Trump and Armegeddon

Eric has posted a live one here.  MP Emotional Hyper-Democracy


Here are first comments:

 "Armegeddon: I remember almost 8 years ago a bunch of Conservatives saying that Obama becoming President would lead to disaster... I remember quite a few years ago when many thought Jesse would ruin MN... Don't these doomsayers ever get tired of being wrong?

 

I also remember Obama saying that he had to learn a whole lot from the time he was Candidate Obama to the time he sat behind the big desk. I have no doubt that Trump will have to do this also. And as always, I am thankful for gridlock... Those founding Fathers were brilliant. What are the odds that the GOP, the Democrats and Trump can agree on much of anything?

 

So though Obama, Hilary, Romney, Bush, Trump, etc are different, they are still just one person in a huge system, I don't see Armageddon occurring anytime soon." G2A

 

"Root Causes: I think the article is pretty excellent regarding root causes.

 

I am sure these were important:

• illegal immigrants taking jobs and driving down wages
• SCOTUS bypassing State control and mandating LGBT marriage
• the obsession of many people for high foreign content products
• the desire to buy cheaper, cheaper, cheaper
• the public school system failing to good deliver results
• the folks complaining about Christian values
• the ever growing national debt
• the fear that SS and Medicare will fail

I personally am starting to like the idea of Trump winning. It seems we need a change agent badly. Maybe he could fill that role quite nicely. (well as long as he can avoid starting WW III) :-)" G2A

Then there are folks like Constance who still don't get it. And insist on pointing fingers elsewhere...

"Read the Sullivan article, folks. But read for ideology, for slant in thought. In just what Eric cites here, you can see a very worrisome and ideological slippage when Sullivan talks of Trump supporters as a white class, rather than a predominantly white MALE class (women who don't pay attention sometimes support Trump, for reasons that Sullivan's discussion of emotional unreality addresses). It's hard for women to be misogynist; less hard for them to be bigots, for instance. Generally, women see right through Donald Trump's ugly relegation of women to the sidelines.

Then, there's Sullivan's conflation of both major political parties into the government that doesn't function. That's a standard Republican and right-wing talk radio line, but we know that in actuality it's the GOP Congressional leadership that, for more than seven years, has refused to compromise on anything with Obama or the Democrats. Look at who stops the government in its tracks. It's not all of us, it's Republicans. Republicans who vote to spend money for programs they like, but then complain about having to raise money to pay for them. Please.

Sullivan's lament here is very upper-class, and quite disdainful of working-class Americans in its own right. there's some truth to his analysis, but he misses a lot that he'd just as soon avoid. He abhors mobs and basically democracy itself, like Jose Ortega y Gasset (in the Rebellion of the Masses). His article is an interesting GOP establishment attempt to understand how the mob got away from them.

But most of America sees Trump for what he is. Let's not do an Andrew Sullivan and pretend that the minority of America that identifies as Republican represents the country. The media obsession with Trump is sinfully misleading in that regard." Constance