Sunday, December 25, 2016

LML shared a link: Year of “The Forgotten Man” - The New Yorker

Year of "The Forgotten Man" - The New Yorker from The New Yorker's Tweet

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Sunday, November 20, 2016

My Neighbors are Voting for Trump and It's Not Because They're Rednecks

Note discussion of willfully held stupidvalues as "tribalism". Like Hoffer's observations.

https://www.texasobserver.org/east-texas-trump-voters-lansdale/
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Thursday, November 17, 2016

Bare, Ruined Choirs | commentary

Some history re-writing ... note role of Tea Party.

Bare, Ruined Choirs | commentary

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Typical tea party true believer

This guy . . . good grief.

http://www.chapter19.us

Thursday, November 3, 2016

America Has Never Been So Ripe for Tyranny -- NYMag

America Has Never Been So Ripe for Tyranny -- NYMag

Note what Andrew Sullivan says about Eric Hoffer. Interestingly enough I had Googled "Plato Trump Demagogue" and got to this article. I was pleasantly surprised to have him follow the summary of the Republic with an application of Hoffer. Worth a read.

Sunday, October 30, 2016

You have received a YouTube video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOcstHhtL4Y&sns=em

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Wednesday, October 12, 2016

LML shared a link: For Donald Trump’s Most Ardent Supporters, It’s Fervor Over Data - The New York Times

For Donald Trump's Most Ardent Supporters, It's Fervor Over Data - The New York Times from The New York Times's Tweet

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LML shared a link: Trump Ally Alex Jones: "I Was Told By People Around" Clinton That "She's Demon-Possessed"

Trump Ally Alex Jones: "I Was Told By People Around" Clinton That "She's Demon-Possessed" from Oliver Willis's Tweet

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Monday, October 3, 2016

The Disaffected 4 Trump

Sunday, August 14, 2016

LML shared a link: Trump's Strategy Makes Perfect Sense — And It's Diabolical | BNR

Trump's Strategy Makes Perfect Sense — And It's Diabolical | BNR from Peter Daou's Tweet

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Monday, August 8, 2016

LML shared a link: Trump’s economic team is loaded with the same Tea Party cranks who destroyed Kansas’s economy

Trump's economic team is loaded with the same Tea Party cranks who destroyed Kansas's economy from Chad Sarno's Tweet

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Sunday, June 19, 2016

Republicans Run From Donald Trump's Orlando Response - NBC News

Republicans Run From Donald Trump's Orlando Response - NBC News: "For some in the party, Trump's demagogic speech and exultant boast that he predicted the attack were a depressing sign that he was unlikely to become a nominee they could feel comfortable supporting."

'via Blog this'

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Shared from Twitter: Donald Trump Responds to Orlando Attack by Exploiting Fear, Not Easing It - The New York Times

Donald Trump Responds to Orlando Attack by Exploiting Fear, Not Easing It - The New York Times from The New York Times's Tweet

He added: "Whether you agree with his politics or not, I think Mr. Trump's more aggressive tactics may be one attempt at trying to assert some level of control in a situation where people feel scared and a loss of control — as a means of helping them to feel safer. The dilemma then becomes whether supporting these more extreme policies justifies the ends — particularly in terms of how it changes us as a society."

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Shared from Twitter: An American Nightmare

An American Nightmare from Larry Lynam's Tweet

Everyone has it backward and they've had it backward all along. The pundits have wrung their hands over the poll numbers, wondering what it's going to take for Trump to finally lose his momentum. What was going to be the thing that made him unpalatable and what was going to be the final straw that broke the campaign's back?

After all, how was it that he was capable of dragging so many people to his extreme point of view?

The truth of it is that Trump hasn't drug anybody anywhere. And he doesn't have impressive poll numbers because he's somehow or another convinced anybody of anything.

Trump is, as of this moment, the heartbeat of an America with which you and I are not a part of but very much accustomed. His is not a proactive candidacy but a pure, unadulterated, reaction to what a slice of the American public wants. This is a group that lives their lives steeped in unbelievable anger. They are either poor or less rich than they think they should be, they are middle-class or upper middle-class, and they are, almost to a person, white. They are angry and all they want in the fucking world is to blame somebody.

Trump isn't the cause, he's the disease personified.

He is repeating to this group of people, in a voice they've been dying for, the very thing they've always known but they've wanted to hear. And it doesn't matter what gets in their way, whether it's the Constitution they claim to love so much or groups of people they wish to deny basic decency and basic rights.

He has found the pulse of these ignorant, livid people and is playing it like a virtuoso strumming an instrument.

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Shared from Twitter: An American Nightmare

An American Nightmare from Larry Lynam's Tweet

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Monday, June 13, 2016

Donald Trump and the White Nationalists - The New Yorker TEA PARTY FRUSTRATION HOFFER

Donald Trump and the White Nationalists - The New Yorker

(null)

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-fearful-and-the-frustrated

This Is Why Republicans Hate Obama — And This Is Why He Doesn’t Mind | Eclectablog

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Barack Obama — March 22, 2016

This is why Republicans hate Obama — and this is why he doesn't mind

by LOLGOP

Republicans are very upset that President Obama continued on with his trip in Cuba after the disgusting terror attacks in Brussels today. They are also upset that he's in Cuba, that he is president and that he exists.

Of course, the majority of Republicans will prefer Donald Trump and Ted Cruz's immediate gut reaction, which is to abandon the Constitution and embrace rank religious discrimination and then, likely, invade the wrong country.

When Republicans reacted to the Paris attacks with the worst kind of demagoguery — or as Republicans call it, the best kind of demagoguery — the president remained steadfast and principled, which confused the media and heightened the attention focused on the right cowering at the prospect of child refugees standing in line next to them at Chipotle.

"Later, the president would say that he had failed to fully appreciate the fear many Americans were experiencing about the possibility of a Paris-style attack in the U.S. Great distance, a frantic schedule, and the jet-lag haze that envelops a globe-spanning presidential trip were working against him," The Atlantic's Jeffery Goldberg wrote. "But he has never believed that terrorism poses a threat to America commensurate with the fear it generates."

The president's foreign policy has been summed up by Politico's Michael Grunwald as "Don't Do the Fucking Iraq War," which I translate to mean also as "Don't Let ISIS Force Us Into Doing the Kind of Dumb Shit That Created ISIS."

But there is a broader mission to Obama's presidency that gets minimized with this reductiveness: He's absolutely fixated on doing what he can to stop climate change and he has a genuine interest in using diplomacy to help give people oppressed by brutal regimes a chance to engage with the world.

That's why he has done more than every president combined to fight climate change, which wasn't hard, and why he went to Paris in the aftermath of that horrid attack and stuck an agreement that's our best hope of saving billions from untold misery. And that's why he carried out his day in Havana in the wake of the carnage in Brussels knowing that Republicans would scream about "optics."

President Obama rose to national prominence by speaking about erasing the perception of red and blue states. But it's his tolerance for dissension, especially when it's constructive dissension, that shows him to be a true patriot — someone who understands the virtue and wisdom of a free society.

From the president's speech in Havana on Tuesday (this part begins around minute 18):

As Marti said, "Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy." So, let me tell you what I believe. I can't force you to agree. But you should know what I think.

I believe that every person should be equal, you should under the law.

Every child deserves the dignity that comes with education, health care and food on the table, and a roof over their heads.

I believe citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear.

To organize and to criticize their government and to protest peacefully, and that the rule of law should not include arbitrary detentions of people who exercise those rights.

I believe that every person should have the freedom to practice their faiths peacefully and publicly.

And yes, I believe voters should be able to choose their governments in free and democratic elections.

Not everybody agrees with me on this, not everybody agrees with the American people on this. But I believe those human rights are universal.

I believe they are the rights of the American people, the Cuban people, and people around the world.

Now, there's no secret that our governments disagree on many of these issues. I've had frank conversations with President Castro. For many years he's pointed out the flaws in the American system. Economic inequality, the death penalty, racial discrimination, wars abroad.

That's just a sample. He has a much longer list.

But here's what the Cuban people need to understand. I welcome this open debate and dialogue. It's good. It's healthy. I'm not afraid of it. We do have too much money in American politics, but in America, it's still possible for somebody like me, a child who was raised by single mom, a child of mixed race who did not have a lot of money to pursue and achieve the highest office in the land.

I don't know how you could say this with any more clarity, or who could say this better.

He's far from perfect — and I'm presently concerned about the growing numbers of ground troops Iraq, among other things — but his vehemence in pursuing diplomacy with Iran, a global climate change agreement and openness with Cuba speak to the truth in the hope he inspired, a hope that Republicans still mock.

They can mock all they want and pull back the hand he has reached out once he's gone. That hope for creating the life you wish to live is what we deserve as Americans, though it's too often reserved for those born into privilege.

Now the people of Cuba know what that hope looks like in the flesh.

Author: LOLGOP Contributor - "Social media's latest political satire sensation" - Politico.com "FALSE" - Politifact.com - Buy LOLGOP's book HERE

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Amy Lynn Smith is a writer and communications strategist. Find her at alswrite.com or on Twitter at @alswrite.

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