02-02-2021, 12:48 PM
(02-02-2021, 12:39 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:(02-01-2021, 11:48 AM)mamabug Wrote:(02-01-2021, 01:34 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Donald Trump left plenty of warning signs. He has huge funds and he gets attached to a porn star. He is taped talking about grabbing women by their "kitty cats". He mocks the handicapped. He denounces people for their religion and ethnicity. A bit fewer than 46% or the American electorate vote for him in 2016, and an even larger share vote for him in 2020. Character is destiny, and people of bad character eventually get bad results even if they have competence and talent. Just look at Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and Phil Spector.
Again, nothing you say about him changes the fact that there were a number of people who voted for him despite all of that simply because, in a binary system, the things his administration might or might not accomplish was preferable than the policy agenda of his opponent.
The moral objectionability of Trump allowed the left to spend four years pretending that vote didn't happen and try to figure out how to jury rig the system so that it would never happen again instead of regrouping and determining why the loss actually happened and coming back with a stronger, better party that appealed to more than a bare majority of America. Continuing to act as if nobody except a racist would have voted for him is furthering this ostrich-like mindset and is only going to further the partisan divide.
But, I'm getting tired of being Cassandra so I may just have to stop engaging in discussions on this topic. I've made my points, consider them or not.
"a person whose valid warnings or concerns are disbelieved by others." Who is Cassandra depends on your views. People like me have been warning against free-market economics and the moral minority for well over 40 years.
To people like me, warning of further partisan division now is like warning about a storm that has already come and flooded the city. Why should I care? The only point is who is going to win.
I agree, lots of Republican and Republican-leaning voters supported Trump as a matter of course because he pledged to support their favorite policies, like pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-tax, anti-immigrant, pro-business etc. Racism is a hidden factor in much of this, as well as religious conservatism, but it's not the only reason people voted for Trump. It just stirred up a lot of hate that was hidden before. People like me on the Left called him a fake president, because he was unqualified for the job, and we wondered why that was not a factor in peoples' votes. "Jury-rigging the system" on the Democrats' part consisted of efforts, only somewhat successful, to end the jury-rigging the Republicans and our founding fathers had done, especially voter suppression laws, voter-roll purges, poll closings in Democratic-voting areas and so on.
The Democrats did come back with a stronger party and a better candidate in 2020. Biden won over 7 million more votes than Trump, and still barely won the White House because of the outdated electoral college that favors small and former slave states. If the Democrats don't choose Harris to run in 2024, they should continue to get stronger, since they are interested in real problems, and since the country is becoming more diverse and less wedded to ancient ideologies. If Republicans cling to Trump they will lose ground and perhaps disappear. If the Democrats continue to give-in to or adopt Republican policies, they will continue to appear weak and ineffective and will also lose ground, and so will the nation. What needs to happen is that more people need to learn that Democratic Party policies work and are better than the Republican Party policies.
Trump blatantly appealed to racism throughout his 5-year political career, and did not care about police shootings more than he did about using supposed riots to stoke his vote. That helped his chances to win, and it also further divided the nation much more than correctly attributing his support in part to racism would.
Eric, I kinda like you, but sometimes you illustrate to me just how bat sh*t insane and immersed in a narrative disconnected from reality the modern left has become, at least when compared to those I admired in my youth. Some of the statements you casually throw out as Truth™ are exactly why I worry about the fate of dissenters in the remaining parts of the 4T and just how totalitarian the 1T will be.