The Disunited States of Trump (Trump Thread #104)

[TheNorthWestPawsage]

Trump used manipulation and race-baiting four years ago. He’s at it again. We are weary and worried but we shall persist.

Cartoon by Chris Riddell.

Previous thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3983600-Less-than-100-days-and-counting-Trump-thread-103?msgid=99566209#99566209

@Wishingstarr

Well if I am "newcomersplaining" its because of the responses I got so therefore I was explaining why I have the impressions I do.

If you bring up a specific state in a UK forum I am going to assume that not everyone reading it is going to be aware of how Maine's politics line up when compared with other states.

Unfortunately it would be great if there had been a mass exodus from the Republican party because "never-Trumpers" were the majority. This clearly hasn't happened, and in fact there are constant stories of GOP politicians who criticized Trump in 2016 who have now cravenly fallen into line due to his popularity with party faithful.

Its not those who strongly identify as Republicans or Democrats, its all those floating in the middle who decide elections as we all know - scuse my explaining. I just don't assume anything of people reading.

The trick is to read the thread, gauge the collective knowledge and insight of posters, note the style and tone of posts, and contribute accordingly by not piling in and telling people what they know already, in far greater depth and detail than you do. I rarely contribute myself because I don’t feel I can bring much to the conversation.

Well I didn't realize there was test to join a thread. No I didn't read the whole thread because it was very long and its clearly been an ongoing thread about whatever Trump's recent shenanigans have been.

I thought living in the USA since 1996 qualified me to have an opinion. My bad.

I apologise to Wishingstarr if you are a genuine poster. There is no test to join these threads and all here are worried (to say the least) that Trump will be declared 'winner' (irrespective of whether he actually 'wins').

Yes - we are a bit of an echo chamber at times, but I think that is in itself a comfort to some us - knowing that we are not alone.

Early on I did wonder if maybe I was missing something about Trump. What couldn't I see that all these supporters could? But nope, there is no way my brain can even begin to go where he is pointing.

That's 2 wasted votes if you aren't registered/able to vote if you've been in the US since 1996 and your husband is a "Bernie only" voter. I find that hard to understand. You can only change things if you have "skin in the game" as AOC said recently.

Oh, and I think that the Dems are pretty fired up now about RBG's replacement. I have never seen or heard my DH's mother (90) so angry as she was on Sunday's zoom call. She has already called everyone in her extensive phone book to donate to the Dem campaign!

I have also jumped into this thread - I was briefly on the one prior to this.

I have to agree that new posters would be put off by being told to 'read the thread' considering they've been going on for four years now. It's clearly not just this one thread either. There are lots of reasons why people might want to contribute to the discussion now and haven't before - the sheer horror that is dawning that the election is as soon as it is, is one thing and needing somewhere to go to offload with what their seeing. There is a distinctive value having some place to post for someone with a foot in both the UK and the US camps - I can't unpick this all now and it's not terribly relevant to the ongoing discussion. The upshot is I think more posters will come along on this basis and I do think that some of the content might invariably be repetitive to oldies at some point. I don't think you intend for this to be a closed shop?

A closer look at GOP hypocrisy.

Perking No claig wasn't around long enough to witness the horror that is Johnson as PM. He/she used to comment on Gove though, thought he was very talented haha.

He/she was obsessed with 'Oxbridge metropolitan elite luvvies' and then got a thing for the journo over here, Robert Peston. It was all very strange. Then there was his love for Nigel Fartage, man of the people, haha. Claig loved Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Sessions, Nikki Haley and was always banging on about Trump's tremendous courage.
Happy days....

Wishing you're welcome to post, doesn't mean to say we'll always agree with you though...

My husband is a US citizen and always votes, I am a Green Card holder so can't vote. I never had the desire to become a US citizen. We lived in Europe (not the UK) and around the world during our marriage. We expect to retire to Europe and until Brexit that was not a big deal. I will wait to see how everything plays out in the next decade...

I am somewhat cynical because I am definitely not a Trump supporter but I see and hear why others are saying they will vote for him and I am not sure the Dems have addressed many of the reasons so many Obama voters switched to Trump. Unfortunately they have chosen yet another Dem moderate insider who apparently isn't offering anything new like Bernie was. Bernie appealed to a lot of voters who want change and I am sure you know that polls show he would've easily beaten Trump in 2016. I thought Biden would win easily earlier in the summer, now I am not so sure.

I agree that the Supreme Court seat is a big motivator for Dems but it will be for the GOP too. Although I think the Dems raised hundreds of millions over the weekend. We all know the GOP have filled 200 federal judge seats since Trump was elected so I think they will have huge phone trees and political machines focused on SCOTUS.

Sanders, like Corbyn in the uk didn't attract enough of the middle. How anyone in the US can consider not voting for Biden simply because he's not Sanders is just crazy. They would be enabling another four years of Trump madness which would be far, far worse than Biden. I see Biden as a political reset figure, just enough to allow the US to return to the world stage as a reasonable country again.

I totally agree Jason118. I also think that is what many Repugs are afraid of - more than the actuality of Biden himself.

It only takes a quick read of the thread to realise that none of us are confident of Biden win.

GOP, however, seem to be convinced that Trump will lose, given their rush to replace RBG.

No, it's not just floating voters who have moved away from Trump. Long-standing GOP members have publicly left the party and are actively campaigning against Trump.

Whether the numbers are enough to have an impact on Trump is an open question.

But the fact that people are abandoning the party they've supported most of their lives isn't in question.

@Jason118

Sanders, like Corbyn in the uk didn't attract enough of the middle. How anyone in the US can consider not voting for Biden simply because he's not Sanders is just crazy. They would be enabling another four years of Trump madness which would be far, far worse than Biden. I see Biden as a political reset figure, just enough to allow the US to return to the world stage as a reasonable country again.

This is basically how I feel, 100%.

Yes, it's all about resetting everything after Trump is out. Biden is inheriting a total mess what with covid, the economy, unemployment and a very divided country. But every country in the world is suffering too I s'pose.

Oh dear... when I say 'Biden is inheriting a total mess'... I don't want to jinx everything by assuming a win for him.
I think everyone is worried this won't happen, I agree.
What the next four years under Trump would be like doesn't bear thinking about.

The polls look very different this time, but we all know swing states mean the result could go either way.

Speaking of dissident GOP, The Lincoln Project's homage to RBG.

After a load of waffle and an interesting graphic showing the swing states in play this year, the BBC finishes their article on current polling with:

"But this year there's even more uncertainty than normal due to the coronavirus pandemic and the effect it's having on both the economy and how people will vote in November, so all polls should be read with some scepticism, especially this far out from election day."

www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-53657174

Yes, I agree that it shouldn't be a closed shop, OVienna.

There have so many posters who pop up with Gish gallops, bullet point messages (often untrue) straight from the Trumpie propaganda sheet, that we don't tend to take them seriously.

That doesn't mean someone's a paid troll. It just means they're downstream from Trumpie flows and are repeating the bizarre things they've been fed on their Facebook or Twitter feed.

So there was one recently who popped up all indignant to say that obviously Trump hasn't broken any emoluments clause because although he still owns the Trump Organization, his sons nominally run it day-to-day. And how dare we suggest that might still be a problem.

They always, always, start with, "I'm not a Trumpie but..."

When there's a lot of it, it gets tiresome. It's dropped off a lot since the early days, but I was expecting it to hot up close to the election and am I'm actually surprised there hasn't been more.

I should post something about Q-Anon going mainstream and starting to have an impact on non-conspiracy-attracted people just by the drip-drip effect.

Will need to gather my thoughts and sources on that one.

PerkingFaintly I am just not convinced the numbers leaving the Republicans are significant. The Lincoln Project is fun but I am not sure they are convincing voters to abandon him as much as giving Dems that impression. It's Dems sharing their videos not Republicans.

I read a huge analysis of Facebook (which I don't use) that said it was dominated by GOP voters and posts were getting millions of views. I think because each side are so separate Dems just don't have a good idea of the enthusiasm for Trump. Fox also dominates TV, every week getting absolutely mammoth audiences so that their shows are almost entirely the Top Ten for views. (I don't watch any of it, just read media analysis. I was pretty staggered at how popular Fox is TBH).

@Jason118

Sanders, like Corbyn in the uk didn't attract enough of the middle. How anyone in the US can consider not voting for Biden simply because he's not Sanders is just crazy. They would be enabling another four years of Trump madness which would be far, far worse than Biden. I see Biden as a political reset figure, just enough to allow the US to return to the world stage as a reasonable country again.

There will be No party or party leader that you will agree with 100% of the time. No candidate is perfect, but its churlish not to vote for anyone that you don't agree with all the way. You pick the one closest aligned to your political beliefs or moral judgements and go for them. Sometimes that means picking the lesser of too evils.

www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-the-five-winning-big-in-2020-ratings-beating-out-cable-rivals-and-prime-time-shows/

Yes, it's bizarre that Trump continually tries to describe the "mainstream media" as his enemy, when Fox is as mainstream as they come and has massive viewing figures.

(And is not just slightly pro-Trump, but actively concealed stories from their viewers, in case the information put people off voting for him: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/04/fox-news-stormy-daniels-rupert-murdoch-trump-win)