Really makes ya think. pic.twitter.com/2L5Sna4IZz
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) September 21, 2016
Okay, it’s nut-picking. But one begins to suspect there’s some pattern as to why potential Trump voters haven’t been susceptible to arguments from logic…
I mean, I know the scientific reason why my little dogs want to eat turds, but there’s no way I can look at the cat box and think to myself, now there is a tempting snack display. When I look at Donald Trump, I cannot imagine what it feels like to think yeah, this is a guy who belongs in the Oval Office.
I will never stop hating this election for normalizing stupid: https://t.co/g67leF6mP6 pic.twitter.com/8qPQq9j12r
— Charles P. Pierce (@ESQPolitics) September 21, 2016
amk
normalizing stupid? more like weaponizing stupid.
god
blesssave amurka.scav
Red hats. Must be all the blood escaping their brains — fleeing in terror from the visions within most like.
Beautiful Plumage
@amk: @amk:
piratedan
and the entire segment is a parade of stupid. If you point out their stupidity, they are just as likely to double-down on it, feeling like you’ve given them a “gotcha” question.
The thing is, these folks KNOW what they know is right because it has been reinforced via the Faux News feedback loop, supplemented with AM radio hate fest. They think of themselves as moral righteous people who cannot BELIEVE that the rest of us cannot see the evil usurper for what he is and how we have embraced the devil to our collective bosoms by supporting THAT WOMAN.
I have a cousin on FB right now, telling me how proud he is of Jerruh Jones for demanding that his workers stand and respect the flag when the national anthem is played. Reminding them that they are his employees and he is their employer and they damn well better do what he says.
LesGS
Is this real life?
Amir Khalid
No one outside Hawaii, Illinois and his family had heard of Barack Obama in 2001. He was still only a State Senator than. How does that maroon hold him at fault for September 11?
magurakurin
speaking of stupid, Jill Stein, vanity candidate, tweeted this yesterday:
Apparently, she has forgotten that she attended a dinner in Moscow, seated at Putin’s table for a celebration of the 10th anniversary of…wait for it…..Russian media propaganda arm of the Russian government, RT. doh. The irony, it burns…
I expect stupid from the Right but I demand better from the Left. Stein and her supporters should be ashamed.
Jill Stein insults Russia’s struggle for human rights and environmental justice
hovercraft
@shomi:
Satire is dead. These people are making me re-think everything I’ve believed all my life. I’m a live and let live person, I don’t like the idea of institutionalizing the mentally ill unless they pose a clear and present danger to themselves or others. But Jesus on a cracker they are endangering us all just by being alive and allowed to vote, and they are allowed to reproduce, probably with people who are just as dumb and uninformed as they are, perpetuating the stupid. They are making me want to deny them the right to vote, to reproduce. Dammit they are endangering the future of humanity itself, am I a terrible person for wanting to stop them. I hate them for making me question my values.
hovercraft
@Amir Khalid:
The time machine, silly. Bush became president on September 12th, 2001, and Clinton was president till August 6th, 2001, and Barack Obama was president from August 7th till September 11th. Duh.
amk
@hovercraft: Nah, bush was really obama’s double. In drag.
Amir Khalid
@magurakurin:
I think of Jill Stein as the Manic Pixie Dream Girl presidential candidate. She’s not terribly good at logic, is she? I’m kind of glad I never had a doctor like her.
magurakurin
@Amir Khalid:
All the WiFi fried her brain.
I so want this all to be over. At least I should get my ballot soon. Finally casting a vote will be good.
Villago Delenda Est
My wingnut sister is an enthusiastic Alex Jones fan, and she is absolutely unhinged politically. Every single time you try to discuss something political with her, she counters what you just said by changing the subject to something else. For example, the opioid crisis, which Paul LePage blames on blahs coming up from Connecticut. The ACTUAL problem is people on pain medications accidentally overdosing, most of them disabled or elderly, or both, and when you point this out, she switches to discussion of black-tar heroin. Say what? It’s not possible to deal with such a person rationally, because they have been carefully conditioned to avoid any attempt at rational argument.
sukabi
@Amir Khalid: don’t you know…EVERYTHING that’s happened that’s bad was either done by the Clintons or Obama. The Wrecking Crew never happened.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Amir, the man personally planted the explosives that blew up the Maine. He’s got that time machine. Heck, he’s responsible for the fall of Constantinople, he undermined the walls!
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@Villago Delenda Est: I’m sorry that your sister is politically insane. I’m fortunate that, living in Hawaii, even though I don’t like my brother, at least I don’t have to listen to political madness like that…
bmaccnm
I was listening to Nice Polite Republicans in the car tonight, whilst doing my errands in rush hour Portland. (There’s a lot to unpack in that statement, I know.) I didn’t get the complete context of the segment, but they seemed to be interviewing homeless recovering addicts in some kind of shelter. One woman had lost her job, her children, everything. Another man, same story, because of heroin use. Both of them were planning to vote for the Vulgar Talking Yam because religion was important to them, and they perceived Trump to be the more religious candidate. The fuck?!? There’s no way to get through to someone who believes this. The woman even said something to the effect of “I know that the Democrats have more plans for me, and people in my situation, and the Republicans would take away the things that support me, but I’m going to vote for the Republicans, because I’m a Christian.” How can anyone counteract this? How can this veil of ignorance be lifted? I am convinced that this is hopeless. If Trump doesn’t win this election, someone just like him, but smoother, will win the next.
GregB
A friend of a friend was recently fined by OSHA and was ragaing against OSHA because it was invented and foisted upon America by Hillary’s husband.
magurakurin
@bmaccnm: crazy talk. You know, I thought that one of the great ironies of the primaries was the fact that even with the presence of Ted Cruz the candidate who loved Jesus the most was actually Hillary Clinton. She is a deeply religious person and a devout Methodist. It is much to her credit as a Christian that she doesn’t really talk it up that much and prefers to keep her faith a personal affair. The Shitgibbon is a heathen who wouldn’t know the inside of a church from a Las Vegas ca$!no. I don’t fault anyone for not being religious or being religious for that matter. It’s a personal choice. But it is insane if someone thinks the Shitgibbon is more religious than Hillary. Totally insane and ignorant. Jesus wept.
Baud
I leave the country for a few days and everything turns to shit.
(Not quite back yet. Will check in a bit later.)
PIGL
@hovercraft: you have noticed the Rubicon which we one day soon must cross.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Baud!
Helen
@Baud: Welcome back (almost). We missed you! And yeah, it’s certainly all turned to shit.
sukabi
Someone was missing being the subject of derision, but he’s back for another beating…
Splitting Image
@Amir Khalid:
Empiricism is part of secular humanism, with which they will have no truck. Their epistemic system is based on the words “Because I say so, that’s why!”
If people are demanding evidence that Obama was responsible for the World Trade Center bombing, instead of simply taking Good Christians at their word when they say he was, then secular humanists are winning the culture wars and Christians’ sincerely held religious beliefs are under attack. First and foremost of these religious beliefs is the idea that making Jesus their personal saviour gives them the right to bear false witness with impunity.
Zinsky
We have an epistemological crisis in this country, folks. I know that it is a big word and many people are afraid of big words. It means knowledge and how we acquire knowledge. Some people are such poor critical thinkers that they believe anything they read on the Internet is true. So, a trash website like PrisonPlanet or WorldNetDaily are considered to be as reputable sources of knowledge as say, Wikipedia. It is really pathetic.
bystander
@Baud: Yes. But it’s really great shit!
BlueDWarrior
@Zinsky: It’s that and people simply wanting to believe something and being willing to twist themselves into knots to maintain the belief. To some people, all Democrats are the Spawn of Satan himself and have been sent to pave the way for the Anti-Christ to destroy everything (just ignore the fact that this is supposed to happen in order for Biblical Prophecy to be fulfilled); and it doesn’t matter how devout or good a Democrat is, being a Democrat is automatically an unforgivable sin.
Perhaps this blind faith is the reason why Republicans can galvanize themselves to vote for any R during any election, and Democrats always seem to fall to some sense of fractionalism and therefore don’t look as united and galvanized.
Some Dude
@Zinsky: I have older relatives who think Newspaper, TV, and Radio news is ‘neutral’ – and thus the pronouncements from those sources are pure. When I attend family gatherings, political conversations are left at the door, least I unleash counter arguments, and followup with email links to sources (many from the same media sources they hold in respect). I do know they all have Republican memory disorder – the time between President Clinton and President Obama was a time of Peace and Prosperity, and anything done by Republicans during President Obama’s term is ok because he is a tyrant (another word for “N-clang”).
bemused
@bmaccnm:
I don’t think I have ever heard any far right Republican, particularly any in such dire straits, admit that Dems do more for them and Republicans make their lives worse. So two of them actually know they are voting against their own well-being and better chances of getting out of their situations, that Republicans will take more away from them but will still do so because they believe Republicans are the real Christians, even Trump, and they will be voting how God meant them to vote?!? Leaves me almost speechless.
CapnMubbers
To many Republicans around here, Christian = anti-abortion, the only issue that matters. The pray-for-the-babies schtick garners hundreds of participants in this 26K pop. backwoods.
Patricia Kayden
@Villago Delenda Est: He killed Jesus. Personally. Believe me!
Hal
I can believe it.
satby
@Baud: thank g-d you’re almost back!
Hope it was a good trip, but the place went to shit before you were even gone 24 hours.
evodevo
@CapnMubbers: Yes. This. Otherwise normal people here in rural Ky will give that as their #1 reason for voting in, say, the current winger Gov. we are afflicted with, rather than his middle of the road Dem opponent. The Xtianity Factor has taken over their brains like a virus, and infested a whole cohort of voters. It bodes ill for the country.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@piratedan:
It’s easy to blame Fox News and radio, but it’s a much bigger problem than that. Even the “good” press treats too much of politics like a game. It’s all about who has the biggest bank account, who hires the most expensive operatives and has the flashiest ads, who comes up with the best 3-second “zinger” that gets the rubes talking on Facebook. The insidious reinforcement of memes rather than treating viewers as thinking people who need accurate information.
I occasionally watch C-Span and it seems that Pelosi and her leadership (and presumably Reid and his) frequently have (separate) press conferences to give their take on things. They make good arguments, but the information never seems to make it to the news. Why don’t they write OpEds more often? Why do the DCCC and DSCC YouTube channels have so little stuff there? The DCCC and DSCC having huge war-chests for national TV ads is unfortunately necessary, even though the audience continues to fracture and shrink, but just giving more money to the big networks to run ads doesn’t seem to be changing their motivation to do better in their coverage…
“Where you stand depends on where you sit.” If you’re a voter in an environment that never gets any sunlight then you’ll be a sickly, gloomy, angry person. Working together to figure out why sunlight isn’t there and fixing it is better than saying to the person stuck there, “figure it out yourself how to fix the problem of why you’re misinformed”.
Like it or not, people expect that stuff published in media they read or TV they watch or radio they listen to is mostly correct. Someone who doesn’t trust the “liberal NY Times” isn’t going to read it. We need to make sure that media is pressured to tell the facts and the reality of politicians policies as well as the horse-race. But we need the “elder statesmen” to go around the press if necessary. Nancy and Harry waiting for NBC to call for an interview or a slot on MTP obviously isn’t working…. Team D needs to pull as a team around the country and make their own way to reach the people.
So, yeah, it’s a “both and” problem. Team D keeping the WH and flipping the Senate will help a great deal, but fixing the problem is going to take much more.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
kd bart
“Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”-Paul Simon “The Boxer”
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
My favorite “theory” from that segment is the guy (may be the same one as pictured above…I don’t want to say they all look alike but…) who said that he thinks Hillary’s health problem is because she has AIDS. Jordan Klepper asks him how she got it, and he says probably from Bill, who might have got it from fooling around with Magic Johnson. Bill Clinton had an affair with Magic Johnson is a new one. Ho Lee Shit.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@magurakurin: I wish more “Christians” would remember Matthew 6:4-5 and Matthew 22:39-40. The intent is clear – weaseling about the defiinition of “neighbor” is obfuscation.
Anyone who preaches that “Jesus wants you to be rich” or “Jesus hates XYZ people” is a charlatan. They need to be called out by preachers who actually are trying to do what Jesus said…
But, it’s really about tribalism, not Christianity. “She’s not like us and here’s why …” is the bottom line. Claiming it’s about religion is just a convenient meme.
Cheers,
Scott.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@bmaccnm: Yeah the guy who doesn’t know what the sacrement is is the religious one. Those folks aren’t religious. They think they are but they’re not…which is an problem of epidemic proportions amongst conservatives. The most genius thing the GOP ever did is get a preponderance of the religious leaders in this country to believe that anything they hear coming from the GOP trumps the Bible when it comes to being Christian. The majority of churches these days are right wing propaganda outfits, not Bible propaganda outfits.
I’ve been despairing of the same thing you have for a while now…what do you do when identity politics trumps (no pun intended) economic self interest? I mean, the Democrats are offering policies to make the lives of most Americans better at the expense primarily of the 0.1 percent, who have it really good anyway. A large chunk of the electorate would rather vote for paranoid conspiracy theories, gunz, and “God” than vote for a party that would tangibly make their lives better. I always thought it was because they’ve been bamboozled into believing in that crap and basically ignoring the Democrats so they were ignorant of the policies Dems have been proposing. That segment proves otherwise. They know the Democrats are trying to help them and reject them anyway. They know the GOP will do nothing, and less than nothing, for them, but they vote for them anyway.
jonas
I saw a poll not long ago (don’t recall where) where it identified Trump’s core supporters as people who “identify as Christian” but don’t attend church regularly. So in other words, the folks just use it as a cultural fetish, but know next to nothing about it. Christian = upstanding (white) American.
FlipYrWhig
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: But no one who needs reaching is going to watch the Democratic Party Channel in the first place. That’s the problem: Democratic views have to make it into those supposedly neutral sources or they effectively won’t exist.
FlipYrWhig
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: What you do is, you outvote them, and by doing it enough times, render them impotent and insignificant.
chromeagnomen
@FlipYrWhig: this is exactly right. it will never stop the flow of big money from the right wing, but if voting rights laws can be strengthened, and (dreaming now) citizen’s united overturned, then discouragement will set in among the lower class republican voters, and they will hopefully stay away from the polls.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Let’s see, the conservatard blamed Bill Clinton for leaving Saddam in power after the 1st Gulf War, then claimed Bill Clinton is a Republican so I am not surprised they think Obama was president in 2001. These people really a dumb as it gets for a long time.
sigaba
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: As the man asked, what’s the matter with Kansas?
It’s one thing to know that Democrats will “do more for you,” but it’s a hard nut to crack when people are convinced that doing things for them is dirty and wrong. If people think food stamps wil bring the gay marriage wedding cake bakery transgender Muslim refugees, you’re stuck.
But take heart that most actual poor people do vote for Democrats.
ChrisGrrr
@FlipYrWhig: That’s our only hope… Outnumber those who will not seek confirmation, outside of hate TV and radio, of their “facts.”
Thankyew…
Achrachno
Ignorance is so much easier to achieve than knowledge.
Gravie
A friend of a friend on Facebook, losing an argument, said “Well, you believe your facts and I’ll believe mine.” When pressed about the ridiculousness of that idea, he came back with “Well, then you believe your lies and I’ll believe mine,” which would have actually been a pretty funny comeback if there had been any evidence that he meant it to be funny. But I don’t think he did, judging from everything else he said.
Gelfling 545
@Villago Delenda Est: I just de-friended a nephew on facebook. While it’s a very small sample I think it’s highly representative of the population thst the 2 Trump supporters in my family were both white, male in their 30’s who have extensive personal and alcohol abuse problems. This has been further borne out by the fact that the one who went into treatment about six months ago is no longer a Trump supporter. I should point out that neither or them has been known to actually vote, though the one in treatment swears now that he will be there to vote for Hilary in November.
Stan
To be fair, neither Obama nor W were at their posts in the White House when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.
grandpa john
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
You can add Matthew 7:21-23 to that list
Captain C
@magurakurin: If Jill Stein were a politician in Russia, she would have either died a mysterious death or would have been the victim of an unsolved murder by now.
opiejeanne
@Captain C: Something she ate?
Am I misremembering the story or did the poisoner of one victim also succumb to polonium poisoning?
Captain C
@opiejeanne: Without looking it up, I’d say yes, though I don’t recall if it was actually lethal or just extremely debilitating.