President Trump: Part II

[Emily's Cat]

And Clinton's supporters loved it. If she'd kept up that tone she might have encouraged more people to come out and vote against Trump; not for her, but that hardly matters. The people she "alienated" were those she referred to - Trump supporters. Screw them.

How did that work out?

In retrospect, do you actually think that "screw those people" is really a winning strategy?

 

[NoahFence]

Seriously, take a step back. Aside from logger, you haven't been met with spite and derision from conservatives. You, and several other liberals, have been quite liberal in throwing around insult, insinuation, and spite for the past month and a half.

Enough so that you're actively attacking me, insinuating that I'm dumb, that I was conned, that I'm too stupid to see what's really going on... because I didn't vote for Clinton. Regardless of the fact that I also didn't vote for Trump, you have been actively blaming me for the election outcome. You are exhibiting so much emotion here, that you can't even seem to grasp the actual point being made: that alienating and insulting people doesn't win them to your point of view, and that the Democratic party and it's supporters should strongly consider changing their tactics in the future.

Worked for the Cheeto Fuhrer, didn't it?

 

[Emily's Cat]

I don't care about you and your history. I'm reading what you're writing right here, right now, and responding to it. That's how it works. I'm not your friend, I'm not obligated to make exceptions and excuses for you, and say "well, she may be saying horrible things now but she's a good person at heart".

You aren't responding to what I'm writing here.

No, I'm not. I'm didn't say a thing about "anyone who didn't vote for Hillary". I'm talking about you and those like you who are defending Trump voters. I don't care that you didn't vote for Clinton. I'm talking about what you're saying in this thread, and disagreeing with it.

As for "mockery, derision, and name-calling" you're the one perched on your high horse here, scolding people for not giving Trump supporters the respect you demand they be shown. Based on what? Your feelings. I don't share those feelings so you cannot order me to act as if I do. I do not award respect where it is not merited.

I am genuinely baffled that my position on this topic is so hard to comprehend.

If you want to win votes, if you want to sway people to your thinking, then you need to treat them as if they're capable of understanding your point, and you need to treat them with respect.

If you indiscriminately treat people as if they're worthless and their views are of no value, you will NOT be able to gain their support.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I wasn't expecting a Spanish Inquisition!

Those questions were for Emily's Cat.

(Seriously, the behaviour of some hardcore Clintonistas is becoming cult like. There's no attempt at reasoning or seeing the other side. It's a matter of calling the other side EVIL and signalling theological PURITY via holy online flaming)

Have you looked at POTUS Trump's blunders this week? Do you need more time to recognize what has happened?

Voting for Trump or not voting against him could only happen if people had no idea what POTUS Trump would mean for this country. You are about to find out.

I give the GOP Congress 6-12 months before they can't risk any more diplomatic disasters and they get rid of Trump.

 

[Bob001]

Trump thinks God parted the clouds for his inaugural speech:

This disconnect from reality is my biggest fear about Trump, more than any one policy he has proposed. My worry is the president of the United States is barking mad.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...fb9411d332c_story.html?utm_term=.d6e9e70c2a01

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

I haven't blamed anyone. I am not at all sorry for my vote. I feel no obligation to give an "excuse" for my vote, there is no reason to excuse it. I'm quite satisfied that I voted for a third party because I am fully disgusted with the state of US partisanship.

Yeah it's been obvious for a while that you voted third party - it's why you've been casting around for a reason to blame Clinton because you are basically a decent person and are not comfortable with the notion that you contributed to an idiot like Trump getting elected. You thought you were safe making a principled, idealistic stance 'cos Clinton would win anyway but you could say you didn't vote for her (for whatever fake news put you off her, or possibly genuine stuff that made her not your ideal choice - though obviously not as bad as train wreck Trump) and then, horror of horrors, Trump won partially 'cos a few too many people did what you did.

By they way, I'm mostly playing with you. I quite like your posts even if I disagree with your take on this issue.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yep.

Thank you for the admission of divisive, black-and-white, no-middle-ground thinking.

Nope. I know the reasons. She's effectively been falsely portrayed, people bought the lies.

And that's the only possible reason, is it? Do you believe that when someone offers you a different reason, they're lying? Or do you believe that if they offer you a different reason, it's because they're just too dumb to know better and have actually been conned and don't realize it?

Uhhh, did you miss the memo, Trump is now POTUS. Why should I be courting people who helped Trump get elected?

Presumably you'd like Trump to NOT have a second term.

I'm going to stop you right here. Your posts suggest you do on understand how peoples' beliefs are manipulated to win an election. I suggest you read up on marketing and propaganda if you are planning to lecture people who understand those techniques how they need to be nice to people and that will win them elections.

Just for consideration, my job, my actual real life job, is to provide analytic support and predictive modeling for sales and marketing.

Guess how many sales we make if we select a campaign slogan that tells people that if they buy our competitor's product, they're dummies who are being conned? Guess how many sales we make if we even imply it?

Take a look at Karl Rove's Playbook. And then go back and take a good look at how Trump alienated one group of people after another. Your cognitive dissonance re Clinton vs Trump criticizing different groups is astonishing.

Trump didn't actually criticize any americans directly. He criticized non-citizens who could be cast as threats to the average american. He criticized groups of people who can easily be spun as being a threat to citizens, both physically and economically. What he didn't do was actually criticize american citizens and cast them as unworthy and incapable of saving.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

The number of false assumptions in there is really appalling. How do you square your portrayal of me here with the history of posts and positions I've taken on ISF?


The problem is that you're applying it without consideration for merit. You're applying enmity to anyone who didn't vote for Hillary. Even more so, you're applying enmity to anyone who disagrees with trying to garner support through mockery, derision, and name-calling.

Yup, but if you didn't vote Clinton then you facilitated Trump's win.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Those questions were for Emily's Cat.


Have you looked at POTUS Trump's blunders this week? Do you need more time to recognize what has happened?

Voting for Trump or not voting against him could only happen if people had no idea what POTUS Trump would mean for this country. You are about to find out.

I give the GOP Congress 6-12 months before they can't risk any more diplomatic disasters and they get rid of Trump.

Just so I know the score, are you planning on sitting up there on your high horse, sneering down your nose, and saying "I told you so" for the next four years?

 

[TragicMonkey]

I am genuinely baffled that my position on this topic is so hard to comprehend.

If you want to win votes, if you want to sway people to your thinking, then you need to treat them as if they're capable of understanding your point, and you need to treat them with respect.

If you indiscriminately treat people as if they're worthless and their views are of no value, you will NOT be able to gain their support.

I am genuinely baffled by your failure to grasp reality.

TRUMP WON. HE DID NOT "TREAT PEOPLE WITH RESPECT".

But he did pick up more states in the EC by being nasty than Clinton picked up by being either nice or nasty.

What you're arguing is a lie: the formula for electoral success wasn't "respect", it was being nasty to the right people. And what you are attempting to do here is legitimize that nastiness, and reframe the election as being "Clinton was disrespectful". Because she wasn't nasty to the right people the way Trump was. If she'd been more like him, with his racism and sexism and xenophobia, she'd have won?

The thing is, her supporters wouldn't want her to win if that's the winning formula. It's backwards: you don't change your entire philosophy so "your" candidate wins, you pick your candidate because they are closest in agreement with your philosophy. I wouldn't want a Trump-style Clinton.

 

[newyorkguy]

Again, I think there is a strategy involved in Trump's media bashing and his insistence a) his Inauguration Day crowd was bigger than Obama's and b) millions of illegal voters cost him the popular vote. As one journalist wrote, "Estimating crowd size is an objective process. It's not opinion." Especially when there photos available. After insisting for days that "illegal voters," millions of them, cost him the election, now Trump wants an investigation. If he needs an investigation, what was he basing his comments on?

I think any reasonable person would suspect a) the photos show Obama did have a larger crowd and B) evidence (there have already been a number of investigations) mostly points at very few illegal votes, certainly nowhere near "millions."

I think I know what Trump's after. He wants everything to be up for grabs. If he says 2+2=5 or the sun comes up in the west...that's not "wrong." It's an alternative opinion and the media should just report it and let the public decide. The media should not decide what's true and what's not. I listened to a Judy Woodruff-Kellyanne Conway interview on PBS last night. In the interview Conway mentioned the crowd size and illegal voters, and admonished Woodruff that, "The media should stop taking sides."

The problem is, neither Trump nor Conway understand that as a society there are some things we have to agree on. That 2+2 doesn't equal 5 it equals 4, the sun doesn't come up in the west it comes up in the east. That photos showing crowd size are pretty definitive indicators of how many people attended an event. If you don't like the result and you choose to reject or ignore the photos aren't proof then, yes, you're lying. After all the investigations -- including some related to the 2016 election -- it's pretty safe to say, "Voter fraud is minimal." To dispute that without evidence is...

Not very convincing. Nor should it be. But I think Trump is going to make it implicit that if the media won't do it his way, down the road there will be some consequences. That'll be a bad precedent to set.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yeah it's been obvious for a while that you voted third party - it's why you've been casting around for a reason to blame Clinton because you are basically a decent person and are not comfortable with the notion that you contributed to an idiot like Trump getting elected. You thought you were safe making a principled, idealistic stance 'cos Clinton would win anyway but you could say you didn't vote for her (for whatever fake news put you off her, or possibly genuine stuff that made her not your ideal choice - though obviously not as bad as train wreck Trump) and then, horror of horrors, Trump won partially 'cos a few too many people did what you did.

By they way, I'm mostly playing with you. I quite like your posts even if I disagree with your take on this issue.

I appreciate your last statement there. It takes a bit of my irritation out of my response.

The thing is, I don't actually blame Clinton all that much. I think she lacks oratorical and social skills, and there are many things that I dislike about her. I think she said some incredibly thoughtless things... but I also think that her thoughtless things are likely a true reflection of her beliefs. I think it highly likely that she takes the same fundamental view that Skeptical Ginger does: that anyone who voted for Trump didn't vote for her is a horrible odious person that deserves to be treated with contempt.

My largest complaint is with democrats in general. It's with Clinton's supporters. It's with the approach that was used by them during the campaign, and is being continued now. One of my complaints is that it is overall offensive and poor behavior.

But my largest complaint is that it is ineffective. It is a bad strategy.

ETA: Correction to better reflect my actual sentiment noted in blue.

 

[Joe Random]

<...>
Trump didn't actually criticize any americans directly. He criticized non-citizens who could be cast as threats to the average american. He criticized groups of people who can easily be spun as being a threat to citizens, both physically and economically. What he didn't do was actually criticize american citizens and cast them as unworthy and incapable of saving.

Actually one minor quibble here. Trump did in fact criticism some Americans directly. He routinely dumped all over the press, the intelligence community, and was less than cordial toward the Khan family. I'm still in shock that that last one, combined with the crap he said about McCain, didn't push more military / veterans away from him.

 

[Giz]

Those questions were for Emily's Cat.

Questions? They were assertions of dishonesty!

Have you looked at POTUS Trump's blunders this week? Do you need more time to recognize what has happened?

Here's what you keep missing - this is not about Trump being a good choice. (I agree that Clinton was a safer/saner choice than him.) The point is: instead of reaching out across the aisle to build a broad coalition, you are lashing out with scorn and invective. If you care about the country, this is a time to start winning back the states that were lost. To do that, your sales pitch shouldn't be "you deplorable scum bags shouldn't get a vote!!"... even if you feel that way, even if you think that is justified... it's not going to make things better.

 

[NoahFence]

And what approach is that?

That we find repulsive a man who would disrespect literally every group except for Russia, and that we found out more people in America were like minded to that pile of excrement than we thought?

 

[TragicMonkey]

But my largest complaint is that it is ineffective. It is a bad strategy.

And what is the winning strategy? You keep suggesting it's "reaching out" and "being respectful".

1. Who won this election?
2. In what ways did he or she demonstrate "being respectful"? Was it when they mocked a disabled reporter? Boasted of "grabbing pussies"? Suggested a woman was "bleeding out of her wherever?" Said Mexicans were "rapists and criminals"?

It is either insanity or hypocrisy to continually claim that the "winning strategy" is X when the winner did precisely the opposite of X.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yup, but if you didn't vote Clinton then you facilitated Trump's win.

Not at all. At least not in my state. WA was so incredibly solidly blue, with a zero chance of going red, that I can confidently say I did not contribute to Trump's win in any fashion whatsoever.

I was actually completely shocked when I woke up the next morning and he had won. I didn't even watch the election, as far as I was concerned, he hadn't an ice cube's chance in hell. I spent the next week waiting for the punchline.

Well, I also spent the next week being appalled by the magnitude of hatred and contempt being indiscriminately leveled at conservatives. I'm still a bit shocked by the complete lack of empathy and consideration being shown by the party that I have traditionally associated with compassion and a willingness to fairly consider the perspective of others.

 

[Bob001]

....
But he did pick up more states in the EC by being nasty than Clinton picked up by being either nice or nasty.
....

Michael Moore famously predicted before the election that Trump would win. First on his list of reasons is the bitterness felt by ordinary workers who suffered the collapse of the Rust Belt economy, and who hold Democrats and Republicans equally responsible. Trump offered them what looked like a lifeline; Clinton gave them a sneer. And here we are.
http://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

Yeah, no. That's my translation of what Ethan Thane Athen (to whom I was responding) interpreted her message as:

Yeah I get that, though you took it further than I was saying. Being careful who you associate with is not specifically saying you are as bad as them but that you may be lending them undeserved credence or respectability, that in joining with them, you may be helping them take forward some views you may not particularly agree with just because you overlap in some other area. It was an exhortation that, yeah, we know you're hurting but joining with those people is not the way to go 'cos that's not who you are.

Got distorted by the media into 'Oh my god she insulted some people' despite it being meagre fare compared to the stuff Trump was coming out with.

As stated though, I'm more than happy to insult everyone who voted Trump and many if not all those who voted 'not Clinton'.

 

[newyorkguy]

Here's part of the PBS interview Wednesday night with Kellyanne Conway. About Trump and the media:

• Woodruff: "Today, in The New York Times...White House chief strategist, Steve Bannon, said...the media is — quote — in his words, “the opposition party,” and that it should — quote — “keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while.” Does the president share that view?"
  
  
• Conway: "What [Bannon] is saying there is, there’s no evidence that anybody in the media learned anything from this election. There’s no head that’s rolled. There’s no division that said, wow, we really screwed this up by stating as fact that Hillary Clinton was going to win, and that she was going to take the House and the Senate with her."

Link

Woodruff went on to suggest that what the media had done was report the polling that mostly showed Clinton ahead. Conway said she wants a "fair and free" press, implying we don't have one now.