Are people already regretting their choice?

[Loren Pechtel]

The solution I would offer is abolish FauxNews. It has much wider reach. DIRECTLY responsible for much of today's political problems

I was just thinking last night that 200 years from now historians will peg the beginning of the destruction of the US on Rupert Murdock.

Unfortunately, I disagree--I doubt there will be historians then.

 

[bilby]

I disagree on "distract". It's not like we are going to forget.

Pretty much your entire news media did, overnight. I suspect a lot of people did forget - or at least stop thinking about - Ukraine.

 

[bilby]

The solution I would offer is abolish FauxNews. It has much wider reach. DIRECTLY responsible for much of today's political problems

I was just thinking last night that 200 years from now historians will peg the beginning of the destruction of the US on Rupert Murdock.

Unfortunately, I disagree--I doubt there will be historians then.

Of course there will. There may not be any in America. but America is not the entire world.

 

[jonatha]

The solution I would offer is abolish FauxNews. It has much wider reach. DIRECTLY responsible for much of today's political problems

I was just thinking last night that 200 years from now historians will peg the beginning of the destruction of the US on Rupert Murdock.

Unfortunately, I disagree--I doubt there will be historians then.

Of course there will. There may not be any in America. but America is not the entire world.

Oh come now.

Just because Trump can only keep three things in his head at a time doesn't mean the list ends with Canada, Greenland, and Panama...

(Y'all are probably safe if we take Austria first, 'cause you'll be crossed off the list...)

 

[unapologetic]

I disagree on "distract". It's not like we are going to forget.

Sorry. I didn't even know about it.

 

[Copernicus]

Are many Americans such very bad judges of character?

Something in the water?
They do seem downright autistic as a collective, as I mentioned above. Is it just a feature of collectives?

Have people been asking this question since tribe sizes first exceeded a couple hundred proto-people?

I don’t know. Maybe a question for @Copernicus ?

My opinion is that collectives are always going to be smarter than their stupid people and stupider than their smart people. By definition, they are of average intelligence for any particular collective. It's really hard for me to say why the US is so evenly split between Trump-attracted and Trump-repelled individuals, because there are so many chaotic factors at play. Generally speaking, I agree with the late Barbara Tuchman in her book The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam. Her main premise was "one of the most compelling paradoxes of history: the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests". People have this tendency to cling to delusional beliefs even when it is obvious that they are delusional and doomed to lead to disaster. She gave many historical examples. One that I recall was regarding the cholera epidemics in the 19th century. They knew what was causing them and how to prevent them. They needed to improve their antiquated sanitation systems. Yet they kept having worse and worse preventable health disasters until they could no longer ignore them and finally decided to build modern sewage treatment systems. I think that the best example today would be that of global warming. It is clearly the greatest existential threat that humanity faces, yet Americans voted a delusional idiot into power who claims that it is a hoax. It is as if voting Trump into office would make the danger less of a threat, only to make the looming disaster worse.

 

[Elixir]

collectives are always going to be smarter than their stupid people and stupider than their smart people.

That makes sense. It is consistent with Trump getting ready re-elected, but only if my notion of average “smartness” (different from intelligence?) is terribly off the mark.
I’d rather think that the collective is dumber than the sum of its parts.
As someone said “A person is smart, people are an idiot”. Maybe that’s just a comforting, erroneous thought.

 

[crazyfingers]

Interesting analysis in the NYT shows that retaliatory tariffs by China, Canada and Europe, in response to Trump's tariffs, will disproportionately hurt counties that voted for Trump

This chart shows the number of jobs by county, in impacted industries. The more saturated the color, the more jobs at risk from retaliatory tariffs. Red and green are Trump vs Harris counties.

I wonder how much of this was planned to more impact Trump voters.



Here is a gifted link

Trade War Retaliation Will Hit Trump Voters Hardest

Nearly 8 million Americans work in industries targeted by the levies and the majority are Trump voters, a New York Times analysis shows

www.nytimes.com

 

[scombrid]

That’s a dumb map. Of course Trump voters are disproportionately hit by the tariffs. We all know that no Democrats work. We’re all on welfare. Duh.

 

[Copernicus]

Interesting analysis in the NYT shows that retaliatory tariffs by China, Canada and Europe, in response to Trump's tariffs, will disproportionately hurt counties that voted for Trump

This chart shows the number of jobs by county, in impacted industries. The more saturated the color, the more jobs at risk from retaliatory tariffs. Red and green are Trump vs Harris counties.

I wonder how much of this was planned to more impact Trump voters.

View attachment 49770

Here is a gifted link

Trade War Retaliation Will Hit Trump Voters Hardest

Nearly 8 million Americans work in industries targeted by the levies and the majority are Trump voters, a New York Times analysis shows

www.nytimes.com

Thanks for the gifted link. The map strikes me as somewhat misleading, because there are actually more rural counties than urban counties. So it would need to be adjusted to show relative population size. However, there has been a deliberate strategy to target industries primarily in red states. Nevertheless, the industries being affected most have to be those that export products, many of which will be found in urban areas with lots of Democratic voters. So those figuring out which American industries to hit will be naturally inclined to hit some of the larger targets first. The US exports a lot of food, so rural areas are natural targets, even were it not a deliberate strategy to target Trump voters.

 

[blastula]

Thanks for the gifted link. The map strikes me as somewhat misleading, because there are actually more rural counties than urban counties. So it would need to be adjusted to show relative population size.

Read further. The link compares jobs numbers affected in Harris counties versus Trump counties.

 

[blastula]

He voted for Trump. Now his wife sits in an ICE detention center.

ICE's deportation actions signal that anyone who isn't a U.S. citizen is 'at risk – period,' immigration attorney says.

www.usatoday.com

Millions of Americans, including Bartell, had voted for President Donald Trump's promise to crack down on "criminal illegal immigrants." But eight weeks in, the mass deportation effort has rapidly expanded to include immigrants whose application for legal status in the country is under review.

Even those married or engaged to U.S. citizens are being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, USA TODAY has learned.

 

[crazyfingers]

Millions of Americans, including Bartell, had voted for President Donald Trump's promise to crack down on "criminal illegal immigrants." But eight weeks in, the mass deportation effort has rapidly expanded to include immigrants whose application for legal status in the country is under review.

Even those married or engaged to U.S. citizens are being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, USA TODAY has learned.

Cruel to be cruel because MAGAs like cruelty.

 

[Copernicus]

Millions of Americans, including Bartell, had voted for President Donald Trump's promise to crack down on "criminal illegal immigrants." But eight weeks in, the mass deportation effort has rapidly expanded to include immigrants whose application for legal status in the country is under review.

Even those married or engaged to U.S. citizens are being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, USA TODAY has learned.

Cruel to be cruel because MAGAs like cruelty.

This seems to be one of the most outstanding trends of the Trump era--how cruel it can get over the next four years. Trump engages in cruel behavior towards others, especially people he doesn't know personally, every day. People with the same feelings and tendencies seem to feel empowered by him. He is making it into a socially acceptable norm of behavior, just as it has been in other authoritarian societies.

 

[Copernicus]

Thanks for the gifted link. The map strikes me as somewhat misleading, because there are actually more rural counties than urban counties. So it would need to be adjusted to show relative population size.

Read further. The link compares jobs numbers affected in Harris counties versus Trump counties.

I read the entire article, and I saw the reference to jobs numbers. The article went into detail in explaining why the figures could be considerably lower and even misleading, although it didn't use that word. And it isn't just about jobs, but also the consumers of the products produced in those counties if farms and businesses fail. My gut feeling is that the disproportion of pain and disruption will be little different to those living in Harris counties, since the inflation caused by the collapse of international markets for US goods will also hit high income jobs in urban areas. I'm thinking of businesses that sell farm equipment, vehicles, and industrial machinery. They tend to locate in areas where large numbers of people live, and those areas tend more to vote for Democrats. This idea of targeting Trump voters may have some effect, but I doubt that it will be a major factor in what causes cries of pain from Trump voters. Most probably don't realize it yet, but they are no longer needed by Trump. He got what he needed from them, so he won't feel as obligated to address their needs.

 

[blastula]

Text:

Just got the following message from a scientist at a top 25 school. He was one of a handful of scientists at his university who voted for Trump, and reports they're all now completely ashamed of it.

I am an NIH-funded biomedical scientist with conservative leanings. I know at least a dozen scientists (a small closeted minority) who voted for Trump, largely because of frustrations with DEI and extreme wokeness that had permeated every aspect of University life. Each one of us deeply regrets their vote for Trump and are utterly ashamed of it.

We are absolutely horrified at how mindlessly destructive this admin has been to scientific institutions. They are single-handedly destroying the STEM dominance US established over decades.

Average Americans simply do not realize that we are now on the verge of a precipitous decline in STEM. We all admit that the warnings about Trump/MAGA were on target, and the thing we argue about now is whether the damage is even reversible. All the Lefty overreach was annoying as hell but the MAGA disdain for science is 100X worse..

 

[Shadowy Man]

I think he meant to say “I was an NIH-funded scientist…”. Or maybe will soon be saying that.

 

[laughing dog]

Text:

Just got the following message from a scientist at a top 25 school. He was one of a handful of scientists at his university who voted for Trump, and reports they're all now completely ashamed of it.

I am an NIH-funded biomedical scientist with conservative leanings. I know at least a dozen scientists (a small closeted minority) who voted for Trump, largely because of frustrations with DEI and extreme wokeness that had permeated every aspect of University life. Each one of us deeply regrets their vote for Trump and are utterly ashamed of it.

We are absolutely horrified at how mindlessly destructive this admin has been to scientific institutions. They are single-handedly destroying the STEM dominance US established over decades.

Average Americans simply do not realize that we are now on the verge of a precipitous decline in STEM. We all admit that the warnings about Trump/MAGA were on target, and the thing we argue about now is whether the damage is even reversible. All the Lefty overreach was annoying as hell but the MAGA disdain for science is 100X worse..

The quintessential MAGA jerkoff - ignore the obvious because Trump was going to make your life somehow better while inflicting damage on others. Fascinating that an alleged scientist ignored the facts in front of his face.

His shame is too little and too late.

 

[Elixir]

Fascinating that an alleged scientist ignored the facts in front of his face.

Should that cause them to lose their “science job”?

 

[Politesse]

That’s a dumb map. Of course Trump voters are disproportionately hit by the tariffs. We all know that no Democrats work. We’re all on welfare. Duh.

That does not cohere to any set of real data about the political sensibilities of the mooching class; whatever the (disputed) distribution may be, in general the likelihood of any one person accepting welfare is not greatly different across party lines, with even the most extreme estimations seldom indicating more than a single digit percentage difference in correlation to partisan identities.