Beschloss: Over 66 million Americans who lived through the last four years...

[Nevilledog]

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Steven Beschloss
@StevenBeschloss
Over 66 million Americans who lived through the last four years decided they wanted to give Donald Trump four more years to keep going. I don’t know what’s worse: They were successfully manipulated by propaganda or they saw exactly what Trump was doing and like it.
5:09 PM · Nov 4, 2020

[Thekaspervote]

1. I'm sure some of both

[BusyBeingBest]

2. It's horrifying--you look around and think "who are these people, really?"

I have a brother-in-law who voted for the jackass, will never think of him the same way again.

[angrychair]

3. Its 100% driven by hate

the US is a nation of hate, violence and death.

These people know that trump is now using herd immunity to kill and permanently handicap millions and voted for him anyway.

I didn't leave my country...my country left me.

[OMGWTF]

31. While actively working to take away their healthcare.

[angrychair]

36. [phone]

exactly

[warmfeet]

64. Yes, it seems so.

My realization that this was not the country I thought it was started, in earnest, in 2015 (when the orange dumpster fire announced candidacy - I actually thought it was a joke, initially - ha, ha, not very funny).

We are so far through the looking glass now that I have no idea what to compare this experience to. I have lived my entire life in a place that does not seem to exist. I will always do my best to help my fellow Democrats, Liberals and Progressives. I must admit though, that I can no longer claim to understand some of the fundamentals of this existence.

Bottom line, I live in a universe, a world, which is fundamentally, radically, different in all respects, to the people I have shared existence with for 58 years. I have no idea, none, what these people think or feel. I have zero commonality with them. How could I live here for 58 years and gain no insight into any of this?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. The line between being manipulated by propaganda

and seeing what Trump is and liking it is pretty blurry, because the propaganda itself advertised exactly what Trump is: mean, dishonest and racist. The only manipulative part of it was the claim that either despite or because of these characteristics Trump would be good for the people and the country. So I'd say both: They were manipulated into thinking Trump gives a shit about them but they knew damn well what a monster he is and they like it.

[MaryMagdaline]

6. Perfectly stated

[empedocles]

7. Again, I suggest an underrated factor is the need for cash next week may have

taken precedence over the possibility of getting too sick with the virus.

Trump wanted everyone to go to work next week.

Dems were associated with lockdowns.

[lagomorph777]

22. Trump drove people to desperation

[The Mouth]

20. Brilliant and insightful.

TY

[Evolve Dammit]

48. something about that monster side makes them feel really good. Rascists, bullies and liars. All.

[FakeNoose]

49. This! You nailed it exactly

What sad, sorry times we're living in.

I'm horrified that my 13-year-old grandson has to grow up in this atmosphere. It wasn't anything like this while we were growing up, but today's children will never understand it.

[Nasruddin]

61. So did the LP spots

The brilliant Lincoln Party ads - they showed Mr Trump & his regime as mean, dishonest, and racist.

Did they effectively act as pro=regime propaganda?

[peacebuzzard]

5. all of the above + single issue voters

I know people who are not stupid, not odd, not abrasive who are masked as a productive coherent member of society and yet...a single issue voter that overrules all other considerations.

[BusyBeingBest]

15. Yeah, I found out I have one in-law who likes Trump, and he is a smart and nice guy.

He thinks Trump is better for the economy ( ), and probably just ignores all the other un-American, nasty, cruel, degrading, awful shit that comes with the Trump administration. I am not sure how people compartmentalize like that, or why they think their support for him doesn't reflect badly on them.

[peacebuzzard]

40. 2 coworkers let their financial planners tell them how to vote.

Now that is ridiculous. But they are coworkers period. I quit discussing my views with them. I avoid them completely after work subjects are over.

[BusyBeingBest]

41. That is ridiculous, but fascinating how we are seeing

otherwise normal-seeming people completely de-couple their perceived financial interests from their moral code or religious beliefs, all for the Orange Baboon. Like people and companies who did business with Nazi Germany. It's like, yes I know this is a bad person doing bad things, but it's only business and money--I'M not participating in the bad stuff he does, so I'm still a good person.

[peacebuzzard]

44. lol. puzzling. but I can't worry about them.

I like minimal distractions in the workplace.

[Nasruddin]

62. Rationalizing

What our brains are mostly used for....

[ananda]

8. That comes to about 44% of the voting total.

It's really creepy, I know, but isn't that
about what the polls showed?

[Mr.Bill]

53. Which in this country is known as a minority.

Remind them of this constatnly.

[ananda]

54. Exactly!

They are NOT the majority!

[cstanleytech]

9. Aye, we know how vulgar and disgusting Trump is so what does it say about his supporters

is what I have been wondering as well.

[Grokenstein]

69. My overlong recommendation

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2620719

[C_U_L8R]

10. Or that they are still here and we all have to deal with them

Right now they're are working themselves into a conspiracy-riddled lather that the election is being stolen and sure as shit they will probably end up hurt some people.

[DENVERPOPS]

59. No kidding

looking at the bigger picture, they are more of a worry to this nation than anything else........

Another Major fear is how to confront the Republican Senate Majority and get anything done. They successfully thwarted anything and everything Obama and the House tried to get done. The also were still able to keep shoving thru their Federalist Republican Appeal Judges without being deterred in any way.......

[bucolic_frolic]

11. Both and they're narcissists just like Trump so only their money matters to them /nt

[ProudMNDemocrat]

12. COVID will cull this herd..

Last edited Thu Nov 5, 2020, 12:04 PM - Edit history (1)

Those who attended packed Trump rallies will regret their stupid decisions.

[area51]

23. With all due respect,

the problem is that they'll also likely infect people who didn't vote for Trump.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

27. That is true.

[llashram]

13. I believe the latter

unequivocally, given the nature of American racial division based on the skin colour of the African-American specifically.

[StarryNite]

14. tRump is a reflection of who they are and they like it.

[Texin]

16. The answer is, I'm afraid, the latter and not the former.

I will say, that Fox exists because those 66 million people and more like the propaganda and the racial and gender hostility that fuels it.

[smirkymonkey]

17. It's very depressing.

I can barely get my mind around it. I am already a cynical person, but this has shocked me to my core.

[sammythecat]

56. In my case it all began,

or I should say started to end, with the cult of Reagan as John Wayne with a twinkle in his eye. Then came Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld's rampage of destruction and death enjoyed by all. Now this. Trump opened the door and fully revealed the contemptuous stupidity, meanness, and selfishness of half of our "fellow Americans". That's a tough truth to deal with. I better learn how though. I just learned my Pa. county, Juniata, voted 87.2 percent Trump! Just awful.

[dalton99a]

18. They know exactly what Donald Trump is about.

[1plus1equals1]

19. These people haven't been manipulated

They are who they are and nothing will change that. These people blame the Democratic Party for everything that's wrong in this world including their parents not showing up for their school play because their parents were out drinking beer and shooting guns.

[dchill]

21. It's a potpourri.

[Illumination]

24. Maybe C-19 attacked their brains Nevilledog?...

[Lanius]

25. It's a mix of racial resentment, greed and pure hate

Especially hate for Democrats. I think a lot of progressives and media talking heads just don't understand how much conservatives hate progressives and how much Republicans hate Democrats. For many Republicans, the hate they have for Democrats and anything dealing with progress, equality and diversity is visceral and intense.

[czarjak]

26. "Nothing you say can change my mind"...

RIGHT next door and still WRONG and damned proud of it. Literally, facts and recorded history aren’t good enough. (I still laugh in their faces)

[BobTheSubgenius]

28. It's really the "crown jewel" on the proposition that you couldn't sell the retelling of all this.

The events leading up to this left me gobsmacked many, many times, and thinking the same thing. Hopeful*confident in a tsunami of repudiation, this election almost did in my faith in people for good.

Apply whichever interpretation of "for good" you like. They both work for me.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

29. I've read descriptions of how Hitler had people so propagandized in the lead up to the war...

... so that anyone who dared speak against him were deemed by his supporters as crazy.

Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for the last 30 or 40 years have been the new “people’s radio” pumping nonstop lies and conspiracy theories in the heads of Americans.

Now the rot has spread and frankly it’s out of control

What started out as propaganda in furtherance of the Republican Party and their desire for lower taxes and less regulation for their wealthy business constituencies has metastasized on social media and the internet into a giant grift to collect subscription dollars and sell diet supplements.

It’s unstoppable at this point and it’s really frightening.

After trump made his 2 am “victory speech” on election night I checked a few YouTube channels and these channels ran with that bullshit like it was gospel truth. I didn’t realize Glen Beck was still in business but there he was spreading lies and paranoia between hawking subscriptions and diet supplements.

A couple years ago Rachel Maddow did a segment that proposed the idea the Republican Party is finished when it turns into a money making grift. People like Huckabee peddling $395 subscriptions to “keep him online to defeat Obamacare” was supposed to be their end. It really wasn’t.

Watching those fanatics with their “trump trains” and “trump armadas” was bad enough but now we have screaming loons Praying and speaking in tongues ready to storm counting facilities at the behest of a malignant narcissist who may or may not believe his own bullshit.

This problem isn’t going away with one election. We ave a serious problem on our hands.

[DeeDeeNY]

33. You're exactly right

A scary percentage of Americans are ignorant enough to believe all the propaganda and lies. It's chilling.

[Mad_Dem_X]

50. Well said.

The hate isn't magically going to go away if Biden wins.

[VOX]

52. Right on the money.

In the mid-1960s, the Republican Party embraced racism, “law and order” and the stoking of fear and anger as its muscle.

With each passing decade, Republicans have had to “up the dose” of their negative messaging whenever it plateaued, to the point where “tax-and-spend Democrats” are now “far-left radicals coming to destroy the suburbs.” The ACA, Social Security and Medicare have gone from “entitlements” to “radical socialism.”

Sadly, a large number of Americans, heeding only their basest instincts of fear and hatred, abandoned their free will and threw in with some of the worst people on the planet. The ghost of Joseph Goebbels weeps with envy over Fox “News” the internet, and social media.

[calimary]

68. We need to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine.

AND the ownership restrictions.

Used to be ANY media owner could legally own only three properties in any one media market. Usually worked out to a TV station and two radio stations, usually an AM and an FM. Deregulation certainly took care of that.

[CatLady78]

70. Industries based on bullshit or worse exploitation have a finite life-time

Human goodwill is a fragile, organic thing..it is probably one of the cornerstones of trust. People like the Trumps (and all other creeps) run out of that first. It is a quantity that is easily decimated by sleaziness, exploitation.
Most anyone with any sense can appreciate genuine human goodwill (from sane and decent people) as more valuable than anything gained by exploiting it. That is a distinction between private people and reality show stars/influencers etc.

Since Trump can produce nothing but bloviation he is willing to exploit stupidity, misery and goodwill (if he can find any). The reason the Republicans (and conservatives) the world over like to destroy social safety nets and enforce bullshit forms of austerity/surveillance etc. is to force decent people to rely on goodwill instead of being self sufficient. It won't work. No one with any character or decency tries to exploit other people (or generally institutions, entities etc) or themselves.

No one exploits goodwill except people like the Trumps and people like that run out of it first..He is better off selling reality shows..or he should try some slightly more convoluted form of exploitation (like Mark Zuckerberg does) if he can hire a few amoral, mercenaries with more brain than he has...

[aggiesal]

30. Or they're just plain idiots. n/t

[AngryOldDem]

32. There has been a lot of white resentment in this country....

....going as far back as Reconstruction. We’ve been ripe for a demagogue for a long, long time. Trump has just been the first to successfully tap into — and make acceptable — overt displays of hate, racism, sexism, and isolationism.

But he is a cynical bastard who has duped his cultists into believing he is their ally, when in fact he’s using their hate for his own selfish ends. At the end of the day, all he cares about is himself.

I don’t feel sorry in the least for these suckers who are falling for Trump’s bullshit. Maybe when they’re broke, jobless, and dying of COVID they’ll wake up. But I doubt it.

Donald Trump is right up there with the worst human beings this civilization has ever produced. He can’t be gone soon enough.

[Under The Radar]

34. Propaganda is a powerful drug

As history has shown us. Pep rallies that spout Freedom, liberty and Prosperity without any explanation of what they are talking about. It worked for Nazi Germany and even more powerful with social media broadcasting ridiculous lies. Obviously it works, and obviously 50% are sold on it.

[bluescribbler]

35. It's not either/or.

It's a little bit of both.

[sarchasm]

37. What took you so long?

This is exactly what we were all feeling in 2016 before a single vote was cast.

[SammyWinstonJack]

38. They saw what he was and liked it.

[Permanut]

39. I'm still waiting for an explanation..

of why ONE person would vote for Mango Mussolini.

I mean a rational explanation. Could be a long wait.

[Nasruddin]

63. This is easy

If you're a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-government health care, anti-abortion voter, he's the logical & clear choice. As long as you don't mind entrusting your fate to a malignant narcissist, which is an extremely dangerous thing to do, but many people don't know to avoid them.

[BainsBane]

42. nearly half of this country is trash

bad, corrupt human beings without a shred of human decency. That's the truth of it.

[PatSeg]

43. That sums up how I'm feeling right now

[d_b]

45. Plenty of them are evil

But they also lure in good people, and it’s a gradual process. I have several Christian friends that went nuts over time because of it. I assume they’re not unique.

[Yavin4]

46. America is not a great nation.

It's a nation with pockets of greatness here and there, but on the whole, the pockets of misery are far greater.

[Politicub]

47. These are selfish and controlling people who are either not

affected by Trump’s policies or enjoy watching the world burn.

They are people who perceive that they benefit from the tax cut, whether or not they actually do.

Some are bigots who feel validated that their bigotry is mainstream. Instead of being told they are vermin and not welcome in a civil society, they are now just good people on another side.

Others are religious bigots who savor that they can use the fig leaf of religious liberty to take away civil rights from the lgbt community.

[AngryOldDem]

51. As much as I detest Trump supporters...

I can’t help but feel sorry for some relatives of my ex. These are good people whose only son, a Iraq War vet with PTSD, eventually killed himself after returning home. I asked my ex if Trump’s disgusting comments about servicepeople changed their minds on Trump.

“No. It doesn’t matter.”

That, folks, is just damn fucking sad.

[Demovictory9]

55. a large percentage vote for their party no matter what. if the Dems had a crazy racist ranting

orange fool of a candidate, most dems would probably vote for him/her

[Richard58]

57. It's depressing!

I know a number of Republicans and they all think that Trump is wonderful. I don't get it. How can you look at all Trump's cruelty, lying, incompetence and narcissism and say, "Now THERE is a good President who deserves 4 more yrs!" I can't wrap my brain around it. It can't just be Fox propaganda. They have eyes and ears and can plainly see what Trump has done. So it must be that in their heart of hearts they are monsters! No different from the Germans who supported Hitler.

[soldierant]

58. Misogyny.

I'm confident lots of those votes were cast in terror of Kamala.

We don't like to admit how deep misogyny runs in America, so we forget it, and then something like this. And, no I can't prove it, but I am stillmorally certain of it.

[Paladin]

60. One way or another, they ought to be fucking themselves right now. Hard. (nt)

[McCamy Taylor]

65. Idiocracy. Trump is their Prez Camacho.

[cab67]

66. This one issue depresses me more than the fact of my own mortality.

[bullwinkle428]

67. IOW, 4 million people who DIDN'T VOTE in 2016, came out this year and said

WE WANT 4 MORE YEARS OF THIS SHIT!!!!