It would be almost unbelievable, if it wasn't happening in Trumpland where madness has replaced reason.
U.S. intelligence officials have informed Donald Trump that Russia meddled in the U.S. election to help him win, but he's just shrugging it off. Or blaming the Democrats.
And to make matters even worse, many of his supporters feel the same way he does.
And are asking the same question: What's the big deal?
“From the parts of the report I’ve seen,” said Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel who twice ran for Senate here as Tea Party favorite, “it seems silly.”
Of the comments he had seen from fellow Trump supporters on Facebook and in emails, he added, “90 percent of them are like, ‘What’s the big deal?’”
“I don’t believe it,” Mr. Yates, 78, said flatly of the intelligence report. He was standing in the yard under his “Make America Great Again” flag, which he bought at a gun show several months ago. “Why would Putin even want Trump?”
But while that last question makes me question my own sanity, and think of Trump supporters this way...
Or just say that it takes one to follow one...
It is more complex than that, not all Trump supporters are that piggy or THAT ignorant. But their blind loyalty is disturbing.
And if you thought that's scary, what's happening in rural America is even more terrifying.
They are conservative, believe in hard work, family, the military and cops, and they know that abortion and socialism are evil, that Jesus Christ is our savior, and that Donald J. Trump will be good for America.
They are part of a growing movement in rural America that immerses many young people in a culture — not just conservative news outlets but also home and church environments — that emphasizes contemporary conservative values. It views liberals as loathsome, misinformed and weak, even dangerous.
For it suggests that not only do many of Trump supporters hate progressives with a passion. They think they are better than us:
“The difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans believe people are fundamentally bad, while Democrats see people as fundamentally good,” said Mr. Watts, who was in the area to campaign for Senator Rand Paul. “We are born bad,” he said and added that children did not need to be taught to behave badly — they are born knowing how to do that.
“We teach them how to be good,” he said. “We become good by being reborn — born again.”
And how you bridge a cultural gap like that one I have no idea.
But progressives will have to try to bridge that gap if they hope to win over some of Trump's supporters. They will have to try to convince them that they have been conned by a madman.
And they will have to try to reach out to them as Keith Olbermann tries to do here in his latest video...
Will that reasoned approach work? I have no idea.
But I do know this: unless reason prevails over madness. The planet will burn.
And so will Trump's America...
9 comments:
Democrats need to get their own people out and focus on abolishing the electoral college. Demographics are working against the Republicans and they know it.
The constant ad hominem against Trump and his supporters propelled him straight into the White House, and you now are so arrogant to think that you can "bridge a cultural divide" by pilling on still MORE ad hominem?
Sure. Please, keep the attacks, violence and endless psychological projection coming.
One of my favourite podcasts, The Professional Left podcasts with Driftglass and Bluegal, had a great thing to say on this in their last episode:
"These Trump voters will cut their own throats, then blame liberals when the blood starts to flow."
You ask me what to do about that? All I got is the words of a man who has a singular understanding of the conservative mindset and faced it unflinchingly in another desperate time: General William Tecumseh Sherman.
He wrote of his March To The Sea:
"We are not only fighting armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies. I know that this recent movement of mine through Georgia has had a wonderful effect in this respect. Thousands who had been deceived by their lying papers into the belief that we were being whipped all the time, realized the truth, and have no appetite for a repetition of the same experience."
Metaphorically, electorally, culturally... these people have to be marched into the sea. Sherman knew that. We're not facing just an intransigent political party in the GOP, but a hostile people unable or unwilling to take responsibility for any damage they do to the fabric of their nation and the lives of their fellow citizens. 160 years ago, it took Union bayonets to repair that damage. I can only pray it won't come to that again.
Gross negliance by the Democratic National Committee allowed hacking to take place. The Republican National Commitee had strong defense!
I hate to say it, but I tend to agree with a lot of those people interviewed in the NYT.
I doubt the Russians “hacked” the DNC—note apparently it was a run-of-the-mill phishing expedition not some “hacking”.
After the Iraqi debacle, it is going to take a bit more than a useless/meaningless Homeland Security report to convince me it was OH MY GHD, the dreaded Russians though as I keep saying, I imagine everybody from NSA to the Chinese to the Russians had been reading the DNC emails. And that teenager in the basement in Cleveland.
I'd suggest that the reason that the Repubs had no leaks was,
a) there was no point in leaking anything before the party managed to dispose of some of their mob of candidates (See Kevin O'Leary's remarks re the Con leadership race,;
b) after that, the Trump campaign was so shambolic and so totally divorced from the RNC that anyone wanting to run a phishing operation had no idea where to even look and;
c) if the US media had actually been doing its job, there was so much dirt available on Trump that a leaked email or two was inconsequential. It would be the old “coals to Newcastle” thing. Why leak some email when there already are a couple of dozen newspaper and magazine articles showing his character racism, dubious business practices and overall honesty (or lack thereof)?
hi anon...abolishing the electoral college might be a good idea, but I doubt it would be possible. But what the Democrats can do, is stop arguing about what went wrong and start uniting and organizing to defeat the Trumpanzees first in the mid term elections, and then in the general election...
hi anon...as I said in my post I don't really know whether that urban/rural divide can be bridged. But one way to at least neutralize it is to make sure Trump supporters understand that they have been conned. It should be obvious by now that Trump has betrayed them and is in the process of creating a government of billionaires. And although the Democrats did make many mistakes, it wasn't their ad hominem attacks on Trump that propelled him to victory. It was the hacking, the fake news, and the FBI's late intervention...
hi anon...I agree with you completely. And thank you for quoting my hero General Sherman. Republicans like their Confederate brethren cannot be reasoned with, and will only surrender when the flames threaten to engulf them.
Being nice is a good quality, but treating the enemy too nicely is sadly just weakness...
hi jrkrideau...the Democrats were careless, one of their IT people apparently clicked on a tainted link, even though they should have known better. But blaming them is like blaming someone for being mugged. It's also not just one report, but many reports that suggest that the Russians were involved. And don't forget the go-betweens who on passed the material to Assange. They have also apparently been identified as Russian embassy personnel. I don't think the Russians ever expected that Trump would actually win, but I don't think there is any doubt that they interfered in the American elections. And although the Americans have been guilty of the same crime, two wrongs don't make a right...
the Democrats were careless, one of their IT people apparently clicked on a tainted link, even though they should have known better
Security for something like a political party in election mode is probably close to impossible. . I would not particularly blame them. As I keep saying, I expect that they have been phished or hacked or whatever by just about everyone with a computer.
I expect the same has happened with the RNC but there was nothing Trump-like to release and his existing public record is so bad why would one worry about some minor email when the media was discussing bribery, sexual harassment and fraud?
It's also not just one report, but many reports that suggest that the Russians were involved
Not really from what I have read. Some DNC people whined and the US intelligence people said, “Yep madame, it's the pesky Ruskies”. And everything I hear or read, other than those sources say that the evidence is so weak as to be nonsense. Heck even the expert CBC had on said there was nothing to the public evidence to connect anyone to anything.
The American Intelligence public “proof” seems to be nothing but a few bits and pieces gleaned private security firms and is about as convincing as saying I robbed the Royal Bank in downtown Toronto because I was on the subway that day.
They have also apparently been identified as Russian embassy personnel
Again just a bit too convenient. The FSB no longer has any trade-craft? They would not, just possibly, assume that anyone visiting Assange would be under US observation? Perhaps they drove up in the ambassabor's car with diplomatic plates and the flags flying on the fenders?
I keep going back to the 'yellowcake' and aluminium tubes' that were such firm proof of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction which a) the yellowcake was a complete lie, and b) aluminum tubes turned out to be what everyone else said they likely were, tubes for rockets (or, perhaps, it was a hydro plant?).
If the Americans can lie and get themselves into a tizzy over those, I have less problem believing that they are lying now than believing that the Russians would undertake some harebrained scheme to support a madman like Trump.
I don't have any problem, whatsoever, belieing that some Democratic flunky might make such a wild accusation for minor party advanage, not being smart enough to realize that it could snowball.
It is just conceivable that the Russians had a longer term plan to try and prevent Clinton from being elected—the woman is a dangerous Cold War relict—and ended up helping Trump get elected but I just am not convinced that they would think that they could have enough influence, let alone do it without being discovered, to make it worth trying.
It does explain the possibility that Trump would have been helped. Not in their wildest dreams would the Russians have expected something like him to win the Republican nomination and then the presidency. They probably are as horrified as any other government in the world at the incredible result.
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