Impeach Trump Y/N

He thinks he can will whatever reality he wants into being just by insisting that it’s true, which helps make him a successful con man. Just a different way to approach reality than most people. Not better or worse.

Re-forwarding the same chain emails to himself and becoming more convinced of their veracity every time he receives a new iteration. Lots of people are saying it! Lots of people with my name!

i think more than anything he's just sort of dumb and/or doesn't understand that nuance can be consequential

like, i have no doubt that all kinds of political ratfucking has happened over the years with the assistance of foreign governments, seems par for the course. but no one has been dumb enough to a) get caught b) brag about it and c) actually tie that assistance to fairly weighty matters of foreign policy.

trump sees all this as politics as usual---and it sorta is?---and simply cannot grasp how the "subtleties" of his particular case make it blatantly actionable

And his defenders are just pure cynicism? is there anything he could say or do that would make his supporters turn on him? incl. those in office?

HE was the subject of an investigation so why can't THE OTHER GUY be subject to an investigation?? and since he only thinks in deals and leverage, he explicitly asks for shit that you'd have expected a savvier person to broker through back channels

xp his actual office-holding defenders are pure cynics, imo

so that's the end right? things will never get better?

Pretty sad how much mileage he's managed to get out of the "I know you are but what am I" defense. When he pathetically used it on Hilary when he was accused of sexual abuse (pfft I don't do that stuff but your HUSBAND sure does!), I seriously thought ok the public will be repulsed by this and that'll be the end of Ol Donnie...

"Reality" is a malleable, constantly shifting concept for people like this. If it's momentarily convenient for him to believe that something's real he'll probably think it, then shift to something else when the next crisis comes along (and life's a constant series of crises in the world of the narcissist).

xpost

These people seem cool with Trump University and his habit of not paying contractors who worked for him. And they still think he is the guy who looks out for “ordinary Americans.” The situation is just weird. Hard to know what would make them change their minds.

His supporters will always back him as they can never, ever admit to being wrong

They’re like 120 million people or something

The most corrupt man in US is actually a fighter OF corruption! He can't stand corruption! If he so much as hears rumors of corruption, he springs into action, gets all his heads of state buddies to help him stamp out this evilness!

They’re like 120 million people or something

not quite that: about 63 million people voted for him in 2016. so don't worry, just 63 million completely deranged dumbasses to worry about

at least a couple of those had to just be going on autopilot

*fart*

When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China’s investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated.

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) October 4, 2019

One might almost begin to suspect that there could, if observed at just the right angle, the merest hint of possible impropriety originating from somewhere within the sphere of the president's influence. Allegedly, mind you. It's very concerning.

https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/5a86dc9ed030721c008b4837-750-375.jpg

such worried
very concern
wow

breaking: credulity has been strained

it is a mild strain, and credulity is expected to be back to normal in 1-2 weeks

I always forget, are you supposed to apply heat or ice to a credulity strain

press hot spoon against the stye iirc

Club soda, or corn starch. Wait, that's a stain, not a strain.

best approach to a credulity strain is to pretend nothing is wrong and carry on

That's unfair, you know Mitt is currently making That Face as hard as he can rn.

i don't understand what he has to lose. just come out in favor of impeachment.

some nut could murder him

I'm not trying to make excuses for him, but GOP Senate is both terrified of and utterly beholden to a base they know is full of violent, stupid nutjobs.

mitt romney is not even remotely vulvernable in his own state

it's quite a site to see, their cowardice

those nutjobs all hate Mitt already

yeah, he's not vulnerable to a challenger. he's more popular in utah than trump, i think.

and even if he was, he is infinitely rich and can do whatever he wants.

not quite that: about 63 million people voted for him in 2016. so don't worry, just 63 million completely deranged dumbasses to worry about

― It is my great honor to post on this messageboard! (Karl Malone)

You make it sound like 63 million Americans are in danger of drowning in their own toilets within the next week. If there are specific issues at play it's the allegiance of 63 million Americans, in a political sense, to the interests of their tribe to the exclusion of everything else. That's clearly a serious problem, but it doesn't make them "completely deranged", just people with an exceptionally high capacity for cognitive dissonance. Certainly this makes them dangerous to us but arguably they are more dangerous to themselves. I feel like the best any of us can do is stop mollycoddling their delusions and quit protecting them from the consequences of their own actions.

Now, that's a hard thing for me to do, because some of the people making poor life decisions are people I love, because standing by and doing nothing makes me feel like the sort of an insensitive asshole who stands around a disaster area loudly declaiming about how the people in question "had it coming".

I don't see myself that way. What I've been waiting for for the past three years at least is for Trump supporters to realize they did, in fact, make a mistake in supporting him, for them to say "On consideration, it seems unlikely that this person will, in fact, make America great again." Yes, it seems very obvious to us, yes, they do in fact seem incredibly stupid and/or deranged for not being able to see that, but after three years of living with these people I mostly get the impression that they're by and large ordinary people, subsceptible like all of us to the influence of the people around us, who have, through some combination of mistake and misfortune, fallen in with a bad crowd.

There are a few people, maybe as few as one, causing whatever this fucked up shit going on right now is. There are a number of other people, the truly dangerous ones, who are supporting the ideologues, working to make this man, who is clearly a deranged lunatic, appear to be a respected authority. Most of these people comprise what we think of, through synecdoche, as "The Republican Party", but there are other organizations who serve that function, most notably, hate to keep harping on this, Twitter.

And the rest? The everyday people, the 63 million? Mostly, from what I can tell, they're just along for the ride. They're going along to get along, they're trying to be Good Americans. They're dangerous in that it's these people who always make the worst abuses, the worst injustices, possible, but changing their minds, ENLIGHTENING them, is as out of our reach as making the President a sensible man is. We can't make them accountable to us, but we also don't need to; they will change if and when it becomes necessary for them to do so. It's not necessary yet.

what are the chances Romney makes a run for it again? whether in 2024, or, if by some miracle courtesy of Elohim, Trump gets the boot before 2020 and there’s a gop primary scramble?

he knows that most of the ppl who voted for Trump will have to be willing to vote for him, too. that’ll be quite a feat if he evinces anything more than just your garden variety Very Serious Concerns.

oh I totally think Romney is keeping an eye on a Trump collapse, as unlikely as it sounds

What a dick

He should try to facilitate that collapse

Further it

Whatever

t/s: Trump collapse vs. Trump prolapse

2024 is going to be nuts on the GOP side.
Pence, Pompeo, Haley, Cotton will probably run, touting their Trump sycophancy as a badge of honor. However, the defeated Trump will make noise about running again, keeping them all looking small.

A bunch of weirdos, talk show hosts and actors will either run or talk about running to sell their books, each trying out hardman the other.

Then there will be a Return to Sanity candidate or three: Romney, Ryan or some governor.

Ventura in a landslide

If there are specific issues at play it's the allegiance of 63 million Americans, in a political sense, to the interests of their tribe to the exclusion of everything else. That's clearly a serious problem, but it doesn't make them "completely deranged"

yes it does

rush, you took one thing i said and spun it off into many directions, which is fine. it's hard to respond to because of the number of different points you made, several of which i think are incorrect. to pick one in particular, though, that affects the rest of your argument, i disagree with this on multiple levels: "There are a few people, maybe as few as one, causing whatever this fucked up shit going on right now is". clearly the problem goes beyond Trump. you partly address this by saying that the republican machinery plays a role by "working to make this man, who is clearly a deranged lunatic, appear to be a respected authority." but i think of them as also actively causing the problem, rather than just playing a cheerleader role on the side.

i also disagree with the idea that 63 million trump supporters are innocent bystanders who happened to be fooled by the republican machinery. "The everyday people, the 63 million? Mostly, from what I can tell, they're just along for the ride. They're going along to get along, they're trying to be Good Americans." - i completely disagree with that. they know what's up. they know what it means to support trump. when there's a president that is so publicly racist and corrupt, from before the election to today, voting for him means SUPPORTING his behavior. remember the desmond tutu quote? “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." That is still true.

xp

and if you think there's a sizable portion of those trump supporters who have somehow remained oblivious to who this man is, you think even less of their intelligence than i do. and i see them as human brainstems, bumping around and scraping against each other until they finally die and fuck off

i also disagree with the idea that 63 million trump supporters are innocent bystanders who happened to be fooled by the republican machinery. "The everyday people, the 63 million? Mostly, from what I can tell, they're just along for the ride. They're going along to get along, they're trying to be Good Americans." - i completely disagree with that. they know what's up. they know what it means to support trump. when there's a president that is so publicly racist and corrupt, from before the election to today, voting for him means SUPPORTING his behavior. remember the desmond tutu quote? “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." That is still true.

― It is my great honor to post on this messageboard! (Karl Malone)

Oh yes, it's absolutely true. Those 63 million people are all _responsible_ for their actions. Their actions and the beliefs which enable those actions are a problem.

Where I draw the line is the idea that those problems are our responsibility. We are literally powerless to do anything to fix their fucked up shit. The extent to which I don't worry about them is the extent to which even though they may support politicians who want me dead, they will always, in practice, consider me one of the "good ones". It's, how far do we need to go to protect ourselves? How dangerous are these people and in what ways?

Given the right circumstances, in the right situation, yeah these are dangerous people. I wouldn't make any of them prison guards (wait, what do you mean they already are?). So I try to manage the situations in which I encounter these people.

I try to stay out of dark alleys, both in the world and in my own head.

yeah we’re talking 3-4 million salvageable Trump voters TOPS. any attempt by democrats to woo the other 60m is just the dumbest shit ever, and anyone telling you differently actually wants the Democrats to lose.

I think a lot of these people are dangerous because they are idiots, which is not necessarily the same as being dangerous idiots. That is, they are profoundly ignorant of politics and policy in all but the broadest sense, if that, but those broad feelings and beliefs are what (unfortunately) drive them to vote. The flip side of these folks is I suppose the people profoundly ignorant of politics and policy who *don't* vote, who are no less dangerous in effect. I think a very small fraction (though big enough) of these people in both groups are actually dangerous individuals, but maybe no more than the general population. I also don't think most of these people are necessarily bad people who mean harm and hurt on others. It's just that they are, again, so profoundly ignorant of politics and policy (for lots of reasons) that they might not consider how the politicians they support enable bad things they may not believe in. Or may not realize the ways the politicians they *don't* support could help further the *good* things they believe in! Doesn't make them entirely defensible, but they're not as bad as, say, someone like Stephen Miller or Trump himself, or militia people or whomever, who are outright sociopaths.

That's to say, I think that most people, on a micro, case by case, person by person, neighbor by neighbor basis, would offer aid or support to their fellow American if asked. But many of those same people vote for assholes, or don't vote at all.

the good news is there are literally no bad people