I don’t think they are stupid or crazy necessarily. I struggle to understand their logic and thought processes.

A person's opinions are usually based on their values.

If someone has immoral principles (not saying that TC does or doesn't) then why can't that be attacked?

There was someone else here (I think they are now banned but they were definitely in the TC/MC camp) who wrote on the COVID thread, "When will all of this be over so I can stop pretending to wash my hands?".

That's not an opinion. That is someone who lacks integrity. It's someone with immoral values.

Can that not be mentioned?

And yet, so many of the points in that list that your friend shared are just plain nutty and crazy... and provably false! Some are outright lies (à la Trump), some are matters of opinion, one or two may even be true (but immaterial), once again in accordance with the hackneyed old adage about a stopped clock.

It's yet another example of a brainwashed, dedicated Trumper simply spouting whatever s/he has been told to believe, without any critical thought going into the process. And certainly without any fact checking.

And this is an attempt at a wholesale dressing down.

Simply put, one cannot dismiss 74 million people, that not only voted for him, but voted for him after 4 years of his presidency. In spite of everything that happened since 2016, his support grew by a fifth! Lord knows how, but he has found a way to resonate with millions of Americans who felt the system wasn't working for them. Many of those even know he's not fit for office, yet voted for him anyway!

To look at his record, he also repaid their faith, certainly his middle class and blue collar supporters. Poverty has dropped, inequality has narrowed. American incomes rose five times as much as they did during eight years of President Obama, and this wasn't just the billionaires, those that did best were those at the bottom of the pecking order, low and middle income workers.*

A lot rests now with President Elect Biden, people need to start at least trying to understand that mentality, because to ignore it would be to do so at America's peril.

*pre-Covid

I don't know. I think they did actually believe that. I was watching a video earlier where a British journalist was inside the Capitol building, filming, as it was under siege and was interviewing some of the people inside. Most of them thought they were starting a revolution and were completely irate, claiming that the U.S. was THEIR country and that it had been stolen from them (and that is exactly what Trump had been telling them in his speech earlier that day) and that they were there to take it back. That video of the journalist inside the Capitol can be seen here:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1346952339886923786

You can see at the beginning that the crazy QAnon dude with the dead animal hat (or whatever the hell that thing is) was actually hanging his flag from a spear. Apparently, many of them had weapons of some sort.

So what exactly do people think would have happened if this irate mob had entered the room when all those members of Congress were still in there? They were obviously outnumbered. Even the police weren't able to control them. I mean, clearly they wouldn't be able to actually seize power over the US, but what do people really think would have happened if they had encountered all those Congress members when they entered that room?

Not familiar with the expression. What do you mean?

I think it certainly can. I don't think this is the case here.

I would. That is not an opinion though, that is an action that endangers others.
Yes, I called him a "loonie". I totally own to that. Reprehensible, sure. But I am human, and I make mistakes like everyone else.

In my defense, that user is a scientific illiterate who is also extremely arrogant and condescending with his conspiracy-theory beliefs, making him particularly annoying. Crappy defense, but that's my excuse.

Trump is an eloquent speaker in one sense, that he knows exactly the phrases people want to hear and says or repeats them at the right time. It doesn't matter a bit what those phrases are and whether they mean anything.

This thread and this forum in general can do well if we stop "groaning" and "thanking" specific people and instead focus on what is being said. There are a few points which Tony Clifton made here and with which I have agreed too. He has also made others with which I have disagreed. This is not a reason to dismiss the person.

Do the following exercise: try to read an opinion first and only THEN look at the name of the poster. I've been doing this for a while and it's quite revealing.

Just to be clear I find it ridiculous to call this poor Cosplay a coup. At the same time I also find it ridiculous to downplay the situation. In the end, the naming convention doesn't really matter as whatever we call it, it won't change the nature of the fact would it? And it's now over anyway

Psychopaths are master manipulators. It reminds me in some ways of how Manson was able to manipulate his cult of followers.

"The key to Manson’s control, as with all cult leaders, was to ensure that followers not only saw him as an all-powerful, messiah-like figure, but that followers see themselves as members of a superior elite that has the answer to the world’s problems – even if that means killing the rest of the world along the way. Manson persuaded his followers to commit murders to trigger “Helter Skelter” where there would be a “race war” which would elevate him to world leadership. He espoused a rambling, incoherent apocalyptic world view that was nevertheless completing captivating for his followers."

https://theconversation.com/how-cult...t-murder-70961

Yup, it most certainly can be said and is done in political and journalistic debates worldwide without being considered an "ad hominem" attack. In the end if that is your cast-iron opinion that someone is a person of low principle and integrity, then that's the way it is and you should be able to voice that.

Trump is not going to the inauguration.
Probably for the best.

I don't agree with your statements, which although partly true are misleading. Poverty is closely correlated to unemployment, which has been on a steep downward slope for over 10 years.



This is NOT Trump, this is a long trend.

Regarding inequality, it depends on how you measure it. Economically this is probably not the case. Socially speaking, Obama issued laws to protect borrowers of payday loans, which Trump has . Trump has also increased inequality by blocking transgender people from federally funded single-sex or sex-segregated homeless shelters (in May 2019), by blocking access to birth control, limiting SNAP food stamps (the Republicans aim at slashing nearly 680'000 people off the SNAP program), not to mention the healthcare fiasco. I really think Trump if anything has increased inequality.

__________________
The internet makes it easy to be a jerk and forget the person we're talking to is a human. It also makes us see messages from awful people and assume they come from normal peers.

As usual nothing to substantiate your claims and mostly lies or distortions. At best Trump only continued trends what were already well established under Obama.

If you can exclude Covid from Trump's record then the first couple of years of Obama should also be taken our of the record, dominated as they were by the financial crisis he inherited. In fact you shold really only judge any president economically starting from at least 2 years in.

Fact is, once the 2008/9 crisis and covid are taken out of the equation (one correction each to be fair), incomes rose at pretty much the same rate under both and inequality stayed fundimentally the same under both.

Interesting how you are so concerned about Trump's 74 million voters but apparently have no regard for the 80 million that voted for Biden. I guess that as with the Washington rioters this is because they are other people and
don't count.

I don't recall you bothering about the majority that voted for Clinton last time round either.

A couple of quick links for further reading

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...obama-economy/
https://chs.vcu.edu/archive/election...nequality.html

Not only the Dems talking about a coup
It is clear that Trump's wish was to stay as President and somewhere in his other world he believed this approach could achieve it no matter how impractical in reality.

Did you look closely at the guy with the Buffalo horns? He had a huge double-headed axe hanging on his belt, and some people here claimed "mostly unarmed".

we all struggle to understand their logic but maybe this tries to sum it up...

Well, some of them clearly are - both.

This is mind-boggling.

These people don't seem to understand that they are confessing to federal crimes on TV while I bet they celebrated when - amid the BLM riots last year - Trump passed an Executive Order that makes this punishable by 10 years in prison.

This. Thanks.

The whole quasi-putch looks allowed on purpose to me and I wonder why. Is US reality TV not offering enough adrenaline? I disagree with any riots for any reason, btw. I don't find them in any way constructive.