(01-24-2020, 01:38 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(01-23-2020, 09:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trump is obviosuly a dunce when it comes to knowledge of the job he was shoe-horned into. That's why he has committed an impeachable offense. He thinks the job is just another opportunity to cheat others and boost himself, which has been his whole career. He just doesn't know any other mode of behavior. The question is, are Americans as dumb as he is?
The early part is correct enough. Trump wound up with the wrong values for his job description.
A basic rule for hiring anyone: never hire someone who doesn't show the willingness to hold the same job for at least five years. Someone who sees his job as simply a stepping stone to something better will not be happy doing the job. Note well: opportunities for advancement are practically nil in Corporate America, so the college grad who takes a job as a retail clerk but really wants to be an accountant will be miserable.
Of course, Trump is grossly under-qualified for the role, and he doesn't even know it. He sought the President as spite of the President of the time. He is the Mordred to Arthur -- and I do not mean Chester Arthur.
Quote:I am not sure the 'Americans' being dumb is the correct characterization. They see baby killing, gun theft and hurting the minorities (and thus the younger generations) as a higher priority. They are still into the voodoo economics theory of stimulus even in good times, in spite of the prior results of voodoo economics. They have an agenda, and will support anyone who gives that agenda lip service.
Trump has an arch-reactionary set of economic ideas, yet he plays to mass resentments. Such is typical of fascists. Liberals typically want significant reforms to improve things to create the reality of bettering lives and conservatives try to calm things so that people accept that the current reality is the best of all possible worlds. Remember that Trump offered infrastructure spending to get re-elected, but all that it was was money to sweeten deals for privatization of roads, water supplies, etc. The idea was to raise rates and add tolls as if such would make things better. He did get tax cuts for the economic elites as he promised. So far he has at least avoided pushing a national Right to Work (for starvation wages) law, let alone allowing Big Business to opt out of collective bargaining... maybe even the economics elites have some fear of wildcat strikes by people who have little to lose and the rise of a Marxist insurgency.
But he did not introduce such a reactionary agenda; it has been in existence, dominating political life for most of the last forty years. Call it Voodoo economics, call it neoliberalism, call it welfare for the rich, or even as I am tempted to call it, "sadonomics" -- the emphasis may change, but the overall agenda does not. People not in the elites are damned to be losers.
Quote:The question is whether American basics such as free elections and human rights are rated higher than the unraveling agenda. So far, the Republican Senators seem to be counting on it not being so.
Given a choice between their own class privilege and human dignity, the elites all too often choose human suffering as a necessity for achieving elite agendas. If the elites can profit off concentration camps, torture chambers, and wars for profit, then the elites will promote the political causes that bring such about. Such is the same for slave-owning planters and the old Soviet nomenklatura despite their diametric differences in stated ideology. Robber barons of our time are as rapacious as those of the Gilded Age, and our executive elites are as nasty as were central planners of the Soviet Union.
Quote:I think sticking with Trump will buy them another year, then the independent voters will flip the flop again. I am hoping for conviction and removal, but don't anticipate one. The sham trial, though, might hurt the Republicans really bad.
The GOP has a year of power left at the minimum, and I have yet to see how Pence serves them any less well. Pence can turn up the promises of Pie in the Sky When You Die while pushing for anti-worker provisions asa nationwide Right to Work (of course for starvation wages) legislation. The Hard Right offers a variant of Pascal's wager to the common man -- live miserably on behalf of the Master Class so that one can enjoy a wonderful Afterlife. So what if there is no Afterlife? What did you lose?
(Truth be told, I consider economic exploitation a violation of the commandment "Thou shalt not steal"... and a cause for damnation should there be damnation for thieves).
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.