Trump supporters – the stupid goes all the way up

Today on “The stupid goes all the way up” – this is the latest talking point from people stupid enough to actively support trump. The suggestion appears to be that you can’t impeach trump because this map shows virtually all of the country voted for him.

 

Unsurprisingly for trump supporters, this is stupid on several levels.

 

First, that map is virtually meaningless in telling you how many people voted for trump as the red areas are very sparsely populated and the number of voters in the blue areas is orders of magnitude larger. As everyone but trump supporters knows, he lost the popular vote by several million.

 

Second, impeachment proceedings have nothing to do with the public vote. They’re a political process conducted wholly within the congress and senate. The public has zero involvement (except maybe in their ability to sway the votes of congresspeople and senators).

 

The real kicker for me is this takedown by an historian showing a comparison with Nixon’s electoral map. It really is meaningless.

 

And if you’ve never heard of Lara Trump, she’s married to Eric Trump. So that tells you how smart she is.

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You can find almost anything on YouTube. This particular bit of 90s lunacy is a favourite of mine. It’s definitely a specific sort of taste this appeals to – I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t like it. It’s quite abrasive and difficult to like.

I actually saw this at a house party in Sydney in the 90s (probably 94/95) while under the influence of certain hallucinogens which might explain why it imprinted on me so strongly (plus I have a soft spot for industrial techno). A lot of people’s favourite moment is Bush doing “We Will Rock You” (and that is good) but I really like Harrison Ford going “Get Down” repeatedly and the preacher really shook me.

By the way, a content note – if you’re vulnerable to something like a preacher repeatedly saying “I’m going to die” you might not want to watch that bit (it’s at about the 16:30 mark). At the time I remember thinking that would be a bit much for people who were already at risk of dark thoughts.

Two things stick with me: how difficult this would have been to create with 90s analogue technology. I haven’t bothered to look up anything about the creators but the fact they were able to access all of this material and edit it means they were probably working at a TV station. But that doesn’t account for the second thing that sticks with me:

How the hell did I see this on a VHS tape in Sydney – the other side of the world from the people who made it when it was NOT released as a commercial product?

This was pre-internet when things like this were spread by word of mouth and strange artifacts handed from person to person. We’ve lost something with the easy availability of almost everything but I certainly wouldn’t give up the modern world.

But the old world had a weird sort of magic.