I didn’t realize Nixon was so well liked in his time. He’s always been this joke of a failed politician (publicly, not in private political circles) my entire life.
If you watch Nixon interviews from back in the day you can clearly see he’s very intelligent so I’m not surprised he had a few good ideas. He was just also a corrupt crook.
Actually… maybe that’s not true. Back in Nixon’s day I think it was. The media was pretty honest about Nixon, and most of the country liked what they saw. Nixon and Reagan managed to have enough success putting all this Republican stuff into practice, though, that enough of the country realized they hated the fuck out of it when it was happening to them in real-life reality, that they had to start telling wild professionally-concocted lies about what they were up to.
They invested money into it like the space program. That was the whole genesis of Fox News, that started the whole misery of modern industrial scale weapons-grade-lies media. Roger Ailes with quite a bit of foresight realized that the American public really needed to not be able to understand reality if he and his friends were going to be able to get anywhere.
And then, much later, the Russian government said, “Check this shit out. You guys are amateurs.”
Nixon also did shit like signed off on the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The old fascists still cared about society functioning they just wanted to control it. Trump doesn’t give one fucking hoot how bad things get as long as he gets to be in charge.
Yeah. If Trump had talked to Nixon about colluding with the Russians to overthrow American democracy so he and his friends could steal a bunch of the wreckage, even Nixon would have clocked him and hauled him down to the Justice Department to sit in the dock for treason.
Of course, the germ was there even in Nixon. Just like Mr. Mayer’s system, it could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself, it was compelled to go all the way.
Approval ratings are meaningless. He left office after his first term with the lowest average approval rating in history, and was still reelected. The media hasn’t learned anything, they’re falling into all the same traps. We’re fucked.
He wasn’t reelected when his approval rating was low. He was reelected four years later, after Biden’s approval rating fell.
That is an incredibly important distinction. People have terrible memories (on both sides of the aisle, as this thread demonstrates), but they do feel the present. This is the present.
It matters because conservatives having buyer’s remorse is a good thing. The same thing happened last time he was elected. He saw his support drop and the support for the Republican party drop like a stone. We gained 41 seats in the House at the midterm.
We need his approval rating to be low so that we can flip the house and Senate and have a better chance of taking the presidency in 2028. We might even be able to achieve impeachment in two years if it drops low enough.
Approval rating also corresponds to compliance with executive orders and with Republican cooperation as well as Democratic cooperation at the state level and in the legislative branch. They still want to get reelected, and if the party decides he’s a danger to them they will again distance themselves.
Does it mean our problems evaporate overnight? No. But it’s a requirement for improvement, so it’s good to see.
I’ll make a counterpoint, honestly, conservative spaces aren’t handling the stopping all federal grants things well.
Lots of fiscal conservatives are suddenly having their stomachs drop realizing that Trump could actually cause a depression doing this kind of dumb shit.
I’m actually beginning to be skeptical of how much of this kind of insane shit they’ll actually put up with, because a lot of conservative people seemingly are actually loudly saying “Wait a minute, this could actually be really bad…”
Even on “flaired user only” threads on reddits /r/conservative there are many responses by obviously not-complete-dipshit conservatives while the rest of them are complaining about brigading in a flaired user thread lol.
I actually began wondering today if he crashes the economy if we’ll end up seeing the conservatives go Gaddafi on Trump.
Propaganda only goes so far if the botton falls out of your economy entirely. If suddenly they all don’t have jobs or hope for a future I don’t think they’re going to sit around and keep praising Trump.
AP has a new poll out which asked whether people think it’s a good or bad thing that the President “relies on billionaires for advice about government policy.” When I first saw the results of this poll as “good” coming in at “+12” I thought they meant ‘net’ 12% and I thought, ‘eeeesh, the honeymoon phase is more intense than I thought!’ But no, 12%: as in, 12% of the public think it’s a good thing. 60% think it’s not. That’s US adults. The only outliers are Republicans, 20% of whom think this is a good thing. But even that is pretty feeble. To put it simply, these are terrible numbers.
The easiest way to break people from propaganda is to simply let their personal lived reality become to starkly different from the propaganda that they can no longer ignore it in front of their own face. Trump may inadvertently give us that.
Depression? Trump could cause a civil war and the collapse of the American empire, in a way it will probably never recover from.
I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just saying these sober fiscal conservatives you mention have their heads up their asses so far that it’s coming back out between their front teeth, even as far as their own self-interest. Of course, there is nothing new there.
I’ll make a counterpoint, honestly, conservative spaces aren’t handling the stopping all federal grants things well.
Lots of fiscal conservatives are suddenly having their stomachs drop realizing that Trump could actually cause a depression doing this kind of dumb shit.
I’m actually beginning to be skeptical of how much of this kind of insane shit they’ll actually put up with, because a lot of conservative people seemingly are actually loudly saying “Wait a minute, this could actually be really bad…”
They always, always fall in line.
Even if they continue their idle consternation, if the election were held again today they would all vote identically.
His base turning on him 1) requires that they admit they were duped which they can’t since their whole identities are tied up in MAGA and 2) barely matters at this point. Despite his bullshitting hes not running again. He doesn’t need them anymore. None of this matters.
It doesn’t actually, and we don’t actually need them to admit or even understand that they made a mistake in supporting him. All we need is for them to be embarrassed enough or demotivated enough to give into their laziness and not to turn out at the midterms.
And they were embarrassed in many cases after last time. It’s just that the embarrassment that made them fail to turn out for him last time, and even to vote for Biden, was too far in the rear view and largely overshadowed by their annoyance with the administration between his terms.
And again, it does matter because his approval affects how politicians who do want to be reelected will react to him, as well as whether the agencies and departments he passes orders down to will enact them.
His word doesn’t just happen. It still requires cooperation. The less support he was, the less cooperation he’ll find.
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I didn’t realize Nixon was so well liked in his time. He’s always been this joke of a failed politician (publicly, not in private political circles) my entire life.
If you watch Nixon interviews from back in the day you can clearly see he’s very intelligent so I’m not surprised he had a few good ideas. He was just also a corrupt crook.
Yeah, Trump is essentially all the worst parts of Nixon with none of the redeeming qualities.
This country is pretty friendly to fascists.
Actually… maybe that’s not true. Back in Nixon’s day I think it was. The media was pretty honest about Nixon, and most of the country liked what they saw. Nixon and Reagan managed to have enough success putting all this Republican stuff into practice, though, that enough of the country realized they hated the fuck out of it when it was happening to them in real-life reality, that they had to start telling wild professionally-concocted lies about what they were up to.
They invested money into it like the space program. That was the whole genesis of Fox News, that started the whole misery of modern industrial scale weapons-grade-lies media. Roger Ailes with quite a bit of foresight realized that the American public really needed to not be able to understand reality if he and his friends were going to be able to get anywhere.
And then, much later, the Russian government said, “Check this shit out. You guys are amateurs.”
Nixon also did shit like signed off on the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The old fascists still cared about society functioning they just wanted to control it. Trump doesn’t give one fucking hoot how bad things get as long as he gets to be in charge.
Yeah. If Trump had talked to Nixon about colluding with the Russians to overthrow American democracy so he and his friends could steal a bunch of the wreckage, even Nixon would have clocked him and hauled him down to the Justice Department to sit in the dock for treason.
Of course, the germ was there even in Nixon. Just like Mr. Mayer’s system, it could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself, it was compelled to go all the way.
Approval ratings are meaningless. He left office after his first term with the lowest average approval rating in history, and was still reelected. The media hasn’t learned anything, they’re falling into all the same traps. We’re fucked.
He wasn’t reelected when his approval rating was low. He was reelected four years later, after Biden’s approval rating fell.
That is an incredibly important distinction. People have terrible memories (on both sides of the aisle, as this thread demonstrates), but they do feel the present. This is the present.
Come on America. There’s a first time for everything. First president to be forcibly ousted from power by the people. Let’s fucking go.
Would be nice to be like South Korea in some ways…
Oh good, more news that doesn’t matter. Trump doesn’t need high approval ratings. This has never mattered less.
It matters because conservatives having buyer’s remorse is a good thing. The same thing happened last time he was elected. He saw his support drop and the support for the Republican party drop like a stone. We gained 41 seats in the House at the midterm.
We need his approval rating to be low so that we can flip the house and Senate and have a better chance of taking the presidency in 2028. We might even be able to achieve impeachment in two years if it drops low enough.
Approval rating also corresponds to compliance with executive orders and with Republican cooperation as well as Democratic cooperation at the state level and in the legislative branch. They still want to get reelected, and if the party decides he’s a danger to them they will again distance themselves.
Does it mean our problems evaporate overnight? No. But it’s a requirement for improvement, so it’s good to see.
I’ll make a counterpoint, honestly, conservative spaces aren’t handling the stopping all federal grants things well.
Lots of fiscal conservatives are suddenly having their stomachs drop realizing that Trump could actually cause a depression doing this kind of dumb shit.
I’m actually beginning to be skeptical of how much of this kind of insane shit they’ll actually put up with, because a lot of conservative people seemingly are actually loudly saying “Wait a minute, this could actually be really bad…”
Even on “flaired user only” threads on reddits /r/conservative there are many responses by obviously not-complete-dipshit conservatives while the rest of them are complaining about brigading in a flaired user thread lol.
I actually began wondering today if he crashes the economy if we’ll end up seeing the conservatives go Gaddafi on Trump.
Propaganda only goes so far if the botton falls out of your economy entirely. If suddenly they all don’t have jobs or hope for a future I don’t think they’re going to sit around and keep praising Trump.
Further evidence from an AP Poll:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/new-poll-recommends-eating-the-billionaires
The easiest way to break people from propaganda is to simply let their personal lived reality become to starkly different from the propaganda that they can no longer ignore it in front of their own face. Trump may inadvertently give us that.
Depression? Trump could cause a civil war and the collapse of the American empire, in a way it will probably never recover from.
I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just saying these sober fiscal conservatives you mention have their heads up their asses so far that it’s coming back out between their front teeth, even as far as their own self-interest. Of course, there is nothing new there.
Hopefully he also inadvertently gives us a democratic federal government and leaves the republican party in a fractured mess.
Thank the heavens he’s term limited.
Is he though? Unfortunately, we may have yet to find out the answer to that question.
They always, always fall in line.
Even if they continue their idle consternation, if the election were held again today they would all vote identically.
I’ll be happy to be proven wrong.
This doesn’t reflect what we saw during his first administration. At all.
His base turning on him 1) requires that they admit they were duped which they can’t since their whole identities are tied up in MAGA and 2) barely matters at this point. Despite his bullshitting hes not running again. He doesn’t need them anymore. None of this matters.
It doesn’t actually, and we don’t actually need them to admit or even understand that they made a mistake in supporting him. All we need is for them to be embarrassed enough or demotivated enough to give into their laziness and not to turn out at the midterms.
And they were embarrassed in many cases after last time. It’s just that the embarrassment that made them fail to turn out for him last time, and even to vote for Biden, was too far in the rear view and largely overshadowed by their annoyance with the administration between his terms.
And again, it does matter because his approval affects how politicians who do want to be reelected will react to him, as well as whether the agencies and departments he passes orders down to will enact them.
His word doesn’t just happen. It still requires cooperation. The less support he was, the less cooperation he’ll find.