Weaponizing Stupidity

[Some Schmo]

In my search for answers as to why anyone would support Trump, one thing I've heard many times but has really gripped me today is that many people like Trump simply because he "pisses off the establishment." I heard one Trump supporter explicitly state he doesn't mind being lied to because he knows it pisses off certain media personalities (never thinking, perhaps, about the millions of other Americans, ones nobody would consider "elite" or "the establishment" that Trump pisses off every day with his BS).

It occurs to me... if you're an absolute impotent idiot, what can you do about the current political environment? How can you influence policy? You aren't smart enough to make your own life better, so all you can hope for is to makes other lives worse. The best you can do is support the biggest moron in your party, so that he irritates the people you perceive have wronged you somehow (and by the way, you Trump fans... don't ever change and, oh, I don't know, take some responsibility for your own lot in life. It's much easier to blame "the establishment").

Trump fans love Trump, because he's their weapon of mass stupidity, mass irritation, mass perceived revenge. That is the best they've got. They can't fix their own lives (because "the establishment brings them down and keeps them there") so they need an asshole to piss off the assholes they're mad at.

I guess being stupid at least makes it easier to be satisfied with such small expectations for your leader. And make no mistake about it: if you love Trump (for whatever reason), you are a moron. I'm still waiting to hear one Trump fan at least sound like he wasn't a complete idiot.

[Physics Guy]

One time when we were living in the Boston area, some kind of student activist for the Democratic Party stopped me on the sidewalk and tried to get me involved somehow even after I explained that I wasn't a US citizen. I politely disengaged but my penser d'escalier (the thing you think of just too late that would have been great to say) was that I didn't believe in nation-building. There's only so much you can do as an outsider. People have to get there for themselves.

The United States of America has never really been a blessed isle of enlightened democracy faithfully keeping the flame while other continents struggled and suffered with demons of tyranny and barbarism. The United States has simply had its own local flavour of savagery, with notes of isolationism, exceptionalism, anti-intellectualism, and fundamentalism.

No-one has to squint to see the bright spots. The United States cut out its own cancer of slavery, saved Europe from German imperialism, and then twenty years later saved the world from the Axis. Americans have walked on the moon. American songs are in humanity's ears, American films are in humanity's dreams.

It just isn't all bright spots. The thick thread of arrogant stupidity has always been there as well. As I've said before, Trump is not the surprise. That part of America has always been there. This particular season of world history and demographic change seem to have given it a boost, a political el Niño season for the past eight years or so.

I guess I'm still naïve and romantic enough to be surprised that this time there's no Washington, Lincoln or Wilson, FDR, JFK. There isn't even Obama. There's Biden.

If Biden wins, it will be another form of greatness, I guess. If he wins.

[ajax18]

In my search for answers as to why anyone would support Trump, one thing I've heard many times but has really gripped me today is that many people like Trump simply because he "pisses off the establishment." I heard one Trump supporter explicitly state he doesn't mind being lied to because he knows it pisses off certain media personalities (never thinking, perhaps, about the millions of other Americans, ones nobody would consider "elite" or "the establishment" that Trump pisses off every day with his B.S.).

It occurs to me... if you're an absolute impotent idiot, what can you do about the current political environment? How can you influence policy? You aren't smart enough to make your own life better, so all you can hope for is to makes other lives worse. The best you can do is support the biggest moron in your party, so that he irritates the people you perceive have wronged you somehow (and by the way, you Trump fans... don't ever change and, oh, I don't know, take some responsibility for your own lot in life. It's much easier to blame "the establishment").

Trump fans love Trump, because he's their weapon of mass stupidity, mass irritation, mass perceived revenge. That is the best they've got. They can't fix their own lives (because "the establishment brings them down and keeps them there") so they need an asshole to piss off the assholes they're mad at.

I guess being stupid at least makes it easier to be satisfied with such small expectations for your leader. And make no mistake about it: if you love Trump (for whatever reason), you are a moron. I'm still waiting to hear one Trump fan at least sound like he wasn't a complete idiot.

Oh wow, you've convinced me. I'm going to vote for BIden because he promises to the tax the rich and give me their money. Who cares if Democrats have been telling this lie for so long our country is in a hole it can't get out of. Who cares if after being in power, Democrats never seem to raise those taxes on the rich nor the fact that the President's own son didn't pay his taxes. We trust him because we like to hear Biden say he's going to sock it to the rich, even when he never does.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

In my search for answers as to why anyone would support Trump, one thing I've heard many times but has really gripped me today is that many people like Trump simply because he "pisses off the establishment." I heard one Trump supporter explicitly state he doesn't mind being lied to because he knows it pisses off certain media personalities (never thinking, perhaps, about the millions of other Americans, ones nobody would consider "elite" or "the establishment" that Trump pisses off every day with his B.S.).

It occurs to me... if you're an absolute impotent idiot, what can you do about the current political environment? How can you influence policy? You aren't smart enough to make your own life better, so all you can hope for is to makes other lives worse. The best you can do is support the biggest moron in your party, so that he irritates the people you perceive have wronged you somehow (and by the way, you Trump fans... don't ever change and, oh, I don't know, take some responsibility for your own lot in life. It's much easier to blame "the establishment").

Trump fans love Trump, because he's their weapon of mass stupidity, mass irritation, mass perceived revenge. That is the best they've got. They can't fix their own lives (because "the establishment brings them down and keeps them there") so they need an asshole to piss off the assholes they're mad at.

I guess being stupid at least makes it easier to be satisfied with such small expectations for your leader. And make no mistake about it: if you love Trump (for whatever reason), you are a moron. I'm still waiting to hear one Trump fan at least sound like he wasn't a complete idiot.

Oh wow, you've convinced me. I'm going to vote for BIden because he promises to the tax the rich and give me their money. Who cares if Democrats have been telling this lie for so long our country is in a hole it can't get out of. Who cares if after being in power, Democrats never seem to raise those taxes on the rich nor the fact that the President's own son didn't pay his taxes. We trust him because we like to hear Biden say he's going to sock it to the rich, even when he never does.

Q.E.D.

- Doc

[Gunnar]

Oh wow, you've convinced me. I'm going to vote for BIden because he promises to the tax the rich and give me their money.

What you really seem to be opposing is, whether you realize it or not, is taxing rich thieves and giving some of the money thereby collected back to whom they stole it from. I don't think one can reasonably deny that much of the billions and trillions of dollars and wealth possessed by the most profitable and powerful corporations was obtained through outright greed and price gouging which can be rightly regarded as a form of theft, especially when they pay a much smaller percentage of their profitable income in taxes (in some cases even zero) than the vast majority of much lower income and even impoverished Americans.

[Some Schmo]

I guess I'm still naïve and romantic enough to be surprised that this time there's no Washington, Lincoln or Wilson, FDR, JFK. There isn't even Obama. There's Biden.

I'm pretty sure they're still out there. They are simply unelectable in this culture, so they aren't running.

I've been playing this RPG where you play a king trying to build a kingdom, and all of your choices are for the good of everyone else. Talk about your fantasy role-playing games. I don't think the job attracts a lot of people with real character. These days, displaying outrageous selfishness and immaturity seems to be a winning political strategy.

If Biden wins, it will be another form of greatness, I guess. If he wins.

It is weirder to me now that Trump is leading polls than it was that he won in 2016. The GOP has created a monster out of its base. The amount of delusion is incalculable.

[ajax18]

What you really seem to be opposing is, whether you realize it or not, is taxing rich thieves and giving some of the money thereby collected back to whom they stole it from. I don't think one can reasonably deny that much of the billions and trillions of dollars and wealth possessed by the most profitable and powerful corporations was obtained through outright greed and price gouging which can be rightly regarded as a form of theft, especially when they pay a much smaller percentage of their profitable income in taxes (in some cases even zero) than the vast majority of much lower income and even impoverished Americans.

Democrats have been in power for 12 of the last 16 years. Why haven't they closed the loopholes that allow rich people to pay a lower percentage of their income in tax than you or I do? Look how long it took to get the Deep State to prosecute Hunter Biden for refusing to pay his taxes. Is that what you call paying your fair share or equal politically impartial justice under the law?

Or is it just a case where the rich donors know that socking it to the rich is what Biden has to say in order to purchase enough votes to win, but with a wink and a nod Biden tells the elite liberal billionaires that he'll never actually tax any billionaire who supports him and helps him get reelected. When will you ever realize that this tax the rich rhetoric is a lie. It's yours and my tax dollars (labor/private property) that Democrats purchase their votes with.

[Vēritās]

What you really seem to be opposing is, whether you realize it or not, is taxing rich thieves and giving some of the money thereby collected back to whom they stole it from. I don't think one can reasonably deny that much of the billions and trillions of dollars and wealth possessed by the most profitable and powerful corporations was obtained through outright greed and price gouging which can be rightly regarded as a form of theft, especially when they pay a much smaller percentage of their profitable income in taxes (in some cases even zero) than the vast majority of much lower income and even impoverished Americans.

Democrats have been in power for 12 of the last 16 years. Why haven't they closed the loopholes that allow rich people to pay a lower percentage of their income in tax than you or I do? Look how long it took to get the Deep State to prosecute Hunter Biden for refusing to pay his taxes. Is that what you call paying your fair share or equal politically impartial justice under the law?

Or is it just a case where the rich donors know that socking it to the rich is what Biden has to say in order to purchase enough votes to win, but with a wink and a nod Biden tells the elite liberal billionaires that he'll never actually tax any billionaire who supports him and helps him get reelected. When will you ever realize that this tax the rich rhetoric is a lie. It's yours and my tax dollars (labor/private property) that Democrats purchase their votes with.

The God of Bizzarro world speaks again. It was Trump who promised to close loopholes for the rich but never did. Democrats have not had absolute power for 12 of the last 16 years. Ajax doesn't seem to understand how laws are passed, and ignores the proposals Democrats have made but were blocked by Republican obstructionists. He also ignores the fact that Trump gave a huge tax cut to himself and his wealthy friends while throwing a small bone to the poor and middle class just long enough to dupe them into thinking he cared about them. Because his tax law made tax cuts permanent only for himself and his friends, whereas the tax cuts for the rest of working America expired as soon as he left office. Literally every accusation is a confession. Even now most Trumpers I know think they'll get more money back in tax returns if Trump gets elected.

[Res Ipsa]

Ajax, exactly when was this magical time when Democrats held a majority of the house, a 2/3 majority in the senate, and the presidency all at the same time?

[ajax18]

Ajax, exactly when was this magical time when Democrats held a majority of the house, a 2/3 majority in the senate, and the presidency all at the same time?

Jan 2021-to 2022. 2008-2010. They passed Obamacare and the Inflation production act. Yet there was no discernible plan to pay for any of it just as Biden's current economic plan shows no realistic way to pay for his massive vote purchasing legislation. Perhaps that is the real economic plan, not to tax the Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerbergs, or Warren Buffets of the world, but rather to pay for these boondoggles by inflating the currency. And who has paid the price of that? The rich aren't the ones having to work longer hours just to buy gasoline and groceries in this economy. This is ingenius politics promising people a better life and getting them to vote for it while you inflate the currency and drive up the debt. If anyone complains about it, just blame it on corporate greed and you'll never lose a vote over it.