Everything you didn't want to know about Trump and were not afraid to ask

[pErvinalia]

Good to see that the cop has been reprimanded too. Man it must be worrying times in America if you look like a furriner. It's unbelievable they have to put up with shit like this.

I've got to say I'm always amazed by how calm Merkins stay while being confronted with this sort of thing. I guess it must be the gun thing, as you don't want to set someone right off and then have them shoot you. No one remains that calm here. They either clam right up, or start hurling abuse back.

[Sean Hayden]

I don't know. I can't really tell. But I live in Houston which is a huge city with a good mix of people. But that doesn't really tell us how anyone feels. I bet a lot of people are worried right now. I hope they will see that we've managed to get on with our mixed up lives just like we were before Trump became president. Trump and others want people to believe the US is behind them. They want that more than anything. But we just aren't.

[laklak]

I'd be apathetic about the whole mess if I could be bothered.

[Hermit]

I don't know. I can't really tell. But I live in Houston which is a huge city with a good mix of people. But that doesn't really tell us how anyone feels. I bet a lot of people are worried right now. I hope they will see that we've managed to get on with our mixed up lives just like we were before Trump became president. Trump and others want people to believe the US is behind them. They want that more than anything. But we just aren't.

It's fairly probable that ten of thousands of xenophobes, racists and sexists who used to congregate in homes or private meeting places to complain to each other about foreigners, non-whites and women now feel encouraged to make fools of themselves in public now that their leader is a xenophobe, racist and sexist. What with pocket cameras being everywhere, and the internet, we seem to get to hear and see every instance of it because it's newsworthy, makes for clickbait, ad sales and ultimately profit.

What we don't get to see, is the tens of millions of US citizens who are not particularly xenophobic, racist or sexist going on about their ordinary life. Nobody who walks past someone wearing a Costa Rican flag and simply says "G'day" or just smiles fleetingly, then walks on, will be filmed, and it is pretty certain that if he/she did get filmed, it will not go viral because that simply is not newsworthy, makes for clickbait, ad sales and ultimately profit.

It's all too easy to mistake the extraordinary for the representative, especially for those who have a bee in the bonnet about some issue or another. Confirmation bias rules morons, be they left, right, centre or simply undifferentiated morons..

[pErvinalia]

Well incidences of this sort of thing have been measured to be increasing. So it's not simply a case of "confirmation bias". And it would take a particularly moronic moron not to understand how such divisive rhetoric out of the office of the President can lead to an increase in this sort of thing.

[Hermit]

...it would take a particularly moronic moron not to understand how such divisive rhetoric out of the office of the President can lead to an increase in this sort of thing.

It's fairly probable that ten of thousands of xenophobes, racists and sexists who used to congregate in homes or private meeting places to complain to each other about foreigners, non-whites and women now feel encouraged to make fools of themselves in public now that their leader is a xenophobe, racist and sexist.

And the confirmation bias concerns another matter. Reading comprehension, please. You need some.

[pErvinalia]

Well you should have put the confirmation bias bollocks after that paragraph instead of after this paragraph:

What we don't get to see, is the tens of millions of US citizens who are not particularly xenophobic, racist or sexist going on about their ordinary life. Nobody who walks past someone wearing a Costa Rican flag and simply says "G'day" or just smiles fleetingly, then walks on, will be filmed, and it is pretty certain that if he/she did get filmed, it will not go viral because that simply is not newsworthy, makes for clickbait, ad sales and ultimately profit.

[Seabass]

Surprise! Most Trump dummies are probably racist.

Racial resentment is the biggest predictor of immigration attitudes, study finds
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... tudy-finds

White Americans’ negative attitudes toward immigrants are driven overwhelmingly by racial prejudices, not “economic anxiety,” according to a working paper by political scientist Steven V. Miller of Clemson University.

Immigration hard-liners, including President Trump, often frame their arguments with ostensibly race-neutral appeals to public safety or economic interest. As Trump said in July 2015, Mexicans are “taking our jobs. They’re taking our manufacturing jobs. They’re taking our money. They’re killing us.” This has led many commentators to conclude that the attitudes driving Trump and his supporters on questions of immigration are primarily economic, rather than racial in nature.

Political scientists have subsequently tested this theory, at least as it applies to Trump support overall, and found it lacking — over and over and over again. But Miller’s paper is extremely useful because it removes the question from the specific context of 2016 and places it in a more general policy realm.



full article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... tudy-finds

[pErvinalia]

Conservatism really is a disease in need of a cure.

[Svartalf]

if there were a cure, we'd have used it centuries ago... the closest people have found up to now, is massive purges such as were made during the Reign of Terror, or following the Russian revolution, but that doesn't work as a new brand of conservatives always rises up to replace the bunch you've eliminated.

[Seabass]

but that doesn't work as a new brand of conservatives always rises up to replace the bunch you've eliminated.

My god, they're like zombies...

[Hermit]

You don't cure diseases. Ideally you eradicate them.

[pErvinalia]

but that doesn't work as a new brand of conservatives always rises up to replace the bunch you've eliminated.

My god, they're like zombies...

They are. Beheading then? Fire?

[Seabass]

Criminal-in-chief pardons more criminals.

Trump Pardons Oregon Ranchers Whose Case Inspired Wildlife Refuge Takeover
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/10/us/p ... regon.html

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday pardoned a pair of Oregon cattle ranchers who had been serving out five-year sentences for arson on federal land — punishments that inspired the armed occupation of a wildlife refuge in 2016 and brought widespread attention to anger over federal land management in the Western United States.

The case against the ranchers — Dwight L. Hammond, now 76, and his son, Steven D. Hammond, 49 — became a cause célèbre for an antigovernment group’s weekslong standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

The occupation, led by the Bundy family, drew hordes of militia members who commandeered government buildings and vehicles in tactical gear and long guns, promising to defend the family.

During his campaign, Mr. Trump played to that sense of Western grievance, and the pardon of the Hammonds was a signal to conservatives that he was sympathetic. His pardon in August of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., was another such sign.

[Svartalf]

What do you expect? he'd pardon himself in advance if he could... and he'll pardon himself as soon as an impeachment procedure is launched, of course that won't do a thing, but that's how he functions.