MADDOW: Is firing senior State Dept staff, 37% budget cut & Tillerson appt part of Russian plan?

[calimary]

47. You're so spot on, again.

Frankly it all kinda comes down to psy-ops. Perception management and psy-ops. You have to learn to "play" them like a fine musical instrument, which means applying care, delicacy and respect. I always have to watch myself - it can be VERY easy to become angry. And at that point, one has lost the argument. You can't go pointing fingers. You have to figure out how to guide. How to ease them a long in a way that they don't take offense personally. How to gently and subtly invite them to think about whatever it is - differently. The Chinese finger trap metaphor is Excellent!

And yeah, many of them are unreachable until something happens TO THEM, personally. I was impressed by the middle-aged man from either tornado or hurricane country, after a killer storm had bulldozed across several states including his. His home was among those completely wrecked. FEMA was on the way and he was grateful for that. And while he was being interviewed about it, as he surveyed the damage in the daylight, he quipped - "I guess there actually are some times when yeh need the gummnt."

I don't know whether to feel compassion or disgust when I see that. Particularly in cases where our side (us dreaded "libtards" and stupid "Democraps" and "the looney left&quot tried like hell to warn everybody! I feel the same mixed emotions about our friend Martha Brawley, the 55-year old first-time voter who voted for trump because she believed his sales pitch about what incredibly superior a health insurance plan he would provide. Upon hearing about the GOP's plans to "repeal and replace", she's crushed, dismayed, and scared to death. Because if anything even remotely like that God-forsaken "plan" materializes, she is S-C-R-E-W-E-D.

https://gma.yahoo.com/55-old-first-time-voter-chose-trump-protests-195504408.html

And it all means here's another head-over-heart decision for me! My heart wants to yell "TOLD YA SO, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!!" My head, on the other hand, says "EASY there, girlfriend... rise above it..." My dad used to say that. "Rise above it."