America has a problem and it isn't Trump.

[Randy]

I can scarcely fathom that my state voted for Biden. We haven't elected a democratic person in twenty-eight years.

I can hardly believe that there are groups of people celebrating Trump's "second term". Even Faux News acknowledged Biden's win although they are touting that the election was illegitimate. They are going to feel pretty stupid come January 20th.

[billy rubin]

no tbey wont.

trump will continue to tweet his injusticez

and fox will let himrant

[Davin]

no tbey wont.

trump will continue to tweet his injusticez

and fox will let himrant

Actually, Fox is doing bit of a baby push back now. So now Fox is part of the fake media and it's time to move on to OANN.

[Icarus]

The former comic strip Pogo contained subtle but brilliant commentary about political and social problems that we live with.  Somewhere on our forum, another member recalled that Pogo said: "we have met the enemy and he is us". 

Last Friday a man came to repair some of the fascia boards on my house.  On completion of the job he was conversational. He pressed the argument that Biden was going to take our guns away from us.  He was pretty adamant with that belief.  The guy was a gun nut who is armed at all times, his wife carries a pistol in her purse, their son and daughter in law all carry concealed weapons to "protect themselves". That man had a large automatic pistol on the dashboard of his big truck.   Sheeesh! WTF is this society coming to?   

Truth to tell I had evil and punishing thoughts about the dangerous ignorant bastard. Does that make me as irrational as he is?   Did I mention that the dude was about 6 foot three inches tall and weighed near 300 pounds. He would definitely not need a gun in a confrontation.  He also had hammers and screwdrivers in his tool kit. sufficient weaponry to forestall most issues I believe.

Another more positive thought........ in another section of this forum, we have some beautiful pictures.  The Squirrel posted some most pleasing pictures of a peaceful and inspiring farmstead.  That is good medicine.  Thank you all for positive thinking.

[billy rubin]

its an interesting dilemma. i am definitily in favor of certain kinds of gun control, but i carry a concealed weapon when i leave the house and generally have a gun within a few seconds walking distance inside it.

there have been too many close encounters with mass shooters in my life to make me feel comfortable walking around unarmed.

but i think it's abundantly clear that we have a problem in this country with guns in the hands of both nut cases and people who don't have the judgement to know when not to use them. the ex-GI who killed my cousin and two other university professors in a college thesis defense was a nut case. the two neighborhood thugs in georgia who murdered ahmed aubry clearly didn't have the intelligence to be trusted with a gun.

yet we have that thorny issue of the US constitution.

[Old Seer]

You know revolutions..?

Those things where the plebs pick up their pitchforks and usually end up slaughtered in their thousands for years and decades after?

I have nothing against president Trump (The office, as opposed to the man) but I think your analysis is incomplete.

Arrogance and ignorance, perhaps. However, there is also a large Populist (specifically, anti-elitist/anti-System™) component here. How Donald Trump is not one of the elites, or is "one of the good ones," I honestly struggle to understand. Maybe it's the way he talks and walks and tweets..? Regardless, the sentiment was there in 2016, and is still very much so.

One must also consider that economically, Trump's term in office has been kind to a lot of people until the zombie flu, and it's possible that they do not attribute the subsequent fall to the president.

Trump merely has a personality problem that is becoming more mild as time progresses. He has a hard time with criticism---mainly because he may have a lot of "boss complex" left over from being a business type. He's quick to defend and perhaps a bit strong on degrading retaliations.  Bear in mind he's been a boss longer then not, and bosses don't like being questioned. So far though, he's changing slowly after learning that the boss doesn't always know what's best but always knows what he wants. Today's floks haven't the understanding of 'American' according to the old standards, but as with any country national pride is common.
 I think today's youngers have racism mixed up with superiority. Racism is a natural concept and part of ones personality. Today racism is more of a weapon against and enemy more then fact.

[Icarus]

Dammit OS I must need to change my eye glasses.  I have not observed that Trump has softened his attacks on reality.  Actually, within my limited understanding, he has increased his absurdity by several levels.

[Dark Lightning]

He hasn't changed one whit, and his "gang that couldn't sue straight" has lost suits that have made it all the way to the SCotUS (and never should have), even with those justices that he managed to appoint with the Turtle's help. Having set a creature free...one should acknowledge that it wasn't really one's creature, even if one appointed it.

Icarus, you are not wrong.

[Randy]

It looks like more of the GOP is accepting the loss although there are a few stalwarts.

[Old Seer]

Dammit OS I must need to change my eye glasses.  I have not observed that Trump has softened his attacks on reality.  Actually, within my limited understanding, he has increased his absurdity by several levels.

Arguing a person's absurdity is futile. Everyone has absurdities. My comment was toward personality, not political agendas. Every person is a psychological fact, and that's the perspective from which I see a person/people. I was aware during my comment that I may be dealing with realities. Not intending to deal in realities of others I chanced the comment. I'll have to leave it there as I wasn't questioning anyone's concepts of reality. :-)

[Recusant]

On topic, the article below makes a good case for authoritarian minority rule being a core drive of the current US Republican Party. The shouts of "voter fraud" and "stolen election" are a pose--a significant part of the country is larping as delusional loons. I think there are many true believers among them though, and some who've really mastered ignoring cognitive dissonance in the past four years. Their Dear Leader's shifting stances on any given topic give them plenty of practice with that. There are some as well who are perfectly aware of what a hideous failure Trump is as a president, but nonetheless prefer him as president rather than any Democrat.

Even so, I believe she accurately describes a particular element of the Trumpist demographic.

"Trump voters don't really believe Biden stole the election — but they do want a coup" | Salon

Many of their long-standing beliefs don't hold up to modern moral standards or rational scrutiny. Rather than give up those beliefs, however, Republicans have developed a series of disingenuous gambits, conspiracy theories and trolling tactics to derail conversations, sow confusion and otherwise distract those who would challenge their indefensible ideology.

Of course, it's morally indefensible to come right out and say you care more about keeping your gas guzzler than protecting the planet. So, instead, conservatives claim to be "skeptical" of climate science, wasting their interlocutor's time by forcing them to prove, over and over and over and over again, that climate change is real. Similarly, open contempt for women's rights is hard to argue, so instead, conservatives will claim concern for "fetal life" to justify support for forced childbirth — even though none of their other policy preferences point to concern about the wellbeing of children, much less fetuses.

Poll numbers showing that Republican voters "believe" that Trump lost the election are more of the same.

Conservatives know better than to openly argue that Democratic votes shouldn't be counted. So instead they concoct this elaborate conspiracy theory, painting themselves as the victims of voter fraud in order to justify an illegal effort to steal the election. The current situation is similar to the last time there was a widespread conspiracy theory aimed at delegitimizing a duly elected Democratic president. During Barack Obama's presidency, polling showed that large numbers of Republicans, often a majority, expressed "skepticism" that Obama was a natural-born citizen and therefore legally eligible to be president. As is the case now, Trump was a ringleader in pushing this "birther" conspiracy theory, helping to mainstream claims that Obama's presidency was illegitimate.

But did Republican voters really believe that Obama was born in Kenya? Or was it just a cover story for their real but unspeakable racist opposition to a Black man being president?

A 2014 study by Stanford researchers suggests strongly that for most birthers the conspiracy theory was bad faith and not a sincere error. The researchers compared different polls and found that how the poll questions were worded made a huge difference in conservative adherence to birtherism. When pollsters reminded respondents that only "natural-born" citizens can become president, nearly 60% of Republican voters readily denied Obama's citizenship. But when polls framed it as a test of knowledge of facts, by asking respondents where Obama was born, only 31% of conservatives espoused birther beliefs. These findings suggest that most conservatives weren't confused about where Obama was born. The conspiracy theory was just a way to express racist beliefs about the inherent illegitimacy of Black leaders by asking "questions" about Obama's birth certificate.

[Continues . . .]

[Randy]

On topic, the article below makes a good case for authoritarian minority rule being a core drive of the current US Republican Party. The shouts of "voter fraud" and "stolen election" are a pose--a significant part of the country is larping as delusional loons. I think there are many true believers among them though, and some who've really mastered ignoring cognitive dissonance in the past four years. Their Dear Leader's shifting stances on any given topic give them plenty of practice with that. There are some as well who are perfectly aware of what a hideous failure Trump is as a president, but nonetheless prefer him as president rather than any Democrat.

Even so, I believe she accurately describes a particular element of the Trumpist demographic.

"Trump voters don't really believe Biden stole the election — but they do want a coup" | Salon

Many of their long-standing beliefs don't hold up to modern moral standards or rational scrutiny. Rather than give up those beliefs, however, Republicans have developed a series of disingenuous gambits, conspiracy theories and trolling tactics to derail conversations, sow confusion and otherwise distract those who would challenge their indefensible ideology.

Of course, it's morally indefensible to come right out and say you care more about keeping your gas guzzler than protecting the planet. So, instead, conservatives claim to be "skeptical" of climate science, wasting their interlocutor's time by forcing them to prove, over and over and over and over again, that climate change is real. Similarly, open contempt for women's rights is hard to argue, so instead, conservatives will claim concern for "fetal life" to justify support for forced childbirth — even though none of their other policy preferences point to concern about the wellbeing of children, much less fetuses.

Poll numbers showing that Republican voters "believe" that Trump lost the election are more of the same.

Conservatives know better than to openly argue that Democratic votes shouldn't be counted. So instead they concoct this elaborate conspiracy theory, painting themselves as the victims of voter fraud in order to justify an illegal effort to steal the election. The current situation is similar to the last time there was a widespread conspiracy theory aimed at delegitimizing a duly elected Democratic president. During Barack Obama's presidency, polling showed that large numbers of Republicans, often a majority, expressed "skepticism" that Obama was a natural-born citizen and therefore legally eligible to be president. As is the case now, Trump was a ringleader in pushing this "birther" conspiracy theory, helping to mainstream claims that Obama's presidency was illegitimate.

But did Republican voters really believe that Obama was born in Kenya? Or was it just a cover story for their real but unspeakable racist opposition to a Black man being president?

A 2014 study by Stanford researchers suggests strongly that for most birthers the conspiracy theory was bad faith and not a sincere error. The researchers compared different polls and found that how the poll questions were worded made a huge difference in conservative adherence to birtherism. When pollsters reminded respondents that only "natural-born" citizens can become president, nearly 60% of Republican voters readily denied Obama's citizenship. But when polls framed it as a test of knowledge of facts, by asking respondents where Obama was born, only 31% of conservatives espoused birther beliefs. These findings suggest that most conservatives weren't confused about where Obama was born. The conspiracy theory was just a way to express racist beliefs about the inherent illegitimacy of Black leaders by asking "questions" about Obama's birth certificate.

[Continues . . .]

There has been talk of a coup recently and Trump being advised to declare martial law. That would test our democracy if it somehow came to pass.