The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(02-03-2021, 11:30 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-02-2021, 11:52 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-31-2021, 10:52 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-31-2021, 10:23 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-31-2021, 06:54 PM)mamabug Wrote: Which, again, is all moot because SCOTUS won't hear either case since HE. WON'T. BE. CONVICTED.

If he isn't convicted, a bunch of Republican senators will have discredited themselves in the general election.  If he is convicted, we will be rid of Trump.  It is worth putting up with a little theater.

The only Republican senators running the risk of being discredited and removed from contention are the five who are directly associated with another Democratic run shit show.

Seems to me that they are mostly discredited already, will lose the primary if they fight Trump, will lose the general election if they don't, and are somehow traveling up (expletive deleted) Creek without a paddle.

I think that's why McConnell has finally decided that taking the hit now beats taking it just prior to an election.  He's praying that 17 Republicans will purge the party of Trump.  If the Dems were as cynical as McConnell has been, they would sit on their hands, and force a majority of Reps to 'convict' before they finish the job.

And you're right.  No matter what they do, the Reps lose in some fashion.

My take. Trump is trouble.

Trump is a disaster, and the election of 2020 was just close enough to delude many on the Right into believing that winning the next election can be done with a few tweaks or the supposedly-inevitable disaster that liberal policies will certainly engender. By 2022 Americans will clamor for tax cuts for the Master Class, an abandonment of even an incipient environmentalism, welfare cuts, and of course pay cuts to ensure that the most competent people get what they want. Such is the fantasy of Atlas Shrugged. 

Well, so is trickle-down economics, and so is the elitist ideology that assumes that only those already filthy rich know how to manage economic affairs. We know how that works -- all goes to the few, and everyone else suffers... and suffers... and suffers. 

Trump gave a populist (if of the worst sort, a resentful, mean-spirited, anti-rational, bigoted, anti-expert) veneer to plutocracy. With that comes his sordid behavior. With little surprise someone whose economic ethos is to 'burn' customers, suppliers, and subcontractors; whose sexuality is exploitative and dehumanizing; and who makes Harry S. Truman look like a polished scholar with a PhD by contrast. (OK, Truman was an avid reader and knew enough to seek out the knowledge that he needed for his political life, and deferred to the experts when someone knew something critical that he did not know. Someone who knows the limitations of his expertise and takes advantage of others' expertise when such is available can lead as someone who thinks he knows it all. That's almost as good as Obama, who well knows the intricacies of law but knows his limitations on engineering, medicine, science, or military matters. 

The GOP needs to cast off the fascistic troublemakers who think that violence and the disruption of legislative process are acceptable. It needs to trash conspiracy theories and those who offer them as wisdom. People with firm belief in absurdity are far more troublesome than people have no pretension to arcane nonsense. And, yes, it must cast off someone who brings out the worst in human nature even if such is tempting.

The GOP needs to make itself less amenable to demagogues like Trump. Trump got the nomination in part by winning pluralities in winner-take-all primaries, often in states that have no chance of voting for a Republican for president. Obama in 2008, Hillary Clinton in 2012, and Biden in 2016 had to contest primaries without winning all delegates in large states with perhaps 30% of the primary vote in a five-way race. Sure, Trump was unique, something completely novel in American history. He also has proved to be the most harmful President in American history. Buchanan wasn't up to keeping America together, but at least his dubious efforts to appease the slave-holding interests seemed to better fit the Constitution than anything else. Trump ripped at the rule of law, legal precedent, and norms of democratic governance. He pitted one side of the political spectrum at another while offering anything to what he saw as "losers" because they had lost "his" election. 

This is not to say that a more rational expression of right-wing economics and an aggressive foreign policy will work better in practice. It could be even more effective in committing America to the degradation of life for a majority of Americans and getting America into some crusade that proves a disaster. If you thought the Vietnam war a bad time for America, then just think of what a war with Venezuela would be like. Or Iran!

It is more difficult to use rational arguments to push something suspect. The techniques that a salesman uses to get someone to buy a big-ticket purchase such as a car or piece of furniture usually involve an appeal to something other than reason. After all, there may be some incentive to get a lemon of a car or a piece of schlock furniture off the sales floor, and this may lead to a bonus. So one doesn't sell the car; one may sell the idea that this car will impress the (guys/chicks), that buying this car will impress your boss as an expression of astute wisdom in making consumer choices, that it can make outdoor adventures more likely... I can see through this as a customer. I tried selling, and I got as far as I could with rational arguments. OK, the bigger screen TV will let you see things better, but I was not going to say that one TV was better than another for delivering a picture if the two TV's had the same picture tube. I recognized that the difference between a floor-standing TV selling for $600 and one selling for $900 was strictly furniture (although differences in furniture are legitimate, that has nothing to do with the picture tubes which are the same). But that dates me, and it explains how I was not quite the super-salesman that someone more dishonest might be. I see mass-produced material objects strictly for their functional character. If you want something to impress people, then buy art or antiques or collect things that can make you more sophisticated by using them (the Great Books, good music, and maybe some classic movies or even TV  series...) The status symbols show you as a sucker.      

Education is good for separating the good from the chaff in ideas and thought. Donald Trump teaches clearly that training suitable for making one a good technician or functionary is inadequate for making one able to fend off bigotry and other demagoguery. Some people are highly adept at making spurious arguments, and some of those do more harm than does what the fictional George Babbitt did, selling people houses that they couldn't really afford in the 1920's (or as did even worse shysters eighty years later). Donald Trump is one of the most adept liars who has ever lived, and he sold 74 million Americans on one of the worst frauds to have ever lived: himself.