I've been saying that this Trump boy has cried wolf over 22,000 times, but now, we're supposed to believe him. No. Just a ridiculous notion. Greg's right; there never has been a wolf.
Also, as Tammy Duckworth has pointed out every day since the news broke, Trump has never commented on the story that Russia was paying bounties on our troops.
Since DJT’s contempt for the military is in the news, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the subject of what impacts his base.
My father is a Trump supporter, a (near) lifetime Republican who immigrated from Germany in the postwar early 1950s, later joined the US Army and served in Germany, of all places.
I work as a truck driver in California, so almost all my contact at work is with men who are truck drivers and warehouse workers. Of course there are women who work in the office, I have contact with them too, but this message is about the conservative male crowd.
Almost all of the men are non-college educated. In Northern California it’s a fairly even racial heritage mix, and in Southern California when I’m there it’s 90+% Latino.
The other night, two guys baited me with a question about politics.
Let’s be clear: I am completely out of place at work when it comes to social and political ideology. At work I speak with almost nobody who agrees with me until I walk into an office, and I spend less than 5% of my work life in offices. Fortunately, they all respect me and like me. I stand up to management when necessary, I have supported many of them in standing up to management or in talking to HR to get their needs met, I’m always a team player who unselfishly helps others at work, and I know what I’m doing out there. I’ve helped them out on the road with breakdowns and other problems. Plus I’m good at what I do, and everybody knows it. So they respect me and like me. Even the ones that didn’t think they would, because to these guys, I’m a leftie hippie radical liberal. The good news is that I am *their* leftie hippie radical liberal.
I am speaking now for the conservative base, because I have had a whole lot of contact with it.
Conservatives feel at home on Fox News. Their home includes the Sacramento Bee and the Sacramento TV news stations. Non-conservatives are at home on Greg Olear, Washington Post, Guardian, NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Bay Area TV news stations.
Nearly every single white guy in this work environment feels at home on Fox. My dad is also a lifetime conservative, so that’s also where he feels at home. Even if your guy has 1 million things wrong with him, he is still your guy. You are going to side with your family, even if the family member is loaded with trouble and problems. In fact, even if you are a Latino, you’re not gonna vote for the other team. As a conservative, you stay with your team.
The non-conservatives are the same way: we listen to our news, we stick with our family, we vote for our man or woman.
Conservatives will stick with their man, non-conservatives will stick with their man or woman. That covers most people. I am speaking now for the conservative base.
The 2020 US Election is going to be decided by:
(1) Who turns out to vote. Only 55-60% of registered voters actually turn out in an election, which is only 40% of the total US population. So the actual mix of who turns out on any given election is critical.
(2) What influences the swing voters the most. These voters don’t know what side they’re on, or don’t have a side, or choose independently based on the candidates themselves because they don’t identify with the whole conservative-progressive playbook.
Independents might be people who are basically apolitical, or agnostic politically and just don’t really care, or hostile to politics in general. If they don’t have a chosen side, they are definitely a swing voter.
Item #1: there has never been more incentive and motivation to vote in an election. Not since the eve of the Civil War. Most swing voters may or may not agree with that statement, but between the social changes brought on by the pandemic, the health worries, and especially the lost jobs and eviction worries, 2020 is definitely up there in the publics eye. In the last 50 years, if you’re going to vote in an election, this would be the one. This election is not about ideology, as much as the good people on this webpage think so, me being one of them. our society has real issues, big ones. 2020 is one of those years that will be stamped in our brains, like a war year to my parents’ generation.
Item #2: The 2018 election tells you most of what you need to know. The pendulum swung back the other way from 2016 because people now see who this guy really is and what he does. This is a presidential election, midterm elections generally have suppressed turn-out. If anything, all the numbers and all the indicators and all the momentum is on the side of a blue wave. The momentum is definitely not in Trump’s favor, he’s garnered way too much adverse publicity. In 2016, people didn’t know him. That has definitely changed.
Trumps contempt for military public service is record-breaking. No other US president in history would make the statements that he is making. If anybody comes off the couch or out of the closet to vote, they are going to be voting against Trump. That’s just common sense.
Trump is also turning a record number of constituents against himself. Now we’re up to eight different Republican groups actively campaigning for Biden, and counting. That is completely unprecedented in US history, certainly in our lifetime. Trump is insulting his own base, the military that under normal circumstances would support almost any conservative candidate. If anybody can turn his supporters against him, if anybody can suppress his own vote due to adverse publicity and glaring insults against his constituents, this is the man who can do it.
Gladly, this important & hugely damaging story on BLOATUS's disdain for our servicemembers is NOT quickly going away. General Paul Eaton & General Wesley Clarke have weighed in; I'm sure there are other 3- or 4-star flags who have or will speak up (the delayed pace is good; keeps the story alive in a "chew 'em up & spit 'em out" new cycle). The huge fish will be if The Warrior Monk (Mattis) speaks about this. He's the Omar Bradley of this present day & almost fanatically revered in all the services, but esp. in the USMC. And do not think for one second that the Marine Corps has forgotten how that bag of orange parasite vomit treated their idol when he was SECDEF...
I don't think Mattis is going to go public on this one. When Yesper was Trumps's doormat for a day, the Washington D.C. Church fiasco, Mattis came out because the military was perilously close to betraying its relationship with the Constitution. Remember, Trump was also ordering troops into D.C. at the same time for riot control. The US Military is expressly forbidden from domestic activity, activity against U.S. citizens on U.S. territory. This Atlantic Monthly article is not the same thing, it's just news. It's not an alarming Executive Branch and SecDef action.
If you haven't read "Call Sign Chaos," I recommend. The last time I read anything by a general was Eisenhower's and Omar Bradley's memoirs of WWII. Not my usual thing. This guy Mattis is exceptional, you can tell from his book, and of course from his statement about Trump at the time of that incident, that's what inspired me to read his book.
Has Donald Drunk left the door open for heinous acts of political repression? Did China move on Hong Kong before the November election because China’s Politburo knew the door was closing? After years of inaction, did Russia move against Navalny for the same reason, because the window is closing for them to act with impunity? How much damage has Trump’s presidency done on the world scene?
We’re so focused on our internal affairs, on Louis DeJoke and Bill Barf. We forget that these distractions are also affecting Donald Drunk’s and his Administration’s ability to put the brakes on the bad actors around the world.
When the cat’s away, the mice will play. The country with the world’s most powerful military is leaderless. I’m trying to come up with an analogy. Where we live here in the mountains, it’s like leaving the front door open so that bear and raccoons can come into the kitchen and raid the pantry and the refrigerator. That’s why criminals show up in wildfire evacuation zones to rob houses: while the police are distracted and spread thin, that’s when you can get away with mischief and mayhem.
I’m willing to bet there are more than 13 reasons, but those are a good start
I've been saying that this Trump boy has cried wolf over 22,000 times, but now, we're supposed to believe him. No. Just a ridiculous notion. Greg's right; there never has been a wolf.
The Godfather clip was a brilliant addition!
Credit to LB and Billy Ray for the idea.
Also, as Tammy Duckworth has pointed out every day since the news broke, Trump has never commented on the story that Russia was paying bounties on our troops.
What, and upset his Sugar Daddy? Not a chance.
Since DJT’s contempt for the military is in the news, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the subject of what impacts his base.
My father is a Trump supporter, a (near) lifetime Republican who immigrated from Germany in the postwar early 1950s, later joined the US Army and served in Germany, of all places.
I work as a truck driver in California, so almost all my contact at work is with men who are truck drivers and warehouse workers. Of course there are women who work in the office, I have contact with them too, but this message is about the conservative male crowd.
Almost all of the men are non-college educated. In Northern California it’s a fairly even racial heritage mix, and in Southern California when I’m there it’s 90+% Latino.
The other night, two guys baited me with a question about politics.
Let’s be clear: I am completely out of place at work when it comes to social and political ideology. At work I speak with almost nobody who agrees with me until I walk into an office, and I spend less than 5% of my work life in offices. Fortunately, they all respect me and like me. I stand up to management when necessary, I have supported many of them in standing up to management or in talking to HR to get their needs met, I’m always a team player who unselfishly helps others at work, and I know what I’m doing out there. I’ve helped them out on the road with breakdowns and other problems. Plus I’m good at what I do, and everybody knows it. So they respect me and like me. Even the ones that didn’t think they would, because to these guys, I’m a leftie hippie radical liberal. The good news is that I am *their* leftie hippie radical liberal.
I am speaking now for the conservative base, because I have had a whole lot of contact with it.
Conservatives feel at home on Fox News. Their home includes the Sacramento Bee and the Sacramento TV news stations. Non-conservatives are at home on Greg Olear, Washington Post, Guardian, NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Bay Area TV news stations.
Nearly every single white guy in this work environment feels at home on Fox. My dad is also a lifetime conservative, so that’s also where he feels at home. Even if your guy has 1 million things wrong with him, he is still your guy. You are going to side with your family, even if the family member is loaded with trouble and problems. In fact, even if you are a Latino, you’re not gonna vote for the other team. As a conservative, you stay with your team.
The non-conservatives are the same way: we listen to our news, we stick with our family, we vote for our man or woman.
Conservatives will stick with their man, non-conservatives will stick with their man or woman. That covers most people. I am speaking now for the conservative base.
The 2020 US Election is going to be decided by:
(1) Who turns out to vote. Only 55-60% of registered voters actually turn out in an election, which is only 40% of the total US population. So the actual mix of who turns out on any given election is critical.
(2) What influences the swing voters the most. These voters don’t know what side they’re on, or don’t have a side, or choose independently based on the candidates themselves because they don’t identify with the whole conservative-progressive playbook.
Independents might be people who are basically apolitical, or agnostic politically and just don’t really care, or hostile to politics in general. If they don’t have a chosen side, they are definitely a swing voter.
Item #1: there has never been more incentive and motivation to vote in an election. Not since the eve of the Civil War. Most swing voters may or may not agree with that statement, but between the social changes brought on by the pandemic, the health worries, and especially the lost jobs and eviction worries, 2020 is definitely up there in the publics eye. In the last 50 years, if you’re going to vote in an election, this would be the one. This election is not about ideology, as much as the good people on this webpage think so, me being one of them. our society has real issues, big ones. 2020 is one of those years that will be stamped in our brains, like a war year to my parents’ generation.
Item #2: The 2018 election tells you most of what you need to know. The pendulum swung back the other way from 2016 because people now see who this guy really is and what he does. This is a presidential election, midterm elections generally have suppressed turn-out. If anything, all the numbers and all the indicators and all the momentum is on the side of a blue wave. The momentum is definitely not in Trump’s favor, he’s garnered way too much adverse publicity. In 2016, people didn’t know him. That has definitely changed.
Trumps contempt for military public service is record-breaking. No other US president in history would make the statements that he is making. If anybody comes off the couch or out of the closet to vote, they are going to be voting against Trump. That’s just common sense.
Trump is also turning a record number of constituents against himself. Now we’re up to eight different Republican groups actively campaigning for Biden, and counting. That is completely unprecedented in US history, certainly in our lifetime. Trump is insulting his own base, the military that under normal circumstances would support almost any conservative candidate. If anybody can turn his supporters against him, if anybody can suppress his own vote due to adverse publicity and glaring insults against his constituents, this is the man who can do it.
Washington Post Analysis | The blue wave in 2018 was in part thanks to the 11 percent of voters who’d skipped 2016
Some of that was voters changing their minds. Some of it was Trump voters staying home. Some of it was anti-Trump voters turning out.
New analysis of the 2018 midterms offers intriguing context to the 2020 turnout question.
By Philip Bump
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/08/blue-wave-2018-was-part-thanks-11-percent-voters-whod-skipped-2016/
Gladly, this important & hugely damaging story on BLOATUS's disdain for our servicemembers is NOT quickly going away. General Paul Eaton & General Wesley Clarke have weighed in; I'm sure there are other 3- or 4-star flags who have or will speak up (the delayed pace is good; keeps the story alive in a "chew 'em up & spit 'em out" new cycle). The huge fish will be if The Warrior Monk (Mattis) speaks about this. He's the Omar Bradley of this present day & almost fanatically revered in all the services, but esp. in the USMC. And do not think for one second that the Marine Corps has forgotten how that bag of orange parasite vomit treated their idol when he was SECDEF...
I don't think Mattis is going to go public on this one. When Yesper was Trumps's doormat for a day, the Washington D.C. Church fiasco, Mattis came out because the military was perilously close to betraying its relationship with the Constitution. Remember, Trump was also ordering troops into D.C. at the same time for riot control. The US Military is expressly forbidden from domestic activity, activity against U.S. citizens on U.S. territory. This Atlantic Monthly article is not the same thing, it's just news. It's not an alarming Executive Branch and SecDef action.
If you haven't read "Call Sign Chaos," I recommend. The last time I read anything by a general was Eisenhower's and Omar Bradley's memoirs of WWII. Not my usual thing. This guy Mattis is exceptional, you can tell from his book, and of course from his statement about Trump at the time of that incident, that's what inspired me to read his book.
Has Donald Drunk left the door open for heinous acts of political repression? Did China move on Hong Kong before the November election because China’s Politburo knew the door was closing? After years of inaction, did Russia move against Navalny for the same reason, because the window is closing for them to act with impunity? How much damage has Trump’s presidency done on the world scene?
We’re so focused on our internal affairs, on Louis DeJoke and Bill Barf. We forget that these distractions are also affecting Donald Drunk’s and his Administration’s ability to put the brakes on the bad actors around the world.
When the cat’s away, the mice will play. The country with the world’s most powerful military is leaderless. I’m trying to come up with an analogy. Where we live here in the mountains, it’s like leaving the front door open so that bear and raccoons can come into the kitchen and raid the pantry and the refrigerator. That’s why criminals show up in wildfire evacuation zones to rob houses: while the police are distracted and spread thin, that’s when you can get away with mischief and mayhem.