stop discriminating by race.
The only way to stop spending money is to stop spending money.
Earnest Prole:
Here's your chance.
https://jobs.washingtonpost.com/
Bruce Haden, defend your comment that we were "mired... in recession for 8 years
Yeah..that comment was almost as bad as your attempt to give Obama credit for Trump's economy.
”Obama's presidency resulted in a slowed, prolonged recovery.”
Even Obama couldn’t completely strangle the US economy.
LLR Chuck: "I'm not defending Obama."
Correct.
A much more correct term to describe your behavior is hagiographic touting of obama!
LOL
I'm afraid you're not going to be able to walk back this latest cuckholstering of your favorite dems.
Chuck quote #1: "But I just like picking on any fan of Trump when they say something wrong or stupid."
Chuck quote #2: "Economy performing brilliantly" under Obama.
A fopdoodle of the extraordinary variety cannot be expected to be consistent when he is praising Obama or criticizing conservatives.
Inga and the other leftists have their heads so far up obama's rear end they can almost see LLR Chuck's feet....
Remember, by his own admission, our racist commenter LLR Chuck is only here to smear Trump.
By any means necessary.
Rusty said...
Chuck said...
"Fuck that, Gahrie. If I am a Republican in Congress, I am going to fight for my district. That often means federal spending in my district. Trump can't go around taking credit for "His" great tax cut and then put it on congress to cut spending to meet that constraint. The President has to take ownership too. President Working Class Voter has to say what working-class federal programs he is going to cut."
Here's the part that progressives like you don't get. If people who work for their money, like everybody, get to keep more of their money. You following so far? Then there is no need for the phony balogny federal programs. See what those programs mostly do is not really help people. What they do is provide a job for the politically faithful dem voter. So in the end we don't need to pay to keep those people on the federal payroll.
I don't like those kinds of bland pablums. I like hard specifics that make poorly-informed people uncomfortable.
Here in Michigan, there are lots of working class voters, a great many with manufacturing-related jobs, who were singularly instrumental in getting Trump elected. Trump's White House floated a budget that would cut a federal spending program called the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative by 90%.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/12/white-house-budget-great-lakes/110346058/
Now, there are lots of auto workers who use the Great Lakes; lots of Michigan voters for whom the Great Lakes are a local treasure almost beyond value; lots of people who were furious at the notion of such a cut, particularly when we looked at the details.
That's what I'm talking about.
I am guessing that there are some Trump voters in Door County, Wisconsin who may have similar feelings.
Hmmm. Are you saying that investors shouldn't invest in a rising stock market, if it isn't being done in just the right way?
Of course not. What I am saying is that there was no bond market (in some places around the world bonds were actually "earning" negative interest). No one was investing in business because of the Left's policies. The only place to put your cash where you wouldn't lose ground to inflation was the stock market.
Should we be suspicious of the Trump-era market (continuing) boom if it is based on tax cuts producing massive deficits down the road?
Sure. But unlike you, I think that the irresponsible Republicans in Congress will come around and actually cut spending.
Drago said...
LLR Chuck:
1) obama is "magnificent"
2) Under obama "Economy performing brilliantly...."
3) Rachel Maddow- "brilliant"
4) Dick Durbin "competent" and "effective"
5) lefty hack journalist John Harwood "professional"
Anyone see a pattern?
I do! They are all mischaracterizations, most of them gross mischaracterizations, of me. By you. You liar.
Anyone who would accept any political analysis from the mind (such as it is) from LLR Chuck should have their own heads examined.
You'd be better off breaking out the Ouija Board and the Magic 8-Ball.
"I give Jimmy Carter credit for hiring Volcker and for, belatedly, recognizing the Soviet threat and starting to rebuild the military after the Watergate Congress had tried to destroy it."
Agreed. I had just taken a Monetary Economics class in B School, and it was pretty obvious what was happening there, both how we got there, what needed to be done, and that Volcker was doing the right thing there. Carter though was too late to really benefit, and he had made the mistake of talking about malaise. That wasn't the problem. Rather, even before he was elected, the Fed had been trying to stimulate the economy through printing money (and causing inflation). The problem is that inflation only has a short term stimulus effect, until the markets have priced it in, and then it takes even more money and more inflation to goose the economy, until you get to the point where the level of inflation is intolerable, at which time you have stagflation. And malaise.
LLR Chuck: "I do! They are all mischaracterizations, most of them gross mischaracterizations, of me. By you. You liar"
I'm surprised you could extract your lips from Dick Durbin's rear end long enough to write that latest lie.
Gahrie said...
"Hmmm. Are you saying that investors shouldn't invest in a rising stock market, if it isn't being done in just the right way?"
Of course not. What I am saying is that there was no bond market (in some places around the world bonds were actually "earning" negative interest). No one was investing in business because of the Left's policies. The only place to put your cash where you wouldn't lose ground to inflation was the stock market.
lol. And now, with the economy doing quite nicely and the Fed once again returning interest rates to more normal levels (restoring more of the traditional bond market), Trump whines about the Fed in a way that no President has in anyone's living memory.
Jeez Chuck. If Obama on his first day in office called for the extension of the Bush tax rate reductions for another ten years and got it done and then spent the rest of his term doing nothing but vacationing he would have won all 57 states in 2012. The growth rate we are having now would have been occurring then. If Obama after such a win continued doing nothing he would have left office presiding over a 30% plus growth in the economy and would have left office as one of the most popular presidents ever. Economies have a natural tendency to grow and government can encourage its growth by not squeezing the neck so hard.
Now, there are lots of auto workers who use the Great Lakes;
Have they stopped?
lots of Michigan voters for whom the Great Lakes are a local treasure almost beyond value;
Great!
lots of people who were furious at the notion of such a cut,
Yeah...the usual suspects...Lefties, governmental employees and politicians buying votes with other people's money. You know..your pals.
If you can't cut this type of federal spending...what can you cut? Besides defense and immigration control?
cubanbob said...
Jeez Chuck. If Obama on his first day in office called for the extension of the Bush tax rate reductions for another ten years and got it done and then spent the rest of his term doing nothing but vacationing he would have won all 57 states in 2012. The growth rate we are having now would have been occurring then. If Obama after such a win continued doing nothing he would have left office presiding over a 30% plus growth in the economy and would have left office as one of the most popular presidents ever. Economies have a natural tendency to grow and government can encourage its growth by not squeezing the neck so hard.
cubanbob, you could be right about all of that, and it wouldn't save Bruce Hayden. Bruce claimed that were mired in recession for all eight years of Obama. I want the specifics on that.
Gahrie said...
Now, there are lots of auto workers who use the Great Lakes;
Have they stopped?
lots of Michigan voters for whom the Great Lakes are a local treasure almost beyond value;
Great!
lots of people who were furious at the notion of such a cut,
Yeah...the usual suspects...Lefties, governmental employees and politicians buying votes with other people's money. You know..your pals.
If you can't cut this type of federal spending...what can you cut? Besides defense and immigration control?
Gahrie; you CAN cut that type of spending! And then, face voters at the polls. You could cut defense spending too! Cut whatever you want. Then wait for election day.
Maybe not by textbook definition. But when factoring in lost potential, different story.
(regarding "recession")
The textbook definition of recession is easy to find.
Recession is when my neighbor loses his job.
Depression is when I lose my job.
--old joke
Which of those two definitions moves a greater number of voters to the polls and toward a particular candidate? That is the question that matters.
When the median worker salary across the United States was lower in 2016 than it was in 2009 there might be quite a few people who reasonably believed the country was in a recession.
Chuck, fopdoodle extraordinaire, does not care about those people. Those people know as much. They voted for Trump.
Cohen uses the fashionable fascist definition, which means that whoever he dislikes is obviously fascist.
But the stock market began its climb under Obama. If you waited until the election of Trump, you missed out on massive gains.
My 401k was invested in the stock market when Obama was President, because there was no other choice with the investment vehicles that my corporation provided. . But if only I had mortgaged the house to the hilt and invested everything in the stock market the day after Nobel Laureate (and certifiable dunce) Paul Krugman opined that “to a first approximation” the stock market would “never” recover from the dip that occurred the day after Trump’s election (but while Obama was still President, mind) I could buy myself a Rolls Royce and not realize I had spent the money.
As a worker approaching retirement, I watched my 401k grow steadily but pretty slowly. There were excellent gains when compared to the trough after 2008, but any characterization of gains in the “era of Obama” as “massive” just won’t wash.
Trump whines about the Fed in a way that no President has in anyone's living memory
Yeah, with all that whinging he took lots of grief from lefties in the MSM for 'interfering' with the independence of the Fed. I think that's bit harsh- I mean it's not like he changed their mandate or something.
Other than dabblers like Althouse WaPo readers are unrepentant sore losers and effete seditionists. Their comments define them.
They, like the journalist and politicians who feed, and feed on, their ignorance actually believe incorrectly that in the event of the shortest civil war in history the military and police will side with left wing elitists, Antifa, millionaire celebrities and athletes, illegal immigrants and the teachers unions whose minions have indoctrinated them to forego critical thinking in favor of the template,
Kissinger was close when he said, roughly, that Trump signals the end of an era. That’s why many support him. Drain the swamp!
It's a ridiculous exercise, but just because of the sheer hilarity of it all, it's worth pointing out to nonplussed Ann and her white tribe, who seem to be mostly wealthy and retired, why it is that some Americans hate and fear President Trump.
Ann can't understand that some people who are white, well-off, and retired, like her, also hate Trump even though his policies are good for them.
Some Americans hate it that Trump is president despite the fact he lost the popular vote by three million, equal to the entire population of Nevada. Ann and her tribe love that.
He’s president, in large part, because our election was hijacked by Russia in an unprecedented attack against our democracy. Some people hate that, Ann and her group love it and in fact have no problem with the possibility that the president is a Russian agent. After all, if Russia helped Trump get elected, that's a good thing, not a bad thing, according to Ann.
Unlike Ann, some people detest the president because his administration has decided to punish asylum-seekers by kidnapping migrant children from their parents.
Ann and her group endorse the president's vow to roll back Roe v. Wade and take away women’s freedom to choose (he's also threatened to prosecute women who have abortions), but some people, not just women, hate that.
Ann's all in with repealing Obamacare and eliminating protections for folks with pre-existing conditions, gutting Medicaid, slashing Social Security, rolling back protections for endangered animals, and selling off federally protected lands to oil and gas companies, all while rewarding his own company and merry gang of grifters and giving tax breaks to billionaires, but some people hate him for that.
As Ann does all the time, she neglects to provide her readers with the benefits of her wide reading, and instead prefers to indulge the echo chamber. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
You're not fooling me "John."
Was it "an eight-year recession"? Were we in recession in 2016? 2015? 2014? 2012? By what measure, were we in recession? What is the usual methodology to define a recession?
IIRC it was called an “L-shaped recovery,” by contrast with the normal ‘V’ recovery where the economy actually rebounds above the level it was at before the recession. Meaning, of course, no real recovery at all.
I'm not defending Obama. By lots of credible accounts, Obama's presidency resulted in a slowed, prolonged recovery.
Of course you are defending him ! Jeez, Chuck.
Come on. Admit you are full of it.
Just kidding. Guys like you never own up to your BS.
As far as what could have been done in 2008, I suggest you read, "After the Fall"
Chuckles said ... "Trump's approval rating -- presiding over a beautiful economy that he inherited"
It was so fantastic we had like, what, three or four Recovery Summer sessions where there was actually zero recovery. The longest post-crash recession in US history, longer than the great depression was "beautiful"? Really! Yeah it was such a beautiful economy I remember all the articles pimping the new "funemployment" where losing your job to Obamacare was a blessing because you could have fun (said LLR-fave Nancy Pelosi) instead of working that drudgery job you used to have. Remember how every economic article had to include the word "unexpectedly" because Obama was constantly surprised his policies didn't work? Yeah, every freaking month. Worst employment figures EVER. Beautiful.
I want to thank John Pickering for confirming that one needs to be a credulous fool to hate Trump.
Wow. John Pickering needs new meds. Or at least to start taking them again. And to get out of his echo chamber.
Gahrie; you CAN cut that type of spending! And then, face voters at the polls. You could cut defense spending too! Cut whatever you want. Then wait for election day.
Which is exactly why your pals in the GOP Establishment never actually do anything they promise to do...that might get someone angry and harm their chance at getting re-elected. One of the reasons people support Trump is that he doesn't play that game.
The biggest reason you guys hate and fear Trump is because he's ruined the game...now there is no excuse for not honoring your campaign pledges and actually accomplishing something.
Some Americans hate it that Trump is president despite the fact he lost the popular vote by three million, equal to the entire population of Nevada. Ann and her tribe love that.
Similarly some Americans love that the Eagles are Super Bowl Champions despite the fact that they were outscored by the Patriots during the regular season. The football tribe is fine with it.
He’s president, in large part, because our election was hijacked by Russia in an unprecedented attack against our democracy.
Loon's out.
As for “John Pickering:” As tiresome as it is, it is important to be reminded that their are people who are not journalists who share their delusional perspectives and are as unhinged as they are.
John Pickering (channeling LLR Chuck): "Some Americans hate it that Trump is president despite the fact he lost the popular vote by three million, equal to the entire population of Nevada. Ann and her tribe love that"
Alternate headline: Trump voters love the Constitution.
Looks like Pickering wants to "take a knee" on that whole Constitution thing.
If he's anywhere near obama or Dick Durbin when he does he's going to find it tough since LLR Chuck will already be on bended knee there blocking his way....
We will rally round the flag boys and rally once again. Shouting he battle cry of freedom. What the Americans wanted in their flight from Europe was freedom. Can a man sit under his own shade or will he be a subject. The US showed the way.
I don't disagree with that. McCain also was not a Truther, a Birther, a Vaxxer or a draft dodger.
The world would be a better place if he had been. The world would be better off had McCain fully, openly turned his coat in Vietnam and done propaganda broadcasts every day. Actually the best thing would have been if his A-4's ejection sequence had failed.
Miss Pickering is a fictional character conjured up from the Louisa May Alcott style book.
Elite media people like Cohen should finally come around to asking the question humbly'''
"... humbly..."?
I don't think so.
As my father used to say about a liar,"The truth is not in him".
Humility is not found in many "newsrooms", a situation unlikely to change.
The biggest reason you guys hate and fear Trump is because he's ruined the game...now there is no excuse for not honoring your campaign pledges and actually accomplishing something.
Bingo !
McCain campaigned for re-election in Arizona promising to build the wall and repeal Obamacare.
How'd that work out ?
For years McCain had a Mexican national as his advisor on immigration.
But...why do you care if others understand or not?
People support political policies, or they do not. In the USA they form huge coalitions with many many many different smaller groups. Thinking within that coalition is not uniform. It is about compromise to form one of the two major political parties. There are, after all, only two. They must accommodate approximately 63 million people, each.
The coalition holds together. Or it does not.
A better, substantial, reasonable article from the UK Guardian.
Even the Guardian is more rational (at times) than the US MSM opinion pages -
What liberals still get wrong about Trumps support
Summary - based on subculture mapping, Trumps support is the same old Republican coalition, supporting him for the same reasons they have supported all Republicans. That is, specific and long standing public policy desiderata.
This should be obvious, but it is not visible in US MSM treatments of anything. There are reasons for that, obviously related to the ownership of the US MSM, unlike even sympathetic foreign entities like the Guardian.
Thinking within that coalition is not uniform.
I think it is getting uniform in the Democrat Party. They are all Socialists now.
That's how you get Trump. OK with me.
wwww: "People support political policies, or they do not."
Demonstrably false, as polls and studies show conclusively that if the "wrong" person is advocating a policy, those who might normally advocate for that policy will turn against it.
Personalities/party over policies.
On a personal level, I don't like Donald Trump. I do find him rude and brash, even though I agree that if you are famous; women will let you do things they ordinarily wouldn't allow (e.g. try any guy asking Monica for oral sex).
However, there is a new phrase I learned called "plot armor". It is when you know that nothing can hurt the protagonist because you know they are needed later in the story. In Trump's case, his plot armor is derived from the alternative to Trump. If I allow Trump to lose to Hillary, I get something far worse than Trump. If I allow Trump to lose to Jeb, I get a mediocre economy and potential military adventurism. If Trump were to lose to Sanders, we get Venezuela like socialism.
So I like Trump as President. The same way the left liked Clinton as President despite his lack of support for gay marriage and his grabbing of employees vaginas. They said at the time, it's the economy stupid. And so it is with Trump. He is protected for what he offers. And he offers peace and prosperity.
And yes, he is offering peace. Iran is not a realistic threat to the US, and shouldn't be appeased. We need to end the War in Korea and permanently bring our troops home. If Europe feels threatened, then they need to do more to provide for their own defense. We owe NATO nothing, we protected Europe from the real Hitler, and we toppled the USSR and took down the Iron Curtain.
...and Trump talks about American auto jobs (when in fact Trump's current tariff war talk and Anti-NAFTA screeds are screwing things up for Detroit automakers)...
The interests of US auto workers and automakers aren't necessarily aligned. The automakers are perfectly happy shipping all those jobs to northern Mexico, which is why they're so dead-set against tariffs. They've essentially become foreign automakers with US nameplates.
While free trade helps the overall economy, it's not a win for everyone. Trump was elected by a sentiment that would have been very familiar to Democrats in the later half of the 20th century - the big multinationals have managed to rig the game such that they make huge profits from labor arbitrage, both by outsourcing production and by undermining immigration restrictions. Trumps policies may or may not help, but at least he's not pretending there's no problem.
For the sheer level of puerile mendacity it will be hard to top John Pickering at 11:43. One wins the General Election by winning 270 or more voted in the Electoral College. Them’s the rules. No sense being upset that under a different set of rules there would have been a different outcome. If pigs had wings you’d need a roof on the sty, but they don’t.
The US “kidnaps” children of “asylum seekers”? If they were legal asylum seekers then why didn’t enter the US at the points designated by law for legitimate asylum seekers. Illegal border crossers are, by law, incarcerated until their belated request for asylum are adjudicated. Do you want the kids in jail too? Of course you do! Then you could seriously bounce off the walls.
Yes, there are lots of people who hate Donald Trump. I know many. But no one whose intellectual integrity I respect. None whatsoever.
That article in the Guardian is excellent.
Democrats have done nothing since Trump’s election to reduce these feelings. On issue after issue the Democratic party has moved to the left, catering to a progressive base outraged at Trump’s election and seething at how the Democratic establishment foisted a fatally flawed candidate upon them. The latest progressive cause célèbre is for eliminating America’s border enforcement agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). One can be outraged at how Trump is enforcing America’s immigration laws without thinking that eliminating all border enforcement is a good idea. An idea like this keeps Republicans united in their support for Trump as it clearly shows how unacceptable the alternative is.
As FDR said about Al Smith, "I love him for his enemies."
"Obama's presidency resulted in a slowed, prolonged recovery.”
Look up the term "regression to the mean."
It explains a lot about the Obama "recovery."
The same way the left liked Clinton as President despite his lack of support for gay marriage and his grabbing of employees vaginas.
I think this went well beyond the left. The right liked him as long as their 401ks kept going up. The 19902 economy, like that of the 1920s, was driven by innovation. Bill Clinton had nothing to do with it, except getting the 1994 Congress flipped to the GOP. Look at a stock market chart to see when the bull market got going.
narayanan said, "@buwaya - " The "blue model" does not benefit much if at all from a healthy hinterland."
if true they should be indifferent to Trump - why then this desperation to bring down Trump "
It's not just the economy. It's transmania, anti-men hysteria (including kangaroo courts for male college students), unfettered political correctness, criminalization of "offensive" free speech, government-knows-best as a given, globalization, open borders, multi-culturalism, catastrophic AGW ("the scientists all say so"), and so on.
And, of course, what buwaya said in his 9:45 AM follow-up regarding government protection of the economic elite.
Obama furthered this "progressive" agenda, and campaigned for Hillary as a continuation of his agenda. Trump and the triumph of the white traditionalist working class interrupted the "progress" and threatens to do so for a long time. Trump and his agenda must be defeated, if not completely destroyed.
I read a forum for people who adopt children and there are adults who were adopted on that form. The adults are, well, extremely distressed about the child separations.
They do not seem to understand that Trump voters do not understand nor do they care about their feelings on the subject.
They are especially distressed by the younger kids who may never find their parents or any of their relatives. It is, to put it mildly, flipping them out.
I urge constructive activities, such as donations to charities and lawyers who can help the children find their relatives. The forum members fear the children end up in long-term foster care, loose their families, and never be reunited with any of their kin.
I try to explain that Trump voters don't care why they see it as a tragedy for a child to loose their parents and all of their kin. Because they don't care, it's a waste of time to expect them to understand and/or care.
The adults who were adopted -- they don't seem to understand that you all think they are faking their emotions about the child separations.
Trump voters cannot understand why adult adoptees or people who have been in foster care would be upset and scared for these kids.
Wwww's lies get more over the top everyday.
I imagine we are just hours away from wwww asserting republicans eat children.
Come in, you know its coming.
Lefties telling everyone republicans will bring back slavery and kill everyone, etc.
Remember how Rev Jesse stood up at the democrat convention and called Dan Quayle the child muderer "Herod"?
Since history began anew for lefties like wwww again this morning they forget these things. Everyone else remembers.
Why it seems like only yesterday Romney was killing people with cancer and haircuts.
The dems and their LLR allies: 1 playbook and just 1 play in that book
Are you actually suggesting, wwww, there are NO Trump voters who have adopted or are adopted?
"Demonstrably false, as polls and studies show conclusively that if the "wrong" person is advocating a policy, those who might normally advocate for that policy will turn against it."
Case in point: The left's sudden love affair with the CIA.
It’s BS like that it’s for the children that I have no patience. I’ve been hearing that for 30 years now.
"He’s president, in large part, because our election was hijacked by Russia in an unprecedented attack against our democracy."
Please explain, in detail, how this was accomplished. Show your work.
You won't, but I'm asking anyway.
Btw, wwww, my child was a LEGAL alien. We followed procedure.
One of the requirements was no applying for aid for 5 years.
cHUCK SAID,
"I don't like those kinds of bland pablums. I like hard specifics that make poorly-informed people uncomfortable."
And then he said,
"Now, there are lots of auto workers who use the Great Lakes; lots of Michigan voters for whom the Great Lakes are a local treasure almost beyond value; lots of people who were furious at the notion of such a cut, particularly when we looked at the details."
Who are ya gonna believe? Chuck or the lying evidence.
Case in point: The left's sudden love affair with the CIA.
That's been a real eye opener for me. The number of people who scraped off their "question authority" bumper stickers without a second thought is kind of, well, depressing.
The lefts and LLR's lies designed to advance the dems interests have become so shopworn, so tired, so hackneyed that it is now impossible not to conclude that they are just that dumb.
No.
I am suggesting it is a waste of time to expect the people who do not care, to care.
Do not ask people to understand who have no interest in understanding. Move on and do something constructive.
Don't feel upset or angry at the lack of caring or lack of understanding. It's a waste of time.
There were many Trump voters. Bethany and Seth Mandel were furious about the situation. Many Trump voters were extremely distressed by the removal of small children from relatives, and the lack of governmental assistance in reuniting them with kin.
The adoptive forum I read was not political. This issue blew threw like a whirlwind. I do not think certain Trump voters have the capacity to grasp the distress it caused.
wwww, we don't care because these are the same policies the Obama administration followed, and it didn't bother you then. We don't care because it's pretty obvious you're not approaching this in good faith.
Post a link to said forum discussion wwww.
I do not think certain Trump voters have the capacity to grasp the distress it caused.
I think that many people who have gotten worked into an unthinking emotional frenzy over this situation do not have the capacity to realize that the way to minimize the situation is to BUILD A FUCKING WALL so that illegal border crossers are not tempted to bring children with them across the desert in order to secure more lenient treatment when the get to the US.
The adults who were adopted -- they don’t seem to understand that you all think they are faking their emotions about the child separations.
Here is an honest question. Why aren’t the parents of these lost children moving heaven and earth to find them? Is it impossible that everybody involved has just sunk back into the shadow world of illegal immigrants and the only people who don’t know where these people are is immigration?
It's a closed group.
You can find parent groups or adoption groups on the web talking about the child separations if you wish to learn how others feel or understand.
I fully understand you do not agree, you will never agree, and you have no interest in understanding how others feel about it. It is a waste of time to attempt to explain, because understanding is not in the range of the possible.
The post is not about child separations. I referred to this issue because it is one example of why it is not useful to expect strangers, who have no interest in understanding, to care or understand. The issue struck me, because the members expect you all to care about their feelings. They have a hard time grasping that you don't care nor understand.
Althouse hoped this author would understand Trump voters. Do not expect understanding from those who are unable or unwilling.
Move on. don't get upset. do something constructive.
oh Tim, they are. it's heartbreaking. if you wish research the issue.
now, the post isn't about this subject. It's about how people have difficulty understand various political views that differ from their own.
wwww: "The post is not about child separations."
LOL
It can't be, because then wwww would have to explain why not a single lefty anywhere complained when this happened under obama.
Transparently disingenuous. LLR Chuck levels of disingenuousness in fact.
This posturing by wwww and the leftists could be smoke to cover their desire for increased child trafficking.
Regulations increase the cost of college. For every new regulation, x number of non teaching administrators are required to be hired to ensure compliance, unless old regulations are removed at the same time. Programs don’t make college cheaper, reducing regulation and therefore the burden of paying for all of those administrators makes college more affordable.
How many kids are going to be paying off the cost of Obama’s regulations on colleges for decades in the form of student loans. But LLR thinks that the way you cut college cost is to pass more laws and tax other people.
oh Tim, they are. it’s heartbreaking. if you wish research the issue.
You provide the links to illegal border crossers who are moving heaven and earth to find their children. Don’t dodge the issue you brought up.
rusty: "Who are ya gonna believe? Chuck or the lying evidence."
It's becoming more and more difficult for LLR Chuck to carry the dems water.
That's why his little mask increasingly slips as we move forward. At some point, there simply no way to keep your true pro-dem objectives hidden.
tim in vermont: "Don’t dodge the issue you brought up."
He/she cannot afford to drill down into the issue, for the simple reason that wwww is lying.
And not very effectively I might add.
fully understand you do not agree, you will never agree, and you have no interest in understanding how others feel about it. It is a waste of time to attempt to explain, because understanding is not in the range of the possible.
How about explaining one tiny thing to my troglodyte brain? Explain to me why it wouldn’t be better to reduce these kinds of issues by removing incentives for adults to bring children with them when illegally crossing the border.
It's not just outside the Northeast. It's outside the Northeast, the Pacific Coast, and most of the major metropolitan areas, right?
More interestingly, it's actually everywhere. Even here in Alameda County, Ca., about as liberal as America can be, a lot of folks (1 in 7, as I recall) voted for Trump.
More important, what is the affirmative narrative for Trump supporters that goes Cohen's admittedly inadequate account? What do they like about this man, and how do they reconcile their support for him with the facts about his conduct?
I certainly think its wrong to generalize that liberals are uninterested in this question or unwilling to read about it. Think of the interest in Hillbilly Elegy, in the work of Joan Williams or Arlie Hochschild, or the numerous pieces in the Times and the Post seeking to explore the bases and strength of support for Trump. Not to mention the tons of analyses by people like Leonhardt and Edsall of the polling and political science data. I am certainly interested in reading the best possible account of the reasons why people like Trump, despite his evident flaws.
Perhaps its not reasonable to ask, you, Professor Althouse, to explain that support to those of us who don't completely get it. Although one can hope that you might find it an interesting enough exercise to take a shot....But if not you, who has written the explanation you find most accurate/persuasive?
It's a closed group.
Of course it is.
They do not seem to understand that Trump voters do not understand nor do they care about their feelings on the subject.
They are especially distressed by the younger kids who may never find their parents or any of their relatives. It is, to put it mildly, flipping them out.
I am amused by the left that thinks bringing children 1000 miles to try to sneak into a country against the law should incite sympathy.
You simply are unable to understand why those of us who disagree with you want laws enforced,.
Now here is a heartwarming story of a leftist judge who felt sorry for a 17 year old armed robber.
He had been sentenced for 15 years when he was 14 for an armed robbery.
She let him out at two.
The judge explained that Myrick “has been in prison now for two and a half years and I don’t think it helped him much, I haven’t noticed a whole lot a change.” Lost on the judge, as on many sentencing reform advocates, was the fact that the primary purpose of putting Myrick away was to protect society from his menace, not to help him.
The key fact about Myrick’s time in detention was that he hadn’t committed any felonies, not that he hadn’t changed.
So she let him out 13 years early and what did he do ?
Now, Myrick, age 17, is accused of shooting and killing a 34 year-old Washington, D.C. man during the course of another armed robbery, as the man was waiting for an Uber ride after leaving a wedding reception in Atlanta. Christian Broder is survived by his wife and a 9-month-old daughter. He would be alive today if Judge Downs hadn’t stupidly subscribed to the tenets of those pushing sentencing reform.
Well, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, right ?
Perhaps its not reasonable to ask, you, Professor Althouse, to explain that support to those of us who don’t completely get it.
This comment thread is full of explanations for support for Trump, you just refuse to hear them. What liberals like to read are accounts of Trump supporters that make liberals feel better about themselves, and the only way to do this is to dismiss all support for Trump as motivated by stupidity or racism.
Consider that you may be the bigot. Remember that bigots aren’t bigots because it makes them feel low and mean, they are bigots because it gives them a little frisson of superiority to put down members of the out group. It made Archie Bunker feel superior to put down the obviously better person Lamont, I think his name was.
Maybe you should as yourself whether, as a liberal, you are drinking from that same well of bigotry.
A journalist writing in a serious newspaper that is read by all the important and influential persons of the world (directly or indirectly) should be expected to be able to explain x to y, or y to x. That is implied in the purpose of the journal, and in the purpose of his profession. This is of course not the case, because that is no longer the purpose of either the journal or the journalist.
And emotional incontinence is no excuse.
"I fully understand you do not agree, you will never agree, and you have no interest in understanding how others feel about it. It is a waste of time to attempt to explain, because understanding is not in the range of the possible."
--
Of course..says the one who says it wasn't a political discussion, while posting such political broad-brushing both here and there.
wwww: "It's a closed group."
Single. Anonymous. Source.
Video, or it didn't happen.
I am certainly interested in reading the best possible account of the reasons why people like Trump, despite his evident flaws.
He's not Hillary.
Michael, I agree. I think many on the Right are ok with Bill and his behavior so long as it meant their retirement was secure. And the thing is, Bill didn't do much for the economy. His failure to enact socialist healthcare, his ability to avoid wars, and his desire to close government to get favors from the unpaid interns meant he wasn't a threat to messing with the economy.
Hillary meant single payer, undeclared battles in shithole countries, and a continuation of Obama's new normal economy. And if you lived in Wisconsin or Michigan, you weren't worth her time.
I am a believer in the idea that feelings follow interests.
That is, that feelings are second order phenomena.
Feelings are reactive after all. They facilitate (or would, if working in a primal setting, where they evolved) proper personal reactions. To save the child, to love ones mate, to defend the family. In the modern world feelings can be invoked to no good purpose, over distant and theoretical matters for which there is no good personal reaction.
Hence the perversity of rhetoric and politics. Distrust feelings, they are liars, they don't belong at the table. They don't help fix a generator or meet standards of machining precision or devise a taxation scheme. People driven excessively by feelings should not be given roles in matters of importance.
To be fair, Obama honored many of his campaign promises. The problem is he lied about the effect those promises would have. So he was successful in passing a new healthcare law. It's just not affordable and if you liked your doctor, then too bad. Obama also promised that America's economic growth was behind us, and under him, he was right. He gave us a new normal and Hillary promised more of it. Trump promised to Make America Great Again. The left told us we were never great.
Apologies to Tim, Gahrie, and everyone else, but since we have (new?) Dem claiming that he is "certainly interested in reading the best possible account of the reasons why people like Trump, despite his evident flaws," here are my reasons again--"the best possible" that came to mind right after my morning coffee, though perhaps not up to the standards of Kant or Habermas. Of course, they don't cover the election, when Not-Hill did the trick. Nor do they cover the next election, when Not-Open-Borders-Socialist will likely do the trick.
"First, a quibble: it depends on what the meaning of "like" is. Speaking for myself, I don't "like" him that much, I can't listen to him for more than a minute or so, and I won't have him over for dinner anytime soon. As people around here know, I considered him a clownish candidate.
But:
1. He fights. The GOP had been turning the other cheek. That's bad politics. I want our side to fight back, even if Trump's "side" is occasionally fuzzy and in flux.
2. He puts America first. He doesn't do global-citizen, all-for-humanity BS. He doesn't apologize for us. Sure, some of the putting-first, such as the "trade wars," may backfire, but the attitude is right and the place to start.
3. He wants to get control of immigration. It is the essential issue. A democratic Republic should decided who is in and who is out, and stick to the rule of law. Illegal immigration is an attack on the nation. It needs to stop. How effective he'll be is in question, but at least he is moving in the right direction.
4. He is more conservative in practice than I expected. Deregulation, judicial appointments, new tax law, partial change to Obamacare, challenges to sanctuary cities and higher ed practices, are all better than I thought they would be, partly thanks to some fairly solid cabinet choices.
5. He is trying a new script in foreign affairs, in NK, Russia, NATO, Iran, and so on. Not clear whether we should "like" it overall, and Trumpian improvisation makes it hard to judge, but parts of it are likable and change is necessary.
6. He has the right enemies. The left is pushing sanctuary cities and ICE abolition, lawsuits against energy companies, "socialism," racist/fascist smears against deplorable Trump supporters, a phony collusion persecution, and a constant barrage of disparagement. I despise them and want them to fail, so if it helps, I will like Trump."
After Ann said this "Yes, yes, I know. You're so sure you and your friends are the good people. Your unshakeable love for yourself and your friends is glaringly evident, as usual." there really wasn't much left to say.
You provide the links to illegal border crossers who are moving heaven and earth to find their children. Don’t dodge the issue you brought up.
Tim,
(1) this would dislocate the thread away from the issue at hand. There's that class-action court case in process brought the ACLU. Legal depositions from witnesses that are on the web.
(2) You misunderstand the issue I am bringing up for discussion. What I find fascinating is the focus on wanting understanding from other individuals or groups who do not care to understand.
It is happening on this blog for this post about the newspaper article. It is happening in the adoption face book forum.
I am curious about why people are upset because strangers do not understand them. I'm especially curious with Trump voters, because Republicans control the Congress & President. I don't get why people have any interest in if others understand them.
My POV & advice to the facebook group was that many did not care to understand. It was not relevant to those who did not care, or they were not capable. My advice was to do something constructive to change the situation, because the empathy or understanding was not going to happen. My POV for this group is the same.
(3) I am interested in understanding people. But I enjoy understanding and predicting animate and inanimate systems. Moneyball.
My POV.
I don't care if you don't understand me or my point of view.
I want to understand other people and different systems, social and inanimate.
"I am curious about why people are upset because strangers do not understand them."
Because it is a professional (for a serious journal and a serious journalist) and civic requirement. In a Republic you are, or should be, constantly negotiating a modus vivendi, a civic order. It is an obligation to understand the others point of view and the matters in dispute. You should at all times be prepared to conduct a rational debate.
That, at least, is an ideal of citizenship.
"I am curious about why people are upset because strangers do not understand them. I'm especially curious with Trump voters"
Who said anything about being upset around here? Sure, we love giving Dick Durban Republicans a hard time and all, and we're happy to spout off against the Cohens of the world. But being conservative means not being "upset that strangers do not understand you." If anything, the opposite: to the extent that it makes our opponents misunderestimate us and leads them astray, prog incomprehension helps. But we don't mind if you don't understand that.
wwww,
Next time, just call us deplorables and be done. After all, it's not that we prioritize things differently than do you. No. It's that we lack the capacity to prioritize things the way you see best.
We get it.
I want to understand other people and different systems, social and inanimate.
Especially inanimate. Why not try to understand your car?
"I don't care if you don't understand me or my point of view."
Assuming your POV is material to the question (that is, you are not a minority of one or an irrational kook) then other people should be trying to understand you, and vice versa. Else you do not have a foundation for a peaceful society.
"You simply are unable to understand why those of us who disagree with you..."
I do understand. I enjoy being able to articulate the the arguments and reasonings of others.
You are failing to understand I am not trying to persuade you to a different view.
I just don't get why you all care so much about strangers understanding you, especially if you do not care to understand them. That's what I'm trying to grasp.
Mitch McConnell doesn't care what people think about him. He doesn't care about newspaper opinion articles. He cares he is able to appoint judicial nominees.
ok, I can see I am not articulating myself well. Or there is some other communication issue. Will take my leave so the thread is not dislocated.
Buwaya,
I was talking about political points of views of strangers -- not friends and/or family.
You think you articulated the majority position of conservatives by typing "I try to explain that Trump voters don't care why they see it as a tragedy for a child to loose their parents and all of their kin. Because they don't care, it's a waste of time to expect them to understand and/or care."
You are sublimely ignorant.
You're trying to grasp the strawman opinion that you project onto conservatives and complaining (internally) that you cannot understand them.
I am loving wwww so much right now.
Speaking for myself, I don't "like" him that much, I can't listen to him for more than a minute or so, and I won't have him over for dinner anytime soon. As people around here know, I considered him a clownish candidate.
I agree and with the rest of your comment.
They don't understand because "that's the way it has always been." That is a sentence you will see in every article and book about improving processes.
My professor in the Quality Improvement Program I went back to school at 55 to take said, "Every process is perfectly designed to get the results it gets."
Trump has disrupted the old system. The losers hate it.
Louis XVI did not like Robespierre very much.
But wwww,
The original argument is about what should be a piece of professional journalism.
Not friends and family.
I just don't get why you all care so much about strangers understanding you, especially if you do not care to understand them. That's what I'm trying to grasp.
A elderly German Jew who had survived the death camps said, "When someone says he is going kill you, believe him."
We care about our lives and children and grandchildren. I don't care about you.
I care about the political left that has plans for the rest of us that are wildly dysfunctional.
Why not move to Venezuela ? It's pretty cheap and the scenery is terrific.
Socialist paradise.
I am actually looking into an analogue for Trump - Florian Geyer, the nobleman who led a peasants revolt.
Granted that was a case where rational discussion had become moot.
Close to your American situation today.
When reasoned argument breaks down, it comes to the push of pike and the red rooster on the roofs.
"We care about our lives and children and grandchildren. I don't care about you."
ok. I am not asking you to care or understand my political POV. Nor would I expect you to be invested in me, as a individual, as I am a stranger to you.
I told the adoption group people who supported Trump's child separations did not care about their feelings on the subject. Really, I do not know what is upsetting people to say the obvious. People on this post not only did not care or understand them, they do not think they exist!
I do not understand what any of this has to do with Venezuela.
The original argument is about what should be a piece of professional journalism.
opinion pieces aren't journalism.
wwww,
The strawman you have constructed to project onto conservatives does not care about their feelings. You win that argument.
Conservatives prioritize differently than do you. But you won't be able to feel morally superior if you recognize that truth.
You're a remarkably funny dip. I know it's unwitting but please continue.
Sorry, one more comment.
Let's assume our man Stephen really wants to know why people "like" Trump "despite his evident flaws."
Part of my answer is that I no longer think all the flaws are flaws. I used to belabor them myself but I have changed my mind to some extent.
For example, I prefer politicians who reason logically, on the basis of evidence, in the form of elegant paragraphs. Ted Cruz comes to mind. Trump ain't Ted. But he is, in his own way, an incredible communicator. He can hold an audience's attention. He cuts through the media fog with his tweets. He has his own voice. He speaks in a way that mostly serves his political purpose. So what I considered his "flawed" speaking style is more effective than I thought. Kudos to Trump.
For another example, I prefer calm, sensible, unruffled politicians who firmly stand up for a set of core principles. Reagan comes to mind. Trump ain't Reagan. Yeah, he's brash and rude. But I'll take brash and rude when it comes to resisting the #Resistance. The left hasn't been playing nice for a long time. I don't consider rough payback a flaw anymore. Right now, we need a bit of nasty.
This is wacky.
I am not trying to tell you all how you ought to feel or think or do. There is no judgement here.
I am trying to understand what all the emotion is about. The distress and anger that an opinion writer doesn't understand or agree with you.
This emotion is what I do not understand. Why would one care what a random opinion writer thinks? It's like caring what Ann Landers thinks. The opinion pages are not journalism.
Sebastian,
While my conversion began soon after the Inauguration, I also wanted a more refined politics. But when I think back on the innumerable losses the polite Right has (I now think deservedly) been handed, I know I was wrong.
If Trump decertifies federal public sector unions in a second term, he belongs on Rushmore. And I can imagine him doing it. Not even after breaking the ATC union did Reagan make a move to decertify even a single union.
Here's to hoping Trump gets another two Justices!!
wwww: "...Trump voters do not understand nor do they care about their feelings on the subject."
wwww: "I am not trying to tell you all how you ought to feel or think or do."
Choose one.
Journalists always considered opinion pieces journalism.
It wasn’t necessarily reporting, but they often were and are that also.
If you’d told Zola that J’accuse wasn’t journalism he would have thought you a bit off.
I am not trying to tell you all how you ought to feel or think or do. There is no judgement here.
Buhhhh loney.
You tried to play It’s For The Children card, tug on heartstrings card.
I’m immune after 30 years.
wwww There is a lot you don't understand.
Really, I do not know what is upsetting people to say the obvious. People on this post not only did not care or understand them, they do not think they exist!
The "Obvious" is that people dragged children along (many not related to them)thousands of miles to try to sneak into a country they have no right to sneak into. We don't care about them as they are breaking our laws.
If you want a project, you and your leftist friends could try to do something for the thousands of American children whose parents are in prison. They are citizens.
This is the old leftist ploy of trying to push a radical agenda by using people who they think are sympathetic.
I told the adoption group people who supported Trump's child separations did not care about their feelings on the subject. Really, I do not know what is upsetting people to say the obvious.
Buuhhhhh loney.
You played a card you didn’t think through.
You didn’t get the response you thought.
I do understand. I enjoy being able to articulate the the arguments and reasonings of others.
Too much blank space at the bottom, dub.
Michael,
I am not arguing immigration.
I am talking about the reactions of an adoption parenting group.
I am not asking you to agree with the women on that group.
I noted their extreme emotional response. My advice was not to respond in that manner, because the people who supported the policy didn't care about their feelings.
You are correct that I do not understand everything.
I do NOT understand why this is triggering people on this blog. I am curious.
I am also curious why people in this post want this opinion guy to understand them. People sound upset. Just like the women who are upset on the adoption blog.
I see a parallel in emotional response. I find that curious and interesting.
That's ALL. It's not an attack. It's not a suggestion that I have any interest in debating adoption, immigration or journalism.
People need to get some chill. That's my POV: On both sides.
>>There is no judgment here.
Not having the ability to apply good judgment is a personal flaw, not a badge of honor.
Ooohhh pacification, like clockwork. Lololol
Chuck said...
Hmmm. Are you saying that investors shouldn't invest in a rising stock market, if it isn't being done in just the right way?
Should we be suspicious of the Trump-era market (continuing) boom if it is based on tax cuts producing massive deficits down the road?
Chuck has completely outted himself as a democrat cuck wing member on this thread. Any pretense at wanting what republican voters want is gone.
Anyone with any economic literacy could see the difference in stock market gains between an economy with 1.5% growth/1 billion in quantitative easing and an economy with 3% growth.
But a democrat cuck will not admit it.
And the author of the deficits, Paul Ryan the fucking traitor, is gone after November.
We are not so slowly removing the cuck wing of the democrat party from our ranks.
wwww: "People sound upset" (to me).
wwww: "There is no judgment here."
Choose one.
Man, I just read through the comments to that WAPO piece (or part of them, I couldn't go on).
All screed. Anyone who voted for Trump is garbage. They use other words, like racist, vile, haters, morons, evil, un-human, or whatever. But the notion is the same.
This is how you got Trump, this is how you'll get more Trump.
There's no intent to understand or seek common values or compromises or consensus. None. Just "if you don't think like us you shouldn't count."
Sad.
This is my question:
I get why the women and mothers on the adoption blog are flipping out emotionally. They have personal experience with loss of their own mothers or they are parents with young children who who are adoption.
I do _not_ understand the emotional response to this column.
Why are there more then 100 comments on this post? Why is this opinion column triggering people emotionally?
Republicans control the Presidency and Congress. This writer is nobody with any power.
What is so upsetting to people about this article? Why are people emotional about it?
Why do people care about this article?
wwww said...
"We care about our lives and children and grandchildren. I don't care about you."
ok. I am not asking you to care or understand my political POV. Nor would I expect you to be invested in me, as a individual, as I am a stranger to you.
But you want to take our money and give it to other people. So that makes us very interested in what you are up to.
I told the adoption group people who supported Trump's child separations did not care about their feelings on the subject. Really, I do not know what is upsetting people to say the obvious. People on this post not only did not care or understand them, they do not think they exist!
Stupid straw man lies. You pretend to not understand what we are really saying so you can hold on to your moral superiority. Pathetic.
I do not understand what any of this has to do with Venezuela.
Of course not. Because you really aren't as smart as you are telling yourself you are.
wwww: "People sound upset" (to me).
wwww: "There is no judgment here."
Dude what is hard to understand? I am perceiving upset in words written in both the parenting forum and on this post.
I do not judge the women for their emotions nor do I judge the people in this post for their emotions.
I get their emotions. Some of them were in foster care. Others are young mothers with new mother protective emotions.
The intensity of emotions on this post in response to this article I do not grasp.
Are people upset because others do not agree with them? Is it upset about a sense of respect that people want from strange randos or WA PO opinion writers? or something else?
wwww:
If you continue to use a word that has no fixed definition (e.g. triggering) then it will make it harder for people to grok your point.
But you want to take our money and give it to other people.
You know nothing, John Snow.
All right -- will read any responses to my question, to which I am very curious. No more posting for me.
Apologies to the blog hostess for the multiple posts.
wwww said...
Why do people care about this article?
wwww and a bunch of leftists suddenly care about kids being separated from parents, but only illegal immigrants despite Obama separating hundreds of thousands of kids from parents and shipping them around the country and the millions of kids in this country with parents in jail.
Let me help you understand why your selective and convenient outrage upsets us a little.
Leftists try to take away our rights of self defense.
Leftists try to take all our money.
Leftists try to destroy our livelihoods.
Replace white with jew in any number of leftist screeds currently in print and they are indiscernible from much of what was in the public sphere in the 1930's.
Draw any conclusions you want.
We know who you are and what you are up to.
Now you might have some idea of why this article and the thousands of other articles just like it that dominate the media environment anger us.
This is my question:
I get why the women and mothers on the adoption blog are flipping out emotionally. They have personal experience with loss of their own mothers or they are parents with young children who who are adoption.
Many people do not believe the MSM doom and gloom stories about kids being mistreated and never reunited. Reasonable after a couple of years of anti-Trump/Republican MSM lies and BS.
I do _not_ understand the emotional response to this column.
Simple. Daily propaganda about Trump being evil incarnate and any Trump voter a Nazi/Racist/sexist/KKK/ ignoramus gets somewhat tiresome.
Why are there more then 100 comments on this post? Why is this opinion column triggering people emotionally?
Republicans control the Presidency and Congress. This writer is nobody with any power.
This columnist has the power to influence simpletons .
What is so upsetting to people about this article? Why are people emotional about it?
Why do people care about this article?
7/24/18, 3:31 PM
"Republicans control the Presidency and Congress. This writer is nobody with any power. "
This is a typical idea. It is unrealistic, in not recognizing the realities of power.
The fact is that the writer represents the opinions, or world view, of masses of people with real power. That's why he writes for the WaPo.
The Republicans hold a preponderance of whatever symbolic offices there are, but by far the most important powers in this modern world are held by their opponents. The powers of elected representatives and the putative head of the executive are, as we have seen, extremely circumscribed. They cannot even overcome that of heads of executive departments, or their middle management. Nor that of the F500 executive ranks, of quasi-government organizations, of educational institutions, and so on and so forth.
wwww:
Who is upset? Why do you keep thinking people are emotional?
The article is filled with invective towards the deplorables. It is written for the leftist WAPO bubble dwellers. The comments section bears that out.
The people here are just pointing out the obvious. The author doesn't care why people voted for Trump. He just wants to bash them. And he does. And so do those commenting at the WAPO article.
You appear to be the same: You don't care why people voted for Trump. You brought up the illegal immigration and child separation issue, but you dismiss the Trump voters as not caring about anyone or unable to care. And apparently you told the adoption board the same thing.
That doesn't upset me. Doesn't make me emotional.
Doesn't foster any real discussion though either. After all, why should I (why should anyone) engage in a discussion with those who dismiss me out of hand as an uncaring hater, incapable of caring?
It's not a suggestion that I have any interest in debating adoption, immigration or journalism.
Why are you posting comments here ?
The topic of the posts was people trying to understand Trump and why his voters like him. What have all your comments had to do with that ?
You keep bringing up children separated from their parents. Lots of kids who are citizens who have parents in prison. I see some of them joining the military. One kid this month said his mother was in prison. I asked if it was drug related and he said "no."
I didn't ask him any more about it.
Most of the left is in hysterics because some illegal aliens were separated from their children because the left wing 9th circuit said that they could not be in custody with their parents.
Why you lefties want is more " catch and release" and the illegals' coyotes have learned from Obama that children were a ticket to the Big PX. Now, Trump has ended that loopholeand the left is screaming about the poor children.
If that was not your topic, why are you here ?
The left will never, ever understand Trump nor the rationale behind his election.
Not because they can't understand it. Some can. It's just they simply don't want to.
It's easier that way.
Remember all those leftie economists who forecast the great depression Trump was going to bring us?
Yep. One of them is the same guy who claimed the Internet wouldn't have any more impact than the fax machine.
I get their emotions. Some of them were in foster care.
I understand about foster care. There was a girl in the Masters program at Dartmouth with me who had grown up in foster care.
She said she would rather have been in an orphanage.
Remember when Gingrich got in all the trouble when he said something about orphanages ?
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. - Pickering
It's always funny when leftists attempt to make predictions without realizing they're the ones already reaping said whirlwind.
@ wwww
Some people get upset at dishonesty, deliberate misrepresentation under the pretense of professionalism. You accused people here of being unfeeling and then criticized them for having feelings. It's not the same as feeling sorry for people, it's more about having a sense of right and wrong and standards. Democrats were/are hysterical about the child separations and the lifetime trauma that would cause, but didn't care about the child trafficking, the traumas and rapes on the way to the border from Honduras, the phony stories that were made up to apply for asylum, ignoring the actual rules governing asylum. All the while those with the greatest outrage were looking the other way when hundreds of (Christians) were slaughtered in Nigeria or women in Iran were jailed for twenty years for not wearing the hijab. If you really care about "people" those people matter too, but they weren't covered by our MSM.
An Holocaust survivor was asked about the so called "concentration camps" on the border and how did he feel about that, and his response was that the comparison was sickening. He said if he as a child had experienced what we were doing to those children he would have felt like he was at a country club. Holocaust Survivor: America Does Not Run Concentration Camps He also said, grow up.
Some people don't believe that our immigration policy or any policy should be solely governed by pity or manipulation of sympathy, or opposition to everything Trump is doing. That doesn't mean not caring, it means putting everything into perspective. We really can't open our borders and invite in everyone and take care of them.
The adoptive forum I read was not political. This issue blew threw like a whirlwind. I do not think certain Trump voters have the capacity to grasp the distress it caused.
Wanna know why? Because the same shit was going on under Obama and we didn't hear a thing about it.
So pardon us for not giving a damn now when we can clearly see it's a political hitjob.
Northeast hater!
Fab!
Sebastian at 2:03 nails it.
Thank you.
I do not think certain Trump voters have the capacity to grasp the distress it caused.
How you get more Trump. Thank you for your contribution to Trump 2020.
wwww said...I am not trying to tell you all how you ought to feel or think or do.
--
Just telling others..now us..what you think we think.
Sebastian at 2:03 nails it.
Yep, my vote for thread winner too.
Is it a question of people liking Trump, or that his enemies are so nauseating?
Sebastian at 2:03 nails it.
I second that emotion.
The question is why a shrinking minority of increasingly unimportant and dying Americans in decline like Trump.
"will read any responses to my question, to which I am very curious."
Your question is based on one or more false premises.
While many may like/love the man, many of the rest of us tolerate the man and prefer him to his sole alternative in November 2016. Some basic reasons for me:
1. The fundamental lack of actual liberalism to the modern “liberal” consensus. Well, beyond sexual freedom and marijuana (but not nicotine or anything else). Modern liberals don’t believe in free speech/press, unless it advances their own agenda, religious liberty, or at least its free exercise component, self-defense, right to earn a living among other economic liberties, etc.
2. Principle of charity. Everyone makes mistakes, small and large and society cannot function without some degree of mutual charity and forgiveness. In the current political climate, not least among the perpetually outraged media class, large mistakes of one’s own partisans are overlooked while the tiniest inconsequential (and sometimes even faked) mistakes of one’s opponents become the end of the world. Thus, David French can overlook James Gunn’s jokes while justifying calling for Roseanne’s head for a joke. Mitigating facts apply to the former but not to the latter. Similarly, many mitigating facts apply to Obama and Clinton, but not to Trump, and before him Romney and Bush. We all have small sins that deserve to be placed in context, and not have our basic humanity questioned for a mistake.
3. Perspective. Outrage is not a productive filter through which to look at the world. Yes, specific facts and occasion may inspire useful outrage, but constant outrage tires us out, and constant outrage in others makes us tune out. The fable of “The boy who cried wolf” exists for a reason. The more the media and Never-Trump battalion pushes the constant outrage, the more reasonable people will tune them out until only true believers are left.
Incidentally, I didn’t actually vote for Trump in 2016, having the luxury to live in a state where my vote would not affect results. However, at the rate things are going, that may well change in 2020.
When all else fails, PPPT always has mortality to pin his hopes on.
"Should we be suspicious of the Trump-era market (continuing) boom if it is based on tax cuts producing massive deficits down the road?"
Economics isn't a zero sum game like you describe it. You're assuming governmrnt spending like it is will go on forever. Nothing in the marketplace is static.
“Most of the left is in hysterics because some illegal aliens were separated from their children because the left wing 9th circuit said that they could not be in custody with their parents.
Why you lefties want is more " catch and release" and the illegals' coyotes have learned from Obama that children were a ticket to the Big PX. Now, Trump has ended that loopholeand the left is screaming about the poor children.”
Tell your adoption moms that there are two choices: parents with kids in jail, together; and parents in jail without their kids. The 9th Circuit picked #2. What is not an option is parent out of jail because they brought a kid along. No using kids as get-out-of-jail-free cards. That is what the Dems want, and it is what they aren’t going to get. Sorry. Parents are separated from their kids every day, in every state in the union, when they end up in jail or prison. I know a woman well who was in that situation. She is out now, but doesn’t have the kids back. Likely never will. Oldest two are being raised by grandparents, and youngest by an aunt. Is it horrible for her? Of course. Does she sometimes cry herself to sleep at night because of this? Of course. But she is a US citizen, and so no one feels sorry for her. Somehow, just for the illegals who are mothers and dragged their kids across the border into this country.
It has to be that way. As Rush says: Actions have consequences. If people can enter this country illegally, and avoid jail or prison by bringing a kid along (sometimes theirs, and sometimes just a convenient one), then you are going to have more and more kids dragged along just to keep their putative parents out of jail. And if they know that they will be separated from their kids, if arrested, then they will be less likely to bring their kids along.
It isn’t that we don’t care, but rather that we are able to put our caring to the side, and do the right thing for the country, despite it sometimes being emotionally hard. The left, for the most part, can’t separate emotion and logic, and inevitably seem to always be making emotional decisions, when they should be making logical decisions.
I love Trump. Yes, he is a narcissistic boor, rough around the edges, not literary, not a slippery word abusing lawyer like Obama or Clinton. I love him because of his great courage, for his brass balls. I love him for his sense of humor. I love him because he is fighting the politically correct fascistic left who have been shutting down freedom of speech in this country. He is the arch enemy of those leftist tyrants who feel they can control what ideas are explored and which ones must be avoided if you wish to keep your job, your good name and possibly your physical safety( if Antifa and Maxine Waters continue to have their way). I see him as the greatest free speech warrior of the early 21st century, speaking truth to power (the victimologist liberal intelligentsia, globalist corporate tycoons etc). I also see him as the greatest dismantler of the administrative state of this century too.
I love him because he believes in this country and western civilization. He believes that an American president should protect American citizens and the social welfare system that American taxpayers have invested in from unrestrained and unnecessary immigration, especially the immigration of groups fundamentally hostile to our core Western/American values. By protecting our border, by lessening the massive, ever increasing power of the administrative state, by reassessing all treaties/foreign relationships with an eye to what is best for Americans, I believe he is protecting our weakest citizens and the middle class from the depredations of the leftist globalists who have hollowed out our manufacturing, our middle class, our black communities, these globalists who are in the process of turning this country into yet another shit hole country rather than the special country that it still is. So yes, I unapologetically LOVE Donald Trump. I hope the powerful on the right and left do not stop him from building a wall and I hope he continues to reduce regulation and decrease the size and reach of the federal government. I hope he continues to puncture leftist hypocrisy. Praying for a BIG RED WAVE to bolster his chances of continuing what he has started against terrible resistance. MAGA.
Ritmo stopped by to drop a turd.
If those adoption groups care, they should be happy that years of abuse have been brought to light by the Trump administration after Obama hid it for years.
Also. I care about the kids. It is a tragedy Obama's government mishandled immigration so poorly. They literally gave kids to human traffickers and lost them! I care about these kids. I don't only care about them when they can be used as a bludgeon against Trump. He's doing better than the low bar of paying child traffickers to take kids. So. Good for him, even if he could do better.
If those adoption groups care ...
They don't. wwww only cares as long as kids can be used to attack Republicans. Otherwise he'd be glad to toss them alive into wood chippers to make dog food.
Should we be suspicious of the Trump-era market (continuing) boom if it is based on tax cuts producing massive deficits down the road?
That's a legitimate concern, IMO. The question is who do I vote for if I want deficits under control? Not the Democrats. Not the Republicans. So I have to base my vote based on other criteria.
Michael K said...
Ritmo stopped by to drop a turd.
Glad you liked it, Michael K! Did it taste better than usual?
People like Trump because he is working on economic issues such as the loss of manufacturing jobs and people who hate Trump talk about cultural and emotional issues such as how allegedly Trump voters hate this, that, or the other group; or won't take care of the homeless, the druggies, the Europeans etc. The people who voted for Trump want jobs, a strong economy, and a strong defence. And we know that is incomprehensible to the Richard Cohen's of this world; we know he literally cannot hear people who say they want that; we know he hears "I Love Fascism." So we don't really listen to him, only to people who might want a job or a future and wonder if Trump can really do anything about it all. To them we say, government cannot DO much but it can obstruct a lot and that's what has been happening and that is what Trump is doing - undoing obstruction, high taxes, over regulation; undoing open borders in a struggling economy which hurts the poor in this country. The only thing government can really do is defend a nation and Trump is doing that also. Hillary would continued to sell off American assets and America's defence.
...if it is based on tax cuts producing massive deficits down the road?
Tax rate reductions produce.deficits only when receipts decline. They haven't declined under Trump, and they didn't under Reagan. In fact, Reagan's cuts resulted in federal tax receipts nearly doubled by the end of Reagan's term.
Massive spending over and above growing receipts produces deficits. It's the coincidence of spending growth with higher receipts that causes people like Chuck to confuse the two.
Stated earlier:
"Trump has disrupted the old system."
This, alone, is reason to like Trump. Politics as usual is a bad thing, and ends up constraining all the things that are important to every kind of individual, in a tit-for-tat war. Specifically, the rules become 'if I can't do this then you can't do that'. This is not progress.
"They do not seem to understand that Trump voters do not understand nor do they care about their feelings on the subject.
They are especially distressed by the younger kids who may never find their parents or any of their relatives. It is, to put it mildly, flipping them out. "
Here's a thought.
Don't go where you're not invited.
buwaya,
If I may tweak your comment a bit (everyone needs an editor, now and then!):
The Grauniad may be rational at times, and irrational at (more frequent) times, but it's ALWAYS more rational than the US MSM. A lower bar than the latter simply cannot be found...
"People driven excessively by feelings should not be given roles in matters of importance."
Ah, I see you, too, think the Nineteenth Amendment was a disaster. ;-)
Michael K,
"I am amused by the left that thinks bringing children 1000 miles to try to sneak into a country against the law should incite sympathy."
I would be amused, too, if the context weren't so dangerous. Look, lefties--we already have, in a civilian context, a name for people who do what Dr. K. is referencing here. We call them "kidnappers".
That's in a civilian context, though. A plausible case can be made that what we are experiencing is outside the civilian context, that what is going on is best described by the neologism "immivasion". But not to worry, we also have a word for those who drag children into a military situation: "war criminals".
wwww,
"I am trying to understand what all the emotion is about."
Let's start with the fact that we absolutely don't believe the bolded words ...
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