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3. "Narcissistic, thin-skinned bully" and the rest of the post:

He's clearly narcissistic (and in a very basic/completely childish fashion), but only a *WANNABE* bully. And he seems really really "amphitryonic" (english doesn't have a proper word for that declination of schizotypal personality).

I don't think he's a "bad" person, but I think he can be the elephant in the room bringing too much damage/wreckage.....like an arrogant incompetent.

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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What you think about people who think "technocracy" is a form of PCUS-like communism? 'cause here in Italy we are literally submerged by the (Pravda-like, the irony) propaganda "Technocratic UE is the new PCUS! Beware the gulag! Beware the end of the world!".

In the US, bureacracy came of age under Reagan, where the first rule of regulation was: only have as much govt as you need, but not more. The less, the better. So it's definitely not communist, and it distrusted, eg, Sander's socialism. By the way I'm not as extreme as Reagan on small govt. But I'm against wasteful bloated govt. That's part of technocracy too as I learned it.

 

As for the EU, it sort of works on paper. Merkel's austerity is kind of the central metaphor. It's coming right out of that Reagan/Thatcher thinking. So I can't see the EU as very communist. West Europe is getting kooky, but it's not going to allow gulags anytime soon, just on cultural grounds.

 

That said, I've researched the EU a lot and have met with various EU delegations for my work and they come across as vaguely arrogant and patronizing, like they know better and belittle people even when wanting to "care for them" and "respect their ideas", and that's a common opinion I think. Obama comes across like that too. It's in the personalities of the kinds of people attracted to govt work, I think.

 

In my experience, part of liberalism is humility that you could be wrong & people shouldn't be talked down to. But I sympathized with those delegations because it's the nature of the beast too. I liked the UK being in the EU because they were openly cynical and were a great check against that kind of patronizing arrogance setting in.

 

I think Trump railing against Nato for such a small and petty reason (debt collection lol) was weirdly dumb. Makes me worry about a place like Lithuania getting picked off and Trump as pres not even raising an eyebrow because he doesn't know what that country does for us. Ugh.

 

My general opinion on all this is that the US worked so hard with Europe in our grandparent's generation to build this liberal democratic order, which has make the US and Europe (sans the Balkans) islands away from all the chaos and conflict torturing the rest of the world. That's a good thing IMO. What's crazy to see today is how casually peoole today are ready to undo that order in the US and EU.

 

Trump is popular because his politics is "disruption", shaking things up, but his supporters presumably don't know or care that the politics of disruption was perfected in the '30s and involved show trials and purges. This talk of prosecuting Hillary even without evidence and rooting out corruption has that scent. Liberalism is the antidote, so I don't want to see it dismantled.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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He's clearly narcissistic (and in a very basic/completely childish fashion), but only a *WANNABE* bully. And he seems really really "amphitryonic" (english doesn't have a proper word for that declination of schizotypal personality).

I don't think he's a "bad" person, but I think he can be the elephant in the room bringing too much damage/wreckage.....like an arrogant incompetent.

 

He demeans women for being fat on Twitter, gave out Lindsey Graham's phone number at a campaign rally, and said that John McCain was not a war hero and that he liked people who "weren't captured". That's just what I can remember off the top of my head. I'm not sure that your "wannabe" distinction applies.

 

His spat with Khizr Khan showed off some thin skin, but it was Trump's statement about Paul Ryan back in August that really revealed his pettiness:

 

Trump praised Ryan’s underdog opponent, Paul Nehlen, for running “a very good campaign” and said of Ryan: “I like Paul, but these are horrible times for our country. We need very strong leadership. We need very, very strong leadership. And I’m just not quite there yet. I’m not quite there yet.”
In making his comments Tuesday, Trump may have been seeking retribution for Ryan’s dragging his feet about endorsing Trump in May. Trump’s phrasing of his uncertainty about Ryan — “I’m just not quite there yet” — echoes what Ryan told CNN’s Jake Tapper in a May interview about endorsing Trump: “I’m just not ready to do that at this point. I’m not there right now.”
Edited by jaxa
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Merkel's austerity is kind of the central metaphor. It's coming right out of that Reagan/Thatcher thinking.

Our "conservatives" think the exact opposite :D Technocracy=stalinist URSS and austerity=some kind of socio-cultural Holodomor (to destroy the sense of "nation").

But I always thought they're simply ignorant populists that love to use fascism-era propaganda.

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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Another incident by the way: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/06/trump-protester-i-was-beaten-for-holding-a-republicans-against-trump-sign?CMP=share_btn_tw

 

 

 

 

 

He demeans women for being fat on Twitter, gave out Lindsey Graham's phone number at a campaign rally, and said that John McCain was not a war hero and that he liked people who "weren't captured". That's just what I can remember off the top of my head. I'm not sure that your "wannabe" distinction applies.

 

His spat with Khizr Khan showed off some thin skin, but it was Trump's statement about Paul Ryan back in August that really revealed his pettiness:

 

 

 

Interesting argument often seen is that it's possible to estimate the sins of Clinton. She revealed her taxes. The uranium deal controversy (at any rate after Ukraine she is consistently and openly anti-Russian).

If Trump didn't - there might be some bad connections in those numbers.

 

Don't know if anyone's aware but Russia's going with the conspiracy prophecy thing for +15 years that the US is not a proper democracy and that it will soon fall apart. Like the Soviet Загнивающий Запад (Decaying West) propaganda flick. It's obvious from Russia Today daily coverage. Trump gets daily coverage there.

 

It's good to have someone against the establishment as Trump - agreed. But what is the establishment and conections Trump has himself? He never discloses that. There's always an establishment around powerful figures. Whether in power or not.

Edited by Anderson

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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But what is the establishment and conections Trump has himself? He never discloses that. There's always an establishment around powerful figures. Whether in power or not.

Exactly. He clearly isn't a market genius, so he must have some powerful backers somewhere. In the Army maybe?

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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Other portions of Trump's base want to see blood in the water in Washington, D.C. They want to see a purge of corrupt and overpaid officials

 

If you just want to toss a bomb into Washington, then yes, I can understand voting for Trump. But again, that doesn't explain intelligent people supporting him...anyone who thinks Trump isn't corrupt himself simply hasn't been paying attention. He is facing a fraud trial next month over his fake university; he uses charity money to pay for his personal legal fees, and there are lengthy lists of people who claim to have been screwed by him in business deals. Someone who brags about how power lets you do things regular people can't do is NOT someone who is going to "purge corruption".

 

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"Crites cited Trump’s treatment of Mexicans, Muslims and women as the reason he decided to protest again Trump, who he described as “a textbook version of a dictator and a fascist”."

 

The problem is that he is NOT a fascist himself, the fascists are the voters blinded by the self-made-man (and the self-made proofs?) hero propaganda.

They love that kind of over-the-top personalities.

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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"Crites cited Trump’s treatment of Mexicans, Muslims and women as the reason he decided to protest again Trump, who he described as “a textbook version of a dictator and a fascist”."

 

The problem is that he is NOT a fascist himself, the fascists are the voters blinded by the self-made-man (and the self-made proofs?) hero propaganda.

They love that kind of over-the-top personalities.

Freedom of speech. No problem.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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Freedom of speech. No problem.

Oh, no problem for me too! I just love to point that some people are really fond of that type of....human-like self-boosting apes :D

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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If you just want to toss a bomb into Washington, then yes, I can understand voting for Trump. But again, that doesn't explain intelligent people supporting him...anyone who thinks Trump isn't corrupt himself simply hasn't been paying attention. He is facing a fraud trial next month over his fake university; he uses charity money to pay for his personal legal fees, and there are lengthy lists of people who claim to have been screwed by him in business deals. Someone who brags about how power lets you do things regular people can't do is NOT someone who is going to "purge corruption".

 

 

I already talked about this earlier. Politicians that need to beg for donations and work on getting re-elected just after they are elected are seen as part of the problem. You also say that Donald Trump is corrupt and so he would do nothing about corruption in D.C. But if it isn't his money, will he protect it? A fraud trial is just a trial, and being screwed in a business deal is the other guy's fault. Some businesses paid Trump millions to associate Trump's name/image with their property, but wanted a refund after his image started to sour during the election cycle. They can't get one, they have been screwed, and it's their fault for signing a bad contract. Trump has recalled other examples of screwing people over as examples of his business prowess (but they may be complete exaggerations). He has also not shied away from admitting that he games the system by using tax loopholes and giving money to politicians (legally). He admitted this to the incredulity of his fellow Republican nomination candidates, and also had stories to tell about how the others on stage "begged" him for money.

 

As for why intelligent people might support Trump, it goes back to my long first post in this thread. The Presidency is a sideshow compared to the Supreme Court. Trump has put out a list of people he would consider putting on the Supreme Court. Trump's ability to muck up the country or do anything at all outside of the norm will be severely limited by Congress including by "his own party". His advisers would also rein in his actions.

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I already talked about this earlier. Politicians that need to beg for donations and work on getting re-elected just after they are elected are seen as part of the problem. You also say that Donald Trump is corrupt and so he would do nothing about corruption in D.C. But if it isn't his money, will he protect it? A fraud trial is just a trial, and being screwed in a business deal is the other guy's fault. Some businesses paid Trump millions to associate Trump's name/image with their property, but wanted a refund after his image started to sour during the election cycle. They can't get one, they have been screwed, and it's their fault for signing a bad contract. Trump has recalled other examples of screwing people over as examples of his business prowess (but they may be complete exaggerations). He has also not shied away from admitting that he games the system by using tax loopholes and giving money to politicians (legally). He admitted this to the incredulity of his fellow Republican nomination candidates, and also had stories to tell about how the others on stage "begged" him for money.

 

As for why intelligent people might support Trump, it goes back to my long first post in this thread. The Presidency is a sideshow compared to the Supreme Court. Trump has put out a list of people he would consider putting on the Supreme Court. Trump's ability to muck up the country or do anything at all outside of the norm will be severely limited by Congress including by "his own party". His advisers would also rein in his actions.

Very true. But I can't see realistically how is this scenario going to be better compared to Clinton getting along with Congress. Gun background checks might get revoked because of Congress Republican majority for one. Likewise as many "hot topics".

What can Trump propose that amazing beside putting on hold some lobby initiatives like TTIP? What's the catch? Everybody knows a Trans-pacific deal is the way to the future to oppose the Chinese market. Trump's war on China and their domination of the blue collar potential work places for the US can't be defeated by other initiatives. And even if such an initiative appears, it will be negotiated for years, just like the TTIP. Without a certainty that Trump makes it to the end with his mandate.

Long story short, Trump isn't the last Republican nominee in the history - wouldn't the Republicans be better off having Trump loose, simply so they can reorganize for next elections? I mean Bush and Trump are an embarassment in comparison to Reagan.

It isn't just narcissism or corruption, it's just nihilism. Trump doesn't propose anything realistic. What are the odds "the Mexican wall" passes Congress?

 

Nobody's going to argue that Clinton is a mediocre candidate too. But it's exactly like voting Brexit. Fruitless 4 years of mandate for Trump.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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Sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something. Bush did a few somethings, and look what that did for the world.

 

Nihilism, meet lazyism. No more war, no more jobs (see robots).

One way of seeing it

On the other hand... now Iraq with finishing off ISIS is closer than ever to be that which was wishfully seen as post-Hussein prosperity.

No one can say what the future has for us.

Today we need more than ever a time to act. Trump is kind of a wrong move through getting a mandate by itself.

 

Clinton being president doesn't mean war. It's always enough to supply someone if there's a need to. Times have changed.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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I already talked about this earlier. Politicians that need to beg for donations and work on getting re-elected just after they are elected are seen as part of the problem.

And how would Donald Trump solve this problem? Not only has he taken donations for his campaign, but he has used 8.2 million of those donations to pay himself and his own businesses.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/donald-trump-business-campaign-trail-228500

 

You also say that Donald Trump is corrupt and so he would do nothing about corruption in D.C. But if it isn't his money, will he protect it?

I didn't say he would do nothing, only that there is no particular reason to think he WOULD do something about it. What evidence is there that he is interested in fighting corruption?

 

As for why intelligent people might support Trump, it goes back to my long first post in this thread.

 

I wasn't really asking why they support Trump...I already acknowledged a few reasons why an intelligent person might do that, single issue voting being one of them. But voting for him is different than claiming he is a "suitable candidate" to be president.

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The statistics skew heavily by education level (and gender and race for that matter). So if someone's gone to college, they're much more likely to vote Clinton anyway. So I don't think many intelligent people are supporting him to begin with, much less arguing he's suitable.

There are some shameless opportunists like Giuliani or Christie who are supporting him on the off-chance he gets elected and they get themselves positions in the cabinet.

 

As for Trump & mafia connections, I've read that the mafia run the show for things like the cement industry and maybe constructions workers in the NE, so if someone is in construction they really don't have any choice but to work with that element. So I don't hold that too much against him. I'd rather hate him for his ridiculous & incoherent politics than deal in conspiracy theories.

 

I understand his appeal to be what's sometimes called a politics of disruption. The thing is politics of disruption is a foreign thing to the US. It's happened a few times in Europe. It was part of Burlusconi's appeal I think, and that's why Trump fits his model. Most notoriously of course it was all the rage in the 30s for the communists & facists where the only thing people seemed to agree on was liberalism was bad. A lot of Americans are using the rhetoric these days, but I don't think we really have the stomach for it. If you're not prepared to go ahead with the show trials and purges, it's not a real politics of disruption & it's just talk.

 

The idea of supporting a politics of disruption because you want to see it bring society down a notch or open the way for other things is called accellerationism, and I've seen some people support Trump on those grounds (like Putin, as someone was saying). Some hardcore pseudointellectual libertarian or communist might ironically favor him on those grounds. Of course I distrust that kind of politics too for related reasons I distrust politics of disruption. It's all driven by emotion & the new system that comes after the revolution is inevitably just as bad as the ancien regime, and you end up having to solve the same problems you should have dealt with in the first place.

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I intend to leave my stance unknown because frankly I'm tired of the overpoliticization of everything, but I think I can as an American take pride in one thing.

 

No matter who wins, I don't feel as though the president will be worse than Trudeau.

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There are some shameless opportunists

As I said before, isn't this "by design" in the USA notion of state-society relationship? :D

 

Objectivism+Individualism+Opportunism.....so why "shame"(-less)? :P

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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Well in this case they are establishment Republicans that know very well Trump is neither Republican nor conservative. Any politician that can drop their party that easily shouldn't be surprized if the party doesn't forgive them & take them back.

 

But that's assuming the Republican party can even recover. It may have just been recreated as a new party, in which case the rules, the whole conservative-liberal divide etc, don't apply anymore. Then we're in uncharted waters.

 

Edit. It's not by design because this is a new thing in America. It'd be understandable if someone compromises some principles for the good of the party or the more important principles, like a libertarian supporting the Republican candidate, or like supporting some dud candidates. George W might fall into that. He wasn't all that smart, but he was definitely conservative. That kind of opportunism may be by design. But it's a different game when they start supporting candidates that aren't from their party nor supporting their core principles at all, much less for president!

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Edit. It's not by design because this is a new thing in America.

Maybe I'm playing the devil's advocate role a little bit :P but I dare to ask: how much US citizens - let alone the libertarian ones - find the Ayn Rand's objectivist principles as the true capitalist+individualist society principles?

'cause Trump represents for many republican voters a (misformed :D ) kind of Rand's Atlas.

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

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No matter who wins, I don't feel as though the president will be worse than Trudeau.

 

 

And you base that claim on what, exactly?

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As an outsider I see Trudeau as something of a showboat personality with all the grand gestures, but I don't think he's insincere and he has a charismatic schtick just like Bill Clinton & Tony Blair in his prime had, and I guess Obama. I haven't followed him closely enough to have any real opinion though.

 

Maybe I'm playing the devil's advocate role a little bit :P but I dare to ask: how much US citizens - let alone the libertarian ones - find the Ayn Rand's objectivist principles as the true capitalist+individualist society principles? 'cause Trump represents for many republican voters a (misformed :D ) kind of Rand's Atlas.

I don't think most Americans understand Objectivism that well, but of course there's a lot of respect for success and great leaders and individualism and capitalism. I think it's a lot closer to R.W. Emerson's versions of those things than Ayn Rand though. I mean Emerson is the heart & soul of American thinking and for as much as Rand loves American values, she's still something kind of foreign and alien to it IMO.

 

That said, Trump could definitely be viewed as a degenerate version of John Galt, except Trump is much more about self-aggrandizement than greatness per se. Atlas Shrugged was about doing away with the hoi palloi so we could achieve great things. Trump is all about pandering to the hoi palloi with sixth grade level English and idiotic opinions because he wants their adulation. He's actually pretty anti-Randian in that way, I think.

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there's a prediction that the ftse 100 may drop as much as 7% if trump gets in due to the promise of trade tax on countries outside of USA. And a prediction that the value of the dollar will drop as well. the FBI have cleared Hillary Clinton of having anything wrong with her emails. if the NSA/CIA/FBI are reading everyone's emails then the email problem would have flagged earlier than what trump claimed to have happened with them emails.

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Just a few keystrokes away are 30,000+ emails that demonstrate how HRC and those she surrounds herself with conduct themselves. But we're over here talking about language, mannerisms, and boasts of sexual conquest.

 

The server in a home basement is enough to deem Clinton negligent, incompetent, and completely untrustworthy. Physical access is the most vulnerable attack vector and she clearly didn't know or care. And it's not just her. Think about how many idiots down the chain signed off on it in order for it to become a reality.

 

Oh don't worry guys. It's cool. I won't use it for classified stuff. What a fucking joke.

 

I'd be locked up for inserting a thumb drive into a government computer. Forget copying data to it. And yet she walks. The system is not compromised. The polls are not manipulated. Your ballots are counted. Carry on citizen.

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