Trump loses Arizona

[PureX]

I don't disagree with Trump being an idiot in certain areas. But I do think he is clever in others. Disregarding him as simply a buffoon is easy; I do it myself quite a bit! But it's dangerous. The man managed to create his own little political cult and is continuing to be a focal point in the media.

He didn't create that cult. The cult created him. It's that cult of unabashed greed and selfishness that is so dangerous, not Trump. It's that whole faction of Americans that think freedom = selfishness: that freedom means we get to do and say whatever we want and to hell with everyone else. People who think that winning is all that matters, so you do what you have to, to win, and the losers are just getting what they deserve. It's why Trump cannot acknowledge having lost the election. Because to do so makes him a 'loser' in a cult where only the winners matter. An ideology that he, himself, preached every week on his TV show. And that millions tuned in to watch and nod their heads in assent.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

He didn't create that cult. The cult created him. It's that cult of unabashed greed and selfishness that is so dangerous, not Trump. It's that whole faction of Americans that think freedom = selfishness: that freedom means we get to do and say whatever we want and to hell with everyone else. People who think that winning is all that matters, so you do what you have to, to win, and the losers are just getting what they deserve. It's why Trump cannot acknowledge having lost the election. Because to do so makes him a 'loser' in a cult where only the winners matter. An ideology that he, himself, preached every week on his TV show. And that millions tuned in to watch and nod their heads in assent.

Can't disagree.

I grew up in another era, I guess, and I have always understood that though I am free in a whole lot of ways, I am barred from exercising all of my freedom through my own conscience. When governments build deficit upon deficit, leaving massive debt to be paid by generation as yet unable to vote, I know in my heart that is a kind of theft. So though I like many liberal policies, and am willing to vote MY tax money so that we can have them in Canada, I do not want them paid for by future generations. They're things I want, so they're things that I ought to pay for.

It's the same with my freedom not to have things injected in my body that I may not want. I could do that, so long as I agreed at the same time to stay away from everybody -- so that I don't get infected, and take up much-needed medical care, and also so that I don't infect anybody else. None of that seemed good to me, on a personal ethics basis, so I got the vaccine.

I still wear a mask on public transit and in stores -- all stores -- for the same reason. These things allow me to be true to my own ethics, at really trivial cost to me.

Sometimes, I have to ask if many of the Americans who think of themselves as so full of rights and freedoms that they need not be concerned with anyone else have ever examined those notions in light of their professed Christian faith. And you know, I often doubt strongly that they do.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

He didn't create that cult. The cult created him. It's that cult of unabashed greed and selfishness that is so dangerous, not Trump. It's that whole faction of Americans that think freedom = selfishness: that freedom means we get to do and say whatever we want and to hell with everyone else. People who think that winning is all that matters, so you do what you have to, to win, and the losers are just getting what they deserve. It's why Trump cannot acknowledge having lost the election. Because to do so makes him a 'loser' in a cult where only the winners matter. An ideology that he, himself, preached every week on his TV show. And that millions tuned in to watch and nod their heads in assent.

I don't disagree. I just think passing Trump off as an inactive participant without his own influential agency is dangerous.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

A window into the smarts vs Trump-just-being-Trump (TJBT)
is his management style. The first hint was his complete lack
of advance preparation for assuming office. Even Obama, an
inexperienced young pup followed the Reagan example of an
organized thoroughly planned transition. Trump did nothing
but wing it after inauguration. It did not go well.

As badly as Trump did winging it, I think what Trump did cleverly was inserting himself as the leader of the communities that would become the larger movement of Trumpism and sustaining it despite what polling shown/continues to show.

Trump has managed, despite being an idiot at business in general to create a brand for himself for decades. Yes, it was based on a legacy given to him, but he managed to win the presidency with it. He seems to have a head for a particular group of people and how to manipulate media to appeal to them.

 

[Wandering Monk]

Trump had his Beer Hall Putsch on Jan 6. Hopefully that is the end of his political rise.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I don't disagree with Trump being an idiot in certain areas. But I do think he is clever in others. Disregarding him as simply a buffoon is easy; I do it myself quite a bit! But it's dangerous. The man managed to create his own little political cult and is continuing to be a focal point in the media.

Yup. He's obviously not that smart. Just listen to him talk. He doesn't talk like someone who's well educated. He makes embarrassing blunders on a regular basis. He is, by all normal conventions, a "goddamn idiot." (I forget who said that)
But what he does know how to do, and he does it very well, is appeal to his audience, whip up a frenzy in them, and bend news and tv and now the internet attention in his direction.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Trump had his Beer Hall Putsch on Jan 6. Hopefully that is the end of his political rise.

He raffled feathers here claiming the recent recall election was "obviously rigged." And, of course, again he put focus on mail in ballots.

 

[Revoltingest]

As badly as Trump did winging it, I think what Trump did cleverly was inserting himself as the leader of the communities that would become the larger movement of Trumpism and sustaining it despite what polling shown/continues to show.

Trump has managed, despite being an idiot at business in general to create a brand for himself for decades. Yes, it was based on a legacy given to him, but he managed to win the presidency with it. He seems to have a head for a particular group of people and how to manipulate media to appeal to them.

I don't think he's an idiot at business.
But his combative & unethical style cause him trouble.

 

[tytlyf]

I don't think he's an idiot at business.

King of debt
Business Genius Trump Lost More Money Than Anyone in America Between 1985-1994

 

[Revoltingest]

King of debt
Business Genius Trump Lost More Money Than Anyone in America Between 1985-1994

Merely posting a link isn't an argument.
One should consider whether the reasons were foreseeable.
Also, were the losses personal, or were they for limited liability
companies that didn't hurt him much....just other investors.
If you can answer these issues, you might could make a case.

 

[tytlyf]

Merely posting a link isn't an argument.
One should consider whether the reasons were foreseeable.
Also, were the losses personal, or were they for limited liability
companies that didn't hurt him much....just other investors.
If you can answer these issues, you might could make a case.

Sorry, that doesn't float.
Trump Will Have $900 Million Of Loans Coming Due In His Second Term If He’s Reelected

 

[fantome profane]

Well, we've been inundated by commercial advertising for many decades now telling us we should have whatever we want (regardless of what it costs us) so by now a lot of us think this kind of selfishness is normal. "Greed makes the world go round", and though it shouldn't, now it does. And Trump is the poster-boy for it.

nah, ain’t buyin it.

There have always been people like this. The history of the world is full of them, for as far back as there has been a history of the world. There have always been individuals who would destroy everything for personal power, betray and friends family, betray and destroy their own nation. People with no care at all for morality, people who care only for themselves.

It is not new, and it is not because of commercialism, it is not because of capitalism or communism or socialism, it is not due to a decline in religion or the rise of religion. It is just the way it has always been. sic semper erat, et sic semper erit.

That is why we must always watch out for such individuals.

 

[PureX]

nah, ain’t buyin it.

There have always been people like this.

Yes, but once upon a time greed and selfishness was something that most people felt embarrassed to be associated with. Like racial and sexual bigotry, and willful ignorance and stupidity. But now days these have become effective tools of social manipulation and control by the wealthy elites that rule the world. So they have also become acceptable modes of behavior according to the purveyors of social manipulation. Economic exploitation is now just called 'commerce'. Lies are just called 'spin'. We're tricked and lied to 100 times a day and we think this is all just the way things have always were. Just as you do. But they aren't. This isn't 'normal'. This is not how people have always lived. In fact throughout human history most people were hardly ever lied to in the course of a day. Life was not so abstract and other people were not strangers to us that could so easily tell us lies. We lived with and engaged with the same small group of humans all our lives. Dishonesty was not something that one could get away with for long, and once you became known for doing it, there were serious consequences.

But now days it's become a way of life. We just accept it as if it were always the case. We expect to be lied to and cheated and tricked and exploited as a common social practice. And many of us think it's OK to lie to and cheat and trick and exploit others, for our own gain, because we assume they will do it to us if they can.

The history of the world is full of them, for as far back as there has been a history of the world.

No, history really isn't full of them. This kind of wholesale selfishness and dishonesty came with the industrial revolution. It was the social abstraction caused by industrializes production and trading that fostered this kind of wholesale dishonesty.

There have always been individuals who would destroy everything for personal power, betray and friends family, betray and destroy their own nation. People with no care at all for morality, people who care only for themselves.

Almost no one ever even had that possibility to consider. People lived in small, very inter-dependent communities. They relied on their neighbors for their very survival. Lying and cheating to exploit others could not be hidden, and would not be tolerated.

You really need to rethink this blind assumption that selfishness and dishonesty was always a way of life. Because it wasn't.

 

[Revoltingest]

Sorry, that doesn't float.
Trump Will Have $900 Million Of Loans Coming Due In His Second Term If He’s Reelected

Having loans coming due isn't by itself indicative of anything.
I've had many come due over the decades. Lenders either
renew, or one refinances with someone else. That's how
commercial loans often work. These days, 3 year renewables
are common. My lenders generally renew. And I renew loans
when I lend to commercial borrowers.

 

[tytlyf]

Having loans coming due isn't by itself indicative of anything.
I've had many come due over the decades. Lenders either
renew, or one refinances with someone else. That's how
commercial loans often work. These days, 3 year renewables
are common. My lenders generally renew. And I renew loans
when I lend to commercial borrowers.

Don't praise confidence men. They're the worst kind of businesspeople.
He was a silver-spooned know-nothing who relied on his family name for anything of significance. Everything else is manipulation, corruption and fraud.

 

[Revoltingest]

Don't praise confidence men.

Saying someone isn't an idiot isn't praise.
Experiment....
"You're not an idiot."
Do you feel praised?

 

[ecco]

I'll give him this, he knows how to munipulate the media.

He's not manipulating the media. He's manipulating his sheeples.

 

[ecco]

Yup. He's obviously not that smart. Just listen to him talk. He doesn't talk like someone who's well educated. He makes embarrassing blunders on a regular basis. He is, by all normal conventions, a "goddamn idiot." (I forget who said that)
But what he does know how to do, and he does it very well, is appeal to his audience, whip up a frenzy in them, and bend news and tv and now the internet attention in his direction.

Very similar to Benito Mussolini.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

He's not manipulating the media. He's manipulating his sheeples.

Through the media, which he knows how to munipulate.

 

[ecco]

Trump insists the recount proves he won Arizona.

Trump talking starts at 1:00 in from the beginning.

The sheeples, including a few token Blacks for Trump, all nod their heads virorously.

It will never end.