Donald Trump: polls of approval and favorability

[Bob Butler 54]

(06-20-2017, 10:36 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The loss in GA is yet another stunning demo of American ignorance. I am tending toward the David Kaiser view today. America is deciding in favor of gilded age, banana republic status. I don't know where this goes, but it can't be easy any way it goes. Buckle up folks; we're going downhill. Dismemberment of America at this point would be an optimistic scenario.

I have little confidence that states like Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Arizona, can turn around, after this result. Polls are not elections. People are stuck. In hatred of liberals, in belief in trickle down, in the religious right; and just in general, ignorance. Those Republicans losing their approval of Trump, still support Republican ideology and policies. They will most likely stay in the fold, and follow "Daddy" as kinser calls him. That's what Republicans and conservatives do; bow down to Daddy.

With each election, our country moves closer to ruin. I become more partisan and less optimistic, and more the ripe target for Bob's "advice" and characterizations.

I’m not sure ignorance is the proper blanket word for the unravelling memes.

Reagan did push some racist ideas. White folk ought not to pay into a welfare program which paid single black women to have babies. This broadened out to people ought to pay their own way, that the government should not try to even the gap between poverty and wealth. Beyond that, it walked into trickle down, the idea that giving money to the rich helped the poor.

Now part of this is ignorance, or perhaps the intellectualized art of fooling one’s self. Even people who have convinced themselves they are intelligent can believe in borrow and spend trickle down if they feel like it. Tax breaks are tempting. To get the tax break, one learns the fine art of double think. It isn’t that many such people aren’t intelligent, or can’t learn, but when money and selfishness mix, doublethink is easy.

How much of this is still racism? How much is “I’ve got mine, up yours” tribal thinking, where so long as you can keep your head above water, you don’t care about those drowning? Either way, I don’t see it as ignorance. It is a deliberate, callous, willful choice to let people drown.

Part of it actually might be the falling empire syndrome. A strong country can coast on its former greatness for a time. It can maintain a mighty military after the special circumstances which made them a superpower have passed. The unraveling memes call for much money spent on military power with little money collected in taxes. Since the start of the Industrial Age, any given superpower winds up walking that road, getting swamped in debt, and eventually losing any pretension of being a superpower. The greater the delusion, the uglier the recovery period as the great power becomes a more run of the road nation. Spain, France, Britain, Germany, the Soviet Union… This doesn’t make it inevitable that the United States will vanish. All of the above nations eventually learned and adapted. Still, we do seem to be following the trail well trod by prior militaristic industrial former superpowers.

I’m not sure this is ignorance, save perhaps of history. It seems pretty well inevitable. One presumes one can be as strong as one has recently been, even if one stops paying one’s bills. Once one builds a notion that one’s nation can push it’s weight around internationally, it seems historically difficult to let go.

Then there is absolute religious ethics. If one’s view of how to interpret Christ is absolutely correct, that view must be forced on everyone. This would be the opposite of Freedom, of letting each find his or her own life style. This is not a simple one way street. Will the coasts force folks in the middle of the country to support what is seen as perverse sinful life styles? Is it freedom to protect all life styles, or is it foul coercion to force everyone to support detested life styles? As a liberal, I’d like everyone free to live as they choose, but I don’t find it difficult to perceive the opposing point of view.

Me? Do as you will, but harm none.

Eric, I grew up blue, and you don’t have to work hard to get me pushing most blue positions. (Most. Let’s only briefly mention the Second Amendment.) However, there are valid, well though out or deeply set in habit alternatives to the blue. If one labels and thinks of the other guys as stupid, evil, ignorant, insane, brainwashed, etc… it is not the other guys who are ignorant. There is, on both sides, a willful and deliberate effort to not understand, to remain ignorant, to demonize anyone who conflicts with one’s own culture.

This thread, to me, seems a nice solid demonstration of this.

This is a time and place to advocate for blue values. We do need advocates breathing fire and brimstone. We don’t need them to be ignorant, to scream from the mountaintops what seems obviously wrong to those being screamed at.

Back to the thread topic.

For decades, conservative talk radio has blanketed much of the country with one way of looking at things. More recently, main stream media and late night TV comedy have been emphasizing the opposite perspective. The polls suggest that Trump has demonstrated himself to be a failure, yet every special election since Trump was elected has gone the Republican's way. The atmosphere in Washington DC is rancid, hostile, stagnated, perhaps just a bit more than usual. Nixon finally went down when his defenses became to absurd for the Republicans in Congress to pretend to believe them. No where near that point yet. I'm not sure we'll get to that point before the mid term elections.

While the night show political spinners are entertaining, I don't trust them to be any more 'fair and balanced' than many conservative sources. I've a feeling that many conservatives have tuned many news sources out. I know I apply strong amounts of anti-spin to most anything from any source these days. People are so dedicated to their conflicting partisan alternate realities that finding something like reality requires real effort.

While this is far to early to take polling seriously, I've the notion that Trump's White House is not respected, is on shaky ground, save with those well locked into the Republican base. Sill, I'm not sure the unraveling ideals that he based his platform on have been taken out. Folk will still be looking for an unraveling firebrand, someone who can imitate Reagan well enough.

Seems to be a tough act to pull off.