Trumpista fascists on the march

[youthathletics]

Trumpistas are just people who blame the government for not protecting their wages and their way of life. I sympathize with them I know why.

Respectfully, that's not it at all.

Trumpistas are people who think that if you get the government "out of the way", and let the free market work, their GED's will get them $70K+ jobs, with full benefits and a fat pension.

It's the libs who blame the government for not protecting their wages and way of life. And they want the government to get off their *sses, stop making life easy for multinational corporations, and start making the working class' life easier.

I agree with 3rdPP and your last paragraph....they are mutually inclusive. It is why so many flavors on both sides got behind him.....they ignored party and went for The Hail Mary in a game that is filled with refs who continually screw each team as they get kickbacks to tip the game.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Trumpistas are just people who blame the government for not protecting their wages and their way of life. I sympathize with them I know why.

Respectfully, that's not it at all.

Trumpistas are people who think that if you get the government "out of the way", and let the free market work, their GED's will get them $70K+ jobs, with full benefits and a fat pension.

It's the libs who blame the government for not protecting their wages and way of life. And they want the government to get off their *sses, stop making life easy for multinational corporations, and start making the working class' life easier.

I agree with 3rdPP and your last paragraph....they are mutually inclusive. It is why so many flavors on both sides got behind him.....they ignored party and went for The Hail Mary in a game that is filled with refs who continually screw each team as they get kickbacks to tip the game.

Speak for yourself!

[old salt]

"The patriots deserve to stage a Cootie Tot because of the Deep State...!!"

It took me a while to realize that this person was so eager to republish what he had viewed on NEWSMAX or OAN that he just went full on phonetic and didn't care. It's Coup d'Etat.

I understand why these men are ticked. I understand why they want the decades rolled back. I understand why they blame 'politicians and the State".

I just wish they could spell.

They was jus' funnin' ya with Inch erection & Cootie tot. That's from a standup routine at the Ozark Opry.

Was it a Cootie tot ?

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/0 ... up/171229/

[3rdPersonPlural]

Trumpistas are just people who blame the government for not protecting their wages and their way of life. I sympathize with them I know why.

Respectfully, that's not it at all.

Trumpistas are people who think that if you get the government "out of the way", and let the free market work, their GED's will get them $70K+ jobs, with full benefits and a fat pension.

It's the libs who blame the government for not protecting their wages and way of life. And they want the government to get off their *sses, stop making life easy for multinational corporations, and start making the working class' life easier.

Oh, you silly Fan.

If the government had not SOLD our jobs to the East Asians and the Messicans then they would still be here because '"Murica" and "Free Market" equals good jobs for all.

Read the Constitution! Look at Venezuela and Russia!

These high paying jobs would still be here if the Deep State and the Politicians had not accepted big donations to help them be stolen by China!!

You and I might recognize that this is hyperbole, but there are 74 million of our fellow citizen/voters who buy what I just said. Sadly, many buy it hard enough to go to war over it.

We got a problem, Fan.....

[a fan]

Trumpistas are just people who blame the government for not protecting their wages and their way of life. I sympathize with them I know why.

Respectfully, that's not it at all.

Trumpistas are people who think that if you get the government "out of the way", and let the free market work, their GED's will get them $70K+ jobs, with full benefits and a fat pension.

It's the libs who blame the government for not protecting their wages and way of life. And they want the government to get off their *sses, stop making life easy for multinational corporations, and start making the working class' life easier.

I agree with 3rdPP and your last paragraph....they are mutually inclusive. It is why so many flavors on both sides got behind him.....they ignored party and went for The Hail Mary in a game that is filled with refs who continually screw each team as they get kickbacks to tip the game.

If you REALLY didn't agree with the first paragraph, then you and your fellow TrumpVoters would be lined up behind Bernie and AOC.

You want it all....you want a job, but aren't willing to admit that you can't have one without Big Government helping you out.

Or just what is it that Trump fans actually mean when they say that they don't want socialism?

It's the central question of not just this Forum, but of the American working class: millions of working class Republican Americans won't spell out HOW to get what they want for their family's economic security.

Yeah, you can tell us that the Government is bad, and Unions are bad.....but when someone asks you, "then how the F do you think we'll ever get our working class back"? You change the subject, or tell us that "libs are bad".

AT SOME POINT your Republican party has to answer this question. Or---not. 4 years of Trump made TrumpNation fall further behind, economically.

Meanwhile? My nephew who just graduated with a computer engineering degree? Was offered $90 a hour for part time work, sight unseen. These are the Urban dwellers that Trump nation is losing ground to at breakneck speed. The longer the Republican party ignores helping the working class, the worse things are going to get not just for TrumpNation, but for America as a whole. It sucks.

And yep, the as I've said 1000 times---the Dems have ignored them, too. The difference, is that Dem voters are FINALLY voting for folks with ideas as to how to help working class America.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Trumpistas are just people who blame the government for not protecting their wages and their way of life. I sympathize with them I know why.

Respectfully, that's not it at all.

Trumpistas are people who think that if you get the government "out of the way", and let the free market work, their GED's will get them $70K+ jobs, with full benefits and a fat pension.

It's the libs who blame the government for not protecting their wages and way of life. And they want the government to get off their *sses, stop making life easy for multinational corporations, and start making the working class' life easier.

I agree with 3rdPP and your last paragraph....they are mutually inclusive. It is why so many flavors on both sides got behind him.....they ignored party and went for The Hail Mary in a game that is filled with refs who continually screw each team as they get kickbacks to tip the game.

If you REALLY didn't agree with the first paragraph, then you and your fellow TrumpVoters would be lined up behind Bernie and AOC.

You want it all....you want a job, but aren't willing to admit that you can't have one without Big Government helping you out.

Or just what is it that Trump fans actually mean when they say that they don't want socialism?

It's the central question of not just this Forum, but of the American working class: millions of working class Republican Americans won't spell out HOW to get what they want for their family's economic security.

Yeah, you can tell us that the Government is bad, and Unions are bad.....but when someone asks you, "then how the F do you think we'll ever get our working class back"? You change the subject, or tell us that "libs are bad".

AT SOME POINT your Republican party has to answer this question. Or---not. 4 years of Trump made TrumpNation fall further behind, economically.

Meanwhile? My nephew who just graduated with a computer engineering degree? Was offered $90 a hour for part time work, sight unseen. These are the Urban dwellers that Trump nation is losing ground to at breakneck speed. The longer the Republican party ignores helping the working class, the worse things are going to get not just for TrumpNation, but for America as a whole. It sucks.

And yep, the as I've said 1000 times---the Dems have ignored them, too. The difference, is that Dem voters are FINALLY voting for folks with ideas as to how to help working class America.

Buddy’s kid headed out west at six figures, options and a minimum guaranteed bonus. 23 years old. Went to a small liberal college in the northeast. Tech.

[youthathletics]

Trumpistas are just people who blame the government for not protecting their wages and their way of life. I sympathize with them I know why.

Respectfully, that's not it at all.

Trumpistas are people who think that if you get the government "out of the way", and let the free market work, their GED's will get them $70K+ jobs, with full benefits and a fat pension.

It's the libs who blame the government for not protecting their wages and way of life. And they want the government to get off their *sses, stop making life easy for multinational corporations, and start making the working class' life easier.

I agree with 3rdPP and your last paragraph....they are mutually inclusive. It is why so many flavors on both sides got behind him.....they ignored party and went for The Hail Mary in a game that is filled with refs who continually screw each team as they get kickbacks to tip the game.

If you REALLY didn't agree with the first paragraph, then you and your fellow TrumpVoters would be lined up behind Bernie and AOC.

You want it all....you want a job, but aren't willing to admit that you can't have one without Big Government helping you out.

Or just what is it that Trump fans actually mean when they say that they don't want socialism?

It's the central question of not just this Forum, but of the American working class: millions of working class Republican Americans won't spell out HOW to get what they want for their family's economic security.

Yeah, you can tell us that the Government is bad, and Unions are bad.....but when someone asks you, "then how the F do you think we'll ever get our working class back"? You change the subject, or tell us that "libs are bad".

AT SOME POINT your Republican party has to answer this question. Or---not. 4 years of Trump made TrumpNation fall further behind, economically.

Meanwhile? My nephew who just graduated with a computer engineering degree? Was offered $90 a hour for part time work, sight unseen. These are the Urban dwellers that Trump nation is losing ground to at breakneck speed. The longer the Republican party ignores helping the working class, the worse things are going to get not just for TrumpNation, but for America as a whole. It sucks.

And yep, the as I've said 1000 times---the Dems have ignored them, too. The difference, is that Dem voters are FINALLY voting for folks with ideas as to how to help working class America.

We agree on substance, the issue is that you can not seem to get the partisan piece out of your way. You keep tripping yourself up by trying to align it all down party lines. What you are missing, is that for the most part, the tried and true working class union types, to include police unions that have voted D for decades, bought into the Trump vision....”drain the effing deadbeat swamp that have sold us out while they get rich”.

When you label them all as r’s, you are ignoring that not even the elected r party really wanted him....they were stuck with him. Trump was a 3rd party candidate that got in, and both sides used him for their own benefit.

[3rdPersonPlural]

[MDlaxfan76]

Trumpistas are just people who blame the government for not protecting their wages and their way of life. I sympathize with them I know why.

Respectfully, that's not it at all.

Trumpistas are people who think that if you get the government "out of the way", and let the free market work, their GED's will get them $70K+ jobs, with full benefits and a fat pension.

It's the libs who blame the government for not protecting their wages and way of life. And they want the government to get off their *sses, stop making life easy for multinational corporations, and start making the working class' life easier.

I agree with 3rdPP and your last paragraph....they are mutually inclusive. It is why so many flavors on both sides got behind him.....they ignored party and went for The Hail Mary in a game that is filled with refs who continually screw each team as they get kickbacks to tip the game.

If you REALLY didn't agree with the first paragraph, then you and your fellow TrumpVoters would be lined up behind Bernie and AOC.

You want it all....you want a job, but aren't willing to admit that you can't have one without Big Government helping you out.

Or just what is it that Trump fans actually mean when they say that they don't want socialism?

It's the central question of not just this Forum, but of the American working class: millions of working class Republican Americans won't spell out HOW to get what they want for their family's economic security.

Yeah, you can tell us that the Government is bad, and Unions are bad.....but when someone asks you, "then how the F do you think we'll ever get our working class back"? You change the subject, or tell us that "libs are bad".

AT SOME POINT your Republican party has to answer this question. Or---not. 4 years of Trump made TrumpNation fall further behind, economically.

Meanwhile? My nephew who just graduated with a computer engineering degree? Was offered $90 a hour for part time work, sight unseen. These are the Urban dwellers that Trump nation is losing ground to at breakneck speed. The longer the Republican party ignores helping the working class, the worse things are going to get not just for TrumpNation, but for America as a whole. It sucks.

And yep, the as I've said 1000 times---the Dems have ignored them, too. The difference, is that Dem voters are FINALLY voting for folks with ideas as to how to help working class America.

We agree on substance, the issue is that you can not seem to get the partisan piece out of your way. You keep tripping yourself up by trying to align it all down party lines. What you are missing, is that for the most part, the tried and true working class union types, to include police unions that have voted D for decades, bought into the Trump vision....”drain the effing deadbeat swamp that have sold us out while they get rich”.

When you label them all as r’s, you are ignoring that not even the elected r party really wanted him....they were stuck with him. Trump was a 3rd party candidate that got in, and both sides used him for their own benefit.

Once, ok.

Twice?

No, this runs way, way deeper.

[holmes435]

When you label them all as r’s, you are ignoring that not even the elected r party really wanted him....they were stuck with him. Trump was a 3rd party candidate that got in, and both sides used him for their own benefit.

That was true at the beginning. 25-30% of R's wanted him, but our broken first past the post system with so many primary candidates meant he won the primary.

The problem is what happened after the primaries. R's didn't reject him, they embraced him, and Trump has had 80%-95% approval ratings all four years from Republicans. While he wasn't initially wanted, almost all R's have enveloped him into the fold and supported every terrible decision he's made. We are finally seeing some breaks 2 weeks before he leaves office. Funny how that works.

[seacoaster]

Interesting (and long) article in the Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

"Before a mob of Trump supporters staged a riot in the U.S. Capitol and thousands of Americans became amateur detectives working to identify the culprits, a loosely connected group of seasoned online sleuths were ringing alarm bells and picking off extremists online, one by one.

For a nationwide network of left-wing activists who seek out and publish the identities of those they believe to be violent “fascists,” some investigations can take months, years even.

Or it can take 10 minutes.

That’s how much time Molly Conger spent on her laptop last month searching for the man who used the right-wing social media site Parler to share that he was a police officer and pledge support to a member of the Proud Boys extremist group, advocating violence against Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr..

Turns out the man was a Prince William County sheriff’s deputy. Fifteen-year law enforcement veteran Aaron Hoffman acknowledged he was behind the profile picture of a sheep holding a machine gun, though he maintained in an interview with The Washington Post that his account had been hacked. Alerted to Hoffman’s online presence by Conger’s tweets, the Northern Virginia county’s sheriff fired Hoffman the next day.

Conger, 30, a freelance journalist in Charlottesville who live-tweets local government meetings and posts pictures of her miniature Daschunds under the handle @socialistdogmom, has made doxing “Nazis” her day job — and she is part of a small coterie of left-wing activists who monitored far-right violence long before it arrived at the forefront of the American conscience. They follow online clues to learn the hidden identity of perpetrators. Some go so far as to infiltrate the messaging groups of their targets by impersonating new members.

The majority of people who do this work are anonymous, like their targets, though a handful have been outed and continue to dox others. They often describe themselves as antifascists and are eager to present a faction of the movement that works behind the scenes to prevent violence. They’re tech-savvy, meticulous and incensed by the rise of the far right. They reject the idea that antifa’s methods are steeped in violence — a narrative advanced by President Trump and his supporters.

Conger lives off donations from a growing audience of social media users who want to see consequences for anonymous members of far-right groups who plot violence online and carry it out at demonstrations across the country.

“I’ve just always been very nosy,” said Conger, a former project manager at an education software company. “If you’ve ever stayed up way too late trying to find your ex’s wedding pictures on Instagram, you can dox a Nazi. It’s the same skill set.”

For many, the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017, where Heather Heyer was killed by a white nationalist demonstrator, was a tipping point.

“I was not super politically active prior to that,” Conger said. “I was very invested in my job and had my head down and things just got progressively worse until someone got murdered by a Nazi in my neighborhood. This is not a couple of guys on 4chan. These are people who were willing to come together in real life and do real violence. That sort of changes your perspective.

“So now my life is about making it a little bit harder to be a Nazi online.”

If Hoffman’s goal was to keep his Parler identity anonymous, his biggest mistake was easily avoidable. Last year he commissioned an artist using the freelance services website Fiverr to draw the armed sheep, and upon completion, Hoffman was nice enough to leave the artist a positive review on the site.

Conger, who had been forwarded the account’s comments by fellow activists monitoring a Proud Boy’s activity on Parler, used a reverse image search to find other instances of the drawing online, leading to the Fiverr page. Hoffman posted his review under the stage name Grant Tucker.

Conger then matched the photo on the reviewer’s account to a Facebook profile for a local country music musician, Grant Tucker. In one of the photos shared on the page, the man going by Tucker is pictured in his Prince William sheriff’s uniform with his name tag visible: “Hoffman.”

Conger shared the revelation on Twitter with more than 95,000 followers. Hoffman was fired hours later.

“That tells me they already knew,” Conger said of the timing. “They already knew, and because it was publicly embarrassing they had to do something about it. And if they already knew, how many more are there?”

Maj. Terry Fearnley of the Prince William County sheriff’s office told The Post the department was not aware of Hoffman’s social media activity until Conger’s posts.

“That type of behavior is not tolerated at the Prince William County sheriff’s department,” Fearnley said. “Never has been, never will be. And we want to stress to the community, if you see anything that looks like conduct unbecoming of our officers, please let us know.”

Conger says she shares less than 10 percent of the identities of the far-right agitators she identifies online. Some aren’t prominent enough in the movement for her to “dilute the discourse” by sharing their names, Conger said. Hoffman, she said, was a “white whale,” though, as a law enforcement officer.

The goal is not to bring physical harm or harassment upon the doxed, she says; she doesn’t post addresses, phone numbers or names of loved ones. The goal is humiliation and the accountability that comes with it.

“I’m interested in disincentivizing this behavior,” Conger said. “I’m interested in raising the cost of being a white nationalist, raising the cost of being a Nazi, raising the cost of making these threats anonymously online, and making it clear that these people are not as hard to find as they think they are.”

Rise of far-right violence leads some to call for realignment of post-9/11 national security priorities

Conger, who began researching the far right in 2017, is a relative newcomer to the doxing scene. Most point to Daryle Lamont Jenkins, the founder of One People’s Project, as the father of the practice. In the early 2000s, Jenkins retaliated against fundamentalist Christian groups who were doxing abortion providers by doxing them back.

The 52-year old Jenkins has been an online mentor to many, including Richmond resident Kristopher Goad, whose interest in the far right began in 2013 when the Virginia Flaggers, a pro-Confederate flag group, began regularly demonstrating on a street corner blocks from his home. Goad, a lanky, mulleted restaurant cook who goes by @GoadGatsby online, responded by drowning out their protests with rap music pumped through stereo speakers, “because I figured rap music would upset them,” Goad said.

Goad was one of several counterdemonstrators assaulted by prominent white supremacist Christopher Cantwell at Unite the Right (Cantwell was later convicted of pepper-spraying Goad and fellow activist Emily Gorcenski).

“After that, I met Emily and we began putting our heads together trying to figure out who all these knuckleheads were,” Goad said.

That effort to identify violent Unite the Right attendees turned into a vocation for both Goad and Gorcenski. Goad has gone so far as to impersonate a hate group applicant to gain access to private social media chats in numerous far-right groups, which he monitors for plans to do violence. He says the desired outcome of a good dox is a “self-deplatforming,” in which a hate group member deletes his accounts and disappears from the far-right networks.

“This narrative exists that we just want to ruin lives,” Goad said, referring to criticism in conservative circles. “In reality, we want to protect lives from what seem to be like the most dangerous people that are given great authority in our country. We want to challenge that, and we want other people to know about it so they also challenge them.”

When Cantwell was facing criminal and civil charges for his actions in Charlottesville, part of his legal strategy was to shift blame to other masked men in his group, using their anonymous online handles as identifiers in court documents. Goad and Gorcenski saw it as a challenge.

“We wanted to be able to say, ‘Everything you’ve put in this lawsuit is now incriminating this other person,’ ” Gorcenski said.

She dug into cached webpages and online social media remnants until she identified each person Cantwell cited anonymously in 2017, then presented that evidence to police. Sitting across from Gorcenski in a police station conference room, University of Virginia police Sgt. Casey Acord was astonished, Gorcenski said.

“Do you want a job?” Acord asked, according to Gorcenski.

Acord did not respond to an email requesting comment.

Instead, Gorcenski spent the next three years doxing on her own.

“The story of what happened in Charlottesville has not fully been told,” Gorcenski said. “Part of our ongoing community defense is to leave a persistent reminder that there’s no way to do violence and get away with it.”

Abner Hauge, who runs Left Coast Right Watch, a website that monitors hate group activity and identifies far-right demonstrators, purchased a gun after receiving threats. But it’s not the threats that wear you down, Hauge says. It’s the research, listening to hours of YouTube videos and podcasts of men making sexist, homophobic, racist and anti-Semitic remarks.

“Everybody has to take vacations from this,” said Hauge, 31. “We do this for as long as we can take it, and then the trauma makes us cease to function in a healthy way and we stop for a week or two and then jump back into it.”

Often, jumping back in means seeing the targets up close and in person.

On Wednesday, Conger made the 115-mile drive from Charlottesville to Washington to document what she suspected would be a day of right-wing violence inspired by President Trump’s address at the Ellipse.

She wore a longhair wig as part of a disguise (Conger normally sports a buzz-cut) to avoid detection — after her last appearance at a far-right gathering in Washington, she says, a member of the Proud Boys “put a hit” on her.

She spent the day on the Capitol grounds filming, zeroing in on exposed faces. Her lens captured the last breaths of one of the three Trump supporters who suffered medical emergencies during the short-lived insurrection and died. She drove home and submitted what must be a rare Google query: “how to get tear gas out of a wig.”

The nation’s collective shock at Wednesday’s events annoyed her. She saw it coming. Why didn’t everyone else?

“These people wanted blood, and we should be at least as clear about that when we talk about what they did — as they were when they talked about what they planned to do,” Conger said. “There should be no rationalizing or excusing this, no weaseling around with language about politically frustrated blue-collar Trump supporters caught up in the moment and expressing their beliefs or whatever nonsense people are bandying about.”

That authorities in Washington appeared to be as unprepared in the face of violent right-wing extremists as police in Charlottesville were in 2017 comes as no shock to Michael German, a retired FBI agent and fellow for the Brennan Center for Justice’s liberty and national security program.

German, who investigated domestic terrorist groups in the 1990s, says he’s seen a shift in how police handle right-wing violence.

“When I worked these cases, law enforcement knew that when a white supremacist group was discussing having a public event, that their purpose was to instigate violence,” German said. “So they made it more difficult for them to accomplish that objective of injuring people. We’ll make it so that you can come out and say your piece, but you’re not going to get within 100 yards of someone you can hurt, rather than the way we’ve seen over the past several years where we seem to be friendly to the far-right groups and aggressively violent towards the anti-racist protesters.”

Police have more “intrusive” information tools including databases not available to the public, German says, and the opportunity to arrest hate group members with outstanding warrants for unrelated charges, yet rarely take advantage.

“They could do far more,” German said. “How much of it is a lack of understanding of this intelligence and how much is a lack of interest in actually doing it?”

Activists who spoke to The Post lean toward the latter.

Christian Exoo, a 39-year-old library building supervisor at a college in Upstate New York, says he grew up with a childhood reverence for police officers until his late mother, Diane Exoo, a child advocate attorney and law professor, let him in on her work advocating for abused children and women.

“Cops constantly victimize marginalized communities,” Exoo said. “That disgusted me as a young person, that these guys don’t protect people from violence and, in fact, they do quite a bit of violence to people.”

In 2019, Exoo was responsible for the doxing of East Hampton, Conn., police officer Kevin Wilcox, then a dues paying member of the Proud Boys. Exoo stumbled upon Wilcox after realizing various chapters of the Proud Boys were paying their group dues openly on Venmo.

Exoo teaches a weekly seminar on doxing via video conference, sharing his methods with a vetted group of activists. In December, he identified three members of the Georgia Three Percent Security Force, an extremist militia group, who Exoo believes attacked unarmed protesters in Atlanta. One of the men was using the same profile picture he used on Zello as on Facebook under the alias “Drake Remora,” a reference to the sitcom “Friends.” Digging into the profile, Exoo found the man had shared his phone number on Facebook years ago while arranging for his house to be power washed. Caller ID data led to his actual identity.

After Exoo released the identity of the three attackers, he learned that at least two were fired from their jobs.

“These people need consequences,” Exoo said. “The consistent ideology across the far right is that human hierarchy is natural and desirable, that some people should have power over other people. And they all think violence is a path to power for them.”

Exoo has no qualms about discussing past doxes and tactics because he’s already been outed by hate groups and conservative journalists. It was inevitable: Exoo has joined hate groups in person and via video chat, performing well enough in interviews to gain access to private chats on websites like Zello and Gab. He wears his hair in a style that some in hate groups call “fashy” — tight-cropped sides with a side-sweep on top.

He faces daily death threats from people who describe murdering his family, too. He isn’t alone. One of Conger’s opponents hosted a podcast featuring a regular segment during which the hosts imagined new ways to rape her. Last year, Gorcenski moved from Charlottesville to Germany to continue her work with an ocean between her and people who threaten her life online. She has plans to soon retire from doxing.

“I want to go back to life,” Gorcenski said. “Before I was doing this, I was always against Nazis, but I didn’t spend 60 hours of the week opposing Nazis.”

Conger has trouble imagining doing anything else.

“It’s damaged my brain for sure,” Conger said. “We all have our own ways of getting through it. But ultimately, you’re not okay. Looking deep into the abyss at the worst parts of humanity on a regular basis is not good for you. But I need to know. I need to understand why these people are like this.”

[youthathletics]

When you label them all as r’s, you are ignoring that not even the elected r party really wanted him....they were stuck with him. Trump was a 3rd party candidate that got in, and both sides used him for their own benefit.

That was true at the beginning. 25-30% of R's wanted him, but our broken first past the post system with so many primary candidates meant he won the primary.

The problem is what happened after the primaries. R's didn't reject him, they embraced him, and Trump has had 80%-95% approval ratings all four years from Republicans. While he wasn't initially wanted, almost all R's have enveloped him into the fold and supported every terrible decision he's made. We are finally seeing some breaks 2 weeks before he leaves office. Funny how that works.

Again, I agree, but looking in the rear view mirror it is easy to conflate the party line distinction/discussion. Some R's did reject him, then most others on both sides "used him for their own benefit". Remember, many historical d voters swayed to team trump during the primaries, as I noted earlier....they either changed party or voted across party lines; trump sold them.

Along came historical low unemployment, historical low minority unemployment, higher wages, much higher retirement plans, etc. By nature we are selfish....people where willing to tolerate him for their own benefit, and at this point he was still picking bar fights with countries that were receiving a ton of cash from us; to many. To many, as 3rdPersonPlural wrote earlier......he was merely fighting for that long ago middle class worker, who lost his job to China, Taiwan, Korea, etc....that middle class worker that is damned near non-existent.

Said another way, and maybe this aligns with the discussion of U.S. socialism, handouts, and why some believe Trump is really a democrat. He was doing for the shrinking middle class/flyover america.... what the the left has been doing for inner-city lower income class for decades.

[Andersen]

Yes, its Vox, but this interview with a Princeton Sociologist offers some valuable insights into the isolation, anger and cultural angst of Rural America.

https://www.vox.com/2018/3/13/17053886/ ... U6VtvQ1gDE

[seacoaster]

Yes, its Vox, but this interview with a Princeton Sociologist offers some valuable insights into the isolation, anger and cultural angst of Rural America.

https://www.vox.com/2018/3/13/17053886/ ... U6VtvQ1gDE

Interesting; thanks for posting the interview. This:

"We found town managers and elected officials who were frustrated over the generalized anger toward Washington because it inhibited practical solutions from being pursued. These officials knew they had to secure grants from the federal government, for instance, but found it difficult to do that when local elections were won by far-right candidates.

I think the concerns about moral decline often miss the mark. I think a lot of white Americans in these small towns are simply reacting against a country that is becoming more diverse — racially, religiously, and culturally. They just don’t how to deal with it. And that’s why you’re seeing this spike in white nationalism."

[a fan]

"We found town managers and elected officials who were frustrated over the generalized anger toward Washington because it inhibited practical solutions from being pursued. These officials knew they had to secure grants from the federal government, for instance, but found it difficult to do that when local elections were won by far-right candidates.

Ungovernable. Been saying it for years here. We have millions of people who have become ungovernable because of FoxNation.

I don't know how to fix this, other than to shut it down, and stop sending Federal funds to them. And if we do that? FoxNation will step in, and blame "someone else" for why rural America is gone.

But the bulk will move to cities. I can't think of another solution. They won't take help from anyone with a D by their name, becuase they're villified by FoxNation. And the R's---even after Trump----are unwilling to help these people economically. So we're stuck as a nation.

If someone with a R by their name can't fix this.....rural America ? Stick a fork in them, they're done.

[Kismet]

Not a fan of former Governor Chris Christie of NJ (and a long-serving former US Attorney) - but yesterday on national TV he said this

“What we had was an incitement to riot at the United States Capitol, we had people killed, and to me, there’s not a whole lot of question here.
He also said that “if inciting to insurrection isn’t an impeachable offense, then I don’t really know what is.”

The idea that EVERY one of our elected representatives in Congress who were the targets of that insurrection still express doubts that it was impeachable conduct by DOPUS should tell you how far gone the Republican Party is - Heck 100s of them still voted to object in the immediate aftermath including the #1 and #2 ranked leaders in the HoR.

Some are saying the new continuing release of more incriminating and graphic video will make a difference - I just don't buy it.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) who has only been in Congress for less than a week was live-tweeting Nancy Pelosi’s location to terrorists as they stormed the U.S. Capitol earlier this week. Frankly, she should be arrested or, at least, expelled. See the 14th Amendment:

"No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."

It's pretty simple and straightforward.

[CU88]

When you label them all as r’s, you are ignoring that not even the elected r party really wanted him....they were stuck with him. Trump was a 3rd party candidate that got in, and both sides used him for their own benefit.

The problem is what happened after the primaries. R's didn't reject him, they embraced him, and Trump has had 80%-95% approval ratings all four years from Republicans. While he wasn't initially wanted, almost all R's have enveloped him into the fold and supported every terrible decision he's made. We are finally seeing some breaks 2 weeks before he leaves office. Funny how that works.

Again, I agree, but looking in the rear view mirror it is easy to conflate the party line distinction/discussion. Some R's did reject him, then most others on both sides "used him for their own benefit". Remember, many historical d voters swayed to team trump during the primaries, as I noted earlier....they either changed party or voted across party lines; trump sold them.

Blaming d's for IMPOTUS o d?

Not sure about other states, but here in MD you cannot cross party lines when voting in the primaries.

Where are your facts for that statement?

[Typical Lax Dad]

When you label them all as r’s, you are ignoring that not even the elected r party really wanted him....they were stuck with him. Trump was a 3rd party candidate that got in, and both sides used him for their own benefit.

The problem is what happened after the primaries. R's didn't reject him, they embraced him, and Trump has had 80%-95% approval ratings all four years from Republicans. While he wasn't initially wanted, almost all R's have enveloped him into the fold and supported every terrible decision he's made. We are finally seeing some breaks 2 weeks before he leaves office. Funny how that works.

Again, I agree, but looking in the rear view mirror it is easy to conflate the party line distinction/discussion. Some R's did reject him, then most others on both sides "used him for their own benefit". Remember, many historical d voters swayed to team trump during the primaries, as I noted earlier....they either changed party or voted across party lines; trump sold them.

Blaming d's for IMPOTUS o d?

Not sure about other states, but here in MD you cannot cross party lines when voting in the primaries.

Where are your facts for that statement?

Trump is a democrat. Didn’t you notice over these past 4 years?

[youthathletics]

When you label them all as r’s, you are ignoring that not even the elected r party really wanted him....they were stuck with him. Trump was a 3rd party candidate that got in, and both sides used him for their own benefit.

The problem is what happened after the primaries. R's didn't reject him, they embraced him, and Trump has had 80%-95% approval ratings all four years from Republicans. While he wasn't initially wanted, almost all R's have enveloped him into the fold and supported every terrible decision he's made. We are finally seeing some breaks 2 weeks before he leaves office. Funny how that works.

Again, I agree, but looking in the rear view mirror it is easy to conflate the party line distinction/discussion. Some R's did reject him, then most others on both sides "used him for their own benefit". Remember, many historical d voters swayed to team trump during the primaries, as I noted earlier....they either changed party or voted across party lines; trump sold them.

Blaming d's for IMPOTUS o d?

Not sure about other states, but here in MD you cannot cross party lines when voting in the primaries.

Where are your facts for that statement?

Not blaming any one party, that is the entire crux of this discussion....trump appealed to both sides of washed out middle class families.
Sorry, I was not clear. By primaries, I was referring to the primaries of sorting out of all the darned candidates during debate, etc, NOT registered voters.

[Matnum PI]

Pretty funny.

Jesse Wegman@jessewegman
3 hours ago
Man wearing shirt that says "Civil War - Jan. 6, 2021" says "I thought it was a peaceful protest."

https://twitter.com/chandrabooks/status ... 5211680770