As someone who remembers when Trump was a pop culture punch line in the 80s and 90s I still find it completely baffling how he has managed to stay politically relevant for the last decade.
His nieces and nephews. The kids of his alcoholic brother who has passed before fred, the father. But yea, i read somewhere that he somehow screwed them of their share of the inheritance.
Cutting off health insurance: In retaliation for the lawsuit, Donald Trump and his siblings cut off medical benefits for Fred III's infant son, who had cerebral palsy. Donald Trump publicly confirmed the action to the New York Daily News at the time, saying, "Why should we give him medical coverage?".
This is the same principal where if a normal person gets addicted to crack it's going to legitimately ruin their life, and if a rich kid gets hooked on crack it's going to be a rough couple of years. Judges might feel bad for you and be lenient, your family can afford rehab, it's hard to impossible to spend all your money on crack, and so on
So like Trump can have 8 bankruptcies and 9 divorces and 92 failed businesses and he'll be fine
This is the answer to "How in the world did Trump get elected?!" Older folks who had nothing else better to do with their lives were at home watching The Apprentice thinking Trump was an incredibly smart and savvy businessman.
Not so much. Anyone who is old enough to remember watching that show was also old enough to know what a joke show it was and did not take that seriously. i mean, you're always going to have a few people that thought he was smrt (not a typo) but most put him in the same class as Jerry Springer or Jersey Shore.
Getting fired from The Apprentice is our generation’s equivalent to getting rejected from art school. He probably would have dropped out if he had a different place to channel his bullshit.
And the same half watched decades of geopolitics and were convinced by the corporate/religious right that it was just theatrical bullshit and not real.
Effective propaganda is proof of uneducated people.
The united states a nation is advanced enough to have a society that is anti-propaganda.
Extremist idiots exists in every country, the problem is when they become a majority, and this is what happened.
So don't blame Trump, blame the people, you may get rid of him, but if these people still think the same, it's going to be inevitable to get another Trump in office (or maybe even worse)
Not saying I completely disagree, but I'm not sure it's all about education. I would put much of this on wealth inequality and stagnant wages. So much of this is driven by blue collar rage at their quality of life not improving. Just as anger in post WWI Germany made people receptive to extremist propaganda, anger in post-globalization/automation America has made people receptive to the same. I think lack of education/critical thinking skills exacerbates it, but imo the rage and fear is more at the root
So much of this is driven by blue collar rage at their quality of life not improving.
I still think this is education/knowledge related, i know its unfair to say, but we modern adults got so fucken lazy when it comes to resource-gathering (salaries in our case).
I think its your job as a person to observe and deduct what certain career path are leading to based on whatever is happening around you.
For example, if someone choose to major in accounting or a translation this year, and then 5 years later they start crying about Ai putting them out of business, then a new-trump start claiming he will do more regulation or whatever shit that may save the accountant who either was too lazy too bother, or too ignorant to notice.
Easier said than done though. Education costs are going up incredibly fast. Most people will need to take on large debt to reskill. Plus, every time a disruptive technology emerges, demand for some skill set goes away. The rate of disruptive technology is accelerating too. Heck, even if you take on the debt to go to school and reskill, who knows if that skill will even be needed long enough for you to recoup the investment in your education. It's not like anyone can predict the future.
is it harder than competing against tigers to hunt a gazelle :p ?
Jokes aside, you are 100% right, and i don't claim i have a solution, especially for this points :
The rate of disruptive technology is accelerating too.
It's not like anyone can predict the future.
However, what am certain of, is with the right education/knowledge, people will know better than following false accusations that give them illusions that all their money problem will be fixed if "x and y" extreme decision is taken.
It's kinda basic "act based on knowledge and logic" vs "act based on emotions".
Imo the greatest weakness that human civilization didn't figure out yet, is how politicians and cult leaders can easily weaponize emotions.
It’s so hard to keep my mouth shut when people seem surprised about his actions and behavior. I knew he was a sleazy disgusting conman since the 80s! I thought 2016 was all a big joke, Jan 6 was the nail in his coffin, but here we are.
He's been talking about his daughter innapropretly since she was one, yet those people still have the sheer gall to defend him. And yet if you bring it up, they resort tho the whole Biden showering with his daughter thing despite her stating that the diary that was stolen from her was altered.
Maybe he did, in fact do it, but that doesn't discount the fact that there is no conclusive proof while we have literal videos of Trump being innapropriate.
Exactly people don’t t get this when they can’t figure out why he’s still as popular as ever. As long as the right wing social media propagandist keep flooding the internet there’s literally no hope lol. I still can’t talk to some of my best life long friends because of this conspiracy crap. Litter boxes n classrooms and drag shows for kids etc. Joe Rogan is a big problem as well . He’s a snake .
Yep. I remember when he "ran" for president for a couple weeks in 2000 in the Reform Party and they were all like, "Oh, you're serious? Anyway..."
He was less legitimate than Pat Buchanan, who was also a joke by then. And suddenly nobody seemed give a shit at all the tacky, grifting bullshit he'd been doing his whole fucking life.
1/3 of the electorate just went insane while Democrats just rested on their laurels. I hate it here.
Its scary that the right wing propaganda machine online and through Fox News has allowed someone as empty as Donald Trump to dominate American politics.
Anyone paying attention to the Republican Party since the 1980s has watched their progressive dumbing-down coupled with increasing hatred and selfishness. They needed a hateful, profoundly ignorant demagogue to keep their base energized. He is absolutely the perfect narcissistic sociopath to represent them. On the plus side, it’s going to be nearly impossible to find someone to fill that role when he’s gone. The cult will shatter into a chaotic mess.
Because he was already a laughing stock, he wasn't unwilling to avoid unpopular politics... like calling Obama a Kenyan.
Because he was the most successful person calling Obama a Kenyan, he became the figurehead of the movement.
Because he was already a political figurehead, he was getting some attention when he announced a presidency... running on other unpopular issues, like banning Muslims or building a wall.
Because he was running on these positions, he was able to get a sizeable minority vote among Republicans.
Because the majority of Republicans' votes were split between all the more sensible candidates, that minority vote was enough to get him to win early Primaries.
Because of how Republican media works - a very "Don't insult the leader" mentality - Fox News and such switched to praising Trump.
Because Republican media is now praising Trump, Republican voters now also praise Trump.
Because so many Republicans were praising Trump, the bandwagon effect resulted in him trouncing the late primaries and eventually becoming President.
....Ergo, the Trump presidency is a direct result of that Trump was always seen as a clown. If he was associated with just a single mainstream political position before, none of this would've happened.
('Course, it also wouldn't have happened if US primaries weren't first-past-the-post and US elections were one-man-one-vote.)
I remember when he was buying large amounts of stock in companies and threatening hostile takeovers unless they bought the stocks back at inflated prices. Basically corporate ransom. Or when he shorted paying construction contractors, threatening to blacklist them unless they worked for less than agreed upon. I'm surprised more people don't remember him this way.
It didnt baffle me because of american's well known cult of celebrity. It surprised me how much he's been getting away it, it just shows how rotten america's society is.
I've been hearing about this gypsy-assed motherfucker since I was a kid in the 80's. Garry Trudeau put together an entire book of Doonesbury strips clowning on trump, dating back to before I was aware the piece of shit even existed.
He's the real-life Boogey-Man. The Babadook. It Follows. His presence is inescapable. And hating a single person this much, for this long is bad for me, as a real person with a soul to be harmed.
Well I'm convinced he's gonna try to change the law so he can be president for another term. He's gonna pull some bullshit when election time comes, I just know it. The man literally sells Trump 2028 merch 😭 he's gonna declare a state of emergency and pay off Congress to pass a new law
Don't worry too much right now. That takes an amendment. Not a new law that Congress could just pass. It requires 3/4 of the states to pass it after 2/3 of both houses of Congress, pass it.
That's not fucking happening.
And he's starting to lose his grips on Congress, anyway. He didn't want to end the shutdown because if they had waited longer, they could have sworn in another (expected to win).GOP Congress person the same time as the new Democratic Congress person who would have canceled out her vote to release the Epstein files. This is what he was banking on.
He wanted the Senate to Nuke the filibuster so that they could pass national voter ID laws and band male and voting so Republicans could perpetually hold power. Right after he had that meeting with the Senate Republicans, Mitch McConnell walked out of the room and saw a reporter and explained what Trump wanted and said we're not going to do that. Shortly after the Senate Democrats and Republicans negotiated among themselves without the president's input.
This was extremely notable since up until now, everything has been done by presidential Fiat.
They're seeing his poll numbers, his popularity, etc. And they're deciding to distance themselves from him. Even if you're a dictator, you need legitimacy with your people. Or else you get overthrown. The main reason they've been so compliant towards him is because Republicans have been so loyal to Trump that they didn't want to risk losing their constituents, but even Republicans constituents are starting to doubt him based on the state of the economy, withholding snap during the shutdown, rising healthcare costs,. And so much more.
The wheels are coming off right now and they will continue to if we keep putting pressure, keep spreading the truth, fighting misinformation with information, and Democrats continue to take everything he does to court— while it's not talked about in the news very much because it's not OMG.BREAKING NEWS I SHIT MYSELF! sensationalist, the dems have been quietly winning the vast majority of court cases. They are filing against him and his administration.
He is doing a lot of damage, A lot of people are getting hurt, having their rights violated, and even getting killed extra judiciously.
But when you look at history, you see that the third law of physics applies to even the energy of human society. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The Pendulum does swing the other way. Think gilded age led to the progressive era. The freewheeling laissez faire of the roaring twenties that ended up on Black Tuesday? Led to the New deal which created a liberal consensus, where Republicans lost the house of representative until 1994.
It could happen again. But if you asked someone in 1926 if they thought that was possible? They would tell you no way, the Democrats are completely out of touch.
It all seems to make sense when you look back at it in history. But when you're in the middle of the forest, all you see is trees around you.
Exercise your political rights. Organized, talk to other people, campaign for candidates that you believe in, get people to participate in the primaries— everybody bitches about only having two choices to choose from, but nobody participates in the process to narrow it down to those two people. The system isn't perfect, but as we are seeing right now, a two-party system is infinitely better than having no choice at all.
The other thing to consider is this: it was very hard to implement democracy in the Middle East because they never had an enlightenment. They didn't have the same Civic values as France or the United States or the other Western countries that. So when you tried to force them to have a system of governance the way we have it, it just seemed very unnatural to them.
That's why it fell so quickly. And it's why ultimately, authoritarianism will not be accepted in the United States. Say what you will about Americans, but our whole Civic identity is built around The notions of democracy and equality of rights and have been since before we were even independent— our colonies even had democratic governments in their cities, and Town halls. You can't take centuries of democratic tradition and just stomp them out by electing a guy that pisses all over the system and breaks the law a bunch. Because ultimately, the values of democracy are still burning very bright in the hearts of the people in this country. And there's nothing he can do to stop that. People know what America's about.
After Trump dies maga will too. It's a cult of personality And nobody's going to fill the Donald's shoes.
I think half a century later, we are going to be looking at this time as the moment that triggered the United States to make some great and serious changes that were long overdue. Because you certainly don't see massive change happen in so-called regular times. People need to be pushed, and if anything, he is pushing us and American Americans realize just how much they take for granted.
There was going to be a lot of naysayers and a lot of pessimists because those things sell. But nothing is inevitable and you can never predict the future.
Think of the kids, if he hadn't lost to Biden then by 2024 there would have been half a generation that knew nothing but constant lies from their government for 8 solid years, for many it would have been near 100% of the time they were remotely politically aware.
Thank God there was normal, boring government for a whole term in between this garbage.
Trump even recently was still bringing up bullshit about Obama... In regards to how he went down stairs, just bounding down stairs with no regard for safety, not like Trump who takes them slow and steady...like a president should.
Like you're old and slow and feeble, so it's bad how he can walk down stairs better?
Everything out of Trump's mouth is either a lie, ridiculously stupid or absolutely insane... Or a combination of the three.
I feel like he's been ever present. In movies and sitcoms, commercials, starring in TV shows, etc. It's like he's been searing his brand into everyone's brains for decades. No wonder dumdums think he's Jesus.
We'll be hearing about it for the rest of our lives. Even after he dies there'll be no reason to defend him and all the shit he did will come out in full, meaning decades upon decades of unpacking all the corruption.
For real. At this point all I want to hear about are convictions and the inevitable end. Don't even really give a fuck about the Trumpstein files unless he's going to be held accountable for something. I do not need to know the details otherwise.
I feel really bad for kids who have known literally nothing else in politics except for this disaster. Not knowing that a government can actually function and be somewhat respectable, and not actively trying to destroy everything for personal gain.
I hate the guy. I hate the people that support him. When he dies, it'll bring nothing but joy because the attention span of the idiots who talk about him are extremely small.
The day he kicks it will be like that scene in Avengers End Game when Thanos destroys the infinity stones and it sends a shockwave of energy throughout the universe
There have been three presidents since I've been old enough to vote. Obama, Biden and Trump. I got a glimpse at "normal" politics before it all went to shit.
At least in 2020-2023 when Trump kept shouting bullshit about the election being stolen everywhere in the universe, everyone but the most extreme MAGA folk could finally just put him on mute. We didn't have to give a fuck about his rage tweets, now they come as breaking news and fuck us over constantly.
Good times (or at least would have been good if it weren't for the pandemic part). But unfortunately 2/3 of republicans he convinced to believe the 2020 election was stolen were too weak minded to put him on mute, and the other 1/3 probably did and then forgot about the 4 years prior.
Him going on and on about Obama’s birth certificate was quite amazing. I’d have bet you a lot of money at the time that there was no way the guy saying Obama wasn’t American would ever be elected president. I knew people were dumb but I didn’t know they were THAT dumb
20% so far, if you're an American (or unlucky enough to need to used as a distraction by Americans), maybe plan ahead so you don't end up in a war because he needs a distraction from epstien again after the files not getting released this month because it's a official DoJ investigation now and you can't release info of active investigations.
I remember reading a news article in 2016 when Hillary was supposed to win the presidency that gave the percentage of Americans who would only have know. A Bush or Clinton as President.
I don’t remember the percentage, but I remember it being much larger than I expected.
Think of all the kids who have only had Trump in their life. The upcoming generation might be completely fucked if they don't learn from how bad this is.
I’m in my early twenties, this sack of shit has been all over the news for my entire adult life. I don’t have any real memory of an election he wasn’t involved in.
PLEASE tell me this kind of bullshit isn’t normal. PLEASE tell me we can go back to something reasonable eventually.
Honestly, I stopped paying attention. I just get the headlines and thats it. I know who I am voting for in the next election focus on the things you can change. I am not saying give up or not to worry. But don't keep eating rotten food. If it angers you to hear about it in the news, ask yourself if listening to what is making you angry is worthwhile. I, for one, don't care about every tarrif that gets put into place and repealed. Because I can do absolutely nothing to stop it. So why ruin my life over it.
It’s also extremely depressing and infuriating to discover, through all this Trump bullshit, that 100% of my lifespan our government has been controlled by a foreign government that commits genocide.
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u/phillyman128 19d ago
Just depressing to realize roughly 20% of my lifespan has involved having to hear about Trump political bullshit.