Okay, you should read this entire article. I’m going to excerpt one piece but it’s all there: the trade, jobs, the rhetorical style, the anti-war message, and so on. Most of you have never heard this, and I haven’t been able to get through to a lot of people.
Or consider the particularly emotional exchange Trump had with a father from upstate New York. “I lost my son two years ago to a heroin overdose,” says the father from off camera.
“Well, you know they have a tremendous problem in New Hampshire with the heroin,” says Trump. “Unbelievable. It’s always the first question I get, and they have a problem all over. And it comes through the border. We’re going to build a wall. ”
Then, instead of moralizing anger, playing against type, come compassion and respect: “In all fairness to your son, it’s a tough thing. Some very, very strong people have not been able to get off it. So we have to work with people to get off it.”
At this point it becomes clear that the bereaved father has started to cry. Trump shifts to tough-guy reassuring. “You just relax, OK? Yeah, it’s a tough deal. Come on. It’s a tough deal.” And, in a veiled reference to Trump’s own brother’s death from alcoholism, “I know what you went through.” Then, to the audience while pointing at the father: “He’s a great father, I can see it. And your son is proud of you. Your son is proud of you. It’s tough stuff, it’s tough stuff, and it could be stopped.”
Trump did not campaign the way you thought he did. Or, not entirely. You only got half the picture, which is why so many people can only screech: “Racism!”
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nihil obstet
We are suffering the politics of personality. Each party has a mental checklist of what the candidate should be.
For the Democrats, it’s the first class professional credentials: valedictorian at prestigious college, graduation and post graduate work at prestigious colleges/universities, desirable jobs, member of select boards and committees. Added to that are the right words on the hot button social issues.
For the Republicans, it’s more business credentials: either rich because of inheritance and/or “smart” business practices (which all seem to rely on crony connections) or promoted through the political ranks like an executive moving up the corporation. Added to that are the ability to convey the powerful person condescending to you personally, lifting you above your presumed fellows, and of course the right words on the hot button social issues.
I don’t know how generally true it is with voters, but most of the people I know believe they know what the politician really believes. Their preferred politician really wants to do what they want, even though they’re stopped by some obstacle and sometimes even forced to do the opposite. The other politician is dangerous, who will bring about either Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Russia.
It comes from both media and the politicians believing that people are bored by real policy questions. But wherever it comes from, a lot of the most involved people seem to have lost the ability to think in terms other than “That’s a bad person whom we must fight.” I think Trump is a bad person, but I wish I could see more “That person is promoting dangerous policies, and it is those specific policies that we must fight.”
Peter
Parenti may be the only Clintonite/Soros, overeducated Leisure Class pundit to have learned anything from this election. He didn’t seem to understand much of what he saw during his sleepless viewing of Trump working his crowds. It seems to me that Trump was talking to and with the people in these crowds. Political parasites such as the Red Queen talk at and down to their audiences even though they planted a few ringers in the groups, can’t say they were crowds, to try to make phony connections with her subjects.
Parenti went immediately back to his Clintonite, or are they Soros’ now, talking points attacking Trump as a fraud except for his being a racist, woman hater, gay basher which must not be fraudulent apparently. I guess the first frauds planned by Trump are his announced plan to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure/jobs and deport two million criminals along with building that big fraud wall. This is the kind of fraud we can believe in. The claim that Trump mimicked or adopted Sanders’ populist rant is just ludicrous and sanders was/is a true fraud.
I see from an earlier comment that my mental health warning was appropriate and it verified the virulent nature of fear.
V. Arnold
@ Peter
November 20, 2016
Which Parenti? Links?
Bill Hicks
The racism screeches are not only so strident as to get one to think that maybe they doth protest too much, they are also incredibly counterproductive. Polls showed that apparently millions of voters said as of election day that they disapprove of Trump personally but voted for him anyway. These are the people the left desperately needs to get on their side–yet instead they are instead calling them racists, misogynists and homophobes and lumping them in with the true deplorables who only make up a fraction of the Trump coalition.
Trump didn’t get to the presidency just by insulting people (as Jeb Bush said he was doing), he was insulting the RIGHT people, including the Bushes and the Clintons and all of their fellow travelers who make up the Washington establishment. Say what you will about the man, he is a truly brilliant 21st century politician. There’s no way he could have pulled off such an astonishing political upset if he weren’t.
Peter
@VA
The links are in the first paragraph of the post.
ink
The Democrats have made my father, a man who was once altruistic and compassionate towards others, into someone who is desperate to get a piece of the pie for himself and his family. He no longer cares about democracy or fairness or love for others. He is in survival mode. You Democrats pieces of garbage caused this by refusing to give men and women like my father a single stinking crumb from the filthy lucre largesse that you’ve managed to amass for yourselves. We are a nation where freaking journalists are now multi-millionaires. Nice job morons.
MojaveWolf
Entirely yes to everything Bill Hicks said. I’m actually surprised Ian linked so approvingly to this article, which still doesn’t really get it–it’s from the point of view of someone who still thinks all Trump voters are either delusional or stupid or have a racist element. (and he gets that Hillary ran a bad campaign but seems to think she was actually a good candidate, which is the actual delusion, imo) In the article’s view, Trump ran a good campaign in that he expertly manipulated the easily led into voting for him.
About half the people I know well in real life (around where I live) and the majority of the people I see through work voted for Trump. Almost NONE of these people are racist, and even the few who are didn’t vote for Trump because of this. He has a lot of enthusiastic supporters, but also a lot who don’t like him at all but did exactly what the Democratic loyalists wanted people to do–they calculated who they thought the lesser evil was and voted accordingly.
My closest co-worker is a dark-skinned immigrant, & she voted for Trump. She’s NOT racist
or xenophobic; she does think a vote for Hillary was a vote for certain badness while a vote for Trump offers hope of goodness.
I have another friend online who voted for Hillary, but is as upset at the demonization of Trump voters as I am; she’s also a dark skinned immigrant, and former military, and she knows a lot of very good people in the military who voted for Trump, and none of them are racist and many of them are non-white.
Nihil Obstet above said, I think Trump is a bad person, but I wish I could see more “That person is promoting dangerous policies, and it is those specific policies that we must fight.” Honestly, the Trump people ARE talking policy. I don’t know what he’s going to do, and what a lot of them hope he does is not what I hope he does, but the discussion among Trump supporters usually does come down to issues. It’s among the left-leaning crowd where I see all the personal demonization; it’s like the kind of lingo used to shut down arguments on certain types of message boards is being used in real life (along w/continued bizarre anti-Russian cold war renewal verbiage); what these happy folk fail to realize is that outside of certain circles, no one in the real world feels like bowing and genuflecting and falling in line whenever someone they don’t particularly like randomly shouts “racist!” at them. It just makes them dislike the shouter even more.
Ron Showalter
Awesome, it appears that the utterly bullshit Tea Party movement lives on in the legitimization of TRUMP but NOW the white fake-left is also carrying water for the billionaires.
Nice.
Go ahead, geniuses, pander to the know-nothing morons that haven’t voted for their own self-interest in a generation and who ARE racist and misogynist troglodytes who unwittingly gave cover for another stolen election.
So, we should be pissed about the smarmy smarter than thou Democrats but fully embrace/listen to the fascist-enabling fake-left/progressives that are burnishing the POS Truump, huh, b/c we just can’t seem to see what a great man this person is who just dished out $25M for fraud, who brags about sexually assaulting women and who just named as his AG a man deemed too racist to be a judge.
Nah, the fake-left is TOTALLY not deluded/brainwashed.
Ron Showalter
BTW, would it enhance the integrity/veracity of my posts if I included apropos anecdotes of my family members and friends?
That’s one of my favorite rhetorical devices b/c it’s just so effective.
Now, on to my story:
My neighbor is a transgender Native American that campaigned for HRC…
Go ahead, storytellers, you fill in the rest. LOL
Ché Pasa
“Love Trump”? I’d say that’s a stretch.
Many people have been conned by him. Just as so many people were conned by Obama. That’s not a stretch at all.
Part of the testing process for potential presidents is a demonstration of their ability to con the masses and keep them in line — pretty much no matter what the candidate says or does. Obama passed that test 2008 in Berlin strangely enough when he made a speech to hundreds of thousands of Germans during which he spoke gobbledygook and said nothing at all. It was like he was stringing together random phrases. They cheered him wildly. It was the most amazing performance by a president or candidate I think I’ve ever witnessed.
Trump demonstrated his ability to transfix the masses with every rally he held. He could contradict himself in the same sentence, and it didn’t matter. He could an did insult, threaten, deride, mock and attack anyone, even his own supporters, and it didn’t matter. He knew it too. He knew — like any con man knows — that once he’s hooked his marks, he can do or say almost anything at all and their devotion will be unshaken. That’s how the con works.
Love? People can and do project anything they want, any unfulfilled desire or need on to him, and even when he betrays them, as he’s busy doing, their devotion will not be shaken, no matter. Not until the whole thing falls to pieces at their feet.
Love? No. Hope and fantasy yes.
nobody
My neighbor is a transgender Native American that campaigned for HRC. The morning after the election she announced on Facebook that although she felt devastated and fearful for the well-being and futures of many she loved, she\’d also increasingly come to see the campaign for what it was and was forced to conclude that it had only, or at least mostly, itself to blame. She declared that she was done with half measures and electoral politics and that she had decided to go to Standing Rock. She left on Thursday morning, and arrived just in time to witness the police riot last night. She\’s calling for donations and help in increasing global attention to events there as they continue to unfold.
Ron Showalter
Yup, I guess it all comes down to the fact that the left – fake and otherwise – supposedly has to come to terms with the shrinking minority of stubborn idiots in this country who seemingly don’t have the ability/wherewithal to get off their asses and quit being conned by people who are diametrically opposed to their survival, huh?
That’s right, it’s not THEIR OWN faults for being stubborn morons that still inculcate racism/sexism/homophobia etc within their own subcultures and vote for people who hate them, nope, instead it’s somehow the fault of EVERYONE ELSE b/c we don’t/refuse to speak stubborn moronese, right?
Boo effing hoo.
The poor white trash in the South ALWAYS still hated the n—–rs and s—-cs even as they worked along side them and they always will but we should empathize with their plight, huh, as they keep voting for the same plantation owners, right?
We should cater to propaganda vehicles like the Tea Party, Trump et al that keep this shrinking minority alive instead of letting it wither away, right?
It’s amazing that some of the worst Trump normalizers can’t get it through their heads this simple fact:
We do INDEED ALREADY know who voted for Trump and – psstt – we know that these stubborn morons are beyond help b/c they have exhibited less than one shred of an attempt in helping themselves out over DECADES!
Momma, pwease help me stop hurting myself!!!! I just can’t stop!!! HILLARY!!!! OBAMA!!!
WAAAAHHHHHHHH!
dude
There are several You Tube videos by Mark Blyth of Brown University which I believe are worth watching. He made one about Greece back when it was being throttled with austerity, and one on the effects of Brexit, but his latest two (which are forums at Brown) involve “Global Trumpism”. I ran across it at 3QuarksDaily. The things I got out of it:
1) Trump is part of a global pattern–the latest symptom, not the leading cause.
2) If the increase in racism and anti-immigration are the actual cause of social distintegration, there really isn’t much we can do about that from a public policy point of view; however, if the cause or the principal exacerbator if it economics, there is at least a chance we can deal with it via public policy.
3) That the extreme left and extreme right propose enticing alternatives to the bottom third of our economy probably because they are desperate for relief. The middle-third hasn’t caught on to the fact they are soon to be cut out of the social contract. These enticing alternatives are, at present, socially destructive illusions. Super-nationalism is the right’s formula. Bringing back blue collar jobs to the rust belt is the left’s. A version of this exists in every industrialized nation at present–it’s a global phenomena that Blyth sees.
Blyth is a Scotsman and he talks pretty fast, but he is well worth listening to.
Peter
@CP
I noticed you didn’t mention the Red Queen when identifying who is a con-person. Everything people were fed by the true believers about her was contrived or outright lies. The Clintonite cultists and people like Parenti were confused by what they saw as contradictions in Trump’s message because they can only digest coded sound bites and soothing or inciting lies.
My worry is that Trump won’t follow through and allows or helps the resurgence of Clintonism. Both the Clinton and Bush crime families have been decapitated politically and now the dirty work of dispatching their quislings is needed.
It will be entertaining to watch how Trump ‘deals’ with our hostile and often moronic media. So far he seems to be enjoying toying with them and letting people watch them run around like their hair is on fire.
Mandos
You’ve been doing a good job, in the small way a blog-commenter can, of encouraging the resurgence of Clintonism by constantly deriding and dismissing the distress of many of those who are upset about Trump’s victory. Political bonds are forged and broken most easily when the tempers are hot, and such people are going to increasingly identify first of all with Clinton (more deeply than they were) and then eventually with the things she represented. The idea, for example, that Russia is the world enemy of identity-politics liberalism, and that Clinton was right to have a hostile relationship with them, is already getting entrenched in a, despite everything, enduring part of the US political spectrum.
Peter
Sorry, Manny but what I see is the snowflake street warriors melting into slush leaving the egghead liberal pundits to call people, who they don’t know, vile names while the Soros’ quislings try desperately to build something out of a crashed cult.
The rest of us will have to live with the drivel those like you will continue to spew as we watch Clintonism implode. Clinton was rejected by many democrats for what she represented and her embrace of the worst of the neocons to further her power grab showed everyone who wasn’t blinded by identity the reality of her disease. She will be remembered as a two time loser who along with her mate are responsible for the destruction of the democrat party.
TK421
I found this illuminating as well:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/
DMC
So are we really dupes of the Red Queen or the Great Orange Satan? Methinks Comrades Peter and Ron should engage in a little criticism/self-criticism, “Celebrity Death Match” style to settle the question once and for all. And don’t forget that, in the absence of a revolutionary alternative, real revolutionaries always back the most reactionary candidate to “heighten the contradictions”. Liberal reformers are just going to keep the current system going with at best, incremental changes. What you want is someone with a dictator’s instincts but inept enough not to be too much of a challenge. Hmmm…where could we find such a person?
someofparts
“What you want is someone with a dictator’s instincts but inept enough not to be too much of a challenge. Hmmm…where could we find such a person?”
That’s why I’m watching Steve Bannon. He has been quoted as calling himself Cromwell among the Tudors.
Mandos
That’s what you think. There is a nontrivial faction of the Democratic party and US liberals that will remember it very differently, regardless of whether or not Clinton deserves it. That a moment were America itself could be made a “safe space” was betrayed in favour of a carnival freak show.
NoPolitician
I have no doubt that a significant percentage of people who voted for Trump were, in fact, racist. Not cross-burning racist, but racist in that they think that white people are, on average, better than black people – and more importantly, that white “culture” is better than black “culture” – and by “black culture”, they mean “living off the government, laziness, selling drugs, etc.”
This does not mean that they can’t have black friends – many of them do – they are friends with black people who proved to them that they were an exception. They just generally hold a deep-seated belief that black people are “more likely to [fill in the blank]”. Like “be violent”, “be a criminal”, “are lazy”, “want to live off the government”.
I can think of at least a dozen people I know well who have those beliefs and who voted for Trump. I think that Trump’s message resounded with them, the message that they are having a tough time because of “those others” – although Trump’s message was less racist than Mitt Romney’s message.
Trump basically blamed illegal immigrants and China/Mexico for our troubles. The statements are not wholly false – illegal immigrants do work at jobs in this country, and if they were not there, the jobs would probably have to pay more, and would be filled by US workers. And it should be obvious that when a factory like Carrier – profitable – decides to close and move to Mexico, that trade with Mexico did, in fact, result in those workers getting the shaft. A $50 cheaper air conditioner is little consolation for both those directly unemployed and the people in that community who can no longer serve those former workers.
MojaveWolf
@Mandos–I almost always disagree with you, just wanted to take the opportunity to say I did at least partly agree with what you said just now!
What you said about people digging out positions when in argument is a true thing about human nature that I constantly catch myself doing and have to watch out for, albeit usually on the other side–toward the end of the election I found myself so constantly defending Trump from unfair attacks (partly because I didn’t want Hillary to win and declare a mandate for right wing Democrats everywhere, but almost as much because I dislike folks trying to use untrue mems to stampede people) that I sometimes actually got enthusiastic about what a great job he MIGHT do until I reminded myself of all the reasons why the best case scenarios were highly unlikely. Heck, I still find myself doing that sometimes.
Nonetheless, I have a hard time feeling bad for the “OMG HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN????” crowd, and I think part of the reason for some of the more overwrought reactions is because they live in a little bubble where they’re never exposed to other opinions. Some of them I actually would like to see go over to some other side than mine (any side, I don’t care which!) because I think they are the sort of allies one is better off without. I remember bailing on most feminist sites after they turned into places where a standard conversation might run something like:
Person 1: “If you really believe the guy chopping women’s heads off in the mall yesterday while shouting “die bitches!” wasn’t a misogynist you must be blind”
Person 2: “OH MY GOD! You said blind!!! HOW DARE YOU?????”
Person 1: “Huh?”
Person 3: “You were being ableist and insensitive to blind people.”
Person 1: “I didn’t mean it literally; it’s like, a figure of speech,.”
Person 2: “It’s a grossly insensitive figure of speech. As someone whose genetic history indicates I might develop cataracts in 70 years, I cannot tell you how deeply traumatized I am by your remark. And did you ever stop to think for one second about all the already visually impaired people who might be reading your comments and perhaps driven to suicide at your mockery of their disability?”
Person 1: “Are you fucking insane?”
Person 4: “Oh my god. How can you be so cruel? I’m on disability for a mental illness and I really don’t appreciate your belittling my crippling impairment.”
Person 3: “Excuse me? Crippling? What are you go to trot out next, “lame”?”
Person 4: “Oh my. I am so so sorry. Please forgive me. I was just so upset …”
Person 2: “Ahem. Please quit derailing the discussion, we are discussing the precise ways in which Person 1 needs to be shamed for their evil linguistic choices. They have thus far shown an unwillingness to accept responsibility for their perfidy and perform the appropriate rituals of self-flagellation, and we really need to work on showing them the error of their ways and forcing them to grovel and genuflect and lick our various body parts appropriately until we temporarily forgive them and allow them to tail along in our superior shadow. Person 4, I’m going to open a new open thread where you can make your requisite apologies and then you can return here and help us continue the onslaught against person 1. ”
And so forth. I have no issues with mockery here. Seriously, those happy souls can be on whatever side they want as long as, I just want them to stay far away from me. And most are going to side with whatever their preferred media tell them to side with. Half of the most die-hard “Hillary is the most qualified candidate EVER!!!! How could they???” people now were going full Obot “Hillary suuux” four years ago.
Last point: I know you were talking to Peter, who if it’s the same Peter I remember being around awhile probably actually is very much on the conservative side of the aisle (correct me if I’m wrong), but distress over Trump being elected because you think he will do a lousy job is one thing; distress because you think he will be that much worse than most of the other likely candidates falls into silly season, and I don’t think humoring the delusion is the way to go.
Escher
@BillHicks —
“Polls showed that apparently millions of voters said as of election day that they disapprove of Trump personally but voted for him anyway. These are the people the left desperately needs to get on their side–yet instead they are instead calling them racists, misogynists and homophobes and lumping them in with the true deplorables who only make up a fraction of the Trump coalition.”
Exactly right. This is what I have been trying to explain to upset, confused people. There’s a frankly weird need to proclaim each and every Trump voter a racist that I’m having a hard time breaking through.
@someofparts —
If you haven’t, take a look at Buzzfeed’s transcript of Bannon’s talk at the Vatican a few years back. Leaving his politics aside, he’s much, much smarter and better-read than I’d figured, to the point where his public persona as a genial, hard-drinking goofball almost seems like intentional disinformation.
Ron Showalter
So, are we going to discuss the alt-right meetings this weekend or should we just talk about how great Bannon and the rest of the alt-right are? Probably just the outliers, right?
http://www.vice.com/read/heil-trump-this-is-the-alternative-right
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/21/alt-right-conference-richard-spencer-white-nationalists
Ron Showalter
In addition, if loyalty is really the deciding factor then we can hopefully look forward to some more of this:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/jerry-falwell-jr-confident-of-position-in-trump-administration/
“Among the officials and activists meeting with Donald Trump last week as he worked on picking his Cabinet members was Jerry Falwell Jr., the son of televangelist and Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell and president of Liberty University, the school founded by his father.
According to the Associated Press, Falwell met with Trump in Manhattan “to discuss the U.S. Department of Education and Falwell’s potential role.”
“He wouldn’t confirm or deny whether he was being vetted as secretary of education, but says he will ‘definitely play a role’ in the administration,” the AP reported.
Falwell was one of Trump’s earliest and most outspoken Religious Right supporters. He appeared in Trump campaign ads, hosted the business mogul at Liberty, sang his praises—even going so far as to compare him to Jesus Christ and suggest that God called on him to run for president—and joined Trump in leveling harsh attacks against Muslims, telling students that “if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in.”
Ron Showalter
Funny, I didn’t hear much about this before the election, huh?
Oh well. It’ll probably be ok b/c he’ll rein those police in right?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/26/donald-trump-dakota-access-pipeline-investment-energy-transfer-partners
Donald Trump’s close financial ties to Energy Transfer Partners, operators of the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline, have been laid bare, with the presidential candidate invested in the company and receiving more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from its chief executive.
Trump’s financial disclosure forms show the Republican nominee has between $500,000 and $1m invested in Energy Transfer Partners, with a further $500,000 to $1m holding in Phillips 66, which will have a 25% stake in the Dakota Access project once completed. The information was disclosed in Trump’s monthly filings to the Federal Election Commission, which requires candidates to disclose their campaign finance information on a regular basis.
Ron Showalter
Well, at least the guy who helped steal the election might get his wish list checked off by Xmas!
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/photo-of-kobach-with-trump-shows-department-of-homeland-security-plans
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach — a far-right Republican known for championing anti-immigration measures and voting restrictions — was photographed with President-elect Donald Trump Sunday holding Kobach’s “strategic plan” for the Department of Homeland Security, the Topeka-Capital Journal reported. The plan appears from the photograph to include some of Kobach’s most extreme anti-immigration proposals and even alludes to election law, another area where the secretary of state is known for taking hard right positions.
Peter
@Escher
I have to chuckle when someone talks about an imagined Left that has anything to offer Trump voters or anyone else so they could be gotten. Clintonites, liberals and anyone with a democrat party registration card are and always have been enemies of The Left They are part of the Extreme Center that Clintonites created and are often to the right of Trump and his supporters on very important issues.
I suppose it’s possible, if unlikely, for something to form to the actual left of Clintonism but that area is mostly empty now with a few old and quite strange remnants of the past. The only radical left that seems to have promise is Anarchism with OWS, BLM and DGR as examples.
Ron Showalter
And I’ll end with an expose on how POS Trump is truly a Koch-sucker but hillary and all that stuff….
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/behind-make-america-great-the-koch-agenda-returns-with-a-vengeance
V. Arnold
MojaveWolf
November 21, 2016
Your little dialogue on the US PC illness, is spot on.
Any meaningful discussion is increasingly difficult in the bad old USA.
different clue
The father of a son-in-trouble that Trump was talking to in this piece are the sort of people sneered at as White Working Class Racists, Deplorables, Irredeemables, etc. etc. etc. by the Clintonite Shitocrat scum.
Clintonite. Shitocrat. Scum.
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
I’ll just let The Rude Pundit get this one for me.
NSFW.
markfromireland
@resident clinton apologist:
Perfect example of why you lost. I love the way people like you simply cannot help delivering vast quantities of political ammunition to your political enemies. Here, this one’s for you it epitomises your political loserdom perfectly:
For: Ivory Bill Woodpecker and all the other Clintonista’s
Ivory Bill Woodpecker
I don’t watch YT political clips.
BTW, the “loser” actually won the popular vote. 😉
someofparts
Thanks Escher. Great link.
realitychecker
@ IBP
Too bad that the popular vote means NOTHING under our system. Which is why Clinton also pursued an electoral college-based strategy, as have all recent Presidential candidates.
Trump won by a landslide where it counts. Live with it.
tsisageya1
No one loves Donald Trump.
What are you doing?