Where is the Common Ground?

[ahhell]

A Democratic President behaving as a national embarrassment on the world stage (sucking up to Putin at Helsinki, caging children, kowtowing to Kim, etc., etc., etc.) would suffer serious pushback from his Party and voters. But with Trump's supporters it's "America, **** yeah!"

The Dems ousted a Senator of theirs based on a single (adult) person's claims of sexual impropriety, but the Repubs elect "Grab 'em by the pussy!" Trump while he was also standing accused by more than a dozen women, *and* they tried to elect another creep for Senator accused of molesting teens.

Indeed. Where's the common ground?

Personally, I think this overstates the rationality of Dems. You are probably right that there would be more democratic opposition to someone as loony as Trump but there would be a lot that got fully on board the crazy train. Just look at polling on American attitudes towards Russia. The parties basically switched opinion because of of Trump. (less so among dems admittedly.) There's also plenty of research that clearly shows that both liberals/dems and conservatives/reps will have more or less positive opinions on politics and ideas based solely on who they think states those opinions.



https://youarenotsosmart.com/transcripts/transcript-tribal-psychology/

There is there there’s a lot of scientists and Geoffrey Cohen — this is my favorite experiment that was ever done — he gave people a position on welfare and experimentally altered it so that either the Republicans or Democrats were saying basically the same thing on welfare. It’s an unknown issue, right? It’s welfare. And what he found was that he could get people to change their position on welfare, 100 percent, all the way to the other side of the spectrum of policy, just based on what party they were told supported that position. And the crazy thing is that after they said they supported that position, he asked them why they supported that position, and they didn’t say, “Because my party does.” They came up with other reasons. So, after being experimentally induced into holding a position that they actually didn’t agree with, they then came up with reasons that they thought they agreed with that.

Again, the common ground is we all do this to some extent. It makes me quite sad that folks on a skeptics forum are so willing to ignore some basic lessons of skepticism because they hate the other tribe so much.

 

[WilliamSeger]

Bingo. Stop paying attention to Twitter, and politics starts seeming a lot more normal.

********, you have to stop paying attention, period.

 

[The Shrike]

Believe it or not, a lot of dems, probably most would line up behind a crazy loon if he managed to get elected too.

But what would that look like? We have a crazy right wing person now being enabled by ostensibly less crazy right wing people. Would a crazy left wing president like . . . rely too heavily on science to inform policy? Would there be too little discrimination?

 

[Spock Jenkins]

Anyone who saw any seasons of The Apprentice with Omarosa on them, I have to think, was completely baffled that he would hire her in the first place. The only reason she appeared to be on that show was the ratings her train wreck behavior drew in. The fact that she went all “Omarosa” and recorded things she shouldn’t have and is now attempting to capitalize on them should come as a shock to no one.

Trump really shouldn’t have a negative thing to say about her or the situation. He basically invited it. I don’t know how he thought it would end any differently.

Interesting experiment, ahhell. And no surprise. Reminds me of all the people willing to sign a petition to end the sufferage of women or to ban dihydrogen monoxide.

 

[C_Felix]

Party before country.

 

[theprestige]

I thought there would be common ground agreeing that Trump is a colossal buffoon, and that the American institutions of government are more than robust enough to survive a buffoon administration. Boy, was I wrong about that.

Not wrong about the strength of American institutions - they're doing just fine, obviously. But wrong about half the country being able to comprehend this.

 

[acbytesla]

I thought there would be common ground agreeing that Trump is a colossal buffoon, and that the American institutions of government are more than robust enough to survive a buffoon administration. Boy, was I wrong about that.

Not wrong about the strength of American institutions - they're doing just fine, obviously. But wrong about half the country being able to comprehend this.

I'm not sure they are. We'll see after Trump fires Mueller.

 

[The_Animus]

There is no common ground.

The fields were burned and the ground salted because that'll show those libtards!

 

[Fudbucker]

Bingo. Stop paying attention to Twitter, and politics starts seeming a lot more normal.

We're supposed to not pay attention to official statements from our own President? Do you know how loony that sounds?

 

[theprestige]

I'm not sure they are. We'll see after Trump fires Mueller.

The country has survived a Civil War with its institutions intact. Nothing that's happened in the past two years - not the tweets, not the gaffes, not the racism, not even the Russian meddling (such as it was) - rises anywhere near that level.

The irony is that the Russian objective was to get Americans to give up on their national institutions. You're the one who's giving up, not me. I'm not the Russian collaborator, here.

 

[TragicMonkey]

We're supposed to not pay attention to official statements from our own President? Do you know how loony that sounds?

Well, if you ignore what he says and does, and how he acts, and his past actions, and his proposals for future actions, and the input of everybody who has ever worked with or encountered him, why then Trumb seems an okay guy! I can't see why you can't overcome partisan bias to admit it.

 

[TragicMonkey]

The country has survived a Civil War with its institutions intact. Nothing that's happened in the past two years - not the tweets, not the gaffes, not the racism, not even the Russian meddling (such as it was) - rises anywhere near that level.

The irony is that the Russian objective was to get Americans to give up on their national institutions. You're the one who's giving up, not me. I'm not the Russian collaborator, here.

Yes, the FCC, ICE, FBI, CIA, NPS, and Depts of Labor, Education, and Energy suffered no damage from the Civil War. Neither did NASA, or NATO, or the UN.

 

[theprestige]

Yes, the FCC, ICE, FBI, CIA, NPS, and Depts of Labor, Education, and Energy suffered no damage from the Civil War. Neither did NASA, or NATO, or the UN.

We might actually have some common ground here, but with the sarcasm(?) it's hard to tell. Also, I think you may have misread my post. But again, with the sarcasm(?) it's hard to tell.

Can you try again without the sarcasm? Just your counter-argument as such?

 

[Lurch]

which Senator was that??

Forgot Al Franken already? I guess the ongoing battles to defend the current Administration's repugnance by ingesting, inventing and investing in all manner of whackadoodle whatabouts does place limits on the amount of information that can be retained for quick recall.

 

[ahhell]

But what would that look like? We have a crazy right wing person now being enabled by ostensibly less crazy right wing people.

Would a crazy left wing president like . . . rely too heavily on science to inform policy?

Definitely not, they would rely on science when it supports their pre-existing beliefs or fit the narrative of their tribe. I strongly suggest you listen to the podcast I linked to above, or read the transcript.

Would there be too little discrimination?

IDK, employment guarantees for workers or protectionist trade policies? Advocating bad policy that won't help the problem it means to solve like rent control.

I shouldn't have responded because that doesn't actually address my point, which is that the GOP is just falling for cognitive biases we all have and all fall for, just not all of us are falling quite as hard. The evidence is pretty clear on that.

 

[The Big Dog]

Forgot Al Franken already? I guess the ongoing battles to defend the current Administration's repugnance by ingesting, inventing and investing in all manner of whackadoodle whatabouts does place limits on the amount of information that can be retained for quick recall.

Al Franken? was there a typo in your post then? because you wrote a "single" claim. I assume you want to go back and fix that then?

 

[TragicMonkey]

We might actually have some common ground here, but with the sarcasm(?) it's hard to tell. Also, I think you may have misread my post. But again, with the sarcasm(?) it's hard to tell.

Can you try again without the sarcasm? Just your counter-argument as such?

My point was that America 1860s was a lot different from America 2010s. Our 'institutions' are both more powerful and more delicate. One buffoon with a phone really could trigger WWIII. It took decades of increasing hostility over a complex issue to cause the Civil War. WWIII can be caused by Trump Tweeting from his toilet in a rage over something said on Fox News.

 

[theprestige]

My point was that America 1860s was a lot different from America 2010s. Our 'institutions' are both more powerful and more delicate. One buffoon with a phone really could trigger WWIII. It took decades of increasing hostility over a complex issue to cause the Civil War. WWIII can be caused by Trump Tweeting from his toilet in a rage over something said on Fox News.

My bad. No common ground yet, after all. Unless we agree that nobody - not even you - is really taking Trump's tweets that seriously.

 

[Ziggurat]

We're supposed to not pay attention to official statements from our own President? Do you know how loony that sounds?

I don't think people should be following Twitter in general. It's a cesspit.

 

[TragicMonkey]

My bad. No common ground yet, after all. Unless we agree that nobody - not even you - is really taking Trump's tweets that seriously.

Other countries seem to be taking them seriously, as are those investigating Trump as he seems to keep making damaging admissions on Twitter. The courts also agreed that a president's Tweets are official enough to fall under recordkeeping laws.