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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Another spectacular week of Trump train wrecks

It’s so easy for me to find material with Trump and Co. moving from crisis to crisis. Whether it’s his supporters, his lawyer or Trump himself being neck deep in shit, he’s the gift that keeps on giving. And he topped off the week beautifully with a call in interview to Fox and Friends that got so bad, the hosts themselves ended up cutting him off mid sentence.

Predictions for 2017

I spent some of today hanging out with some local YouTubers, socialising and talking about plans for the year. One of the things I’m really bad at is self promotion and marketing. What I have learned is that working with other people makes things easier.

It was also my first opportunity this year to make a video with my regular collaborator, AIDzee. We took the opportunity to use one of Melbourne’s colourful art alleys (in this case, Croft Alley) as a backdrop to talk about how we’re looking forward to seeing the extreme right eat each other.

Why Donald Trump supporters are not racist bullies

Let me be clear at the start: there is a very noticeable and very vocal group of Donald Trump supporters, possibly a majority of them, who are most definitely nasty, racist bullies. They are nothing but thugs and their appalling behaviour is actively encouraged and endorsed by Trump himself. This is inexcusable. For the drama of the schoolyard to be played out on the most powerful stage in the world is nothing short of disgusting.

But I’ve read enough material written by Trump supporters and seen enough interviews with them to know most of themselves don’t see themselves as bullies. In fact, they see quite the opposite, they’re the downtrodden ones who are finally getting the opportunity to be heard after being kept down for so long.

From the outside, this makes no sense at all – the most privileged group in history (straight white men) from the most privileged privileged country in the world are the underdogs? It reminds me of this quote usually attributed to John Steinbeck (it’s from Ronald Wright’s book “A Short History of Progress” and Steinbeck may never have actually said/wrote it):

If you aren’t part of the hallucination it doesn’t make sense but many of Trump’s supporters clearly don’t see themselves as bullies, they see themselves as rising up against bullies. This is how something that seems patently ridiculous takes hold – people want to see themselves in a particular way and anyone who contradictions this self-view is somehow part of the system that is keeping them down. Trump supporters don’t see themselves as bullies oppressing others, they are the oppressed finally standing up for the rights that have been taken from them.

For Trump himself I hold out some kind of hope that he’s a colossal troll. But it’s more likely he’s a complete prick suffering from narcissistic personality disorder who has no depth whatsoever. This is how I think things might have gotten to this point:

A conversation with Donald Trump’s campaign manager

Hey, how ya doin’? I’m Joey Soulfucker, Donald trump’s campaign manager. It’s a high pressure job but I wouldn’t give it up for the world. The question I’m always asked is “How do you think the campaign is going?” and my answer is always “unbelievably good!” I mean that literally. There is nobody in the campaign, right up to the Donald, who can believe things are going this well. It makes no sense. Any rational human knows Donny aint fit to run for president but that’s only half of it. It would make a bit more sense if he was running as an independent but he’s running as a Republican! He’s spoutin’ all that family values and jesus rubbish when he’s clearly a complete degenerate.

Now don’t get me wrong, I say that with love because I’m a degenerate too. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a goody two shoes. But the Donald doesn’t even try to hide what he is. His life and history is public and the divorces and womanising aint even close to the worst of it – you have no idea what sick stuff he’s really into. You think wanting to bang his daughter is the grossest thing about him? But he stands up and says “I love the bible” and the crowd goes wild. “Family values” and they eat it up. We figured early on that he’d get a bit of attention, say some outrageous things and we’d use the boost to his profile to go on talk shows and sell books. We didn’t even think he’d make it half way to the first caucus vote, let alone be leading.

I mean, come on! What kind of idiot would vote for the Donald Trump that’s been campaigning? He’s mean, nasty, obviously lying, completely out of touch with reality… I know I just described a decent chunk of America but how can they not see he’s making fun of them? Half the time the things he says don’t even make sense – he’s up on the stage being a gibbering idiot but his popularity keeps going up and up! We’ve started making bets on what outrageous things he can say and get away with it. I’ve lost so much money on those bets!

The shooting someone in the street – that one was mine. Donny was laughing about how stupid his supporters were and how it had gotten to the point that it didn’t matter what he said – they’d support him no matter what. So I thought I was calling his bluff, I said “OK, come out and say that, say you could shoot someone and they’d still love you” and he said “Just watch me”.

Think about it – someone running for president, the frontrunner for one of the major parties starts saying it doesn’t matter if he shoots someone! No rational person would say that. In The Donald’s case, it’s no serious person would say this. He’s been treating this as a joke for months. He was already probably the biggest ego in the country but now, when he doesn’t have to care what he says? He’s a force of nature. He doesn’t have to make sense. He doesn’t have to be consistent. He doesn’t have to take responsibility for anything.

I thought I’d finally found the limit with the KKK. First, I thought he’d back down when I told him not to reject the endorsement. Then when he called my bluff I knew he was done with this whole thing and wanted out. Even he’s getting embarrassed about how stupid people are. But it doesn’t make any goddam difference! They don’t care!

Seriously, his supporters are a rampaging mob of psychopaths. They make racist attacks on people, actual physical attacks and he just eggs them on. He says they’re “passionate”. In no sane world can a presidential candidate whip up a mob with hate speech and get away with it.  But Donald can in this world.

I’m not gonna surprise anyone by saying Donny aint the sharpest tool in the shed but he knows people. Hey, I’m in PR and politics so I already think people are morons. Nasty, greedy, out for themselves idiots. But I wasn’t prepared for what this campaign showed me.  The Donald knew all along this was a joke. And the America that comes out of this ugly race is the punchline.