Althouse: "I'd love to know what it is about this president that makes these people so loyal. Even if they're fans of his policies..."

March 27, 2019

"I'd love to know what it is about this president that makes these people so loyal. Even if they're fans of his policies..."

"... how can they overlook his crass behavior, his sycophantic praise of dictators, and his obvious attempts at obstructing justice (and many more offenses) to the extent that they will put so much effort into celebrating 'No Collusion'? I can't help but feel they're part of a cult of personality that blinds them to the many apparent shortcomings of Trump as a leader, and it's that more than any actual leadership on his part that drives them. It frightens me that these demonstrations of hero worship have become a defining element of American culture, and I hate feeling this way about my countrymen."

The 4th-highest-rated comment at "Russian Vodka. A ‘No Collusion Day’ Rally. Trump Fans Celebrate the Mueller Report" (NYT).

237 comments:

«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 237 of 237

Birkel said...: Happy to disagree except for the substantive point I made.
That one presented unfortunate issues of fact.
Best to attack... by subterfuge...; 3/27/19, 7:04 PM
Michael K said...: If you find it uninteresting, that's fine.

Look, OK we disagree.

I'm not the only one.

I lived in OC for 40 years and spent years active in California politics. You seem to be finding excuses for what I consider cheating, or at least a high risk of cheating. The OC House elections were not determined until two weeks after election day. Ditto for Arizona where I now live and where I spent a couple of weeks calling voters.

Absentee ballots are an invitation for cheating,.; 3/27/19, 7:14 PM
Drago said...: Trump administration tells Russia to leave Venezuela.....just like Putin wants, right lefties? Chuck, Inga?

LOL; 3/27/19, 7:24 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: “The personal stuff is debris that doesn't enlighten.”

The new commenting policy seems to have fallen on it’s face. Moderation doesn’t exist apparently when it comes to insults toward those with a different viewpoint.; 3/27/19, 7:29 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: “Are we back to personal stuff? People being named by name. I have appreciated the de-personalization and reduction of personal insults and comments.”

Moderators don’t seem to mind at all, apparently. How long did it last two weeks? What a farce.; 3/27/19, 7:33 PM
Paco Wové said...: I find it both remarkable and depressing that the more Americans are able to converse with one another (via the miracle of the Internet) the more we loathe each other. I have trouble seeing a good ending here.; 3/27/19, 7:34 PM
Big Mike said...: @wwww, at least part of the vote shift is due to elimination of the SALT deduction. Limousine liberals do not enjoy being hit in the wallet. They prefer policies that puck other people’s pockets.; 3/27/19, 7:48 PM
Big Mike said...: No wonder Putin is so popular with deplorables.

Only if by “deplorables” you mean Hillary Clinton supporters.; 3/27/19, 7:55 PM
Unknown said...: We don't love him so much as

WE HATE YOU

He is our instrument of your torture

our shift to your rules

Welcome to the next step in your path to your utopia; 3/27/19, 7:59 PM
Howard said...: Paco Wove need to go to Lane Bryant (I assume Drooper Dork went belly up) to get some Big Girl pants.; 3/27/19, 8:14 PM
Rusty said...: Blogger Inga...Allie Oop said...
“The personal stuff is debris that doesn't enlighten.”

"The new commenting policy seems to have fallen on it’s face. Moderation doesn’t exist apparently when it comes to insults toward those with a different viewpoint"
Facts aren't insults. They're facts. Refute them with other facts, but dont whine.; 3/27/19, 8:25 PM
wwww said...: "You seem to be finding excuses for what I consider cheating, or at least a high risk of cheating."

I find it implausible that cheating occurred in all 40 House seat races. It is more probable that the suburban vote followed trends that held constant in many of the same type of suburbs.

In any case, cheating in 1 or 2 or 3 house seats would not negate the overall trend being seen in vote shifts in suburbs from the WOW Wisconsin burbs to Virginia to Tennessee to Texas to Washington state.

Yes to SALT and many other reasons. & to aesthetic and cultural differences. Barbara Bush and her granddaughters are just one data point. How representative they are, I do not know. But in 2018 we see TX suburbs shift in their vote patterns.

And I agree with Inga. The personal stuff is just silly. And irrelevant. Name-calling has never once won a intellectual argument. It is not necessary to address people by name. Address the substance of the intellectual argument. If there is no intellectual argument which interests you, I suggest moving on to a comment that offers intellectual sustenance.; 3/27/19, 8:54 PM
Michael K said...: The newest of the shift is related to employees of corporation heavily into globalization. I understand that.

In the old days, Democrats cared about blue collar workers. They don't anymore.

The parties are changing. Many college "educated" salarymen are voting for Democrats. The GOP, with Trump, is shifting to a middle class party. The shift will take a while. City dwellers, especially in expensive cities with high property taxes and state income taxes, will shift to Democrats. Millenials, no matter what Vox and Slate say, are moving out of cities.

It will be an interesting next 5 years. Watching Inga whine will not be part of the fun.

A simple metric will be people who have ever signed the front of a paycheck.; 3/27/19, 8:57 PM
wildswan said...: One point I haven't seen made is that all Trump supporters will be abused in the same way, all will be called cultists, have their cars keyed, lose jobs, get shouted at, have drinks thrown on them if their support becomes public. There is a whole spectrum of opinion among his supporters but there is only one way they are all treated - badly. There is steady hammering going on on all Trump supporters and it is turning soft iron in steel. And then people wonder why Trump supporters are so determined.

Having said that, I think there is a change going on right now. As soon as the Mueller Report came out and people began to react, I seemed to hear that line "I was country when country wasn't cool," only it was "I was for Trump when Trump wasn't cool". As if my inner radar on the country sensed that Trump suddenly was cool. As if things might get better, because though the Deep Bubble won't change, most people actually never were in that bubble. They were just repeating fashionable sayings they heard emitted from the Deep State Bubble. And now words are coming from the outside and now it's the fashion to listen to them.; 3/27/19, 9:05 PM
Birkel said...: wwww,
Great job not pretending to disagree with any point I made.
I accept your capitulation.; 3/27/19, 9:21 PM
Nichevo said...: Howard said...
Critiques of conservative Israeli political hacks is the new bar of antisemitism. This makes them above scrutiny like any fascist or totalitarian. No wonder Putin is so popular with deplorables.

3/27/19, 5:05 PM

Didn't they teach you English in the Marine Corpse? I think you need to get your money back.; 3/27/19, 9:30 PM
Fen said...: One, don't agree with Inga. She is a poser who routinely slings shit and then whines about "civility" when it's shoved back down her throat. You want to destroy your credibility and any good will here, enabling her is the quickest route to ruin.

That said, I am curious about what you refer to as the Big Sort and would ask you back up some and explain it in more detail.; 3/27/19, 9:34 PM
Fen said...: Wildswan, excellent analysis. This afternoon Talm Radio was reported that more and more High School kids are wearing MAGA hats in response to the Whataburger and Covington incidents.

This generations version of Fonzie's Leather Jacket.; 3/27/19, 9:41 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Speaking of what makes Trump voters so loyal to him, it might have something to do with the growing anti-semitism of the democrat party. Here we go with Ilhan Omar (D-Muslim Brotherhood) attacking Netanyahu speaking at AIPAC"

Is criticism of Israel or Netanyahu anti-semitic?; 3/27/19, 10:08 PM
Michael K said...: And I agree with Inga.

Good to know. Inga uses whining instead of argument. You, too, I guess. No more exchanges with you,. Go on your way thinking you know stuff,; 3/27/19, 10:11 PM
Big Mike said...: I find it implausible that cheating occurred in all 40 House seat races.

I don’t.

But I can tell you a lot about the Washington-area suburbs, having lived there from when I was a Vietnam-Era draftee until I retired from a Defense contractor few years ago. When I started living in the Washington suburbs there were farms not far outside the Beltway. Today the outermost ring of Virginia suburbs stretches all the the way to Leesburg, 26 miles from the Beltway, and a bit beyond. Almost all of that growrh is due to the growth of the federal government, and so of course it is Democrat. Under Democrat administrations the federal government grows, opening up new opportunities for bureaucrats to advance their career. Republican administrations tend to demand that federal bureaucrats do some real work for their salaries — highly unpopular!; 3/27/19, 10:31 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: I doubt that Pants worries about her credibility based on Fen’s opinions. Pants seems to me like a woman who isn’t swayed by dumbasses like Fen.; 3/27/19, 10:34 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: wwww, not Pants. Different thread.; 3/27/19, 10:38 PM
wwww said...: The Big Sort: It's a political science theory involving negative polarization and demographics & where people choose to live.

Some guy named Bill Bishop coined the term in his book, but a bunch of poly sci & demographics people have criticized and refined the original idea. So this is a critique of the Big Sort: http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/partisan-geographic-sorting/

There's lots of detailed county-level numbers on voting in 2018 that go over the suburban sort. But here's something from a quick google search. The info is out there if you want to google around for it. Below is a journalistic article, which is not going to be a in depth demographic analysis, but for what it's worth, here you go: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/11/07/exit_polls_show_suburbs_as_likely_2020_battlefield_138582.html

"For the last two decades, suburban voters have leaned slightly Republican, as was the case in 2016 when Donald Trump outpolled Hillary Clinton by four percentage points. In contrast, urban voters supported Democrats by a 33-point margin in this year’s midterms, while Republicans carried rural areas by 14 points."
Democrats are starting to show significant strength in the less dense suburbs,” said Karlyn Bowman, a demographics expert at the American Enterprise Institute. She predicted that “the suburbs will continue to be a competitive area of focus” in 2020." “The divides keep growing, with there being big gaps between urban and rural, and between college versus non-college educated voters,” said Joe Lenski, executive vice president of Edison Research, which conducts the exit polls for the national media."; 3/27/19, 11:05 PM
wwww said...: "Great job not pretending to disagree with any point I made.
I accept your capitulation."

stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.

"I remember that Abelard used the example of the sentence "Nulla rosa est" to demonstrate how language can speak of both the nonexistent and the destroyed. And having said this, I leave the reader to arrive at his own conclusions."; 3/28/19, 1:08 AM
Kirk Parker said...: I really don't want an echo chamber here, but who would miss Inga's contribution if she left? To continue the acoustical analogy, all she adds is noise and distortion; no signal.

We really need more lefties like Cook in the discussion. I may disagree with him 99% of the time, but does he ever come across as aguing in bad faith? Not that I have ever noticed. Maybe we could get Glenn Greenwald to join us...; 3/28/19, 1:43 AM
wwww said...: Althouse & Meade,

Not written with the intention of publication, but for advice on how to proceed. I want to encourage good comment quality. You may with to publish, or ignore this entirely, or re-write the question as a hypothetical.

Below are two comments. I attempted to sincerely explain my point, which referred to suburban counties shifting their votes. My point did not refer to state-wide elections. I have attempted to clarify the substance when it appeared he misunderstood my point.

My sincere efforts do not seem to be profitable in getting things back on track to the non-personal. I find the suggestion that I attacked him to be confusing and disconcerting.

Should I assume you want me to respond because you posted his comments? Or should I assume you want me to ignore these quoted posts, which got through moderation? What do you want from me? Do you want no response?
Your blog, your preferences. Let me know and I am happy to oblige.

Comments reposted below:
"Happy to disagree except for the substantive point I made.
That one presented unfortunate issues of fact.
Best to attack... by subterfuge...

Great job not pretending to disagree with any point I made.
I accept your capitulation."; 3/28/19, 2:03 AM
Kevin said...: People being named by name.

If this is uncomfortable, you need to let everyone know your preferred pronouns.

Like xie/xer, or yins/youns.

For instance, Chuck’s seem to be LLR/Fopdoodle.

That cuts down quite a bit on the naming by name.; 3/28/19, 6:06 AM
Tom Grey said...: We who like Trump likes that he fights, and mostly when he fights, he wins.
Trump "was wiretapped". Dems & media "Ridiculous! Trump's a liar!" Truth-Trump was wiretapped.

Trump "Witch Hunt!". Dems & media, two years, thousands of prime-time hours on TV "Collusion! Trump's a liar! Bombshell! (how many?)" Truth- it was a witch hunt.

Trump is mostly good & honest, tho he often exaggerates like a salesman / showman. The Trump-haters are liars. And want outcomes that are bad for America.

I was NeverHillary. Now I'm Trump2020.
Not loyal to Trump, but with ever increasing reasons to be against the hysterical PC-Klan and the PC-Klansmen on TV called "journalists" but actually trying to do an e-lynching.
We, as Americans, need to fight against the PC-Klan.
Trump is a fighter.; 3/28/19, 7:05 AM
wwww said...: "No more exchanges with you,"

I strongly agree with you -- one comment and done appear to be the best course of action on the blog. Although these exchanges of ideas start out sincerely and with interesting comments, in two cases they disintegrated into the personal, and that's no fun for readers or commenters.

I like the new commenting system, where individual commenters do not get into personal "back and forths" with other people. I was disappointed as this thread progressed and fell into the personal. Disagreement need not be personal. Disagreement need not lead to agitation or rejection or unpleasantness. A disagreement on substance can be civil, pleasant, and interesting.

I don't want to participate in anything that will become socially unpleasant. Life is too short.; 3/28/19, 10:10 AM
Birkel said...: Sincerity poses are fun.
Everybody loves them.
None of the substance of others' comments need be addressed, because sincere reasons.

Civility bull shit.

The great sorting, by the way, was a forced sorting my monopoly politicians in cities.
Who needs the Central Voter Theorem when you can drive the other side out of the neighborhood?
Nice theory, kid.
Damned shame it don't square with reality.; 3/28/19, 11:41 AM
wwww said...: The Great Sort & suburban voting. We will get more data in 2020. I will be able to find data that breaks it down county-by-county and House-district-by-House-district. It will be fun to compare 2020 with 2018, 2016 and 2014.

I follow the data. If my hypothesis is wrong, that's all good. Data is interesting.; 3/28/19, 12:47 PM
wwww said...: "None of the substance of others' comments need be addressed, because sincere reasons.
Civility bull shit.
The great sorting, by the way, was a forced sorting my monopoly politicians in cities.
Who needs the Central Voter Theorem when you can drive the other side out of the neighborhood?
Nice theory, kid.
Damned shame it don't square with reality."

I do not understand your points. I would address your comments, if I could. I am talking about suburban districts in the 2018 election. My responses are not personal.; 3/28/19, 1:33 PM
Birkel said...: Yeah, civility bull shit.
Nobody cares.
We are immune.

Your theory is received wisdom from people with a pre-determined point of view.
True believers gonna belief.
Don't stop believing...; 3/28/19, 3:50 PM
wwww said...: It not a theory. It is a hypothesis. A hypothesis about certain suburban districts in 2020. If the evidence bears it out in November 2020, then it might be a theory. I will watch the data and make my conclusions at that point. For myself, a conclusion today would be premature.

Either way, the suburban district data doesn't care how we discuss it on this blog. In other words, data will not care if two individuals chatting on a blog are civil or unpleasant.

Althouse might care, which is why I asked if she had a preference on how I responded. As I said before, Althouse & Meade, if you don't want me to answer, or you want me to respond differently, let me know and I am happy to comply. Your blog, your rules, your readership.; 3/28/19, 5:20 PM
Birkel said...: Pompous and sophomoric.
Absolute certainty and other people's ideas.
Some call it thinking.; 3/28/19, 9:05 PM
wwww said...: In November 2020 I will watch the suburban districts. I will find the data interesting, no matter the result.; 3/28/19, 10:31 PM