Why voters are ok with Trump’s endless lies

wv wrote:

Well, I’d like to see Scientists study why Democrat-voters are ok with voting for murderous Imperialists, election after election.

Wonder why no American Scientists wonder about ‘that’ ?

w
v

The thing is, WV, Trump’s lies are in addition to those you mention. They don’t replace them, lie for lie. He’s actually piling on new ones on top of the old imperialism, empire, murder, environmental devastation lies. And his deeds are in addition to the status quo actions linked to those lies.

It would be an entirely different situation, requiring an entirely different response, if Trump did his usual lies while reversing the old order, while fighting for the poor, ramping down empire, saving the environment, etc. etc.

He’s actually made things far worse on the status quo issues like war, peace, incarceration, corporate control of society, inequality, health care, the earth . . . and on and on.

In addition to; not in replacement of.

___

Ariely had a really interesting study years ago about Americans’ view of inequality. He showed how large majorities aren’t aware how bad things are here, and actually think we’re more like Sweden in our levels. In blind tests, they consistently chose Swedish levels of inequality as the ideal, too. Of course, Americans wouldn’t pick Sweden if they knew the country’s name beforehand. They’d choose to good old US of A.

I agree with pretty much all of that, WV, and I share your frustration.

Unfortunately, Americans have to actually seek out books and articles to counter the myths we get from TV, elected officials and all too much of the status quo media.

Recent books I’ve read especially deal with what you’re saying — the underneath:

The End of the Myth, by Greg Grandin

Books

How to Hide an Empire, by Daniel Immerwahr

Books

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, by David Treuer
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/316457/the-heartbeat-of-wounded-knee-by-david-treuer/

I wish everyone would read the above, and a host of others I’ve mentioned in the past. But 99% of the country never will.

So what’s the answer? We leftists are going to have to find a way to get our message out via “popular” channels, especially TV. And not just “niche” channels. It’s got to be mainstreamed.

If the far-right can do it — and they have, tragically — why can’t we?

Yeah, I ordered a couple of grandin’s books because you talked about him.
But i got Fordlandia, and Empire’s Workshop.

Btw, is it fair to say, Donald Trump just sets you off in some way that no other national american politician has, in the last 40 years or so?

We both agree he’s a monster but I just get the impression with you, its the fact that he’s a lying-weasel-monster AND its also personal somehow. Yes? No?

For whatever reason, the thing that sets me off ’emotionally’ is probly…liberal-capitalist-Dems. They make me crazy. I am able to control myself around them, but if they ever heard my internal dialogue….

w
v

wv wrote:

Yeah, I ordered a couple of grandin’s books because you talked about him.
But i got Fordlandia, and Empire’s Workshop.

Btw, is it fair to say, Donald Trump just sets you off in some way that no other national american politician has, in the last 40 years or so?

We both agree he’s a monster but I just get the impression with you, its the fact that he’s a lying-weasel-monster AND its also personal somehow. Yes? No?

For whatever reason, the thing that sets me off ’emotionally’ is probly…liberal-capitalist-Dems. They make me crazy. I am able to control myself around them, but if they ever heard my internal dialogue….

w
v

Trump does tick me off like no other. That said, I couldn’t stand a long line of presidents, but for different reasons. I was far, far less interested in politics during the Reagan era, but I detested him, his policies and the crooks he surrounded himself with. But I detested him primarily because of his actions as president, not necessarily on some personal level. Didn’t really think much of him, one way or another, on those grounds.

Bush triggered me on a personal and policy level, and got me to think a lot more about politics than I wanted to. Hated his policies, especially the invasion of Iraq. No one before Dubya provoked such a visceral response for me.

Didn’t like Clinton at the time. Thought his policies were “meh.” Now I see them as far more destructive and par for the empire’s course.

Obama? Liked him on a personal level. Didn’t like his policies. Too conservative for me. More of the same empire’s course. Clinton and Obama: two peas in a pod on policy and status quo/empire stuff.

nittany ram wrote:

wv wrote:

Well, I’d like to see Scientists study why Democrat-voters are ok with voting for murderous Imperialists, election after election.

Wonder why no American Scientists wonder about ‘that’ ?

w
v

The study wasn’t a Dem vs Rep thing. It wasn’t about the voting habits of Republicans. It was about something very specific, ie Trump supporters. It wanted to find out why Trump supporters remain loyal despite gaffs and lies that would have sunk any other Republican candidate in history. This study was conducted before he was elected.

And there have been all sorts of studies that look at why people vote the way they do. I think what you’re really asking is, “Why Democrat-voters don’t know they are voting for murderous imperialists?”

Well, you already know the answer to that, Squeaky. 😉

If it was done before the election, have they followed up on that?

His lie count in his first 1000 days was more than 13,000.

That’s not a misprint. More than 13,000. No president has ever come within light years of that. I’d bet no other human has.

nittany ram wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

If it was done before the election, have they followed up on that?

His lie count in his first 1000 days was more than 13,000.

That’s not a misprint. More than 13,000. No president has ever come within light years of that. I’d bet no other human has.

I don’t know if there’s been any follow-up. I have seen the 13000 lie count before.

My question is, can the “Trump Effect” work for any right-wing, populist, presidential candidate in the future, or was there something unique to Trump and/or the particular circumstances that exist at this moment in time that will be hard for future candidates to copy?

It can’t be deliberately copied.

Anybody who blustered like Trump as a calculated strategy would reveal himself as doing it as a calculated strategy. A significant appeal of Trump is that he is a completely genuine fraud. His is honestly dishonest. He believes what he says when he says it, and he believes what he says when he flatly contradicts himself in the very next sentence. And he is never rattled by facts or opinions. Also something nobody can fake. The guy has a 100% conviction in his own absolute infallibility.

He can do that because of his personality disorder. You can’t Fake that.

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

His lie count in his first 1000 days was more than 13,000.

That’s not a misprint. More than 13,000. No president has ever come within light years….

========================

Well, see, I dunno about that. Sure, Trump tells these surreal lies (and I agree with zooey about the narcissism thing), but isn’t it true Obama/Clinton told just as many lies? I mean every single day Obama/Clinton were conducting their CIA/NSA-bloody policies, they were lying to the American people. The CIA is based on Lies. People dont think of it that way, because its all been normalized.

I just think the American Corporate-Government “IS” a Lie, at this point. Look at all the Coups, and interference by the US-CIA-Government. Was Obama/Clinton truly ‘honest’ about any of it? No. Because they internalized the notion that when “we” do it, its for the good of the world. The Dem/Reps have supported every kind of death squad you can think of. They’ve murdered all kinds of socialists all over the globe. Are they ever honest about any of it? No.

So all these ‘lie counters’ i see all the time seem silly to me. They only count a certain kind of lie. But there’s all kinds of lies.

w
v

Trump and the GOP are continuing the same policies you mentioned above, and escalating them. They haven’t rolled any of them back. They haven’t rolled back the empire or its effects. Trump’s 13,000 lies are on top of the status quo lies you mention, the “underneath” — a term I like, btw.

The lie counters aren’t calling Trump on stuff they ignored when Obama, Clinton and Bush were in power. They’re giving Trump and the Republicans a pass on all of that too. That hasn’t changed. The CIA is still doing its thing, but Trump controls it. His people lead all the Intel agencies, the military, etc. And he gave the military hundreds of billions more in funding, which means the Intel community has far more funding to harm others. The military in America actually does more surveillance and special ops work than the CIA, and the CIA is at least as powerful under Trump as it was before.

As for my fellow socialists. No president has ever been so vicious toward we leftists. No president has ever been as outspoken in his hatred of the left. And Trump surrounded himself with hard-right ideologues who echo that hatred. As an unapologetic socialist, I see him trying his damndest to demonize us, as if this were the 1950s.

Again, Trump inherited your “underneath” and hasn’t curbed one iota of its power, or exposed any of it. Those 13,000 lies are in addition to the status quo ante.

On second and third thought, I need to revise a coupla things.

Yeah, Trump has changed some of the old order. But not in any positive manner. He’s decimated the diplomatic corp, for instance. And while it, too, is a part of the empire, it’s the part with the most potential for good, because it’s the part that can actually prevent wars.

First step was to install Tillerson, the Exxon CEO, to radically slash staffing and promote more fossil fuel dependence. Second step was to move Pompeo, the CIA chief, over to state, where he’s facilitated Trump’s formerly secret parallel track, headed by Giuliani, Kushner and Ivanka. And while the State Department has pretty much always been used as a way to evangelize for capitalism, it’s never before been so blatantly on the take for a president and his family. It’s never before been so brazenly and personally avaricious on the side, on the sly.

Other government departments have gone through a similar hollowing out, like the EPA, with fossil fuel CEOs and lobbyists at the helm of agencies that once tried to curb their excesses. The inmates now run the asylum directly. No middlemen, no wait, no fuss. All for profit, for themselves, Trump, his family and his oligarchical friends, all the time.

Yeah, the regulatory apparatus has been chipped away, bit by bit, especially after the 1970s. This didn’t start with Trump. But there was at least some semblance of roadblocks and layers between the government and the oligarchs previously. Trump basically just put the oligarchs directly in charge.

Drain the swamp? He filled it up and hired the richest alligators he could find and bragged about how amazing everything was.

Bottom line, for me: Trump inherited an empire. He’s done nothing to reduce its power to harm, in any sector, anywhere. He’s actually doubled down on that harm, especially to the environment, migrants, people of color, religious minorities, the poor. And he’s added new powers for private interests along side the old ones, and is directly profiting from this. Those 13,000 lies are on top of what he inherited.