Trump and/or Reality

[_Res Ipsa]

Or maybe it’s shame people for shaming people for shaming people. I get confused.

Shameful.

Seriously though, I think this is the real mechanism for social progress to occur - it becomes culturally taboo for people to engage in certain activities when the public consciousness is raised about how wrong it is. That takes people talking about it to each other. Few people would think of owning slaves today, I think largely because it's a bad look.

Our views on women, gay people/gay marriage, sexual harassment (and workplace harassment in general), smoking, the environment, and likely things I'm not thinking of off the top of my head have all changed in my lifetime. How else does that happen without an evolution in cultural conversation?

I guess I’m a little skeptical on the effectiveness of shaming as a means of evolving culture.

[_DarkHelmet]

I always knew Trump would be an awful President, but two character traits have continued to astound me: The incredible, incessant need of his insatiable ego, and his willingness to destroy anything, even faith in our institutions, if it stands in the path of said ego.

The thing that astounds me most about his character is the number of people enamored by it. I'm not so impressed with his narcissism as I am the sort of symbiotic need of his fans to embrace him in light of it.

There is a natural mass of collective douchiness out there in the public I wasn't really aware of before his assumption of office. I surprise myself a little at how poorly I think of humanity now. People who support him are either incredibly poor judges of character or actually like his shady character.

It is strange, but keep in mind they are a very vocal minority, and they don't seem to understand that Trump's presidency is temporary. Whether it's 2.5 years from now, or 6.5 years from now, Trump will be out of office, and his crazy followers will climb back under their rocks. I have some family members and acquaintances who absolutely love Trump, and I don't understand the appeal. When they ask me why I don't like him, it's a weird question for me. It's like asking why I don't think Biff was the protagonist in Back to the Future. I've never been a fan of Trump. Long before he ran for President, back when he was hanging out with the Clintons and everyone assumed he was a Democrat, even back when he was whipping up a mob to lynch the central park 5, and back when he convinced the other owners of the USFL that it was a great idea to compete directly with the NFL, and it was even better idea to sue the NFL, I always thought Trump was a stupid asshole. He was the Biff Tannen of the business world, and now he's the Biff Tannen of politics.

[_Some Schmo]

I guess I’m a little skeptical on the effectiveness of shaming as a means of evolving culture.

I think you might be overly focused on the word shaming. I'm just saying that over time, we evolve culturally to look down on things that were acceptable only a few short decades ago. Is it because western civilization is big on complimenting progressive people, or more about folks avoiding perceived impropriety because some of the standards of morality have been upgraded? How were they upgraded in the first place?

I suspect people are far more motivated by the avoidance of pain than the acquisition of pleasure. With people coming out of the woodwork to show how they really feel in light of Drumpf, I'm almost certain a great number of people would behave differently if the culture allowed it without reputation damage.

[_Some Schmo]

It is strange, but keep in mind they are a very vocal minority, and they don't seem to understand that Trump's presidency is temporary.

I was expressing this exact sentiment to my wife today. She's very focused on the third of the country who thinks he's great and is almost completely ignoring the great majority of Americans who see him for who he is.

In her defense, we live in a part of the country where it doesn't seem remotely likely that most of the country hates Drumpf. It's bizarre to listen to people who seem to genuinely forgive his reprehensible character only because he plays for their perceived team.

Whether it's 2.5 years from now, or 6.5 years from now, Trump will be out of office, and his crazy followers will climb back under their rocks. I have some family members and acquaintances who absolutely love Trump, and I don't understand the appeal. When they ask me why I don't like him, it's a weird question for me. It's like asking why I don't think Biff was the protagonist in Back to the Future. I've never been a fan of Trump. Long before he ran for President, back when he was hanging out with the Clintons and everyone assumed he was a Democrat, even back when he was whipping up a mob to lynch the central park 5, and back when he convinced the other owners of the USFL that it was a great idea to compete directly with the NFL, and it was even better idea to sue the NFL, I always thought Trump was a stupid asshole. He was the Biff Tannen of the business world, and now he's the Biff Tannen of politics.

LOL

I've had the exact same experience with him. I don't remember exactly which reality show it was that made me realize that "reality" was the worst possible descriptor for those kinds of shows, but The Apprentice wouldn't surprise me. I remember thinking right away that Drumpf was a business fraud, and never believed he was as successful as advertised (primarily by him). He seems to me the most easily spotted conman I can ever recall. That's what makes his fans such a mystery to me. How damned blind can they be?

I heard a Carlin quote today that I think is apropos (I didn't hear the exact quote, so this is likely a paraphrase): Think about how dumb the average person is, and then think about how 50% of them are dumber than that.

[_ajax18]

Trump will be out of office, and his crazy followers will climb back under their rocks.

That's kind of what I see happening to the Black Lives Matter crowd now that Obama is out of office. While Obama was in office and Eric Holder was attorney general, it seemed like they were burning a city down every few months that a black man died resisting arrest.

[_Some Schmo]

Trump will be out of office, and his crazy followers will climb back under their rocks.

That's kind of what I see happening to the Black Lives Matter crowd now that Obama is out of office. While Obama was in office and Eric Holder was attorney general, it seemed like they were burning a city down every few months that a black man died resisting arrest.

And then there are those crazy followers who, for whatever demented reason, don't mind everyone knowing what freaks they are and avoid living under a rock, even though it might be advisable for them to do so.

[_ajax18]

And then there are those crazy followers who, for whatever demented reason, don't mind everyone knowing what freaks they are and avoid living under a rock, even though it might be advisable for them to do so.

This country was my birthright Schmo. Don't expect me to roll over and let you take it from me without a fight. I'm sure the left will be back in power, the borders open, workers paychecks confiscated, and we'll all be nothing more than citizens of the world living in yet another impoverished high birth rate Latin American country in due time, but not until 2020 or later.

[_Some Schmo]

This country was my birthright Schmo. Don't expect me to roll over and let you take it from me without a fight. I'm sure the left will be back in power, the borders open, workers paychecks confiscated, and we'll all be nothing more than citizens of the world living in yet another impoverished high birth rate Latin American country in due time, but not until 2020 or later.

I don't believe you're a doctor. I refuse to believe doctors can be this damned dumb.

[_Maksutov]

And then there are those crazy followers who, for whatever demented reason, don't mind everyone knowing what freaks they are and avoid living under a rock, even though it might be advisable for them to do so.

This country was my birthright Schmo. Don't expect me to roll over and let you take it from me without a fight. I'm sure the left will be back in power, the borders open, workers paychecks confiscated, and we'll all be nothing more than citizens of the world living in yet another impoverished high birth rate Latin American country in due time, but not until 2020 or later.

Sharing your country with others is not having it taken from you. Grow up. All of you frightened conservative snowflakes living in fear of liberals who you also claim are worthless pansies. Incoherence and cowardice are your cocktail.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Sharing your country with others is not having it taken from you. Grow up. All of you frightened conservative snowflakes living in fear of liberals who you also claim are worthless pansies. Incoherence and cowardice are your cocktail.

It's interesting to me to see how human history and nature really never changes. I recently read some material on Mesoamerica and North American native polities pre-colonial settlement. The hostility, the political aggression, the territorial disputes never really changed. They just got bigger. Here in America every wave of immigration results in the same ethnic and cultural frustrations.

The odd thing is amongst Whites we don't even like one another. We're about as fragmented and suspicious of one another as we could be of other racial and ethnic groups, so I find it mysterious that it always boils down to racial makeup. All the arguments Whites make against Mexicans are the same ones that were made against the Scots-Irish by Anglos. And then if you start parsing it out the Anglos were invaded by norsemen and before that the Romans. And then before that the Romans only reacted the way they did because of city-state warfare and marauding Mediterranean polities.

It never stops, and it'll never stop. I think the best thing we can do is just assess what does and doesn't work, and create the framework, like our founding fathers did, for a workable governing entity.

That said, I find it odd and ironic Majax complains about taxes when he's balls deep feeding at the government trough, gladly accepts federal reserve notes, and accepts minority patients. He's shooting himself in the foot by supporting isolationism and the GOP because of some weird racial fetish he himself refuses to understand.

- Doc