Zompist Bboard Again

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 8:44 pm

zompist wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 8:29 pmHistory lesson: what do you think the figure was in 1995?

Answer: half that.

Doesn't fit your narrative, does it? When do we get your sheepish apology?

The point still stands. When the vast majority of Americans either support illiberal policies or couldn't care either way, there is no reason to expect liberals to win even fair and honest elections. How do you imagine a quarter of the population ousting this regime and enacting anything resembling progressive policies with so little popular support? You have an incredible level of faith in people who have consistently done nothing to deserve it.

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 9:14 pmoh no, we fully expect the majority of the "ousting" population, to be MAGA in origin, having been severely alienated and ticked off by Trump et al.

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 9:25 pm

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 9:14 pmoh no, we fully expect the majority of the "ousting" population, to be MAGA in origin, having been severely alienated and ticked off by Trump et al.

Why do you expect them to become angry with Trump this time

when they remained fanatically loyal to him throughout one catastrophe after another?

Most likely they will simply blame whatever minority Trump scapegoats and invent elaborate conspiracy theories to explain why MAGA policies failed.

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 10:05 pmThen why haven't his approval ratings crashed? The last I checked, they were still hovering between 45% and 50% depending on what poll. You must take care to distinguish some cherry-picked examples of disillusioned followers from genuine mass movement.

If people were really turning against Trump in appreciable numbers, we would see his approval ratings dropping noticeably. Instead his approval ratings have only improved or held steady at worst.

keenir wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 10:11 pm because it doesn't fit your gloom and doom and durm und strangle view, i'd wager.

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 8:44 pm You have an incredible level of faith in people who have consistently done nothing to deserve it.

zompist wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 10:20 pm

malloc wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 8:44 pm You have an incredible level of faith in people who have consistently done nothing to deserve it.

No, I believe in fighting for human beings because it's the right thing to do. Worrying whether they "deserve it" is a conservative attitude.

jcb wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 8:03 pm But will any of this pain (even more so if social security gets deleted) actually make any red states turn blue? The conservative instinct when times are tough is to just blame your enemies and outsiders even more! I guess we'll find out in two/four years.

user 1 wrote:I was so excited to find out that after being the blue oasis, in a very red neighborhood, for at least the last eight years our neighbors are coming out of their trance.
Our closest, in proximity, neighbors actually apologized to us and said they are sorry for voting the way they did in the last three elections. It seems they have also convinced the ranchers across from us, too.

user 2 wrote:Today, someone IRL, to my face, started talking about all the fraud DOGE found. I am glad I was informed and was able to set them straight.

I'll not get into all of it, but one thing is the people who get SSA benefits on another person's records. I pointed out that his wife gets benefits under his Social Security number. He better hope his check keeps coming. He said he was going to call SSA.

I pointed out he better hurry because soon he may have to drive 40 miles to the nearest SSA because they are ending certain phone support.

This person also was so happy to get the Social Security bump that Biden signed in for federal workers. I pointed out that Biden signed the law. They got a twitch.

He started talking about an upcoming telehealth appointment with his doctor who is over 60 miles away. I informed him about the ending of telehealth on April 1st.

He left mumbling to himself, literally mumbling.

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 4:58 amIf the Republicans torch Social Security, then yes, states turn blue in a hurry. Or at least anti-red. The voters won't turn on Trump because of another Trump scandal, or because foreigners are dying because of him. They do care about bread and butter issues, such as the cost of bread and butter.

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 7:33 am

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 4:58 amIf the Republicans torch Social Security, then yes, states turn blue in a hurry. Or at least anti-red. The voters won't turn on Trump because of another Trump scandal, or because foreigners are dying because of him. They do care about bread and butter issues, such as the cost of bread and butter.

That assumes that Trump doesn't simply scapegoat some minority or gaslight people into believing bread and butter have always cost a proverbial bag of gold. Not even the whole COVID pandemic, with its massive death count and economic crash, managed to tarnish their impression of Trump so why would this make any difference?

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 7:33 amThat assumes that Trump doesn't simply scapegoat some minority

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Mar 19, 2025 8:46 pm I bet that that is from MAGAts who are enamored with their Great Leader and who think he is taking the US in the right direction rather than any broad support for what Trump is doing.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Mar 19, 2025 8:46 pm As for the unpopularity of the Dems, that I think is specifically because the Dems aren't doing enough to fight Trump rather than out of love for Trump.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 3:11 pmI'm sure the government will be able to employ a new crop of "leftists" to explain why regress is not really regress.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 3:11 pm As for the education thing, I think Christian nationalists are hoping for secular public education to be replaced by church-sponsored religious indoctrination for the masses, preaching obedience to social conventions, parents and bosses.

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 3:42 pm Quite unlikely. I realize you greatly dislike the direction taken by the contemporary left, but they certainly aren't allies of reaction nor does the current reactionary movement have any fondness for them. Based on their current actions and rhetoric, the MAGAs have no interest in allying with leftists of any stripe.

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 3:49 pm Education is handled at the state level here, and plenty of states are already run by Republicans. Yet they haven't eliminated public schools, far from it.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 4:06 pmI haven't watched this video: https://youtu.be/PzcJa_laFGk?si=tNqObdiHK5Mzj1Ld

Based on the thumbnail, I have watched hours of this person and people like her in the past.

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 4:17 pm Fine. I thought about mentioning the "patriotic socialists" and "MAGA communists" as an exception in my post, but decided otherwise given their obvious irrelevance.