Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Fugus]

I'm TRYING to be cautiously optimistic but damn if it's not rough trying to.

My niece SAYS she is going to vote but not holding my breath and she seems to be against Trump after I had to get her to understand that it wasn't Biden that had overturned her right to her own body but the Supreme Court that was completely dominated by Republicans with Trump appointing a full third of them and bragged about overturning it. I hope she does but she isn't the most motivated to do anything. But one of her best friends is gay and is very much paying attention and is going to vote and is trying to make sure she does for both their sake. Also because they both like to smoke and know one party is trying to legalize it and one party is trying to execute people for it.

Then on the other hand I got one of my nephews who is in the Trump cult and evidently both him and his dad gets mad when you talk crap on Trump. My dad found that out when he said something negative about Trump and he got mad and left.

Then I have friends my age (~40 years old) who are also deep in the cult and one of them even said he didn't mind if Trump became a dictator when talking about it and then quickly pivoted to how "Education is indoctrinating our children" when he realized he said that part out loud. Told him he was fucking up and selling out his own kids at that point. And if he didn't believe me I fully encouraged him to fact check anything I told him.

Then I have my dad who supports Harris and plans to vote, which is good. But then when it comes to Isreal and their conflicts, he keeps pretending they are the good guys on it and all. Have gone over the history of the region with him repeatedly and he acts like he never was told it and when I called him out for me telling him the history of it repeatedly he said he didn't believe my sources at which point I told him my sources were the BBC and the Council on Foreign Relations at which point he said they might have been hacked and I had to tell him that hadn't been or at the very least not had a consecutive hack lasting months without every being fixed. He doesn't know the history of the region and is going out of his way NOT to know the history of the region. Says he hasn't heard anything about what I told him but at the same time refuses to actually look for the information claiming if it were true, the Fayetteville Observer would cover it like they would just randomly give a history lesson.

Seriously...... Why are people so damn dense that they refuse to listen and actively avoid learning?..... They don't care if they are right, they just want to THINK they are right.


Honestly, at this point, I really just want to travel and get out of this country for a while and see what the world is like outside of here in the places I have read about that rank better than us on the metrics. And maybe move eventually just to not have to deal with this crap anymore. Main thing keeping me from trying is my disabled dad would end up in a home if I tried right now and he sure as shit isn't trying to travel too. Genuinely sucks feeling like you are the smartest man in the room on subjects you really shouldn't be with others at least in the same ballpark of knowledge. But instead I am surrounded by a bunch of people too stubborn to listen and too willfully stupid to learn and would rather sell out themselves and their family pretending their right then hurting their feelings admitting they are not.

They can be a genius when it comes to telling you about sports, NASCAR, automobiles, or getting high/drunk but when it comes to important stuff they don't know, don't want to know but still want to have some heartfelt belief based on what they pretend to be instead of what is.

Edit: Sorry, just needed to vent a little bit.

[Benggaul]

Then I have my dad who supports Harris and plans to vote, which is good. But then when it comes to Isreal and their conflicts, he keeps pretending they are the good guys on it and all.
...
Seriously...... Why are people so damn dense that they refuse to listen and actively avoid learning?..... They don't care if they are right, they just want to THINK they are right.

Because the bulk of Americans--including a great deal of Democrats, though that may finally be shifting below 50% by now--still find it nigh impossible to blame Israel for anything given the decades upon decades of close ties the US has had with them. We're fighting against a lot of indoctrination and propaganda on this subject and, quite frankly, it's not really an issue worth pushing (in general) as far as the election is concerned. For anyone not a Republican it alienates just as many people as it attracts. It was a no-win scenario for Biden when he was running and it continues to be a no-win scenario for Harris.

Trump has no such problems because the vast majority of the GOP are behind giving Israel everything they want. It's purely an issue for Democrats, which means only they have anything to win or lose and as I've already stated, the sentiment within the moderate-to-left-leaning voting public is pretty split making it a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation.

[Fugus]

@Benggaul

Can definitely see that, my dad keeps defaulting to what happened to the Jews under Hitler and keeps talking about them defending themselves but then ignores all the evidence of their crimes and the stuff they were doing before they were attacked.

More news with the suspected assassination attempt yesterday.

Evidently he was found with a loaded shotgun, a handgun with an extended clip in an unregistered car with fake plates multiple IDs and passports under different names.

He claims he is 100% a Trump supporter with no intention to harm him and was released on $5,000 bond.

Not sure what to think on that one, whether he was trying to or not shouldn’t negate the fake plates, multiple IDs and passports under different names and all that too.

Source:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/10/13/p...y-man-arrested

[PACOX]

Because the bulk of Americans--including a great deal of Democrats, though that may finally be shifting below 50% by now--still find it nigh impossible to blame Israel for anything given the decades upon decades of close ties the US has had with them. We're fighting against a lot of indoctrination and propaganda on this subject and, quite frankly, it's not really an issue worth pushing (in general) as far as the election is concerned. For anyone not a Republican it alienates just as many people as it attracts. It was a no-win scenario for Biden when he was running and it continues to be a no-win scenario for Harris.

Trump has no such problems because the vast majority of the GOP are behind giving Israel everything they want. It's purely an issue for Democrats, which means only they have anything to win or lose and as I've already stated, the sentiment within the moderate-to-left-leaning voting public is pretty split making it a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation.

I think the main issue that that, once again, the Democrats have to define a platform thats distinct against the Republicans apart for wedge issues that never really matter anyway. Kamala Harris has spent a lot of her time appeasing Republicans embrassed over Trump than to defining an alternative to conservatism. She assumed Biden's positions even though people loathed and settled for Biden at the height of a (hopefully) one in the life time pandemic. No wonder people are still hanging on to the populist candidate or the appeasement one when their platforms are too far from one another.


And I know people who post here understand the nuance, they understand the differences in policy, they understand the history of the candidates, the average vote does not though. The average registered voter can barely be bothered to show up to the polls. Coincidently, the average voter is also tired of the Democratic party appear soft and propping up conservatives? Did propping up the Cheny's move needles? People are losing faith in the upper levels of the government and the "left" party consistently kissing the ass of the right on makes the people lose more faith. Beating Trump should be a lay up but its not when you let him pull you to the Right where you just validate conservative views and they say "well I might as well just vote for the actual conservative then"


On stuff like Israel, most people don't know the naunces of the conflict. What they can see its "billions of dollars have been given to Israel" while they see their own local infrastructure, social programs, safety nets, etc, underfunded. They aren't being to flock to the candidate that is preaching the status quo even if they are slightly less hitlarian. Neither candidate is talking about redistributing the money towards domestic issues. One candidate is part of an administration that is overseeing the current genocide and the other will accelerate it, nothing really changes but the timetable. Kamala Harris has decided to make the election conservative vs diet conservative, so it comes down to who is more populist, Trump is populist enough to keep the race tied.


The voters do cast the votes but its based on whats presented (and their votes are only suggestions for the electors). I'll never left absolve the candidates for not putting forth agendas that energize voters versus "well my opponent is worse than me, so I guess you have to vote for me then". People don't care if you throw in another match if they already believe/know their house is going to burn down.

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@Benggaul

Can definitely see that, my dad keeps defaulting to what happened to the Jews under Hitler and keeps talking about them defending themselves but then ignores all the evidence of their crimes and the stuff they were doing before they were attacked.

More news with the suspected assassination attempt yesterday.

Evidently he was found with a loaded shotgun, a handgun with an extended clip in an unregistered car with fake plates multiple IDs and passports under different names.

He claims he is 100% a Trump supporter with no intention to harm him and was released on $5,000 bond.

Not sure what to think on that one, whether he was trying to or not shouldn’t negate the fake plates, multiple IDs and passports under different names and all that too.

Source:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/10/13/p...y-man-arrested

Harris hasn't signaled a change in course in the Middle East so the norman will say, "well I guess the current trajectory is correct, might as well go with the candidate who seems like they will end it sooner".

[DarkTZeratul]

More news with the suspected assassination attempt yesterday.

Evidently he was found with a loaded shotgun, a handgun with an extended clip in an unregistered car with fake plates multiple IDs and passports under different names.

He claims he is 100% a Trump supporter with no intention to harm him and was released on $5,000 bond.

Not sure what to think on that one, whether he was trying to or not shouldn’t negate the fake plates, multiple IDs and passports under different names and all that too.

On the one hand, the FBI pretty quickly dismissed the idea that he was a would-be assassin. On the other hand, the sheriff who swears that he prevented an assassination by arresting this guy apparently didn't do anything to stop his bond from being set so ridiculously low it was paid almost immediately. It's worth noting that if he WAS going to assassinate Trump, that makes it a federal matter and the FBI would have jurisdiction over him rather than the local sheriff's department.

Anyway, it feels really weird that the sheriff who really really thinks he was an assassin let him go for what is basically chump change, and also that the FBI who would be responsible for him if he were decided he wasn't, but I think I'm ultimately gonna have to trust that the FBI had good reasons for making the choice they did.

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On stuff like Israel, most people don't know the naunces of the conflict. What they can see its "billions of dollars have been given to Israel" while they see their own local infrastructure, social programs, safety nets, etc, underfunded. They aren't being to flock to the candidate that is preaching the status quo even if they are slightly less hitlarian. Neither candidate is talking about redistributing the money towards domestic issues. One candidate is part of an administration that is overseeing the current genocide and the other will accelerate it, nothing really changes but the timetable.

I guarantee you most people don't even put that much thought into it. It's foreign policy shit, happening a world away and affecting us not at all, so most people really don't think about it enough to care except when politicians make it a funding issue (like the Republicans did with Ukraine). This goes doubly so for Israel, given that they're our allies and the general perception is that they're the scrappy underdog trying to survive in a region that wants them dead. There are a relatively small number of mostly young and/or very online people who care deeply about the genocide. For everyone else, it's very much a losing issue for Kamala to spend much time on.

[PhaelixWW]

Anyway, it feels really weird that the sheriff who really really thinks he was an assassin let him go for what is basically chump change

Sheriffs don't set bail amounts.

[postman1782]

Not only did Trump leave his followers at a Coachella SHIT FARM, not even the Coachella grounds, a farm near it, they just used the Coachella parking for the Klan rallly, where they had to walk 5 miles to their cars, but he advocated for violence on a heckler at the rally.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-ele...146b7377bc1c18

[Draco-Onis]

@Benggaul

Can definitely see that, my dad keeps defaulting to what happened to the Jews under Hitler and keeps talking about them defending themselves but then ignores all the evidence of their crimes and the stuff they were doing before they were attacked.

More news with the suspected assassination attempt yesterday.

Evidently he was found with a loaded shotgun, a handgun with an extended clip in an unregistered car with fake plates multiple IDs and passports under different names.

He claims he is 100% a Trump supporter with no intention to harm him and was released on $5,000 bond.

Not sure what to think on that one, whether he was trying to or not shouldn’t negate the fake plates, multiple IDs and passports under different names and all that too.

Source:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/10/13/p...y-man-arrested

Maybe I am missing something here but I don't get the big deal, a Trump supporter who has illegal guns, paranoid / conspiracy theorist therefore has lots of shifty things on him are a dime a dozen. This guy is the Qanon type that goes to Trump rallies perhaps I am being cruel but if you are fanatical enough to go to a Trump rally there is probably something wrong with you mentally.

[Bodakane]

A 2016 vote for Trump doesn't mean the person was racist, sexist and/or nationalist. Odds are they are, but there's a chance they were just protest voting by throwing a chaos grenade into the election because they were tired of the same old, same old that Hillary represented.

Any vote for Trump from that point on, means the person is 100% a racist, sexist and/or nationalist. There is no argument against it being true. He doesn't have actual policies that aren't one or more of those things and those things are what he consistently promotes. I don't want to hear about the people who aren't politically literate and just vote down a party line either. Everyone has heard him talk. Everyone saw him bumble fuck covid. Everyone knows he's been convicted of multiple felonies. It's been 9 years and "i didn't know" doesn't play anymore.

[Poopymonster]

Maybe I am missing something here but I don't get the big deal, a Trump supporter who has illegal guns, paranoid / conspiracy theorist therefore has lots of shifty things on him are a dime a dozen. This guy is the Qanon type that goes to Trump rallies perhaps I am being cruel but if you are fanatical enough to go to a Trump rally there is probably something wrong with you mentally.

Nothing substantiated from what I've read this morning, but to me he reads like someone who is angry his girlfriend legally has to use a car seat.

[Breccia]

Not only did Trump leave his followers at a Coachella SHIT FARM, not even the Coachella grounds, a farm near it, they just used the Coachella parking for the Klan rallly, where they had to walk 5 miles to their cars, but he advocated for violence on a heckler at the rally.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-ele...146b7377bc1c18

I clicked on that link. I didn't see that story. I saw this one:

Trump called for a protester at one of his rallies to “go back home to Mommy” to “get the hell knocked out of her,” his latest instance of using violent language when confronted by demonstrators.

The protester was ejected from Trump’s Saturday evening rally in Coachella, California. As the crowd jeered her, Trump said “Back home to Mommy. She goes back home to Mommy.”

Trump continued, imitating the imagined mother: “‘Was that you, darling?’ And she gets the hell knocked out of her.”

“Her mother’s a big fan of ours,” Trump finished before returning to his speech. “Her mother, her father.”

As expected, there is no evidence that the mother was a big fan of Trump's. Trump was making things up. Oh, and yes, Trump was advocating domestic violence.

But I looked around and found this one:

Along with Trump facing an altercation with a heckler

(points upwards)

an armed Las Vegas man who held ID documents under multiple names was arrested outside the rally. Authorities claim Trump may have been the target of a third assassination attempt in as many months.

While thousands of supporters were bussed into Calhoun Ranch, which was situated about five miles away from where they parked their vehicles, people attending claimed the event organizers had neglected transport for the return journey.

And instead of being shuttled away from the venue after Trump exited the stage at about 7pm PT following a near-90-minute address, many attendees were left stranded in 93F heat, according to video footage on social media.

“Apparently the buses are no longer coming,” said one attendee in the clip taken more than three hours after the rally had concluded.

Now normally I don't just cite/trust Some Guy On Twitter, but those videos have location and time stamps. If he was hanging around three hours later, I don't think he was lying, and his clip showed a bunch of people. Yes, it could be faked, no, I don't think so, not with the sheer number of matching reports and the fact that APNews etc. picked up on it.

“There used to be like 20 buses when we were being brought here, but now there’s only like three buses operating.”

He added: “It’s just chaos, absolute chaos. All of us are stranded here, everyone is stranded here.”

Another clip posted to X, which had since been deleted, saw a rally-goer reportedly claim that there was “only one bus in rotation” which took half an hour for each drop off.

In the footage, flashing lights from police cars illuminate the disgruntled faces of Trump supporters seemingly left behind, with one heard condemning the organizer’s “failures” that had led to the delay in being returned to the parking lot.

Sharing the video footage on X, The Tennessee Holler claimed that many of those left waiting for transport to the car park were elderly.

See, here's the thing: I think that, if you set up a deal with a shuttle bus group, they're very likely going to ask "you want a round-trip, right?" Because, you know, that's kind of the standard. I've been at more than my share of state/town faires with remote parking, and the shuttles ran the entire time.

I think Trump just wanted his photo op. I think he just wanted his picture on TV. What happened after wasn't his problem. He had a car.

And I know I'm right, because the Trump's response to this was a blatant lie.

Trump has yet to publicly speak of the bussing debacle, but claimed on Truth Social that 100,000 people turned out for the rally in the typically blue stronghold – a state which Vice President Kamala Harris currently leads by almost 27 percent, according to polling by The Hill.

However, a permit issued for the event by Riverside County was said to have capped the capacity to 15,000, according to local news outlet Desert Sun.

Trump blatantly lied by sixfold. That's like claiming he's thirty-seven feet tall. Or, the other way, weighs 100 pounds.

Now, I will admit, administrative snafu's happen. I've fucked up at work and missed deadlines. You admit you made a mistake, you fix what you can, and you move on. Denying that there was a problem, and covering it with an unrelated lie, isn't an accident. That's just showing how little you care.

EDIT: Oh, and this means the heckler is the only non-Trump person at the rally we know wasn't stranded. How's that for a humiliating result?

[Benggaul]

Maybe I am missing something here but I don't get the big deal, a Trump supporter who has illegal guns, paranoid / conspiracy theorist therefore has lots of shifty things on him are a dime a dozen. This guy is the Qanon type that goes to Trump rallies perhaps I am being cruel but if you are fanatical enough to go to a Trump rally there is probably something wrong with you mentally.

It wasn't an assassination attempt and people, and especially the media, need to keep painting it as such. All it's doing is giving Trump more undeserved sympathy.

A 2016 vote for Trump doesn't mean the person was racist, sexist and/or nationalist. Odds are they are, but there's a chance they were just protest voting by throwing a chaos grenade into the election because they were tired of the same old, same old that Hillary represented.

Any vote for Trump from that point on, means the person is 100% a racist, sexist and/or nationalist. There is no argument against it being true. He doesn't have actual policies that aren't one or more of those things and those things are what he consistently promotes. I don't want to hear about the people who aren't politically literate and just vote down a party line either. Everyone has heard him talk. Everyone saw him bumble fuck covid. Everyone knows he's been convicted of multiple felonies. It's been 9 years and "i didn't know" doesn't play anymore.

This has been my philosophy for sure. I could forgive people who voted for him in 2016 because they were desperate for change, didn't really know how terrible Trump is and/or were fooled by the whole "Benghazi!/Butteremails!" of it all. They had no such excuse for any election after that

[Gorsameth]

It wasn't an assassination attempt and people, and especially the media, need to keep painting it as such. All it's doing is giving Trump more undeserved sympathy.

The first 2 actual attempts did nothing (which is actually shocking when you think about it) so I doubt a 3e questionable one is going to matter.

[Draco-Onis]

It wasn't an assassination attempt and people, and especially the media, need to keep painting it as such. All it's doing is giving Trump more undeserved sympathy.

The main stream media are selling the country up shit creak for clicks.

[Gorsameth]

The main stream media are selling the country up shit creak for clicks.

Turns out media is one of those things, just like healthcare, where you don't want the invisible hand of the market making the choices.

[thesilentmajority]

A 2016 vote for Trump doesn't mean the person was racist, sexist and/or nationalist. Odds are they are, but there's a chance they were just protest voting by throwing a chaos grenade into the election because they were tired of the same old, same old that Hillary represented.

Any vote for Trump from that point on, means the person is 100% a racist, sexist and/or nationalist. There is no argument against it being true. He doesn't have actual policies that aren't one or more of those things and those things are what he consistently promotes. I don't want to hear about the people who aren't politically literate and just vote down a party line either. Everyone has heard him talk. Everyone saw him bumble fuck covid. Everyone knows he's been convicted of multiple felonies. It's been 9 years and "i didn't know" doesn't play anymore.

The claim that anyone who voted for Trump after 2016 is "100% a racist, sexist, and/or nationalist" is an overgeneralization that doesn't account for the diverse reasons people may have for supporting a candidate. Voters often consider a range of issues such as economic policies, healthcare, taxation, foreign relations, and judicial appointments when making their decisions.

Many individuals may have supported Trump due to his stance on job creation, regulatory reforms, or conservative social values. Others might have believed that his policies better aligned with their views on government size or constitutional interpretation. It's also possible for voters to disagree with certain aspects of a candidate's behavior or rhetoric while still supporting them based on policy preferences.

Assigning negative labels to all supporters of a political figure can hinder productive dialogue and understanding. It's important to recognize that voters are a heterogeneous group with varied motivations, and blanket statements may oversimplify complex individual choices

[Shadowferal]

The claim that anyone who voted for Trump after 2016 is "100% a racist, sexist, and/or nationalist" is an overgeneralization that doesn't account for the diverse reasons people may have for supporting a candidate. Voters often consider a range of issues such as economic policies, healthcare, taxation, foreign relations, and judicial appointments when making their decisions.

Save it.
There's a bad guy here. And he already has multiple felonies against him.

[SunspotAnims]

Save it.
There's a bad guy here. And he already has multiple felonies against him.

It's ChatGPT sludge. Not worth responding to.

[thesilentmajority]

Save it.
There's a bad guy here. And he already has multiple felonies against him.

Right Cause the last 4 years have been great. Of course, political personalities are quite understandable; nonetheless, one should stick to facts and the latest information. As of my cutoff in October 2023, Donald Trump has been issued multiple indictments but has not yet been convicted of any felony charges. The cases remain in courts, and due process is in order. Possibly, characterization of any person as only a "bad guy" too often simplifies complex legal and political problems. It is satisfying to take into consideration all information available and await the outcomes of legal procedures in order to come up with certain conclusions.

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It's ChatGPT sludge. Not worth responding to.

Dismissing the response without engaging with its content doesn't foster constructive dialogue. If there are specific points you'd like to discuss or challenge, I'm here to have that conversation.

[Benggaul]

It's ChatGPT sludge. Not worth responding to.

Ayep. Won't stop people from falling for it, though.