Phx-Suns.Net

I would hope that his base would/would have followed their fearless leader in that regard; yet part of me wonders how much of our country's more individualistic (for lack of a better term) culture is to blame.

I'll also say this: I feel a certain harrowing analogy to climate change when I've talked to people who have shall we say...lesser concerns about covid. It just smacks of the same "if I don't believe it, then it's not real" defense mechanism.

Blah, what a year.

Yea that's a larger problem now in general: "My opinion means more than facts and expertise", "I have a right to believe what I want", "I don't need any 'thought police' telling me what to think", "1st Amendment'/Free Speech" blah blah blah. I don't know how you combat that. It's a juvenile mindset that's set in where some people feel like the Dems/Obama/Hillary are always lecturing or telling people what they need to do. I don't disagree that there were times the Obama Admin acted/sounded condescending and Hillary's campaigning only reinforced that, plus things like Nancy's clapping at Trump after his SOTU speech. That's the image of the Dems - the intellectual elites who know more than everyone else and act like they're your parents. That's what Trump's latched onto and people love him because "he speaks his mind" and pushes back against those things like scientists, doctors, generals, experts, intellectuals.

The latter part of your post, shel, made me think of this post that I came across on the political section of another sports board I frequent. Someone asked the question of 'how did we get here" (current state of affairs in 2020), and this was a response:

Flyover country folks were sick of being condescended to so they wrong-headedly nominated a bully who would be mean
to the people they don't like. The bully never would have won except for the his opponents nominated a historically unlikable candidate who ran a historically inept campaign. Then in an epic misread of the election results, the losers went fully insane leftist instead of staying middle of the road and coasting to victory over a historically inept president. Freaked out by the communists taking over their party, the losers then nominated a corpse to prevent the takeover that is happening anyway. Is that about right?

At any rate, that post doesn't 100% resonate with me personally, but it does makes me think of what you said in regards to certain people hearing things they don't want to hear...and then reacting in a very reactionary way.

Also, this is probably hyperbole on my part, but this year in particular has at times made me think of that scene in The Dark Knight where Jim Gordon is talking to the Gotham mob and said something to the effect of "...maybe you should of thought of that before you let the clown out of the box."

Again, such a blah year.

ShelC wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 20, 2020 5:13 am

Yea that's a larger problem now in general: "My opinion means more than facts and expertise", "I have a right to believe what I want", "I don't need any 'thought police' telling me what to think", "1st Amendment'/Free Speech" blah blah blah. I don't know how you combat that. It's a juvenile mindset that's set in where some people feel like the Dems/Obama/Hillary are always lecturing or telling people what they need to do. I don't disagree that there were times the Obama Admin acted/sounded condescending and Hillary's campaigning only reinforced that, plus things like Nancy's clapping at Trump after his SOTU speech. That's the image of the Dems - the intellectual elites who know more than everyone else and act like they're your parents. That's what Trump's latched onto and people love him because "he speaks his mind" and pushes back against those things like scientists, doctors, generals, experts, intellectuals.

I don't get the idea that voting for someone that doesn't know how to do the job. Like so many folks being in favor of Barrett when she has never tried a case and only been a judge for 3 years. What other job do you actively look for someone that hasn't done it for long at any level? Would these same people want to pick a pilot for their flight because he isn't a pilot or he is brand new? Or a doctor that hasn't finished her residency?

I think if Hillary Clinton were President, she would have presided much more competently over COVID, and rather than 225k+ deaths, we'd have, say, 30k deaths. Which would also be tragic, but obviously much better. And the entire GOP would be railing against the horrible job she'd done and how it is absolutely unacceptable that 30,000 American lives have been lost. They'd have impeached her over it and would be just roasting her constantly on their media, trying to make her a one-term President.

And it probably would have worked. The GOP is pretty good at negative advertising and messaging, tearing down the opposition and making the race about choosing between two evils. It hasn't totally worked on Biden, but you can see the effect.

Yea I think the response would've been a lot better overall with Hillary as President but you'd still have the right wing media talking about the left wanting to control everyone, taking away civil liberties, no worse than the flu, Hillary's in bed with China, she tanked the economy, etc and their base would still be fighting over masks and shutdowns. Even now, the right wing media is saying "what would Biden have done any differently? What's he going to do now?" Trump pretty much did next to nothing besides stopping flights from China, which felt like more theater than anything else.

ShelC wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 20, 2020 12:09 pm

Yea I think the response would've been a lot better overall with Hillary as President but you'd still have the right wing media talking about the left wanting to control everyone, taking away civil liberties, no worse than the flu, Hillary's in bed with China, she tanked the economy, etc and their base would still be fighting over masks and shutdowns. Even now, the right wing media is saying "what would Biden have done any differently? What's he going to do now?" Trump pretty much did next to nothing besides stopping flights from China, which felt like more theater than anything else.

And the “funny thing” is that there would probably be over 100,000 fewer people dead which would help bolster the right’s argument.

Now doctors are the enemy of America too?

Sounds like Trump.

Heckuva closing argument by POTUS. The virus is here and there's nothing you can do. Deal with it!

Are you kidding me? I'm not watching that. I am done with the Donald. He's just a footnote now in US history.

*Worst president in US history (and it's not even close)

I was reading people on Twitter saying that they were trying to vote in PA and that cars and trucks with Trump signs were driving all around the polling places, honking and shouting at the voters to try to intimidate them. Ugh. I really hope the election goes down peacefully and that everybody is safe and given their fair right to vote.

I think Trump is going to get shellacked. His timing has been real poor lately. He chastised Biden at the first debate for wearing a mask all the time and then half the people in the WH get Covid two days later. Not a good look. Now half of Pence’s staff has Covid and today we find out there is an outbreak at FOX News. Trump says it’s all but disappeared as the virus hits it’s all time peak two weeks before the election. Meadows says there isn’t anything to be done about the virus throwing in the white towel on it.

People are voting in record numbers even with all the painstaking work the GOP has done to suppress the vote.

Nodack wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 26, 2020 1:20 pm

I think Trump is going to get shellacked. His timing has been real poor lately. He chastised Biden at the first debate for wearing a mask all the time and then half the people in the WH get Covid two days later. Not a good look. Now half of Pence’s staff has Covid and today we find out there is an outbreak at FOX News. Trump says it’s all but disappeared as the virus hits it’s all time peak two weeks before the election. Meadows says there isn’t anything to be done about the virus throwing in the white towel on it.

People are voting in record numbers even with all the painstaking work the GOP has done to suppress the vote.

I agree generally that things are on the way to a big Trump loss. At this point my big fear isn't that he will get more votes and win. It's that election day itself will get mucked up, perhaps by violent outbursts from his armed supporters at polling places, perhaps by troops seizing ballot boxes before they can be counted, or whatever. And then we won't have a legitimate outcome to the election. I'm really scared and hope the win is so decisive that he can't muck it up.

I can’t imagine US troops being involved in any stage of the election. I have been seeing lines that are unbelievable. Hard to believe people are having to wait in line for 4+ hours just to vote. Seems kind of ridiculous to me.

It is by design.

I'm not leaving my house until things settle down afterward. I'm keeping my baseball bat handy. Decided not to get the shotgun.

Nice.