Objectively intelligent.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

This is not very realistic. No one is going to visit Slave in the old folks home.

You aren't Pai-curious?

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Paid off by whom? I'm pretty much the only person here nakedly saying that a good bit of the hand wringing about this guy is folks talking their books. Ya think that's a kumbaya comment?

That's what's going on almost everywhere among the people who have brains, isn't it? "Oh shit... This fucking guy is fucking with trade, which fucks with finance, which fucks with profits that accrue to people like me. He's risking the future income of all but the very tippy tippy top of the top 10%."

The desperately poor are too damn busy trying to survive to write articles critiquing Trump. It's all done by an educated class, the one to which you and I belong. You know these people. They know that questioning neoliberal policies is a dangerous heresy to a system that butters their bread. This explains why you'll rarely hear a poor union steward griping about Trump. (To the contrary, they'll privately vote for him, because his economy and his tax plan has led to an uptick in building projects that profit them.) You won't hear a home health aide cry about Trump. Your plumber won't decry him. Your dentist won't. Nor will any real estate agent.

Who rants about him loudest? Blue state urban and suburban professionals and govt workers. Why is that? Is it because they're the smartest? The "elites"? No. (They like to think that, asserting that Trumpkins are all bitter anti-intellectuals.) But no, they're neither elites nor serious intellectuals. The real elites are far above them on the class ladder (and they laugh at them). It's because these blue and purple state upper middle class folk have skin in Trump's game. He fucks with their taxes. He potentially imperils with their livelihood. And he's dumb.

Oh yes... He's dumb. You cannot argue that. Cunning, ruthless, but also incredibly dumb. (He's winning everything because he's impossible to defend against. It's like playing basketball with a 7'1 guy who's drunk and on crystal meth. Shooting from perimeter? Driving? About to elbow you in the face? Throwing a skyhook from half court? WTF is next?)

Being dumb, he offends people who think being smart, and holding the values de jour of folks who think the New Yorker is well written, is of paramount importance. That he succeeds infuriates them.

I can say this because he infuriates me. I can only tolerate the man because I look at him as fascinating proof that being smart doesn't really matter all that much in politics or most businesses. He's our Chauncey Gardiner... And it's so comically crazy, he becomes tolerable. But I know people who know him, and I've even met some of his family, and I Would Not Be Interested in Spending Time With Him. At All. Nor would you.

So if you think I'm paid off and buying into the critiques I read here, I'm not. I agree with some, I disagree with others. I'm not aggressively for or against any candidate, really. My only interest is disintegrating all pretexts, of candidates and their voters.

Or maybe people just don't like the fact that he's a racist piece of shit and that . . . oh wait, I'm sorry. You had your tongue up Slave's ass, and I'm rudely interrupting. Carry on.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

That's my point. He's not helping the professional classes. And we're pissed about that. We're used to having a more robust SALT deduction. A lot of us were paid from, perhaps dependent upon, revenues from supply chains that have now been upset.

And we don't like very much that we're not respected as much as we were. We told everyone he was going to ruin everything (I believed that). Turns out the world didn't end, and the economy has actually done well under him. (Credit a considerable amount of that to Obama, but credit it also quite significantly to Trump.) ...Despite his doing a bunch of things we said would ruin it.

We liked being Brahmin. And now we're shown that a common lunatic can do all sorts of things from which we'd recoil and drive the economy even higher.

Kinda reminds me of Reagan. One can argue, of course, that like Reagan we're just running up huge debts. That's a good critique. But the reality seems to be, and you've said this many times yourself, public debt isn't a big deal. You're in good company, with Larry Summers and Joseph Stiglitz. If it was a good idea when they floated it years ago, why isn't it a good idea now? (Lemme guess... Because they said it should be done via govt spending, stimulus, rather than tax cuts. I'm not sure. Govt spending hasn't historically primed the pump very well since the New Deal, and even then it was temporary. Tax cuts, OTOH, seem to work. It's crazy, I know. But we're in crazy times, and we live grossly beyond our means anyway, so why not go Strangelove. Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Deficit?)

Again, perhaps poorly stated the first time, he's not doing anything that's changing (for better or worse) the prospects of the the professional classes. Change the rules and we just advise on (or work around) the new rules. We're fine. I've heard exactly zero of the people in the groups you're talking about claim that 45 is hurting them personally aside, I guess, from reducing SALT deductions. And I don't remember when last someone mentioned that. Personally, they just put out a whole new set of regs for me to read up on and advise clients about.

I do, however, hear people complain about all the terrible, mean-spirited and cruel shit he does.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You aren't Pai-curious?

No, I've dealt with enough horrors in this life.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

No, I've dealt with enough horrors in this life.

I met her for drinks one night. It was actually interesting/fun.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

How does Joe Biden beat Trump if he can't beat Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

How does Joe Biden beat Trump if he can't beat Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg?

The answer is the flip of seb’s reaction to your commercial.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

How does Joe Biden beat Trump if he can't beat Bernie Sanders or Pete Buttigieg?

With Bloomberg’s financial assistance? By bringing Pete on board as VP?

[Adder]

There are no swing voters.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Adder

There are no swing voters.

Predicting one election accurately gave us "538 is God," gave us it's prediction on election day "1) Hil has a 75% chance of winning," gave us "it is safe to vote 3rd party cuz point 1."

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Predicting one election accurately gave us "538 is God," gave us it's prediction on election day "1) Hil has a 75% chance of winning," gave us "it is safe to vote 3rd party cuz point 1."

We should all unite in derision of third party voters.

What total fucking morons.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

We should all unite in derision of third party voters.

What total fucking morons.

Are we really doing this again?

You can call them selfish, or privileged, but you can't call all of them morons. You could only call all of them morons if they cared about the things you care about and which anger you about Trump and nevertheless took a risk of enabling Trump to win.

People who have a different laddering of values than you aren't necessarily morons. They are people who do not share your views.

If a third party voter isn't much concerned one way or the other, that person is not a moron. If a third party voter didn't like Trump and voted third party but wound up getting a benefit from Trump's policies, that person is not a moron for voting third party. That person may, however, be dumb for not voting for Trump.

ETA: A Jill Stein voter would be a moron because this person would care deeply about numerous social issues on which Trump is terrible. That I will grant you without qualification. But again, this is not every third party voter. If the result in 2016 didn't matter much in either direction to a voter and the voter voted third party, or just stayed home, that person is not a moron. That person is, again, simply not on the same page as you.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Are we really doing this again?

You can call them selfish, or privileged, but you can't call all of them morons. You could only call all of them morons if they cared about the things you care about and which anger you about Trump and nevertheless took a risk of enabling Trump to win.

People who have a different laddering of values than you aren't necessarily morons. They are people who do not share your views.

If a third party voter isn't much concerned one way or the other, that person is not a moron. If a third party voter didn't like Trump and voted third party but wound up getting a benefit from Trump's policies, that person is not a moron for voting third party. That person may, however, be dumb for not voting for Trump.

ETA: A Jill Stein voter would be a moron because this person would care deeply about numerous social issues on which Trump is terrible. That I will grant you without qualification. But again, this is not every third party voter. If the result in 2016 didn't matter much in either direction to a voter and the voter voted third party, or just stayed home, that person is not a moron. That person is, again, simply not on the same page as you.

I didn't post to hit you, instead the idea of anointing someone based upon one cycle's prediction. "Hil is going to win anyway" was a common safety net for those voters.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

You can call them selfish, or privileged, but you can't call all of them morons.

Yeah, we can, especially when they justify their vote as "not mattering" and wind up wildly wrong.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Are we really doing this again?

You can call them selfish, or privileged, but you can't call all of them morons. You could only call all of them morons if they cared about the things you care about and which anger you about Trump and nevertheless took a risk of enabling Trump to win.

People who have a different laddering of values than you aren't necessarily morons. They are people who do not share your views.

If a third party voter isn't much concerned one way or the other, that person is not a moron. If a third party voter didn't like Trump and voted third party but wound up getting a benefit from Trump's policies, that person is not a moron for voting third party. That person may, however, be dumb for not voting for Trump.

ETA: A Jill Stein voter would be a moron because this person would care deeply about numerous social issues on which Trump is terrible. That I will grant you without qualification. But again, this is not every third party voter. If the result in 2016 didn't matter much in either direction to a voter and the voter voted third party, or just stayed home, that person is not a moron. That person is, again, simply not on the same page as you.

You can argue they aren't morons they just did a moronic thing.

But not the above.

Your penance is a thousand Our Fathers and a few thousand Hail Marys.