I know a lot of Trump supporters(Texas) and none of them are on twitter or are even aware of the shit he says on it. I don’t know how transferable that observation is to the rest of the country, but I feel like his tweeting is designed to piss off liberals. His older supporters seems to be more Facebook inclined and I don’t have that one anymore. But I don’t know if Trump posts on Facebook like he does Twitter. Also, they literally only watch Fox News where if you’ve seen it, it’s basically a completely different version of what’s going on. They just don’t cover any of the shit the other news orgs do. His supporters often don’t even know half the crazy shit he says or does.
He, essentially is his supporters. He doesn’t fucking read ANYTHING. He sees or hears something and says “something has to change” no matter how random the source. Because he has so much shit oozing out his ears right now he has resorted to tossing the chessboard in the air every single day. I’ll crash the stock market if you impeach me. Death to NAFTA, fuck your consent. Google will do what I say. Basically your country is Elizabeth Smart, and Trump is the guy who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart.
I disagree. Sure, there are some people who are just blindly following him, are idiotic mouth-breathers like you see at his rallies, and that is the stereotype that is promoted by CNN, etc. That being said, there are a lot of his supporters that just voted Republican, because he's the Republican choice, and there are a lot of them that really hoped he'd get his shit together and were willing to give him a chance. I totally get that stance... it just hasn't really turned out as they hoped (I would think). It's pretty disingenuous to lump them all together as the bottom of the ladder. There are some smart people around here who voted for him, for instance, who are not at all like Trump himself. You could say the same shit about hard-core Hillary supporters... The reality is much more complex and nuanced, and should be treated as such.
So these midterms should be interesting... in the same yards I saw "MAGA" signs a few years ago, I'm now seeing signs for Beto. FiveThirtyEight has it at about a 75% chance dems get the house
My parents are republicans for the simple reason that they aren't fond of paying taxes to government works programs. They spent their entire careers working for the government and belive most tax dollars are wasted. My dad hated Obama because it made his health care 3x as expensive. Because of these things they are very susceptible to right wing media. They don't have twitter. I am often asked why the news cares what he tweets. Why not report on what he does rather than what he puts out via tweets? they aren't bad people, they just don't see the world the same as others. And I tend to agree, if he wasn't on twitter, people wouldn't have nearly as much ammo to hate him.
If they start reporting on what he is actually doing, it will ruin the entire narrative. Though in continuing to report in the manner they are, they continue to damage their credibility with half of the country, while reaffirming the beliefs of the other half and those on Twitter. In my opinion, operationally, he is above average. When it comes to gravitas he is well below average.
It also boils down to, well who else are you going to vote for? A third party candidate at best that siphons off enough votes to allow the party you oppose philosophically to win? Each side faces this crisis each election if the party candidate is not the best.
The whole Russian investigation notwithstanding, the policies for what they actually are (under the mountain of narrative), aren’t that bad. I vehemently disagree with what he’s done with the EPA and Dept of Interior and a few other things, but other than that there’s not much to be outraged about. He’s just such an insufferable and unlikeable asswipe that it makes its impossible to get behind him just on the basis of policy.
The further that investigation goes the worse it is getting for FBI and Justice. I don't see Trump being impeached at the end of this. I don't know how they could at this point. It has appeared and continues to appear that the wheels of justice were weaponized against Trump - I can't fathom how you can be implicated in something where the genesis of the investigation was a lie or set of lies told to initiate wiretapping/spying on a political campaign?
Full throated opposition to climate change, including pulling out of the Paris Accords, "energy dominance" policy that includes huge incentives to burn fossil fuels, and reduction of "social cost of carbon" in EPA calculations. The state of Florida is an average of 6ft above sea level and our current federal policy is to let them sink beneath the waves. As you mentioned with EPA allowing basically any pollution corporations want, and trying to sell protected federal lands to logging/mining interests. Attempt to remove California's Clean Air Act waiver, which, climate change aside, is necessary for the health and well being of large number of its citizens. Gutting of the CFPB's efforts to fight financial fraud. Gutting of the Education Department's efforts to fight fraud by for-profit universities. A debt financed tax cut during a boom cycle. No tolerance border and family separation policies which are designed, amongst other things, to discourage legitimate asylum seekers with the threat of never seeing their children again. Consistent undermining of the deterrent value of NATO by sending the message that the US will not hold to its Article V commitments. Feet dragging at best on any measures to increase election security (although this one is mostly blocked upstream by the Republican Congress). Justice Department has scaled back its civil rights work and has introduced a "religious freedom task force" which is built on the conspiracy theory that conservative Christians are some persecuted minority in the country. A good number of things he "just says" are things he would do if he could, and I don't think he should get credit for being successfully restrained by a legal or political system stressed by his illegitimacy. It's also important to point out that so much of the power, duty, and responsibility of the office hinges on public perceptions, public relationships, etc, and so his boorish and assholeish behavior has a real impact on his job performance. A president that excuses dishonesty and corruption will breed both in his administration; a president that cannot be trusted cannot lead effectively; a president that alienates allies and emboldens enemies hurts the national interest.
Could google throttle Trump based news stories from it’s site? Be a good lesson to him about the reality of net neutrality. Of course with the Democrats saber rattling about monopoly busting and Trump threatening what ever he thinks he can they are probably legitimately scared of some sort of government regulations.
With you on the environmental stuff 100%, but the others? Yeah, I dont have much of a problem with any of it. Maybe the Education Department policy of not allowing lawsuits against For-Profit colleges and the handling of some of the immigration stuff, but a lot of it is fear mongering. He didnt gut the CFPB, the tax cut has yielded positive (short term) results and we should be putting pressure on other NATO countries to pick up some of the slack (which has also worked). Its probably not enough to get me to vote for him in 2020, but the Disappointment Party candidates have yet to reveal themselves.