Never Trump

[fishonjazz]

you mean nice things like creating jobs for thousands and targeting jobs towards the poorest? Yep he is such a *******. I am glad u can judge such a philanthropist and are next president.

Still an *******

 

[Boris]

Still an *******

Great contribution. Eloquent in fact

 

[fishonjazz]

Great contribution. Eloquent in fact

Word up

 

[Gameface]

I must've missed the existence of this America somewhere.

Yeah, this romantic notion of what America was is so flawed.\

Is America a great nation? Yes.

Has there ever been a time in our history where our greatness wasn't paired with significant flaws? No.

Is there some point in history we could return to so that things would be better for everyone? Absolutely not! Absolutely not! No ****ing way!

The "best" times in the U.S. were the worst times for certain groups. I don't want to subjugate certain people so that I can have my glory days as a white male back. People who yearn for that are either ignorant or complete jackasses. There's no other option. Either you want yours at the expense of others or you just don't know what the past really is.
[MENTION=970]babe[/MENTION], maybe it takes sitting through some classes and hearing things from people who have studied the past to get it. I don't know, because I haven't had the patience, but to belittle education? That's straight dumb *** hater ****.

 

[Red]

[MENTION=3085]Red[/MENTION] what politician is not self serving lol. You hate on Trump where is your hate on Hillary and Bernie, the two who have collected hundreds of millions from corporations, Wall Street and private interest groups?

The title of the thread is "Never Trump". I will concede this, that the best thing Trump has going for him is Hillary Clinton, just as he is by far the best thing she has going for her run. But this thread is about Trump.

I look at what I've posted here, there have been quite a few links, as just trying to share what I've learned along the way. The Trump phenomenon is gripping history. And it's happening in the United States. I can't help but be stopped in my tracks. I watch and listen to him and my mind scans everything I learned about the manipulative powers of the demagogue, and the ability they should be expected to have in understanding the underlying fears of great numbers of the populace. At it's mildest, it is the cynicism of any politician in discerning how to win votes by knowing human nature. At it's worse the cynicism implicit in the manipulation of societal fears can be the product of a sociopath. Trump's is not the mildest cynicism. At least of that I am certain.

 

[Red]

Okay, so maybe you are a sincere person trying to sort all this out. Game says he likes you, and Game is anything but an ideological campaigner for some cause.

Shall I go to the articles you reference and try to debunk those leftwing conspiracists? I could do that, but it would take some time for the facts to sink in, I'm sure.

I didn't say Trump has valid logic, or that he is right in his opinions, just that I see him as following a set of ideas he does have, which are inconsistent with the reports of the Washington Post and other news articles that aim to make Trump into a fascist or a Hitler or a deranged lunatic of any kind. I think he is just stupid, in a logical sort of way. But I also note that he has some pretty smart people in his camp who are possibly going to have some bearing on his future remarks and actions.

Stupid, a nice American sort of way, can be refreshing in a flood of progressive rants, which are not factual and if indeed clever are not virtuous.

I posted an article here awhile back which described the man as exhibiting narcissistic personality disorder. It was not written by a psychiatrist, and I am not a psychiatrist myself. For all I know, it might be psych-babble. But, it represented an epiphany almost for myself, because it described him perfectly and shed light on his behavior. Like putting himself first after the Orlando attack. And it clearly was a mistake on his part. It is very much the main reason why his disapproval ratings shot up 10% to 70% in the wake of that attack and his remarks. I simply do not believe he is fit for that office.

I've spent some amount of time of late trying very hard to understand what parts of me are Liberal, what part Conservative. To really understand well where I myself am coming from, rather then simply be reflexive, or give in to habits of thought, assumptions of what I stand for, not closely examined in too long a time. But I do not need to understand those attitudes and tendencies, and habits of my own thoughts, to understand who Trump is, and what he stands for, and the danger his fear mongering represents to the republic. I don't think I am approaching my interpretation of Trump as a liberal. As noted earlier, I am approaching the whole phenomenon as a student of History.

Boris mentioned that he felt I was going by sound bites. I do listen to him at length, though. I do observe him. When I watched his speech at the Dallas rally, I felt like I was watching a 12 year old deliver a talk to his class while winging it, having forgotten to study his assignment enough. It was that bad. And the teacher would have been thinking "well, this is an F".

 

[Red]

[MENTION=970]babe[/MENTION], you wrote:

"Having the patience with college to sit still and take in enough of the lore du jour to get two college degrees in History, would, in my estimation, define the classical nitwit who can't think for himself. To be actually proud of a college degree suggests a reliance on authority for one's self-image."

You know, Americans have long distrusted intellectuals. Goes back to our frontier experience. Intellectuals had no practical skills to offer for survival in the wilderness. Nonetheless, institutions of higher learning were established quite early in our colonial era. But that distrust does run through our history to a degree.

I wondered if you were actually talking directly to me in that paragraph. Working for a time in academia required training. Do you actually find a study of the past a complete waste of time? Because none of us are born with a perfect understanding of human history. If I were having surgery, I would hope the people performing that surgery would have training in medical school. If I want to study history, I need to learn from somewhere. And that somewhere is historians and primary research. I can't derive that knowledge from the ether. I had one professor, my advisor in fact, who, more then anyone else in my life, taught me how to use my mind in a critical manner. It went well beyond the subject of History itself. I will always be grateful for that. What that one man taught me was actually of greater lasting value then any degrees earned. Proud? I just don't think that way, really, certainly not overweening pride. (Something your hero Trump has in abundance!) Never, in my entire life, have I assumed superior airs because I earned degrees. Why in the world would I be so self-centered, so foolish, so full of myself? Lots of people attend college and earn degrees. And everyone has inherent skills and talents, college or not. Myself, I have lots of experience as a working class guy as well. Both before and after college. Enough to know who the salt of the Earth is. Enough to know the world that is not the isolated ivory tower. Both worlds have served me well in understanding human nature.

You seem to actually be saying that the study of History is a waste of time. I don't think you'll find many who would agree with you.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

I posted an article here awhile back which described the man as exhibiting narcissistic personality disorder. It was not written by a psychiatrist, and I am not a psychiatrist myself. For all I know, it might be psych-babble. But, it represented an epiphany almost for myself, because it described him perfectly and shed light on his behavior.

Did you read the article that I posted in response to yours that claimed that Obama is a narcissist? Did you think that it described him perfectly and shed light on his behavior? Why or why not?

 

[Red]

Having the patience with college to sit still and take in enough of the lore du jour to get two college degrees in History, would, in my estimation, define the classical nitwit who can't think for himself. To be actually proud of a college degree suggests a reliance on authority for one's self-image.

Being willing to believe the claptrap published by leftwing media retailers wholesale would have, in my day, suggested a lack of concern for truth and the inability to separate fact from fiction.

I confess to being on task to challenge settled opinions, and there aren't many folks here who want to apply that challenge constructively.

I know the fashionable trend of "history" in regard to McCarthyism. Funny how, during détente, evidence proved many of McCarthy's allegation essentially "true". But I get it, we shouldn't judge a bird by the flock he flies with. That's just not decent. Still, the facts do stand, case by case, in a high percentage, that the individuals were progressives with some fondness for communism. Take a few hours and re-watch "The Way We Were", starring Barbara Striesand. Yep, the way we were was we were commies. And most of our political reference is still framed in the same set of assumptions.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are neo-Coms. We love a lot of the stuff Marx said.

babe, by way of answer to your low opinion of education:

George Santayana said, 'Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."



"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."
--Thomas Jefferson to W. Jarvis, 1820.


"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Va., 1782.


The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom.
--Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1810.


The diffusion of information and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration.
--Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural Address, 1801.


Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree.
--Thomas Jefferson to Littleton Waller Tazewell, 1805.


[The] provision [in the new constitution of Spain] which ... after a certain epoch, disfranchises every citizen who cannot read and write ... is the fruitful germ of the improvement of everything good and the correction of everything imperfect in the present constitution. This will give you an enlightened people and an energetic public opinion which will control and enchain the aristocratic spirit of the government.
--Thomas Jefferson to Chevalier de Ouis, 1814.

https://tcfir.org/opinion/Thomas Jefferson on Educating the People.pdf

 

[Red]

"The reading in the first stage, where the people] will receive their whole education, is proposed ... to be chiefly historical. History by apprising them of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views".

--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782

Could I say it any better then that?? Nope.....

 

[Red]

"The reading in the first stage, where the people] will receive their whole education, is proposed ... to be chiefly historical. History by apprising them of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views".

--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782

Could I say it any better then that?? Nope.....

It is precisely these sentiments expressed by Jefferson that is behind my belief that the political education of the electorate needs to include educating in the ability to recognize a demagogue and the bag of tricks they employ: understanding and manipulating to their advantage the fears, anxieties, and frustrations of large numbers of the populace; setting oneself up as the Strong Man, he who will assuage those fears and anxieties; and the creation of convenient scapegoats toward which to direct those fears and frustrations. There really is no other place I can derive my own interpretation of Trumpism other then my understanding of the past. If people in a democracy are not going to be able to recognize a demagogue when he/she appears in their midst, to, as Jefferson said, "know ambition under every disguise it may assume", including the guise of the Strong Man demagogue, then that democracy is in trouble, potentially.

 

[Boris]

It is precisely these sentiments expressed by Jefferson that is behind my belief that the political education of the electorate needs to include educating in the ability to recognize a demagogue and the bag of tricks they employ: understanding and manipulating to their advantage the fears, anxieties, and frustrations of large numbers of the populace; setting oneself up as the Strong Man, he who will assuage those fears and anxieties; and the creation of convenient scapegoats toward which to direct those fears and frustrations. There really is no other place I can derive my own interpretation of Trumpism other then my understanding of the past. If people in a democracy are not going to be able to recognize a demagogue when he/she appears in their midst, to, as Jefferson said, "know ambition under every disguise it may assume", including the guise of the Strong Man demagogue, then that democracy is in trouble, potentially.

My only real issue w Trump is he says he will make America great again. Well great is a subjective word an I do not like my politicians to use subjective influencing. His definition of great might not be your definition of great.