The left may have made a tactical error in Kenosha
When Kenosha erupted in flames, it immediately struck me as something different.
It wasn’t that the actions of the rioters were different. That was business as usual, and we have (sadly) become used to seeing it happen in deep blue (i.e. leftist) cities such as Seattle, Portland, and Chicago. We are not used to seeing it in the Kenoshas of the world, which are much smaller cities not known for leftism.
The left would have us think this was a spontaneous demonstration by the people of Kenosha, upset at the Jacob Blake shooting, but that never seemed likely to me. It seemed fairly clear that although some would be from Kenosha, a great many of the ones looting and burning would be in the category of “outside agitators.”
And that indeed seems to have been the case.
Although Kenosha no doubt has its own unique characteristics, it also seems like Everytown USA. That’s what was especially frightening. If the mayhem was confined to a small number of blue cities far far away, it was upsetting but didn’t strike as personally dangerous to most people. Kenosha changed that equation.
So now we have evidence for that, as well:
“In June approval of protests was widespread, with 61 percent approving of the protests and 36 percent disapproving,” the poll found. “Approval declined in August with 48 percent approving and 48 percent disapproving.”
The biggest change was among suburbanites who were, it seems, largely unaware of protests (and ensuing riots) when they were affecting major urban areas but began to pay attention when Kenosha, a more suburban, more residential area of Wisconsin, started seeing major damage.
Approval of BLM “declined in each of five urban-suburban categories including cities, suburbs, exurbs, small towns, and rural areas,” the study’s authors note. “In August more respondents approved than disapproved in cities. Suburban areas, which were substantially net positive in June, became net negative on approval in August, though not as negative as exurban, small towns or rural areas.”
And Democrats are also souring on the situation, Marquette says: “Net approval also declined across all three categories of party identification, with the largest declines among Republicans.”
I hope that the rioters have overplayed their hand.
This is one of the main reasons that the Biden camp has started to condemn the riots, although they’re trying to pin them on the right. But I think that particular dog won’t hunt. At least, I hope not.
“I hope that the rioters have overplayed their hand.” From your lips to God’s ears.
I share your hope and I think it may be well-founded. Intuitively people see carnage like this and wonder “could that happen to me? Could the arsonists burn down MY town? Let’s see…[imagining the downtown of their own beloved town or city, or their own street]…they would come up Fourth and turn onto Main, and then they would smash open Hitchcock’s Pharmacy and Miller’s Liquor, and then they would turn onto Sixth and burn all the cars in Jackson’s Used Cars…” It’s that vivid and inescapable template effect that may give some of the voters pause. It tends to obscure the message, conveyed in a barrage of furious words, about White Guilt and Brutal Cops, or whatever this week’s flavor might be.
One would think that the openly Marxist orientation the BLM founders would have been a tell for not supporting BLM, but 3 decades have passed since the fall the wall and of the Soviet Union. Those who began their education post 1990 didn’t get taught about the Cold War.
BLM co-founder Opal Tometi’s support of Maduro’s Venezuela, with visits to Venezuela and a banquet with Maduro in NYC, is also a warning. Opal tweeted in Venezuela she was so glad to be in a country with “intelligent discourse,” while Chavismo has done all it can in the last 2 decades to smother “intelligent discourse.”
One big irony about BLM support of Maduro’s Venezuela is that BLM’s reason for being is to reduce police killing of civilians- at least black civilians. Police in the US kill about 1,000 civilians a year- most of them armed. Police in Venezuela kill 5,000 a year. That is the equivalent of police in the US killing 50,000 a year. Yet BLM- or at least cofounder Opal Tometi- loves Maduro.
Apparently some people are waking up to BLM.
Apparently the Democrats’ meme at this point is “This is Trump’s America”. Or that Slow Joe will somehow bring an end to all the unrest. They were distributed to all the good little foot soldiers following the Kenosha riots and the Portland murder by one of their own “100% Antifa” supporters.
RE: “I hope that the rioters have overplayed their hand.”
#MeToo
RE: Outside agitators
Driving distance to Kenosha, WI from Chicago: 98 minutes. From Minneapolis: 5:27. It’s no difficult to get bus-loads of outside agitators to Kenosha. The question is: Why isn’t the DOJ/FBI investigating these people who are organizing the riots? They are violating the rights of citizens and the conspiracy appears to be happening in plain sight across state lines.
The obvious answer is that the Ruling Class supports the Burning, Looting, and Murder as a way to: (1) defeat President Trump; (2) cover the stupidity of DNC officials; and (3) keep the Public frightened (or at least distracted). The DOJ/FBI will not take action because they serve the Ruling Class.
This is Trump’s America, where his political enemies the out of power democrats became terrorists Burning Looting and Murdering in democrat control cities with the blessing of democrat mayors and governors and threaten to perpetrate violence non stop until Americans meet their demand of giving China Joe a victory so he and his son can sell out America and Americans to Beijing.
rcat:
They say they are investigating.
Given a lot of previous Trump voters who viewed him as an antidote to the despicable Hillary, I now see saying that they don’t like his 4 years of obnoxiousness. Those are the people who will be swayed by the “the violence is all Trump’s fault!” that the Dems are now pushing. I see it on FB and also hear it from some family. Scares the cr@p out of me.
physicsguy:
I have no idea whether the people you’re talking about are highly unusual or not. It’s certainly troubling. But the other question is how many people are going the other way.
And where are the people you describe? Are they in blue states?
I have certainly not heard much about previous Trump voters turning to Biden.
Also, as Biden gets more exposure, and if his cognitive problems become more obvious to more people, those turning to him might change back.
Kenosha is an ordinary Midwestern small city, mostly blue-collar. It’s been voting Democrat for some decades but it’s not a radical place. The destruction in a town like this is shocking.
physicsguy: “Given a lot of previous Trump voters who viewed him as an antidote to the despicable Hillary, I now see saying that they don’t like his 4 years of obnoxiousness. ”
I’m the inverse of that: I voted 3rd party in 2016, a luxury I could afford in a very red state, because although the Dems are off the table for me I thought Trump was a ridiculous candidate. And I haven’t liked his 4 years of obnoxiousness. But I’m probably going to vote for him this time, though my state is still red, to add one more vote to what I hope will be a clear popular vote win. For this, the architects of the Popular Vote Compact are to be thanked. They made my vote matter in a way that it otherwise would not have.
I guess there aren’t many like me though. I don’t think the Compact and its conscious and deliberate subversion of the constitution are widely known. They should be.
But…excuse my distraction…the point I really wanted to make is that at some point in the future Trump’s presidency may be seen as tragic, because he saw the need for a decisive change of direction, but his often petty belligerence not only inflamed his opponents to the point of madness but alienated many to whom his message might otherwise have appealed.
Mac:
Victor Davis Hanson has commented that Trump is a tragic figure in the Greek sense.
Neo, yes, family in blue states, so their changing won’t make much difference. The others in purple states, so that could be in play.
Yes! this from Mac: “but his often petty belligerence not only inflamed his opponents to the point of madness but alienated many to whom his message might otherwise have appealed.”
Again, physicsguy, I’ll quite bet that the people you describe are mostly in blue areas.
Is your family?
Mac; physicsguy:
I understand Mac’s point in that last paragraph, but I’m not at all sure I agree with it.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed something about people that I didn’t understand when I was younger: their negative and positive traits are often inextricably linked.
For example, there are the women who want to find a man who is strong and protective but sensitive and in touch with his feelings. There are such men, I suppose, but not that commonly, because the two traits are somewhat antithetical. Same with a man who wants a woman who’s very adventurous and a real tiger in bed but who will remain 100% faithful to him. Somewhat contradictory traits, although it’s possible that they can co-exist.
Same thing with Trump in the political realm. His good traits – his ability to fight, his nose for hypocrisy, his incredible energy, his sharp humor – are linked, I believe, to the traits people don’t like: sharpness, insults, exaggeration, and whatever else they don’t like. I don’t think one can be separated from the other.
In addition, the left attacks all Republicans and/or conservatives and wants to destroy them. The fact that they’ve led exemplary lives doesn’t matter. If the offense isn’t there, they will manufacture it. Look at what they did to Kavanaugh. Most of my friends are still convinced he’s a lying sexual molester.
Oh, I totally agree, Neo, that Trump’s good and bad traits are inextricably linked. That’s exactly what may, from the 200-years-in-the-future point of view, make a bad ending to this situation truly tragic, in a classical sort of way. By “bad” I mean the victory of the forces Trump is trying to fight.
And sure, the left wants to destroy all Republicans and/or conservatives, and will always call them Nazis etc., no matter how mild-mannered and bland. It’s people who might have been Trump’s allies or at least not his enemies I’m thinking of.
When the riots started, my personal trainer – an intelligent but politically uninformed and disengaged young man in his early 30s – completely fell for the MSM line that the rioting (as opposed to “peaceful protests”) was the fault of rightwingers/”white supremacists.” I expect that most of the electorate is equally gullible, given the wall-to-wall message they receive that all of the violence is somehow the fault of Trump and his supporters. Makes no sense, and has zero evidentiary support (the rightwingers in Kenosha and Portland were just reacting to what is the left is doing), but this is our country today.
The truth is, ordinary voters may correctly anticipate that the rioting will get worse if Trump is reelected, and will voluntarily wind down if he loses. The riots are really about Trump, the police incidents are just pretexts. The public may sense this and be ready to give in to the extortion. I hope not, but I see scant basis for optimism.
Mac:
But my point is that, if that happens it’s a tragedy, but not a Trump tragedy – not a tragedy about Trump himself, that is, or what characteristics he does or doesn’t have. It may just mean that by the time he was elected the die was already cast and no one could have turned that ship around.
I disagree. It is the Leftists that lost control. The rioters are doing what they like to do best. Note that ANTIFA is a segment of the mob. Important but still only a portion. The band wagoners aren’t going to pack up and go home until authorities arrest AND prosecute them. Cracks are appearing in the alliance of BLM and ANTIFA. Also some leaders of the mob don’t want to give up the rush of control.
So wherever there is weak feckless leadership there will be riots. The only thing needed is a catalyst and it doesn’t have to be local for it to happen.
On a tangent I didn’t realize that the Portland mayor is in a run off election. The other person, Sarah Iannarone, is a staunch ANTIFA supporter. Hard to believe that Wheeler would be the safe choice.
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/05/ted-wheeler-sarah-iannarone-will-square-off-again-to-be-portland-mayor-in-november.html
But as it has been said by Henry Mencken “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
Portland is getting what they voted for. I don’t feel sorry for them as I am feeling sorry for myself living in Michigan with Gretchen Whitmer. GAWD!
Well, there we disagree, Neo. Or at least mean different things. It is certainly possible that no one could have turned that ship around, and of course if it isn’t turned around no one will never know whether it was possible or not. What would make Trump himself a *tragic* figure, in the way I’m thinking, is the possibility that someone with a similar perception of what needs to be done, but with a more genial and generous personality–a Reagan type, maybe–might have attracted more support, enough to make a difference. Obviously any such judgement is inherently subjective and speculative and would always be an “if only…” sort of thing.
Hi, Sparticus. What are you hearing about any rioting in west or northern Michigan? I can’t really bring myself to believe that there would be any such activity north of, say, Ludington, but if even Kenosha isn’t immune…. I don’t feel sorry for you if you’re in Michigan – I’d rather be there than here sharing a county with His Royal Highness, that’s for sure. I still would rather retire there than Arizona, for example.
Philip Sells – Riots are not happening in Michigan because law enforcement has been very strong whenever BLM or Antifa try to stir up a riot. The Detroit Chief of Police James was in LA during the Rodney King riots and he verbally stated “not on my watch”. The local BLM gets stomped as soon as they try to set up an autonomous zone. The mayor backs him strongly. They realize that if Detroit goes up in flames it is not coming back. That and the fact there is not much valuable space to defend per se as a lot of Detroit is ruined.
In other parts of Michigan, Flint and Saginaw are broke and are ghost towns. Outside of South East MI, the state is fairly conservative so there is not a critical mass of unemployed young men to make a difference.
In 1970 I read a book “The Riot Makers” that made an impression on me on how a few determined people using psychological principles could cause a riot. The ingredients are: #1, a lot of unemployed young males (fuel), #2 hot summers (oxygen) and #3 some spark that can be fanned by visual mass media (ignition source). Interesting reading.
So the lenient sentencing laws that these blue state passed is greatly increased the fuel. They are truly suffering. Michigan did not follow that path.
Western and Northern Michigan in the summer is a wonderful place with all the lakes, rivers and forests. It is not a heavily urban state outside of metro Detroit. But the winters can be difficult.
Not loving it in LA eh. Well you got both Newsom and Garcetti so I feel for you. Isn’t it amazing that after that organized looting by the gangs when the locals tried it again in Beverly Hills the police was prepared and backed up.
It all comes down to people voting for the right leadership. I believe some hard lessons are being re-learned.
The Wheeler of Portland could have learned that when you sleep with the sociopaths your odds of waking up in the morning get smaller and smaller, but he hasn’t learned. He’s just moved into another one if his houses. He is a wealthy guy. His sociopaths will follow him there.
We have our battle ballad now!
The Kenosha Kid (F*** Around And Find out)
https://youtu.be/t3jCLsOH36k
“It all comes down to people voting for the right leadership.” I am Sparticus
Yep. Every time. Here is Los Angeles, indeed we have Lord Newsom & Liege Garcetti calling the shots as if they own the territory and us. The people responsible for this travesty are those who voted them into office. There was ample evidence that neither man possessed the proper qualifications for their offices. Between the illegal aliens that feed at the public trough and the leftist residents of the gated and high-end communities of our state, we who believe in the state and federal constitutional parameters are clearly outnumbered.
@ djf, on “rioting will get worse if Trump is reelected, and will voluntarily *wind down* if he loses.”
No, it’ll slowly build up, as the gangs etc. see, that cops dare lift *no* fingers (vs. them and antiFa/ BLM), lest the cops get prosecuted for Systemic Racism, or some such.
Alas, we’ll know nothing of it getting worse, since the MSM/ Google etc. will bury all of it, and tee off vs. anyone who objects.
At this time four years ago I knew I was going to vote for Trump because he was not Hillary and if elected he could appoint at least one judge to the Supreme Court and that was enough for me. In the comments here on Neo’s site I became so fed up I quit reading this site when folks were having trouble accepting Trump being the candidate and never settling down and realizing that he was our choice. Perhaps he is the only candidate who could beat Hillary four years ago and I think that his obnoxious New York behavior was too much for traditional conservatives. He still annoys me and I don’t usually like to watch his speeches and really don’t like his tweets but he gets his message out and makes the liberal media talk about his positions.
Trump is not an old school Conservative Republican, he is something else and in many ways he has done more to move our country on along than anyone since Regan who did some good stuff and some stuff that made me so mad I voted Democrat for years, he did not support our domestic oil industry and changed tax rules which were hard on small business owners but I did like his foreign policies with the commies.
As for the way the BLM thugs are tearing up the bluest of blue cities I was amazed the first day they tore into Minneapolis where the ballot had already given the diverse groups everything they asked for? The answer to why they destroy their own blue cities is that they can, they look for weak spots and then set fire and destroy, night after night because they can.
“It’s people who might have been Trump’s allies or at least not his enemies I’m thinking of.” Mac
Too dense to realize that Trump is currently their best bulwark against tyranny.
“The truth is, ordinary voters may correctly anticipate that the rioting will get worse if Trump is reelected, and will voluntarily wind down if he loses. The public may sense this and be ready to give in to the extortion.” djf
Kamala Harris recently stated publicly that the riots and demands to comply won’t stop even if Biden wins.
If enough vote for Biden, they will learn the correctness of old Ben Franklin’s aphorism; “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Old Texan:
Why do they burn down progressive bastions? To send a message to the easily cowed in purple states/areas: “If we do this to blue areas, what do you think we will do to areas that are less blue?” Also they are pretty sure they have permission to “act out” in blue bastions. Muh justice, no peace.
Are they assuming that people in non-blue areas will put up with this sociopathology and not just do a Korea Town on them? It could get very wet if they don’t stop.
I don’t think the rioters are going to follow Wheeler anywhere. Their focus is on creating civil disturbances that affect the most people possible; he has been made an example of, and so has his home.
I never thought much about Donald Trump in his previous careers. I don’t have much attention to spare for television, pop culture, flamboyance, and notoriety. Trump has lived up to his brand and made a success of life, and I’ve always credited him with that, noting his detractors and their heaping scorn – and also noting their accomplishments by comparison.
But I also note that Trump hasn’t really changed. The Presidency has not changed him, aside from the experience maybe showing him to be capable in a way that might not have been as well-described before. His achievements are notable and put Obama’s more modest list to shame – in my opinion.
But where Trump hasn’t changed substantially from the gauche, trash-talking, brash personality he has adopted as his public guise, his political and social opponents are a different story. He has positively made them drop the mask and reveal just how sorely his actions are costing them.
Whatever outrageous provocations Trump makes, their purpose always seems to make sense given the editorial army that is aligned against him. And the responses of his various opponents are always even more disturbing and more outrageous. I am always amazed that this doesn’t make more people pause and wonder why, since they are the ones who are changing their behavior, not Trump.
There will always be the deranged with any given politician. I don’t think this election is going to be particularly close, but it is going to be contested and bitterly fought before it is over. Trump has revolutionized the political process in this country, and his opponents are, to all appearances, reacting as if it were a profoundly effective existential threat to their way of life.
Negotiating with terrorists and meeting with their every demand doesn’t end Terrorism, not at all, in contrary you are just inviting more attacks because now the terrorists know terrorism works on you.
neo
Wrt your friends who think Kavanagh is a “credibly accused racist”; I dunno. Wanting to believe the best, or not the worst, of any specimen of H. Sap, I have to believe their DNA-supplied cognitive functions know better. How can they not? We all have the H. Sap brain.
No. Their emotions are forcing them to believe what they know, on another level, to be false.
And that’s why discussing such issues is so dodgy. They’re about to stroke out if what they know is brought to their conscious attention.
It’s why discussing such things with them is not only unpleasant, it’s absolutely fruitless.
I wonder if there’s such a thing as virtue signaling to the self.
All of which said, how does this affect politics and particularly, political campaigns?
Only way we can end thIs blm domestic Terrorism once and for all is to keep voting for someone the left absolutely despises like Donald Trump and the burning looting and murdering will end by itself if the left knows these Attacks accomplish nothing for them except Keep getting People like trump elected over and over again
RE: “They [DOJ/FBI] say they are investigating [Antifa/BLM].”
I believe that they’ll pursue the truth with the same speed and determination that they’ve used to investigate “Crossfire Hurricane”. It pretty obvious that when DOJ/FBI wasn’t covering up crimes (e.g. IRS scandal and Hillary’s email server), they were actively engaged in their own illegal activities. And what do we have to show for it? Even after all the heavy lifting has been done by the US Senate and private investigative groups (e.g. Judicial Watch), we have one FBI official pleading guilty to small part of the fraud against the FISA court.
After months of attacks against citizens and federal facilities, a handful of people have been arrested in Portland and Seattle. It’s obvious that Antifa and BLM are getting major financial and organizing support. How hard can it possibly be to trace where the money is coming from and how it’s been spent?
They “say” they are investigating?
They have zero credibility with me: DOJ/FBI is hopelessly corrupt. The Mafia has more credibility … and is more intelligent.
Sparticus, I’m actually over here with Prince Andrew, not the left coast. But I’m from Kalamazoo, so I think about MI a lot. I’m glad things haven’t been too ‘busy’ in most places there, as you report. I was worried that Grand Rapids or Lansing might have experienced some violence.
Interestingly, this article that’s going around now at https://survivalblog.com/intelligence-gathering-protests-j-d/ describes action ‘under the radar’ at a couple of Michigan BLM activities. Boy, that guy is brave; but he’s in exactly the right place. I wish I had that skill set. Maybe after I get fired from my current job because I’ll have refused to denounce myself at whatever racism ‘training’ HR is cooking up (oh, yes, I’m already planning for it), I can help with something like what he describes.
rcat:
I’m not especially optimistic about that investigation, either. But investigations take time, and I’ll give them time before I decide.
Richard Aubrey:
Well, they think he’s a rapist, not a racist. Although I assume that, were I to ask them, they’d assure me he’s a racist as well. Aren’t all conservatives?
I’ve only spoken to one of them in depth, and she watched Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony and believed her. That was it for her; it had the ring of truth for her. I don’t think she watched or paid attention to much more than that.
Most of these friends don’t follow the news that closely, so the MSM and Democratic narrative is very effective on them. If they followed it more closely, I’m not sure whether it would matter. But they don’t, so I don’t know.
“Republicans” and milquetoast “conservatives” who won’t vote for Trump because “he is obnoxious” may get the government they deserve. That seems to me beyond feckless. We’re voting for the leader of the “free world”, not Prom King at Millard Fillmore High School!
Yes, this is virtue signaling to yourself.
Like Mac above I voted 3rd party in 2016 too (since I live in a “safe” red state), but I would crawl over broken glass this year to vote for Trump.
Oliver T.:
Amen, amen.
You can find a bunch of videos on youtube from Kenosha locals showing the vans and campers that showed up for the rioting. They’d filled up the lots at municipal parks & along bordering streets. There are also a few video’s that cut together accounts from locals who relate their attempts to engage the ‘protesters’. These are just cell phone videos by residents interviewing each other on the street. Their accounts are consistent in the realization that the ‘protesters’ weren’t from Kenosha and that they were evasive when asked where they’d come from.
The problem in Kenosha was the leadership. The mayor and city leadership are Democrat and for a variety of reasons, they sympathized with the rioters, oh sorry, protestors. Apparently, they had also forgotten their Boy Scout motto? In any event, they weren’t prepared with a plan when all Sheol broke loose and dithered around like Pangloss when confronted suddenly with reality. They neither accepted Mr. Trump’s offers of assistance nor had a battalion of state guard on alert. Acta non verba.
Now, there is a larger lesson, common to larger and medium sized cities: Obsolence. We don’t need cities, as presently conceived, any longer. The shopping districts of the large cities will never be rebuilt. Why? The internet. People will move out to the countryside and work from wherever they like. The city tax bases are already evaporating. I could flog the point, but that’s a lot of work. So let me just observe that the potential for drastic change was already there, but lacked a driving force. Rioters and COVID-19 just provided it.
I see people online still in denial that they are in a war. They think Demoncrat cities will burn and that it is a good thing, but that’s not a well thought out tactical or strategic analysis. They are using double think to avoid their cognitive dissonance. They don’t want the PTSD of being in a war, so they think the only cities being burned are their enemy’s.
If they ever accepted that they were getting attacked, the stress would be too much for the summer warriors and peaceful civilians that always voted and paid their taxes on time.
In order to wake up Leftists, one must inflict pain beyond their tolerance threshold, and then keep up the DPS to the point where they can’t just go back to Noam Chomsky for 3 days and come back with another O care rationalization for marxist leninism.
The same happens to be true of conservatives and other AMerican patriots.
The BURN must continue until their egos, beliefs, and world views are in ashes. Only then will it be easy for them to recognize their true enemy.
Which is not what they think it is.
Prepare for the Season Finale 2020. Those of you that manage to survive to 2021, congratulations. Let’s see how the odds favor you ; )
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It rings true for me that suburbanites are finding it harder now to avoid imagining the BLM/Antifa mobs invading their own neighborhoods.
neo. wrt Kavanagh and by extension….
They don’t pay much attention to the news…..
Not after they get their fix. Why inject a downer? It’s not that they’re not interested in the subject; they’ll take repeated doses of the same thing. Presuming the ads on the 6:30 news aren’t coordinated between networks, they’ll hit that remote from one legacy shop to the next. They’ll watch Colbert.
That’s why the sneering about Fauxsnooze and Limbaugh. They can’t afford, and know they can’t afford, that methadone dose.
In church the other day, one pastor lifted up the name of Jacob Blake. I’m waiting for the opportunity to ask how the gofundme page for the woman he raped is doing? But it will not be accepted cheerfully.
The more I think about it, the less i think this whole thing is political in any sense and more about self—actualization–something–self-imaging?
I mean, you can talk about policy and the response is mean tweets. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Can a sentient person actually think that way?
Do sentient people attracted to socialism actually believe it will be a good idea, down in their rational selves? Or does that not matter whatsoever when self-imaging is the issue and they pretend to themselves that it can’t fail?
And today, Trump the master Tweeter is playing the media like a Stradivarius Violin, he tells them the Feds don’t need to fund cities that are encouraging anarchy and destruction which or course causes the chorus of screeching harpies to scream back threatening Trump’s destruction which, kind of, goes to show his point and Trump advertising promotion to those who favor him worth millions. He did it in 2016 and he’s doing it again Trump knows what he’s doing and he is a master of media manipulation. So, he has that going for him.
Richard Aubrey:
It is about a combination of virtue-signaling and groupthink.
But in the case of many of my friends, they really don’t follow the news very much. They don’t watch Colbert, they don’t even watch MSNBC. They’re not interested. Why should they be? They know what they think – their political views were formed aeons ago, and they are surrounded by people who think the same way, and they’re busy doing other things (being with grandkids, etc). They get the basic news (headlines, etc.) and that tells them in a very general way what’s going on and what to think about it.
Richard Aubrey on September 3, 2020 at 1:33 pm said:
Yuri Bezmenov’s ideological demoralization explains it well, via ytube.
Trump is an American version of Winston Churchill…
Came out of the woodwork, was disliked, crude, etc..
but came out to do a job, and then disappear
worry not about this election in which he wins
worry about the next one where there is no one to take up the baton
Yes, indeed, the violence is Trump’s fault. It is primarily due to those angry white supremacists (i.e. the entire Republican party) that Don Lemon and others have been warning us about.
Forget Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis or Kenosha. The worst violence have been in deeply red areas. It’s just tragic what has been happening in Wyoming and North Dakota. Those nightly scenes from Casper are especially jarring. Night after night, marauding bands of middle aged and elderly white guys in MAGA hats rampage through the downtown, burning and looting. And Governor Mark Gordon is just unwilling to take a strong stand against the violence. Indeed, he has intimated sympathy for the protestors’ rage.
And then there’s Grand Forks! Poor Grand Forks. All those conservative church ladies smashing storefront windows with rolling pins, stealing casserole ingredients right and left. Once again, GOP Governor Doug Burgum is unwilling to do much of anything to put a stop to it.
Of course, the right wing media is partly to blame. How many more times can Tucker Carlson insist that these protests are “largely peaceful”??? How many more editorials will the Epoch Times publish rationalizing the looting? Thank goodness for Joe Biden and the Democrats issuing strong condemnations of all this right wing violence and taking a firm stand on the side of law and order!
neo:
I do a lot of reading on the net, of both “reporting” and opinion. I’ll read the various perspectives on a given issue or event, draw my own conclusions from the information available, and move on. Every once in a great while, I come across something that stops me dead in my tracks.
While you clearly prefer longish-form writing (hence the blog), your comment on 9/2 at 6:01 stunned me such that I re-read it a number of times. Never before have I seen such a clear, concise, cogent, and brief explanation of Trump’s persona, and it absolutely rings true. This is the nut paragraph (though you buried the lede 🙂 ).
“Same thing with Trump in the political realm. His good traits – his ability to fight, his nose for hypocrisy, his incredible energy, his sharp humor – are linked, I believe, to the traits people don’t like: sharpness, insults, exaggeration, and whatever else they don’t like. I don’t think one can be separated from the other.”
When I stopped to ponder that, I couldn’t conclude anything but that it was deadly accurate, in particular the summary sentence.
Excellent!
Steve:
Thanks!