Donald Trump - MAGAtwat news and discussion

[spring-peeper]

Pretty much the latter.

Exactly how and why did you establish that all those people are all below average when it comes to their intelligence level?

 

[breadandcircuse]

OK. So 77 million people are below normal intelligence. What, to coin a phrase, is to be done?

I would say educate them, but they don't want facts and reality. They just want to live in their cult of the orange thing. I don't know how you get through to them when they don't want to hear the truth.

 

[danny la rouge]

Not necessarily stupid need not be a relative term.

Well I was trying to establish what breadandcircuse meant by the term, so I offered that as an option and they said “pretty much [that]”. So I have to assume that is what’s meant.

If it isn’t, then as Bernie might say, I am asking again, what?

 

[breadandcircuse]

Exactly how and why did you establish that all those people are all below average when it comes to their intelligence level?

They worship the thing. Enough said on their intelligence levels.

 

[Serge Forward]

OK. So 77 million people are below normal intelligence. What, to coin a phrase, is to be done?

Not much you can do if you write off a sizable chunk of humanity as dumbells. If the argument was about people's ignorance or being duped, I'd have a bit more sympathy with it. Capitalism breeds and encourages ignorance, and relative ignorance (especially of our own class interests) is what keeps the machine ticking over. Some parts of the US have developed the cultivation of ignorance into a fine art but no country's working class is immune either.

 

[spring-peeper]

.

 

[Orang Utan]

They worship the thing. Enough said on their intelligence levels.

I hear the tinkling of broken glass. Are you experiencing a sudden draft?

 

[emanymton]

Well I was trying to establish what breadandcircuse meant by the term, so I offered that as an option and they said “pretty much [that]”. So I have to assume that is what’s meant.

If it isn’t, then as Bernie might say, I am asking again, what?

There is certainly something that needs to be looked at to explain why people vote for Trump. If for the sake of argument we just go with they are dumb, it doesn't automatically follow from that that they would support Trump but understanding why they do support Trump is part of getting them to stop.

 

[weltweit]

I think some Americans can be forgiven if they get a lot of their political inputs from social media. When I took a look at some US social media during the election I was horrified by the mass of misinformation there was out there.

I know people in the UK that swear by stuff they found on Facebook. It isn't just Americans.

 

[redsquirrel]

What are they doing to make things worse for you all (if that won't identify who you actually work for)?

I work in HE so pretty typical at the moment

• 10% or more of the workforce will be made redundant
• voluntary redundancy payments are worse in the past and the process is worse, so compulsory redundancies will be much higher
• changes to workload which will increase the amount of teaching and admin most academic staff will have to do (in addition to picking up the wok of that 10% that have lost their jobs)
• change to promotion policy to make it worse
• changes to management structure to silo people even more and provide more control for the bosses
• forcing people onto new inferior contracts, including teaching only contracts

And of course continuing the decade plus cut on real terms pay

 

[redsquirrel]

It depends how you measure it but these people basically say (for various reasons) you'd be wrong.

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/535239-how-trump-fueled-economic-inequality-in-america/

As Trump and Harris Tout Their Economic Records, What Do the Numbers Say?

Wealth inequality cannot be attributed to either a Biden or Trump presidency — it is an endemic problem in the US.

truthout.org

Both make the point that,

The issue cannot be attributed to neither a Biden nor Trump presidency; wealth inequality is an endemic problem in the U.S. Since 1979, household income growth has skewed heavily toward the top.

How does that show I'm wrong? Doesn't it agree with my point that the rise in inequality preceded Trump?
Hard to get up to date figures but greatest rise in the Gini co-efficent happened under Reagan/Bush, which is not to say did not Trump oversee an increase in inequality he did. But at a lower rate than 80-84 or in the early 90s

 

[hitmouse]

I would say educate them, but they don't want facts and reality. They just want to live in their cult of the orange thing. I don't know how you get through to them when they don't want to hear the truth.

By the way, do you think Spoonamore is a reliable source, and if so, what is your estimation of his trustworthiness based on? Do you think he's right about the 2004 election being rigged?

 

[redsquirrel]

Voter turnout is not fantastically high in the UK and not really on the increase. What's further key is how engaged they are beyond the headlines and punchy slogans. We're busier than ever, and our attentions spans in this increasingly fast moving western lives, not exactly growing. I think you're at odds with reality here slightly, if, you are suggesting there's perfectly enough engagement of the public in politics, in the detail, in voting. I would equally challenge that apathy is not a big issue in the UK. It most certainly is, and it also isn't on the decline, therefore de facto it's an issue needing addressing.

There's a communication problem here. I'm saying that politics is not about parties, voting and similar chaff, that politics is about people interacting with each other, the relationships of labour, capital and state and you're telling me that lower voter turnout indicates that people are not engaged with politics. I'm suggesting that voting isn't politics.

(As an aside while turnout was down in the 2024 US presidential election it was still high in historical terms so by your argument that would so increasing engagement of people in politics.)

As for making an argument that Labour and the Tories are worse for delivering inequality than Reform. At that point I again question your good faith here. Reform have obviously never been in power. The vast majority of the time Labour or Conservatives have run the country. So of course only they can have been the worst for inequality, because they are the only ones to have been able to have done it.

Yeah - that is the point. The huge damage done to society over the past 40 years hasn't been carried out by the hard right it has been Neo-liberalism that has created such increase in inequality.
And that is the politics that people understand, they understand that they are worse off than their parents, that their kids will be worse off than them.

I'm not up here saying Labour are the solution, but we're not going to make headway by telling people they are all bad, all exactly the same, there's no levels, are only hope whatsoever is PR and X party or X party. That's a) too complicated a message, b) depressing, c) unrealistic a target, and d) trying to achieve step 37 in your aims when steps 3+4 aren't even remotely close to being achieved.

I'm not sure what you think you are arguing against here.
I've linked to a real strategy developed by long term anti-fascists, one that specifically does not pin its hopes on a political party of change in the voting system, but instead is based on building working class power to challenge both the hard right and liberalism.

 

[kabbes]

I would say educate them, but they don't want facts and reality. They just want to live in their cult of the orange thing. I don't know how you get through to them when they don't want to hear the truth.

Indeed, it’s a conundrum alright.

 

[Dystopiary]

I would say educate them, but they don't want facts and reality. They just want to live in their cult of the orange thing. I don't know how you get through to them when they don't want to hear the truth.

It's not really possible to be educated out of being unintelligent, so if stupidity is the problem, education wouldn't be any kind of solution.

 

[danny la rouge]

It's not really possible to be educated out of being unintelligent, so if stupidity is the problem, education wouldn't be any kind of solution.

Exactly.

 

[danny la rouge]

(Although the concept of intelligence isn’t straightforward. But that’s one reason I wanted to get to grips with the sense in which the words stupidity, stupid and unintelligent were being used).

 

[Wilf]

Ahh i see stalwarts can meander but if i post a picture of bellypork thats the colour of Trump i will be in the wrong . Its a sin and a shame what the worlds coming too.

If I'm ever in a prog rock band, that will be the name of our first album.

 

[teuchter]

If I'm ever in a prog rock band, that will be the name of our first album.

 

[Derek S-H]

Hi Kris. I think you’re misunderstanding redsquirrel He’s asking how you’re defining “politics”. To me, politics is the sphere of acting in groups, in communities, in the processes of decision making over our future and acting together (or not) to that end. It might involve Parliamentary party politics, but it need not.

I believe, from my experience, that representative democracy is neither representative nor democracy. That’s a point of view and you may not share it. However, whether you do or not is not really germain here.

What matters is that when we become in local activity away from the ballot box. In the workplace or the community, in base union organising, in repairing a local path, in organising a community hall community, in arranging a breakfast club, in organising social events involving refugees and others in the community in a cultural exchange of food and music perhaps. Whatever form it takes, through those experiences your community will start to repair its natural solidarity; the practical sense of community, of mutual aid, that has been eroded by decades of neoliberal attrition. And that renewed solidarity will lead on to other things.

This sort of constructive self-activity is a demonstration that the power we have is derived from us, from our communities, from the social impulse inherent in our species. That power isn’t someone else’s to give: it is ours to use now. We don’t need anyone’s permission to use it.

Their power over us depends upon us being passive. That’s why society’s structures depend upon us using the “correct channels”. It saps our power by putting in place the expectation that our options consist in asking other people to do things for us, and waiting to see if requests are fulfilled.

Those processes are political. Both the self management and the passivity of electoral politics. And, in my view and experience, the former are more empowering than voting once every four years. But even if you disagree, you have to admit that politics is much more than “what political parties do”.

Are you referring to transactions?

Because, it could be argued, we do transact with each other still on a daily basis, but this has now been defined and formulated as purely monetary in exchange.

We are not expected to do anything for no reward, there always has to be a payoff, there always has to be a price, otherwise it has no value.

We have all become customers or consumers based on our ability to pay. Public services are not valued, they have to provide "value for money" or "value to the taxpayer", despite the fact that we are all taxpayers, even benefits' claimants and foodbank users.

This is an ideological position that has entered our everyday lives and been normalised, that nothing in life is for free. And the likes of Trump and Farage constantly promote this, even regularly requesting for donations to fund their campaigns whilst claiming to represent ordinary people. Same as Tommy Manynames.

There's political action and political awareness. The likes of JSO and Insulate Britain practise political action, but anyone can practise political awareness - to examine and explore what a Party or individual's motivations are and what outcomes they seek. And, to me, the Right are utterly transparent in what they care about - money and power for themselves. Why would anyone wish to vote for that? Where do you fit into that plan?