Octopus Overlords

Make Mongolia great again

It could be worse we could be facing the combined entity of Dark Gandhi Brandon

Holy Shit

Honestly that's pretty weak and it won't stick. It's too academic and unwieldy. People who don't like Trump will get it but they don't need it.

The insulting nicknames Trump uses stick because 1) they're puerile and simplistic and 3) they attack physical traits or stereotypes, real or imagined. They're mean spirited and stupid but they are sticky.

That is funnier than it has any right to be.

This one on Trump's tennis shoes from SNL was actually funny.

These lying hipocrits dont even blink when they change their story. Morons all. Assholes too.

Always thought Trump supporters were mean and stupid but I think they are pure evil too. When they die they're all going to Hell with Trump. They can kiss his ass all they want then. It'll be easy to find as its big, full of shit, and sits on top his neck.

Also its probably lily white and not orange.

Daehawk wrote:Always thought Trump supporters were mean and stupid but I think they are pure evil too.

Some are. A lot of them are really good people that have unfortunately fallen under the sway of bad ideology and don't understand how their vote impacts others. I'd say Trump support is much more due to ignorance than evil.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 8:38 am

Daehawk wrote:Always thought Trump supporters were mean and stupid but I think they are pure evil too.

Some are. A lot of them are really good people that have unfortunately fallen under the sway of bad ideology and don't understand how their vote impacts others. I'd say Trump support is much more due to ignorance than evil.

It's the party of hate being supported by the people of apathy.


Ignorance can be educated, but apathy is a dead end - and that's the road these "really good" people live on. Frankly, I have trouble awarding someone the label "really good" if they hold dear a certain level of apathy.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 8:38 am I'd say Trump support is much more due to ignorance than evil.

I wouldn't bank on more much less much more and I would say a lot of that ignorance is either willful or "a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." I would hazard a guess (and hope) that ignorance in all its forms is the big difference maker between making him a viable candidate and keeping him out. Of course, as mentioned in the abortion thread, I now live in the heart of a garbage people neighborhood, and they're ignorant because they don't care about anything but thars and believe not thars are taking from them and deserve no consideration. Fuck your feelings, Don't Tread on Me, and all that.

The party has changed, and people have been slowly boiled with it. I don't think that makes the friends I've known for 30 years hidden evil homophobic racist fascists that were just cleverly hiding it all these years.

There's ample historical evidence of how normal, good people were indoctrinated into the Nazi party and supported horrific things. We're seeing the same thing happening here. You can fault those people for "not knowing better" or whatever, but I think that's tossing out human behavior and psychology.

By that rationale, any cult victim should be blamed as a bad person for being manipulated in the first place.

That's not to say that all Trump supporters are in that boat. There are genuinely mean-spirited crapbag people out there that just found their lord and savior in Trump. Most of the people I know personally that vote Republican are not those people.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 10:24 am
There's ample historical evidence of how normal, good people were indoctrinated into the Nazi party and supported horrific things. We're seeing the same thing happening here. You can fault those people for "not knowing better" or whatever, but I think that's tossing out human behavior and psychology.

This is an excellent point and I think illustrates quite well that the average German was complicit by the end. When did the family centric good neighbours and friends turn evil? I think it was when they decided they didn't care what was happening because it didn't affect them personally.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 10:24 am There's ample historical evidence of how normal, good people were indoctrinated into the Nazi party and supported horrific things. We're seeing the same thing happening here. You can fault those people for "not knowing better" or whatever, but I think that's tossing out human behavior and psychology.

Yeah, that indoctrination into the Nazi party analogy has been pointed out and I think it's appropriate.

Of course, in our case, we very often have adult children begging their elderly parents to not support the Nazi party and those old parents are refusing to hear it.

What is the saying? "All it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing."

So, yeah, there are good people that do nothing.
And while that is a form of 'good people', we have learned they are not the "good people" we think of when we think of the body of people that are pushing back against the forces of evil. These are more the "they love their kids and wife" good-people. Hooray for them.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 10:24 amI don't think that makes the friends I've known for 30 years hidden evil homophobic racist fascists that were just cleverly hiding it all these years.

No, but they may indeed be people who don't care about what evil homophobic racist fascists do to your wife or my child.

Honest question, is there an "X" where, if the GOP would support "X" - you would question your friend's character if they continued to support the GOP?

Unagi wrote:Honest question, is there an "X" where, if the GOP would support "X" - you would question your friend's character if they continued to support the GOP?

I'd say there are numerous "X"s, but the problem is - are they supporting X because they truly believe in it, or are they supporting X because they're supporting the party which happens to support X? It's a big difference, and I know it because of my personal experience.

I voted Republican for over two decades, and I often voted Republican even when I didn't believe in the issues they were supporting. I was never an anti-gun control person, even when I was voting R. There were numerous pieces of the party's ideology that bothered me, but I voted for them anyway because I believed in fiscal conservatism, small government, etc. and I had been brought up to believe if that was your stance on those issues then that's who you voted for. And there was an enormous pressure to believe I was "right" even in the face of knowing I might be wrong. Anyone who's known me from my days on the forum when I was one of the lone conservatives could attest to that.

So if you're a person who has tunnel vision (as a lot of voters do) on voting for one pet issue, it doesn't surprise me in the least that you can minimize/ignore those issues you don't wholeheartedly agree with. Been there, done that. For years.

For that reason, I think people need to be judged by their actions, not their vote. If my friend was saying racist stuff or homophobic stuff, I'd question his character. But I'm not going to assume he's a racist/homophobe because he voted for Trump.

That said, I'm 1000% guilty of judging people based on their vote, and I do it often on this very forum. I get angry and I paint with broad strokes. And then there are days like today where I'm just reminded that it's not always so black and white.

Unagi wrote:No, but they may indeed be people who don't care about what evil homophobic racist fascists do to your wife or my child

I'd argue that in more cases than not, it's not that they know the consequences and don't care, it's that they don't understand the consequences in the first place. I'm guessing if you asked any of my friends and family if they would rather my wife be dead or alive, not a single one would answer "dead." But they'll all still go vote for a party that wants to make sure women that are currently in my wife's former situation are endangered.

I mean you saw this play out in real time with the recent Alabama IVF thing. Everybody was all aboard the "embryos are people" train until the "oh shit" moment when they realized there were consequences to that thinking. My religious friends and family only think about "killing babies is bad" - they don't understand the science, and they certainly don't understand how that could endanger the life of a woman suffering an ectopic pregnancy.

I'd point out there is a difference between being able to compromise on various issues versus holding fast to diametrically opposed viewpoints.

There really isn't any room to compromise on whether homosexuals are human beings or not, with all that that entails in our society, no matter what the 3 passages in your thousand page book might say on the subject.

I had a business client (he's dead now) who would take me to lunch and tell me how great the tea party was. He wasn't particularly racist or homophobic. I think he was Jewish, but changed his last name to hide that. He had money and felt those goons would help him hang on to it. Evil or just misguided?

YellowKing wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 10:24 am The party has changed, and people have been slowly boiled with it. I don't think that makes the friends I've known for 30 years hidden evil homophobic racist fascists that were just cleverly hiding it all these years.

There's ample historical evidence of how normal, good people were indoctrinated into the Nazi party and supported horrific things. We're seeing the same thing happening here. You can fault those people for "not knowing better" or whatever, but I think that's tossing out human behavior and psychology.

By that rationale, any cult victim should be blamed as a bad person for being manipulated in the first place.

That's not to say that all Trump supporters are in that boat. There are genuinely mean-spirited crapbag people out there that just found their lord and savior in Trump. Most of the people I know personally that vote Republican are not those people.

Yeah, I do think that a HUGE part of it is that the online behavior/manipulation normalized things that people would maybe think once in awhile, but wouldn't live their lives by... until the GOP went ALL-IN on using it for power and placing party over country.

And the effects are disastrous:

AntiVax bullshit leading to public health crises.
Immigration policy by PR stunts, with zero actual effort to fix it (and active efforts to block ANY reform)
A massive increase in casual racism/sexism/homophobia
Supporting literal Nazis
Violent assholes threatening anything and everyone for just doing their jobs
School Shooting rampages
Constant Budget crises due to an unwillingness to compromise
Leaving NATO??? And taking money from Russia in exchange for policy???
paralyzing any efforts to address climate change sensibly (compare with the clean air act/CFC bans which fixed the Ozone hole and acid rain)
The rise of #enshittification and monopoly garbage
Full on embrace of the Surveillance State (small gov't indeed...)
Normalizing Trump's Fraud and incompetence
Electing unserious and incompetent legislators
Turning every single issue into a grifting opportunity (see elections and dark money, including foreign money listed above)
January Fucking 6th

This list goes on. This is just off of the top of my head.

One of the most dangerous things Trump did was convince people that they never had to question their own beliefs, because if you believed something was so, then that was the reality. When he removed the concept of self-doubt, he opened the door to let anyone be their worst qualities without repercussion.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 10:24 am The party has changed, and people have been slowly boiled with it. I don't think that makes the friends I've known for 30 years hidden evil homophobic racist fascists that were just cleverly hiding it all these years.

There's ample historical evidence of how normal, good people were indoctrinated into the Nazi party and supported horrific things. We're seeing the same thing happening here. You can fault those people for "not knowing better" or whatever, but I think that's tossing out human behavior and psychology.

By that rationale, any cult victim should be blamed as a bad person for being manipulated in the first place.

We had to step over a lot of good people to stop the Third Reich. We have to do it to stop cults.


Whether good people are mislead or apathetic or stupid, the end result is the same. Historians can argue blame and responsibility but we're in serious danger of an actual fascist dictatorship fueled by hate and greed being elected this year. It's not really a great time for philosophical musings.

Jaymann wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 1:24 pm I had a business client (he's dead now) who would take me to lunch and tell me how great the tea party was. He wasn't particularly racist or homophobic. I think he was Jewish, but changed his last name to hide that. He had money and felt those goons would help him hang on to it.

Holy crap, you killed him ‽

Unagi wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 4:46 pm

Jaymann wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 1:24 pm I had a business client (he's dead now) who would take me to lunch and tell me how great the tea party was. He wasn't particularly racist or homophobic. I think he was Jewish, but changed his last name to hide that. He had money and felt those goons would help him hang on to it.

Holy crap, you killed him ‽

It was determined to be *ahem* natural causes.

All I know and see are that people like in the video aren't blind they're assholes and hypocrites. They know full well who and what Trump is and support him.

They will say things a man does that they hate is an awful man yet instantly change their answer on the spot when told those same bad things are attributed to their orange buffoon.

People in these videos are always going to be the extreme of the extreme. It's super easy to find nutjobs at political rallies (both on the right and the left).

YellowKing wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 5:34 pm People in these videos are always going to be the extreme of the extreme. It's super easy to find nutjobs at political rallies (both on the right and the left).

This. It's VERY easy for the publishers of those videos to cherry pick the nutjobs. For all we know, they interviewed hundreds of people and only posted the few crazy perspectives.
Heck, it's why it was posted here in the first place. Because it grabs attention.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 3:54 pm but we're in serious danger of an actual fascist dictatorship fueled by hate and greed being elected this year. It's not really a great time for philosophical musings.

My friend and I had this argument over the weekemd. I argued against it.
Realistically is it even possible? We have plenty of checks and balances and I'd bet that most of the military wouldn't put up with it. Same for most law enforcement.

I think a lot of law is pro trump. Most likely military too.

Punisher wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 5:59 pm We have plenty of checks and balances and I'd bet that most of the military wouldn't put up with it. Same for most law enforcement.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 3:26 pm One of the most dangerous things Trump did was convince people that they never had to question their own beliefs, because if you believed something was so, then that was the reality. When he removed the concept of self-doubt, he opened the door to let anyone be their worst qualities without repercussion.

It's not just personal belief, though.

The right-wing media project (from talk radio and Fox News to Newsmax and internet bots) was decades in the making. Roger Ailes was literally a Nixon aide who saw that the next Nixon would need to have his own alternative media to stave off the criticisms of the Walter Cronkites and Dan Rathers.

They've succeeded beyond Ailes's wildest imaginings. Beyond an alternative media, they created an alternate reality.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2024 6:29 pm I think a lot of law is pro trump. Most likely military too.

I recently saw reporting to the effect that the legal profession skews Democrat to an enormous degree. The problem is that the right-wing law-o-sphere is *extremely* well organized (e.g. the Federalist Society, which exists to vet conservative lawyers for elevation to judgeships by conservative politicians).

The military is mixed. I've heard that officers are more blue and enlisted are more red. It tracks basically with the same trends in education levels.