One helluva cult

Oh, definitely a cult...but, his opposition was a cackling nothing-burger who'd never won a delegate on her own steam, so...anyone shocked, simply wasn't paying attention.

He's still the sex-assaulting, felonious, philandering, bankrupting, lying sack-of-Sunkist-suet s**tboi...with more feloy charges ahead. He stands a chance to bring even greater shame to the Oval Office, which would also be unsurprising.

He ended up running against the JV QB this time, after the "starter" managed to say something enormously stupid (and the topic of another thread!) on his way out. Things lined up for him, even as his babble got increasingly alarming.

Let's see if he lives up to the office, or down to his behaviors.

Ive had a couple days to process, listen and reflect:

An impressive political win
Trump is the first Republican Potus candidate to win the popular vote in 20 years

Lots of soul searching for Dems the next few years; how to (authentically) return to a party for middle and working class and for the bros voter too. 
Not happy with Biden for not pushing for someone else two years ago at midterms and for the party to hold a true search for candidate

Harris wasn't the right choice and I would have said that back this summer, not sure our own Waltz was either in retrospect, may not have made a difference in the end. Harris wasn't willing to throw Biden under the bus and separate more from him, cost her a bunch

I honestly dont think we'll ever see a women POTUS in my lifetime - but Hilary and Harris were both weak candidates, so maybe I will be wrong. 

The issues for this race were clear
Economy
Economy
Economy/Inflation
Womens Reproductive Rights
Immigration

Lots of stats out there, this one stuck with me the most:
70% of voters in one poll said the economy was bad or poor
- of those voters, Trump won by 40 pts

I hope he does well for the country's sake. He'll have a window till probably mid-terms. Everything is ALWAYS cyclical.

The dnc threw it, completely. Joe's decline, Harris was/is a disaster of nothingness, and the border/economy are huge in the minds of the country.

Despite the shrieking stupidity of "Jewish Space Lasers" and "Weather Control" trash like MTG and similar dumpster fires like Boebert, only two states failed to get 'redder':

Washington (all the conservatives are leaving, I'm likely gone by summer)
Utah (that surprised me)

As has been pointed out, the dnc has lost its connection with the common American due to chasing celeb endorsements and keeping their urban s**t zones sealed up...but, when the news shows how badly those cities are run, how bad the crime has gotten, and similar headlines...are NY or LA really "shining examples" of anything, anymore?

SF's mayor just had a massive recall. NY's entire city gov't is facing charges. Chicago is still the crime zone it's been since the Daleys first ran the place.

The gop has rallied around agent orange again, so I guess that's their identity for 4 more years; they've chosen lies, cons, and club whackadoodle as their platforms.

Even that, somehow, is more settled than the dnc, who have...what? The moderates hate the "squad", supposedly, and the all hate the common American, whose votes they covet even if a typical guy isn't nearly DEI or subscribed to CRT enough for their purposes.

Welcome to more "interesting times"...!

purplefaithful wrote:
Ive had a couple days to process, listen and reflect:

An impressive political win
Trump is the first Republican Potus candidate to win the popular vote in 20 years

Lots of soul searching for Dems the next few years; how to (authentically) return to a party for middle and working class and for the bros voter too. 
Not happy with Biden for not pushing for someone else two years ago at midterms and for the party to hold a true search for candidate

Harris wasn't the right choice and I would have said that back this summer, not sure our own Waltz was either in retrospect, may not have made a difference in the end. Harris wasn't willing to throw Biden under the bus and separate more from him, cost her a bunch

I honestly dont think we'll ever see a women POTUS in my lifetime - but Hilary and Harris were both weak candidates, so maybe I will be wrong. 

The issues for this race were clear
Economy
Economy
Economy/Inflation
Womens Reproductive Rights
Immigration

Lots of stats out there, this one stuck with me the most:
70% of voters in one poll said the economy was bad or poor
- of those voters, Trump won by 40 pts

I hope he does well for the country's sake. He'll have a window till probably mid-terms. Everything is ALWAYS cyclical.

Process….  lol.   She was a candidate trying to hide her views the entire election.  What’s to process?  The candidate who stood for something and risked his life fighting to win an election based on the issues won.

purplefaithful wrote:

I honestly dont think we'll ever see a women POTUS in my lifetime - but Hilary and Harris were both weak candidates, so maybe I will be wrong. 

I don't know your age but I'm 70 and I believe I will see a woman elected POTUS!

IMO, the best candidates for POTUS have experience as state governors and we currently have a number of female governors across the country.  The pool of potential candidates is thus increasing.

Governors with strong Blue and Red parties learn to work together and can potentially arrive at reasonable solutions acceptable to both sides.  Much easier to sell nationally if have successes addressing state issues while reaching across the aisle.

A successful candidate can articulate the issues and explain their proposed solutions in easy to understand terms.

The candidate will knowledgeable and able to discuss the issues extemporaneously.  No hiding behind teleprompters or only going to interviews with softball questions and clear support.

The successful female candidate will turn down the misandry.  Men do support women in many, many ways.  Abortion and transgenders in girl sports/locker rooms are contentious issues.  Disagreeing with progressive feminist views on these issues does not indicate lack of support for woman.

In my professional career, I had a number of female bosses and co-workers.  The vast majority were very good to excellent at their jobs.  I could easily vote for a female candidate for POTUS if she is a leader, can effectively communicate with us, and addressing the priority issues of the country.

purplefaithful wrote:

I honestly dont think we'll ever see a women POTUS in my lifetime - but Hilary and Harris were both weak candidates, so maybe I will be wrong. 

I'm convinced that we will, actually, and likely within the next couple of election cycles. Haley would be more than viable, and there are others who are far more trustworthy and proven than that last two thrown in by the dnc.

I still am sad that Jo Jorgensen got basically wiped out of any TV time in 2020 by COVID and the media's overall Trumplestilskin fixation; she is very intelligent, has a singular wit, and would've been an amazing option.

In any case, I really never felt any pushback towards Harris from her "plumbing", but there was plenty of other problems with her as a candidate.

purplefaithful wrote:
Ive had a couple days to process, listen and reflect:

An impressive political win
Trump is the first Republican Potus candidate to win the popular vote in 20 years

Lots of soul searching for Dems the next few years; how to (authentically) return to a party for middle and working class and for the bros voter too. 
Not happy with Biden for not pushing for someone else two years ago at midterms and for the party to hold a true search for candidate

Harris wasn't the right choice and I would have said that back this summer, not sure our own Waltz was either in retrospect, may not have made a difference in the end. Harris wasn't willing to throw Biden under the bus and separate more from him, cost her a bunch

I honestly dont think we'll ever see a women POTUS in my lifetime - but Hilary and Harris were both weak candidates, so maybe I will be wrong. 

The issues for this race were clear
Economy
Economy
Economy/Inflation
Womens Reproductive Rights
Immigration

Lots of stats out there, this one stuck with me the most:
70% of voters in one poll said the economy was bad or poor
- of those voters, Trump won by 40 pts

I hope he does well for the country's sake. He'll have a window till probably mid-terms. Everything is ALWAYS cyclical.

Found this summation from another source,  but I tend to agree with much of what he is saying here:

Random Thoughts of the Day
Throughtout all the media meltdowns over the Trump win, the discussion inevitably has come back to why he won. As you might expect, it’s almost always some simplistic explanation that includes racism, sexism, misogyny, etc. as well as an explanation how different demographics voted, or should have voted, based on the media’s clueless identity politics image of the world. These statements are infuriating on so many levels. Human beings are diverse, complex individuals with endless influences — parents, friends, culture, education, media consumption, romantic relationships, traumas, and so much more. The vast majority of Americans think little about race, gender, etc., but the media can’t help but put everyone in neat little boxes. It’s condescending and snobbish to believe that maybe, just maybe, Americans considered all the facts, issues, and candidates, then independently settled on their election choices.

Unfortunately, that snobbery isn’t just a media problem. It’s infested most of the far-left liberals. Try an experiment — ask one why you think Trump got 73 million Americans to vote for him. You’ll find their answer isn’t “Well, there are a number of reasons….” It will be something like Trump supporters are stupid, uneducated, brainwashed, racist, sexist, gullible believers of “misinformation,” and so on. In fact, that condescending attitude itself was a big reason many Americans chose Trump.

It’s doubtful the Democratic party or mainstream media will ever learn from experiences like this, but maybe they should have been clued in a little that Trump’s team was packed with libertarians and former Democrats. After inflation, the top concern of voters was free speech. It was the top issue that drove Elon Musk to Trump, as Democrats are constantly looking for ways to control information, along with their co-fascists in Big Tech. The censorship and Covid tyranny drove the RFK and Joe Rogan wings of the party to Trump. Another issue I haven’t heard in any of the media election explanations is war. You don’t think an obsession with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, along with the alliances with Bush and the Cheney’s, didn’t drive a lot of Democrats away?! Tulsi Gabbard’s switch should have been a clue. And let’s not forget Ron Paul, Vivek Ramaswamy, and other libertarians who finally see some hope of a chainsaw being taken to the federal government. The Left has been too blinded by Trump hatred and artifically-created fear to see that Trump built the most diverse voter coalition in American history.

Trump won 92 percent of counties and 4.5 million more popular votes. Kamala outperformed Biden in exactly ZERO counties. And I believe the race wasn’t even that close. Just because Trump won doesn’t mean the Democrats didn’t cheat. However, this time Lara Trump’s anti-voter fraud organization plus millions of attentive Americans made sure the cheating was insufficient to win. It should tell you something that Kamala only won states where ID is not required to vote. But who knows how many local races were rigged. I highly suspect the Kari Lake and Eric Hovde outcomes were fixed. I watched our Wisconsin race until 2am or so, where Hovde led by 3 percent with 91 percent of the vote counted, then deja vu, an overnight ballot drop gave Baldwin the win. It should always raise suspicions when you have major split votes. In other words, how probable do you think it is that in states Trump won, hundreds of thousands of voters decided to vote Democrat on Senate, Republican for President?

The 2020 vote totals compared to other recent races should put to bed any belief the race was legit. It’s not just that Kamala got 14 million fewer votes than Biden. It’s that Trump himself got 1.5 million fewer votes. Putting aside population growth, did it seem there was less enthusiasm for Trump in 2024 than 2020, especially after he put together his dream team? Not to mention the vote totals that should have accumulated by Biden voters switching to Trump? The logical explanation is that in order to get away with faking millions of Biden votes, they had to plant plenty of fake Trump votes, since it’d be a tad suspicious if every ballot dump was 100 percent Biden.

Of course, I will acknowledge it’s possible a significant number of Trump voters stayed home because they figured Democrats would cheat again in 2024 enough to make their vote meaningless. But kudos to those who made it to the polls. You defeated a machine: mainstream media, Big Tech, the Deep State, the entertainment industry, $1+ billion of advertising, college indoctrination centers, and so much more.

Why can't people learn the difference between "leftists" and "liberals"? For fuggsakes:

liberals would NOT be over-legislating, over-regulating, etc...that's authoritarian leftism, very different, and you may as well describe a RAM 3500 as a Fiat 500, because they have the same parent company.

Trump voters whining about the "steal" are a terrible joke, given that they know their own chaotic combover compost cretin was leaning on people to "find" votes, was misquoting and fully fictionalizing the "data" over and over, and his own party's judges called his bulls**t just that, repeatedly.

Get past it, or just stay in 2020 and quit pretending to have any relevance since then.

Bill Maher nailed it again last Friday, when he told the dems to look in the mirror to explain the "failure", though putting a very weak-tea candidate in with a tiny amount of time and no real platform vs a known, large personality cult should be an easy place to start. The dems have blown their relationship with the common Americans, with many of their moderates, and their self-decreed elitism is frankly nauseating to a huge number of people; just ask the polls.

I'm honestly hoping to end up apologizing, here and across social media plus within my family, for my many snarls against "the Donald". But, with the stacks of lies, of petty acts, and the 5-star narcissism that he keeps throwing around...well, signs point to "unlikely".

Our country would be better off if both sides find areas of common interest vs just casting stones...

Regardless of anyones level of conviction, Fascists and college indoctrination center language does nothing but fuel anger, fear and mistrust on both sides. 

This is preachy (sorry) but everyone needs to turn the heat down and down a lot. This has been an historically divisive period in the US, its not good. It's weakened us while China, Russia, NK and Iran have benefitted. 

The Republicans have a window to get things done; I hope I like the "what" and the "how"of what they might accomplish.

purplefaithful wrote:
Our country would be better off if both sides find areas of overlap vs casting stones...Fascists and college indoctrination center language does nothing but fuel anger, fear and mistrust.

Looking at the cabinet appointments so far...the term "cult" is gonna be in very consistent use.

Happily, "the Donald" fires everyone regularly, so they likely won't be issues for long.

Zanary wrote:

Looking at the cabinet appointments so far...the term "cult" is gonna be in very consistent use.

Happily, "the Donald" fires everyone regularly, so they likely won't be issues for long.

It'll be interesting to see if Vivek/Musk actually get shit done. I have my doubts, but we'll see. 

Couple of Trumps nominations I dont like at all, but thats to be expected. 

My biggest hiccup was Gaetz, not sure he makes it through the nomination process or not. I see Mike Johnson said today that he does not think the House Ethics Committee report on allegations related to Matt Gaetz should be released and is “going to strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report.”

The good news (As you point out) is that Trump fires everyone all the time - especially AG's.

purplefaithful wrote:

It'll be interesting to see if Vivek/Musk actually get shit done. I have my doubts, but we'll see. 

Couple of Trumps nominations I dont like at all, but thats to be expected. 

My biggest hiccup was Gaetz, not sure he makes it through the nomination process or not. I see Mike Johnson said today that he does not think the House Ethics Committee report on allegations related to Matt Gaetz should be released and is “going to strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report.”

The good news (As you point out) is that Trump fires everyone all the time - especially AG's.

isnt it refreshing though to actually have people in a place to get something done, actually saying that they are going to target the wasteful spending and putting people on it that arent already neck deep in the wasteful spending swamp?

how about RFKjr,  putting a guy that has spent a lifetime going after the food and drug companies for corruption in charge of that dept?  I thought this was awesome for Americans.

I think there is going to be a lot of "oh shit" moments in the coming 2 years,  but it will beat the hell out of the countless WTF moments we've had the last 4.

JimmyinSD wrote:

isnt it refreshing though to actually have people in a place to get something done, actually saying that they are going to target the wasteful spending and putting people on it that arent already neck deep in the wasteful spending swamp?

how about RFKjr,  putting a guy that has spent a lifetime going after the food and drug companies for corruption in charge of that dept?  I thought this was awesome for Americans.

I think there is going to be a lot of "oh shit" moments in the coming 2 years,  but it will beat the hell out of the countless WTF moments we've had the last 4.

Time will tell my friend...

I was always more leery about who Trump puts in his admin than I was of him. I am sensing Trump isnt quite the firebrand he used to be, maybe mellowing a bit with age. 

Are we sure Musk really isnt the VP and JD isn't just a figure-head? Sort of joking, sort of. ITs early ;)

I am being very transparent when I say I hope they succeed in making life better for all the people. This includes those who are marginalized and those struggling to just make ends meet. I wont rally against this admin until they give me cause.

ps - have a great time in Tn..Skol em on

purplefaithful wrote:

Time will tell my friend...

I was always more leery about who Trump puts in his admin than I was of him. I am sensing Trump isnt quite the firebrand he used to be, maybe mellowing a bit with age. 

Are we sure Musk really isnt the VP and JD isn't just a figure-head? Sort of joking, sort of. ITs early ;)

I am being very transparent when I say I hope they succeed in making life better for all the people. This includes those who are marginalized and those struggling to just make ends meet. I wont rally against this admin until they give me cause.

get the people out of the country that dont legally belong here,  and off the social teat,  and that should free up more resources for those that are truly struggling to find a way forward,  however those that are able, but dont try and help themselves should also be left behind,  less excuses and more effort.  way to many success stories out there of people coming from meager beginnings to that that path isnt still a viable one.

I do think a monumental overhaul of our education system is way past due and could be the best thing for our society.  The current system is glaringly broken and imo is a large part of why the divide in this country is so large.  people dont quit because they are hopeless,  they quit because they are told its ok to quit.

purplefaithful wrote:

It'll be interesting to see if Vivek/Musk actually get shit done. I have my doubts, but we'll see. 

Couple of Trumps nominations I dont like at all, but thats to be expected. 

My biggest hiccup was Gaetz, not sure he makes it through the nomination process or not. I see Mike Johnson said today that he does not think the House Ethics Committee report on allegations related to Matt Gaetz should be released and is “going to strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report.”

The good news (As you point out) is that Trump fires everyone all the time - especially AG's.

One of my biggest actual beefs with orange boi and his ilk are exactly what Johnson is doing: fighting information/accountability.

"The Donald" wants all his BS to be allowed, and wants the details sealed. This has been true very, very regularly.

It's an ongoing litany around him and his "peeps", and it's a horrific kind of privilege to be constantly, consistently fighting for.